The Abbe Dicquemare, a naturalist of considerable eminence,
who resided here, may possibly be known to you by his observations on
this subject, or still more probably by those upon the Aetiniae; the
latter having been translated into English, and honored with a place in
the Transactions of our Royal Society. Of more extensive, but not more
justly merited, fame, are George Scudery and his sister Magdalen: the
one a voluminous writer in his day, though now little known, except for
his _Critical Observations upon the Cid_; the other, a still more
prolific author of novels, and alternately styled by her contemporaries
the Sappho of her age, and "un boutique de verbiage;" but unquestionably
a writer of merit, notwithstanding the many unmanly sneers of Boileau,
whose bitter pen, like that of our own illustrious satirist, could not
even consent to spare a female that had been so unfortunate as to
provoke his resentment. She died in 1701, at the advanced age of
ninety-four. The last upon my list is one of whom death has very
recently deprived the world, the excellent Bernardin de Saint Pierre; a
man whose writings are not less calculated to improve the heart than to
enlarge the mind.
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