Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus: with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural HistoryMacGillivray, William
Philosophy
Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus: with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural History
MacGillivray, William
Zoologists
On recovering from his illness, he proceeded to Paris in the end of
August, accompanied by M. Broussonet. In that capital he was loaded with
all the attentions which were due to the son of Linnaeus, and passed the
winter among a circle of learned and ingenious persons. In the spring of
1782, he visited Holland, where he inspected the gardens and museums,
and received, as in England and France, the most valuable contributions
to his collections. He next proceeded to Hamburg, from whence he went to
Kiel to visit his friend Fabricius, the great entomologist. At
Copenhagen he experienced the same respectful kindness as in the other
great cities. In January 1783, he went to Gottenburg, to render his
homage of gratitude to Baron Alstroemer, and in February returned to
Upsal.
By this journey he had increased his knowledge, established useful
connexions, collected many valuable specimens, and emancipated himself
from the state of listlessness into which he had previously fallen.
Hopes were entertained that he might prove a worthy successor to the
legislator of natural history; and there is no reason to doubt that he
would at least have acquitted himself honourably in the discharge of his
duties.
But in the month of August he had occasion to go to Stockholm, where he
was seized with a bilious fever, which, however, soon abated, so that he
was able to return home. There he experienced a relapse; and having
imprudently exposed himself to the cold and damp of the apartment in
which his collections were kept, a third accession of fever came on,
accompanied with apoplexy, which carried him off on the 1st of November
1783, in the forty-second year of his age.
He is said to have possessed a vigorous frame of body, and even to have
inherited his father's looks, but without his energy, his activity, his
consciousness of talent, or his love of adulation. He was, on the
contrary, gentle and retired. Had he really been endowed with genius
similar to that of his parent, he must have distinguished his career,
brief as it was, by some meritorious performance. But it is no doubt
wisely ordered that superiority of intellect should not, like the
distinctions conferred by birth and fortune, be hereditary.
His remains were solemnly deposited, on the 30th of November, in the
cathedral at Upsal, close to those of his father. A funeral oration was
pronounced by M. Von Schulzenheim; and as the male line of the family
had become extinct, his coat of arms was broken in pieces. The gardener
of the university then strewed flowers over the grave "of a generation
that," to use the words of one of its historians, "will remain great and
imperishable as long as the earth, and Nature, and her science shall
exist!"
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