CHARLES JOHN FRANCIS**, an ingenious French writer, was the son of John Remi Henault lord of Mouffy, and was born at Paris in 1685. He early discovered a sprightly benevolent disposition, and his penetration and aptness soon distinguished itself by the success of his studies. Claude de Lille, father of the celebrated geographer, gave him the same lessons in geography and history which he had before given to the duke of Orleans, afterwards regent; and which have been printed in seven volumes, under the title of "Abridgement of Universal History." On quitting college, Henault entered the Oratory, where he soon attached himself to the study of eloquence; and, on the death of the abbé Rene, reformer of La Trappe, he undertook to pronounce his panegyric; which not meet- Henault, ing the approbation of Father Massillon, he quitted the Oratory after two years, and his father bought for him, of Marechal Villeroi, the "lieutenance des chasses," and the government of Corbeil. At the martial's he formed connexions, and even intimate friendships, with many of the nobility, and passed the early part of his life in agreeable amusements, and in the liveliest company, without having his religious sentiments tainted. He associated with the wits till the dispute between Rousseau and de la Motte Fontaine gave him a disgust for these trifling societies. In 1727, he gained the prize of eloquence at the French academy; and another next year at the academy des Jeux Floraux. About this time M. Reaumur, who was his relation, came to Paris, and took lessons in geometry under the same master, Guinée. Henault introduced him to the abbe Bignon, and this was the first step of his illustrious course. In 1713 he brought a tragedy on the stage, under the disguised name of Fucelier. As he was known to the public only by some slighter pieces, "Cornelia the Veil" met with no better success. He therefore locked it up without printing. In his old age his passion for these subjects reviving, and Mr Horace Walpole being at Paris in 1768, and having formed a friendship with him as one of the most amiable men of his nation, obtained this piece, and had it printed at his own press. In 1751 M. Henault, under a borrowed name, brought out a second tragedy, intitled, "Marius," which was well received and printed. He had been admitted councillor in parliament in 1706, with a dispensation on account of age; and in 1710 president of the first chamber of inquests. These important places, which he determined to fill in a becoming manner, engaged him in the most solid studies. The excellent work of M. Domat charmed him, and made him eager to go back to the fountain head. He spent several years in making himself master of the Roman law, the ordinances of the French kings, their customs, and public law. M. de Morville, procureur-general of the great council, being appointed ambassador to the Hague in 1718, engaged M. Henault to accompany him. His personal merit soon introduced him to the acquaintance of the most eminent personages at that time there. The grand pensionary, Heinrich, who, under the exterior of Lacedemonian simplicity, kept up all the haughtiness of that people, left with him all that hauteur which France itself had experienced from him in the negotiations of the treaty of Utrecht. The agitation which all France felt by Law's system, and the consequent fending of the parliament into exile, was a trial to the wife policy of the president Henault. His friendship for the first president, De Mefmes, led him to second all the views of that great magistrate: he took part in all the negotiations, and was animated purely by the public good, without any private advantage. On the death of the cardinal du Bois, in 1732, he succeeded in his place at the French academy. Cardinal Fleury recommended him to succeed himself as director, and he pronounced the eulogy of M. de Malezieux.

History was M. Henault's favourite study: not a bare collection of dates, but a knowledge of the laws and manners of nations; to obtain which he drew instruction from private conversations, a method he so strongly recommends in his preface. After having thus discussed the most important points of our public law, he undertook to collect and publish the result of his inquiries, and he is deservedly accounted the first framer of chronological abridgments: in which, without stopping at detached facts, he attends only to those which form a chain of events that perfect or alter the government and character of a nation, and traces only the springs which exalt or humble a nation, extending or contracting the space it occupies in the world. His work has had the fortune of those literary phenomena, where novelty and merit united excite minds eager after glory, and fire the ardour of young writers to press after a guide whom few can overtake. The first edition of the work, the result of 40 years reading, appeared in 1744, under the auspices of the chancellor Daguier, with the modest title of an Essay. The success it met with surprised him. He made continual improvements in it, and it has gone through nine editions, and been translated into Italian, English, and German, and even into Chinese. As the best writings are not secure from criticism, and are indeed the only ones that deserve it, the author read to the academy of Belles Lettres a defence of his abridgment. All the ages and events of the French monarchy being present to his mind, and his imagination and memory being a vast theatre wherein he beheld the different movements and parts of the actors in the several revolutions, he determined to give a specimen of what passed in his own mind, and to reduce into the form of a regular drama one of the periods of French history, the reign of Francis II., which, though happy only by being short, appeared to him one of the most important by its consequences, and most easy to be confined within the stage bounds. His friend the chancellor highly approved the plan, and wished it to be printed. It accordingly went through five editions; the harmony of dates and facts is exactly observed in it, and the passions interlaced without offence to historic truth.

In 1755, he was chosen an honorary member of the academy of Belles Lettres, being then a member of the academies of Nancy, Berlin, and Stockholm. The queen appointed him superintendent of her house. His natural sprightliness relieved her from the serious attendance on his private morning lectures. The company of persons most distinguished by their wit and birth, a table more celebrated for the choice of the guests than its delicacies, the little comedies fugitively by wit, and executed by reflections, united at his house all the pleasures of an agreeable and innocent life. All the members of this ingenious society contributed to render it agreeable, and the president was not behind any. He composed three comedies: La Petite Meisson, La Jaloux de Soi-même, and Le Reveil d'Epiménide. The subject of the last was the Cretan philosopher, who is pretended to have slept 27 years. He is introduced fancying that he had slept but one night, and astonished at the change in the age of all around him: he mistakes his mistress for his mother; but discovering his mistake, offers to marry her, which she refuses, though he still continues to love her. The queen was particularly pleased with this piece. She ordered the president to restore the philosopher's mistress to her former youth; he introduced Hebe, and this episode produced an agreeable entertainment. He was now in such favour with her majesty, that on the place of superintendent becoming vacant by the death of M. Bernard de Conbert Henley, better known by the appellation of Orator Henley, a very singular character, was born at Melton-Mowbray, Leicestershire, in 1691. His father, the Rev. Simon Henley, and his grandfather by his mother's side (John Dowel, M.A.), were both vicars of that parish. Having passed his exercises at Cambridge, and his examination for the degree of B.A. with the particular approbation of Mr Field, Mr Smales, and the master of the college, he returned to his native place, where he was first desired by the trustees of the school in Melton to assist in, and then to take the direction of, that school; which he increased and raised from a declining to a flourishing condition. He established here a practice of improving elocution by the public speaking of passages in the classics, morning and afternoon, as well as orations, &c. Here he was invited by a letter from the Rev. Mr Newcombe to be a candidate for a fellowship in St John's; but as he had long been absent, and therefore lessened his personal interest, he declined appearing for it. Here likewise he began his "Universal Grammar," and finished ten languages, with dissertations prefixed, as the most ready introduction, to any tongue whatever. In the beginning of this interval he wrote his poem on "Either," which was approved by the town, and well received. He was ordained a deacon by Dr Wake, then bishop of Lincoln; and after having taken his degree of M.A. was admitted to priest's orders by Dr Gibbon, his successor in that see. He formed an early resolution to improve himself in all the advantages of books and conversation the most effectually, on the first opportunity, at London. But he laid the basis of future proficiency in afflicting at the curacy of his native town; where he preached many occasional sermons, particularly one at the assizes at Leicester: he then gave a voluntary warning for the choice of a new master and curate, and came to town recommended by above 30 letters from the most considerable men in the country, both of the clergy and laity; but against the inclination of his neighbours and his school, which was now, as from his first entrance upon it, still advancing: and his method being established and approved, one of his own scholars was appointed to succeed him.—In town he published several pieces, as a translation of Pliny's Epistles, of several works of Abbé Vertot, of Montfaucon's Italian Travels in folio, and many other lucubrations. His most generous patron was the earl of Macclesfield, who gave him a benefice in the country, the value of which to a resident would have been above £80. a year; he had likewise a lecture in the city; and preached more charity sermons about town, was more numerously followed, and raised more for the poor children, than any other preacher, however dignified or distinguished. But when he pressed his desire and promise from a great man of being fixed in town, it palled in the negative. He took the people (it seems) too much from their parish-churches; and as he was not so proper for a London divine, he was very welcome, notwithstanding all difficulties, to be a rural parlor. But it was not for a second residence, as he informs us, that he left the fields and the swains of Oratory, Arcadia to visit the great city: and as he knew it was Tranquill as lawful to take a licence from the king and parlia., P. 17, &c.

Mr Henley, in answer to a cavil (that he borrowed from books), proposed, "that if any person would single out any celebrated discourse of an approved writer, dead or living, and point out what he thought excellent in it, and the reasons; he would submit it to the world, whether the most famed composition might not be Henley be surpassed in their own excellency, either on that or any different subject."

Henley preached on Sundays upon theological matters, and on Wednesdays upon all other sciences. He declaimed some years against the greatest persons, and occasionally, says Warburton, did Pope that honour. The poet in return thus blazon him to infamy:

But where each science lifts its modern type, History her pot, Divinity his pipe, While proud Philosophy repines to show, Dishonour fight! his breeches rent below; Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo Henley stands, Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands. How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue! How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung! Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain, While Kennet, Hare, and Gibbon preach in vain. O great restorer of the good old stage, Preacher at once and zany of thy age! O worthy thou of Egypt's wife abode, A decent priest where monkeys were the gods! But Fate with butchers plac'd thy prieftly stall, Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and maul: And bade thee live, to crown Britannia's praise, In Toland's, Tindal's, and in Woolfson's days."

This extraordinary person (who died October 14, 1756) struck medals, which he dispersed as tickets to his subscribers: a star rising to the meridian, with this motto, Ad summum; and below, Inveniam viam aut faciam. Each auditor paid 1s. He was author of a weekly paper called The Hyp Doctor, for which he had 100l. a-year. Henley used every Saturday to print an advertisement in the Daily Advertiser, containing an account of the subjects he intended to discourse on the ensuing evening at his oratory near Lincoln's-inn-fields, with a fort of motto before it, which was generally a sneer at some public transaction of the preceding week. Dr Cobden, one of Geo. II.'s chaplains, having, in 1748, preached a sermon at St James's from these words, "Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness," it gave so much displeasure, that the Doctor was struck out of the list of chaplains; and the next Saturday the following parody of his text appeared as a motto to Henley's advertisement:

Away with the wicked before the king, And away with the wicked behind him; His throne it will blest With righteousness, And we shall know where to find him."

His audience was generally composed of the lowest ranks; and it is well-known that he even collected an infinite number of shoe-makers, by announcing that he could teach them a speedy mode of operation in their business, which proved only to be, the making of shoes by cutting off the tops of ready-made boots.