KLAPROTH, Heinrich Julius von (1783-1835), one of the founders of Oriental scholarship in Europe, was born at Berlin, October 11, 1783. His father, Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817), not only desired him to pursue the chemical studies by which he had himself attained to position and fame, but did all in his power to frown away what he deemed a foolish attachment to a profitless subject. But the boy-philologist received from a more indulgent or wiser mother the means of secretly satisfying his natural instinct, and by the time that in ordinary course he ought to have passed the gymnasial examination he was able to retort, when upbraided with ignorance of the usual subjects, that at least he knew Chinese. He was still in his teens when he published his Asiatisches Magazin (Weimar, 1802); and immediately after he was called to St Petersburg as an adjunct to the academy of Oriental languages. In 1805 he accompanied Count Golowin’s embassy to China; and though the travellers were stopped at the frontier he had a splendid opportunity of becoming acquainted with the tribes and languages of southern Asiatic Russia. On his return he was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus for the purpose of ethnographical and linguistic exploration (1807-1808), and when this mission was completed he was employed for several years in connexion with the academy’s Oriental publications. In 1811 he came to Berlin; but in 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816 W. von Humboldt procured him from the king of Prussia the title and salary of professor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. He died in that city August 23, 1835....