Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/349

Rh in Latin many religious books; one entitled, A Path to direct us the Way to God, one on The Origin of the Name and Invention of the pretended Eleven Thousand Virgins, and three of Revelations. that king's marriage with Jane Seymour, in 1535, she was declared illegitimate, with Mary, her half sister, and the succession to the crown established on the king's issue by this third wife. Her mother, at her death, had earnestly recommended her to Dr. Parker, a great reformer, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, who had the care of her education, and appointed her such tutors as instructed her well in the principles of religion professed by the protestants.

She learned Latin and Greek, and made so considerable a progress, not only in those languages, but also in French and Italian, that at eleven years of age she translated out of French verse into English prose. The Mirror, or Glass of the sinful Soul. She dedicated this to queen Catherine Parr, by an Epistle dated from Asheridge, Dec. 21, 1544.

When no more than twelve years old, she translated from the English tongue, into Latin, French, and Italian, ''Prayers or Meditations, by which the Soul may be encouraged to bear with Patience all the Miseries of Life, to despise the vain Happiness of this World, and assiduously provide for eternal Felicity. Collected out of prime Writers, by the most noble and religious Catharine, Queen'' of