, the fourth daughter of sir Anthony Cooke, was born about the year
, the fourth daughter of sir Anthony Cooke, was
born about the year 1530, and like her sisters became famous
for her knowledge in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues,
and for her skill in poetry. A short specimen of her talent in.
that art has been preserved by sir John Harrington and Dr.
Thomas Fuller; but there is some difficulty in determining
the occasion upon which the verses were written. Sir John
Harrington says, that her design in writing them was to
get a kinsman of hers sent to Cornwall, where she inhabited, and to prevent his going beyond sea. Mr. Phillips,
in his “Theatrum Poetarum,
” asserts that it was her
lover. Dr. Fuller, however, with greater appearance of
reason, informs us, that her husband being designed by
queen Elizabeth ambassador to France in troublesome
times, when the employment, always difficult, was then
apparently dangerous, his lady wrote these lines to her
sister Mildred Cecil, to engage her interest with lord Burleigh for preventing the appointment.