ERPE'NIUS, THOMAS, or THOMAS VAN ERPEN, the cele brated orientalist, was born at Gorkum, Holland, on the 7th of Sep teinber 1534. At the age of ten years ho was sent to Leyden,'where he received his education; and in 1608 he took the degree of Master of Arts in the university of that town. He had studied chiefly theo logy and oriental literature, and after the termination of his academic education, he undertook a tour to England, Franca, Italy, and Germany, for the farther prosecution of his favourite pursuits. At Paris he became acquainted with Isaac Casanbon, and availed himself of the Arabic instructions of a learned Maronite, Joseph Barbatus, then a resident in the French capital. Erpenius returned to his native country in 1612, and was in the following year appointed professor of Oriental languages in the University of Leyden, an office to which was added subsequently that of Arabic interpreter to the Netherlands. On two occasions, in 1620 and 1621, be was sent to Paris on business of the University of Leyden. With these interruptions he seems to have devoted himself exclusively to the cultivation of Oriental literature. He established an Arabic press at his own house, and employed him self in editing a number of works, which have been of the greatest utility in promoting the cause of Oriental learning. He died of a
contagious disease at the age of forty, November 13th, 1621. The work which has contributed most to give celebrity to the name of Erpenius is his 'Grammatica Arabica, quioque libris methodice expli cate; published at Leyden in 1613, 4to. It has often been re-edited with additions and alterations, and formed the basis of nearly every subsequent Arabio grammar printed in Europe down to that of Sil veetre de Sacy. The most remarkable of Erpenius's other publications are the following Proverbiorum Arabicorum centurim dun,' Leyden, 1614 and 1623, 8vo ; Locmani Sapientis Fabulec et eelecta quaelam Arabum Adrigia; Leyden, 1615, 8vo ; an edition of an Arabic version of the New Testament and of the Pentateuch, the former published in 1616, the latter iu 1622; an edition of the chronicle of Elmakiu, with a Latin translation, published after his death, under the title of Historia Saracenica,' Leyden, 1625, fol. ; two original treatises on Arabic grammar, bearing the title ' Grammatica Arabica, dicta Gia rumia, et libellus ceutum Regentium,' Leyden, 1617, 4to ; and a Hebrew Grammar, Grammatica Derma Leyden, 1621, 8vo.