Chaldee and Syriac. 28. In the Chaldee and Syriac languages, which approach so closely to Hebrew, that the best scholars in the latter are rarely unacquainted with them, besides the Buxtorfs, we find Ferrari, author of a Syriac lexicon, published at Rome in 1622; Louis de Dieu of Leyden, whose Syriac grammar appeared in 1626; and the Syriac translation of the Old Testament in the Parisian Polyglott, edited by Gabriel Sionita, in 1642. A Syriac college for the Maronites of Libanus, was founded at Rome by Gregory XIII.; but it did not as yet produce anything of importance.
Arabic. 29. But a language incomparably more rich in literary treasures, and long neglected by Europe, began now to take a conspicuous place in the annals of learning. Scaliger deserves the glory of being the first real Arabic scholar; for Postel, Christman, and a very few more of the sixteenth century, are hardly worth notice. His friend, Casaubon, who extols his acquirements, as usual, very highly, devoted himself some time to this study. But Scaliger made use of the language chiefly to enlarge his own vast sphere of erudition. He published nothing on the subject; but his collections became the base of Rapheling’s Arabic lexicon; and it is said that they were far more extensive than what appears in that work. |Erpenius.| He who properly added this language to the domain of learning was Erpenius, a native of Gorcum, who, at an early age, had gained so unrivalled an acquaintance with the Oriental languages as to be appointed professor of them at Leyden in 1613. He edited the same year the above-mentioned lexicon of Rapheling, and published a grammar, which might not only be accounted the first composed in Europe that deserved the name, but became the guide to most later scholars. Erpenius gave several other works to the world, chiefly connected with the Arabic version of the Scriptures.[666] |Golius.| Golius, his successor in the Oriental chair at Leyden, besides publishing a lexicon of the language, which is said to be still the most copious, elaborate, and complete that has appeared,[667] and several editions of Arabic writings, poetical and historical, contributed still more extensively to bring the range of Arabian literature before the world. He enriched with a hundred and fifty manuscripts, collected in his travels, the library of Leyden, to which Scaliger had bequeathed forty.[668] The manuscripts belonging to Erpenius found their way to Cambridge; while, partly by the munificence of Laud, partly by later accessions, the Bodleian Library at Oxford became extremely rich in this line. The much larger collection in the Escurial seems to have been chiefly formed under Philip III. England was now as conspicuous in Arabian as in Hebrew learning. Selden, Greaves, and Pococke, especially the last, who was probably equal to any Oriental scholar whom Europe had hitherto produced, by translations of the historical and philosophical writings of the Saracenic period, gave a larger compass to general erudition.[669]
[666] Biogr. Univ.
[667] Jenisch, præfatio in Meninski Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium, p. 110.
[668] Biogr. Univ.
[669] Jenisch, Eichhorn, Biogr. Universelle, Biogr. Britannica.
Other Eastern languages. 30. The remaining languages of the East are of less importance. The Turkish had attracted some degree of attention in the sixteenth century; but the first grammar was published by Megiser, in 1612, a very slight performance; and a better at Paris, by Du Ryer, in 1630.[670] The Persic grammar was given at Rome by Raymondi, in 1614; by De Dieu, at Leyden, in 1639; by Greaves, at London, in 1641 and 1649.[671] An Armenian dictionary, by Rivoli, in 1621, seems the only accession to our knowledge of that ancient language during this period.[672] Athanasius Kircher, a man of immense erudition, restored the Coptic, of which Europe had been wholly ignorant. Those farther eastward had not yet begun to enter much into the studies of Europe. Nothing was known of the Indian; but some Chinese manuscripts had been brought to Rome and Madrid as early as 1580; and not long afterwards, two Jesuits, Roger and Ricci, both missionaries in China, were the first who acquired a sufficient knowledge of the language to translate from it.[673] But scarcely any farther advance took place before the middle of the century.
[670] Eichhorn, v., 367.
[671] Id. 320.
[672] Eichhorn, 351.