A most extraordinary German lady. Her natural genius discovered itself at six years of age, when she cut all sorts of figures in paper with her scissors without a pattern. At eight, she learned, in a few days, to draw flowers in a very agreeable manner. At ten, she took but three hours to learn embroidery. Afterwards she was taught music, vocal and instrumental; painting, sculpture, and engraving; in all of which she succeeded admirably. She excelled in miniature-painting, and in cutting portraits upon glass with a diamond. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, were so familiar to her, that the most learned men were astonished at it. She spoke French, Italian, and English, fluently. Her handwriting, in almost all languages, was so inimitable, that the curious preserved specimens of it in their cabinets. But all this extent of learning and uncommon penetration could not protect her from falling into the errors of Labadie, the famous French enthusiast, who had been banished France for his extravagant tenets and conduct. To this man she entirely attached herself, and accompanied him wherever he went; and even attended him in his last illness at Altena in Holstein. Her works, consisting of De vitae humanae termino, and Dissertatio de ingenii muliebris ad doctrinam et meliores literas aptitudine; and her Letters to her learned correspondents, were printed at Leyden in 1648; but enlarged in the edition of Utrecht, 1662, in 12mo, under the following title: A. M. Schurman Opuscula Hebraea, Graeca, Latina, Gallica, Prosaica, et Metrica. She published likewise at Altena, in Latin, A Defence of her attachment to Labadie, while she was with him in 1673; not worth reading. She was born at Cologne in 1607, but resided chiefly in Holland, and died in Friesland in 1678.
