Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/790

776 her infancy she discovered an uncommon dexterity of hand; for at six years of age, she cut with her scissars all sorts of figures upon paper, without any pattern or model. At eight she learned in a few days to design flowers in a very agreeable manner; and two years after, took no more than three hours in learning to embroider. She was afterwards instructed in music, painting, sculpture, and engraving; and succeeded to admiration in all these arts. Her hand writing in all languages was inimitable; and some curious persons have preserved specimens of it in their cabinets. Mr. Joby, in his journey to Munster, relates, that he had a view of the beauty of her writing in French, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic; and was an eye witness of her skill in drawing in miniature, and making portraits upon glass with the point of a diamond. She painted her own picture; and made artificial pearls so nearly resembling natural ones, that they could not be distinguished, except by pricking them with a needle.

The powers of her understanding were equally capacious; for at eleven years of age, when her brothers were examined in their Latin exercises, she frequently whispered them what to answer, though she had only heard them say their lessons en passant; which her father observing, and perceiving she had a genius for literature, determined to cultivate those