Lobo, Jerome

, a Jesuit missionary, born at Lisbon in 15y3, entered among the Jesuits in his sixteenth year, and in 1622 he went out as one of their missionaries to the East Indies. He was at Goa when the reigning emperor of Abyssinia became a convert to the church of Rome, and many of his subjects followed his example. The missionaries already | in the country being desirous of coadjutors to extend their religion, Lobo was deputed to go to Abyssinia, where he resided some years, subject to much danger and many hardships and sufferings; and on his return he was ship, wrecked, and narrowly escaped destruction. He afterwards promoted the interest of the Abyssinian mission at Madrid and Rome; and, notwithstanding his former dangers and hardships, took a second voyage to the Indies. He returned to Lisbon in 1658, and was made rector of the college of Coimbra, where he died in 1678, at the age of eighty-four. He was author of “An Historical Account of Abyssinia,” containing much curious and valuable information, which was translated from the Portuguese language into the French by the abbé le Grand, with additions. An abridgment of this, in 1735, constituted the first publication of Dr. Samuel Johnson. 1

1

Moreri. Dr. Johnson’s Life by Sir John Hawkins, and Boswell.