his pen, with considerable learning and ingenuity, in defence of them. By the closeness of his application, however, he shortened his days, and died at Paris in 1696, in the fifty-third year of his age. He had been admitted to the degree of bachelor in the Faculty of Theology. He wrote a variety of "Dissertations," "Criticisms," "Answers to Criticisms," "Letters,' &c. which appeared at different periods from 1673 to 1693, and form together a collection in six volumes twelves. The title of each piece is given in Moreri. The design of the whole is to exhibit the history, and to illustrate and defend the principles, of the ancient academic philosophers. Much praise is bestowed upon the author by different writers. Baillet, in his Life of Descartes, gives him the title of "Restorer of the Academic Philosophy." And Menage, in his Menagiana, speaks in high terms of his History. The editors of that work have added, that it was a frequent observation of the author, that M. Foucher and M. Huet were better acquainted with the different sects of philosophers, than any of their contemporaries. M. Foucher was also the author of " A Treatise on the Wisdom of the Ancients," 12mo. 1682, intended to shew that the principal maxims of their morality are not contrary to the principles enforced by the christian code; a "Letter concerning the Morality of Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher," 8vo. 1688; "A Treatise on Hygrometers, or Instruments for ascertaining the Dryness and Humidity of the Air," 12mo. 1686, &c. Moreri.-M. FOUCQUET, NICHOLAS, marquis of Belleisle, a celebrated superintendant of the French finances in the minority of Lewis XIV. was the son of Francis Foucquet, viscount de Vaux, and a counsellor of state. He was born in 1615, and early brought forwards in the departments of law. At the age of thirty-five he was created procureur-general of the parliament of Paris. The cardinal Mazarin made him superintendant of the finances in 1653, at a time when they were much disordered by civil and foreign wars, and still more by the insatiable cupidity of the cardinal himself, who demanded from the treasury an annual sum of twenty, three millions of livres for secret services, and bought up at a low price the old debts of the state, which he caused to be paid at full value. Foucquet participated largely in the public plunder, and few financiers have displayed more magnificent profusion. He is said to have expended eighteen millions of livres upon his seat of Vaux, where he gave entertainments in a style of royal splendor. He was extremely munificent towards the men of letters, and acquired many friends who remained attached to him even after his disgrace. It was to be expected that so high a fortune would be attended with much envy, and that the means he was obliged to employ for supporting the public credit would cause him many enemies. The cardinal did not love him, though he found it necessary to keep measures with him. He gave his chief confidence, however, to Colbert, whom he recommended to the king at the expence of Foucquet. The storm which had been long gathering, fell upon the head of the superintendant after the death of Mazarin in 1661. The king, whom he had offended by his attempts to gain the heart of Mad. de la Valiere, and by his ostentatious magnificence, was led to believe that he had a design of making himself duke of Brittany and the adjacent isles, and maintaining himself in independence with the aid of the English and other foreigners. Foucquet was artfully induced to resign his place of procureurgeneral, that the parliament might not interfere in his favour; and was then lulled into a state of security, till he was arrested at Nantes in September, 1661. He was committed to custody, and a commission was appointed to try him upon various criminal charges. He defended himself so well, that it was three years before sentence was pronounced. He was then condemned to banishment, which the king. commuted for perpetual imprisonment; and he passed all the remainder of his life in the citadel of Pignerol. Of the crowds to whom he had. been a liberal benefactor, scarcely any remained. faithful to him except some of his literary pensioners. Of these were mademoiselle de Scuderi, La Fontaine, and Pelisson, the latter of whom defended him in several eloquent me-moirs. Foucquet made an equal return of gratitude; for, being informed that Pelisson's pension was withdrawn on this account, he retrenched from his own expences a sum adequateto the amount, and remitted it to him by the hands of mademoiselle de Scuderi. He bore his change of fortune with firmness, and employed his prison-hours in the composition of various works of piety. various works of piety. He died in 1680. Moreri. Siècle de Louis XIV. Nouv. Dict.. Hist. Vies des Surintendans.—A. FOUILLON, JAMES, a French catholic divine, and voluminous writer in the jansenist connection, was born at Rochelle, about the year 1670. year 1670. He received his classical education. at the college of the Jesuits, who, observing his rapid proficiency, and the marks of genius. and penetration which he discovered, were 1 very desirous of having him entered a novice in their society. They were not gratified, however, in their wish; for he was sent to Paris in the year 1688, and placed in the college of St. Barbe, where he went through his courses of philosophy and theology with distinguished reputation. He was afterwards chosen to direct the theological studies of M. l'Abbé de la Vicuville, in the seminary of St. Magloire, where he continued after the term of his engagement expired, and entered into a close intimacy with many of the learned men who bore a conspicuous part in the jansenist controversy. He had not long entered into orders, before he was nominated to a prebend in the cathedral church of Rochelle; but he declined that appointment, and never afterwards obtained any other benefice than the commendatory priory of St. Martin de Pruniers, in the diocese of Mende. The part which he took relative to the celebrated Case of Conscience, obliged him in the year 1703 to withdraw into concealment, though he did not quit Paris. In this situation he continued for about two years, when he judged it expedient to consult his safety more effectually by taking refuge in Holland. About the year 1720, or 1721, finding his health much affected by the air of that country, which brought on him an asthmatic complaint, from which he never entirely recovered, he ventured to return to France. Soon after he had taken this step, the jesuit party obtained an order that he should fix his residence at Maçon, where he continued for some years. At length he obtained permission to return to Paris, where he was allowed to spend the remainder of his days. When he had found it necessary to fly to Holland, his priory was considered to be a vacant benefice, and bestowed on another ecclesiastic. Upon his return home, however, he took legal measures to gain repossession of it, and, after a tedious and difficult process, and an ultimate appeal to the king in council, he obtained his object in the year 1725. He died at Paris in 1736, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He had a principal share in drawing up the "History of the Case of Conscience, signed by Forty Doctors of the Sorbonne," published in 1705, in eight vols. 12mo. ; sustained a part in the abbé Boursier's "Action of God on the Creatures, or, Physical Premotion proved by Reasoning," in two vols. 4to. and six vols. 12mo.; also in the great work against the Bull Unigenitus, entitled, "Hexaples, &c." in seven vols. 4to. 1721; and was the collector and editor of the famous Arnauld's "Letters," in eight vols. 12mo., to which he added numerous notes. He was, likewise, the author of a multitude of treatises in the controversy between the Jansenists and Jesuits, the titles of which the curious reader may find in Moreri.-M. FOULÓN, or FOULLON, JOHN ERARD, a learned Jesuit of Liege, was a descendant from an ancient and distinguished family, and born in that city in 1609. He entered into the order in the year 1625, and, possessing excellent natural talents, and a relish for study, acquired the applause and esteem of his superiors by his proficiency in the different branches of learning. Observing that his qualifications peculiarly adapted him for the pulpit, they took care to instruct him in the requisite preparatory knowledge; and he distinguished himself in the character of a public preacher for more than thirty years. He was successively appointed rector of the colleges at Huy and Tournay, and died in the latter city in 1668. Besides several devotional, controversial, and other smaller pieces, he was the author of "Commentarii Historici & Morales ad Libros I. & II. Machabæorum, additis liberioribus Excursibus," in two vols. folio, 1660 and 1664; and "Historia Leodiensis, per Episcoporum & Principum Seriem digesta, ab origine Populi usque ad Ferdinandi Bavari Tempora, &c." in three vols. folio, published long after the author's death, in 1735 and 1737. This work is praised more for the value of the curious materials which it contains, than for the precision with which it is executed. According to the abbé Lenglet, it serves to throw much light on the History of the Low-countries. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M. FOURMONT, STEPHEN, a person distinguished for his knowledge of languages, was born in 1683, at a village near Paris. Becoming an orphan at an early age, he was placed by an uncle at the Mazarin-college in Paris, where he acquired a thorough grammatical knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues. While yet a scholar, he published "The Roots of the Latin Language put into French Verse," which was well received, and used in various colleges. He then engaged in philosophical and theological studies, and began the study of the oriental languages. In the college of the Trente-trois into which he entered, he formed, in conjunction with the abbé Sevin, a society of young ecclesiastics ardent in literary pursuits, who privately read together the Greek and Latin pocts, and borrowed part of the night for their conferences, so that it was thought necessary, in order to preserve the discipline of the college, to expel the two leaders. Fourmont then, removed to the college of Montaigu, where he occupied an apartment which had once been possessed by the great Erasmus-a circumstance which augmented his ardour for study. By a translation of Aben Ezra's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, he obtained reputation as an orientalist, and acquired the esteem of several doctors of the Sorbonne. To his other pursuits he joined that of jurisprudence; and expecting success at the bar, he caused himself to be admitted an advocate, but he never practised in that profession. He continued to advance in credit as a man of learning, and was invited by the count of Toledo, minister of Spain, to settle in that country: he declined the proposal, but obtained by the count's means a pension from the Spanish court. In 1715 he was made Arabic professor in the royal college, and an associate in the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres. He afterwards gave public lectures in the Hebrew language, chiefly with a view of opposing the new grammatical system advanced by Masclef; and he put the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic roots, as he had before done the Latin, into French verse. He engaged in the dispute concerning Homer and the ancients, which then divided the French literati. His passion for languages was not satisfied without extending his researches even to the Chinese, on which he bestowed much labour, though with disputed success. Both by his country men and by foreigners he was regarded as an oracle in oriental learning, and the Royal Socie ties of London and Berlin aggregated him among their members. He died in 1745, at the age of sixty-two. This writer left a great number of works, among which are "Reflections critiques sur les Histoires des Anciens Peuples jusqu'au Tems de Cyrus," 1735, two vols. 4to.; "A Chinese Grammar in Latin," folio, 1742; "Meditationes Sinica," 1737, folio; and many dissertations in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles-lettres. MICHAEL FOURMONT, younger brother of the preceding, became a man of learning through the force of his own assiduous efforts, and in 1720 was made professor of Syriac in the Royal college. In 1728 he accompanied the abbé Sevin into the Levant on a mission for the discovery of manuscripts and antiquities. He copied a great number of inscriptions and other monuments of antiquity which were deposited in the Royal library. He was a member of the Academy of Belles-lettres, and several of his dissertations are published in their Memoirs. He died at Paris in 1746, at the age of fifty-six. Moreri.-A. FOURNIER, PETER-SIMON, an eminent VOL. IV. engraver and letter-founder, born at Paris in 1712, excelled in the practice of the typographical art, and illustrated it by his writings. In 1737 he published a "Table of Proportions" to be observed in the height and size of the different characters. He also wrote several treatises on the origin and progress of typography, which were collected in one volume octavo, divided into three parts, the last of which contains a curious history of engravers in wood. His most considerable work is entitled "Manuel Typographique," two vols. 8vo. written for the instruction as well of men of letters as of artists. In this he gives specimens of his types, and also of some musical characters for printing which he invented, and which are equal in beauty to engraving. He was a man of great piety, fond of retirement, and extremely industrious. He died in 1768. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-A. FOWLER, EDWARD, a learned and respectable English prelate in the seventeenth and former part of the eighteenth century, was born in the year 1632, at Westerleigh, in Glouces tershire, of which place his father was minister, but afterwards ejected from it under the Act of Uniformity. He received his grammatical edu cation at the college-school in his native city, and in the year 1650 obtained the appointment of one of the clerks to Corpus Christi college, in the university of Oxford. The seriousness of his disposition, and his facility at extemporary prayer, occasioned his being chosen one of the chaplains of that institution, in the year 1653; soon after which he took his degree of B. A. Retiring afterwards for some time to Cambridge, he took his degree of M. A. as a member of Trinity college in that university; and upon his return to Oxford was there incorporated in the same degree, in the year 1656. About this time he was made chaplain to Amabella, countess dowager of Kent, from whom he received a presentation to the rectory of Northill, in Bedfordshire. As Mr. Fowler had been educated in presbyterian principles, he for some time scrupled to comply with the terms of conformity established after the restor ation of king Charles II.; but at length his views of things changed, and he was admitted a clergyman of the church of England, to which ever afterwards he continued steadily attached, and became one of its lights and ornaments. His principles were liberal, and he was an able defender of the necessity to salvation of a strict moral practice, in opposition to the enthusiasts of the age, who contended that faith was the only ground of justification, and by degrading B B morals certainly encouraged the neglect of them. It is honourable to his memory, that, because he insisted on the use of reason in matters of religion, and was accustomed to expatiate on the reasonableness of the christian precepts, he was by way of contempt classed, together with others among the more enlightened of the national clergy, under the denomination of rational preachers. The excellence of his writings in illustration of the uniform moral tendency of the christian system, induced archbishop Sheldon to consider him as a proper person to be introduced among the clergy of the metropolis. Accordingly, in the year 1673 he collated him to the rectory of Allhallows, Bread-street. In the year 1675-6 he was presented to a prebend in the cathedral church of Gloucester; and in the year 1681 was instituted to the vicarage of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. In the same year he accumulated the degrees of bachelor and doctor of divinity in the university of Oxford. During the struggle between the protestant religion and popery, towards the conclusion of the reign of Charles II. and in that of his successor, Dr. Fowler advantageously defended the interests of the Reformation, and did honour to the church of which he was a member, by the zeal which he displayed and the writings which he produced in support of the principles of protestantism. By his active exertions in this cause he provoked the resentment of the court, which, most probably, was the moving spring of an illnatured prosecution commenced against him by some of his parishioners, in the year 1685. He was accused of being guilty of whiggism; of having admitted to the communion excommunicated persons before they had been absolved, &c. In conformity with the court politics of the day, the matter was carried so far that he was tried for the alleged crimes at Doctors' commons, and by the obsequious instruments of James II. was suspended, under the pretence of his having transgressed the canons of the church, &c. This treatment, however, did not intimidate him from resisting the unconstitutional attempts of king James to extend the regak prerogative, by assuming a power to dispense with the existing laws. For he was the second who, in the year 1688, signed a resoJution entered into by the principal of the London clergy, not to read the king's new declaration for liberty of conscience. It should be recollected, according to the testimony of bishop Burnet, that this resolution was not founded on the result of any discussion of the question, whether such liberty of conscience was or was After not expedient and right in itself, but on an opposition to the king's assumption of a dis pensing power, which tended to the subversion of the constitution, and to invest him with arbitrary authority. In their resolution, the clergy were supported by the most respectable, and all the consistent friends to liberty among the dissenters from the establishment. the Revolution, Dr. Fowler's learning and merits were neither forgotten nor unrewarded. In 1691 he was nominated to the see of Gloucester, upon the deprivation of bishop Frampton for refusing to take the oaths to govern ment. In this situation he remained, discharg→ ing the duties of his office with fidelity and dili gence, until he was disabled by his growing infirmities. He died at Chelsea, near London, in 1714, when he was in the eighty-second year of his age. Besides a vast number of single sermons, preached on particular occa sions, some controversial treatises against Popery, others in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, &c. for the titles of which we must refer to our authorities, bishop Fowler was the author of the following works, which reflect credit on his abilities, and on his disposition to propagate the true spirit of Christianity: "The Principles and Practice of certain moderateDivines of the Church of England, abusively called Latitudinarians (greatly misunderstood), truly represented and defended; wherein (by: the way) some Controversies of no mean Importance are succinctly discussed, &c." 8vo. 1670; "The Design of Christianity, or, a Plain Demonstration and Improvement of this Proposition, viz. that the enduing Men with inward real Righteousness, or true Holiness, was the ultimate End of our Saviour's coming into the World, and is the great Intendruent of his blessed Gospel," 8vo. 1671; a defence of the preceding against an attack made upon it by the celebrated John Bunyan, and entitled, "The Dirt wiped off, or, a manifest Discovery of the gross Ignorance, Erroneousness, and most unchristian and wicked Spirit of one John Bunyan, lay-preacher in Bedford, which he hath shewed in a vile Pamphlet published by him against the Design of Christianity, &c." 4to. 1672; and " Libertas Evangelica; or, a Discourse of Christian Liberty; being a further pursuance of the Argument of the Design of Christianity, &c.". 8vo. 1680. Biog. Brit. Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. II. Burnet's On Times, vol. I.-M. FOX, RICHARD, a celebrated English prelate and statesman in part of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was descended from pa rents in mean circumstances, and born at Ropesley, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, about the latter end of the reign of Henry VI. He received his education in grammar learning at Boston, according to some writers, but according to others, at Winchester. When properly qualified for entering on academic studies, he was sent to Magdalen college, in the university of Oxford, where he acquired distinguished reputation by his proficiency in learning and knowledge. The plague having broken out at Oxford, he retired to finish his studies at Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge. When he had spent a competent time in the latter university, he went for farther improvement to Paris, where he studied divinity and the canon law. He is said to have been admitted to the degree of doctor-in-law at Oxford; but at what period, cannot be ascertained. At Paris he obtained the acquaintance and friendship of doctor Morton, bishop of Ely, whom the persecutions of Richard III. had driven from his native country. The learning and ability of Dr. Fox engaged that prelate to admit him into his intimacy and confidence, and by him, most probably, he was introduced to Henry, earl of Richmond, who was then projecting a descent upon England, in order to dethrone the usurper Richard. To the cause and interests of that nobleman Dr. Fox zealously attached himself, and, together with the other Englishmen then residing at Paris, entered into an engagement by oath to embark in his undertaking. Dr. Fox soon acquired the favour of the earl, and was admitted into his most secret councils. As the object of the earl in visiting Paris was to obtain assistance from Charles VIII. king of France, in his intended expedition, and he was called away by multiplicity of business before he could finish his negociation, he gave a strong proof of the trust which he reposed in Dr. Fox, by leaving the completion of it to his manageThe event shewed with what judgment he had chosen his agent; for Dr. Fox proceeded in the business with such diligence and prudence, that he soon procured the desired supplies of men and money from the court of France. After Henry had gained the crown of England in 1485, by the victory of Bosworthfield, he appointed Dr. Fox one of his privycounsellors, and, next to Dr. Morton, admitted him to the greatest share of his confidence and familiarity. About the same time the doctor was collated to a prebend in the church of Sarum; and in 1485-6 to a second prebend in the same church. In 1486-7 he was nominated bishop of Exeter, and appointed keeper of the ment. privy-seal: he was also made principal secretary In 1487 he was sent embassador, BB 2 |