as an accomplished linguist, wrote delightful letters,
composed exquisite verses, played the lute like a _maestro_, and sang
like an angel. Her sparkling black eyes sent piercing darts into every
beholder's heart, and she was famed for beauty as well as intellect."
She made a noble Spanish translation of _Pastor Fido_, the most popular
Italian drama of the day, and published a volume of poems, also in
Spanish. Antonio dos Reys sings her praises:

"_Pastor Fido!_ no longer art thou read in thy own tongue, since Correa,
Faithfully rendering thy song, created thee anew in Spanish forms.
A laurel wreath surmounts her brow,
Because her right hand had cunning to strike tones from the tragic lyre.
On the mount of singers, a seat is reserved for her,
Albeit many a Batavian voice refused consent.
For, Correa's faith invited scorn from aliens,
And her own despised her cheerful serenity.
Now, with greater justice, all bend a reverent knee to Correa, the Jewess,
Correa, who, it seems, is wholly like Lysia."

Donna Isabella Enriquez, a Spanish poetess of great versatility, was her
contemporary. She lived first in Madrid, afterwards in Amsterdam, and
even in advanced age was surrounded by admirers. At the age of
sixty-two, she presented the men of her acquaintance with amulets
against love, notwithstanding that she had spoken and written against
the use of charms. For instance, when an egg with a crown on the end was
found in the house of Isaac Aboab, the celebrated rabbi at Amsterdam,
she wrote him the following:

"See, the terror! Lo! the wonder!
Basilisk, the fabled viper!
Superstition names it so.
Look at it, I pray, with calmness,
'Twas thy mind that was at fault.
God's great goodness is displayed here;
He, I trow, rewards thy eloquence
In the monster which thou seest:
All this rounded whole's thy virtue,
Wisdom's symbol is the crown!"

Besides Isabella Correa and Isabella Enriquez, we have the names, though
not the productions, of Sara de Fonseca Pina y Pimentel, Bienvenida
Cohen Belmonte, and Manuela Nunes de Almeida. They have left but faint
traces of their work, and fancy can fill in the sketch only with
conjectures.

After these Marrano poetesses, silence fell upon the women of Israel for
a whole century--a century of oppression and political slavery, of
isolation in noisome Ghettos, of Christian scorn and mockery. The Jews
of Germany and Poland, complet