56 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



also raised him to greatness. He was born at Z'urith in 1516, and in- 

 tended at first to study divinity. He came to Strasbou7~g, but so great 

 was then his poverty, that he thought himself very fortunate in being 

 received as servitor to a professor. Love becan:ie the um^ ii e ot his 

 destiny, and direfted all his subsequent enterprizes. He entered the 

 state of matrimony in the 20th year of his age, though without having 

 wherewithal to support himself. liis poverty rose to the higheft pitch. 

 He resolved to quit the theological career which he had hiiherto pur- 

 sued. He .went to study physic at Montpellier ; was made doftor, and 

 afterwards professor of physic in his native place. No country but 

 Switzerland could have furnished him with better opportunities of 

 making botanical observations, nor did Gesner let them escape. 



Among his botanical works there is a remarkable catalogue of plants*. 

 His great philological knowledge first enabled him to give them a no- 

 menclature in several languages. He was also the first who introduced 

 the method of classifying plants by their flowers and fruit. No literatus 

 of his age was more diligent and more fertile than Gesner } and the nu- 

 merous works which he published, were, as I may say, but a beginning 

 of his scientific harvest. He left behind a much superior number 

 of writings, part printed, part in manuscript. He was prevented 

 finishing them by the plague, which swept away his valuable existence 

 in 1565, in the forty-ninth year of his age. 



After the Hessian literatus E. Cord us, who was the first professor of 

 physic in the university of Marburg^ Gesner was also the first who 

 cultivated a private botanical garden for his own us'e. But the first 



* Catalogiis plantarum, Latine, Grsece, Germanice, et Gallice, Tigur. 15427 in quarto 

 His posthumous works were published by Schmidfl, under the title of " Gesneri Opera 

 " Botanica, Norimberga, 1754 and 1759," a vol. folio. 



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