opus, ut fertur.’ His ‘Poetæ Græci Minores,’ the first volume of which appeared in 1814, is described in the ‘Museum Criticum’ (i. 569) as a work on the acquisition of which every scholar is to be congratulated. In the course of the next few years appeared his editions of Stobæus, of Herodotus (which has formed the basis of all subsequent editions), of Sophocles, and above all of the Lexicon of Suidas (in which for the first time the manuscript in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was collated), and lastly of the ‘Etymologicon Magnum.’ His first work on the ecclesiastical writers was an edition of the ‘Græcarum affectionum curatio’ of Theodoret, which appeared in 1839.
As a scholar he must be described as thoroughly judicious rather than brilliant. He was fonder of reprinting the notes of others, as in his variorum editions, than of producing notes of his own, and he has done little towards the emendation or interpretation of his authors as far as he was personally concerned. But his skill in collation and in bringing together all that he deemed valuable for the illustration of the authors he is editing is unrivalled, and perhaps no editions of classical works that this country has produced are so useful as Gaisford's.
Though all his published works are concerned with classical or patristic literature, his own studies were by no means confined to these. He was well read in history, theology, and civil law, and was a good Shakespearean scholar. A pleasing sketch of his conversation in 1815 is given in the ‘Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of the World’ (Gent. Mag. October 1845, pp. 336–338). He married first, Helen Douglas, niece of the wife of Bishop Van Mildert; and, secondly, Miss Jenkyns, sister of Dr. Jenkyns of Balliol College. By his first wife he left three sons and two daughters. He died at Christ Church, 2 June 1855, and was buried in the nave of the cathedral on 9 June. In 1856 a prize was founded at Oxford to commemorate him, called the ‘Gaisford Prize,’ for composition in Greek verse and Greek prose.
The following is a list of his works: 1. ‘Ciceronis Tusculanæ Disputationes,’ from Davies's edition, with additional notes of Bentley from two Cambridge MSS., 1805. 2. ‘Codices Manuscripti et impressi cum notis MSS. olim D'Orvilliani qui in Bibl. Bodleiana apud Oxonienses adservantur,’ 1806. 3. ‘Euripidis Alcestis’ (for the use of Westminster School), 1806. 4. ‘Euripidis Electra ex editione Musgravii’ (for the use of Westminster School), 1806. 5. ‘Euripidis Andromache’ (for the use of Westminster School), 1807. 6. ‘Euripidis Hecuba, Orestes, Phœnissæ,’ with Musgrave's notes, and various readings from a manuscript formerly in the possession of W. Hunter, 1809. 7. ‘Cicero de Oratore ex editione Ernesti cum notis variorum,’ 1809. 8. ‘Hephæstionis Enchiridion de Metris, with Procli Chrestomathia,’ 1810. This was reprinted in two vols. after his death in 1855, with the addition of the work of Terentianus Maurus de Syllabis et Metris. 9. ‘Euripidis Supplices, Iph. in Aul., Iph. in Tauris,’ from Markland's edition, with many notes of Porson, some tracts of Markland, and his correspondence with D'Orville, 1811. 10. ‘Catalogus Manuscriptorum qui a cel. E.D. Clarke comparati in Bibl. Bodl. adservantur,’ 1812. This is the first part, containing the account of the Greek MSS. Some inedited scholia on Plato and St. Gregory Nazianzen are inserted. 11. ‘Poetæ Græci Minores,’ 4 vols., 1814–20. Besides Hesiod and Theocritus and the minor poets, this contains the scholia on Hesiod and Theocritus. 12. ‘Lectiones Platonicæ,’ 1820. This is a collation of the Patmos MS. of Plato, brought to England by Dr. Clarke. Porson's notes on Pausanias are added. 13. ‘Aristotelis Rhetorica, cum versione Latina et annott. variorum,’ 2 vols., 1820. 14. ‘Scapulæ Lexicon,’ 1820. This was edited by H. Cotton, but Dr. Gaisford gave considerable assistance. 15. ‘Stobæi Florilegium,’ 4 vols., 1822. 16. ‘Herodotus cum notis variorum,’ 4 vols., 1824. The text has been reprinted separate from the notes. 17. ‘Scholia in Sophoclem Elmsleii,’ 1825. This was edited by Gaisford soon after Elmsley's death, who had transcribed the Laurentian MS. at Florence, but had printed only as far as p. 64. 18. ‘Sophocles,’ 2 vols., 1826. This is a variorum edition, giving the whole of the notes of Brunck and Schæfer. It is especially valuable for the extracts from Suidas, and the collation of the two Laurentian MSS. 19. Index to Wyttenbach's ‘Plutarch,’ which he had left unfinished, 1830. 20. ‘Suidæ Lexicon,’ 3 vols., 1834. 21. ‘Parœmiographi Græci,’ 1836. 22. ‘Scriptores Latini rei metricæ,’ 1837. 23. ‘Theodoreti Græcarum affectionum curatio,’ 1839. 24. ‘Chærobosci Dictata in Theodosii canones necnon Epimerismi in Psalmos,’ 1842. 25. ‘Eusebii Eclogæ Propheticæ,’ 1842. This is the first edition, printed from a Vienna manuscript. 26. ‘Eusebii Præparatio Evangelica,’ 2 vols., 1843. 27. ‘Pearsoni Adversaria Hesychiana,’ 2 vols., 1844, from the manuscript in Trinity College Library, Cambridge. 28. ‘Etymologicon Magnum,’ 1848. 29. ‘Vetus Testamentum ex versione lxx. interpretum,’ 3 vols., 1848. 30. ‘Stobæi Eclogæ Physicæ et Ethicæ,’ 2 vols., 1850. To the second
