Boyle, to whom he communicated the secret of
infusing young blood into old veins, with a notion that he could
renovate that which admits of no second creation.[152] Such was the
origin of Du Fresnoy's active curiosity on a variety of singular topics,
the germs of which may be traced to three or four of our author's
principal works.

Our Abbe promised to write his own life, and his pugnacious vivacity,
and hardy frankness, would have seasoned a piece of autobiography; an
amateur has, however, written it in the style which amateurs like, with
all the truth he could discover, enlivened by some secret history,
writing the life of Lenglet with the very spirit of Lenglet: it is a
mask taken from the very features of the man, not the insipid wax-work
of an hyperbolical eloge-maker.[153]

Although Lenglet du Fresnoy commenced in early life his career as a man
of letters, he was at first engaged in the great chase of political
adventure; and some striking facts are recorded, which show his
successful activity. Michault describes his occupations by a
paraphrastical delicacy of language, which an Englishman might not have
so happily composed. The minister for foreign affairs, the Marquis de
Torcy, sent Lenglet to Lille, where the court of the Elector of Cologne
was then held: "He had particular orders to _watch_ that the two
ministers of the elector should do nothing prejudicial to the king's
affairs." He seems, however, to have _watched_ many other persons, and
detected many other things. He discovered a captain, who agreed to open
the gates of Mons to Marlborough, for 100,000 piastres; the captain was
arrested on the parade, the letter of Marlborough was found in his
pocket, and the traitor was broken on the wheel. Lenglet denounced a
foreign general in the French service, and the event warranted the
prediction. His most important discovery was that of the famous
conspiracy of Prince Cellamar, one of the chimerical plots of Alberoni;
to the honour of Lenglet, he would not engage in its detection unless
the minister promised that no blood should be shed. These successful
incidents in the life of an honourable spy were rewarded with a moderate
pension.--Lenglet must have been no vulgar intriguer; he was not only
perpetually confined by his very patrons when he resided at home, for
the freedom of his pen, but I find him early imprisoned in the citadel
of Strasburgh for six months: it is said for purloining some curious
books from