A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Lambert, (Anne Theresa)
Her father died when she was but three years old, but Bauchamont, a poet and a man of taste, having married her mother, perceived her talents, and cultivated them by an excellent education, by which means she early imbibed the habit of thinking deeply. Being left a widow, with a son and daughter, she watched over them with equal care. Her house was a species of academy, where people regularly assembled, not to play, but to enjoy the pleasure of rational and refined conversation, and where people of talents were always received with pleasure. She herself wrote in a noble, pure, and elegant stile, and though her writings were first published without her knowledge, they have gained her a high rank in the list of moral and sentimental authors.
The first was a letter upon the dispute between Madame Dacier and M. de la Motte respecting Homer, and was occasioned by two letters the Jesuit P. Buffier addressed to Madame Lambert on that subject. They were all three afterwards published by the Abbe Bordelon in one volume, and called Homere en Arbitrage. 2, A Letter from a Lady to her Son, on True Glory. This, unknown to her, was published in Memoires de Litterature et d'Histoire, and a Second Letter to her Daughter was promised by the publisher; but this she would not permit to be printed, yet afterwards found it necessary to publish both, under the title of Avis d'une Mere à son Fils & à sa Fille, in 1729, in 12mo. 3, Her New Reflections on Women, were printed at Paris in 1727, and at London 1729. This work, called Metaphysique d'Amour, was translated by Lokman. 4, In 1748, a volume in 12mo. was published at Paris, containing many short works of hers, such as Essays on Friendship, Old Age, on Women, on Taste, and Riches, &c. The Female Hermit, in the same book, was not written by her. This has also been translated and published in English.
The works of this lady were reprinted in 1752 in two little volumes, and may be read with as much profit as pleasure. The morality, however, is that of the world and of honour, and not that of the gospel.
Madame de Lambert preserved her taste for the belles lettres amidst the anxieties of a long lawsuit during her widowhood, and the infirmities of her latter years, which she bore with a patience and courage that did her honour.