Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/542

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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

Not long after, a total change of ministry ensued, when she lived in high reputation, and amused herself with writing poems and letters, and conversing with wits. The second edition of a volume of her Letters was published in 1713. Lucius, the first Christian King of Great Britain, a Tragedy, was likewise acted at Drury-lane in 1717. She dedicated it to Sir Richard Steele, whom she had abused in her Atalantis; but with whom she was now on such good terms, that he wrote the prologue, as Mr. Prior did the epilogue. These, with the comedy of the Lost Lover, or the Jealous Husband, acted in 1696, were all her dramatic works. She was employed in writing for Queen Anne's ministry, certainly with the consent and privity, if not under the direction of Doctor Swift; during which time, she formed a connexion with Mr. John Barber, alderman of London, at whose house she died 1724.

Gen. Biog. Dic.



MANTO, Daughter of Tiresias; a Woman famous in Antiquity for her Knowledge of Divination.

After the taking of Thebes by the seven chiefs, the Argives, to whose share Manto fell, and who had vowed to consecrate the most valuable part of their plunder to Apollo, thought they fulfilled it, by sending this young woman to be his priestess at Delphi. She was mother of Amphilochus and Tisiphone, by Alcmeon, general of the army which took Thebes. Many of the ancient writers tell different fables concerning her: and Diodorus Sicuius says, that she wrote a number of oracles, and that she was called the Sybil, from the inspiration of

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