Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/481

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habits and abandoned life, found means to attract her attention from a neighbouring house—to gain her affections, and to seduce her. Thus far Manzoni:—but the work called the Monaca di Monza, by Rossini, which affects to give a detailed and continued life of this lady, is entirely incorrect and without real foundation. The true end of her history is, that the scandalous life she led, was brought by report to the ears of the Cardinal Borromeo, who quietly withdrew her from the scene of her errors, placed her in another monastery, under strict overseeing, and in fine, by tenderness and spiritual exhortations, awakened her torpid conscience, instructed her in religious truths, and brought about a sincere repentance. She became as eminent for the saintly piety of her latter days, as she had been offensive from her early licentiousness. Her seducer, after a series of fearful crimes, among which murder was to be reckoned, came to an untimely and violent death.

LENNGREN, ANNA MARIA,

A Swedish poetess, was born in 1754, and died in 1817. She was the daughter of Professor Malmstadt, of Upsala. Her "Visit to the Parsonage," "Portraits," and other writings, are charming pictures of domestic life. The Swedish Academy honoured her memory by a medal, on one side of which is her bust, and on the other a muse holding a lyre, with this inscription: "Quo minus gloriam potebat eo magis assecuta."

The friend of Johnson and Richardson, was born in 1720, at New York, of which city her father. Colonel Ramsay, was lieutenant-governor. She was sent to this country to be educated; married, was left a widow with one child, and resorted to her pen for subsistence Her latter days were clouded by poverty and sickness. Some of her works are, "The Female Quixote," "Henrietta, Sophia, and Euphemia," "Shakspere Illustrated," two plays, and various translations.

Dr. Johnson assisted her in drawing up proposals for an edition of her works, in three volumes, 4to., but it does not appear to have been published. Dr. Johnson had such an opinion of Mrs. Lennox, that on one occasion, not long before his death, he went so far as to pronounce her talents as a writer superior to those of Mrs. Carter, Miss Hannah More, and Miss Burney. She died January 4th., 1804.

LENORMAND, MADEMOISELLE,

Was born in Alençon. Being left an orphan at an early age, she was educated, together with her sister, in the convents of Alençon, and when of a suitable age, she was apprenticed to a milliner. She commenced her vocation by announcing that the superior of the convent of the Benedictines, where she was then living, would be deprived of her office, and she informed her companions of the name, age, and other particulars of the successor of the deprived abbess. For this prophecy, Mademoiselle Lenormand was obliged to undergo a penance; but the event verifying the truth of her predictions, her pretensions as a prophetess were confirmed. Alençon was, however, too confined a place for a spirit