Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/754

720  1em

1em 1em 1em  HERBELOT, (1625–1695), Orientalist, was born December 4, 1625, at Paris. As soon as be had completed tlie ordinary course in classics and philosophy at the university of his native city, he devoted himself to the study of the Oriental languages, and went to Italy to per fect himself in them by converse with the Orientals who frequented its seaports. There he made the acquaintance of his fellow-savants Lucas Holstenius and Leo Allatius, and attracted the favourable notice of the cardinals Grimaldi and Bamberini. On his return to France after a year and a half, he was received into the house of Fouquet, superintendent of finance, who gave him a pension of 1500 livres. Losing this on the disgrace of Fouquet in 1661, he was appointed secretary and interpreter of Eastern languages to the king. A few years later he again visited Italy, when the grand-duke Ferdinand II. of Tuscany presented him with a large number of valuable Oriental MBS., and tried to attach him to his court. Herbelot, however, was recalled to France by Colbert, and received from the king a pension equal to the one he had lost. In 1692 he succeeded D Auvergne in the chair of Syriac, in the College de France. He died at Paris, December 8, 1695. His great work is the Dibliothcqne Orienfale, ou dldionnaire universel contenant tout ce qui fait connaitre les peuples de fOrient, which occupied him nearly all his life, and was published in 1697 by Galland. It is based on the immense Arabic dictionary of Hajji K half a, of which in deed it is largely an abridged translation, but it also con tains the substance of a vast number of other Arabic and Turkish compilations and manuscripts. With all his learn ing, the author seems to have been deficient in critical 