FRERE, John Hookham (1769-1841), an English diplomatist and author, was born in London, May 21, 1769. His father, John Frere, a gentleman of a good Suffolk family, had been educated at Caius College, Cambridge, and would have been senior wrangler in 1763 but for the powerful competition of Paley; his mother, daughter of Mr John Hookham, a rich London merchant, was a lady of no small ability and culture, accustomed to amuse her leisure with the pleasures of versification; and his father’s sister Ellinor was married to Sir John Fenn, the learned editor of the Paston Letters, and contributed with her own pen to the formation of a library of fiction for children. Young Frere was sent to Eton in 1785, and there began that intimacy with Canning which so greatly affected his after life. From Eton he went to his father’s college at Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1792 and M.A. in 1795. He entered public service in the foreign office under Lord Grenville, and sat from 1796 to 1802 as member of parliament for the close borough of Looe in Cornwall. From his boyhood he had been a warm admirer of Pitt, and along with Canning he entered heart and soul into the defence of his Government, and contributed freely to the pages of the Anti-Jacobin. On Canning’s removal to the board of trade in 1799 he succeeded him as under secretary of state; in October 1800 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Lisbon; and on September 1802 he was transferred to Spain, where he remained for two years. He was recalled on account of a personal disagreement he had with the “Prince of Peace,” but his conduct was approved by the ministry, and in 1808 he was again sent out as plenipotentiary to Ferdinand VII. The condition of Spain rendered his position a very responsible and ...

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 ...