CATHARINE VON BORE, WIFE TO MARTIN

LUTHER.

MISS ANNE PITT.

THIS lady, who was the sister of that great statesman, Lord Chatham, having received a pension through Lord Bute, her brother wrote her a very severe letter, in which he reproached her for having ob

SHE was the daughter of a gentleman of fortune, and a nun in the convent of Nimptschen, in Germany. When Luther commenced the reformation she quitted the veil, with eight other nuns, and which áb-tained this favour. "I should never have dication they put in practice on Good Friday. Luther, passionately enamoured of Catharine, gained her consent to become his wife. To the charms of youth and beauty, Mrs. Luther added vivacity and pleasing conversation, and the kindest affection and attention towards her husband. When she brought him a son, Luther said, he would not change his condition for that of Croesus. This lady was said to have all the hospitality of the German noblesse without any of their pride.

ELIZABETH BURY,

expected," said he, "such a meanness in any one of my family; the name of Pitt and the word pension were never intended to be joined together." Some little time after, the same Lord offered a pension to Mr. Pitt (afterwards Lord Chatham) of three thousand pounds, who did not refuse it. His sister was no sooner informed of it than she immediately sent him a copy of the letter he had before written to her.

This lady was celebrated for her wit and vivacity; and when at an advanced period of life, that dealer in the graces, Lord Chesterfield, called on her one morning, and forgetting that politeness to the sex in

WAS the daughter of Captain Adams which he so much prided himself, said:— Lawrence, of Lynton, in Cambridgeshire," Really, Miss Pitt, I get good for nothing;

and was born in March, 1644; in 1697 she married Mr. Samuel Bury, a dissenting minister.

She was famed for her genorosity and beneficence, and gained thereby a most illustrious fame. She took long and expensive journies to forward her plans of charity; and in order to carry them into effect she was often obliged to resort to the agency of others. "I have acted the part of a beggar so long," she would say, "that I am now reduced almost to one myself." And when she recommended their setting apart peculiar sums for charitable uses, she would add, "People will not grudge to give out of a purse that is no longer their own."

I believe I am become quite an old woman.' “Is that all, my Lord?" said she, with quickness; "I thought you was going to tell me you was become quite an old man, and that is a great deal worse."

SUSANNAH CENTLIVRE.

THIS lady was possessed of superior talents for the writing of comedy; and some of her pieces, notwithstanding the change in our taste and manners, are yet acted on the English stage. Her life is indeed but a tissue of anecdotes, or rather of gay adventures. She passed, in the earliest part of her youth, several months at Cambridge with a young gentleman of fortune, in his

From her early youth she was accustom-chambers; where, being disguised all the ed to rise at four in the morning, and to spend several hours in her closet in meditation and devotion. She could not satisfy herself, she used to say, with an intercourse in which she could neither do nor receive good. Amongst her memorandums the following frequently occurs:-" Entertained very kindly at such and such houses, but no good done to myself or others." Sometimes she would complain, after leaving company, that though she had struck fire frequently, it always fell upon wet tinder.

time in male attire, and undetected, she had an advantage few of her sex could boast, that of a classical education. So strong was her forte for poetry, that she had composed some songs before she was seven years old; and, on account of her great talents, she afterwards received from Prince Eugene a magnificent gold snuffbox for a poem she inscribed to him; and another from the French Ambassador for a masquerade which she addressed to him. She wrote a ballad against Pope's transla

tion of Homer before ever he began it.
She was possessed of many jewels and
pieces of plate from the produce of her
literary labours; and we mention this as
an extraordinary anecdote, since few, very
few poets have been able to rely on their
pen
for even decent support.

She died in Spring-Gardens, at the house of her third husband, Joseph Centlivre, one of Queen Anne's cooks, who had fallen in love with her at Windsor, where he saw her acting the part of Alexander the Great.

CHARACTERS OF CELEBRATED FRENCH WOMEN.

MADAME ELIZABETH OF FRANCE.

hold dominion, and how repellant they

MADAME ELIZABETH was daughter are to all confidence and friendship. A

few austere sentences, followed by a total silence, took place of their watchful tenderness. The Princess could not endure such a change, and repentance immediately followed her fault. In a short time this character, which was naturally violent, took a turn, and all that remained of its originality was a stability of principle, a nobleness of sentiment, and an indefatigable energy which placed her above the reverse of fortune.

of the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI. and was scarce three years of age when she was left an orphan; her mother was Maria Josephine, Princess of Poland, and the second wife of the Dauphin. The misfortune of losing her parents was, in a great measure, repaired by the tender and || affectionate care of Madame de Marsan, her governess, who took the charge of her during her days of infancy, and shewed herself worthy of so sacred a trust, and to which she entirely devoted herself. She Madame de Marsan was very fond of had the satisfaction of seeing her royal flowers, and of cultivating exotic plants: pupil profit by her ardent zeal for her wel- || aided by Mr. Lemounier, as celebrated for fare, and by the virtuous example she con- his skill in botany as in medicine, she extinually set her. plained to her young pupil the properties of every shrub, its origin, and the period when it was first introduced in France. Nature is full of instruction, and life holds forth every lesson of utility; the Creator speaks in all his works to the listening and attentive mind.

But it was not without extreme difficulty that this precious fruit was brought to maturity: the blood of the Duke of Burgundy flowed in the veins of Madame Elizabeth;|| and the same difficulty which was proved in bringing up that young Prince, was also felt in preserving the life of his great granddaughter. And it was on such a mind that the sensible Fenelon employed all the efforts of his great genius, and sweetly enforced his instructions.

Madame de Marsan and Madame de Markau, in unison with him whom they had chosen to assist them, succeeded in the care they employed in the education of the Princess. By turns mild and decided, severe and gentle, they performed their duty to their royal pupil; they made her feel betimes the pleasure of being beloved: did she, when a child, show a shadow of obstinacy, or give any indication of misplaced arrogance, or ill humour, their friendship, by reasonings such as might be made with childhood, taught her to feel how these bibles degrade the mind over which they

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The mind of Madame Elizabeth was formed for the loftiest conceptions; the mysteries of religion were developed by her, and its grand precepts were engraven on her soul. She was soon enabled to perceive in religion that chain of benevolence, consolations and duties, the first link of which is placed in heaven, and draws mankind to its origin and end. She beheld immortality in the sure light of conviction, and felt that eternity was requisite to sustain our earthly frame, and also that eter nity was for man the fruit of his virtues and of his sufferings.

Such were the ideas on which the cha racter of this Princess was formed; and by them she arrived at that degree of dignity and goodness of mind, that she captivated every heart, as she inspired it with the love

of virtue, of which she was the most lovely and worthy organ. No one could behold her without being ambitious of acquiring those virtues to which she gave so great a charm. All that surrounded her from earliest infancy seemed impregnated with a dew of blessings, all around her breathed innocence and peace.

So uniform a conduct, so happy a character, gained her the esteem of all the royal family, and in particular of the King, her brother. This Prince was accustomed to say, that truth was her element. No one but his Majesty knew so well how to appreciate this Princess: always happy to see her, he only parted from her in the sweet hope of seeing her soon again.

In 1781, the King purchased for her the charming house of Madame Guémenée at Montreuil, where the arrival of the Princesa was a blessing to the inhabitants: the milk of her dairy was destined to those children who had lost their mothers; she inspected the distribution of it herself, and in her absence she confided it to a man in whom

she could place implicit trust, and who delivered in his accounts of its disposal. He had orders to let her know immediately when any of the inhabitants or their chil dren were taken sick, and she sent to them a physician, money, and other necessaries of which they might stand in need; and she heard with the most lively joy when any of her sick were restored to life and health.

Her pension was the treasury of the poor; and this striking anecdote is recorded, An ingenious mechanic offered her the orna ment of a chimney-piece of very curious workmanship, asking for it four hundred

A remarkable epocha in the life of Madame Elizabeth, was, that when at about the age of fourteen, her brother, who found her endowed with superior wisdom, gave her an establishment. She still, however, retained her masters, and gave herself up to her accustomed studies and duties, alter- || franks. "With that sum," said Madame ing nothing of her usual routine of life.

It was in the charms of fraternal friendship that Madame Elizabeth placed her chief delight in solitude, painting (for which she had a wonderful talent), and much reading, so that she never knew ennui but by name. ing was amongst her greatest and most heart-felt gratifications. Among the young people who, from their infancy had the honour of approaching her, was one who was the object of her primitive friendship, Mademoiselle de Causan; it was for her that Madame Elizabeth deprived herself for five successive years of the diamonds which the King presented to her: she exchanged these diamonds into money at the end of the five years, to have the pleasure of giving her friend a marriage portion.

Elizabeth,
milies."

"I could feed two small fa

ANTOINETTE BOURIGNON.

ENTHUSIASM was the leading feature in the character of this female devotee: dreadThe pleasure of oblig-fully deformed in body, it might be said of her, that as she sunk beneath humanity in her exterior, so her interior qualifications raised her above it. She was distinguished at a very early age for her zeal in the cause of Christianity, and an invincible attachment to chastity: her utter aversion to marriage is supposed to have taken its rise from seeing how very unhappily her father and mother lived together.

Devoted to friendship alone, this Princess was a stranger to all court intrigue; her noble and elevated character could ill accommodate itself to that want of integrity, and that self-interest, which are too often the motives to action: it was with extreme delicacy, also, that she rejected the applause she excited; but what added most to her praise was her goodness to the poor, over whom she might be said continually to Watch.

Pure in heart, yet strongly tinctured with visionary enthusiasm, she began really to fancy herself already united to her Creator; but her father, who had no notion of these abstractions, promised her in marriage to a young Frenchman; and Easter day, 1636, was fixed for the nuptials. She fled in the disguise of a hermit, returned again under promise of being no more persecuted with the addresses of her lover, but was forced again to fly on another proposal of marriage. On the death of her parents, when her patrimonial estate was bequeathed her, she lived at little expence; moderate

in all her desires, and charity not being amongst the number of her virtues, her fortune increased.

This tempted one John de Saulieu to pay his addresses to her, who insinuated himself by discourses on spirituality; but at length he threw off the mask, and threatened to murder her if she would not become his wife: but from him she escaped. She published a book at Amsterdam, called the Light of the World. And to prove the enthusiastic temper of her mind the following passage is sufficient:" She saw Adam," she said, "in the same form as he was before the fall, and who had produced in himself the nature of Jesus Christ."

Her temper was morose and peevish, and she was naturally avaricious. Her pen, when once set agoing, ran like a torrent, and was not free from invective against those who differed from herself in opinion; for with all her devotion she wanted that true principle of religion-tober, 1680. humility.

This extraordinary character was born at Lisle, in Flanders, Jan. 13, 1616; and died on her way to Holland, at Franeker, in the province of Frise, on the 30th of Oc

DRYDEN.

SELECT ANECDOTES.

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in his extensive genius; but while he gained THE greatest men are subject to weak- immortal fame he wanted bread; and though uesses; that of Dryden was a belief in ju- his talents were the theme of general condicial astrology. At the birth of his chil-versation, and the playhouses rang with dren he consulted the stars, and fancied he plaudits at every line of his theatric produccould predict all that could befal them. In tions, he was languishing, with a wife and regard to Charles Dryden, his eldest son, child, in the extremes of misery. A prey to chance justified his predictions; who, ac- distress, he resolved to rid himself of his sorcording to them, was to die a violent death rows by death. His wife, weary of life as either at the age of eight years, twenty- himself, listened with delight to his poetic three, or thirty-three., At eight years old, || description of the smiling prospects of futuyoung Dryden being in the country, was rity, and resolved to accompany him to " the buried at the very hour and minute an- bourne from whence there is no return." nounced by his father's prophecy under the Yet she could not bear to leave her child, ruins of an old wall, which a stag had a boy of five years old, in this world of sin thrown down, without doing the child and sorrow: it was therefore agreed bethe smallest injury. When he was twenty- tween them to take their child with them three years of age, being at Rome, he fell to a better. from one of the towers of the Vatican, and was slightly wounded. But at thirty-three, as he was bathing at Windsor, he was taken with the cramp and drowned."

LOUIS DE BOISSI.

He was

a celebrated French comic

They made choice of starving; and shut themselves up in a deserted apartment to await their dissolution. Their little boy, who could not repress his hunger, called to them for bread, but they always found means to quiet him.

One of Boissi's friends thought it very writer, and surpassed every one in France || extraordinary that he could never find him