BENSERADE, Isaac de, a French poet, was born in 1612 at Lions-la-Forêt in Normandy. He made himself known at court by his verses and his wit, and had the good fortune to please the cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. He wrote—1. A Paraphrase upon Job; 2. Verses for Ballets or Interludes; 3. Rondeaux upon Ovid; 4. Several Tragedies. A sonnet of his, which he sent to a young lady with his paraphrase on Job, having been placed in competition with the Urania of Voiture, a dispute on their relative merits long divided the whole court and the wits into two parties, who were respectively styled the Jdbelins and the Uranists. Some years before lus death in 1691 Benserade retired to Chantilly, and devoted himself to a translation of the Psalms, which he nearly completed.