Kirchman, John

, a learned German, was born in 1575, at Lubeck, where his father was a merchant. He studied in his native place till he was eighteen years of age, and then went to Francfort on the Oder, where he continued four years, in a constant attendance upon lectures, and close application to his books. He afterwards studied in the university of Jena, and then in that of Strasburg; and some time after, a burgo-master of Luneburg, who had received a great character of him, chose him to accompany his son as trasrelling tutor, into France and Italy. He returned to Germany in 1602; and, stopping at Rostock, acquired so much reputation, that the next year he was appointed professor of poetry. The work which he published in 1604, “De funeribus Romanorum,” added not a little to his fame. He afterwards | published another work, “De annulis,” which was also much esteemed, as a correct illustration of those antiquities. He was much employed in education, and a great many scholars were sent to him from the other cities of Germany. At length the magistrates of Lubeck, wanting a new principal or rector for their college, desired him to take that office upon him; and he was accordingly installed into it in 1613. He performed the functions of it the remainder of his days with the greatest care, and it is unjustly that some have attributed the decline of the college, which happened in his time, to his negligence. He died, March 20, 1643; and the 4th of May, his funeral oration was pronounced at Lubeck, by James Stolterfhot, who had married his eldest daughter.

The two works already mentioned, are his principal performances, yet he was the author of other things; of treatises upon logic and rhetoric, and funeral orations. He published also in Latin, “The horoscope of the first-born son of the most illustrious prince, Adolphus Frederic, duke of Mecklenburg,” 1624, 4to, in which he shows a good deal of superstition. ¹