cognate languages which distinguished the university of Halle in the period of Pietism. Johann Heinrich Michaelis (1668–1738) was the chief director of A. H. Francke’s Collegium orientale theologicum, a practical school of biblical and oriental philology then quite unique, and the author of an annotated Hebrew Bible and various exegetical works of reputation, especially the Adnotationes uberiores in hagiographos (1720). In his chief publications J. H. Michaelis had as fellow-worker his sister’s son Christian Benedikt Michaelis (1680–1764), the father of Johann David, who was likewise influential as professor at Halle, and a sound scholar, especially in Syriac. J. D. Michaelis was trained for academical life under his father’s eye. At Halle he was influenced, especially in philosophy, by Sigmund J. Baumgarten (1706–1757), the link between the old Pietism and J. S. Semler, while he cultivated his strong taste for history under Chancellor Ludwig. In 1739–1740 he qualified as university lecturer. One of his dissertations was a defence of the antiquity and divine authority of the vowel-points in Hebrew., His scholarship still moved in the old traditional lines, and he was also much exercised by religious scruples, the conflict of an independent mind with that submission to authority at the expense of reason encouraged by the Lutheranism in which he had been trained. A visit to England in 1741–1742 lifted him out of the narrow groove of his earlier education. In passing through Holland he made the acquaintance of Albert Schultens (1686–1750), whose influence on his philological views became all powerful a few years later. At Halle Michaelis felt himself out of place, and in 1745 he gladly accepted an invitation to Göttingen as privatdozent. In 1746 he became professor extraordinarius, in 1750 ordinarius, and in Göttingen he remained till his death in 1791.
His intellect was active in many directions; universal learning indeed was perhaps one of his foibles. Literature—modern as well as ancient—occupied his attention; one of his works was a translation of four parts of Clarissa; and translations of some of the then current English paraphrases on biblical books manifested his sympathy with a school which, if not very learned, attracted him by its freer air. His oriental studies were reshaped by diligent perusal of the works of Schultens; for the Halle school, with all its learning, had no conception of the principles on which a fruitful connexion between Biblical and Oriental learning could be established. His linguistic work indeed was always hampered by the lack of manuscript material, which is felt in his philological writings, e.g. in his valuable Supplementa to the Hebrew lexicons (1784–1792).[1] He could not become such an Arabist as J. J. Reiske (1716–1774); and, though for many years the most famous teacher of Semitic languages in Europe, he had little of the higher philological faculty, and neither his grammatical nor his critical work has left a permanent mark, with the exception perhaps of his text-critical studies on the Peshitta.[2] His tastes were all for such studies as history, antiquities, and especially geography and natural science. He had in fact started his university course as a medicinae cultor, and in his autobiography he half regrets that he did not choose the medical profession. In geography he found a field hardly touched since Samuel Bochart, in whose footsteps he followed in the Spicilegium geographiae hebraeorum exterae post Bochartum (1769–1780); and to his impulse we owe the famous Eastern expedition conducted by Carsten Niebuhr. In spite of his doctrinal writings—which at the time made no little noise, so that his Compendium of Dogmatic (1760) was confiscated in Sweden, and the knighthood of the North Star was afterwards given him in reparation—it was the natural side of the Bible that really attracted him, and no man did more to introduce the modern method of studying Hebrew antiquity as an integral part of ancient Eastern life.
The personal character of Michaelis can be read between the lines of his autobiography with the aid of the other materials collected by J. M. Hassencamp (1743–1797) the editor (J. D. Michaelis Lebensbeschreibung, &c., 1793). The same volume contains a full list of his works. Besides those already mentioned it is sufficient to refer to his New Testament Introduction (the first edition, 1750, preceded the full development of his powers, and is a very different book from the later editions), his reprint of Robert Lowth’s Praelectiones with important additions (1758–1762), his German translation of the Bible with notes (1773–1792), his Orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek (1775–1785) and Neue O. and E. Bib. (1786–1791), his Mosaisches Recht (1770–1771) and his edition of E. Castle’s Lexicon syriacum (1787–1788). His Litterarischer Briefwechsel (1794–1796) contains much that is interesting for the history of learning in his time.
MICHAUD, JOSEPH FRANÇOIS (1767–1839), French historian and publicist, was born of an old family on the 19th of June 1767, at Albens, Savoy, was educated at Bourg-en-Bresse, and afterwards engaged in literary work at Lyons, where the events of 1789 first called out the strong dislike to revolutionary principles which manifested itself throughout the rest of his life. In 1791 he went to Paris, where, not without danger, he took part in editing several royalist journals. In 1796 he became editor of La Quotidienne, for his connexion with which he was arrested after the 13th of Vendérniaire; he succeeded in escaping his captors, but was sentenced to death par contumace by the military council. Having resumed the editorship of his newspaper on the establishment of the Directory, he was again proscribed on the 18th of Fructidor, but at the close of two years returned to Paris when the consulate had superseded the Directory. His Bourbon sympathies led to a brief imprisonment in 1800, and on his release he for the time abandoned journalism, and began to write or edit books. Along with his brother and two colleagues he published in 1806 a Biographie moderne, ou dictionnaire des hommes qui se sont fait un nom en Europe depuis 1789, the earliest work of its kind; and in 1811 appeared the first volume of his Histoire des croisades and also the first volume of his Biographie universelle. In 1814 he resumed the editorship of La Quotidienne, and in the same year was elected Academician. In 1815 his brochure entitled Histoire des quinze semaines ou le dernier règne de Bonaparte met with extraordinary success, passing through twenty seven editions within a very short time. His political services were now rewarded with the cross of an officer in the Legion of Honour and the modest post of king’s reader, of which last he was deprived in 1827 for having opposed Peyronnet’s “Loi d’Amour” against the freedom of the Press. In 1830–1831 he travelled in Syria and Egypt for the purpose of collecting additional materials for the Histoire des croisades; his correspondence with a fellow explorer, J. J. F . Poujoulat, consisting practically of discussions and elucidations of various points in that work, was afterwards published (Correspondance d’orient, 7 vols., 1833–1835). Like the Histoire, it is more interesting than exact. The Bibliothèque des croisades, in four volumes more, contained the “Pièces justificatives” of the Histoire. Michaud died on the 30th of September 1839, at Passy, where his home had been since 1832.
His Histoire des croisades was published in its final form in six volumes in 1840 under the editorship of his friend Poujoulat (9th ed., with appendix, by Huillard-Bréholles, 1856). Michaud, along with Poujoulat, also edited Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France (32 vols., 1836–1844). See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. vii.
MICHAUX, ANDRÉ (1746–1802), French botanist and traveller, was born at Versailles on the 7th of March 1746. In 1779 he spent some time botanizing in England, and in 1780 he explored Auvergne, the Pyrénées and the north of Spain. In 1782 he was sent by the French government on a botanical mission to Persia. His journey began unfavourably, as he was robbed by Arabs of all his equipment except his books; but he gained influential support in Persia, having cured the shah of a dangerous illness. After two years he returned to France with a fine herbarium, and also introduced numerous Eastern plants into the botanic gardens of France. In 1785 he was sent by the French government to North America, and travelled with his son François André (1770–1855) through Canada,
