In all his writings there appears a deep feeling of reverence and gratitude towards the Supreme Being; and in the history of his life we find nothing which could lead us to suppose that such feelings were assumed for the occasion. Over the door of his room was inscribed,--"Innocui vivite, Numen adest,--Live in innocence, for God is present." His more important works he commences and ends with some passage from the Scriptures, expressive of the power, the glory, the beneficence of God, the creator and preserver of all things. Whenever, in his lectures or on his excursions, he found an opportunity of expatiating on these subjects, he embraced it with enthusiasm. "On these occasions," says one of his biographers, "his heart glowed with celestial fire, and his mouth poured forth torrents of admirable eloquence." Where is the naturalist, possessed of the true feelings of a man, who does not honour in his heart the being possessed of such a character! The sneer of the filthy sensualist, who, steeped in pollution, endeavours to persuade his turbid mind that all others are like himself; the scorn of the little puffed-up intellect, which, having traced the outline of some curious mechanism in nature, exults in the fancied independence of its own poor energies; the malice of the grovelling spirit, that, finding itself eclipsed by the splendour of superior talents, strives to obscure them by the aspersions of calumny,--what are they that they should influence our estimation of the character of this great man, who with his ardent piety and the devotion of his faculties to the glory of his Creator, is, amid all his imperfections, an object worthy of our love and esteem. And such he will remain, while the world endures, in the view of every enlightened admirer of the wonderful works of God. His writings are characterized by extreme brevity, nervousness, and precision. He expresses in a dozen words what might be expanded into half as many sentences. His style certainly is not always pure, nor even on all occasions grammatically correct. He was more desirous to instruct than to entertain, and therefore his expressions are weighed but not ornamented. Yet no teacher ever excited such enthusiasm in his pupils; and since the world began has there been none who gave such an impulse to the progress of natural history. They who can sneer at such a man must be cold and selfish indeed. "The language of Linnaeus," says Cuvier, "is ingenious and singular. Its very singularity renders it attractive. His phraseology, and even his titles, are figurative; but his figures are in general highly expressive. With him, the various means by which Nature ensures the reproduction of plants are their nuptials; the changes in the position of their parts at night are their sleep; the periods of the year at which they flower form the calendar of Flora."