A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Dacier, (Anne)
D.
DACIER (ANNE), Daughter of Tanneguy le Fevre, Professor of Greek at Saumur, in France; born 1651; died at the Louvre 1720, aged 69.
M. Le Fevre did not intend to make his daughter a scholar, but he had a son whom he educated with the greatest care, and when he gave him his lesson, she sat by at her needle. The young man one day hesitated in his answer, and his sister, then about 10 or 11, prompted him what to say, though seemingly intent on her work. The father heard, and overjoyed at the discovery, resolved to take her under his tuition. She, however, severely repented her officiousness, being confined to regular lessons, and deprived of the amusements and employment suited to her early habits; but her reluctance was soon overcome by his commendations, which were such, that from a scholar she became a confidante, was consulted in all his designs, and an assistant in all his compositions. Her brother was seized with emulation, and they studied together with great success. She learnt Latin, Italian, and Greek; in eight years was able to study the last without a master, and began to be dissatisfied 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, she received a pension from the court. Two years preceding this, she had married M. Dacier, one of the scholars of her father, and son of a protestant gentleman of Languedoc. He had made so great a progress in his studies, and in the esteem of his tutor, that he permitted him to remain with him some years after he dismissed his other pupils, from which time the young Dacier and Mademoiselle le Fevre were inseparable, both in their studies and amusements, and at length conceived the tenderest affection for each other, which forty years living together did not abate.
Whether the large offers and recompences bestowed on converts of rank made any impression on them; whether they accounted the differences not weighty enough to justify a separation; or were led by a sincere regard to truth; they both at the same time declared, that their attachment to literature had diverted their attention from religion, that they were about to sequester themselves from company and books, and would retire for a time into the country, and there sedulously employ themselves in canvassing the arguments of the catholics and reformed. The result of their retired disquisitions, which lasted several weeks, was, a declaration for catholicism; the public profession of which, however, they deferred, till their return to Paris, out of tenderness to their relations, whose concern at their defection they judged would embitter that ceremony.
On their return to Paris in 1686, they began their usual exercises. Terence's Comedies were now began by Madam Dacier. Her critical eye could discover defects in translations which had till then satisfied the public. For four months she applied herself to the work, rising at four in the morning, and then, dissatisfied with her success, threw the whole into the fire. But she gave not up the undertaking, and with redoubled diligence began another translation, which was printed in 1688, and was well worth the great pains it cost her.
Hitherto this extraordinary couple had worked separately, and never united their labours. This was proposed to them by the president Harlai, their patron, who put into their hands the Moral Reflections of Marcus Antoninus, for a French translation, to which they added curious remarks, and a Life of the Author, which in a great measure makes up the loss of that which the emperor himself is known to have written. It was published in 1691.
Soon after, M. Dacier lost his father; the inheritance, though chiefly his concern, seemed to require a conduct of which he thought his wife more capable than himself. She readily postponed her beloved occupations to go to Castres upon her husband's affairs, and the letters she wrote from thence are said to be a surprizing assemblage of exactness in the detail of her proceedings, of the tenderest sentiments of love increased by absence, and of erudition in her remarks on what occurred to her in reading, to which she devoted her leisure hours. M. Dacier was not wanting to make the public some amends, by a translation of Aristotle's Art of Poetry, with Notes; and it was in that kind of solitude he formed the grand design of a new translation of Plutarch's Lives, intending to sound the inclinations of the public with a volume containing six; two he had finished before his wife's return, when they privately agreed to divide the other between them; and secretly entertained themselves with the incertitude of the public, and the diversity of opinions to which each particular life was to 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, received the visits of people of letters in the evening.
Her piety, modesty, and fortitude, made her revered by all ranks of people; and her benevolence to the poor was so unbounded, that she often suffered great inconvenience by denying herself many of the comforts of life, to succour the unfortunate.