18 MEMOIR OF GESNER. 



and Rome, and, in short, accomplishing, though in 

 a smaller degree, for natural history, what Dante, 

 Petrarch, and others, had previously done for lite- 

 rature. 



Among the small band of congenial spirits by 

 whom this result was brought about, there is none 

 more meritorious than Conrad Gesner. Indeed, 

 when we consider his high scholarship, indefatigable 

 industry, general kno^- ' ' dge of natural history, and 

 the influence which 1 tks have had on the pro- 



gress of knowledge, n .aay perhaps bo doing him 

 injustice not to assign him the first place. We 

 should not at least hesitate to do so, were we to 

 trust implicitly to the eulogiums that have been 

 passed on him by his admirers, for he has been 

 affirmed to be the greatest naturalist the world had 

 seen since Aristotle, the discoverer of the only true 

 principles of a botanical arrangement in the flower 

 and fruit, to which the very existence of botany as 

 a science is owing, — as the German Pliny, a pro- 

 digy of diligence, learning, and penetration. Even 

 the more philosophical and discerning judgment of 

 Cuvier allows him a high degree of merit, which 

 will, we think, be fully borne out by the character 

 of his works hereafter to be examined. 



Conrad Gesner was bom at Zurich on the 26th 

 March, 1516. His parents were in very humble 

 circumstances ; his father. Ours Gesner, being a 

 worker in hides, and his mother, Barbara Friccia, 

 of a very poor though respectable family. Having 



