only meanness, cowardice, and baseness, which at once provokes our indignation and contempt."

Bayle's Historical Dictionary-Biographium Famineum.

LEONORA GALLIGAI.

LEONORA GALLIGAI, a Florentine, the daughter of a joiner, and the nurse of Mary de Medicis, by whom she was greatly beloved, accompanied Mary into France on her marriage with Henry IV. in 1606. Leonora, plain in her person, but possessed of wit and talents, wholly governed the queen her mistress, whom she attended as woman of the bed-chamber. She gave her hand to Concino Conceni, afterwards marshal d'Ancre, who was also a native of Florence, and who came into France with the queen. Conceni, through the influence of his wife, rapidly obtained wealth and employments. The domestic jars which embittered the life of Henry IV. are attributed to the machinations of this Florentine pair, who found their account in abusing the confidence of their mistress.

After the death of Henry, the Concenis, by their ascendency over the queen, obtained yet greater powers; and, by their rapacity and insolence, offended the nobles, and disgusted the nation. The marquisate of Ancre in Picardy was purchased by Conceni; who was also made governor of Amiens, Peronne, Roie, and Montdidier. He was afterwards created a marshal of France, and first gentleman of the bedchamber to the young king. Two hundred gentlemen attended him when he appeared in public, beside the servants to whom he allowed wages, and whom he was accustomed to call his thousandlivre poltroons.' He removed at pleasure the counsellors of the king, whom he replaced with his own creatures; disposed of the finances, distributed the offices of state, and by terror crushed all who opposed him.

Leonora, thus arrived at the pinnacle of fortune, affected the most ridiculous fastidiousness. The princes, princesses, and first personages of the kingdom, were prohibited fromcoming to her apartments, while it was accounted a crime to look at her. The people terrified her, she declared, and made her dread lest they should bewitch her by gazing in her face.

Wearied at length by the complaints of his courtiers, and the exactions and caprices of the Italian favourites, Lewis XIII. determined to rid himself of their usurpations; for which purpose he gave a commission to Vitri, a captain of the guards, who received orders to dispatch Conceni, by pistols, on the drawbridge of the Louvre. This sentence was accordingly executed April 24, 1617. The body of the unfortunate favourite suffered, after his death, the vilest indignities. Torn out of the grave in which it had been deposited, it was dragged through the streets, mutilated and mangled with savage ferocity. The members were dissevered and scattered, the entrails thrown into the river, the flesh given to the dogs, and the miserable remains hung by the heels on a gallows, which had been erected by Conceni for those who opposed him: A striking lesson of the instability of human greatness.

The king, on hearing of the death of the marshal, who, supported by the queen-mother, had availed himself of the youth of Lewis to wrest from him the supreme power, expressed his joy on his deliverance from bondage. I thank you,' said he, looking out of a window: now I am indeed a king.' The bishop of Lucon (afterwards cardinal Richelieu), one of the marshal's favourites, and first secretary of state, coming into the chamber of the monarch, after the death of his patron, exclaimed aloud, Sire, let us thank God, we are this day freed from our tyrant.'

Leonora heard of the fate of her husband with little concern, except for her own interest. Without shedding a tear, or expressing a regret, she appeared solicitous only for the preservation of her jewels. Having enclosed them in her bed, she caused herself to be undressed and placed in it; but the officers of the provost, sent to search her chamber, compelled her to arise, and discovered the treasure. You have killed my husband,' said she, ' does not that satisfy you? Let me be permitted to leave the kingdom.' When informed of the indignities practised on the body of Conceni, she appeared somewhat moved, yet she shed no tears. After a pause, she declared that her husband had been a presumptuous insolent man, who had deserved his fate. It was three years, she added, since they had separate apartments; that Conceni was a bad man, and that, to rid herself of him, she had determined to retire into Italy, and had prepared every thing for her jour

ney. This assertion she offered to prove. She behaved with great confidence, as if she had nothing to apprehend, and even expressed a hope of being taken again into favour.

She was first carried to the Bastile, and afterwards committed to the Conciergerie, or' prison of the parliament, by which she was tried. Having been condemned to lose her head, and have her body consumed to ashes, she pleaded pregnancy; a plea which was over-ruled by her own confession, that she had lived apart from her husband for three years. Convicted of high treason against God and the king, she suffered her sentence with firmness and courage, July 8th, 1617.

She was accused, with her husband, of having judaized, and practised magic arts; which, with judicial astrology, were, in those times, seriously professed. On being questioned by counsellor Courtin, respecting the kind of sorcery which, she had employed to gain an ascendency over Mary de Medicis, she sensibly replied, That she had used no other magic, than that power which strong minds possess over those that are weak.'

Bayle's Historical Dictionary-Biographium Femineum

LADY GRACE GETHIN.

THIS lady, the daughter of sir George Norton, of AbbotsLangley, Somersetshire, bart. and of Francis his wife, was born in 1676, and educated by her mother, a woman of supe rior abilities. At an early period of life, she gave her hand to sir Richard Gethin, of Gethin-Grott, in Ireland, bart. She appears not long to have survived her marriage, since, according to the date on her monument in Westminster abbey, she expired, October 11, 1697, in the twenty-first year of her age. It is ob served by Dr. Birch, in his "Anniversary Sermon," on the death of this lady, that to superior talents and endowments of mind, she joined meekness, candor, integrity, and piety. Her reading, observation, penetration, and judgment, were extraordinary for her years, and her conduct in every relation of life correct and exemplary.

Soon after her death, a posthumous work, compiled from loose papers which she had left, was published, under the title of "Reliquiæ Gethinianæ, or some Remains of the most ingenious and excellent Lady Grace Gethin, lately deceased. Being a Collection of choice Discourses, pleasant Apothegms, and witty Sentences; written by her, for the most Part, by way of Essay, and at spare Hours." London, 1700; 4to. This collection, to which a print of the author was prefixed, consisted of essays on friendship, love, gratitude, death, language, lying, idleness, the world, secresy, prosperity and adversity, children, cowards, censoriousness, indifference, revenge, courage, youth, age, custom, charity, reading, beauty, flattery, riches, honour, ambition, pleasure, jealousy, excuses, poets, &c.

For perpetuating the memory of lady Grace, provision was made for a sermon to be preached annually, on Ash-Wednesday, for ever, in Westminster abbey, where she was interred, and where a beautiful monument, with an inscription, enumerating her perfections, is erected to her honour.

A poem to the memory of lady Grace Gethin, "occasioned by reading her book, entitled Reliquia Gethiniana," was composed by Mr. Congreve.

Ballard's British Ladies-The Female Worthies.

CECILIA DE GONZAGA.

CECILIA de Gonzaga, one of the most illustrious women of the fifteenth century, was the daughter of John Francis Gonzaga, lord of Mantua. She was instructed in polite learning by Victorinus of Feltri, who taught the belles-lettres with great reputation. Under his tuition the young Cecilia made an extraordinary progress: at eight years of age, she is said to have understood the declensions and conjugations of the Greek language, of which she gave a proof before the learned Ambrosius, general of the Camadoli, when he passed by Mantua, in 1432, to visit the houses of his order. Ambrosius, in the narration of his travels, mentions another journey, in which he saw a daughter of the lord of Mantua (believed to be the same young lady) who, at ten years of age, wrote Greek with scholastic elegance. Victorinus of Feltri, the preceptor of Cecilia, is spoken of as the restorer of the Latin language.

Paula Malatesta, wife to Francis Gonzaga, and mother of Cecilia, distinguished for her virtue, learning, and beauty, was the ornament and boast of Italy. In the midst of temptations to splendor and voluptuousness, she devoted herself to the severest virtues and the most rigid self-denial. Abstaining from all the luxuries of her rank and situation, she appropriated the sums usually expended in pomp and ornament to feeding the poor, giving portions to young women, to building and repairing the churches, &c. Cecilia caught the spirit, and imitated the conduct, of a mother whom she respected and loved: she imbibed also a contempt for the world, an enthusiastic zeal for religion, and a desire of devoting herself to a monastic life. This resolution was combated by her father, whose arguments and entreaties she resisted, and at length assumed the veil. Gregory Connarus, the pope's prothonotary, one of the most learned men of the fifteenth century, congratulates Cecilia Gonzaga, in a letter, on her contempt for the honours and pleasures of the world, and on having consecrated herself to God. He exhorts her to exchange the writings of the poets, with a taste for which she had been inspired by her preceptor Victorinus, for the works of the holy fathers.

How vain is the benevolence of nature, and how many have been the victims, in every age and country, at the shrine of superstition!

Bayle's Historical Dictionary-Biographium Famineum, &c.

ELEONORA GONZAGA.

ELEONORA GONZAGA, daughter of Francis II. marquis of Mantua, and wife to Francis Maria de la Rovere, duke of Urbino, was, in the sixteenth century, illustrious for her virtues and her accomplishments, for her moderation in prosperity, and her constancy in adversity. Her husband being divested of his dutchy by Leo X. who deposed him in favour of his nephew, Lorenzo de Medicis, Eleonora was his consolation and support in his misfortunes: she soothed him by her affection, and sustained him by her magnanimity and fortitude. After the death of Lorenzo, the husband of Eleonora was restored to his dignity. Two sons and three daughters were the fruit of