by the favour she showed him, as well as by the familiar intercourse to which she admitted the gallant Cardinal Romani.
In educating Louis, she was charged with putting him too much in the hands of the clergy; but she proved an excellent guardian of his virtue, and inspired him with a lasting respect for herself. In 1234, she married him to Margaret, daughter of the Count de Provence; and in 1285, Louis haying reached the age of twenty-one, Blanche surrendered to him the sovereign authority. But even after this she retained great ascendency over the young king, of which she sometimes made an improper use. Becoming jealous of Margaret, wife of Louis, she endeavoured to sow dissensions between them, and, failing in this, to separate them; and these disturbances caused Louis great uneasiness.
When, in 1248, Louis undertook a crusade to the Holy Land, he determined to take his queen with him, and leave his mother regent; and in this second regency she showed the same vigour and prudence as in the first. The kingdom was suffering so much from the domination of the priesthood, that vigorous measures had become necessary; and notwithstanding her strong religious feelings, she exerted her utmost power against the tyranny of the priests and in favour of the people: and as usual, Blanche was successful. The unfortunate defeat and imprisonment of her son in the East so affected her spirits, that she died, in 1252, to his great grief, and the regret of the whole kingdom. She was buried in the abbey of Maubisson. She was one of the most illustrious characters of her time, being equally distinguished for her personal and mental endowments.
BLAND, ELIZABETH,
This lady was remarkable for her knowledge of the Hebrew language, and for her peculiar skill In writing it.
She was born about the period of the restoration of Charles the Second, and was daughter and heir of Mr. Robert Fisher, of Long-Acre. She married Mr. Nathaniel Bland, April 26th., 1681, who was then a linen-draper in London, and afterwards Lord of the Manor of Beeston, in Yorkshire. She had six children, who all died in infancy, excepting one son, named Joseph, and a daughter, Martha, who was married to Mr. George Moore, of Beeston. Mrs. Bland was taught Hebrew by Lord Van Helmont, which she understood so thoroughly as to be competent to the instruction in it of her son and daughter. Among the curiosities of the Royal Society is preserved a phylactery, in Hebrew, written by her, of which Dr. Grew has given a description in his account of rarities preserved in Gresham college.
By the two pedigrees of the family, printed in Mr. Thoresby's "Ducattts Leodiensis," pages 209 and 687, it seems she was living in 1712.
BLEECKER, ANNE ELIZA,
One of the early poetesses of America, was born in New York, in 1752. Her father was Brandt Schuyler, of that city. In 1769, she married John J. Bleecker, and afterwards lived chiefly at Tomhanick, a little village not far from Albany. It was in this seclusion that most of her poems were written. The death of one of her children, and the capture of her husband, who was taken prisoner by a party of tories, in 1781, caused a depression of spirits and melancholy from which she never recovered. She; died in
