Artigni, Anthony Gachet D'

, canon of the cathedral church at Vienna, was born in that metropolis, the th of March 1704. He shewed an early inclination for literature and bibliographical inquiries, and wrote some verses, which he afterwards judiciously suppressed. His first publication, in 1739, was a piece entitled “Relation, d'une assemblee tenue au bas de Parnasse, pour la reforme des Belles Lettres,” 12mo. Mr. Sabathier, with more spleen than reason, observes that the place for this assembly was very happily chosen. But Artigni is more advantageously known by his “Memoires d'histoire, de critique & de litterature,” Paris, 1749, & seqq. 7 vols. 12mo. Though this book is a compilation, it sufficiently proves him to have been endowed with the spirit of disquisition and criticism. It is, however, necessary to mention that the most interesting articles are taken from the manuscript history of the French poets by the late abbé Brun, dean of S. Agricola at Avignon. This history existed in ms. in the library belonging to the seminary of S. Sulpice de Lyon, where the abbe le Clerc, the friend of abbe* Brun, had lived a long time and it was by means of some member of the seminary that the abbe* d' Artigni procured it. Before his death he was employed on an abridgement of the Universal History, part of which was found among his manuscripts. He died at Vienna the 6th of May 1768, |

in his 65th year. He was of a polite, obliging, and cheerful temper and his conversation was rendered highly agreeable by the great number of anecdotes and pleasant stories with which his memory was stored. ¹