Marc-Antoine Eidous
Marc- Antoine Eidous (* 1710 or 1727 in Marseille, † 1780 or 1790) was a French translator and one of the major contributor to the Encyclopédie for the topics Heraldry, blacksmiths and horsemanship.
Life and work
Eidous as a translator
The Life of Marc- Antoine Eidous is known only in outline. He served first as an engineer in the Spanish Army, and then went in the 1740s to Paris, where he worked as a translator. Eidous transferred an approximately thirty years, primarily English-language works into French. Among other things, he translated George Campbell A dissertation on miracles ( a response to David Hume's essay on miracles ), Francis Hutcheson's Inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue, Adam Smith's Theory of moral sentiments and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto. In addition, he also translated books from Latin, Spanish (such as the multi-volume work of the Jesuit Father Joseph Gumillas ( 1686-1750 ) on the Orinoco ) and other languages. Friedrich Melchior Grimm -reviewed a number of these translations in his journal Correspondance littéraire and expressed repeatedly negative about Eidous ' services. In a review from 1766 Grimm sneered, Eidous would not need more than fifteen days for the translation of a band. And about three years later Grimm recognized even among the poor French translators had Eidous the very worst.
Contributors to the Encyclopédie
As a contributor to the Encyclopédie Eidos was probably promoted by Diderot. Eidous and Diderot knew each other at least since 1744, when they both were among the translators of Robert James ( 1703-1776 ) Medical dictionary. And Eidous already in 1746 is named as payee in the account books of the publisher Parisian publisher André- François Le Breton. Between 1746 and 1748 received Eidous for his encyclopedia article, a total of more than 2,900 livres. If one of these sum of its around 450 - mostly rather sparse - items against which he contributed to the first four volumes, so Eidous was well paid for his work on the Encyclopédie.
Diderot was with the contributions Eidous ' did not seem particularly happy. According to Luneau de Boisjermain Diderot said to have remarked about Eidous ' Item to Heraldry, these are " lean" and " poorly made ". In 1754 Diderot Claude Bourgelat drew added to check written by Eidous contributions to horsemanship, and related subjects. As Bourgelat expressed their dissatisfaction and offered to work himself, he took over Eidous ' task. Although Bourgelats posts first appeared in the fifth volume of the Encyclopédie, he was not called Eidous in the preface to the fourth volume as a major contributor in the areas of blacksmiths and horsemanship. The fifth band wore Eidous only in a single article; then ended his cooperation.
The years after 1758
Between 1758 and 1762 appeared to Eidous as professor of mathematics at Geneva and then returned to France. In 1765 he published together with Paul Henri Thiry d' Holbach, a translation of Jonathan Swift's History of the four load- years of the Queen and 1777-1780, a translation of William Robertson's History of America. After that trace of him.