Lachesis Lapponica

Among the various consultations and communications which have taken place between us in the course of our long and uninterrupted friendship, I recollect that one object of your anxious curiosity has always been the Lachesis Lapponica of Linnæus, so often alluded to by himself and his pupils, and the original Swedish manuscript of which came into my hands with the rest of his collection. Of this I now present you with an English translation; and I offer it to you with the more satisfaction, because you are, amongst all my Linnæan acquaintance, one of the most capable of entering into every feeling of the original writer. His love of truth and of nature were not more ardent than your own, nor was his mental profit more. You, who have so deeply studied the works he prepared for the public, will with no less pleasure listen with me to his familiar conversation. We here behold, not the awful preceptor of the learned world in his professorial chair, but a youthful inexperienced student, full of ardor and curiosity, such as we ourselves have been, recording his ideas and observations for his own use, not delivering them forth for the instruction of others; and while we admire his perseverance and acuteness, we can sympathize with his embarrassments, and readily pardon his very inconsiderable mistakes. Happy are those who, like you, can equally sympathize in his pious and benevolent affections, his disdain of hypocrisy and oppression, and his never ceasing desire to turn his scientific acquisitions to practical utility.