, Sieur de Porcheres, one of the first members of the French academy
, Sieur de Porcheres, one of the
first members of the French academy in the seventeenth
century, was born in Provence, and was descended from
the ancient family of Porcheres. He was the scholar and
follower of Malherbe, and imitated him in the turn of his
verse, and was also tutor to the son of Mr. de Chenoise,
and afterwards to the son of the count Saint-Herau. The
abbtj Bois-Robert, who was particularly eminent for the
generous use which he made of his interest with cardinal
Richelieu, procured him a pension of six hundred livres
from that great man. On March 10, 1636, he spoke an
oration in the French academy upon the “Love of the
Sciences.
” He retired at last into Burgundy, where he
married, and died in 1640. He wrote a great number of
verses, which were never printed. But there are others,
which were published, as particularly his “Paraphrase
upon the Psalms
” of Degrees,“to which are added his
” Poems upon divers subjects," Paris, 1633, 8vo. He
had a brother, John, who had likewise a talent for poetry,
and translated several of the Psalms into French verse, two
editions of which have been published, the former at Grenoble in 1651, and the latter more complete at Marseilles
in 1654.