Her favorite study was mathematics, and especially astronomy, to which she was principally devoted, and was not without reason ranked among the most able astronomers of her time. She married Elias De Lewin, M. D., also an astronomer; and they carried on their favorite studies for some time with equal reputation and success, until the war penetrated into Silesia, and obliged them to quit their residence at Schweinetz, for Poland, which was then at peace. Upon their journey, although furnished with the best of passports, they were robbed by the soldiers; but on their arrival in Poland were welcomed with every attention. Here she compared her astronomical tables above noticed, first printed at Oels, and four years after at Frankfort. Some historians fix her death at 1664, while others say that she was living a widow in 1669; but all agree in her extraordinary talents and acquirements.

CAPILLANA, a Peruvian princess, who, having become a widow very young, retired from court to a house she had in the country; scarcely was she established there, when Pizarro appeared on the coast. Having sent his people to reconnoitre the country, they penetrated to the retreat of Capillana, who gave them all the succors they wanted, and expressed a desire to see their general. Pizarro came, and an attachment soon took place between them. He knew all the advantages of such a conquest; and profiting by his ascendancy over the heart of Capillana, he endeavored to persuade her to embrace the Christian faith. But the young princess was not easily convinced, and he left off the attempt; yet afterwards applying herself to study the Spanish language, she became a convert. On the death of Pizarro, she returned again to her retreat, and sought consolation in the knowledge she had acquired. In the library of the dominicans of Peru, a manuscript of her composition is preserved, in which is painted, by her own hand, ancient Peruvian monuments, each accompanied with a short historical explanation in the Castilian language. There is also a representation of many of their plants, with curious descriptions on their merits and properties.

VICTORIA COLONNA, an illustrious lady, distinguished for her productions in Italian poetry; was the daughter of Fabutio Colonna, duke of Palliano; she was born at Marino, in 1490. When seventeen years of age, she was married to Francis d'Avalas, marquis of Piscara. They lived together in the most perfect harmony; and she is said to have employed her influence in dissuading him from accepting the crown of Naples, which was offered him after the battle of Pavia, in order to detach him from the interests of the emperor Charles V. After the death of her husband, which happened in 1525, she lived in retirement, solacing her grief with poetry and devotion, and firmly rejecting all offers of a new alliance. She entertained a friendly correspondence with some of the most learned and enlightened persons of the age, as the cardinals Bombo, Contarini, and Pale; the poets Flominio, Malza, Almanni, and others. For the sake of a more perfect retirement, she entered a monastery at Orvieto, in 1546, which she soon exchanged for that of St. Catherine, in Viterbo. She at length left this monastery and retired to Rome, where she died in 1547. Her poems passed through four editions, and are much admired. They are not inferior to those of the greater part of the Petrarchian versifiers of that age, and are among the first in which Italian poetry was employed on religious topics. The Italian muse had sung before that time only war and love.

CHARLOTTE CORDE, was born in the department of Calvados, in France, about the year 1774. During a part of the French revolution, she had been in habits of confidence with many of the deputies of the legislature, and her spirit was animated with the greatest devotion to the cause of liberty, and of her country.

The factions which prevailed in the convention, had excited her abhorrence, and amongst those whom she held most odious, was the infamous Marat, whose sanguinary proscriptions, denunciations, and maxims, had filled her soul with a determined resolution for his destruction. She accordingly left her native home, in the beginning of July, 1793, with an express determination of assassinating him, which she effected on the evening of the

day following, after conversing with him on some political topics, by stabbing him to the heart with a dagger.

Having perpetrated this deed, she walked out of the house with the most perfect composure, and was soon after arrested. When brought before a magistrate, she looked on him with a smile of the most indignant and contemptuous mockery, and declared, that she gloried in releasing her country from a monster; that she had fixed her mind on his death, as necessary to its salvation; that there were others, who should also perish, had she the power, but as she knew she could sacrifice but one, she was determined to begin with the most execrable of them all. She even spoke at large in justification of the deed, as necessary to the honor and happiness of her country, and glorious to herself; that it was due to justice to rid the world of a sanguinary monster, whose doctrines were framed for indiscriminate destruction, and who was already condemned by the voice of public opinion.

Her deportment, during her trial, was modest and dignified. There was so engaging a softness in her countenance, that it was difficult to conceive how she could have armed herself with sufficient intrepidity to perpetrate such a deed, or to sustain herself with so great calmness on the verge of death. She heard her sentence pronounced, with attention and composure, and left the court with the greatest serenity, to prepare for the last scene. When on the scaffold, she behaved with the same fortitude, which she had uniformly displayed from the commencement of this extraordinary transaction. As the executioner was attempting to tie her feet to the plank she resisted, from an apprehension that he meant to insult her; but upon his explaining himself, she submitted with a smile; and her head was immediately after severed from her body.

Her portrait was in every print shop in England, and the United States; every museum had her image in wax, and her name became as familiar as that of Brutus. Some few viewed her as an assassin; others as a heroine of deathless fame. It is acknowledged by all her biographers, that she was virtuous in her conduct, and lofty in her feelings. If Lucretia was right in

sacrificing herself for her country, Charlotte Corde could not have been wrong; if Brutus did a deed of glory by striking Cæsar to the heart, this female patriot was not to be censured; for Cæsar was ambitious, but not tyrannical. Marat was a cutthroat and a traitor, he had deluged the country with blood. There are many acts of a high character, of doubtful morality; they are exceptions to all the ordinary rules which govern human life, and are not dangerous as examples. Let those who censure their deeds, remember that they are judging in quiet times, but the acts were perpetrated when the political and moral elements were in confusion. Let those who praise them consider that such deeds, if to be admired, are not to be imitated, and thank heaven there are but few occasions that will call them forth.

ISABELLA LOSA, DE CORDOVA, was learned in the languages, and received the honorary degree of D. D. After her husband died she took the habit of St. Clair, and founded the hospital of Loretto, where she retired from the world, and ended her days in the bosom of devotion, in 1546, in the seventy-third year of her age. At this period of the world, many learned ladies, after enjoying life for a time, retired to a convent; they could not find in society sufficient charms to interest them, and wanting something to fill up the void, turned from the world to the duties of religion, as it was then understood, and passed life away in a dream, because there was not sufficient occupation to fill their whole souls. If the burthens and duties of society, which are now known, had then existed, the pious and enlightened might have found a cure for ennui, or something to have filled up every hour of existence.

HANNAH COWLEY, a dramatic writer, was the daughter of Phillip Packhouse, Esq., a man of classical attainments, who, after being educated for the church, gave up the profession, and opened a book store. He gave his daughter a good education; for he discovered her talent when she was quite young. She married a Mr. Cowley, a gentleman of talents, and a captain in

the East India Company's service. He died in 1797.

Sho became a writer by accident. While attending the theatre one evening with her husband, the thought came into her mind that she could write as well as the author of the play then enacting, and she sketched the outlines of one the next morning. She wrote many pieces of great merit; but she was never vain, or neglectful of her domestic duties. Her greatest pleasure in life was in the education of her children. She wrote with great purity and taste. She died, March 11th, 1809; and the periodicals of that day paid several affectionate and just tributes to her memory. Her works have been published in three volumes octavo.

ROSALBA CARRIERA, an eminent female artist, was born at Chiozza in 1675; and having shown an early taste for painting, her father placed her with an artist from whom she learned to paint in oil, but she afterwards practiced, and carried crayonpainting to a high degree of perfection. Orlandi celebrates her miniatures. Her crayon often arrives to the strength of pictures in oil. Her portraits, spread over all Europe, are as elegant and graceful in conception and attitude, as fresh, neat, and alluring in color. Her Madonas, and other sacred subjects, rise from grace to dignity, and even majesty. Incessant application deprived her of sight in the seventy-second year of her age. She lived ten years afterwards. While in this state of blindness, she called up all the visions that had been in her mind when she could see. She arranged her images in this hall of imagi nation and recollection. She now gazed on a Madona with the eyes of her mind, and criticised it with spirit and accuracy. She would often sketch a landscape with tolerably correctness when every ray of the light of day had left her. Such a genius forever enjoys the sunshine of the soul. between the blind and the world beyond vates the soul to the abode of the gods. ton, Ossian, and the strains of Carolan the blind bard of Erin, and those of our own sightless Shaw, have a touch of celestial music in them.

There is a communion human vision that eleSuch was Homer, Mil