, countess de la Suze, a French poetess, whose works have been printed with those of
, countess de la Suze, a French
poetess, whose works have been printed with those of Pellison and others in 1695, and 1725 in 2 volumes 12mo, was
the daughter of Gaspar de Coligni, the third of that name,
marshal of France, and colonel-general of infantry. She
was very early married, in 1643, when she could not be
more than seventeen, to Thomas Hamilton, earl of Haddington, according to Moreri, but we find no mention of
this in the Scotch peerage. After his death she espoused
the count de la Suze, of an illustrious house in Champaigne.
But this second match proved unfortunate, owing to the
furious jealousy of the count her husband, whose severities
towards her made her abjure protestantism, and profess the
catholic faith, which occasioned queen Christina of Sweden
to say, “that she had changed her religion, that she might not
see her husband, neither in this world nor the next.
” Their
antipathy became so great that the countess at last disannulled the marriage; and to induce the count to accede
to it, she offered 25,000 crowns, which he accepted. She
then gave herself up to the study of poetry, and became
much admired by the geniuses of her time, who made her
the subject of their eulogiums. Her fort lay in the elegiac strain, and those works of hers which have come down
to us have at least a delicate turn of sentiment. Her other
poems are songs, madrigals, and odes. The wits of her
time gave her the majesty of Juno with Minerva’s wit and
Venus’s beauty in some verses, attributed to Bouhours:
but her character in other respects appears not to have
been of the most correct kind. She died at Paris, March
10, 1673.
, a French poetess, was born at Paris in 1638, and possessed all
, a French
poetess, was born at Paris in 1638, and possessed all the
charms of her sex, and wit enough to shine in the age of
Louis XIV. Her taste for poetry was cultivated by the
celebrated poet Henault, who is said to have instructed her
in all he knew, or imagined he knew; but she not only
imitated him in his poetry, but also in his irreligion; for
her verses savour strongly of Epicureanism. She composed epigrams, odes, eclogues, tragedies; but succeeded best in the idyllium or pastoral, which some affirm
she carried to perfection. She died at Paris in 1694,
and left a daughter of her own name, who had some talent
for poetry, but inferior to that of her mother. The first
verses, however, composed by this lady, bore away the
prize at the French academy; which was highly to her
honour, if it be true, as is reported, that Fontenelle wrote
at the same time, and upon the same subject. She was a
member of the academy of the Ilicovrati of Padua, as,was
her mother, who was also of that of Aries. She died at
Paris in 1718. The works of these two ladies were
collectively published in 1747, in 2 vols. 12mo. Several
maxims of the elder of these ladies are much cited by
French writers; as, that on gaming, “On commence par
tre dupe, on finit par etre fripon.
” People begin dupes,
and end rogues. And that on self-love: “Nul n'est content cle sa fortune, ni mécontent de son esprit.
” No one
is satisfied with his fortune, or dissatisfied with his talents.