Protestants are on the safer side, and that their religion is the surest way to heaven.” 4to., London, 1687. This pamphlet is mentioned by Beloe in his Anecdotes, the copy before him having this note written upon the title-page, “by r. bolieu, Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Jefferies.” Identified in politics, though not in character, the chaplain and the chancellor passed away from public notice simultaneously. During the clerical years of his life, the Reverend Divine had called and signed himself “Luke Beaulieu.” But many years after his death the ground in the churchyard of Whitchurch, in which his remains repose, was unavoidably disturbed, and his coffin-plate was found, inscribed thus, “r. Luke De Beaulieu. Died May ye 26th 1723, aged 78 years.” His widow, Mrs Priscilla De Beaulieu, was buried beside him on 5th December 1728.
IX. Miége.
“Guy Miége, gentleman,” having been an associate of the later Huguenot refugees, may be chronicled as a French Protestant who settled in England about a quarter of a century before the Revocation. He first appears at Gravesend on 15th July 1663, on board ship in the suite of the Earl of Carlisle, Ambassador Extraordinary. In 1669 he published, “A Relation of Three Embassies from his Sacred Majestie Charles II., to the Great Duke of Muscovie, the King of Sweden, and the King of Denmark, performed by the Right Hoble. the Earle of Carlisle in the years 1663 and 1664. Written by an Attendant on the Embassies, and published with his Lps. Approbation.” The Approbation was in this form:— “Having seen the Relation of my Embassies into Moscovy, Sweden, and Denmark, written by G. M., I do hereby give him leave to print and publish the same. The 30 of November 1668.
(Signed)Carlisle.”
“Licensed March the 26 1669.(Signed)Roger L’Estrange.”
Guy Miége became celebrated for his French Dictionaries, in which, it may be remarked, he illustrates the use of the noun Earl, thus:— “The Earl of Carlisle, Le Comte de Carlile.” The dictionary which he found in use was Randal Cotgrave’s, originally published in 1632. In 1677 Miége launched “A New Dictionary, French and English, with another, English and French, according to the present use and modern Orthography of the French. Inrich’d with new words, choice phrases, and apposite proverbs, digested with a most accurate method and contrived for the use both of English and Foreiners. By Guy Miége, Gent. London, Printed by Tho. Dawks, for Thomas Basset, at the George near Clifford’s-lnn in Fleetstreet, 1677.” This quarto volume was followed by another, entitled, “A Dictionary of Barbarous French, by way of Alphabet, of Obsolete, Provincial, Mis-spelt, and Made Words in French. Taken out of Cotgrave’s Dictionary, with some additions. A work much desired and now performed for the satisfaction of such as read Old French. By Guy Miége, Author of the New French Dictionary.” London, 1679. In Nicholls’ Literary Anecdotes we find the title of a periodical, “L’Etat present de l’Europe, suivant les Gazettes et autres Avis dAngleterre, France, Hollande, &c. Imprime a Londres pour r. Guy Miége, auteur. No. 1, Sept. 25, 1682.”
Not satisfied with his Dictionary, he set to work and wrote with his own hand his Great Dictionary, published in 1688, in the preface to which he says that his first book was hastily done to meet a public demand, and as to the second, that the Barbarous Words were “so much wanted at first, and as much nauseated at last.” His new dictionary was a splendid folio volume, entitled, “The Great French Dictionary, in Two Parts. The First, French and English; the Second, English and French, according to the Ancient and Modern Orthography. Wherein each language is set forth in its greatest latitude — the various senses of words both proper and figurative are orderly digested and illustrated with apposite Phrases and Proverbs, the Hard Words explained, and the proprieties adjusted. To which are prefixed the Grounds of both languages, in Two Grammatical Discourses, the one English, and the other French. By Guy Miége, Gent. London, Printed by J. Redmayne, for Tho. Basset, at the George near St Dunstan’s Church in Fleet-street, 1688.”[1] He published at the Hague, “The Short French Dictionary,” 2 vols. 8vo., 5th edition, 1701. Chamberlayne’s Angliae Notitia was an annual volume, like an almanac, which began in 1668; Miége brought out a similar volume in 1707, entitled, “The Present State of Great Britain,” dedicated to Henry de Grey, Marquis of Kent (I have not met with any other volume).
“The Great French Dictionary” was superseded by Abel Boyer’s Royal
- ↑ M. Miége published “An English Grammar” soon after this date, and seems to have agreed with Boyer as to a division of labour — Miége instructing French people in English, and Boyer instructing the English in French.
