Lafitau, Joseph Francis

, a French writer, was born at Bourdeaux, and having early entered the schools of the Jesuits, became soon distinguished by a taste for history and polite literature, and although he never arrived at the wealth of his brother, the subject of the next article, he was thought his superior in knowledge and judgment. He made himself known in the literary world by a work entitled “Les Mosurs des Sauvages, compare’es aux mceurs des premiers siecles,” Paris, 1723, 2 vols. 4to, and 4 vols. 12mo and by his “Histoire des De*couvertes des Portugais dans le Nouveau Monde,” 1733, 2 vols. 4to, and 1734, 4 vols. 12mo. He wrote also “Remarquessur le Gin-Seng,” Paris, 1728, 12mo. The author had been sent as a missionary to the Iroquois, and the account he gives of them is the most accurate that we have; his comparison between the ancients and the Americans is also very ingenious, and shews great knowledge of antiquity. One other publication of his remains to be mentioned, “Histoire de Jean | de Brienne, ernpereur de Constantinople,” Paris, 1727, 12mo. He died in 1755. ¹