not remarkable for purity, and as the nature of their office gave them free ingress to the nunneries, the results took place which might have been expected from people bound by unnatural vows. The licentiousness of the priesthood gradually made the holy orders a by-word and a reproach, and prepared the way for the stern reformers of the sixteenth century. But the influence of convents was far from being all evil. Their gates were ever open to the sick, the wounded, and the destitute; in the most turbulent times, the sweet charities of life there found a kindly nursery; and many a young mind was trained to virtue and learning, under the fostering care of some worthy abbess. As chivalry declined, men began to take pride in literature, instead of leaving all “book learning to the meaner folk;” and women, of course, assumed a corresponding character. The merits of Aristotle and Plato divided the attention of the learned. The universities declared in favor of Aristotle; but poets, lovers, and women, were enamored of the ethereal Plato. Women preached in public, supported controversies, published and defended theses, filled the chairs of philosophy and law, harangued the popes in Latin, wrote Greek, and read Hebrew. Nuns wrote poetry, women of rank became divines, and young girls publicly exhorted Christian princes to take up arms for the recovery of the holy sepulchre. Hypatia, daughter of Theon of Alexandria, is said to have exceeded her father in astronomy, and well understood other parts of philosophy. She succeeded her father in the government of the Platonic school, and filled with reputation a seat where many celebrated philosophers had taught. The people regarded her as an oracle, and magistrates consulted her in all important cases. No reproach was ever uttered against the perfect purity of her manners. She was unembarrassed in large assemblies of men, because their admiration was tempered with the most scrupulous respect. In the thirteenth century, a young lady of Bologna, who had great beauty of person, pronounced a Latin funeral oration at the age of twenty-three. At twenty-six she took the degree of doctor of laws, and began publicly to expound the laws of Justinian. At thirty, she was elevated to a professor’s chair, and taught the law to a crowd of scholars from all nations.