Bertin, Anthony

, a modern French poet of the Ovidian cast, was born in the isle of Bourbon, Oct. 10, 1752, and died at St. Domingo June 1790. He was brought to France for education at the age of nine, and after studying for some time in the college of Plessis, entered the military service, and became a captain of horse and a chevalier of St. Louis. In his twentieth year he distinguished himself as a poet, although his effusions were circulated principally among his friends; but in 1782, when he published four books of elegies under the title of “Amours,” a very honourable rank appears to have been assigned to him among the minor poets of France. He was intimately connected with chevalier de Parny, another poet of the amatory class, and who was termed the French Tibullus, and they lived together in the utmost amity, although rivals in the public favour. About the end of the year 1789, Bertin went to St. Domingo to marry a young | creole, with whom he had formed an acquaintance in Paris, but on the day of marriage he was seized with a violent fever, of which he died in a few days. His works were collected and published at Paris in 1785, 2 vols. 18mo, and reprinted in 1802 and 1306. ¹