[117] M. Charles de Brosses, in his _Lettres Familieres ecrites de l'Italie en 1739 et 1740_, speaks of Agnesi in terms that recall the marvelous stories which are related of Admirable Crichton and Pico della Mirandola. "She appeared to me," he tells us, "something more stupendous--_una cosa piu stupenda_--than the Duomo of Milan." Having been invited to a _conversazione_ for the purpose of meeting this wonderful woman, the learned Frenchman found her to be a "young lady of about eighteen or twenty." She was surrounded by "about thirty people ... many of them from different parts of Europe." The discussion turned on various questions of mathematics and natural philosophy. "She spoke," writes de Brosses, "wonderfully well on these subjects, though she could not have been prepared beforehand any more than we were. She is much attached to the philosophy of Newton; and, it is marvelous to see a person of her age so conversant with such abstruse subjects. Yet, however much I was surprised at the extent and depth of her knowledge, I was still more amazed to hear her speak Latin ... with such purity, ease and accuracy, that I do not recollect any book in modern Latin written in so classical a style as that in which she pronounced these discourses.... The conversation afterwards became general, everyone speaking in the language of his own country, and she answering in the same language; for, her knowledge of languages is prodigious." [118] At the conclusion of an elaborate review of Colton's translation of Agnesi's _Instituzioni Analitiche_ in the _Edinburgh Review_ for January, 1804, the writer expresses himself as follows: "We cannot take leave of a work that does so much honor to female genius, without earnestly recommending the perusal of it to those who believe that great talents are bestowed by nature exclusively on man, and who allege that women, even in their highest attainments, are to be compared only to _grown children_, and have, in no instance, given proofs of original and inventive powers, of a capacity for patient research, or for profound investigation. Let those who hold these opinions endeavor to follow the author of the _Analytical Institutions_ through the long series of demonstrations, which she has contrived with so much skill and explained with such elegance and perspicuity. If they are able to do so, and to compare her work with others of the same kind, they will probably retract their former opinions, and acknowledge that, in one instance at least, intellectual powers of the highest order have been lodged in the brain of a woman. "At si gelidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis; and if they are unable to attend this illustrious female in her scientific excursions, of course, they will not see the reasons for admiring her genius that others do; but they may at least learn to think modestly of their own."