Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/298

284  lady; no less celebrated for her beauty in her younger years, than for her genius and fine accomplishments. She was small of stature, but had a remarkable liveliness in her eye, and a delicacy of complexion, which continued to her death.

The collection of her works, lately exhibited to the world, is a proof of the excellency of her genius; but her abilities as a writer, and the merit of her performances, will not have full justice done them, without duly attending to the circumstances in which they were produced: her early youth, for instance, when she wrote some; her very advanced age, and ill state of health, when she drew up others; the uneasy situation of her fortune, during the whole course of her life, and an interval of near twenty years in the vigour of it, spent in the cares of a family, without the least leisure for reading or contemplation; after which, with a mind so long diverted and incumbered, resuming her studies, she instantly recovered its intire power; and in the hours of relaxation from her domestic employments, pursued to their utmost limits some of the deepest enquiries of which the human understanding is capable. .

her early youth, gave herself up to the study of letters, and employed her learning for the glory of her father and family. She wrote the history of his reign, from 1069 to 1118. This work is called The Alexiad. She has been accounted a partial writer; but, as Vossius has observed, the matter maybe well enough