Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/247

 to translate those poems in verse. She also published, for the use of the dauphin, "Eutropins," in 1683; and "Dictys Cretensis," and "Dares Phrygius" in 1684. She wrote French translations of the "Amphitryo," "Epidicus," and "Prudens," comedies of Plautus, in 1683; and of the "Plutus" and "Clouds" of Aristophanes, with notes.

She was so charmed with this last comedy, that she had read it two hundred times. She married M. Dacier, with whom she had been brought up in her father's house, in 1683, and soon after declared to the Duke of Montausier and the Bishop of Meaux a design of reconciling herself with the church of Rome; but as M. Dacier was not satisfied as to the propriety of the change, she retired with him to Castres in 1684, to examine the controversy between the Protestants and Papists. They determined in favour of the latter, and after their conversion, the Duke de Montausier and the Bishop of Meaux recommended them at court, and the king settled a pension of fifteen hundred livres on M. Dacier, and of five hundred upon his wife. They then returned to Paris and resumed their studies.

In 1688, she published a French translation of "Terence's Comedies," with notes, in three volumes. She rose at five in the morning, during a very cold winter, and finished four of them, but reading them over a few months afterwards, she was so dissatisfied with them that she burnt them, and began the translation again. She brought the work to the highest perfection, and even equalled the grace and noble simplicity of the original. She assisted in the translation of "Marcus Antoninus," published by her husband in 1691, and in the specimen of the translation of "Plutarch's Lives," which he published three years afterwards.

In 1711, she published a French translation, with notes, of "Homer's Iliad," which was thought faithful and elegant. In 1714, she published the "Causes of the Corruption of Taste." This was written against M. de la Motte, who, in the preface to his "Iliad," had expressed but little admiration for that poem. This was the beginning of a literary war, in the course of which a number of books were produced. In 1716, she published a defence of Homer against the apology of Father Hardouin, in which she attempts to show that Father Hardouin, in endeavouring to apologize for Homer, has done him a greater injustice than his declared enemies. Her last work, the "Odyssey of Homer," with notes, translated from the Greek, was published the same year.

She died, after a painful sickness, August 17th., 1720, at sixty-nine years of age. She had two daughters and a son, whom she educated with the greatest care; but the son died young, one daughter became a nun, and the other, who is said to have united all the virtues and accomplishments of her sex, died at eighteen.

Madame Dacier was remarkable for firmness, generosity, good-nature, and piety. Her modesty was so great, that it was with difficulty she could be induced to speak on literary subjects. A learned German once visited her, and requested her to write her name and a sentence in his book of collections. She, seeing in it the names of the greatest scholars in Europe, told him that she could not presume to put her name among so many illustrious persons. But as he insisted, she wrote her name with a sentence of Sophocles signifying that "Silence is the ornament of women." She was often solicited to publish a translation of some books of