Abresch, Frederic Louis

, an eminent Greek scholar and commentator, was born at Hamburgh, Dec. 29, 1699. At the age of thirteen, he went to a village called Dabha-usen, or Taubhausen, near the town of Griefenstein, where there was then a French colony, to learn that language; and made so much progress within seven months, that it appeared to be his native tongue. On his return home, he studied Latin and Greek; and, as his father designed him for the church, he was sent, in 1717, to the college of Herborn, a small town in the principality of Nassau-Dillenbuvgh, where, for two years and a half, he went through a course of philosophy, and studied Hebrew and divinity. In 1720, he removed to the university of Utrecht, where the instructions of the celebrated Drakenburgh and Duker inspired him with a decided taste for ancient literature, and he gave up divinity. About the | end of 1723, when he had finished his studies at Utrecht, and wished to go through the same course at Leyden, he was appointed vice-director of the college of Middleburgh. In 1725, he was promoted to be rector ofthe same college; and, in 1741, he filled the same office in that of Zwol, in Over-yssel, where he remained until his death, in 1782.

At Middleburgh he became first known to the learned world by many valuable pieces of criticism on ancient authors, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Hesychius, Æschylus, &c. which he sent to a literary journal then printed at Amsterdam, under the title of “Miscellanea Observationes critics in auctores veteres et recentiores.” Some of these have his name appended, others are marked by an H. or H. L. or P. B. A. A. H., and the fictitious name of Petrobasilius. He published also separately some critical works in high estimation: 1. “Animadversionum ad Æschylum libri duo; accedunt annotationes ad qusedam loca Novi Testament!,” Middleburgh, 1743, 8vo. To this work is added a list of words in Æschylus which are not in Stephens’s Thesaurus. 2. “Aristaeneti Epistolae, Gr. cum notis,” Zwolle, 1749, 8vo, a most excellent edition, not only on account of the learned editor’s notes, but also for the emendations of Tollius, D’Orville, and Valckenaar. 3. With the assistance of J. J, Reiske, he published a “Supplement” to the preceding, Amsterdam, 1751, or 1752, 8vo. 4. “Dilucidationum Thucydidearum, pars prima,” Utrecht, 1753, 8vo; and the second part in 1755. In this are many valuable observations on other authors incidentally introduced; but the author has not been thought so happy in illustrations on the text of Thucydides. In 1763, he published a “Supplement” to this, and a continuation of his remarks on Æschyius. We also owe to Abresch a new and much improved edition of Cattier’s “Gazophyiacium Græcorum,” (which was first published at Paris in 1651) Utrecht, 1757, 8vo. ¹