BEAUFORT

beaufort, louis de (d. 1795), french historian, of whose life little is known. in 1738 he published at utrecht a _dissertation sur l'incertitude des cinq premiers siecles de l'histoire romaine_, in which he showed what untrustworthy guides even the historians of highest repute, such as livy and dionysius of halicarnassus, were for that period, and pointed out by what methods and by the aid of what documents truly scientific bases might be given to its history. this was an ingenious plea, bold for its time, against traditional history such as rollin was writing at that very moment. a german, christopher saxius, endeavoured to refute it in a series of articles published in vols. i.-iii. of the _miscellanea liviensia_. beaufort replied by some brief and ironical _remarques_ in the appendix to the second edition of his _dissertation_ (1750). beaufort also wrote an _histoire de cesar germanicus_ (leyden, 1761), and _la republique romaine, ou plan general de l'ancien gouvernement de rome_ (the hague, 1766, 2 vols. quarto). though not a scholar of the first rank, beaufort has at least the merit of having been a pioneer in raising the question, afterwards elaborated by niebuhr, as to the credibility of early roman history.