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ILLUSTRIOUS AND CELEBRATED

WOMEN,

OF ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES.

Alphabetically arranged.

BY MARY HAYS.

IN SIX VOlumes.

VOL. IV.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR RICHARD PHILLIPS, 71, ST. PAUL'S

CHURCH-YARD.

By Thomas Davison, White-Friars.

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MEMOIRS

OF

DISTINGUISHED WOMEN.

MADAME DACIER.

ANNE, daughter of Tannequy le Fevre, and of Marie Olivier his wife, was born at Saumur, in 1651. Her father, it is related, had an acquaintance who practised judicial astrology, and who, on the birth of the infant, desired he might be allowed to cast her nativity. After finishing his figures, he told M. le Fevre, there must have been some mistake respecting the exact instant of the birth of the child, since her horoscope promised a fortune and fame quite foreign to a female. This story must be left to the faith of the reader, but, whatever might be its truth, it is certain that an incident occurred when mademoiselle le Fevre was about ten years of which determined her father, who was proage, VOL. IV.

B

fessor of the belles lettres at Saumur, to give her the advantages of a learned education.

M. le Fevre had a son whom he instructed in the classics; and to whom he usually gave lessons in the room in which his daughter worked in tapestry. The youth, whether from incapacity or inattention, was sometimes at a loss when questioned by his father: on these occasions, his sister, who appeared to be wholly occupied with her needle and her silks, never failed to suggest to him the proper reply, however intricate or embarrassing the subject. M. le Fevre was, by this discovery, induced to cultivate the talents of his daughter. Mademoiselle le Fevre afterwards confessed, that she felt at the time a secret vexation for having thus betrayed her capacity, and exchanged the occupations and amusements of her sex, under the eye of an indulgent mother, for the discipline of her father, and the vigilance and application necessary to study.

After having learned the elements of the Latin language, she applied herself to the Greek, in which she made a rapid progress, and at the end of eight years no longer stood in need of the assistance of a master. As her mind strengthened, and acquired a wider range, she emancipated herself from the trammels of authority, and laid down plans of study, which she pursued with perseverance; she now read and thought for herself, and frequently, though with

the utmost modesty and deference, presumed to differ, on subjects of literature and criticism, from her respectable father. Of this, the translation of Quintius Curtius, by the celebrated Vaugelas, afforded an example. M. le Fevre accorded, on this occasion, with the popular opinion of the times, in considering this performance as a master-piece of eloquence: his daughter, on the contrary, whether more acute, or less easily satisfied, censured the translation, as defective in purity of style, and in the idiom of the French language.

In 1673, when on the point of departing for Heidelberg, whither the elector palatine had invited him, on advantageous conditions, M. le Fevre suddenly expired. His daughter, on this event, repaired to Paris, where she fixed her residence, and in which she published her first work, an edition of the poetry of Callimachus, to which she added a Greek scholium, a Latin version, and critical notes. This performance was dedicated to M. Huet, under-preceptor to the dauphin, from whom the author received nine epigrams of Callimachus, with which she enriched a new edition. In her preface, she intimates that certain of the learned, it was probable, would find some difficulty in divining by what motive her father could have been induced to train up his daughter to the study of the belles lettres, rather than to employ

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