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macopæi," &c. ibid. 1633. 8. "Detectio et solida Refutatio novæ Secta Sennerto-Paracelsicæ," Amsterdam, 1636.1

FREMINET (MARTIN), a celebrated French painter; was born at Paris in 1567. When he was studying at Rome, the suffrages of that place were divided between Michael Angelo Caravaggio, and Joseph of Arpino, called Giuseppino; and he succeeded in imitating the excellencies of both. He was a great master of design, and of the sciences connected with his art, perspective and architecture; but there is a boldness in his manner, approaching to hardness, which is not always approved. Henry IV. however, appointed him his chief painter, and Louis XIII. honoured him with the order of St. Michael. He painted the cieling in the chapel at Fontainbleau, and died at Paris, June 18, 1619.2

FREMONT. See PERROT.

FRENCH (JOHN), an English physician, the son of John French, of Broughton, near Banbury in Oxfordshire, was born there in 1616, and entered New-Inn-hall, Oxford, in 1633, when he took his degrees in arts. He afterwards studied medicine, and acted as physician to the parliamentary army, by the patronage of the Fiennes, men of great influence at that time; he was also one of the two physicians to the whole army under general Fairfax. In 1648, when the earl of Pembroke visited the university of Oxford, he was created M. D. and was about the same time physician to the Savoy, and one of the college. He went abroad afterwards as physician to the English army at Bulloigne, and died there in Oct. or Nov. 1657. Besides translations of some medical works from Paracelsus and Glauber, he published "The Art of Distillation," Lond. 1651, 4to.; and "The Yorkshire Spaw, or a Treatise of Four famous medicinal wells: viz, the spaw, or vitrioline well; the stinking or sulphur well; the dropping or petrifying well; and St. Magnus-well, near Knaresborow in Yorkshire. Together with the causes, vertues, and use thereof," Lond. 1652 and 1654, 12mo, republished at Halifax, 1760, 12mo.'

FRENICLE DE BESSY (BERNARD), a celebrated French mathematician of the seventeenth century, was the contemporary and companion of Des Cartes, Fermat, and the

'Rees's Cyclopædia.-Manget.-Hailer Bibl. Med. Pract.

2 Dict. Hist.-Pilkington.-D'Argenville, vol. IV. 3 Ath. Ox. vol. II.-Gough's Topography.

FRENICLE DE BESSY.

121

other learned mathematicians of their time. He was admitted geometrician of the French academy in 1666; and died in 1675. He had many papers inserted in the ancient memoirs of the academy, of 1666, particularly in vol. V. of that collection, viz. 1. "A method of resolving problems by Exclusions." 2. "Treatise of right-angled Triangles in Numbers." 3. "Short tract on Combinations." 4. "Tables of Magic Squares." 5. "General method of making Tables of Magic Squares."-His brother NICOLAS FRENICLE, a poet of the seventeenth century, born 1600, at Paris, was counsellor to the court of the mint, and died dean of the same court, after the year 1661, leaving several children. Frenicle wrote many theatrical pieces; as "Palemon," a pastoral, Svo; "Niobe," 8vo; "L'Entretien des Bergers," a pastoral, which is contained in "Les Illustres Bergers," 8vo. Also a poem, entitled, "Jesus crucifié;" a "Paraphrase on the Psalms," in verse, &c.1

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FRERET (NICOLAS), an author of profound learning and considerable abilities, grossly misapplied, was born at Paris in 1688. He was bred nominally to the law, but his inclinations and talents not being suited to that profession, he devoted himself, from an early period, to his favourite studies of chronology and history. At twenty-five he was admitted into the academy of inscriptions, where he produced at the same time "A Discourse on the Origin of the French." This treatise, at once bold and learned, added to some indiscreet conversations, occasioned his being confined in the Bastille. In his confinement, he could obtain no book but the dictionary of Bayle, which he consequently read so earnestly as almost to learn it by heart. He imbibed, at the same time, the scepticism of Bayle, and even went beyond him in the grossness and impudence of his infidel sentiments, as clearly appears by some of his writings. These were, 1. "Letters of Thrasybulus to Leucippe," in which atheism is reduced to a system. 2. "Examination of the Apologists for Christianity," a posthumous work (not published till 1767), no less obnoxious than the other. Besides these, he was the author of, 3. Several very learned memoirs in the volumes of the academy, to which his name is prefixed; and a few light publications of no consequence. He died in 1749, in his

Möreri.-Dict. Hist.-Hutton's Dictionary,

61st year.

His works were revived afterwards, and eagerly disseminated by Voltaire and his associates in their hostilities against religion and morals.

1

FRERON (ELIE CATHERINE), a French journalist, generally known for having been the constant object of the satire of Voltaire, was born at Quimper, in 1719. His talents were considerable, and he cultivated them in the society of the Jesuits, under fathers Brumoy and Bougeant. In 1739, on some disgust, he quitted the Jesuits, and for a time assisted the abbé des Fontaines in his periodical publications. He then published several critical works on his own account, which were generally admired, but sometimes suppressed by authority. His "Letters on certain writings of the time" began to be published in 1749, and were extended, with some interruptions, to 13 volumes. In 1754 he began his "Année Littéraire," and published in that year 7 volumes of it; and afterwards 8 volumes every year as long as he lived, which was till 1776. In this work, Fréron, who was a zealous enemy of the modern philosophy, attacked Voltaire with spirit. He represented him as a skilful plagiary; as a poet, brilliant indeed, but inferior to Corneille, Racine, and Boileau; as an elegant, but inaccurate historian; and rather the tyrant than the king of literature. A great part of this Voltaire could bear with fortitude; but a very skilful and victorious attack upon a bad comedy, "La Femme qui a raison," drove him beyond all bounds of patience; and henceforward his pen was constantly in motion against Fréron, whose very name at any time would put him in a rage, nor was Fréron more a favourite with the encyclopedists, whose principles he exposed.

Fréron, though very skilful in his criticisms, and of uncommon abilities (as Voltaire himself confessed before he was irreconcileably provoked) suffered by the perpetual hostilities of an antagonist so high in reputation. His "Année Littéraire," being constantly accused by Voltaire of partiality, began to be suspected, and the sale in some measure decreased. In foreign countries his talents were not well understood. He is the hero of Voltaire's Dunciad, and nothing more is known about him. He was, in truth, a man of great natural genius and liveliness, with a correct taste, acute powers of discrimination, and a pe

Dict. Hist.

culiar talent of entertaining his reader, while he pointed out the faults of a work. He had an active zeal against false philosophy, innovation, and affectation, and was steadily attached to what he considered as sound principles. In private life he was easy and entertaining. Such were the real talents of this formidable journalist. It must be owned, also, that he had his partialities; that he was sometimes too precipitate in his judgments, and too severe in his censures. Too strong a resentment of injustice sometimes rendered him unjust. His language also was sometimes over-refined, though always perfectly pure. The academies of Angers, Montauban, Nancy, Marseilles, Caen, Arrai, and the Arcadi at Rome, were eager to have him enrolled among their members. He died in March 1776, at the age of fifty-seven.

Besides his periodical publications, Fréron left several works. 1. "Miscellanies," in 3 vols. comprising several poems, to which it has only been objected that they are rather over-polished. 2. "Les Vrais Plaisirs," or the loves of Venus and Adonis; elegantly translated from Marino. 3. Part of a translation of Lucretius. He also superintended and retouched Beaumelle's critical commentary on the Henriade, and assisted in several literary works. STANISLAUS FRERON, was one of the most active accomplices in the atrocities which disgraced the French revolution, and appears to have had no higher ambition than to rival Marat and Robespierre in cruelty. He died at St. Domingo in 1802.1

His son,

FRESNAYE (JOHN VAUQUELIN DE LA), an early poet of France, father of the celebrated Iveteaux, and the first who wrote satires in French, and an Art of Poetry, was born of a noble family at Fresnaye, near Falaise, in 1534. He was bred a lawyer, and became the king's advocate for the bailliage of Caen, and afterwards lieutenantgeneral and president of that city, where he died at the age of seventy-two, in 1606. He wrote, 1. "Satires," which though esteemed less strong than those of Regnier, and less witty than those of Boileau, have truth and nature, and contain simple narratives, the style of which has something pleasing. 2. "The Art of Poetry." Copious. specimens of this performance may be seen in the notes of St. Marc, on Boileau's Art of Poetry. It has consider

1 Dict. Hist.

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able merit, but a merit which has been superseded by later efforts. 3. Two books of Idyllia, and three of epigrams, epitaphs, and sonnets. 4. A poem on the monarchy. All these were collected by himself in an edition of poems, published at Caen in 1605.1

FRESNE (CHARLES DU CANGE DU), commonly called DU CANGE, a learned Frenchman, was descended from a good family, and born at Amiens in 1610. After being taught polite literature in the Jesuits college there, he went to study the law at Orleans, and was sworn advocate to the parliament of Paris in 1631. He practised some time at the bar, but without intending to make it the business of his life. He then returned to Amiens, where he devoted himself to study, and ran through all sorts of learning, languages and philosophy, law, physic, divinity, and history. In 1668, he went and settled at Paris; and soon after a proposal was laid before Colbert, to collect all the authors who at different times had written the history of France, and to form a body out of them. This minister liking the proposal, and believing Du Fresne the best qualified for the undertaking, furnished him with memoirs and manuscripts for this purpose. Du Fresne wrought upon these materials, and drew up a large preface, containing the names of the authors, their character and manner, the time in which they lived, and the order in which they ought to be arranged. Being informed from the minister that his plan was not approved, and that he must adopt another, and convinced that if he followed the order prescribed, the whole work would be spoiled, he frankly told his employers that since he had not been happy enough to please those in authority, his advice was, that they should look out some of the best hands in the kingdom; and at the same time he returned them all their memoirs. (See BOUQUET). Being thus disengaged from a tedious and laborious undertaking, he finished his Glossary of low Latin, or "Glossarium Mediæ et infimæ Latinitatis,"

1 Dict. Hist.-Moreri in Vauquelin.

*The following anecdote is related of Mr. Du Cange: He sent for certain booksellers of Paris, and after pointing to an old trunk which stood in a corner of his cabinet, he told them that it contained materials sufficient to make a book, and if they would undertake to print it, he was

ready to treat with them. With pleasure they embraced his offer, but after they had searched for the manuscript, they found only a heap of small bits of paper not larger than the breadth of a finger, and which seemed to have been torn to pieces as of no manner of use. Du Cange laughed at their mis

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