father, Prebextal, was a pagan, and her mother, Flausta, a Christian who instructed, her in the principles of her own religion. After the death of her mother, she was married to Publius Patricius, a Roman knight, who obtained a rich patrimony with her; but he no sooner discovered her to be a Christian, than he treated her harshly, confined her, and kept her almost in want of necessaries while lie spent her wealth in all kinds of extravagance. He died in the coarse of a few years, and Anastasia devoted herself to the study of the Scriptures and to works of charity, spending her whole fortune in the relief of the poor, and the Christians, by whom the prisons were then filled.
But she, and her three female servants, sisters, were soon arrested as Christians, and commanded to sacrifice to idols. Refusing to do this, the three sisters were put to death on the spot, and Anastasia conducted to prison. She was then exiled to the island of Palmaria; but soon afterwards brought back to Rome, and burned alive. Her remains were buried in a garden by Apollonia, a Christian woman, and a church was afterwards built on the spot. Anastasia suffered about A.D. 303.
ANASTASIA, SAINT,
Several eminently pious women are known by this name. The earliest and most famous among them lived at Corinth, about the time when St. Paul preached the gospel in that city. She heard the apostle, and was seized with a firm conviction that the doctrines inculcated by that eminent disciple of Christ were true. She joined the Christian church without the knowledge of her parents and relations. Although betrothed to a Corinthian whose Interests made him hostile to the introduction of the new religion, she nevertheless suffered neither persuasion nor threats to shake her in her enthusiasm for the new faith. She prevailed even so far upon her lover as to make him resolve to become a Christian. Finally she was compelled, on account of persecution, to conceal herself in a vault. But her lover, to whom she had declared her intention of living the life of a virgin devoted to God, betrayed her retreat. Every attempt to make her recant proved fruitless. She suffered the death of a martyr; and her lover died soon afterwards, a victim to remorse and grief. Petrarch mentions her several times in his poems.
ANCELOT, VIRGINIE,
Wife of the celebrated M. Ancelot, author of "Marie Padilla," and many other tragedies and dramas of great popularity, has a literary reputation little inferior to that of her husband. As an author of vaudevilles—that species of writing in which the French excel, she is regarded as having surpassed her husband; while her novels have displayed no small degree of talent. She resides in Paris, where her works are highly prized by that increasing class of novel-readers, who are willing to be amused and interested with portraitures of the bright side of nature, the good which may be found in humanity, and hoped for in the future of our race.
Madame Ancelot exhibits artistic skill in the plot of her stories; her style is unexceptionable, and above all she had the merit of purity of thought, and soundness of moral principle. The most noted of her novels are "Gabrielle," "Emerance," and "Médèrine." The first named has been included in the "Bibliothèque de' Elite,"
