969 



FOULI3, ROBERT AND ANDREW. 



FOURCROY, ANTOINE-FRANCOIS DE. 



670 



police, but he accepted the office only on the understanding thai 

 Austria and England secretly connived at Napoleon's return from 

 Elba. As soon as he learned that the congress of Vienna had declared 

 against Napoleon, he tried to persuade the emperor, in case his nego- 

 ciations should prove unsuccessful, to abdicate and retire to the United 

 States of America. He strongly advocated the principles of liberty 

 during the hundred days of Napoleon's second reign, and strongly 

 ureed the emperor to abdicate after the battle of Waterloo. Fouche" 

 put at the head of the provisional government by the cham- 

 promoted the departure of Napoleon I., negociated with the 

 cowers, and by his intrigues baffled the scheme of Carnot 

 and ottfer patriots to defend Paris. At the beginning of the nego- 

 ciation he was not inclined to promote the second restoration of 

 Louia XVIII., but notwithstanding this he was called by the king, 

 immediately after the capitulation of Paris, and nominated minister 

 of police. This circumstance gave rise to a general belief that he had 

 deceived Napoleon I. all the time after his return from Elba, and that 

 he constantly maintained a secret correspondence with the allied 

 power* and the Bourbons. In his capacity of minister of police he 

 presented to the king two reports on the state of France, which by 

 their boldness excited the hatred of all parties. His advice to grant 

 a general amnesty was not followed ; and he signed with his own 

 hand, ai minister of police, the ordonuance of Louis XVIII. of the 

 24th July 1815, by which many persons were excepted from the 

 amnesty. Being driven by the hatred of the royalists to resign his 

 office of minister of police, the king nominated him his ambassador 

 to Dresden. The law of the 12th January 1816, by which all those 

 who had voted for the death of Louis XVI. were banished from France 

 and deprived of the estates which had been granted to them, was 

 extended to Fouchi' also, who from that time lived in different parts 

 of Austria. He died at Trieste in 1820. ' The Memoirs of Joseph 

 Aiit. Fonch<!, due d'Otranto,' which appeared at Paris, 1824, were 

 declared by his sons to be a spurious production ; and their denuncia- 

 tion was maintained in a suit against the printer, who was condemned 

 in heavy damages ; but it is difficult to believe that they are wholly 

 unauthentic. It is a known fact that Foucbc! dictated his memoirs 

 to bis secretary Desmarteau. A curious wnrk was published at Paris 

 in 1833, which throws great light on Fouehe"s character, and on 

 the system of the imperial administration in France, ' Tdmoignages 

 bistoriques, ou quinze Ans da haute Police sous Napoleon, par 

 Desmaret*.' 



FOULIS, ROBERT AND ANDREW, two learned printers of Scot- 

 land, were, it is supposed, natives of Glasgow, and passed their early 

 days in obscurity. Robert is asserted to have been a barber. Inge- 

 nuity and perseverance however enabled them to establish a press, 

 from which have issued some of the finest specimens of correct and 

 elegant printing which the 18th century has produced. Even Bodoni 

 of Parma, and Barbou of Paris, have not gone beyond some of the 

 productions of the Foulis press. Robert Foulis began printing about 

 1740, and one of his first essays was a good edition of 'Demetrius 

 Phalereus,' in 4to, published in 1743. In 1744 he brought out his 

 celebrated immaculate edition of ' Horace,' 12mo, and soon afterwards 

 was in partnership with his brother Andrew. Of this edition of 

 ' Horace," the sheets as they were printed were hung up in the college 

 at Glasgow, and a reward was offered to those who should discover 

 an inaccuracy. It has been several times reprinted at Glasgow, but 

 not probably with the same fidelity. The two brothers continued to 

 produce for thirty years a series of correct and well-printed books, 

 particularly classics, which, whether in Greek or Latin, are as remark- 

 able for their beauty and exactness as any in the Aldine series. 

 Among them may be enumerated ' Homer," Greek, 4 vola. fol., 1756-58 ; 

 ' Thucydidea," Greek and Latin, 8 vols. 12mo, 1759; 'Herodotus,' 

 Greek and Latin, 9 vols. 12mo, 1761; 'Xenophon,' Greek and Latin, 

 12 vole. 12mo, 1762-67; with small editions of Cicero, Virgil, Tibullus 

 and Propertius, Cornelius Nepos, Tacitus, Juvenal and Persius, and 

 Lucretius. To these may be added a beautiful edition of the Greek 

 Testament, in small 4to ; Gray's ' Poems," Pope's 'Works,' &c. 



It is a melancholy reflection that the taste of these worthy men 

 for the fine arts at last brought about their ruin ; for having engaged 

 in the establishment of an academy for the instruction of youth in 

 painting and sculpture in Scotland, the enormous expense of sending 

 pupils to Italy to study and copy the ancients, gradually brought ou 

 their decline in the printing business, and they found the city of 

 Glasgow no fit soil to transplant the imitative arts to, although their 

 success in printing the Greek and Latin Classics had already pro- 

 duced them ample fortunes. Andrew Foulis died on September 15, 

 1775, and Robert in 1776 exhibited and sold at Christie's, in Pall 

 Mall, the remainder of his paintings. The catalogue formed three 

 volume*". But the result of the Bale was, that after all the expenses 

 were defrayed, the balance in his favour amounted only to the sum of 

 lf<*. He died the same year on his return to Scotland. A person of 

 the name of Foulis, a descendant of one of the brothers, continued to 

 print at Glasgow as late as 1806. His 'Virgil' of 1778, and his 

 JEaobjla*,' printed in 1795, are considered beautiful productions. 



(Lemoine, lliiiory of Printing ; Nichols, Lit. Anecd., vol. iii., pp. 691, 

 viii., 475 ; Cbalmer-, Biog. Diet.) 



KoIILSTON, JOHN. The name of this architect, who died at 

 Plymouth, January 13, 1842, aged sixty-nine, is especially connected 



MOO. DIV, VOL. it 



with the history of that town and its neighbourhood, where, during 

 the last thirty years of his life, he enjoyed a very extensive practice, 

 and executed nearly all the public buildings then erected at Plymouth 

 and Devonport (formerly Plymouth Dock), besides various general 

 improvements, such as streets, and lines of uniformly-built houses, 

 distinguished by the name of ' Terraces." Hence he came to be 

 regarded as the architect par excellence, and has been complimented 

 by the title of the ' Wren of Plymouth,' though that of its ' Wood ' 

 [Woon] would have been compliment sufficient. That he did much 

 for the general appearance of Plymouth and the places in its vicinity, 

 is not to be disputed : he introduced an improved style of building ; 

 but those of his buildings which challenge notice as distinct works of 

 architecture exhibit little more than a smattering of style those super- 

 ficial and obvious rudiments of it which at once distinguish one style 

 from another. In the critical meaning of the term, he himself 

 possessed no style, for, applied to the works of an artist, style pre- 

 sumes both individuality and generality of expression in that par- 

 ticular language of his art which is employed by him; whereas 

 Foulston's Greek was little more than the neutralisation of Greek, 

 followed in literal transcripts from it with respect to columniation, 

 columns, and a few details, but essentially un-Greek, or pseudo- 

 Greek, in regard to general character. His works in that style are 

 however characteristic of their time, and serve to show what was 

 admired in this country as genuine and ' pure ' classical architecture 

 during the early party of the present century, when four-columned 

 Parthenons without sculpture and with sash-windows were hailed as 

 marvels worthy of Athens itself. 



With the exception of Soane and Laing, Foulston \vas the only one 

 among his contemporaries who published designs of the buildings 

 executed by him. The collection was at first announced as intended 

 to consist of 200 plates, in 4 vols. 4to ; but it appeared, in 1838, in a 

 single volume, with 116 plates in lithographic outline, executed in a 

 hard and formal manner. Yet, though no fewer than forty-seven 

 plates are devoted to a single edifice, comprising the Royal Hotel 

 and Theatre, there is neither section nor view to give any idea of the 

 theatre itself, but only drawings explanatory of the carpentry and 

 construction of the stage. However, that publication enables us to 

 do what, highly desirable as it is, is generally most difficult of accom- 

 plishment in architectural biography, to give a tolerably full and 

 accurate list of Foulstou's buildings. At Plymouth : Royal Hotel 

 and Theatre, begun 1811, Grecian louic; Exchange. 1813; Athcucoutn, 

 1818-19, Grecian Doric ; St. Andrew's Chapel, 1823 ; Public Library. 

 Devonport : Town Hall, 1821-2, Grecian Doric ; Civil and Military 

 Library, 1823, Egyptian ; Mount Zion Chapel, 1823-4, Hindoo ; Column, 

 1824, Grecian Doric. Tavistock, Old Abbey Buildings, restored, 1829. 

 Torquay, Public Ball-room, 1839. Bodmin, Cornwall County Lunatic 

 Asylum, 1818. Besides the above, which constitute his edited designs, 

 Foulston executed several other buildings, public as well as private, 

 including St. Paul's Chapel, Gothic, and Edsiecumbe Place, at Stone- 

 bouse ; St. Michael's Terrace, Stoke Damerell ; Belmout House ; and 

 various villas and cottages in the neighbourhood of Stoke, and in 

 other parts of the couuty. Greatly as he seems to have prided 

 bimself upon the correctness and purity of his taste in classical 

 architecture, Foulston was by no means disposed to confine himself 

 bo the Grecian style, for he attempted every style in its turn, Egyptiau 

 and Hindoo not excepted, and even that of Soaue included. The 

 Tact is, Foulston seems to have discovered that he had exhausted all 

 bis stock of ideas for Grecian designs after employing that style for 

 some of his principal works. It would not do to repeat Grecian Doric 

 and Ionic porticoes, and those mere monoprostyle ones, perpetually, 

 especially in contiguous buildings, and this, no doubt, determined him 

 not only to have recourse to other and widely different styles, but 

 occasionally to bring them together in direct contrast with each other, 

 as at Devonport, where in the Town-Hall, Column, Library, and 

 Chapel, he clustered together into one group Grecian, Egyptian, and 

 Hindoo, the two last of a very spurious kind, one of them being 

 evidently borrowed from the building in Piccadilly, while for the 

 Hindoo there seems to be no better authority than the architect's so 

 naming it. Though without more pretensions to design than many 

 other things of the kind that have been erected all over the country, 

 the Devonport Column stands with an air of very unusual dignity, 

 not merely stilted upon a pedestal borrowed from the broken stylo- 

 Dates of Roman and Italian architecture, but rearing itself upon a 

 .ofty substructure of masonry, the whole being on a higher level than 

 ;he pavement of the street. Yet we suppose the Royal Hotel at 

 Plymouth generally passes for Foulstou's chef d'<euvre, it being his 

 argest building one rivalling the post-office at London in size, as 

 well as resembling it in design ; for the Plymouth structure measures 

 28 by 218 feet, the other 390 by 130 feet. 



FOURCROY, ANTOINE-FRANCOIS DE, an eminent French 

 chemist, councillor of state, commander of the legion of honour, 

 member of the Institute, and of most of the academies and scientific 

 societies of Europe, professor of chemistry at tbe Museum of Natural 

 rlistory, at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, and at the Polytechnic 

 School, was born at Paris, on the 15th of June 1755, and was the son 

 of Jean-Michel de Fourcroy, and Jeanne Laugit-r. His family had long 

 rf sided in the capital, and several of his ancestois had distinguished 

 ;heoi8elves at the bar. Autoiue-Frau9ois de Fourcroy sprung from a 



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