In 1753 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London; and in the same year his sovereign, Gustavus III., bestowed upon him a most flattering mark of his regard, by creating him a Knight of the Polar Star. This order had never before been conferred on any literary character; nor had any person below the rank of a nobleman been honoured with it. Foreign countries were not backward in testifying their sense of his merits; he was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, of St. Petersburgh, and of Berlin; and there was hardly a learned body in Europe but was anxious to enrol his name among their numbers. The most flattering compliment which he received was from the King of Spain, who invited him to settle at Madrid, with the offer of an annual pension for life of 2000 pistoles, letters of nobility, and the free exercise of his own religion. He, however, did not accept of this offer, but answered, that if he had any merit, his services were due to his own country. The University of Upsal had now become an object of curiosity: strangers were attracted there, and prolonged their stay, solely with the view of becoming acquainted with Linnæus. Among other visitors, the Earl of Macartney, when he was English Minister at St. Petersburgh, went from that city on purpose to visit him. His writings were soon appreciated in foreign countries, and his system was first publicly taught in our own by Professor Martyn, in the University of Cambridge. His pupils spread themselves over the globe; they carried everywhere with them the spirit of their master, and diffused the love of natural history. When Captain Cook’s first voyage was undertaken, one of Linnæus’s most celebrated pupils, Dr. Solander, accompanied Mr. Banks in the capacity of naturalist. It was not, however, from his pupils alone that Linnæus received information; in every part of the world persons were found anxious to forward specimens to him, and his collections thus became unrivalled. The introduction of the Linnæan system was attended with such great change, especially of nomenclature, that it experienced considerable opposition from the older naturalists; and the biographers of Linnæus have recorded several literary feuds with distinguished contemporaries, and especially with Albert Haller, a genius of equal merit with himself. The latter years of Linnæus were spent in a state of ease, affluence, and honour, very different from the poverty and obscurity of his early life. He was one of those great men, who have shown by example how much the genius and activity of an individual are capable of accomplishing. He was the reformer of botany, and perhaps the greatest promoter of natural history that ever lived; and so much has never been done for that science, in so short a space of time, as at the period he flourished, and immediately after.