ASTONISHING PEOPLE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 282, 12 March 1941, Page 3

ASTONISHING PEOPLE

THE ALL-ROUND SPINSTER I do not mean that she was as broad as long—but that she could do most things. Her name, let it be known far and wide Avas Lilizabeth Carter, and she lived her 88 years out of tlic 18th into the 19th Century, dying a year after Trafalgar. The fact that Dr Johnson admired- her, that she was well known lo Mrs Montagu (who, of course, knew only people worth knowing) not to mention Horace Walpolo and Richardson novelist, and Hannah More. and Bishop Butler, and a host of others, is enough to show that she was; somebody. And she undoubtedly was, for the great Dr Johnson declared, after due thought, and in the hearing of more than one person that she was his old friend, and that she could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek, and work a handkerchief as well as compose a poem. Was she not an all-round lady, then—accomplished in the kitchen and the classics? Why, if it comes to that, she wrote a book called 'Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy' Explained for. the use of the Ladies, in Six Dialogues on Light and Colour' . . . and you may be sure that explanation for the fair sex was more than the learned Sir Isaac himsclif could have done. Besides, lest I forget, she knew German and Latin and Greek and Arabic and French and SpAnish and Italian, and others which I forget, and she was an encyclopedia on astronomy and ancient and modern history, and she wrote books and pamphlets, and translated Epictetus (as mentioned above) to such an extent that she cleared a thousand guineas by it, without letting a pan burn or breaking a dish. Happily—should I put it thus? — she was never married, so that no husband of hers ever wished he'd married someone who knew -a littleless.