which the last Eighteen Hundred Years have Presented," etc., two volumes.
PIPELET, CONSTANCE MARIE DE THEIS,
Was born at Nantes in 1768, of a distinguished family. She married in 1789, M. Pipelet. an eminent surgeon in Paris; and, after his death, she married, in 1802, the Prince de Salm-Dyck. Madame Pipelet devoted herself, when very young, to the study of literature and the arts; and her poems are quite numerous, and almost invariably excellent. She also wrote an opera, entitled "Sappho;" a drama, several romances, and other prose works; and belonged to several academies. Madame Pipelet maintained the theory of the original equality of the sexes; and one of her most elaborate poems is devoted to this subject.
PISCOPIA, CORNARO ELENE,
Was born at Venice, in 1646. This lady was remarkable for her learning. Her erudition was very highly appreciated by the scholars of that age, and there are many records of great praise being offered her by distinguished men. She understood Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, French, and Arabic. She was a professor of philosophy, mathematics, theology, and astronomy. She was presented with the wreath and dignity of laureate, in the Duomo of Padua, In 1678. To these grave acquirements she added skill in music and poetry, with a talent for improvisation. Early in childhood she announced a determination against matrimony, in which she persevered, though greatly opposed by her parents, who were desirous and urgent that she should form some illustrious connexion; but the duties of the married life she thought would be incompatible with her engrossing love for study. She possessed sincere piety, a little too much tinctured with ascetic superstition as regarded herself, but drawing forth most benevolent and kindly dispositions towards her relations, dependants, and the indigent populace. For the most part of her life she was a patient martyr to acute disease, and died In 1684. Her works which remain are, "Euloglums on several illustrious Italians," written In Latin, Latin epistles, academical discourses in the vernacular tongue, a translation from the Spanish of Lanspergio, besides a volume of poems.
PISE, or PISAN, CHRISTINE DE,
Was born in Venice, In 1363; and, at the age of five years, wag taken by her father to France, where he emigrated upon the invitation of Charles the Fifth. Thomas de Pise was one of the marked men of his age; possessing all the learning and science that could then be attained, his ambitious genius struggled for something beyond, and took the path of astrology. Lamb makes the quaint remark that, through our modern men of science, the stars have become merely astronomical. It was quite otherwise in the fourteenth century; then the stars were really "the poetry of heaven," and the scientific men, poets, through whose Imaginations the highest destinies passed, dignified with an august feeling of preternatural skill, that, however false, must have elevated their tone of self-appreciation beyond the vanities of our times. Charles the Fifth honoured Thomas de Pise, and made him his astrologer. Thomas
