Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/192

178 VI. who bestowed so liberal education on his daughters, that they became the wonders of the age, and were sought in marriage, as Camden and Lloyd observe, by some of the greatest men of that time, more for their natural and acquired accomplishments than their portions. The eldest of these ladies is the subject of this narrative.

Great care and pains were taken of her education, which she fully repaid; being as eminent for her great learning and good sense, in the early part of her life, as exemplary for her piety and charity in the latter. She was extremely well skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues; but more particularly in the former, having Mr. Lawrence, the great Grecian, for her preceptor. She took great delight in reading the works of Basil, Cyril, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, and others. She translated a piece of St. Chrysostom's out of Greek into English, as the author of the Life of Lord Treasurer Burleigh informs us. And when she presented the university library in Cambridge with the great Bible in Hebrew and other languages, she sent it with an epistle in Greek, written with her own hand.

On the 21st of December, in the year 1546, and in the 20th year of her age, she was married to Sir William Cecil, afterwards created lord Burleigh, lord high treasurer of England, and privy-counsellor to queen Elizabeth, by whom she had many children, all of whom died young, excepting two daughters.

After a long and happy marriage of 42 years; she died April 4, 1589, in the 63d year of her age. She was a woman of exemplary virtue, and engaging qualities. Of an admirable understanding, and (if a judgment may be formed by her letters) as good a politician as her band.