24 MEMOIR OF GESNER. 



employed on the numerous works he had on hand, 

 and scarcely a year elapsed in which he did not lay 

 several before the public. The most important of 

 these will be afterwards alluded to ; the mere enu- 

 meration of their titles would occupy a large space ; 

 many of them, moreover, were only of temporary 

 value, and a particular account of these could not 

 be of much interest in the present day. The cele- 

 brity which Gesner had now acquired, both as a 

 scholar and naturalist, caused his correspondence to 

 be courted by most of the learned of Europe ; and 

 we find him in communication with nearly all 

 those whose names have come down to us as pro- 

 moters of learning and science. His botanical gar- 

 den included many of the rarest and most curious 

 plants then known ; and the numerous specimens 

 of natural objects sent to him for examination, formed 

 the basis of a general museum. Much of his time 

 was spent in the most zealous exertions to collect 

 materials for his history of animals and plants; 

 his reading was interrupted only for the purpose 

 (to use the words of one of his biographers), 

 " domi et foris videndo, subinde sciscitando a qui- 

 busvis doctis, indoctis, civibus, peregrinis, ventori- 

 bus, piscatoribus, aucupibus, pastoribus, et omni 

 hominum genere," in order that his works on these 

 subjects might be more perfect than any that pre- 

 ceded them. 



In the midst of his multifarious occupations con- 

 nected with literature and natural history, he con- 

 tinued his practice as a physician ; and, indeed, it 



