Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/314

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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

tisfied with the translations made from it, and generally approved. She removed to Paris in 1673, the year after her father died, where she signalized her arrival by a fine edition of Callimachus, with the Greek Scholium, a Latin Version, and Critical Notes.

This work, which would have done honour to a veteran in literature, gained Mademoiselle le Fevre so much fame, that the Duke de Montausier, who then presided over the education of the Dauphin, insisted that she should be associated with a society of learned men, who were appointed to comment upon some Latin authors, for that prince's use. Her task was Florus, Dictys of Crete, Aurelius Victor, and Eutropius. The last was published in 1683, for she surpassed her coadjutors in diligence and activity.

Her reputation being now spread over all Europe, Christina, queen of Sweden, ordered Count Konigsmark to make her a compliment in her name; upon which, Mademoiselle le Fevre sent the queen a letter in Latin, with her edition of Florus. Her majesty wrote her an obliging answer; and not long after, another letter, persuading her to quit the Protestant religion, and inviting her to settle at her court. This, however, she declined, and proceeded in the task she had undertaken, of publishing authors for the use of the dauphin.

In the year 1681, she published a translation of Anacreon and Sappho, with Notes; which met with such applause, that M. Boileau declared it ought to deter any one from attempting to translate them into verse.

In 1683, she published a translation of three comedies of Plautus, in which she imitated, with great success, the sprightliness and gaiety of that author's stile; and, in 1684, two comedies of Aristophanes, with remarks. In

1685,