HERBELOT, Barthélemyd’ (1625-1695), Orientalist, was born December 4, 1625, at Paris. As soon as he had completed the 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 perfect 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 IT. of Tuscany presented him with a large number of valuable Oriental MSS., 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 Collège de France. He died at Paris, December 8, 1695. His great work is the Bibliothèque Orientale, ow dictionnaire universel contenant tout ce qui fait connaître les peuples de l ’ Orient, which occupied him nearly all his life, and was published in 1697 by Galland. It is based on the immense Arabic dictionary of Hajji Khalfa, of which indeed it is largely an abridged translation, but it also contains the substance of a vast number of other Arabic and Turkish compilations and manuscripts. With all his learning, the author seems to have been deficient in critical 1 Thus, taking the case above ...