Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 9 - Section IV
IV. Peter Des Maizeaux, F.R.S.
Materials for a memoir of Pierre Des Maizeaux are to be found in the ten volumes of manuscripts, entitled, “Letters to Monsieur Des Maizeaux,” belonging to the Bibliotheca Birchiana, in the British Museum. The first eight volumes contain his literary and miscellaneous correspondence, autograph letters arranged according to the alphabetical order of the writers’ surnames. The tenth volume contains all his loose papers, chiefly notes jotted from books at the time of reading them. In the ninth volume are the letters from his father and mother to him, and certificates and documents of a personal nature.
Pierre Des Maizeaux was born in 1673. His father was Mr. Louis Des Maizeaux, Pasteur of Paillat in Auvergne; his mother’s maiden name was Madelaine Dumonteil. The family became refugees in Switzerland, the father settling as the pastor of Avenche in the Canton of Berne. Pierre obtained a certificate from Berne on the 9th May 1695, stating that in that town he had been for five years a teacher of youth, and a student of divinity of great promise. This he presented to the Professors at Geneva, under whose tuition he remained for nearly four years, his farewell certificate being dated 3d April 1699.
Peter Des Maizeaux, on removing from Geneva, made his way to London, and there he spent the remainder of his life. He did not proceed to ordination to the ministry, but sought and obtained employment as a tutor. He had several pupils of high rank, of whom the most noted and the most attentive was George Parker, whose father rose to be Lord Chancellor, and Earl of Macclesfield, and who himself succeeded to that Earldom in 1732, and was distinguished as a scholar. Des Maizeaux is chiefly known and remembered as one of those men of letters, some orthodox, some heterodox, who clustered round the Seigneur de St Evremond, and were virtually a literary club. “On his arrival in England,” says Weiss, “and admission to the intimacy of St. Evremond, Des Maizeaux persuaded the illustrious old man to revise with him the originals of his works, in order to put an end to the unprincipled use made of his name by authors and publishers. He gathered from his lips sufficient information regarding his writings to be competent to publish an authentic edition.”
A club, living by the breath of a nonagenarian, was dispersed soon. The Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Des Maizeaux, from Rotterdam, 2d November 1703, “I am sorry you were not present with Monsieur St. Evremont at his death; however the mark he has placed on you of his esteem and friendship will, I hope, be of advantage to you in making you known and valued.” Another highly educated French refugee united with him in the publication of St. Evremond’s Works, viz., Dr. Sylvestre. I have read all the letters in his Collections which he received from his fellow-exiles, and my readers will find the substance of those specimens of his correspondence in my memoirs of the writers. I allude to them here, as proofs that he lived on the most cordial terms with them, and was respected, beloved, and admired by them.
In 1709 he presented a petition to the Government for a pension. “Your petitioner,” he said, “hath for many years resided in England, in which kingdom he came as a refugee from the persecution in France, on account of religion.” He represented himself as having devoted “ten years to the education of young gentlemen of quality.” His claim for relief was failing health; he had impaired his sight; was a sufferer from pains and weaknesses in the eyes and head, partly arising from irregularity as to his meals and a sedentary life. The Lord Treasurer Godolphin obtained for him the Queen’s Letter to the Earl of Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, dated 26th April 1710, for a pension of 3s. 6d. a-day. This occasioned some correspondence with Mr. Addison, one of the letters being from Addison himself, dated Dublin Castle, August 1st, 1710, wishing him joy of his new post (whatever that may have been). Other business letters bear the names of French refugees, as, Theo. Des Brisac; H. Morel; Daniel Gervais, cornet, agent to the French pensioners, William Street, Dublin; and in London, Messieurs Girardot de Tillieux and Lamotte Blagny. On the 18th July 1722, on the recommendation of the Lord Chamberlain (the Duke of Newcastle), Des Maizeaux was made Gentleman of his Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Chamber. It was in the year 1720 that he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Des Maizeaux’s correspondents were of almost all beliefs, sacred or profane; but it was the love of classical literature and belles lettres that formed the bond of union. There is one letter from David Hume.
The famous Dr. William Warburton, on the 9th September 1732, sends him an old French coin, one of the League’s, struck in 1592, for the old Cardinal of Bourbon with the title of Charles X., the inscription being Christus regnat vincit et imperat. This letter and four others are printed at full length in Nichol’s “Illustrations of Literary History,” vol. ii. That volume contains also three letters from Des Maizeaux to Rev. Thos. Birch.
His pupil the Earl of Macclesfield, whose letters often occur in the collection, writes to him on the 24th April 1743, having heard that he was ill, and sending him £9, 14s., as a contribution from some of his friends. A considerable portion of the mass of correspondence is in Latin, in which language we trace him from the ornatissimus juvenis, to the vir doctissimus, proestantissimus, honoratissimus, amplissimus, nobilissimus. The Gentleman’s Magazine informs us that Mr Des Maizeaux, F.R.S., died on the 11th July 1745; thus his age at his death was seventy-two.
Besides St. Evremond, he memorialised in his numerous works and compilations, Boileau Despreaux, Hales, Chillingworth, Locke, Bayle, &c, &c. His life of Chillingworth has been thought worthy of republication by the enterprising Tegg, under the editorship of Mr James Nichols. Des Maizeaux’s preface is dated London, July 15th, 1725:
“Some time ago I published the life of the ever-memorable Mr Hales as a specimen of a Historical and Critical English Dictionary, in which an account will be given of such persons as have made themselves famous by their writings or other actions in Great Britain and Ireland. But as a work of that nature requires an uncommon labour and diligence, and consequently a considerable time, I have been desired by some persons, who have a particular esteem for Mr Chillingworth, to select out of my materials what concerned that excellent man, and to print it by itself. This hath given me the liberty of enlarging that article beyond the bounds required in a Dictionary.”
Wc may thus look on the Biographia Britannica as a monument to Des Maizeaux.
His life of Boilcau Despreaux was prefixed to the first complete collection of that poet’s works in English, translated from the French under the superintendence of Rowe, Ozell, and others. The Memoir is described as “Written to Joseph Addison, Esq., by Mr Des Maizeaux,” and is dated London, November 24th, 1711. Volumes I. and II. of Boileau’s Works were published in 1712. Afterwards a posthumous volume appeared, “London, Printed for E. Curll at the Dial and Bible against St. Dunstan’s Church in Elect-street. 1713. Price 3s. 6d.; where may be had the two former Volumes of M. Boileau’s Works, Price 12s.” The most interesting item in verse is “The Satire upon Equivocation, against the Jesuits,” — and in prose, “A critical dispute between Monsieur Boileau, M. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, and M. Le Clerc, concerning the sublimity of this passage in Genesis, And God said, Let there be light — and there was light.” This collection of Boileau’s Works was complete and serviceable; but, being printed fragmentary and economically, it has no external elegance, except the engraved portrait of Monsieur Boileau Despreaux.
*⁎* Mr Wagner sends me the following note from the register of St Paul’s, Covent Garden:— “Marriage, 1740, Feb. 2. Peter Des Maizeaux to Ann Brown.”