Tannegui Le, in Latin Tanagullus Faber, one of the most able scholars of his age, was born at Caen, in Normandy, in the year 1615. His father (who, according to Segrains, was the son of a grave-digger in the parish of St Jean de Caen), having dissipated his means, an uncle of the young Lefevre, a learned ecclesiastic, took charge of his education, and finding that he had a good ear and a fine voice, taught him music, by which means he was ere long in a condition to execute the most difficult pieces with the book open before him. He was twelve years of age when he commenced Latin, and his progress was extremely rapid. But the severity of his uncle discouraged him, and his father could only induce him to continue his studies by giving him another preceptor. The latter, however, did not understand Greek; but Lefevre learned it alone, without any other assistance than a grammar, and some books which he read before he was in a condition fully to comprehend their meaning. He was then sent to study humanity and philosophy at the college of La Flèche, one of the most celebrated which the Jesuits possessed in France. His masters made useless efforts to detain him amongst them; and his father and uncle equally failed in persuading him to take orders. After remaining several years in Normandy, he proceeded to Paris, where he soon made himself known, and gained the friendship of several persons of distinction. M. Desnoyers, one of these friends, presented him to Cardinal Richelieu, who appointed him inspector of the press of the Louvre, with a salary of two thousand livres. But, after the cardinal's death, the pension of Lefevre became ill paid, and he was even obliged to sell his library, in order to procure the means of subsistence. Some time afterwards, the Marquis of Francières carried Lefevre with him to Langres; but having in that city acquired a taste for the reformed doctrines, the latter took leave of his noble friend, and retired to Preuilly in Touraine, where he publicly made profession of Calvinism. He was immediately offered a chair in the academy of Saumur, which he accepted in preference to the professorship of Greek at Nimuegen, to which he was about the same time appointed. But he had afterwards some disputes with the consistory of Saumur, in consequence of having unguardedly attempted to excuse the libertinism of Sappho; and as the annoyance which this misunderstanding occasioned had determined him to quit Touraine, he was preparing to set out for Heidelberg, where the elector palatine had offered him considerable advantages, when he died of a fever produced by excess of labour, on the 12th of September 1672. By his marriage with Marie Olivier, Lefevre left three children; a son, named Tannegui after his father, who, after having for thirty years discharged the pastoral functions in Holland and in England, returned into the bosom of the Catholic church, and died at Saumur in 1717; and two daughters, one married to Paul Baudry, and the other the celebrated Madame Dacier. Lefevre wrote better in Latin than in French; but if his productions are deficient in elegance, they have at least the merit of fidelity, and are accompanied with very learned notes. His productions consist of: 1. Editions of several works of Lucian, with a Latin version and notes; Longinus's Treatise on the Sublime, with the Latin and notes, Saumur, 1663; the Fables of Phaedrus; Lucretius; the Histories of Ælian; Euripides, Justin, Terence, and Horace; the Library of Apollodorus; Virgil; the Panegyric of Trajan by Pliny the younger; Dionysius of Alexandria, Anacreon, and Sappho; 2. French Translations of the Festinus of Xenophon, the First Alcibiades of Plato, the Treatise on Superstition by Plutarch, and the Life of Aristippus by Diogenes Laertius; 3. The translation into Latin verse of the Fables of Lockman, Saumur, 1673, in 12mo, a translation which was executed during his last illness; 4. Diatribe Fl. Josephi de Jau Christo testimonium supposition esse, Saumur, 1655, in 8vo; 5. Epistolae rum partes ii. ibid. 1659, 1665, in two vols. 4to; 6. Les Vies des Poètes Grecs, 1665, in 12mo, to which is subjoined Le Mariage de Belforge, translated from the Italian of Machiavelli, and the Life of Theseus, translated from the Greek of Plutarch; 7. Méthode pour commencer les Humanités Grecques et Latines, in the Mémoires de Littérature de Sallengre, tom. ii. pt. 2, p. 62; 8. Notes on the Scaligeriana Prima. (See Mémoires pour servir à la Vie de Tannegui Lefevre, by Fr. Graverol, 1686; and the Mémoires de Nicéron.)