BAILET, ADRIAN, a very learned French writer and critic, born in 1649 at the village of Neuville near Beauvais in Picardy. His parents were too poor to give him a proper education, which, however, he obtained by the favour of the bishop of Beauvais, who afterwards presented him with a small vicarage. In 1680 he was appointed librarian to M. de Lamoignon, advocate-general to the parliament of Paris; of whose library he made a copious index in 35 vols. folio, all written with his own hand. He died in 1706, after writing many works, the principal of which are, A History of Holland from 1609, to the peace of Nimeguen in 1679, 4 vols. 12mo; Lives of the Saints, 3 vols. folio, which he professed to have purged from fables; Jugemens des Savans, which he extended to 9 vols. 12mo; and The Life of Des Cartes, 2 vols. 4to, which he abridged, and reduced to one vol. 12mo.