Dr. Surrn's Introductory Difcour/2. 9 
forget to mention that we had at London a tolerable collection of 
plants in the garden of Gerard, a catalogue of which, printed in 
1596, exifts in the Britifh Mufeum, but is elfewhere rarely to be met 
with. The fuccefs of botanic gardens has pretty much kept pace 
with the commerce of the countries in which they were eftablifhed ; 
nor is this to be wondered at. The intercourfe of the Dutch with 
the Eaft Indies, and their poffeflion of the Cape, long gave their 
colleétions, in all the different branches of Natural Hiftory, a decided 
fuperiority over thofe of other nations. The Englifh have now 
enriched their gardens far beyond any others by the fupplies ob- 
tained from the Eaft and Weft Indies, and efpecially from America. 
F find myfelf obliged to pafs over a number of naturalifts who 
flourifhed from the middle to the end of the fixteenth century. 
Thofe whofe works are the moft known, and have been of the moft 
fervice to the world, are Tragus, Leonardus, Fuchfius, Dodonæus 
and Dalechampius in Botany, Bellenius in Ornithology, and Ronde- 
letius in Ichthyology. But there are a few great names which 
ought not to be fo flightly mentioned; I muft be allowed to enlarge 
a little on the merits of Gefner, Aldrovandus, Cluftus and Cæfal- 
inus. | 
: Conrad Gefner, the greateft naturalift the world had feen fince 
Ariftotle, was born at Zurich in 1516, and died of the plague in 
1565. Notwithftanding his conftitution was feeble and fickly, and 
his life by no means a long one, he applied himfelf to the ftudy of 
nature with fuch afliduity, that he not only made more new obfer- 
vations than had been made by any modern writer, but alfo firft 
reftored the fcience he cultivated to the dignity of philofophy, of 
which it had almoft loft fight fince the days of Ariftotle and Theo- 
phraftus. Gefner cultivated medicine with equal fuccefs, proceed- 
ing always on the fure ground of obfervation and experience. His 
health, naturally weak, is faid to have frequently fuffered by the 
C experi- 
