Mambrun, Peter

, an ingenious and learned French Jesuit, who has written Latin poetry, was born in the diocese of Clermont, in 1581. He was one of the most ambitious imitators of Virgil; and wrote in the same measure, the same number of books, and in the three different kinds to which that illustrious poet applied himself. Thus we have of Mambrun, “Eclogues,” “Georgics, or four books upon the culture of the soul and the understanding;” and an heroic poem in twelve books, entitled “Constantine, or idolatry overthrown. We cannot, however, say that he has imitated the genius and judgment of Virgil as well as he has his exterior form and ceconomy. He is, indeed, allowed to have had great talents for poetry, and was a good critic, as he has sufficiently shewn in a Latin Peripatetic dissertation upon an epic poem; so that it is not without some foundation that Menage has called him” a great poet, as well as a great critic.“His” Peripatetic dissertation“was published at Paris, 1652, 4to; his” ConstantiYie,“at Amsterdam, 1659, in 12mo; his” Eclogues and Georgics," at Fleche, 1661, in 12mo; in which year also he died, aged eighty. ²