WESTON (ELIZABETH JANE), born about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign.
She seems to have left England when very young, and settled at Prague, in Bohemia, where it is probable she continued during the remainder of her life; and therefore is better known abroad than at home. She had fine natural parts, which were greatly improved by a polite education. She understood many languages, and was particularly skilled in the Latin; in which she wrote several things, both in prose and verse, with great applause; which made her highly esteemed by some of the most learned foreigners at that time, who corresponded with her, and gave her great encomiums on that account. Scaliger was one of her encomiasts.
Mr. Evelyn has given her a place among his learned women. Mr. Phillips has introduced her among his female poets. And Mr. Farnaby ranks her with Sir Thomas Moore, Alabaster, and other the best Latin poets in the sixteenth century.
She translated several of Æsop's fables into Latin verse. She wrote also a Latin poem, in praise of Typography; which, with many other Latin poems and epistles to and from her, were collected and published under the following title; Parthenicon Elizabethæ Joannæ Westoniæ, Virginis Nobiliissimæ, Pöetriæ Florentissimæ, Linguarumque Peritissimæ, Lib. III. Opera ac Studio, G. Mart a Baldhoven, sic collectus; et nunc denuo Amicis Desiderantibus communicatus, page 1606.
She was married to John Leon; a gentleman belonging to the emperor's court; and was living in the year 1605, as appears from an epistle of hers, dated Prague, Nonis Martii, that year.
