FICKER, CHRISTIANE D. S.,
The inventor of the tambour-needle, was the daughter of Mr. Nier, the comptroller of the mines in Eibenstock, Saxony. She was horn November 12th., 1769. She was led to the invention by her love for embroidering, and the desire to trace raised figures, by means of a thread and needle, upon the cloth. The invention has been of great use to the poor women of Saxony, to whom it became a fruitful source of employment from abroad. The inventor, however, like Fulton, gained nothing by the invention, except a present of a small sum of money, given to her by the Queen Amelia Auguste. She died on the 22nd. of October, 1811, as the wife of Christian G. Ficker, pastor of Eibenstock.
FIDELIS, CASSANDRA,
A Venetian lady, died 1558, aged 100. Descended from ancestors who had changed their residence from Milan to Venice, and had uniformly added to the respectability of their rank by their uncommon learning, she began at an early age to prosecute her studies with great diligence, and acquired such a knowledge of the learned languages, that she may with justice be enumerated among the first scholars of the age. The letters which occasionally passed between Cassandra and Politian, demonstrate their mutual esteem, if indeed such an expression be sufficient to characterize the feelings of Politian, who expresses, in language unusually florid, his high admiration of her extraordinary acquirements, and his expectation of the benefits which the cause of letters would derive from her labours and example. In the year 1491, the Florentine scholar paid a visit to Venice, when the favourable opinion he had formed of her writings was confirmed by a personal interview.
From a letter written by this lady, many years afterwards, to Leo the Tenth, we learn that an epistolary correspondence had subsisted between her and Lorenzo de Medicis; and it is with concern we find, that the remembrance of this intercourse was revived, in order to induce the pontiff to bestow upon her some pecuniary assistance, she being then a widow, with a numerous train of dependants. She lived, however, to a more advanced period, and her literary acquirements, and the reputation of her early associates, threw a lustre upon her declining years; and, as her memory remained unimpaired to the last, she was resorted to from all parts of Italy as a living monument of those happier days, to which the Italians never reverted without regret. The letters and orations of this lady were published at Pavia, in 1636, with some account of her life. She wrote a volume of Latin poems also, on various subjects
FIELDING, SARAH,
The third sister of Henry Fielding, the novelist, and herself a writer of some celebrity, was born in 1714, lived unmarried, and died in 1768. She shewed a lively and penetrating genius in many of her productions, especially in the novel entitled "David Simple," and in the Letters afterwards published between the principal characters in that work. She also translated "Xenophon's Memorabilia." The following eulogy on this lady, was composed by Dr. John Hoadley, who erected a monument to her memory:—
