QUATREMÈRE, ÉtienneMarc (1782-1857), one of the most learned of modern Orientalists, came of an eminent family of Parisian merchants. His father was a victim of the Revolution, his mother a pious woman devoted to works of charity and venerated after her death almost as a saint. The son retained much of what was best in the old spirit of the Parisian bourgeoisie— its industry, sobriety, and independence of character, along with a certain narrowness of view. He was sincerely religious, with strong Jansenist and Gallican tendencies, a touch of rationalism, and a great dislike of modern growths of Catholicism. His whole life was spent alone among his books, and his works always display the most extensive and accurate erudition—in which indeed, and not in criticism or original ideas, his strength lay. Employed in 1807 in the manuscript department of the imperial library, he passed to the chair of Greek in Rouen in 1809, entered the academy of inscriptions in 1815, taught Hebrew and Aramaic in the Collège de France from 1819, and finally in 1827 became professor of Persian in the School of Living Oriental Languages....