Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/369

Rh heir of Stidolph, living in the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII. or of Sir Thomas Fane, who was engaged in Wyatt's rebellion in the first year of queen Mary. Female Worthies.

illustrious Roman lady, daughter of Petus Thrasea, and grand-daughter of Arria, twice attended her husband Helvidius into banishment, and was herself afterwards banished for his sake, that is, because she had desired Senecio to write her husband's life, and furnished him with materials for doing it; which she boldly confessed before her judges, denying only that her mother knew it. This happened under the emperor Domitian. The greatness of her soul was attended with such a sweet and agreeable temper, that she was as much loved as respected.

Pliny relates, that the priests appointing some ladies to take care of the vestal virgins, who, by sickness, were obliged to leave their convent, Fannia paid so much attention to one of them, her relation, that she fell ill herself.

Mrs. Thicknesse means that she was a nun, I know not; but she says, "who for ten years had been under the cover of a veil in a monastery, in which time her good sense having pointed out the absurdities of such a life, she quitted it, and resided at Paris," where she published many ingenious works: her best. La Triomphe de l'Amitie, was written in the Rh