and by no means adapted to gratify the vain and ignorant; but he was not wilfully offensive, and condemned warmly those who were so. He possessed a tenacious memory, and readily quoted in conversation the authors he had read, particularly the poets, and was a playful and entertaining companion when he found his company agreeable to him, capable of enjoying his humour, of benefiting by his information, or of eliciting reflection in his own mind; and it was seldom that a thinking man could be in his society without feeling roused by his energy. The lectures which he delivered at the Royal Academy are published to the world, it is therefore not necessary to enter upon their merits; but it will be justice to their author, earnestly to recommend the perusal of them to all who wish to understand the principles of the art on which they treat. Unhappily the course was incomplete, as he only gave four lectures of the six prescribed to each professor. The world were deprived all further benefit from his powerful intellects by his death, which occurred, after a lingering illness, in April 1807. He was honoured by 3 an interment in St. Paul's cathedral, near the grave of sir Joshua Reynolds, and his funeral was most respectfully attended by almost all the members of the Royal Academy, and many of the nobility and gentry of the country.' OPITIUS (HENRY), a learned Lutheran divine, was born Feb. 14, 1642, at Altenburg, in Misnia. After some school education, he studied at Jena and Kiel, and acquired great knowledge of the Oriental languages, under the instructions of Matthias Wasmuth. Still ambitious to add to his stock of learning, he pursued this object at Utrecht under Leusden, at London under Edmund Castell and Matthew Poole, and at Oxford under Pocock. On his return to Germany in 1671, he failed as a candidate for the place of assessor of the faculty of philosophy at Kiel; but was more successful the following year at Jena, where he took his degrees in philosophy, and taught the Oriental languages. In 1675 he was invited to Kiel to be Greek professor, on the recommendation of Wasmuth, his old master; whom, in 1678, he succeeded in the chair of Oriental languages, and held with it his Greek professor Memoirs by Mrs. Opie and others, prefixed to his Lectures.-Rees's Cyclopædia.-Pilkington, by Fuseli. ship until 1683, when he resigned the latter to Daniel Hasenmuller. In 1689 he took his degree of doctor, and became at the same time professor of divinity; but his reputation rests chiefly on his skill in the Oriental languages; and this he might have enjoyed without diminution, had he not adopted the whimsical opinion of his master Wasmuth, and maintained the relationship between the Greek and the Oriental languages, and the connection which the dialects of the one have with those of the other. This chimerical scheme of subjecting the Greek to the rules of the Hebrew, he defended in a small work, entitled "Græcismus facilitati suæ restitutus, methodo novâ, eâque cum præceptis Hebraicis Wasmuthianis et suis Orientalibus, quam proxime harmonica, adeoque regulis 34 succinctè absolutus," Kiel, 1676, 8vo. This was twice reprinted, but raised him many enemies, not only on account of the scheme itself, but of his extravagant praise of Wasmuth, at the expence of Buxtorf, and other eminent scholars. Opitius's last preferment was that of ecclesiastic counsellor to the court of Holstein. He died January 24, 1712, in his seventieth year. He was unquestionably one of the ablest and most industrious Oriental scholars of his time, as an enumeration of his works will show: 1. "Atrium Linguæ Sancta:," Hamburgh, 1671, 4to. 2. "Disputatio de Davidis et Salomonis Satellitio, Crethi et Plethi, ex libris Samuelis et Regum," Jena, 1672, 4to. 3. "Synopsis Linguæ Chaldaicæ," ibid. 1674, 4to. 4." Atrium Accentuationis S. Scripturæ Veteris Test. Hebraicæ," ibid. 1674, 4to. 5. "Disputatio de usu Accentuationis geminæ in gemina divisione Decalogi," Kiel, 1677, 4to. Opitius, it must be observed, was a supporter of the antiquity and authority of the Hebrew accents. 6. "Syriasmus facilitati et integritati suæ restitutus," &c. Leipsic, 1678, 4to. 7. "Chaldaismus Targumico-Rabbinicus," &c. Kiel, 1682, 4to. 8. "Novum Lexicon Hebræo-Chaldæo-Biblicum,' Leipsic, 1692, 4to. 9. "Biblia parva Hebræo-Latina," Hamburgh, 1673, 12mo. 10. "Biblia Hebraica," Kiel, 1709, 4to. This edition had engaged his attention, more or less, for almost thirty years. Opitius published also some dissertations on subjects of divinity and Oriental criticism, of less note than the above, and it is no inconsiderable proof of the esteem in which he was held, that all the works we have enumerated went through several editions.' 1 Chaufepie. OPITS (MARTIN), in Latin Opitius, reckoned the father of German poetry, was born at Bunzlau, in Silesia, 1597. His parents had but a moderate fortune; but his father, observing his genius, educated him carefully in grammar, in which he soon made great proficiency: and, after some time, went to Breslaw for farther improvement, and thence to Francfort upon the Oder. in that university, and then removed to Heidelberg, where He spent a year he studied with remarkable assiduity: but the fame of the celebrated Bernegger drew him, after some time, to Strasbourg; and Bernegger was so struck with the learning and wit of Opits, that he pronounced he would one day become the Virgil of Germany. At length he returned, by the way of Tubingen, to Heidelberg; but, the plague beginning to appear in the Palatinate, this, together with the troubles in Bohemia, disposed our student to travel with a Danish gentleman into the Low Countries; and thence he went to Holstein, where he wrote his books of "Constancy." As soon as the troubles of Bohemia were a little calmed, he returned to his own country; and, that he might not live in obscurity, he frequented the court. Bethlem Gabor, prince of Transilvania, having founded a school at Weissenberg, Opits was recommended by Gaspar Conrade, a famous physician and poet at Breslaw, to that prince, who appointed him the school-master or professor; and there he read lectures upon Horace and Seneca. During his residence in Transilvania, he inquired into the original of the Daci, and the Roman antiquities there. He made also exact researches after the ancient Roman inscriptions, which he sometimes recovered, and sent them to Gruter, Grotius, and Bernegger. Some time after his return home, he was meditating a journey to France, when a burgrave, who was in the emperor's service, made him his secretary, in which office he contrived to keep up a regular correspondence with Grotius, Heinsius, Salmasius, Rigaltius, and other learned men; and his employer having not only consented to, but furnished him with all the necessaries for his journey to France, he became intimate with Grotius, who then resided at Paris, and in this journey also he collected a good number of manuscripts and curious medals. Upon the death of his patron the burgrave, he entered into the service of the count of Lignitz, and continued there some time; but at last, resolving to retire, he chose for his residence the town of Dantzic, where he finished his work of the ancient "Daci," and died of the plague, 1639. He wrote many other pieces besides the abovementioned, the titles of some of which are, "Sylvarum libri duo;" "Epigrammatum liber unus;" "Vesuvius, Poëma Germanicum;" "Barclay's Argenis," translated into German verse; a German translation of "Grotius de Veritate," &c.; "Opera poëtica;" "Prosodia Germanica;" "The Psalms of David," translated into German verse. His poems, in correctness and elegance of versification, were so much superior to those of his predecessors, as to obtain for him the title of father of German poetry, but it does not appear that his example was for some time followed.' OPORINUS (JOHN), a famous German printer, was born at Basil, Jan. 25, 1507. His father, John Herbst, was a painter; who had been deserted by his father for attachment to his art, and had settled at Basil in very indifferent circumstances. He contrived, however, to give his son some education at home, and afterwards sent him to Strasbourg, where he received the provision allotted to poor students. Here he studied Latin and Greek, and spoke and wrote the former with purity and fluency. With these accomplishments he would have returned home, but having no prospect of employment there, he went to the abbey of St. Urban, in the Canton of Lucerne, and was appointed master of the school. In this house, he formed an intimacy with the canon Xylotectus, who afterwards. quitted his preferment, became a protestant, and married. Oporinus, also disliking a monastic life, followed his friend to Basil, and gained a livelihood by transcribing the works of the Greek authors published by Frobenius. On the death of his friend Xylotectus, he married his widow in 1527, a woman of a capricious temper, who rendered his life very uneasy. He had been for some time appointed schoolmaster here, but exchanged an employment of much drudgery and little reward for the study of medicine, which he hoped would be more profitable. The noted Paracelsus was at this time at Basil, and engaged to teach him all the secrets of his art within the space of a year. Oporinus, rejoiced at the prospect of becoming as wise as his master, willingly submitted to be his pupil, his servant, his ama ! Moreri.-Dict. Hist. nuensis, and bore with all his eccentricities with great patience, accompanying him even to Alsace, until finding that he was egregiously duped by this quack, he returned to Basil, to encounter another disappointment. His wife died, from whom he expected great riches, but she left him only debts. About this time Grynæus, the Greek professor at Basil, and an intimate friend of Oporinus, procured him to be appointed one of the professors, and he gave a course of lectures on the lives of Plutarch; but, the governors of that republic obliging all the professors in their university to take the degree of M. A. Oporinus, who was then past thirty, refused to submit to the usual examination, resigned bis office, and took up the trade of a printer. In this business he joined in partnership with Robert Winter, and changed his family name of Herbst, according to the humour of several learned men at that time, for Oporinus, a Greek word, signifying Autumn; as Winter also, for the same reason, took that of Chimerinus *. The partners, however, met with considerable losses; so that Winter died insolvent; and Oporinus was not able to support himself without the assistance of his friends, in which condition he died July 6, 1568. He had six presses constantly at work, usually employed above fifty men, and published no book which he had not corrected himself. Notwithstanding his great business, he died above 1500 livres in debt. As Oporinus understood manuscripts very well, he took care to print none but the best. He left some works of his own, as, "Notæ in Plutarchum ;" "Polyhistoris scholia in priora aliqua capita Solini ;" "Darii Tiberti epitome Vitarum Plutarchi ab innumeris mendis repurgata;" "Scholia in Ciceronis Tusculanas quæstiones;" "Annotationes ex diversis doctorum lucubrationibus collectæ in Demosthenis orationes;" "Propriorum nominum Onomasticon." He also made notes to some authors, and large tables of contents, to others; as Plato, Aristotle, Pliny, &c. and several letters of his may be seen in a collection of letters printed at Utrecht in 1697. An account of his life was *Those names were apparently assumed, to humour the two following lines in Martial's Ep. IX. xiii. 1. "Si daret Autumnus mihi nomen, gives essem: |