VOSSIUS, Gerard John, a writer of great and variegated erudition, was born near Heidelberg in the year 1577. His father, John Voss, and his mother, Cornelie de Bie, were both natives of Roermund, a town in the Netherlands. Having embraced the doctrines of the Reformation, he emigrated to the Palatinate, where he studied divinity, and in 1575 became a minister in the vicinity of Heidelberg; but on refusing to adopt the Lutheran creed on the subject of the eucharist, he found it advisable to revisit his own country. Here he successively discharged the duties of a pastor in different places. His wife died at Dordrecht in 1584. He afterwards married Anne de Witt, but scarcely survived for three months. His son, who was thus left an orphan, received his early education at Dordrecht, and at the age of eighteen, was sent to the university of Leyden, where he studied Greek under Vulcanius, mathematics under Snell, and other branches of learning under other able professors. At the age of twenty, he published a Latin panegyric on Maurice prince of Nassau. After having taken the degrees of master of arts, and doctor of philosophy, he applied himself to the study of divinity and the Hebrew language under Gomarus and Trelcatius. From his father he inherited a library well stored with books of divinity and ecclesiastical history; and at an early period of his life, he acquired a very extensive knowledge in both departments.

At the age of twenty-two, he was appointed director of the College of Dordrecht. In 1602 he married Elizabeth Corput, the daughter of a minister. After bearing three children, she died on the 6th of February 1607; and on the 18th of August ensuing, he married Elizabeth du Jon, the daughter of an eminent theologian, better known by his Latinized name of Junius. By this second marriage, he had five sons and two daughters, but he had the misfortune to survive all his children except one son. In 1614 he was appointed director of the Theological College established at Leyden; but in 1618, he relinquished this office for the professorship of eloquence and of chronology. Vossius, whose sentiments were moderate and peaceful, was anxious to shun the theological suite which at that time agitated the Dutch republic. But his Historia Pelagiana, published in 1618, involved him in some trials and difficulties. In that elaborate work, he discussed the doctrine of predestination and grace in a strain which the Calvinists considered as much too favourable to the tenets of Arminius. In 1620 the synod of Tergou deprived him of his professorship; but another synod, held at Rotterdam in the following year, permitted him to be reinstated, under the condition of his retracting the errors contained in his history, and promising neither to do nor say any thing in opposition to the decrees of the synod of Dordrecht. These he doubtless considered as very hard terras, and for some years he declined to comply with them. In the mean time he was prohibited from teaching either in public or in private; and in one of his letters, he estimates his pecuniary loss at six thousand livres a-year. In 1624 he made such concessions or explanations as led to his reinstatement.

What exposed him to persecution at home, recommended him to favour abroad. Archbishop Laud, a very zealous patron of Arminianism, was so highly satisfied with his work, that he procured him a prebend at Canterbury, which he was permitted to hold as a mere sinecure. He proceeded to England in 1629, and was installed. On paying a visit to Oxford, he was created LL. D. Here he discovered and encouraged the talents of Dr Pocock, who became so eminent as an orientalist. A college or Athenaeum having been founded at Amsterdam, Vossius was appointed professor of history in the year 1633. Here he continued his learned labours till the time of his death, and produced a variety of works, distinguished by the extent and solidity of their erudition. He died on the 19th of March 1649, at the age of seventy-two.

He was highly esteemed by his contemporaries for his moral worth, as well as for his talents and learning. He was not only an able grammarian and critic, but was likewise skilled in history and theology. He has written treatises on history, poetry, rhetoric, logic, and the mathematical sciences. His work entitled “Aristarchus, sive de Arte Grammatica,” is not only very elaborate, but likewise very able and judicious. An edition of it is now printing at Halle under the superintendence of Förtsch. In this department, we must not overlook his “Etymologico Linguae Latinae,”
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and his work “De Vitiis Sermonis.” His “Institutiones Oratoriae,” are also very elaborate. His “Ars Historica,” and his treatises “De Historicis Graecis,” and “De Historicis Latinis,” are valuable specimens of his labours as a professor of history; and the last of them is still held in much estimation. In the nine books “De Idololatria,” he displays the same unlimited research that characterises all his larger works. Of his theological learning he has exhibited no mean specimen in his “Historiae de Controversiis quas Pelagius ejusque Reliquiae moverunt, libri septem.” Of the entire works of Vossius, a great treasure of erudition, a complete collection was published at Amsterdam in 1701, in six volumes folio.

Vossius had five sons, who were all known by their literary productions. Their names were Dionysius, Francis, Gerard, Matthew, and Isaac. The last was the only one who survived him.

Vossius , Isaac, the son of this learned and estimable man, was born at Leyden in the year 1618. He was trained under the domestic superintendence of his father, and became one of the most learned men of his own age. In 1639, when he had only reached his twenty-first year, he distinguished himself by an edition of the Periplus of Scylax. In 1642 he made a journey to Italy, and visited Rome. He became one of the literary correspondents of the queen of Sweden, and, like some other scholars of eminence, was invited to her court. It appears from his letters, that he was at Stockholm in 1649, 1650, and 1651. His misunderstanding with Salmasius however exposed him to the queen’s displeasure; and in 1652, when he returned from Holland, accompanied by Bochart and Huet, he was not admitted to her presence. But she soon renewed her correspondence with Vossius, and saw him during her visit to Holland. On the death of his father, he was offered the professorship of history at Amsterdam; but he preferred a life of studious retirement, and he appears to have been sufficiently independent to follow the bent of his own inclination. In 1663 he received a handsome present from Louis the Fourteenth. In 1670 he came to England; and having visited Oxford during the same year, he was created LL. D., and, as Wood states, was “with great humanity and friendship entertained by some of the chief heads of houses, as his father had been before in 1629.” He had now acquired a high reputation; and in 1673 the king bestowed upon him a canonry of Windsor. Both he and his father must have held their preferments as lay-sinecures. He died in Windsor Castle on the 10th of February 1689, in the seventy-first year of his age. On his death-bed, he was visited by the dean of Windsor and one of the canons, who urged him, but in vain, to take the sacrament. “Dr Vossius, if you will not do it for the love of God, at least do it for the honour of the chapter.” This appeal was ineffectual; and to one of the dean’s pious admonitions, he replied, “I wish you would instruct me how to oblige the farmers to pay me what they owe me: that is what I would have you to do for me at present.” King Charles sometimes observed, that there was nothing which he refused to believe, except the Bible. Some of his works indeed display sufficient credulity. Of this we find abundant evidence in his “Variarum Observationum liber,” in which he avers that ancient Rome was twenty times as large as Paris and London together, and estimates its population at fourteen millions. Of the population of China, he has given an account still more extravagant. His judgment is on most occasions greatly inferior to his learning, and the spirit of paradox very seldom deserts him. In his usual strain, he wrote various tracts on the Septuagint, and was opposed by Father Simon and Dr Hody. On the age of the world he maintained with Hornius a controversy which involved the chronology of this version. Another curious work he published, “De Sibyllinis aliisque quae Christi natalem praecessere Oraculis.” Oxon. 1680, 8vo. This is the second edition. One of his most able and pleasing works is entitled “De Poematum Cantu, et Viribus Rythmi.” Oxon. 1683, 8vo. Among other ancient authors, he published editions of Catullus and Pomponius Mela, which, if he had produced no original work, would have been sufficient to recommend him to the notice of posterity as a man of uncommon erudition. (x.)