Linnæus had to fight poverty and adversity for some time still. His mother, who always had regretted that he should “turn out a surgeon instead of a minister,” was elated over his first triumph when opening the field of a new science by his sexual system of plants. He suffered all the more at her death, which he was forced to conceal because he could not afford a mourning garb. Envious comrades put an end to his lectures at Upsala by having enforced, through petitions, an order against the filling of temporary vacancies by men who had not taken the doctor’s degree. It was found necessary for Linnæus to go abroad, and some money was subscribed by his friends for that purpose. In Holland he met the learned Professor Boerhave, who, on being made acquainted with his system of botany, which Linnæus then for the first time published, received him with tokens of unlimited admiration and friendship. It was by Boerhave that the continental fame of Linnæus was founded. The latter found, in the arranging of the great gardens of Hartekamp intrusted to him, a work both agreeable and instructive. In London, Linnæus broadened his experience with study of the rich collections of plants and naturalia which were made accessible to him by the celebrated scholar Hans Sloane, later the founder of the British Museum. The letter of recommendation from Boerhave was somewhat different to the one Linnæus had received at Vexio: “Linnæus, who hands you this letter, is the only one worthy to see you, and to be seen by you. Those who see you together look upon two men the peers of which the world does hardly possess.” After a stay in Paris, where the greatest scientists of France treated him with distinction, he returned to Holland, to find his friend Boerhave dying in Leyden. Linnæus kissed the hand of the dying man, who insisted on kissing the hand of Linnæus in return, pronouncing him the greater genius, of whom the world should expect and receive more.