BOULANGER, Nicholas Anthony, a very singular Frenchman, was born at Paris in 1722, and died there in 1759, aged only thirty-seven. During his education he is said to have come out of the college of Beauvais almost as ignorant as he entered it; but struggling hard against his unaptness to learn, he at length overcame it. At seventeen he began to study mathematics and architecture; and in three or. four years made such progress, as to be useful to the Baron of Thiers, whom he accompanied to the army in the capacity of engineer. Subsequently he had the superintendence of the highways and bridges; and he executed several public works in Champagne, Burgundy, and Lorraine. The author of his life, in the Dictionnaire des Hommes celebres, writes, that in this province a terrible spirit discovered itself in him, which he himself did not discover before; and this was, it seems, the spirit of“thinking philosophically.” In cutting through mountains, in directing and changing the courses of rivers, and in breaking up and turning over the strata of the earth, he [7:5:147]saw a multitude of different substances, which, he thought, evinced the great antiquity of it, and a long series of revolutions which it must have undergone. From the revolutions in the globe, he passed to the changes that must have happened in the manners of men, in societies, in governments, in religion; and he formed many conjectures upon all these. To be further satisfied, he wanted to know what, in the history of ages, bad been said upon these particulars; and, that he might derive information from the fountain head, he learned first Latin, then Greek, and afterwards Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Arabic; and, by dint of unwearied perseverance, acquired such a stock of erudition, that, if he had lived, he would have been one of the most learned men in Europe. But, as we have observed, death stepped in and cut him off in the full vigour of life, while ardently pursuing his studies. His principal works are, I. Traité du Despotisme Oriental, 2 vols. 12mo, 1761.

2. EAntiquité dévoilée, 3 vols. 12mo, 1761; posthumous.

3. He furnished to the Encyclopédie the articles Deluge, Corvée, Guèbres, Langue Hébraïque, and Economic Politique. 4. He left behind him, in manuscript, a Dictionary, which may be regarded as a concordance of ancient and modern languages. As a man, he is said to have been of a sweet, calm, and engaging temper; which, however, it is very difficult to reconcile with the dark, impetuous, ardent spirit, which appears to have animated him as a writer. During the latter period of his life he was connected with a set of writers, illustrious in point of talent, but utterly devoid of all principle, who openly professed themselves the enemies of religion, and were heated with the idea of effecting its destruction. In the society of these men, whose opinions he participated, Boulanger contributed his share to the common enterprise, by the arguments which he drew from his studies and the hypotheses he had conceived; but several of the irreligious writings which have been ascribed to him are nevertheless not of his composition, and his memory ought therefore to be exonerated from the opprobrium which has in consequence been cast upon it. He was a speculative infidel, not a common blasphemer, and ought not to be held answerable for the abominations which weaker and worse men have published in his name.

Boulanger, John, an engraver, was a native of France, and born at Amiens in 1607. His first manner of engraving appears to have been copied, in some degree, from that of Francis de Poilly; but soon after he adopted one of his own, which, though not original, he nevertheless greatly improved. He finished the faces, hands, and all the naked parts of his figures, very neatly, with dots instead of strokes, or strokes and dots; and the effect, though singular enough, is by no means unpleasing. In some few instances, however, the coarse graving of his draperies and back ground presents so violent a contrast to the neater work of the flesh, that the outline of the latter is rendered hard, and the general appearance of it flat and chalky. He did not draw the naked parts of his figures correctly, or in good taste; whilst his draperies are heavy, and the folds not well marked. However, his best prints possess merit, and are deservedly held in considerable esteem.