Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/126

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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

counter atheists and libertines, as may be seen by some severe satires written in the Latin tongue, in which language she had a great readiness and fluency of expression, which made a gentleman of no small parts and learning say to her,

"Anna gens solis mea, Annam gens Belgica jactet;
At superas Annas, Anna Baynarda, duas."



BEALE, (MARY) a Portrait Painter in the Reign of Charles II. Daughter of Mr. Cradock, Minister of Walton-upon-Thames, but born in Suffolk, 1631, died 1697, aged 66.

This lady was assiduous in copying the works of Sir Peter Lely and Vandyke—whose manner, as well as that of the ancient masters, she was very successful in imitating. She painted in oil, water-colours, and crayons, and was much respected and patronized, particularly by the most eminent among the clergy. The author of an essay towards an English school of painters, says, that "she was little inferior to any of her cotemporaries, either in colouring, strength, force, or life; insomuch, that Sir Peter Lely was greatly taken with her performances, as he would often acknowledge." She worked with a wonderful body of colours, and was exceedingly industrious. Some of her pictures remain at the earl of Ilchester's, at Melbury, in Dorsetshire, and are most frequently distinguished by a stone-coloured frame. Her price was five guineas for a head in oils, and ten for a half-length. It in general brought in more than two

hundred