Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/805

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OF CELEBRATED WOMEN.
791

her sorrows by death (not without suspicion of poison) 1615, and interred in the vault with Mary, Queen of Scots, in King Henry VIIth's chapel, without any monumental inscription.

Female Worthies.


SFORZA (CATHERINE and ISABELLA).

The first, paternal daughter of Galeas Sforza, Duke of Milan, a heroine, who preserved her estates from those who had assassinated her husband.

Isabella was distinguished for her literary qualifications, in the sixteenth century.

F. C.


SHEBA (the Queen of) as she is erroneously called, the proper name being Saba.

Many have thought this queen was an Arabian, but Saba was a separate state, and the Sabeans a distinct people from the Ethiopians and the Arabs, till very lately. We know from history, that it was a custom amongst them, to have women for their sovereigns, in preference to men; a custom which still subsists among their descendants. Her name, the Arabs say, was Belkis; the Abyssinians, Magneda. Our Saviour calls her the Queen of the South, without mentioning any other name; but gives his sanction to the truth of the voyage. "The Queen of the South, (or Saba, or Azab) shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here." No other particulars, however, are mentioned about her in scripture.

The