JOHN DAVID, a celebrated biblical critic, and author of many esteemed works, was the eldest son of Dr Christian Benedict Michaelis, professor in the university of Halle, in Lower Saxony, and was born at that place on the 27th of February 1717. His father devoted him at an early age to an academical life; and with that view he received the first part of his education in a celebrated Prussian seminary called the Orphan-house, at Glanche, in the neighbourhood of his native place. He commenced his academical career at Halle in 1733, and took his master's degree in the faculty of philosophy in 1739. In 1741 he made an excursion to this country, where his superior knowledge of the oriental languages, which was considerably increased by his indefatigable researches in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, introduced him to the acquaintance, and gained him the esteem, of our first literary characters, with several of whom, particularly Bishop Lowth, he afterwards corresponded for many years. On his return to Halle, after an absence of fifteen months, he began to read lectures on the historical books of the Old Testament, which he continued after his removal to Göttingen in 1745. In 1746 he was appointed professor extraordinary, and soon afterwards professor of philosophy, in that university. The next year he obtained the place of secretary to the Royal Society there, of which he was director in 1761, and he was soon afterwards made aulic counsellor by the court of Hanover. In 1764 his distinguished talents, and a publication relative to a journey to Arabia, which was undertaken by several literary men at the expense of the king of Denmark, in consequence of his application through Count Bernstorff, procured him the honour of being chosen a corresponding, and afterwards a foreign, member of the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris, of which class the institution admitted only eight; and in the same year he became a member of the society of Haerlem. In 1775 Count Hopkin, who, eighteen years before, had prohibited the use of his writings at Upsal, when he was chancellor of that university, prevailed upon the king of Sweden to confer upon him the order of the Polar Star, as a national compensation. In 1786 he was raised to the distinguished rank of privy counsellor of justice by the court of Hanover; and in 1788 he received his last literary honour, by being unanimously elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. His great critical knowledge of the Hebrew language, which he displayed in a new translation of the Bible, and in other works, raised him to a degree of eminence almost unknown before in Germany; and his indefatigable labours were only equalled by his desire of communicating the knowledge he had acquired to the numerous students of all countries who frequented his admirable lectures, which he continued to deliver, in half-yearly courses, on various parts of the sacred writings, and on the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac languages, to the last year of his life. He was forty-five years professor in the university of Göttingen, and during that long period he filled the chair with dignity, credit, and usefulness. He died on the 22d of October 1791, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.