SCHHEFFER, JEAN, a learned antiquary, was born at Strasburg in 1621, of an ancient family, descended in a direct line, according to some, from Peter Scheffer, one of the inventors of the art of printing. (See PRINTING.) He made great progress in languages and in history; and at an early age he published, in 1643, a work of very great learning, De Varietate Navium apud Veteres. Meanwhile his native district of Alsace was frequently exposed to the license attendant on war, and Scheffer, anxious for a learned retirement, betook himself to Sweden, where Queen Christina took him by the hand, and obtained for him, in 1648, the chair of eloquence and of public law in the University of Upsala. Here he worked with surprising diligence till his death on the 26th of March 1679, at the age of fifty-eight.
Besides editing Elian's Varia Historia, Phædrus, Arrian's Tactica, a newly discovered fragment of Petronius, Aphthonius, Hyginus, Justin, Julius Obsequens, and others, he likewise wrote numerous theses, harangues, eloges, and
Scheid
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Schélestadt.
opuscula, besides seventeen distinct treatises which will be found in the 39th vol. of Nicéron and in the Biographie Universelle. His Lapponia, or History of Lapland, Frankfurt, 1673, has been translated into German, French, and English, Oxford, 1674. A Memoir of Scheffer, by Eric Michael Fant, professor of history at Stockholm, was honoured with the prize, in 1781, of the Society of Education of Upsala.