Charleval, Charles

, was born in 1613, with a very delicate body, and a mind of the same quality. He was passionately fond of polite literature, and gained the love of all that cultivated it. His conversation was mingled with the gentleness and ingenuity that are apparent in his writings. Scarron, who was ludicrous even in his praises, speaking of the delicacy of his genius and taste, said, “that the muses had fed him upon, blanc-mange and | chicken broth.” His benevolence was active and munificent. Having learnt that M. and madame Dacier were about to leave Paris, in order to live more at their ease in the country, he offered them ten thousand francs in gold, and insisted on their acceptance of it. Notwithstanding the feebleness of his constitution, by strictly adhering to the regimen prescribed him by the faculty, he spun out his life to the age of eighty. The frequent use of rhubarb heated him so much, that it brought on a fever, which the physicians thought of curing by copious bleeding, and one of them said to the rest: “There, the fever is now going off.” “I tell you,” replied Thevenot, the king’s librarian, who happened to be present, “it is the patient that is going off;” and Charleval died in an hour or two after, in 1693. J His poetical pieces fell into the hands of the president de Ris, his nephew, who never would consent to publish them. A small collection, however, was printed in 1759, 12mo; but they have scarcely supported their original reputation, although in France several of his epigrams are yet frequently quoted in all companies. The conversation of the marechal d’Horquincourt and father Canaye, printed in the works of St. Evremond, a piece full of originality and humour, is the composition of Charleval, excepting the little dissertation on Jansenism and Molinism, which St. Evremond subjoined to it; but it falls far short of the ingenuity of the rest of the work. ¹