SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS ОР SEGRA IS. up, JOHN RENAUD DE SEGRAIS, an eminent poet, was born at Caen, in 1624, and commenced his studies in the college of the Jesuits in that place. As he grew he applied himself to poetry, and with such success, that it enabled him to rescue four brothers and two sisters and himself from the narrow circumstances in which an extravagant father had left them all. At the age of twenty he was introduced to mitted as gentleman-usher to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Orleans. On his retiring from the court, he returned to Caen, was admitted of the French Academy, and put that of Caen into a respectable form. He died at this place, in 1701, of a dropsy. His eclogues and his translations were at that time much esteemed. Of his prose writings, the most esteemed is the romance of the Princess of Cleves, and Zayde. Madame de la Fayette, by whom he was generously patronized, is supposed to have assisted Segrais in these two latter works. Zayde has been often printed, and enriched with the learned M. Huet's treatise on the Origin of Romances. SEGRAISIANA. M. DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT WAS not a man of erudition, but had an extraordinary share of common sense, and a very extensive knowledge of the world. These qualifications enabled him to make shrewd observations on life, and, under the form and title of "Maxims," to exhibit to the public eye his knowledge of the human heart, into which his genius taught him to penetrate deeply. I have so great an admiration of his book of Maxims, that I can repeat them nearly all by heart. I consider the author as extravagant on the subject of self-love, when he asserts, that we act merely from our own interest, without regard to that of another; yet when we |