James, an eminent French painter, was born at Paris in the year 1630. He studied first under Swanevelt, who had married one of his relations; after which he improved himself by travelling into Italy, practising solely perspective, architecture, and landscape. On his return home, he was employed at Marly. He distinguished himself very much in painting buildings, and by his knowledge of, and his attention to, the principles of perspective. Louis XIV. employed him to decorate his hall of devices at St Germaine-en-Laye, where he represented the operas of Lulli; but being a Protestant, he quitted France on the persecution of his brethren, and retired to Switzerland. Louis invited him back. He refused, but sent his designs, and recommended a proper person to execute them. After a short stay in Switzerland, he went to Holland, whence he was invited to England by Ralph duke of Montague, to adorn his new house in Bloomsbury. Here he painted a great deal. Some of his pictures, both in landscape and architecture, are over doors at Hampton Court; and he etched several of his own designs. His perspectives, having been most commonly applied to decorate courts or gardens, have suffered much from the weather. Such of them as remain are monuments of an excellent genius. The colours Rousseau are bright and durable, and the choice of them most judicious. He died in Soho Square about the year 1694, at the age of sixty-four.

John Baptist, a celebrated French poet, was born at Paris in April 1669. His father, who was a shoemaker in good circumstances, made him study in the best colleges of Paris, where he distinguished himself by his abilities. He at length applied entirely to poetry, and soon made himself known by several short pieces, that were filled with lively and agreeable images, which made him sought for by persons of the first rank, and men of the brightest genius. He was admitted, in quality of pupil, into the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres in 1701, and almost all the rest of his life he attached himself to some great men. He attended Marshal Tallard into England in quality of secretary, and there contracted a friendship with St Evremond. At his return to Paris, he was admitted into the politest company, lived amongst the courtiers, and seemed perfectly satisfied with his situation; when, in 1708, he was prosecuted for being the author of some couplets, in which the characters of several persons of wit and merit were blackened by the most atrocious calumnies. This prosecution made much noise; and Rousseau was in 1712, by a decree of the parliament of Paris, banished out of the kingdom, to which he was never more to return. However, he always steadily denied, even on his death-bed, his being the author of these couplets. From the date of this sentence he lived in foreign countries, where he found illustrious protectors. The Count de Luc, ambassador of France, in Switzerland, took him into his family, and studied to render his life agreeable. He carried him to the treaty of Baden in 1714, where he was one of the plenipotentiaries, and presented him to Prince Eugene, who, entertaining a particular esteem for him, took him to Vienna, and introduced him to the emperor's court. Rousseau lived about three years with Prince Eugene; but having lost his favour by satirizing one of his mistresses, he retired to Brussels, where he afterwards usually resided. It was there that he commenced his disputes with Voltaire, with whom he had become acquainted at the college of Louis the Great, and who then much admired his turn for poetry. Rousseau, from the period of their dispute, always represented Voltaire as a buffoon, and as a writer possessing neither taste nor judgment, who owed all his success to a particular mode which he pursued. As a poet he considered him as inferior to Lucan, and little superior to Pradon. Voltaire treated him still worse. Rousseau, according to him, was nothing better than a plagiarist, who had nothing but the talent of arranging words. He came over, in 1721, to London, where he printed a Collection of his Works, in two volumes 12mo. This edition, published in 1723, brought him near ten thousand crowns, the whole of which he placed in the hands of the Ostend Company. The affairs of this company, however, soon getting into confusion, those who had any money in their hands lost the whole of it; by which unfortunate event Rousseau, when arrived at that age when he stood most in need of the comforts of fortune, had nothing to depend upon but the generosity of some friends. He died at Brussels in February 1740. A very beautiful edition of his works was published in 1743, at Paris, in three volumes 4to, and in four volumes 12mo, containing nothing but what was acknowledged by the author as his own. It contains, 1. Four Books of Odes, of which the first are sacred odes, taken from the Psalms; 2. Two Books of Epistles, in verse; 3. Cantatas, in which species of poetry he stands unrivalled; 4. Allegories, the most of which are happy, but some of them appear forced; 5. Epigrams, after the manner of Martial and Marot; 6. A book of Poems on Various Subjects; 7. Four Comedies, in verse; 8. Three Comedies, in prose; and, 9. A Collection