(François Augustin Paradis de), secretary cretary to M. le comte de Clermont, reader to the queen, one of the 40 of the French academy, and a member of the academies of Nancy and Berlin, was born at Paris of respectable parents A.D. 1687, and died there Nov. 12. 1779, aged 83.

Avec des maurs dignes de l'age d'or, Il fut un ami sur, un auteur agréable ; Il mourut vieux comme Nefon, Mais il fut moins bavard et beaucoup plus aimable.

Such was Moncrif. He possessed an elegant mind, an engaging person, an unceasing desire to please, and a gentle, equable, and obliging temper. The advantage of reading in a very superior and interesting manner, of singing tender airs, and of composing agreeable couplets, soon procured him a great number of friends, and many of these of the first rank. He asked permission to accompany a celebrated minister who was banished in 1757; but though such disinterested attachment was highly admired, he was only allowed to go every year to express his gratitude to him in his retreat. He was never ashamed of the poverty of his relations, but assisted them and brought them forward by his influence at court. He had been at first a fencing-master; and it is said that he foretold he would be obliged to employ his sword in defence of his works. Most of them needed not this precaution. The principal are, 1. Effai sur la nécessité et sur les moyens de plaire, in 12mo. This production is written in a lively ingenious manner, is full of excellent maxims, and has gone through many editions. In the present age, a greater share of argument would be expected; but the chief merit of the work is, that, unlike the productions of many moralists, it contains nothing which the author himself did not reduce to practice. He had made it his study to contribute to the delight and amusement of those respectable societies into which he was admitted. 2. Les Ames rivales, an agreeable little romance, in which there occur several ingenious observations on French manners; the Alderites, a comedy of but ordinary merit; Poésies diverses, full of delicacy (his Romances and his Rajeu-nement inutile are particularly distinguished for smooth versification, elegant reflections, and pleasing narration); and some dissertations which display considerable wit and information. These pieces are to be found in the miscellaneous works of the author, published at Paris 1743, in 12mo. 3. Some little pieces of one act; which make part of different operas, called the Fragments, Zélinor, Ifmene Almofis, the Genies tutélaires, and the Sylphe. He was devoted to lyric poetry, and cultivated it with success. In this species of writing we have from his pen the Empire de l'Amour, a ballet; the Trophée; the Ames reunis, a ballet which was never acted; and Erofina, a heroic pastoral. 4. L'Histoire des Chats, a trifling performance, too severely censured at the time, and now almost wholly fallen into oblivion. This work gave the Comte d'Argenson an opportunity of being witty at the author's expense. When Voltaire retired into Prussia, Moncrif applied to the minister for the vacant place of historiographer: "Historiographel (said the Comte d'Argenson), vous voulez sans doute dire historiographe." His works were collected, in 1761, into 4 vols, 12mo.