DRAKENBORCH, Arnold (1684-1748), a celebrated scholar and editor, was born at Utrecht on the 1st January 1684. Having studied belles-lettres under Graevius and Burmann, and law under Cornelius Van Eck, he succeeded Professor Burmann in 1716, and continued to hold hrs professorship till his death in 1748, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His earliest work was a dissertation entitled Disputatio plιilologico-lιistorico de Praefectis urbis, in 4to (1704), and its merit caused it to be reprinted at Frankfort, in 1752, by Professor Uhl, accompanied with a life of its learned author. His next work, entitled Disputatio de officio praefectornm praetorio, was published in 1707; and ten years afterwards he issued his edition of Silius Italicus (1717), undertaken at the suggestion of Burmann. In order to render this edition as perfect as possible, nothing was omitted; and many historical subjects were engraved for the purpose of elucidating the text, to which his own copious and learned annotations greatly contributed. But his splendid edition of Livy (Lugd. Batav. 1738 and 1746, 7 vols.), with a life of that historian, is that on which his fame as a scholar chiefly rests. The preface to this work is replete with erudition, and gives a particular account of all the literary men who have at different periods commented on the works of Livy. His edition is based on that of Gronovius; but he made many important alterations on the authority of manuscripts which it is probable Gronovius either had never seén, or had not taken the pains to consult. The edition is peculiarly rich in various readings, but the text is, of course, inferior to that which has been furnished by the skill of later editors. Upon the whole, this edition if Livy was, at the time of its publication, one of the ...