No one would have expected to find her as much at home in Greek and Latin authors as a man of fair ability who had received and profited by an University education, but she could appreciate a classical allusion or quotation, and translate off-hand a Latin epigram.
"Mary Aston," said Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty; and so I made this epigram upon her. She was the loveliest creature I ever saw!
"'Liber ut esse velim, suasisti, pulchra Maria,
Ut maneam liber, pulchra Maria, vale!'
"Will it do this way in English, Sir? (said Mrs. Thrale)—
"'Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you,
If freedom we seek, fair Maria, adieu."
Mr. Croker's version is:—
"'You wish me, fair Maria, to be free,
Then, fair Maria, I must fly from thee.'