Delille

Delille, Jacques, the illegitimate son of a French lawyer, was born at Aigueperse in 1738. He early acquired a reputation for scholarship, and became professor at Beauvais, Amiens, and finally at the College de la Marche in Paris. In 1769 he published a verse translation of the Georgics which won him the chair of Latin Poetry at the College of France as well as admission to the Academy. Les Jardins was his next work, and then, after travels in Greece and the Levant, he wrote L'Imagination. Ruined by the French Revolution he took refuge in Switzerland, Germany, and England, completing in London his translation of the Paradise Lost. In 1802 he returned to Paris and was restored to his professorship. La Conversation, La Pitie, The AEneid, and other poems with many essays flowed from his pen before his death in 1813. He lacks the fervour of genius and displays little power of invention, but his versification is sweet and melodious, whilst his sentiments are always moral and sometimes pathetic.