These were happy hours and interesting lectures to Richard Cumberland; and the effect was a sort of drama produced at twelve years, called "Shakespeare in the Shades," and composed almost entirely of passages from that great writer, strung together and assorted with no despicable ingenuity. MARQUISE DU CHATELET. [BORN 1706. DIED 1749.] PROFESSOR CRAIK. At the head of the list of scientific ladies stands Gabrielle Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Chatelet, the French translator of Newton's "Principia." She was the daughter of the Baron de Breteuil, was born in 1706, and was married to the Marquis de Chastelet, or Chatelet, when very young. Voltaire became acquainted with her in 1733, and he has described what he found her to be in the memoir which he has left us of a part of her life. Her father, he says, had caused her to be taught Latin, and she knew that language as well as Madame Dacier. She had by heart the finest passages of Horace, Virgil, and Lucretius; all the philosophical writings of Cicero were familiar to her. But her predominating taste was for the mathematics and metaphysics. There had rarely been united in any one more correctness of judgment, with more taste and ardour for the acquisition of knowledge; nor was she for all this the less attached to the world, and to all the amusements proper to her age and sex. Yet she had given up everything to go and bury herself in an old dilapidated chateau, situated in a barren and wretched country, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine. She had, however, made this country house at Cirey an agreeable retreat for study and philosophical intercourse. Pleasant gardens, with which the marchioness had embellished it, a good collection of philosophical instruments which Voltaire formed, and an extensive library, enabled Maupertius, John Bernouilli, and other distinguished literary and scientific visitors, who sometimes came to spend a few weeks or months, both to enjoy themselves and to pass their time not unprofitably. Voltaire resided here for about six years. He taught the marchioness English, and, he says, at the end of three months she knew the language as well as himself, and was equally able to read Locke, Newton, and Pope. Italian she acquired with the same facility; Voltaire and she read several of the Italian poets together; and when Francesco Algarotti came to Cirey to finish his work, entitled "Newtonianismo par le Dame"--"Newtonianism for the Ladies"--she was able to converse with him in his own tongue, and to give him many valuable suggestions.