FRÉRET, Nicolas (1688-1749), a French scholar, one of the most learned men of his age, was born at Paris, February 7 or 15, 1688. His father was procureur to the parliament of Paris, and destined him to the profession of the law. His passion for knowledge declared itself almost from his birth; and so early did he apply himself to studies of the most diverse kind, and accumulate vast stores of information, that he scarcely seemed to have any childhood. His precocity in learning and literary labour appears to rival even that of John Stuart Mill. He had for his tutors the historian Rollin and Father Desmolets. Amongst his early studies history, chronology, and mythology held a prominent place. To please his father he studied law and began to practice as a pleader; but the force of his genius soon carried him into his own path. At nineteen he was admitted to a society of learned men who sought more freedom of discussion than was to be had within the Academy, and he read before them memoirs on the religion of the Greeks, on the worship of Bacchus, of Ceres, of Cybele, and of Apollo. The astonishing reputation which he gained for learning, and the influence of the eminent men whose friendship he enjoyed, opened the way for his recognition by the Academy. He was hardly twenty-six years of age when he was admitted as pupil to the Academy of Inscriptions. One of the first memoirs which he read was a learned and critical discourse Sur Γ Origine des Français. His views, well-grounded, unusual, and audacious, excited great indignation in the Abbé Vertot, who had written on the same subject in a manner more flattering to the vanity of Frenchmen, and he denounced Fréret to the Government as a libeller of the monarchy. A lettre de cachet was issued, and Fréret was sent to the ...