Artistically speaking, "The Poetry of Life," is the best work of Mrs. Ellis; without much originality of thought, or any peculiar beauty of style, it shews refined taste, and a well-cultured mind; and, like all the books of this authoress, an attempt at something more than merely pleasing, the wish to inculcate the purest morality based upon the religion of the Bible.
ELPIS,
A lady of one of the most considerable families in Messina, was the first wife of the celebrated Boethius, and was born in the latter part of the fifth century. Like her husband, she was devoted to science, and shared his literary labours with him. She united all the accomplishments of the head and the heart. Her two sons, Patritius and Hypatius, were raised to the consular dignity, which Boethius had also several times enjoyed. Elpis died before the misfortunes of her husband fell upon him.
ELSTOB, ELIZABETH,
Sister of William Elstob, and famous for her skill in the Saxon language, was born in 1683. Her mother, to whom she owed the rudiments of her extraordinary education, dying when she was but eight years old, her guardians discouraged her progress in literature, as improper for her sex; and, after her brother's death, she met with so little patronage, that she retired to Evesham, in Worcestershire, where she with difficulty subsisted by keeping a school. Three letters of hers to the lord treasurer of Oxford are extant among the Harleian MSS., from which it appears that he obtained for her the queen's bounty towards printing the Saxon homilies; but, after the death of this queen, (Caroline, wife of George the Second,) she was so low in her finances, as to be forced, though a mistress of nine languages, to become a governess. For this purpose she was taken into the family of the Duchess-dowager of Portland, in 1739; and continued there till she died, May 30th., 1756.
The homily of "St. Gregory's Day," published by her brother, has her English translation, besides his Latin one. She appears to have written the preface too, in which she answers the objections made to women's learning, by producing "that glory of her sex," as she calls her, Mrs. Anna Maria à Shurman. In 1715 she published a "Saxon Grammar." Had her talents been kindly encouraged, she would, probably, have equalled Madame Dacier.
ELSWITHA,
Was the wife of Alfred the Great, who, in one of his incognito visits to his subjects, first saw her at the house of her father, Albanac, a chieftain of rank and power. The king was so struck with her dignified deportment, and the grace and elegance of her person, that he conceived a strong attachment for her, and soon after made her queen, (A. D. 868.) Her after conduct confirmed his affection. She was a true wife to him, both in prosperity and adversity, and an excellent mother to her children, of whom several died, in infancy.
Elswitha enjoyed the society of her husband for nearly twenty-eight years, during the two last of which he suffered greatly from
