Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rousseau, Samuel
ROUSSEAU, SAMUEL (1763–1820), printer and orientalist, born in London in 1763, was the eldest son of Philip Rousseau, at one time a fellow-workman with John Nichols at Bowyer's press. At the end of his life Philip was a Bowyer annuitant of the Company of Stationers (Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, iii. 288). He was a cousin of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who refers to him as being ‘connu pour bon parent et pour honnête homme’ (Correspondance, 1826, iii. 317). Samuel Rousseau served his apprenticeship in Nichols's printing office, and taught himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic, as well as several modern languages. A few years after the expiration of his apprenticeship he started a printing office in Leather Lane, Holborn, and afterwards removed to the ‘Arabic and Persian Press,’ Wood Street, Spa Fields, where most of his oriental books were printed. For a short time he was master of Joy's charity school in Blackfriars. He taught Persian. As a printer he was unsuccessful, and towards the end of his life did literary hack-work for the booksellers. Rousseau died in Ray Street, Clerkenwell, on 4 Dec. 1820, aged 57.
His chief publications were: 1. ‘The Flowers of Persian Literature, containing extracts from the most celebrated authors,’ London, 1801, 4to. 2. ‘Dictionary of Mohammedan Law, Bengal Revenue Terms, Shanscrit, Hindoo, and other Words used in the East Indies,’ 1802, 8vo. 3. ‘Vocabulary of the Persian Language,’ 1802, 8vo; issued in 1803 with a new title-page, ‘of use to those who cannot obtain the larger work of Richardson’ (see A. Clarke, Bibl. Misc. i. 283). 4. ‘The Book of Knowledge or Grammar of the Persian,’ 1805, 4to (‘contains a great variety of useful information,’ Clarke, i. 281). 5. ‘Punctuation, or an Attempt to facilitate the Art of Pointing,’ 1813, sm. 8vo; said to be taken without acknowledgment from Robertson's work on the same subject (see Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 301). 6. ‘Essay on Punctuation,’ 1815, sm. 8vo. 7. ‘Principles of Punctuation,’ 1818, 8vo. 8. ‘Principles of Elocution,’ 1819, 8vo.
[Nichols's Illustr. Lit. Hist. 1858, viii. 494–495; Gent. Mag. 1820, ii. 569.]