ADRIAN, an eminent orientalist, born at Ryp in North Holland in 1676, where he evinced early an extraordinary degree of talent for literature and science. He studied under Surenhusius for three years, where he made extraordinary progress in oriental languages and literature. He was elevated to the chair of philosophy at Hardwick before he had completed his twenty-fifth year. He subsequently exchanged his philosophical professorship for that of oriental languages and ecclesiastical antiquities at Utrecht. He died of small-pox on the 5th of February 1718, in his forty-second year.

The principal works of Reland are—Palestinae et Moabitis veteris illustrata, 2 vols., Traject, 1714,—unquestionably his greatest work, and still spoken of with great respect by the best writers on the subject; Dissertationes quaedam de Namiae Veterum Hebromorum, 1709; Dissertationum Miscellaneorum, 4 vols., 1706-1708; De Religione Mohammedica, Ultraj. 1705; De Spoliis Templi Hierosolymitani in Arcu Titiano Romae complectis, Traject. 1716. The remaining works of Reland were chiefly Latin poems and orations.