MICHAELIS, Johann David (1717-1791), one of the most influential scholars and teachers of last century, belonged to a family which had the chief part in maintaining that solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages which distinguished the university of Halle in the period of Pietism. Johann Heinrich Michaelis (1668— 1738) was the chief director of Francke’s Collegium Orientale Theologicum, a practical school of Biblical and Oriental philology then quite unique, and the author of an annotated Hebrew Bible and various exegetical works of reputation, especially the Adnot ationes uberiores in Hagio-graphos, 1720. In his chief publications J. H. Michaelis had as fellow-worker his sister’s son Christian Benedict Michaelis (1680-1764), the father of Johann David, who was likewise influential as professor at Halle, and a very sound scholar, especially in Syriac. J. D. Michaelis was trained for academical life under his father’s eye. Halle was not then the best of universities; a narrow theological spirit cramped all intellectual activity, and the eager vivacious youth, already distinguished by a love for realities and a distaste for small pedantries, found much of the teaching wearisome enough. He acquired, however, a good knowledge of the Latin classics,—Greek, he tells us, was hardly taught at all, and his knowledge of Greek literature was gained by his own reading in later years,—learned all that his father could teach, and was influenced, especially in philosophy, by Baumgarten, the link between the old Pietism and Semler, while he cultivated his strong taste for history under Ludwig. In the winter-semester 1739-40 he qualified as university lecturer. One of his dissertations was a defence of the antiquity and divine authority of the vowel points in ...