Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/317

Rh be attributed, the perfect similarity of their genius and talents having transposed itself into their very expressions.

Madame Dacier soon resigned this work to her husband, to give herself entirely to a more arduous undertaking, the translation of Homer's Iliad, which was published in 1711, a task that she executed with fidelity and exactness, but which involved her in disputes with many of the literati of that age, particularly La Motte and Terrasson, who disputed the merit of her author. She answered the former by a volume intituled, Des Causes de la Corruption du Gout.

Madame Dacier had lost a promising son, her eldest daughter was gone into a nunnery, and the youngest, then her only child, died at the age of eighteen. Grief for this loss for some time suspended her labours, and prevented the Odyssey's appearing till 1716. As usual with her translations, which are all in prose, this was accompanied with a very learned preface. Soon after appeared, A Defence of Homer against Hardouin, his Apologist, who, she conceived, had injured him more than his opponents.

After so many labours, Madame Dacier had resolved to write no more for the public. She still, however, continued her studies, till she was attacked by a paralytic stroke, in May 1720. Three months after, a second deprived her of life at the age of 69. Her husband survived her but two years.

This lady, whose labours are so important and so numerous, maintained such a confirmed habit of industry, that she is said not to have gone out more than six times in a year; but after having passed the whole morning in study,