Garnier, John James

, an ingenious French writer, was born at Goron in the Maine, March 13, 1729. After b.eing educated, probably in his own country, he came to Paris, withput money or interest, and depending only on his learning. This soon recommended him, however, to a place in the college of Harcourt, and in 1760 he was appointed coadjutor to the abbé Sellier in the royal college, and was made before 1764 Hebrew professor, and chosen a member of the academy of inscriptions au4 belles lettres. His useful studies were interrupted by the revolution, and in 1793 he was compelled ta fly, for refusing the republican oaths. He then went to Bougival, where he died in 1795. All he could save from confiscation was his library; but his friend Lalande, the celebrated astronomer, so effectually represented to the government, the disgrace of suffering a man of so much merit to want bread, that a pension was granted him. He wrote, 1. “L’Homme de lettres,” Paris, 1764, 2 vols. 12mo, in which the method he lays down to form a map of letters is highly liberal and ingenious. 2. “Traité” de l’origine du gouveruement françoise,“1765, ib. 12 mo. 3.” De l’education civile,“1765, 12mo. 4.” De commerce remis a sa place." In 1770 he published the 9th vol. 4to of Velly and Villaret’s History of France, beginning with the year 1469, and continuing his labours in this work, produced the 15th vol. | in 1786, displaying throughout the whole more erudition than his predecessors. He wrote several papers in the memoirs of the academy of inscriptions, relative, among other subjects, to the philosophy of the ancients, and especially to that of Plato, of which he was perhaps rather too fond, though less fanciful than some modern Platonists. ¹