Charles Linnaeus was born on the 20th January 1741, at the house of his maternal grandfather, Moraeus, at Fahlun. From his earliest childhood he was encouraged by his father in the attachment which he manifested to natural objects, especially plants; and when only ten years old, he knew by name most of those which were cultivated in the botanic garden at Upsal. A stranger, however, to the "stimulus of necessity," which had urged his parent to surmount every obstacle, he appears not to have exhibited any indications of enterprise or enthusiasm. Notwithstanding this, in his eighteenth year, he was appointed demonstrator in the botanical garden, and at the age of twenty-one commenced authorship by publishing a decade of rare plants. Within twelve months another decade was produced, but the work was discontinued, for what reason is not known. In 1763, he was nominated conjunct professor of botany, with the promise that after his father's death he should succeed him in all his academical functions. In 1765, he took his degree of doctor of medicine, and began to give lectures; but, owing to the causes already alluded to, his fondness for science soon degenerated into disgust. When he was thirty-seven years of age his father died, and he succeeded to his offices; but his mother forced him to pay for the library, manuscripts, herbarium, and other articles, which he ought to have inherited. However, a stimulus was thereby imparted which roused him from his lethargy, and he began in earnest to discharge the duties that were imposed upon him, among which were the arrangement of his father's papers, and the superintendence of new editions of several of his works. A third mantissa or supplement to the Systema Vegetabilium, left in manuscript by Linnaeus, and enlarged by his son, was published at Brunswick in 1781, under the care of Ehrhart. The young lecturer had long been desirous of travelling, but during his father's life had found it impossible to gratify his inclination. Being now his own master, he prepared to visit the principal countries of Europe; and, as Thunberg had been appointed demonstrator of botany, the government granted him permission. Want of money, however, presented an obstacle; to overcome which he found it necessary to borrow a sum of his friend Baron Alstroemer, to whom he resigned his juvenile herbarium in pledge. At London, where he arrived in May 1781, he was received with enthusiasm, and treated with every possible attention by his father's friends and correspondents, especially Sir Joseph Banks, in whose house he principally resided. Here he occupied himself in preparing several works, such as a System of the Mammalia, and a Treatise on the Liliaceae and Palms; but an attack of jaundice interrupted his pursuits, and his happiness was further diminished by the death of his friend Solander.