, a barefoot carmelite of Toulouse, whose real name was La Brosse,
, a barefoot carmelite
of Toulouse, whose real name was La Brosse, lived a long
while in Persia in quality of apostolic missionary: the liberty he enjoyed in that country, gave him an opportunity
to acquire the language. He was also provincial of his
order in Languedoc, and died at Perpignan in 1697. The
knowledge he had acquired in the East, induced him to
undertake a Latin translation of the Persian Pharmacopoeia,
which appeared at Paris in 1681, 8vo. There is also by
him, “Gazophylacium linguee Persarum,
” Amst. Castigatio in
Angelum a St. Joseph, alias dictum de la Brosse.
” The
reason of this castigation was, that La Brosse had attacked
the Persian gospels in the English Polyglot, and the Latin
version of them by Dr. Samuel Clarke. Dr. Hyde immediately wrote a letter to him, in which he expostulated with
him, and pointed out his mistakes, but received no answer.
At length, in 1688, La Brosse came over to England, went
to Oxford, and procured an introduction to Dr. Hyde,
without letting him know who he was, although he afterwards owned his name to be La Buosse, and that he came
over to justify what he had advanced. After a short dispute, which he carried on in Latin, he began to speak the
Persian language, in which he was surprised to find Dr.
Hyde more fluent than himself. Finding, however, that
he could not defend what he had asserted, he took his leave
with a promise to return, and either defend it, or acknowledge his error; but, as he performed neither, Dr. Hyde
published the “Castigatio.
” Iti this he first states La
Brosse’s objections, then shews them to be weak and trifling,
and arising from his ignorance of the true idiom of the Persian tongue. As to his “Pharmacopoeia,
” Hyde proves
that it was really translated by father Mattmeu, whose
name La Brosse suppressed, and yet had not the courage
to place his own, unless in Persian characters, on the title.
This appears to have sunk his reputation very considerably
in France.