Bouhier, John

, president a mortier of the parliament of Dijon, and a member of the French academy, was born March 16, 1673. He began his studies under the direction of his father (who was also president a mortier of the same parliament) at the Jesuits’ college of Dijon, and finished them in 1638 with great approbation. Being as yet too young for the law schools, he studied the elements of that science in private, and perfected himself at the same time in the Greek language. He also learned Italian, Spanish, and acquired some knowledge of the Hebrew. After two years thus usefully employed, he went through a course of law at Paris and Orleans; and in 1692 he became counsellor of the parliament of Dijon. In 1704 he was appointed president, the duties of which office he executed until 1727, and with an assiduity and ability not very common. In this latter year he was elected into the academy, on the condition that he would quit Dijon and settle at Paris, to which condition he acceded, but was unable to perform his promise, for want of health. Though remote, however, from the capital, he could not remain in obscurity; but from the variety and extent of his learning‘, he was courted and consulted by the literati throughout Europe: and many learned men, who had availed themselves of his advice, dedicated their works to him. At length, his constitution being worn out with repeated attacks of the gout, he died March 17, 1746. A friend approaching his bed, within an hour of his death, found him in a seemingly profound meditation. He made a sign that he wished not to be disturbed, and with difficulty pronounced the words J’epie la mort “I am watching death.” Notwithstanding his business and high reputation as a lawyer, he contrived to employ much of his time in the cultivation of polite literature, and wrote many papers on Critical and classical subjects in the literary journals. Separately he published, 1. A poetical translation, not inelegant, but somewhat careless, of Petronius on the Civil | War between Coesar and Pompey, with two epistles of Ovid, &c. Amst. 1737, 4to. Alluding to the negligence which sometimes appears in his poetry, his wife, a very ingenious lady, used to say, “Confine yourself to thinking, and let me write.” 2. “Remarques sur les Tusculanes de Ciceron, avec une dissertation sur Sardanapale, dernier roi d’Asyrie,” Paris, 1737, 12mo. 3. “Des Lettres sur les Therapeutes,” 1712. 4. “Dissertations sur Herodote,” with memoirs of the life of Bouhier, 1746, Dijon, 4to. 5. “Dissertation sur le grand pontifical des empereurs Remains,” 1742, 4to. 6. “Explications de quelques marbres antiques,” in the collection of M. Le Bret, 1733, 4to. 7. “Observations sur la Coutume de Bourgogne,” Dijon, 2 vols. fol. A complete edition of his law works was published in 1787, fol. by M. de Bevy. He wrote a very learned dissertation on the origin of the Greek and Latin letters, which is printed in Montfaucon’s Palaeography, Paris, 1708, p. 553 and his “Remarques sur Ciceron” were reprinted at Paris in 1746. ¹