"Her unaffected manners, candid mind,
Her heart benevolent, and soul resigned.
Were more her praise, than all she knew or thought,
Though Athens' wisdom to her sex she taught."
FISHER, CATHARINE,
The biographers of this lady appear to have been ignorant of her origin, though they all agree in allowing that she possessed great comprehension of mind, and acknowledge that she was one of the most perfect linguists that adorned the sixteenth century. About the year 1559, she married Gualtheius Gruter, a burgomaster of Antwerp, by whom she had one son, the celebrated James Gruter, whose philosophical works have been so universally admired. In the early part of his life, he had no other instructor than his mother, who was perfect mistress of Latin and Greek; and to her has been ascribed his fondness for study, as it is during childhood that a bias is given to the mind. At what age she died, has not been specified; but the year, her biographers believe to have been 1579, the time when her son left the University of Cambridge to study at Leyden; but this circumstance is not positively ascertained.
FISHER, MARY,
An enthusiastic English Quakeress of the seventeenth century, who travelled to Constantinople, with the intention of converting the Grand Seignior. She embarked at Smyrna in an Italian vessel for Adrianople; but her design being discovered, she was taken from the ship, and sent to Venice. This opposition only increased her zeal, and she determined to pursue her journey by land. When she reached Adrianople, she obtained an audience with Mahomet the Fourth, who, surprised at her courage, and the manner in which she addressed him, regarded her as deranged, and ordered her to be carried back to her own country in the first vessel that sailed. On her return, she was received in triumph by the Quakers, and married to one of the principal members of that sect
FISKE, CATHARINE,
A true Benefactress, because she earned what she gave, and, while doing deeds of mercy, never forgot the claims of justice. Catharine Fiske was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on the 30th. of July, 1784. Her father died when she was a few months old, committing his only precious child to her Heavenly Father. Her mother married a second husband, who was not a provident man; he removed with his family to different places, residing for a time in Vermont, in one of its most remote and wild settlements. Still the self-education of Catharine Fiske went on wherever she was, for she had a mind that would improve. One who knew her well gives this account of her early years:—
"She ever appeared different from most other children, in that she was remarkably uniform in her feelings, and perfectly mild as to temper. When ever so much crossed or tried she had good command over her passions. She was never gay and flighty, like others of her age; never in the least uneasy in her situation, let it be ever so unpleasant. She could always find some one that had many more disagreeable tasks to perform than herself, and
