Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/791

Rh those talents he saw she was possessed of, and accordingly assisted her in gaining that noble stock of learning, for which she was afterwards so eminent. The Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages were so familiar to her, that she not only wrote, but spoke them fluently, to the surprize of the most learned men. She made a great progress also in the oriental languages, which have an affinity with the Hebrew, as the Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, and Ethiopic; understood the living languages perfectly well, and could converse readily in French, English, and Italian. She was likewise competently versed in geography, astronomy, philosophy, and the sciences; but as her mind was naturally of a religious cast, these learned amusements gave her but little satisfaction; and at length she applied herself to divinity, and the study of the holy scriptures.

While she was an infant, her father had settled at Utrecht, but afterwards, for the more convenient education of his children, removed to Franeker, where he died 1623. Upon which his widow returned to Utrecht, where Anna Maria continued her studies very intensely; which undoubtedly kept her from marrying, as she might advantageously have done with Mr. Cots, pensionary of Holland, and a celebrated poet, who wrote verses in her praise, when she was no more than fourteen years of age.

Her modesty, which was as remarkable as her knowledge, would have kept her merit and learning in obscurity, if Rivetus, Spanheim, and Vossius, had not produced her, contrary to her own inclination, upon the stage of the world. To these three divines we may add Salmasius, Beverovicius, and Huygens, who