Souchai, Jean Baptiste

, a French writer who died in 1746, at the age of fifty-nine, was born at Saint-Amand, near Vendome, and educated by an uncle. Removing to Paris, he gained the applause and esteem of all the learned; and in 1720 was elected into the academy of inscriptions, in whose memoirs his dissertations make a distinguished figure. He was not without preferment also, being canon ofRodez, counsellor to the king, and reader and professor of eloquence in the college royal. The abbe Souchai is said to have formed in himself the rare union of profound knowledge and elegant manners. He wrote, 1. a French translation of Brown’s Vulgar Errors, entitled “Essais sur les Erreurs Populaires,” 2 vols. 12mo. 2. An edition of the works of Peiisson, 3 vols. 12mo. 3. Remarks on d'Audilly’s Josephus, in the edition of Paris, 1744. 4. An edition of Boileau’s works, 1740, 2 vols. 4 to. 5. An edition | of the “Astrea” of Honore d'Urfe, in which the language is modernized, and the conversations abridged, 1733, 10 vols. 12mo. 6. An edition of “Ausonius,” in 4to, with copious notes. 7. The dissertations above-mentioned in the Memoirs of the Academy. ¹