GESNER, or GESSNER, JOHN MATTHEW, an eminent German philologer, was born at Roth, a village in the ter ritory of Anspach, on the 9th of April 1691. He was re duced to great poverty by the death of his father, at a very early age ; but by the kindness of a relation, he was enabled to acquire the elements of learning at the public scnool of Anspach. In 1710, he repaired to the university of Jena, where he studied theology, and supported himself partly by occasional poems, until he obtained the patronage of Buddeus, by whose recommendation he was appointed, in 1715, to superintend the public school at Weimar ; from whence he was removed to a similar situation at Anspach in 1728, and in 1730 to Leipsic. Having greatly distin guished himself as a profound philologer, he repaired to Gottingen, where, in 1734, he was appointed professor of humanity in the newly erected university, to which were added the offices of public librarian, and inspector of schools throughout the electorate of Hanover. In the year 1751, he was made director of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Gottingen ; and in 1756, he received the honorary title of Aulic Counsellor. In every situation, he
exhibited proofs of uncommon industry and erudition ; he was zealous in promoting the interests and prosperity of the university, to which he was so great an ornament ; and endeavoured to discharge his duties as a public teacher in a manner at once agreeable and useful. He died at Gottingen in the year 1761.
To this eminent scholar, we are indebted for some ex cellent editions of the classics, particularly Quintilian, Pliny, Claudian, and the poems of Orpheus, which last were pub lished, after his death, by Hamberger. Besides these, his principal work is the Thesaurus Latine Lingua et erudi tionis Romane, Leipsic, 1747, 1798, in four volumes folio. The great value of this wm k is well known to every scholar. Gesner also published several learned memoirs in the Transactions of the Gottingen Academy of Scien ces. (z)