There was scarce a great man of her time, who did not give her testimonies of his esteem, and who did not solicit a literary correspondence with her. The illustrious queen of Poland, Louisa Maria Gonzaga, after being married at Paris by proxy to king Stanislaus, in her passage to that kingdom through Germany, condescended to visit Surman at her own house. She would never marry, although a matrimonial connection with her, was arduously solicited by many men of rank and fortune; particularly by Mons. Catec, pensionary of Holland, and a famous poet, who had made some verses in her eulogium, when Anna Maria was but fourteen years old. At length, this woman, who was worthy of being immortal, died in 1678, at seventy-one years of age. SECT. XX. CXXXV. I shall omit mentioning many more learned women, which ennobled Germany and other countries, to conclude with a recent example from Asia, as a proof, that female literature is not confined and shut up within the limits of Europe. CXXXVI. This shall be the charming, discreet, and generous _Sitti Maani_, wife of the famous traveller, Pedro de la Valle, a Roman knight. Maani was born in Mesopotamia, in order that that country, within whose bounds, some expositors believe the garden of Paradise was planted, might be the happy spot which had produced two eminent Rachaels; for it is certain, that Haran, where the beloved wife of Jacob was born, was a place of Mesopotamia. The fame of the nobleness of her genius, the vivacity of her understanding, and the beauty of her person, had been blazoned abroad when she was very young; this excited the curiosity of Pedro de la Valle, and he was desirous of seeing a lady, of whom he had heard so many encomiums. His experience, upon the interview which was permitted him, confirmed the truth of all he had heard, inflamed in his bosom the passion of love, and caused him anxiously to solicit obtaining her for a wife, which purpose he effected; and Maani, after marrying him, not only forsook the Chaldean rites in which she had been bred up, and turned catholic herself, but persuaded her parents to do the same. It is almost incredible, what this amiable Asian acquired in a few years, and indeed the years of her life were but few; for she not only attained a knowledge of all the learning, which those countries, still strangers to the sciences, could afford, but she arrived at understanding twelve different idioms. But the bulk, as well as perfection, of her moral virtues, exceeded that of her acquisitions; among which, though not common to her sex, her courage shone the most brilliant, for she fought armed in three encounters, and with great bravery, in defence of her husband. This woman, in many ways extraordinary, eminent for her talents, and famous for her travels and voyages, in one of them, near Ormuz, became the victim of a fever, which was truly malignant, having deprived her of life at the age of twenty-one. Thus died, to the great grief of all