Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/745

Rh from infancy an extraordinary child: though she was taught by masters every polite accomplishment, her education may be said to be of her own forming, as she herself chose her books, or rather read whatever fell in her way. Proud, generous, tender, obstinate, and romantic, perhaps by nature, her feelings were continually afloat. Occupied by turns in elegant arts, and household duties, when not engaged in her reading, her susceptible mind had many bold flights, which varied the uniform tenor of her life. At the age of eleven, in consequence of a strong predilection for a cloister, which she had nourished in secret, her parents sent her for a while to board at one, where the rules were not strict. Here she staid a twelvemonth, and then passed another with her grandmother.—She still persevered in her intention of becoming in due time a nun. But on her return home, she read some controversial writings, which led her by turns from one belief to another, till she became at last a complete sceptic. With a considerable portion of taste and vanity, she felt delighted with the pictures of former times, as presented to her by the classical writers, and personified by her own imagination. By comparison with this ideal world, the absurdities, the injustice, and selfish despotism of mankind, filled her with double abhorrence; she began to long for that republican government, which in Greece and Rome was connected with heroism, politeness, and the fine arts. In 1775 she lost an excellent and beloved mother. This incident made it necessary for her to seek mental occupation, with even yet more avidity: