Weston, Elizabeth Jane

, a learned lady of the sixteenth century, was born about the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, and is supposed by Dr. Fuller to have been a branch of the ancient family of the Westons, of Sutton, in Surrey. She appears to have left England at an early age, and to have settled at Prague, in Bohemia, where she married one John Leon, who is said to have resided there in the emperor’s service. She was skilled in the languages, particularly in the Latin, in which she wrote with elegance and correctness. She was greatly esteemed by learned foreigners. She is commended by Scaliger, and complimented by Nicholas May in a Latin epigram. She is placed by Mr. Evelyn, in his “Numisnma,” among learned women; and by Philips among female poets. She is ranked by Farnaby with sir Thomas More, and the best Latin poets of the sixteenth century. She translated several of the fables of Æsop into Latin verse. She also wrote a Latin poem in praise of typography, with many poems and epistles, on different subjects, in the same language, which were collected and published. She was living in 1605, as appears from an epistle written by her, and dated Prague, in that year. The only work we can point out of hers, as published, is, “Parthenico Elizabeth Joannae Westonise, virginis nobilissimae, poetriae fiorentissimae, linguarum plurimarum peritissimae, libri tres, opera et studio G. Mart, a Baldhoven, Sil. collectus, et mine denuo amicis desiderantibus commuoicatus,” Pragse, typis Pauli Sissii, 12iiio, without date, but probably about 1606. ¹