Hoffman, John James

, professor of Greek at Bale, was born in that city in 1635, and died there in 1706. Little besides is known of his history. His great work, the “Lexicon Universale Historico-Geographico-Poetico-Philosophico-Politico-Philologicnm,” was first published at Geneva, in 1677, in two volumes, folio. This being received by the learned with great avidity, he published, a few years after, a Supplement; which was also rapidly sold off. In 1698, some of the principal booksellers at Leyden, encouraged by this success of the work, and having received from the author all his subsequent collections, and many other additions from various learned men, digested the whole, with the Supplement, into one alphabet, and published it in four volumes, folio. In this form it is now known as a most useful book of reference, and finds a place in every learned library. For this edition the author wrote a new preface. He also published a “History | of the Popes” in Latin, 1687, 2 vols. and “Historia Augusta,” 1687, fol. ¹