JOHN GERARD, a most learned and laborious writer of the 17th century, was of a considerable family in the Netherlands; and was born in 1577, in the Palatinate, near Heidelberg, at a place where his father, John Voissius, was minister. He was made director of the college of Dort, and afterwards professor of eloquence and chronology at Leyden, from whence he was called in 1633 to Amsterdam, to fill the chair of professor of history. He died in 1649.