[1134] Id. p. 182. See Biographie Universelle, art. Boerhaave, for a general criticism of the iatro-mathematicians.
[1135] Sprengel, p. 413.
Sect. IV.
ON ORIENTAL LITERATURE.
Polyglott of Walton. 39. The famous Polyglott of Brian Walton was published in 1657; but few copies appear to have been sold before the restoration of Charles II., in 1660, since those are very scarce which contain in the preface the praise of Cromwell for having facilitated and patronised the undertaking; praise replaced in the change of times by a loyal eulogy on the king. This Polyglott is in nine languages; though no one book of the Bible is printed in so many. Walton’s Prolegomena are in sixteen chapters or dissertations. His learning, perhaps, was greater than his critical acuteness or good sense; such, at least, is the opinion of Simon and Le Long. The former, in a long examination of Walton’s Prolegomena, treats him with all the superiority of a man who possessed both. Walton was assailed by some bigots at home for acknowledging various readings in the Scriptures, and for denying the authority of the vowel punctuation. His Polyglott is not reckoned so magnificent as the Parisian edition of Le Long; but it is fuller and more convenient.[1136] Edmund Castell, the coadjutor of Walton in this work, published his Lexicon Heptaglotton in 1669, upon which he had consumed eighteen years and the whole of his substance. This is frequently sold together with the Polyglott.
[1136] Simon, Hist. Critique du Vieux Testament, p. 541. Chalmers. Biogr. Britan. Biogr. Univ. Brunet. Man. du Libraire.
Hottinger. 40. Hottinger of Zurich, by a number of works on the Eastern languages, and especially by the Bibliotheca Orientalis, in 1658, established a reputation which these books no longer retain since the whole field of Oriental literature has been more fully explored. |Spencer.| Spencer, in a treatise of great erudition, De Legibus Hebræorum, 1685, gave some offence by the suggestion that several of the Mosaic institutions were borrowed from the Egyptian, though the general scope of the Jewish law was in opposition to the idolatrous practices of the neighbouring nations. |Bochart.| The vast learning of Bochart expanded itself over Oriental antiquity, especially that of which the Hebrew nation and language is the central point; but his etymological conjectures have long since been set aside, and he has not, in other respects, escaped the fate of the older Orientalists.
Pococke. 41. The great services of Pococke to Arabic literature, which had commenced in the earlier part of the century, were extended to the present. His edition and translation of the Annals of Eutychius in 1658, that of the History of Abulfaragius in 1663, with many other works of a similar nature, bear witness to his industry; no Englishman, probably, has ever contributed so much to that province of learning.[1137] A fine edition of the Koran, and still esteemed the best, was due to Marracci, professor of Arabic in the Sapienza or university of Rome, and published at the expense of Cardinal Barbadigo, in 1698.[1138] |D’Herbelot.| But France had an Orientalist of the most extensive learning, in D’Herbelot, whose Bibliothèque Orientale must be considered as making an epoch in this literature. It was published in 1697, after his death, by Galland, who had also some share in arranging the materials. This work, it has been said, is for the seventeenth century what the History of the Huns, by De Guignes, is for the eighteenth; with this difference, that D’Herbelot opened the road, and has often been copied by his successor.[1139]
[1137] Chalmers. Biogr. Univ.
[1138] Tiraboschi, xi., 398.