[962] The Scotch Chevalier de Ramsay (1686-1743), the friend of Fénelon, also wrote French with remarkable purity. His best known work is Les Voyages de Cyrus avec un discours sur la mythologie (Paris, 1727; London, 1730). At a later date Thomas Hales (1740?-1780), known as d'Hèle, d'Hell, or Dell, a French dramatist of English birth, also made himself a name in French literature (Sylvain van de Weyer, Les Anglais qui ont écrit en français, Miscellanies, Philobiblon Soc., 1854, vol. i.).
[963] Hamilton, Mémoires du Comte de Grammont. Histoire amoureuse de la Cour de Charles II, ed. B. Pifteau, Paris, 1876, Preface. Voltaire often quoted the beginning of Le Bélier as a model of style.
[964] "Il trouvoit si peu de différence aux manières et à la conversation de ceux qu'il voyoit le plus souvent, qu'il ne lui paroissoit pas qu'il eut changé de pais. Tout ce qui peut occuper un homme de son humeur s'offroit partout aux divers penchans qui l'entrainoient, come si les plaisirs de la cour de France l'eussent quitté pour l'accompagner dans son exil" (Mémoires, ed. cit. p. 83). Grammont had been banished from the French Court on account of a presumptuous love affair.
[965] Institution of a Gentleman, London, 1660, p. 88. The book first appeared as Institutions, or Advice to his Grandson, in 1658.
[966] J. Smith, Grammatica Quadralinguis, 1674.
[967] Sayous, op. cit. ii. ch. iv.
[968] Evelyn once accompanied His Majesty "to M. Favre to see his preparation for the composition of Sir Walter Raleigh's rare cordial," when the chemist made a learned discourse in French on the nature of each ingredient.
[969] Revue Historique, xxix., Sept.-Oct. 1885, p. 25.
[970] J. J. Jusserand, Shakespeare in France, London, 1899, pp. 132, 135, 136. Mme. d'Aulnoy, the fairy-tale writer and authoress of the Mémoires de la cour d'Angleterre, was also among the French ladies in London at this time.
[971] St. Evremond was buried at Westminster at the age of ninety-one. The Duchess died at Chelsea in 1699.