[366] Johnson, Samuel: Works (ed. Murphy), vol. II, p. 1.
[367] Nichols: Anecdotes of Bowyer, p. 248.
[368] The Works of the Late Miss Catharine Talbot, vol. I, p. 98.
[369] See The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. XLIV (1774), p. 376. Ibid. (1772), vol. XLII, pp. 135, 257. (Her character by Mrs. Duncomb.) Nichols: Literary Anecdotes, vol. IX, pp. 766-69. (Quotations from the Reverend Weeden Butler's Memoirs of Bishop Hildesley, Letter by Dr. Rundle, Letter by Duchess of Somerset.)
[370] In 1748, in accordance with her dying request, her poems were published by subscription for her father's benefit, under the title Poems on Several Occasions, by the late Mrs. Leapor of Brackley in Northamptonshire. Published for the Benefit of the Author's Father. 800. Price 5s. Vol. 2d and last appeared later at the same price.
[371] See Familiar Letters, p. 52.
[372] "Maria" has made some mistakes in names, but her general accuracy is attested by a reference to Mozans: Woman in Science. The eighteenth century was a period of great triumph for learned Italian women. Of the four chief women, Laura Bassi, Anna Manzolini, Maria Agnesi, Clotilda Tambroni, the first three had attained to fame before 1755 when Miss Masters's book appeared. Maria Agnesi (1718-1808) was a European celebrity by the time she was twenty. "M. Charles de Brosses, in his Lettres Familières écrites de l'Italie en 1739 et 1740, speaks of Agnesi in terms that recall the marvellous stories which are related of Admirable Crichton and Cico della Mirandola. 'She appeared to me,' he tells us, 'something more stupendous—una cosa piu stupenda—than the Duomo of Milan.' Having been invited to a conversazione for the purpose of meeting this wonderful woman, the learned Frenchman found her to be 'a young lady about eighteen or twenty.' She was surrounded by 'about thirty people—many of them from different parts of Europe.' The discussion turned on various questions of mathematics and natural philosophy." The astonishment excited by her knowledge of these abstruse subjects was increased by her command of classical Latin which she spoke with purity, care, and accuracy. When the conversation became general she spoke to each person in the language of his own country. At about thirty Maria Agnesi brought out her great work, a treatise in two large volumes on the differential and integral calculus. "It would be impossible to describe the sensation it produced in the learned world. Everybody talked about it; everybody admired the profound learning of the author, and acclaimed her: 'Il portento del sesso, unico al Mondo'—the portent of her sex, unique in the world." (Mozans: Woman in Science, pp. 143-53.)
Laura Caterina Bassi (1711-78) would take rank with learned women of any age or nation. At twenty-one she took part in a public disputation on philosophy with some of the most distinguished scholars of the time as her opponents. The brilliancy of her success on this occasion led to a request that she should present herself as candidate for the doctorate in philosophy. This was a still more imposing ceremony. It was held in the Communal Palace which was magnificently decorated for the splendid function. After a discourse in Latin to which she responded in the same tongue, she was crowned with a laurel wreath exquisitely wrought in silver, and had thrown round her the vajo, or university gown, both symbols of the doctorate. Her next triumph was when she passed the public examinations and was appointed by acclamation to the chair of physics in the University of Bologna, an office which she held many years, and always with increasing fame. (Mozans: Woman in Science, pp. 202-09.)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was much impressed by the fame of Laura Bassi and wrote to England about her, and Lady Pomfret, on her visit to Italy, made a point of seeing the famous lady professor; but in general the Englishwomen seem to have been quite ignorant of the status of learned women in Italy.
Anna Manzolini (1716-1774) held the chair of anatomy in Bologna for many years and is famous for her wax models of the organs of the human body. (Mozans: Woman in Science, pp. 235-37.)