HEMSTERHUIS, François (1720-1790), writer on aesthetics and moral philosophy, was born at Franeker in Holland in 1720. He received an excellent education from his father, Tiberius Hemsterhuis, noticed below, and completed his studies at the university of Leyden. There undoubtedly he was attracted towards the study of the Platonic philosophy, which exercised the greatest influence both on the form and on the matter of his own writings. He did not, however, devote himself to a learned life after completing his university courses, but entered upon practical affairs, and for many years acted as secretary to the state council of the United Provinces. His interests were mainly philosophical, and partly by direct social intercourse with a few similarly disposed friends, partly by correspondence with philosophical writers of other countries, mainly with Jacobi, he preserved the continuity of his philosophical work. His writings, none of which can be described as of high speculative worth, are distinguished by elegance of form and by the touch of refined sentiment which is notuncommon among the amateur or dilettante philosophers of the 18th century. Any direct contributions to philosophy made by him are in the department of aesthetics or the general analysis of feeling. He died in 1790....
His first work, published in 1769, was a Lettre sur la Sculpture, written, like all the others, in French. It was followed in 1770 by the Lettre sur les désirs, in 1772 by the Lettre sur l'homme et ses rapports, in 1778 by Sophyle, a dialogue on the relation between soul and body, in 1779 by Aristée, a dialogue on the existence of the Divine Being, in 1787 by Alexis ou l’âge d’or, by Simon, oudes facultés de l’âme, and by the Lettre de Dioclés à Diotime sur l’ athéisme. Collected editions of his works have been published in 1792 (2 vols. ), and more completely by Meyboom, in 1846-50 (6 vols.). See Grucker, François Hemsterhuis, sa Vic et scs Oeuvres (Paris, 1866).
HEMSTERHUIS, Tiberius (1685-1766), philologist and critic, was born on January 9, 1685, at Groningen in Holland. His father, a learned physician, recognizing the abilities of his son, gave him so good an early education that, when he entered the university of his native town in his fifteenth year, he speedily proved himself to be the best student of mathematics. After a year or two at Groningen, he was attracted to the university of Leyden by the fame of Perizonius; and while there he was entrusted with the flattering duty of arranging the manuscripts in the library. Though he accepted an appointment as professor of mathematics and philosophy at Amsterdam in his twentieth year, he had already directed his attention to the study of the ancient languages. In 1706 he completed the edition of Pollux’s Onomasticon begun by Lederlin; but the praise he received from his countrymen was more than counterbalanced by two letters of criticism from Bentley, which mortified him so keenly that for two months he refused to open a Greek book. In 1717 Hemsterhuis was appointed professor of Greek at Franeker, but he did not enter on his duties there till 1720. In 1738 he became professor of national history also. Two years afterwards ho was called to teach the same subjects at Leyden, where he died, April 7, 1766. Hemsterhuis deserves special note for reinstating the study of Greek in its honourable place among his fellow-countrymen, while he was also the founder of a laborious and useful Dutch school of criticism, of which Valckenaer, Lennep, and Ruhnken are the most famous disciples.
His chief writings are the following :— Luciaηi Colloquia et Timon, 1708; Aristophanis Plutus, 1744; Notae, <kc., ad Xenophontem Ephesium in the Miscellanea Critica of Amsterdam, vols, iii. and iv.; Observationes ad Chrysostomi Homilias; Orationes, 1784; a Latin translation of the Birds of Aristophanes, in Kuster’s edition; notes to Bernard’s Thomas Magister, to Alberti’s Hesy∙ chius, to Ernesti’s Callimachus, and to Bunnann’s Propertius. See Elogium T. Hemsterhusii (with Bentley’s letters) by Ruhnken, 1789; and Supplementa Annotationis ad Elogium T. Hemsterhusii, &c., Leyden, 1874.
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