Bless ye the memory of this Spanish Lady, all ye who bear, or aspire to, the honour of the bloody hand as Knights of Esculapius! For from her, according to Father Feyjoo, the English first, and afterwards the physicians of other countries learnt the theory of nervous diseases;—never therefore did any other individual contribute so largely to the gratification of fee-feeling fingers! Feyjoo has properly enumerated her among the women who have done honour to their country: and later Spaniards have called her the immortal glory not of Spain alone, but of all Europe: She was born, and dwelt in the city of Alcaraz, and flourished in the reign of Philip II. to whom she dedicated in 1587 her “New Philosophy of the Nature of Man,”[3] appealing to the ancient law of chivalry, whereby great Lords and high born Knights were bound always to favour women in their adventures. In placing under the eagle wings of his Catholic Majesty this child which she had engendered, she told the King that he was then receiving from a woman greater service than any that men had rendered him, with whatever zeal and success they had exerted themselves to serve him. The work which she laid before him would better the world, she said, in many things, and if he could not attend to it, those who came after him, peradventure would. For though they were already all too-many books in the world, yet this one was wanting. [Footnote 3: It should seem by her name, as suffixed to the Carta Dedicatorie, that she was of French or Breton extraction, for she signs herself, Oliva de Nantes, Sabuco Barrera. _R. S._]