Lambin, Denys

, a learned Frenchman, and noted commentator upon the classics, was born in 1516 at Montrevil in Picardy. Applying himself with indefatigable industry to polite literature, he made an extraordinary progress, especially in the critical knowledge of the classic authors. After some time he was taken into the retinue of cardinal Francis de Tournon, whom he attended into Italy, where he continued several years. On his return to Paris, | he was made king’s professor of the belles lettres, which he had taught before at Amiens. He published commentaries upon Piautus, Lucretius, Cicero, and Horace; he translated, into Latin, Aristotle’s morals and politics, and several pieces of Demosthenes and Æschines. He died in 1572, of grief, for the loss of his friend Peter Ramus, who perished in the massacre of the protestants on the infamous vespers of St. Bartholomew. Lambin was not without apprehensions of suffering the same fate, notwithstanding he was otherwise a good catholic. He was married to a gentlewoman of the Ursin family, by whom he had a son, who survived him, and published some of his posthumous works.

The character of his genius is seen in his writings, by which he acquired the reputation of a man of great learning and critical sagacity, although some have complained that the prodigious heap of various readings, with which he loaded his commentaries, render them very tedious, His Horace, however, is very highly esteemed, and his Cicero lias lately been justly applauded and defended against Gruter, by Beck. Nor is his Piautus less esteemed; in his Lucretius only he is thought prolix and conjectural. Of these classics, the best editions are, of the Horace, that of Venice 1566, 2 vols. 4to; of the Cicero, that of Paris, 1566, 2 vols. fol.; of the Piautus, Paris, 1577; and of the Lucretius, Paris, 1563, 4to. He published also an excellent edition of Cornelius Nepos, at Paris, 1569, 4to. His other works are: “De Utilitate Linguae Graecae & recta Graecorum Latine interpretandorum Ratione.” “Oratio de Rationis Principatu & recta Institutione.” “Oratio habita pridie quam Lib. tert. Aristotelis de Republic* explicaret.” “De Philosophia cum Arte dicendi conjungenda Oratio.” “Annotationes in Alcinoum de Doctrina Platonis.” “Vita Ciceronis ex ejus Operibus collecta.” “EpistoJoe praefatoriaD.” “Epistolae familiares.” “Aristotelis Politica & Libri de Moribus, Lambino Interprete.” “Adversaria Demosthenis & Æschinis Orationes in Linguam Latinam translate,” &c. ¹