by the snow in a meadow, a little aside from his direct road. Freneau's works have not only a historical and social, but occasionally a real poetic interest. He was undoubtedly a man of genius. Campbell and Sir Walter Scott, the American critics fondly commemorate, appropriated two of his lines, and Lord Jeffrey predicted that his poetry would live. Good accounts of his life and writings will be found in Duyckinck's Cyclopædia of American literature; and in Griswold's Poets and Poetry of America.—F. E.
FRENICLE DE BESSY, Bernard, brother of the poet Nicolas Frenicle, was born at Paris about the year 1605, and died in 1675. He held an appointment under government, and devoted all his leisure time to the study of the exact sciences. He excelled particularly in the science of arithmetic, and excited the wonder of his friends Fermat and Des Cartes, by his expertness in solving the most difficult problems without the aid of algebra. He was chosen a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1666. Frenicle wrote "Méthode pour trouver la solution des problèmes par exclusions;" "Traité des Triangles rectangles en nombre;" "Abrégé des combinaisons;" "Traité des Carrés magiques." These pieces have all been collected by Lahire in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences.—R. M., A.
FRERE, John Hookham, The Right Honourable, scholar, humourist, and diplomatist, was born on the 21st of May, 1769. He was the eldest son of John Frere, Esq. of Raydon Hall, Norfolk, and member of parliament for Norwich. Educated at Eton, he had George Canning for a school-fellow, and was one of the band of youthful literary aspirants who, with the future premier, started while at Eton the weekly paper, the Microcosm, the first number of which appeared in the November of 1786. Frere's contributions to this school-boy periodical are said to have been marked by "a tone of effort and inexperience." Neither of these characteristics, however, is traceable in the extraordinary composition some three years prior in date, his "War-song upon the victory at Brunnanburgh," a pretended translation from the Anglo-Saxon into the Anglo-Norman of the fourteenth century, and the production of which was stimulated by the Rowley controversy. Here the feat of invention was a double one, and its execution was singularly successful Sir James Mackintosh pronounced this innocent forgery (which is to be found in Ellis' Specimens of Ancient English Poetry) the only one known to him which did not betray itself by internal evidence. While Canning went to Oxford, Frere proceeded from Eton to Cambridge, where he graduated in 1792, and became a fellow of Caius college. Similarity of politics as of tastes led, however, to a renewal of intimacy with Canning, when Frere entered the house of commons as member for the now extinct borough of West Looe, in the November of 1796. In the course of the following year, the Anti-Jacobin, with William Gifford for editor, was founded, and Frere co-operated with Canning in the composition of some of the most telling and caustic jeux d'esprit contributed to that famous miscellany. Recent researches have established his claims to a share in the authorship both of "The Friend of Humanity" and of "The Rovers," two of the most notable pieces in the satirical repertory of the Anti-Jacobin. On the temporary withdrawal of Canning from office, Frere succeeded his friend in the under-secretaryship of state for foreign affairs. In the October of 1800, he was appointed envoy-extraordinary to Portugal, whence he was transferred in a similar capacity to Spain, where he remained for two years, In 1807 he was sent ambassador to Prussia, and returned in 1808, to resume his old functions at Madrid. The following year, 1809, was that of the retreat to Corunna, and Frere was and has been much blamed for his alleged share in the counsels which led to that event. He was soon afterwards replaced by the Marquis Wellesley, and retired from active public life on a diplomatic pension of £1700 a year. Once more Frere was associated in the politico-literary combination which, under the auspices of Canning, and with Gifford again for editor, founded the Quarterly Review, to which he was a prominent contributor. In 1817 he published the prospectus and a specimen of "Whistlecraft," a poem distinguished in literary history as having given Lord Byron, so far as metre and general style were concerned, the idea of Beppo and of Beppo's celebrated successor, Don Juan. Latterly Frere took up his residence at Malta, "the captive," says Mr. Lockhart in his life of Scott, "of the enchanting climate and the romantic monuments of the old chivalry" of our Mediterranean island-fortress. At Malta he continued to cultivate literature, printing there his spirited translation of some of the plays of Aristophanes, and his versions of Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theognis, the last of which has been partly transplanted by Mr. Bohn to his Classical Library. Mr. Frere died at Malta on the 7th of January, 1846, much regretted, not only by his friends, but by the islanders, with whom his charities had made him popular. In private life he was noted both for his wit and for his absence of mind.—F. E.
* FRÈRE, Pierre Édouard, a French painter, born at Paris, January 10th, 1819, was a scholar of Paul Delaroche, and a pupil of the école des beaux arts, Édouard Frère first exhibited at the Salon in 1843. He is the Webster of the French school, but his canvas is more usually confined to homely in-door rustic subjects, in which some simple childish incident is represented, and with such titles as "The Cut Finger;" "Coming out of the Bath;" "the Little Nurse;" "the Evening Prayer;" "Cold Morning;" "Breakfast;" and the like. Never "making up" his pictures from the ordinary models of the Parisian painters, M. Édouard Frère has wandered into the most out-of-the-way unsophisticated localities in search of materials for his pencil; and his pictures always possess in consequence, a singular freshness as well as truth of character. Ruskin wrote of him a year or two back—"Édouard Frère unites the depth of Wordsworth, the grace of Reynolds, and the holiness of Angelico." His pictures are usually of small size, and at first sight not attractive in style; for he is a heavy colourist, and rigid in his exclusion of unnecessary details, and in the subordination of those he admits. But his pictures grow in favour in proportion as they are studied. Many of his works have been lithographed.—J. T—e.
FRÉRET, Nicolas, whom the French regard as their greatest historical critic; and who must ever be famous for the extent, the variety, and the depth of his erudition and researches, was born at Paris on the 15th February, 1688. His father, who belonged to the legal profession, wished his son to be a barrister. Nicolas most reluctantly consented. After pleading one or two causes, he felt himself irresistibly attracted by those more congenial employments which had from boyhood absorbed his thoughts, and bade adieu to the bar for ever. His life became wholly that of a student, varied by few events, except the appearance, from time to time, of his almost countless productions. He had not long quitted the bar when he became connected with the Academy of Inscriptions, and it was in the Transactions of the Academy that nearly all his works appeared. A paper which he read before the Academy in 1714 excited extraordinary attention, and led to extraordinary results. It was on the history of France, and stated and elucidated, for the first time, the true principles whereby that history should be studied. It gave offence to the government, or rather, which is more probable, to persons jealous of Fréret's abilities and growing fame. Fréret was placed in the bastile, where he remained six months. From 1720 to 1723 the duke de Noailles intrusted him with the education of his sons. In 1743 he was elected perpetual secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions. Though there was scarcely any subject of human knowledge, which Fréret's sagacious and suggestive mind did not approach and illuminate, yet he was especially distinguished as a chronologist. After years spent in the most ascetic seclusion, and dedicated wholly to the acquisition or dissemination of science in its most encyclopædic vastness, Fréret died at Paris on the 8th of March, 1749. Knowing nearly every ancient and modern language, Fréret was one of the first in France to study Chinese, and though so devoted to drier pursuits, he was intimate with literature, and translated some dramatic works from the Italian. His writings on history, chronology, mythology, archæology, philology, geography, and other subjects, were republished in twenty volumes about sixty years ago. This edition is exceedingly incorrect and incomplete. A more critical and perfect edition was begun but not continued by M. Champollion Figeac, the elder brother of the celebrated Champollion, the Egyptian scholar. Though a man of the utmost freedom and boldness in the expression of his opinions, yet Fréret had long an undeserved reputation as having written works of a sceptical tendency. It is now generally admitted that those works did not proceed from his pen, and that he had never any other inspiration than the pure inspiration of the student.—W. M—l.
FRÉRON, Élie Catherine, born at Quimper in 1719;
