knowing no greater pleasure, often continued reading the whole day." During her stay at that town, her brother fell from a very high window on some rocky ground; but providentially sustained no greater injury than if he had fallen on soft earth. After her arrival at Schweinfurt, she for some time enjoyed much peace and happiness, and employed her leisure hours in composing both in prose and verse. Among the works of the latter class, were translations of many of the psalms into Greek, in which she generally used the heroic measure. But this period of repose was soon abruptly terminated, for Germany was torn by the most violent intestine commotions, of which religion was either the occasion or the pretext. Among the turbulent princes of that era, none was more justly or more generally detested than Albert, marquis of Brandenburg, who seemed born to be a scourge to his neighbours. Franconia was now the scene of his ravages; and with a large body of troops he seized the city of Schweinfurt, where he was soon after besieged by the Elector of Saxony, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Bishops of Wurtzburg and Bamberg. The unfortunate inhabitants were exposed at once to the attacks of the besiegers, and the oppressions of the lawless soldiery who defended their city. A famine at length broke out, and reduced the citizens to the utmost distress; but, as Olympia gratefully acknowledges, she and her husband, besides possessing the necessaries of life, were enabled in some measure to assist others. Want of food was in natural course succeeded by pestilence, which carried off one-half of the wretched population of Schweinfurt. The attention of Grundler to the sick exposed him to contagion, and he was brought to the brink of the grave, from which he was rescued, as his wife states in a letter to Curio, "by the good providence of God, without the aid of medicines, of which there were none remaining in the town." Scarcely had he recovered, when they were obliged to take refuge in a wine-cellar, in order to escape the cannon-balls, which were shot in vast numbers into the

town. Here they appear to have remained during the remainder of the siege, which continued fourteen months. At the end of that period, the Marquis of Brandenburg, with his troops, retired by night; and the inhabitants of Schweinfurt now expected to enjoy repose, as the besiegers pretended to have taken up arms against him, without designing any injury to them. But they were grievously disappointed: their professed deliverers, on the very next day, rushed into the city, pillaged it, and set it on fire. In the confusion consequent upon the entrance of the enemy, Grundler and his wife were about to seek refuge in a church, which they considered as their surest asylum; but a soldier advised them to leave the town immediately, as the only means of escaping from the flames, which were spreading on every side. They took his advice, and had good reason afterwards to congratulate themselves upon this step, for all who had fled to the sacred edifice were suffocated. While hastening to quit the burning streets, they were assaulted by some of the military, who scarcely left them clothes sufficient to cover them, and informed Grundler that he must remain as their prisoner. Unable to ransom her husband, Olympia could only pray to God for his deliverance, which was at length accomplished owing to the compassion that seized some of his captors. The unfortunate pair were glad to escape with their lives; and every thing they possessed, including her valuable library and manuscripts, utterly perished in the flames.

After hesitating for some time which road to take, the distressed couple repaired to the village of Hamelburg, nine miles from Schweinfurt, which they reached with some difficulty. Olympia, in a letter, describes herself to have looked at this time "like the queen of the beggars;" and the hardships which she had previously endured, combined with the fatigues of this journey to throw her into a fever, from which she had not recovered when the inhabitants of Hamelburg, who trembled for their own safety, obliged her to depart. Shortly after, while passing through one of the episcopal

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towns, Grundler was arrested by the bishop's lieutenant, who asserted that his master had given him strict orders to put to death all fugitives from Schweinfurt. After a short detention, however, the prelate sent orders to release him, and the persecuted pair again pursued their journey. But this was the last of the hardships which they were destined to endure, for they now received the utmost kindness from many princes, nobles, and governors of cities, who supplied their necessities, though recommended only by their misfortunes and protestant principles. They for some time enjoyed the munificent hospitality of the Count of Rhineck, who had married Elizabeth, sister to the Elector Palatine. This illustrious lady, whose own afflictions had taught her to sympathize with others, clothed Olympia from her own wardrobe, and attended her in sickness with the watchful tenderness of a mother. From this generous court the fugitives went to that of the Count of Erbach, where our heroine formed a friendship with the beautiful and accomplished daughters of their noble host. She thus, in a letter to her friend Cherubina Orsini, speaks of the unfeigned piety of that excellent prince :-" Not content with maintaining preachers in his city, and being himself most regular in his attendance on them every morning before breakfast, he assembled all his family, without allowing one to be absent; and, after having read to them a chapter of the Gospels or the Epistles of St Paul, knelt down with all his court, and offered up prayers to God. Besides which, all his subjects are duly catechized from house to house, with their children and servants; so that they may give a reason for the faith that is in them, and that it may be seen if they make progress in religion; for (says the good prince), were he to act otherwise, he should be accountable for the souls of the meanest of his subjects. Would that all kings and princes only resembled him!" At Erbach she and her husband remained until the latter was appointed by the Elector Palatine professor of medicine in the university of Heidelberg.

In that city Olympia spent the short remainder of her pious life. She resumed her correspondence with her learned friends, who showed great kindness in sending books to furnish a second library in room of that which was destroyed by the flames of Schweinfurt. The chief booksellers of Frankfort and Basle voluntarily joined in doing good offices of this kind to a person who was known to them merely by name and reputation; but the studies which she was thus enabled to resume did not distract her attention from religious duties, or the management of her household affairs. Never did she show any of that dislike or contempt for the ordinary occupations of domestic life, which has been sometimes charged against literary ladies. She carefully superintended the education of her young brother Emilius, of whose ripening talents and promising disposition she speaks in the warmest terms; and received into her house Theodora, the daughter of that John Sinapius, from whom, on more than one occasion, she had received instruction and kindness. She exerted herself to the utmost of her means in relieving the wants of the unfortunate inhabitants of Schweinfurt, who had not, like her, obtained a comfortable asylum. Amidst the variety of her engagements, too, she found time to maintain an extensive epistolary intercourse with her friends of both sexes. Several of her letters yet remain as admirable monuments of the piety and talents of the writer. Among the most celebrated of her male correspondents were Celio Secundo Curio, John Sinapius, Mathaeus Flacius Illyricus, and Peter Paul Vergerio, formerly bishop of Capo d'Istria, but then an humble protestant minister in the Grisons. Among the females to whom she wrote may be mentioned her former fellow-pupil Anne d'Este, now Duchess of Guise,* whom she exhorted, not without

It is proper to mention, that Renée, the mother of Anne d'Este, after suffering much for her adherence to protestantism, returned to France on the demise of her husband, and continued till her death to profess and support the reformed opinions.

effect, to use her influence for the protection of the Huguenots; the Princess Orsini, with her sister-in-law Cherubina; and her own sisters, in whose welfare she took the deepest interest.

In the first year of the residence of Grundler and his spouse at Heidelberg, the plague broke out; and the students, with a large number of the townsmen, immediately dispersed. They, too, might easily have followed the example, but they were weary of wandering, and resolved to remain, relying on the protection of God. This blessing they experienced, by entirely escaping the infection; but, although Olympia did not fall a victim to the pestilence, her days were numbered. The effect of the hardships which she had suffered during the siege, and after the destruction of Schweinfurt, proved at length too much for her delicate constitution to withstand. The symptoms which for some time continued of an indefinite kind, at length assumed the appearance of consumption, and she soon became aware of her approaching dissolution. Her letters breathe a spirit of entire resignation; not a single murmur escapes her, and she commits herself with perfect composure into the hands of God, expressing her desire to "depart from this sinful world." Among her correspondents there was none more warmly beloved than Curio, who had ever shown her a father's kindness. When herself too weak to write, she employed the pen of her husband to take an affectionate farewell of this excellent man; on which occasion she says, "I must inform you that there are no hopes of my surviving long. No medicine gives me any relief; every day, indeed every hour, my friends look for my dissolution. My body and strength are wasted, my appetite is gone; night and day the cough threatens to suffocate The fever is strong and unremitting; and the pains which I feel over the whole of my body deprive me of sleep. Nothing therefore remains, but that I breathe out my spirit. *Farewell! excellent Celio, and do not distress yourself when you hear of my death, for I know that I shall be victorious at the last, and am de

me.

-*