Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/191

Rh charms; and that Plato and Aristotle, untranslated, were frequent ornaments of their closets. One would think, by the effects, that it was a proper way of educating them, since there are no accounts in history of so many great women in any one age, as are to be found between fifteen and sixteen hundred." And Erasmus, speaking of those times, says, "The scene of human things is changed; the monks, famed in times past for learning, are become ignorant; and women love books. It is pretty enough that this sex should now betake itself to the ancient examples."

The reason which Mr. Strype gives for this is, the great care which Henry VIII. took in the education of his daughters. But perhaps it may more probably be ascribed to the noble art of printing, which had just then awakened the minds of people, and furnished them with a vast variety of books to improve their understanding. To this may be added the example of Sir Thomas More, whose daughters were celebrated, even in foreign countries, for their great skill in the learned languages, the arts, and sciences, before the daughters of king Henry VIII, were born. But, however this may be, parents in those times, might imagine, with a polite and elegant writer, "That, in a country where women are admitted to a familiar and constant share in every active scene of life, particular care should be taken in their education, to cultivate their reason, and form their hearts, that they may be equal to the part they have to act."

Among those gentlemen, who so worthily distinguished themselves in the care they took in the education of their daughters, none deserve greater praise than Sir Anthony Cooke, one of the tutors to king Rh