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 of a physician, and successively the scholar of Eniilio Taruffl, Lorenzo Pasinelli, and Giovanni Gniseppe dal Sole. She composed many works for the chnrches of Bologna, the most admirable of which are, "A Dead Child restored to Life," "The Disbelief of St Thomas," and "The Annunciation." She died in 1708.

MYRTIS, woman, distinguished for her poetical talents. She lived about B.C. 500, and instructed the celebrated Corinna in the art of versification. Pindar also is said to have been one of her pupils.

NAOMI, her husband Elimelech, went to the land of Moab, because of a famine in Canaan. After about ten years, her husband and two sons died, leaving no children. Naomi then returned with Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, to her own country, poor and humble. Yet it speaks well for the character and consistency of Naomi, that she so thoroughly won the love and respect of her daughters-in-law. And not only this, but she must have convinced them, by the sanctity of her daily life, that the Lord whom she worshipped was the true God. Her name, Naomi, signifies beauty; and we feel, when reading her story, that, in its highest sense, she deserves to be thus characterized.

After Ruth married Boaz, which event was brought about, humanely speaking, by Naomi's wise counsel, she appears to have lived with them; and she look their first-born son as her own, "laid him in her bosom, and became nurse to him." This child was Obed, the grandfather of David. Well might the race be advanced which had such a nurse and instructress. These events occurred about 1312, B.C.

NEAL, ALICE BRADLEY, born in Hudson, New York, and was educated chiefly at a seminary for young ladies, in New Hampshire. In 1846, she was married to Mr. Joseph C. Neal, of Philadelphia, at that time editor of "Neal's Saturday Gazette," a man highly esteemed for his intellectual abilities, and warmly beloved for his personal qualities. Being left a widow a few months after her marriage, Mrs. Neal, although very young, was entrusted with the editorship of her husband's paper, which she has since conducted, in connection with Mr. Peterson, with remarkable ability, "The Saturday Gazette" continuing one of the most popular weekly papers of the city. She is principally known, as yet, as a contributor of tales and poems to the different periodicals of the day. In 1860, some of her writings were collected into one volume, under the title of "The Gossips of Rivertown; with Sketches in Prose and Verse." Mrs. Neal seems to have been endowed by nature with peculiar abilities for the sphere in which she has, by Providence, been placed. She began to write when quite a child; and in all her works she shows great facility in the use of her pen, a keen appreciation of the beautiful, and an almost intuitive penetration into the half-concealed springs that actuate the intercourse of society. Yet it is as a poetess, rather than a prose writer, that she will be chiefly admired, if we may