CHARLES, a celebrated French writer, was the son of a cutter at Paris, and was born there on the 30th of January 1661. He studied at the college of Plessis, in which he obtained an exhibition through the interest of a Benedictine monk whom he had served at table, and who discovered in him some marks of genius. Here he acquired the regard of M. Gobinet, principal of the college, who had a particular esteem for him. After having studied humanity and philosophy, he applied himself to divinity three years at the Sorbonne; but he did not prosecute this study, and was satisfied with obtaining the tonsure. He afterwards became professor of rhetoric in his own college, and in 1688 succeeded his master as professor of eloquence in the Royal College. In 1694 he was chosen rector of the university, which was then a mark of distinction, and he continued in that office two years. He spoke the annual panegyric upon Louis XIV., and made many very useful regulations in the university; he revived the study of the Greek language, which was then much neglected; he substituted academical exercises in the place of tragedies; and introduced the practice, which had been formerly observed, of causing the students to get by heart passages of Scripture. He was a man of indefatigable application, and trained innumerable persons, who did honour to the church, the state, and the army. Upon the expiration of the rectorship, Cardinal Noailles engaged him to superintend the studies of his nephews, who were in the college of Laon; and in this office he was agreeably employed when, in 1699, he was, with great reluctance, This college was then a kind of desert, inhabited by very few students, and without any regular discipline; but Rollin's great industry soon raised it to that credit which it long retained. In this situation he continued till 1712, when the war between the Jesuits and the Jansenists drawing towards a crisis, he fell a sacrifice to the prevalence of the former. Father le Tellier, the king's confessor, a furious agent of the Jesuits, infused into his master prejudices against Rollin, whose connection with Cardinal de Noailles would alone have sufficed to make him a Jansenist; and on this account he lost his share in the principality of Beauvais. He now employed his leisure upon Quintilian, an author whom he justly valued, and could not without uneasiness see neglected. He retreated in him whatever he thought curious rather than useful; placed summaries or contents at the head of each chapter, and accompanied the text with short and select notes. His edition appeared in 1715, in 2 vols. 12mo, with an elegant preface explaining his method and views.

In 1710 Rollin was chosen rector of the university of Paris; but he was displaced in about two months by a lettre de cachet. He now applied himself to the composition of his Treatise on the Manner of Studying and Teaching the Belles Lettres, two volumes of which were published, in 8vo, in 1726, and two more in 1728. This work, though greatly deficient in order, and displaying neither depth nor philosophy, has been exceedingly successful; and its success encouraged the author to undertake another work of equal use and entertainment, his Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Greeks, which he finished in 13 vols. 8vo, and published between 1730 and 1738. Voltaire, after having observed that Rollin was "the first member of the university of Paris who wrote French with dignity and correctness," says of this work, that "though the last volumes, which were written in too great a hurry, are not equal to the first, it is nevertheless the best compilation that had yet appeared in any language; because it is seldom that compilers are eloquent, and Rollin was remarkably so." This is perhaps saying too much. His chronology is neither exact nor consistent; he states facts inaccurately; he has not sufficiently examined the exaggerations of ancient historians; he often interrupts the most solemn narrations with mere trifles; and his style is not uniform. Nothing can be more noble and more refined than his reflections; but they are strewed with too sparing a hand, and want that lively and laconic turn on account of which the historians of antiquity are read with so much pleasure. There is a visible negligence in his diction with regard to grammatical usage, and the choice of his expressions, which he does not at all times select with sufficient taste, although, on the whole, he writes well, and has preserved himself free from many of the faults of modern authors. While the last volumes of his Ancient History were printing, he published the first of his Roman History, which he lived to carry on, through the eighth volume and into part of the ninth, to the war against the Cimbri, about seventy years before the battle of Actium. Crevier, the worthy disciple of Rollin, continued the history to the battle of Actium, which closes the tenth volume; and afterwards completed the original plan of Rollin in sixteen volumes 12mo, which was, to bring it down from the foundation of the city to the reign of Constantine the Great. This work is alternately diffuse and barren; and the greatest advantage of the work is, that there are several passages from Livy translated with great elegance into French. He also published a Latin translation of some of the theological writings relative to the disputes of the times in which he lived. He also published Opuscules, containing different letters, Latin harangues, discourses, complimentary addresses, &c.,

Paris, 1771, 2 vols. 12mo. He died in 1741. The Guerres de Rollin have frequently been printed both in French and English. One of the best of the French editions is that annotated by M. Guizot, 30 vols. 8vo, 1821-27. (See the Eloge on Rollin by Berville, Maillet-Lacoste, and Trognon; also his Life by Rivarolle-Etienne and Bousson de Mairet.)