LAMBIN, Denis, one of the most learned Frenchmen of the sixteenth century, was born at Montreuil-sur-Mer, in Picardy, about the year 1516. He studied at the College of Amiens, where he afterwards officiated for some years as professor of belles-lettres. He then accompanied Cardinal de Tournon to Rome, and profited by his stay in Italy to visit the principal cities, and to form friendly connections with the learned men of that country. On his return to Paris, he was appointed professor of eloquence in the Royal College, through the influence of Amyot and the Cardinals of Lorraine and of Tournon; and the following year he was promoted to the chair of Greek. He commenced his prelections by an excellent discourse, in which he traced out the course which he proposed to follow, and announced that he would explain alternately the Iliad and the Philippics, the two works best calculated to form poets and orators. The number of his auditors was considerable; but the contagious malady which then devastated Paris soon thinned his class, and also carried off a nephew to whom he was much attached, an event which drove him to seek, in a distant retreat, some alleviation of the grief which overwhelmed him. But his prelections were not long interrupted; and although already overburthened with labour, he consented, in the year 1570, to explain Cicero to some select pupils in the College of Lemoine. A witness of the civil troubles which then distracted France, Lambin bewailed them in secret; the massacre of the Protestants made a terrible impression on his mild and gentle spirit; and whilst the sorrow thus occasioned was recent and fresh, the news of the death of his friend Ramus arrived to complete his affliction. Unable to bear up under such an accumulation of calamities, he sunk the victim of grief, and died towards the end of September 1572, about a month after the tragedy of St Bartholomew. By his marriage with a lady of the house of the Ursins he left a son, who became preceptor to Arnauld and Andilly, and who also possessed much erudition. Lambin, though of a mild and modest character, had nevertheless his enemies. He was accused of appropriating the researches of his contemporaries without due acknowledgment; but there appears to be no foundation whatever for the charge. On the contrary, it was Lambin himself who had reason to complain of the plagiarisms of Muretus and his disciple Giphanius. He had also a warm dispute with Paulus Manutius on the orthography of the word consumptus, from which Lambin maintained that the letter ρ ought to be expunged; and it is even said that the disputants became so warm, that, in the course of this absurd controversy, they proceeded from mutual reproaches to blows. The style of Lambin is easy and pure, but diffuse and somewhat heavy; and his enemies characterised it by the word Lambiner, which has remained in the language. The works of this laborious scholar are, 1. Latin Translations of the Select Speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes, Paris, 1565, in 4to; of the Speeches of Demosthenes on the Crown, ibid. 1587, in 4to; and of the Morals and Politics of Aristotle, reprinted in the editions of that philosopher’s works by Isaac Ca-

saubon and Duval. 2. Editions of Lucretius De Rerum Natura, Paris, 1563, in 4to; of the Works of Cicero, Paris, 1566, in four vols. folio; of the Works of Demosthenes in Greek, Paris, 1570, in folio; of the Comedies of Plautus, Paris, 1576, in folio; and of Cornelius Nepos, ibid. 1569, in 4to. 3. Ciceronis Vita ex ejus Operibus collecta, Cologne, 1578, in 8vo. 4. Several very interesting Discourses, of which the reader will find some account in the Supplement to the Dictionary of Moreri, edition of 1749. 5. Prefaces and Epistles Dedicatory, collected, along with those of Muretus (Muret) and Regius (Leroi) in the Trium Illustrium Virorum Praefationes, Paris, 1679. 6. Letters in the different collections of the Epistolae Clarorum Virorum. (See Tessier, Eloges des Hommes Savants; and Goujet, Histoire du College Royal.) (a.)