FONTEN ELLE, BERNARD LE BOUVIER DE, a French author of considerable celebrity, was born at Rouen, in the month of February 1657. His mother was a sister of the famous Corneille ; from whom he may be supposed to have inherited some portion of that literary genius for which he was distinguished.
Fontenelle acquired the rudiments of learning at the school of the Jesuits at Rouen ; and at the age of thirteen, he produced a successful Latin prize-poem on the sub ject of the immaculate conception. At fifteen, he had completed his course of studies. His father intended that he snould embrace the profession of the law, which he himself had prosecuted with success ; and Fontenelle actually pleaded a cause before the parliament of Rouen. But the discipline and habits of the legal profession were not congenial with his easy and indolent disposition ; he resolved, therefore, to abandon these pursuits, and to de vote himself entirely to literature. With this view, he accompanied his uncle, Thomas Corneille, to Paris ; and commenced his literary career by the production of a tragedy, which, however, was unsuccessful upon the stage. But he bore the disappointment without murmuring; and undismayed at the result of his first attempt, lie turned his attention towards other subjects, in which he was bet ter qualified to excel.
The first production which contributed to bring him into notice as an author, was his Dialogues of the Dead ; winch, although written in an affected style, and objec tionable in many respects, acquired considerable popu larity. His Letters of the Chevalier d' are much inferior to those of Voiture, and might have been suppress ed without any injury to his reputation ; indeed, he never expressly avowed himself the author of these letters. In his Eclogues lie departed from the peculiar style and character of that species of writing, and introduced in genious thoughts and fine allusions, remote from the sim plicity of pastoral life The two works of Fonteuelle which contributed most to establish the reputation of his literary character were, his Plurality of Worlds, and his treatise on Oracles. The ground. work of both of these treatises was borrowed ; but his luminous and methodical genius gave clearness to sub jects that were previously involved in obscurity ; while the graces of his style, sometimes perhaps a little too brilliant and flowery, rendered the principles of the ab stract sciences acceptable to general readers, by bringing them down to the level of ordinary understandings.
Fontenelle appears to have had a great desire to dis tinguish himself as a writer for the stage ; and after having failed to obtain the success he expected from his tragedy, he attempted the composition of operas ; but of all his dramatic productions, the opera of Peleus and Thetis, which was first represented in 1689, is the only one which had merit sufficient to preserve it from oblivion.
While yet a young man, he took an active part in the controversy which then agitated the literary world, respect ing the comparative merit of the ancients and the moderns. Fontenelle declared himself an advocate for the latter ; and his conduct in this dispute is thought to have proved an obstacle, for some time, to his admission into the Acade my,—an honour which he at length obtained in the year 1691. During a period of nearly 66 years, he contributed to support the celebrity of that illustrious body, by the propriety of his moral conduct, and the splendour of his literary character. He was also admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1697 ; and two years after wards, when the constitution of that learned society under went some change, he was clothed with the title of per petual secretary, and became one of its most active asso ciates. His history of the Academy of Sciences, and the efoges which he pronounced upon several of the most eminent academicians, afford ample proofs of his talents and acquirements, and of his zeal for the interests of learn. ing. He embraced the principles of Descartes , and con tinued faithful to the theory of vortices, after the introduc tion of the Newtonian system had deprived it of almost all its adherents.
Fontenelle died at Paris in the year 1757, having lived nearly one hundred years. For this uncommon longevity, he appears to have been indebted to a very extraordinary constitution of body and of mind. At his birth, he was thought so extremely delicate, that doubts were entertain ed whether he should live. In his youth, he avoided every kind of bodily and mental fatigue ; abstained from every sort of diversion that demanded an effort of strength, and spent the whole course of his life in a series of studies and pleasures eqnally tranquil. His mental constitution was DO less singular. He seemed totally divested of passion ; was never irritated by censure, nor elevated by praise ; never transported by joy, nor depressed by grief; and he is said to have never laughed nor wept. If this constitu tion deprived him of some pleasures, it also preserved hint from many evils ; and it enabled him to attain an ex treme old age, without suffering much from the infirmi ties incident to that period of human life. (z)