8vo. [1], 56 pp., [1 errata], Latin text with some use of Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Syriac types, modern cloth, contents generally clean, light foxing to title page, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary stamp on title, accession number on next leaf, previous owner’s inscription at top of title page, E Theatro Sheldoniano for Richard Clements, Oxford, 1739.

Synopsis

This is the first edition of Hunt’s inaugural lecture as Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, on the virtues of Arabic and values of studying it. Hunt studied at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and was chaplain to Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield. In 1738, he became the fourth Laudian Professor of Arabic, as well as becoming Lord Almoner’s Professor of Arabic in 1740 (the year in which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society) and Regius Professor of Hebrew in 1747 at the University of Oxford.
“The value of Arabic science became a commonplace of Western scholars in the seventeenth century. The discourse of Professor Hunt in this work deals at some length with Arabic writers on medicine, science and mathematics. Yet nothing much came of all this, and in conclusion one may perhaps speculate on the reason for the comparative neglect of this part of the Arabian heritage. Indeed for all their respectful references to the works of Arabian physicians and scientists, the Arabists at English universities were not greatly interested in them. They themselves were all primarily clergymen by training and vocation, and valued Arabic above all ancillary to the study of Hebrew and the Bible”. (G. A. Russell “The “Arabick” Interest of the Natural Philosophers in the Seventeenth Century”. p. 27).
Schnurrer 12. OCLC 27855095.