her imaginations; nor the greatest difficulties disarrange her ideas.
CATHERINE DE MEDICIS.—See Medicis.
CAYLUS, (MADAME DE),
A beautiful and ingenious French lady; wrote a work, entitled, Les Souvenir, which relate many interesting anecdotes of the reign of Lewis XIV. and clear up many historical doubts.
CENTLIVRE, (SUSANNAH) Daughter of Mr. Freeman, of Holbeach, in Lincolnshire. Born 1667, died 1723; aged 56;
A celebrated comic writer; was of a respectable family, who suffered much for their attachment to whig principles. Her education was entirely of her own acquiring, with the assistance of a neighbouring French gentleman, who undertook to instruct her in the French language, wherein she made such a rapid progress, that, before she was twelve years of age, she could read Moliere with vivacity and interest. After the death of her father, the ill-usage of her step-mother induced her to leave home to seek her fortune, on foot and unprotected. Her beauty struck a young man of the university of Cambridge, who persuaded her to become his mistress, and to reside there with him in the disguise of a boy. Afterwards she came to London, and married, in her sixteenth year, a nephew of Sir
