BOUHOURS, Dominic, a celebrated French critic, was born at Paris in 1628. He entered into the society of Jesuits at the age of sixteen, and was appointed to read lectures upon polite literature in the college of Clermont at Paris, where he had studied; but he was so incessantly attacked with headachs, that he found himself unable to execute the task assigned him. He afterwards undertook the education of two sons of the Duke of Longueville, which he conducted with great applause. The duke had such a regard for Bouhours that he died in his arms; and the “account of the pious and Christian death” of this great personage was the first work which Bouhours gave the public. He was sent to Dunkerque to the Popish refugees from England; and, in the midst of his missionary occupations, found means to compose and publish books. Among these were Entretiens dAriste et d’Eugene, a work of a critical nature on the French language. His book was printed no less than five times at Paris, twice at Grenoble, and afterwards at Lyons, at Brussels, at Amsterdam, at Leyden, and other places; and it embroiled him in quarrels with a great number of persons, particularly Menage, who, however, lived in friendship with the author before and after. The fame of this piece, and the pleasure he took in reading it, recommended Bouhours so effectually to the celebrated minister Colbert, that he intrusted him with the education of his son the Marquis of Segnelay. He afterwards wrote several other works, the chief of which are, 1. Remarks and Doubts upon the French Language, 1694; 2. Dialogues upon theart of Thinking Well in works of Genius, 1687; 3. TheLife of St Ignatius, 1679; 4. The Art of Pleasing in Conversation; 5. The Life of St Francis Xavier, apostle of the Indies and of Japan, 1682. This last work was translated from the French into English by Mr Dryden, and published at London in the year 1668, with a dedication to James IĽs queen prefixed. Bouhour’s works may be divided into two classes, namely, those of a religious, and those of a purely literary character; and the number of the one is nearly equal to that of the other. It was his practice indeed to publish alternately a book on literature and a work on some subject of piety; which gave occasion to a wag, in a satirical epitaph, to remark of him “qu’il servait le monde et le ciel par semestre.” His Pensées ingénieuses des Anciens et des Modernes, though at once instructive and amusing, exposed him to censure as well as ridicule, on account of some strange misjudgments and omissions. Either from spite oiζmisconception, he has classed Boileau with the least esteemed of the Italian satirical versifiers, thus placing him in the worst company he could possibly find; and what is still more extraordinary, he has ingeniously omitted, in his Thoughts on the Moderns, all mention of the illustrious name of Pascal. This gave occasion to a variety of epi-^ grams at the expense of the worthy father, particularly to the following by Madame Deshoulières:
Père Bouhours, dans vos Ρensées,
La plupart fort embarrassées,
A moi vous n’avez point pensé.
Des célèbres auteurs que votre livre chante,
Dans une liste triomphante
Je ne vois point mon nom placé;
Mais aussi dans le même rôle
Vous avez oublié Pascal,
Qui pourtant ne pensait mal:
Un tel compagnon me console.