FOURCROY (ANTONY FRANCIS na), a celebrat ed chemist and physician, born at Paris 15th June 1755, was the son of John Michael de Fourcroy, by his marriage with Jane Laugier. His family had been long established in the capital ; several of them had been distinguished at the Bar, and Fourcroy de Ramceourt was well known as an engineer of con siderable talent, and a Member of the Academy of Sciences.
His father was an apothecary, attached to the household of the Duke of Orleans, and was a great sufferer by the abolition of places of this kind, which was procured by the corporation of apothecaries, some time before the revolution. Young Fourcroy was sent to the College of Harcourt, but made no progress in his learning there, and underwent great hardships from the cruelty of an unjust master. He was afterwards obliged to subsist by his labour in copying, and by taking pupils as a writing master. He was, however, fortunate in the patronage and as• sistance of Vicq d'Azyr, who had been a friend of his father, and under whose auspices he resolved to study physic, obtaining his support in the meantime by giving his assistance to richer persons than him self in their literary labours, and by a few transla• tions, for which he was very ill paid. When he had gone through the regular course of study, he became a candidate for a gratuitous diploma, upon a foun dation established by Dr Diest ; but he failed of suc cess from a party quarrel. His own party, however, which was that of Vicq d'Azyr, indemnified him for the loss, by making a collection to discharge the fees, amounting to about L. 250 ; but the highest degree, that of Doctor Regent, was still refused him, and he was therefore incapable of holding a Profes sorship under the Parisian Faculty of Physic. He resolved to apply himself to science as the readiest way of acquiring medical reputation, but he seems to have been little known, at any time of his life, as a practical physician. The determination, however, like that of the countryman in the fable, was still a beneficial one, and though he failed of discovering the golden treasure for which he dug, he profited by the increased fertility of the soil, and by the abund ant fruits which it bore him.
In natural history he soon distinguished himself as a pupil worthy of Geoffroy, by an entomological publication ; in anatomy, by his description of the tendons and their sheaths, which appears to have procured his admission into the Academy of Sciences in 1735 ; he stood at first in the capacity of an ana tomist, though he was afterward removed to the sec tion of chemistry. His favourite pursuit, however, from the beginning, was chemistry, and in this he de rived considerable assistance from Bucquet, who was then a professor in great esteem ; and having once un dertaken to deliver a lecture in his place, on occa sion of a temporary indisposition of Bucquet, though wholly unprepared, he found himself capable of speaking for two hours with great fluency, to the delight and astonishment of his audience. The re potation of Bucquet was soon transferred to Four croy, and he was enabled, by an advantageous mar riage, to purchase the apparatus of his predecessor, ar.a o succeed to his lectures.
In 1784, on the death of *lacquer, then Profes sor of Chemistry in the Royal Garden, the Count de Began found the claims of Fourcroy so strong, that be thought it right to appoint him to the vacant chair, though no less a chemist than Lavoiser was a rival candidate ; the competition not being wholly de cided either by talent or by depth of learning, but probably, in great measure, by the reputation in the art of teaching which Fourcroy had already acquir ed. His success in this new situation was brilliant and universal ; and he continued for twenty five years to absorb the whole attention of a numerous audience by his eloquence, and by the perspicuity of his mode of explaining some of the most important novelties that have ever appeared in any age. The science which be taught was then making its most rapid pro gress. It was then that Bergman and Scheele had introduced into analytical chemistry a precision al most geometrical ; that Priestley had discovered the aeriform elements of the animal and vegetable world ; that Black and Wilcke had methodised the pheno mesa of beat ; that Cavendish had discovered the composition of water and of the nitric acid ; that Slonge had repeated and extended his experiments; and that Lavoisier bad reduced the whole of che mistry to a uniform system, which, though founded on a generalisation somewhat too hasty, has still been of important service to the science, by con centrating the attention of the philosophic reason er on various classes of phenomena, which could not so easily have been comprehended in one view, without the aid of some such hypothesis. Mr De Fourcroy was particularly happy in his tact of perceiving, whether or no all his audience were fully in possession of the ideas he wished to com municate to them, and he was never tired of ex plaining himself, till be was satisfied that he had said enough. His manner was energetic, and such as an Englishman might perhaps have thought pomp ous and affected ; but we must recollect, that there is no fixed standard of propriety in matters of taste, and that, as the common conversation of the French is naturally accompanied with more of emphasis and gesture than our own, it is very possible, that with out any greater proportional exaggeration than is in troduced in similar cases in Great Britain, an actor, a lecturer, or a preacher, may exhibit what to us would appear a caricature, while it only affects his own countrymen as a natural, though impressive, style of public speaking. The chemical amphitheatre of the Public Garden was crowded by students from all countries, and from all quarters of the globe, some prompted to visit Paris by their own love of learning only, some assisted in their pursuits by their respective governments; and it was twice in succes sion necessary to provide more extensive accommo dations for the overflowing numbers that sought for admittance.