Tiberius Hemsterhuis
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
philologist and critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
.
Life
He was born in Groningen. His father, a learned physician, gave him a good early education and he entered the university of his native city in his fifteenth year, where he proved himself the best student of mathematicsMathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. After a year or two at Groningen he was attracted to the university of Leiden by the fame of Perizonius
Perizonius
Perizonius was the name of Jakob Voorbroek , a Dutch classical scholar, who was born at Appingedam in Groningen....
. While there he was entrusted with the duty of arranging the manuscripts in the library. Though he accepted an appointment as professor of mathematics and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at Amsterdam in his twentieth year, he had already directed his attention to the study of the ancient languages.
In 1717 Hemsterhuis was appointed professor of Greek at the University of Franeker
University of Franeker
The University of Franeker was a university in Franeker, Friesland, presently part of the Netherlands. It was the second oldest university of the Netherlands, founded shortly after Leiden University....
, to replace Lambert Bos
Lambert Bos
Lambert Bos was a Dutch scholar, critic and forerunner of Tiberius Hemsterhuis....
, but he did not enter on his duties there till 1720. In 1738 he became professor of national history as well. Two years afterwards he was called to teach the same subjects at Leiden, where he died on the 7 April 1766.
He was the father of Frans Hemsterhuis.
Works
In 1706 he completed the edition of Julius PolluxJulius Pollux
Julius Pollux was a Greek or Egyptian grammarian and sophist from Alexandria who taught at Athens, where he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the Academy by the emperor Commodus — on account of his melodious voice, according to Philostratus' Lives of the Sophists. Nothing of his...
's Onomasticon begun by Jean-Henri Lederlin (1672-1737); but the praise he received from his countrymen was more than counterbalanced by two letters of criticism from Bentley
Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge....
, which mortified him so keenly that for two months he refused to open a Greek book. I; but was mortified by two letters of criticism from Bentley
Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge....
. Hemsterhuis was the founder of a Dutch school of criticism, which had disciples in Valckenaer, Jacob van Lennep
Jacob van Lennep
Jacob van Lennep was a Dutch poet and novelist.-Early years:He was born in Amsterdam, where his father, David Jacob van Lennep , a scholar and poet, was professor of eloquence and the classical languages in the Atheneum...
and David Ruhnken
David Ruhnken
David Ruhnken was a Dutch classical scholar of German origin.-Origins:Ruhnken was born in Bedlin near Stolp, Pomerania Province,...
.
His major writings are:
- Luciani colloquia et Timon (1708)
- Aristophanis Plutus (1744)
- Notae, etc., ad Xenophontem Ephesium in the Miscellanea critica of Amsterdam, vols. iii. and iv.
- Observationes ad Chrysostomi homilias (1784)
- Orationes (1784)
- a Latin translation of the Birds of AristophanesAristophanesAristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
, in Kuster's edition - notes to BernardJohn BernardJohn Toussaint Bernard was a United States Representative from Minnesota.A native of the French island of Corsica, Bernard was born in 1893 in the town of Bastia. Moving to the United States in 1907, he would later work as an iron miner before enlisting in the United States Army during World War I...
's Thomas Magister, to Alberti's Hesychius of AlexandriaHesychius of AlexandriaHesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...
, to Johann August ErnestiJohann August ErnestiJohann August Ernesti was a German Rationalist theologian and philologist.He was born at Bad Tennstedt in Thuringia, where his father, Johann Christoph Ernesti, was pastor, besides being superintendent of the electoral dioceses of Thuringia, Salz and Sangerhausen...
's CallimachusCallimachusCallimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
and to Pieter Burmann the YoungerPieter Burmann the YoungerPieter Burman , called by himself the Younger to distinguish himself from his uncle, was a Dutch philologist, born at Amsterdam....
's Propertius.
See Elogium T. Hemsterhusii (with Bentley's letters) by Ruhnken (1789), and Supplementa annotationis ad elogium T. Hemsterhusii, etc. (Leiden, 1874); also JE Sandys
John Edwin Sandys
Sir John Edwin Sandys FBA , was a classical scholar.He was born at Leicester on 19 May 1844, a son of the Reverend Timothy Sandys of the Church Missionary Society and Rebecca . Living at first in India, he returned to England at the age of eleven, and was educated at the Church Missionary Society...
's History of Classical Scholarship, ii. (1908).
See also
- Friedrich Ludwig AbreschFriedrich Ludwig AbreschFriedrich Ludwig Abresch was a Dutch philologist of German origins.Born in Homburg, the reasons that led him to move to the Netherlands are uncertain. He visited the college in Herborn and the University of Utrecht. He was a scholar of Karl Andreas Duker and Arnold Drakenborch...
- a Dutch philologist influenced by Hemsterhuis's teachings