C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
A Learned Lady
By Thomas Fuller (1608–1661)
M
She was born in Bucklersburie in London at her father’s house therein, and attained to that skill in all learning and languages that she became the miracle of her age. Foreigners took such notice thereof that Erasmus hath dedicated some epistles unto her. No woman that could speak so well did speak so little; whose secrecy was such, that her father intrusted her with his most important affairs.
Such was her skill in the Fathers that she corrected a depraved place in Cyprian; for where it was corruptly written “Nisi vos sinceritas” she amended it “Nervos sinceritas.” Yea, she translated Eusebius out of Greek; but it was never printed, because J. Christopherson had done it so exactly before.
She was married to William Roper of Eltham in Kent, Esquire, one of a bountiful heart and plentiful estate. When her father’s head was set up on London Bridge, it being suspected it would be cast into the Thames to make room for divers others (then suffering for denying the King’s supremacy), she bought the head and kept it for a relic (which some called affection, others religion, others superstition in her), for which she was questioned before the Council, and for some short time imprisoned until she had buried it; and how long she herself survived afterwards is to me unknown.