Wotton, about a century later, gives the following summary of the learning of this period: "It was so very modish, that the fair Sex seemed to believe that _Greek_ and _Latin_ added to their Charms: and _Plato_ and _Aristotle_ untranslated, were frequent ornaments of their Closets. One would think by the Effects, that it was a proper Way of Educating of them, since there are no Accounts in History of so many truly great Women in any one age, as are to be found between the years 15 and 1600."[54] [Illustration: MARY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE From an engraving in Horace Walpole's _Royal and Noble Authors_, London, 1806] Though Wotton counts the century as one period, a closer study of dates shows that most of the learned women of the century belong in the first half of it, or at least obtained their education in the first half of it. The woman most noted for classical attainments during Elizabeth's reign was Lady Bacon. Her sisters also were of considerable importance intellectually, and they lived well into the reign of Elizabeth. But their education and their establishment as women of exceptional learning belong before the coming of Elizabeth to the throne. Miss Weston's learning is unquestioned, but it can hardly be credited to England. She lived much abroad, her works were published in Holland, and the praise accorded her in England was but an echo of the eulogies uttered by foreign critics. In spite of Queen Elizabeth and Lady Mary Sidney, and Lady Bacon and Jane Weston, it becomes apparent by a study of dates and names that there were in Elizabeth's reign fewer eulogies of liberal education for girls and fewer records of women distinguished by learning than in the preceding period. In point of fact, when we speak of the sixteenth century as a century of learned women, the emphasis should be on the first sixty years of the century. 3. PERIOD FROM 1603 TO 1650 With the death of Elizabeth we come practically to the end of the favor accorded learned women. The changed tone of public opinion may be fairly indicated by a few scattered utterances from contemporary poems and essays. Sir Thomas Overbury, in his _Characters_ (1614), describes "A Good Woman" as one "whose husband's welfare is the business of her actions." Her chief virtue is that "Shee is Hee." In _A Wife_ he says that "Books are a part of Man's Prerogative." He praises a "passive understanding" in women and deprecates learning since What it finds malleable it maketh frail And doth not add more ballast, but more sail.