Arnaud, George D'

, a learned critic, was born at Franeker, Sept. 16, 1711, of a family who were French refugees. His father, Honort; d’Arnaud, was chosen, in 1728, pastor of the French church at Franeker, and was living in 1763. His son, the subject of this article, published, at the age of twelve, some very elegant and harmonious Greek and Latin poems, and went afterwards to study at the university of Franeker, under the celebrated Wesseling and Hemsterhuis. Encouraged by the latter, he publisaed in 1728, “Specimen Animad. criticarum ad aliquot scriptores Greecos, &c.” 8vo. Harling. The authors are, Anacreon, Callimachus, Æschylus, Herodotus, Xenophon, and the grammarian Hephestion. Two years after he produced another volume of criticisms, under the title of “Lectionum Grsecarum libriduo, &c.” 8vo, Hague, 1730, treating principally of Hesychius, Aratus, Theon, Appian, and Apollonius Rhodius. In 1732, appeared his learned dissertation, “De Diis adsessoribus et conjunctis,” 8vo, Hague. About the same time he went to Leyden to examine the library there for materials towards an edition of Sophocles, which he was preparing, but never completed. On his return to Franeker, his friend Hemsterhuis advised him to study law; his own inclination was to divinity, but a disorder in his chest rendered it improbable that he could have sustained the exertion of preaching. Abraham Weiling was his tutor in law studies, and under him he defended a thesis, Oct. 9, 1734, “De jure servorum apud Romanos,” and discovered so much talent and erudition, that in the month of June, next year, he was appointed law reader. In 1738, his “Variarum conjecturarum libri duo” were published at Franeker, 4to. They consist of disquisitions and questions on civil law. The second edition of 1744, Leu warden, contains his thesis above mentioned, and a second on a curious subject, “De iis qui prætii pariicipandi caussa semet venundari patiuntur.” In 1739, on Weiling’s leaving the university of Franeker for that of Leyden, d’Arnaud was appointed professor in his room, but died before he could take possession, June 1, 1740, scarcely twenty-nine years of age. Besides the works already enumerated, from the pen of this extraordinary young man, there are several lesser pieces by him in the 4th, 5th, and 6th vols. of the “Miscellaneæ Observat.” of Amsterdam; and he left in manuscript a | dissertation on the family of Scievola, “Vitæ Scævolarum,” which was published by H. J. Arntzenius, at Utrecht, 1767, 8vo. His funeral eulogium was pronounced by Hemsterhuis, and is in the collection entitled, “T. Hemsterhusii et Valckenarii Orationes,” Leyden, 1784, 8vo. ¹