Poiret, Peter

, famous only for his love of mysticism and enthusiasm, and for his writings conformable to those sentiments, was born at Metz, April 15, 1646, and educated at Basle in Switzerland, in the college of Erasmus. His father, who was a sword-cutler, placed him as pupil to a sculptor, and from him he learned design at least, and retained so much of the art as to draw the portrait of his favourite, madame Bourignon. This pursuit, however, he forsook for the learned languages, philosophy, and theology. He became a minister at Heidelberg in 1668, and at Anweil obtained a similar situation in 1674. Here it was that he met with the works of the mystical writers, with which, particularly with those of madame Bourignon, he became to the utmost infatuated. Madame Guyon was another of his favourites, and he determined to live according to their maxims. Towards the end of life he retired to Reinsberg in Holland, where he died, May 21, 1719, at the age of seventy-three. His works are all of the mystical kind: 1. “Cogitationes rationales de Deo,” Amst. 1677, 4to twice reprinted. 2. “ | L’ceconomie Divine,” 1687, in 7 vols. 8vo, in which all the notions of Bourignon are repeated. 3. “La Paix des bonnes Ames,” Amst. 1687, 12mo. 4. “Les Principes solides de la Religion Chretienne,” 1705, 12mo. 5. “Theologie du Coeur,” Cologne, 1697, 2 vols. 12mo. 6. He published also a complete edition of the works of madame Bourignon, in twenty-one volumes, octavo, with a life of that pious enthusiast. 7. An attempt to attack Descartes, in a treatise “de Eruditione triplici,” in 2 vols. 4to, reprinted at Amsterdam in 1707. This being directed against Descartes, has been compared to the attack of the viper upon the file. It contains, however, some good observations. ¹