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It has been said by some of the biographers of Tycho, that the Landgrave of Hesse visited Uraniburg about this period; but this opinion is not correct, as it was only his astronomer and optician, Rothman, who made a journey to Huen in 1591 for the recovery of his health.
Rothman was astonished at the wonderful apparatus which he saw at Uraniburg, and returned to his native country charmed with the hospitality of the Danish astronomer. Hitherto we have followed Tycho through a career of almost unexampled prosperity.
"I'll cure you, by taking charge of your boy," said Rothman; "you want to make a clergyman of the youth: I'll let him be just what he wants to be, a naturalist and a physician." And it was so. The year spent by Linnæus under the roof of Doctor Rothman was a pivotal point in his life. He was eighteen years old. The contempt of Rothman for the refinements of education appealed to the young man.
After a year at the University of Lund, with more learned by working for his board than at school, there was a visit from Doctor Rothman, who had just dropped in to see his old friend Stobæus. The fact was, Rothman cared a deal more for Linnæus than he did for Stobæus. "Weeds develop into flowers by transplanting only," said Rothman to Linnæus.
His troubles weighed so upon the good clergyman that his nerves became affected and he went to the neighboring town of Wexio to consult Doctor Rothman, a famed medical expert. The good clergyman, in the course of his conversation with the doctor, told of his mortification on account of the dulness and perversity of his son.
It was that garden, she declared, and when his younger brother as much as squinted that way, she flew at him with a "You dare to touch it!" and shook him. When Dr. Rothman thought his pupil ready for the university, he sent him up to Lund, and the head-master of the Latin School gave him the letter he must bring, to be admitted.
Rothman also lost the friendship of Stobæus for his share in the transaction. When Linnæus arrived at Upsala he had one marked distinction, according to his own account he was the poorest student that had ever knocked at the gates of the University for admittance. Perhaps this is a mistake, for even though the young man had patched his shoes with birch bark, he was not in debt.
The Superintendent looks at the pink face, touched with bronze from days in the open air, notes the long yellow hair, beholds the out-of-door look of fortitude that comes from hard and plain fare, and inwardly compares these things with the lack of them in some of his students. "But this Doctor Doctor Rothman who wrote this letter I do not have the honor of knowing him," says the Superintendent.
Doctor Rothman listened in patience and came to the conclusion that young Mr. Linnæus was a good boy who did the wrong thing. All energy is God's, but it may be misdirected. A boy not good enough for a preacher might make a good doctor an excess of virtue is not required in the recipe for a physician.
"I would adopt him as my son," said Rothman; "but I love him so much that I am going to separate him from me. My roots have struck deep in the soil: I am like the human trees told of by Dante; but the boy can go on!" And so Rothman sent him along to the University of Lund, with letters to another doctor still more cranky than himself.
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