XIV PREFACE. 



Professor of the College of France has 

 raised to himself a name no less celebrated 

 as the author of the Histoire des Langues 

 Semitiques, than his rival did by his pub- 

 lication of the Ssabier und der Ssabismus. 

 Bom in Brittany in 1823, he was educated 

 for holy orders, and all his impulses are 

 essentially the results of that education, 

 though very early he found that he could 

 not pursue his studies for the priesthood 

 with a clear conscience. Since the age of 

 twenty-four, when in 1847 he gained the 

 Volney prize for his essay on the Shemitic 

 languages, he has devoted himself to letters, 

 and ranks as one of the greatest French 

 writers now living. Under the present 

 Emperor of the French he has been em- 

 ployed to carry out researches in Phoenicia, 

 and is at this moment engaged in preparing 

 for press a great work on Phoenician An- 



