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 Arcadia," and of whom he had no other advantage than what he received from the partial benevolence of fortune in making him a man, (which yet she did, in some judgments, recompense in beauty,) her pen being nothing short of his. But, lest I should seem to trespass upon truth, I shall leave the world her epitaph, in which the author doth manifest himself a poet in all things but untruth:—

These lines were written by Ben Jonson.  HERESWITHA, HERESWYDA. , the consort of Anna, King of East Angles, has been called "the mother of many saints," on account of the holiness of her offspring, especially of her daughters Ethelburga, Sexburgea, and Etheldreda, all of whom shine as stars in the firmament of Anglo-Saxon history. In accordance with a custom prevalent among pious ladies of that time, Hereswitha, when she lost her husband, retired into a monastery, that of Chelles, in France, where she died; this was some time in the seventh century, a distinguishing feature of which was religious enthusiasm. A mistaken sense of duty prompted many of the royal females of that period to vow themselves to a life of celibacy, and they were sometimes married to the occupants of thrones with the stipulation that they should be allowed to remain in a state of virginity; and such vows as these were often kept through a long series of trials and persecutions, sufficient to shake the constancy of any mind which did not rest upon a high and holy principle. "Whatever," says Mrs. Matthew Hall, in her admirable work on "The Queens before the Conquest," may be our present notions, the ascetic behaviour adopted at this early period of history was looked upon as a proof of every Christian virtue, and was probably a natural reaction from the licentiousness of paganism."

The perseverance of Etheldreda, one of the daughters of Hereswitha, in her vow of chastity, after she had espoused her second husband, Egfrid, King of Northumberland, gave rise to many national and domestic troubles. She was no doubt actuated by a sense of right, and therefore we cannot blame her, although we must deplore her mistaken notions of woman's duty.  Heritier, Marie Jeanne l', de Villandon born at Paris, in 1664, daughter of Nicholas l'Heritier, a French poet, from whom she inherited a talent for poetry. She was also esteemed for the sweetness of her manners, and the dignity of her sentiments. The academy of the "Jeux Floraux" received her as a member in 1696, and that of the Ricovrati, in Padua, in 1697. She wrote a translation in verse of sixteen of Ovid's Epistles; an English tale, called "La Tour Tenebreuse;" "Les Caprices de Destin," another novel; and a novel in verse, called "L'Avare Puni;" with a few other poems. She lived a single life, and died at Paris, in 1734, aged seventy.