Several specimens have been preserved of her compositions about this time, which indicate a very remarkable amount of acquirement. Various passages have have been quoted by her biographers with perhaps more of admiration than they merit. They were received by her contemporaries with the most unbounded and hyperbolical applause; and the modern narrators of her career seem to have taken the tone of the high–flown eulogies of these productions which they have found on record. But in reading things of this kind, of Cisalpine production, much allowance must always be made for the prevalent habit of undiscriminating and exaggerated laudation, arising from the ever–present influence of municipal rivalry. The "nul aura de l'esprit, hors nous et nos amis," principle was always at work. To a Ferrara man, Olympia was _our_ Olympia,—"gloria Ferraræ; patriæ decus," &c., and was to be made the most of accordingly. But, secondly, still more allowance must be made for the strong tendency of the literary culture of that period in Italy to regard the form rather than the matter. Artistic love for the beauties of language leads the literary world of Italy, even at the present day, to attach an undue measure of importance to diction and style, at the expense of subject–matter. And at the flood–tide of the classical mania of the sixteenth century, correctness of classic phraseology, and perfection of mimicry of the ancients, was the alpha and omega of excellence. And in these respects the writings of Olympia are truly remarkable. The amount of acquaintance with the classics then most in vogue, the familiarity with their modes of thinking, and the mastery of their language, attained by a girl of from fourteen to sixteen, are really astonishing. Thus we have an essay on Mutius Scævola in Greek; a defence of Cicero against some of his detractors; and, more remarkable still, lectures (!) on the paradoxes of that author. Of the whole picture, such as we are able to realise it, of this bright and beautiful Olympia, ambitious of praise, triumphant, full of fervid poetic enthusiasm, and love of the beautiful, enchanting all eyes, and charming all ears,—approaching, one may fancy, in social position, some Siddons or Mars more nearly than any other existence known to our times; of the whole picture, these public lectures, or declamations, seem to our notions the strangest feature. Let the inmates of our "Establishments," "Colleges," "Academies," of the most finished and "finishing" category, picture to themselves a young lady of sixteen called on to lecture before an audience, composed of all the court circle, and most learned Dons of Ferrara, on the Paradoxes of Cicero!—improvising her declamation, too, in Latin and Greek, if we may believe her friend Curio, writing many years afterwards, with the enthusiastic admiration of these exhibitions still strong within him.