Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/71

 A C C I U S. a hiftory, and, as our author had wrote annals, fome infift that he is the perfon cenfured ; but as Cicero himfelf, Horace, Quintilian, Ovid, and Paterculus, have fpoken of our author with fo much applaufe, we cannot think it is he whom the Roman Orator ccnfures with fo much (evcritv. There was alfo in this age a good orator of the fame name, aoainft whom Cicero defended Cluentius. He was born in Pifaurum, and perhaps was a relation of our poet. ACCORDS (STEPHEN TABOUROT, fcigneurdes), advo- cate in the parliament ofDijonin France, and king's advocate in the baiiiwic and chancery of that city, burn in the year 1 549. He was a man of genius and learning, but too much addicted to trifles, as appears from his piece, entitled, " Les Bigar- " rures," printed at Paris in 1582 [A]. This was nothis firft production, for he had before printed fome fonnets. His work, intituled, " Les Touches," was publimedat Paris in J 585 [B] ; which is indeed a collection of witty poems, but moft of them upon obfcene fubjects ; and worked up rather in too loofe a manner, according to the licentious tafte of that age. His Bigarrures are written in the fame (train. He was cenfured for this way of writing, which obliged him to pub- Bibliothe- lifli an apology. La Croix du Maine fays in one place, that <3 ue Fran- Accords wrote a dictionary of French rhimes; but he after- S oife 'P' J 5 6 ' wards corrected himfelf, having found that John le Fevre of Dijon, fecretary to cardinal De Givre, and canon of Langres, Ibt p, aa , was the author thereof. Accords himfelf mentions him as the author, and declares his intention of compiling a fupple- ment to his uncle Le Fevre's work; but, if he did, it never appeared in print. The lordfhip of Accords is an imaginary fief or title from the device of his anceftors, which was a drum, [A] The firft book of the " Bigar- concludes with a difcourfe on wizards " rures" is divided into twenty-two and their impoftures. chapters, which treat, amongft other [ B] This piece is divided into three things, of the rebus's of Picardy, of books ; the firft being dedicated to Pon- double entendres, of antiftrophes, of re- tus de Tyard, lord of BifTy, and biftop trograde verfes, or fuch as read the fame of Chalons. The author boafts he wrot backward and forward, of allufions, of it in two months at Verdun upon the scroftics, of the echo, of leonine verfes, Soane in 1585. It confifh chiefly of ef other forts of verfe waggifhly and in- epigrams, which may with propriety be genioufly contrived, of epitaphs, &c. called Touches : " Becaufe," lays the The fourth book is of a more ferious author, " it is a (light kind of f.-ncing, turn than the three firft, and is divided " in which, by parrying with the file, into three chapters: the firft contains " I give fuch a touch or thruft as I'carce ufcful inftruclions for the education of " raifes the ftin, and cannot pierce deep children ; the fecond relates to altering ' into the fiefh." indication to tha one's furname ; the third, feveral obfer- Touches, vations on French verfe j and the work D 2