CHARLES KNIGHT AND Co., 22 LUDGATE STREET: NEW YORK, WILLIAM JACKSON; BOSTON, JOSEPH H. FRANCIS; MDCCCXXXVIII. was in the press when he died, and was completed by Schäfer. ERNESTI, JOHN CHRISTIAN THEOPHILUS, also a nephew of John Augustus, was born at Arnstadt, in the Thüringer Wald, in 1756. He was professor of philosophy in the University of Leipzig from 1782 to 1801, when he succeeded his cousin, Augustus William, as professor of eloquence. He died on the 5th June in the following year. This scholar published editions of Silius Italicus and Esop; Lexicon Technologia Græcæ Rhetorica, Lips. 1795; Lex. Techn. Romanorum Rhetorica, Lips., 1797 (both very useful works); Hesychii Glossa Sacræ, 1785; Suida et Phavorini Glossæ Sacræ, 1786; a translation into German of Dumesnil's Latin Synonyms, and a German version of the principal works of Cicero. (Cicero's Geist and Kern, 17991802.) ERNESTI, JOHN AUGUSTUS, was born at Tennstadt, in the Thüringer Wald, on the 4th August, 1707. He was educated at Wittenberg and Leipzig, and became conrector of the school of St. Thomas, in the latter city, in the year 1731. He succeeded J. M. Gessner as rector in 1734. While engaged in this situation he acquired a great reputation as a classical scholar; so much so, that in 1742 the University of Leipzig violated its own rule of never electing to any professorship the master of a school, and appointed him professor extraordinary of antient literature. He was made professor of eloquence in 1756, and professor of theology, with the degree of Dr., in 1758: he held the two last named professorships together till 1770, when he gave up the former to his nephew, Augustus William. He died on the 11th September, 1781. Ernesti was a man of considerable abilities, and especially of a very methodical mind, to which are due the great improvements in the system of teaching introduced by him, and still, to a certain extent, adopted in the German universities. He was well acquainted with the classics, and no mean proficient in theological learning. His Latin style is very elegant for a German, little inferior indeed to that of Ruhnken, and fully equal to that of Wyttenbach: a good specimen of his Latinity may be seen in A. Matthia's Eloquentia Latina. His knowledge of Greek, though less accurate, was still very respectable. The work for which he is best known is his edition of Cicero, which has been made the basis of all subsequent ones. The third and last edition of this author published by him was printed at Halle in 1775. His Clavis Ciceroniana, or Index of words and subjects to Cicero's works, is still in general use. Besides his Cicero, Ernesti's Initia Doctrinæ Solidioris and Institutio Interpretis Novi Testamenti are much esteemed by students at the present day; the latter has been recently translated into English. The edition of Homer which Ernesti pub. lished in 1759-65 is merely an improved reprint of the hackneyed edition by Dr. Clark. It was republished by Dindorf in 1824. His edition of Callimachus, which appeared in 1761, is suspected to have owed a good deal of what is valuable in it to the contributions of Ruhnken. An account of it is given in the 'Museum Criticum,' vol. ii., p. 151. Ernesti's editions of Polybius, Tacitus, and Suetonius, have been quite superseded by those of Schweighäu-Grammatica Arabica, quinque libris methodice explicata,' ser, Bekker, and F. A. Wolf. ERNESTI, AUGUSTUS WILLIAM, nephew of the preceding, was born at Frohndorf, near Tennstadt, the 26th November, 1733. He was a pupil of his uncle at Leipzig. was made professor of philosophy there in 1765, and, as has been mentioned, succeeded, on his uncle's resignation, to the professorship of eloquence (in 1770). He died of apoplexy on the 29th July, 1801. He was principally distinguished as a very good Latin scholar. His best known work is an edition of Livy, with a very copious glossary, which was reprinted twice in his lifetime; the third edition P. C., No. 595. ERPE'NIUS. The celebrated orientalist, Thomas Erpenius, or Thomas van Erpen, was born at Gorcum, on the 7th of September, 1584. At the age of ten years he was sent to Leyden, where he received his education; and in 1608 he took the degree of Master of Arts in the university of that town. He had studied chiefly theology and oriental literature, and after the termination of his academic education, he undertook a tour to England, France, Italy, and Germany, for the farther prosecution of his favourite pursuits. At Paris he became acquainted with Isaac Casaubonus, and availed himself of the Arabic instructions of a learned Maronite, Joseph Barbatus, then a resident in the French capital. Erpenius returned to his native country in 1612, and was in the following year appointed professor of Oriental languages in the university of Leyden, an office to which was added subsequently that of Arabic interpreter to the Netherlands. On two occasions, in 1620 and 1621, he was sent to Paris on business of the university of Leyden. With these interruptions he seems to have devoted himself exclusively to the cultivation of Oriental literature. He established an Arabic press at his own house, and employed himself in editing a number of works, which have been of the greatest utility in promoting the cause of Oriental learning. He died of a contagious disease at the age of forty, November 13th, 1624. The work which has contributed most to give celebrity to the name of Erpenius is his published at Leyden in 1613, 4to. It has often been reedited with additions and alterations, and has become the foundation of nearly every subsequent Arabic grammar printed in Europe down to that of Silvestre de Sacy. The most remarkable of Erpenius's other publications are the following: Proverbiorum Arabicorum centuriæ duæ,' Leyden, 1614 and 1623, 8vo.; Locmani Sapientis Fabulæ et selecta quædam Arabum Adagia,' Leyden, 1615, 8vo. an edition of an Arabic version of the New Testament and of the Pentateuch, the former published in 1616, the latter in 1622; an edition of the chronicle of Elmakin, with a VOL. X.-B |