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A compact miscellany of short essays, anecdotes, prayers, poems, and biographical sketches that collects reflections on grief, maternal love, benevolence, virtue, taste, and historical episodes. The pieces alternate personal memories, moral aphorisms, humorous and touching anecdotes, and brief portraits of public figures, often framed as letters, epitaphs, or short narratives. Recurring themes include the effects of sorrow and joy, domestic affection, charity, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the consolations of faith and art. The tone moves between intimate recollection and light moralizing, presenting varied, self-contained vignettes meant to instruct, console, and amuse.
Conrad Gesner died at Zurich in 1565, aged forty-nine. This great man, who had passed all his life in labouring for the benefit of literature at large, was seized with the plague, and finding his disorder incurable, was by his desire conveyed to his study, where he shortly expired. Thus, dying on the spot in which during his life he had composed his immortal works.