hy the favour she showed hiiu, as well as by the familiar intercourse
to which she admitted the gallant Cardinal Romanl.
In educating Louis, she was charged with putting him too much in the hands of the clergy; but she prored an excellent guardian of his rirtue, and inspired him with a lasting respect for herself. In 1234, she married him to Margaret, daughter of the Count de Provence ; and in 1285, Louis haying reached the age of twenty >one, Blanche surrendered to him the sovereign authority. But even after this she retained great ascendency over the young king, of which she some- times made an improper use. Becoming jealous of Margaret, wife of Louis, she endeavoured to sow dissensions between them, and, failing in this, to separate them; and these disturbances caused Louis great uneasiness.
When, in 1248, Louis undertook a crusade to the Holy Land, he determined to take his queen with him, and leave his mother regent ; and in this second regency she showed the same vigour and prudence as in the first. The kingdom was su£fering so much from the domination of the priesthood, that vigorous measures had become necessary; and notwithstanding her strong religious feelings, she exerted her utmost power against the tyranny of the priests an4 in favour of the people : and as usual, Blanche was successful. The unfortunate defeat and imprisonment of her son in the East so affected her spirits, that she died, in 1252, to his great grief, and the regret of the whole kingdom. She was buried inthe abbey of Maubisson. She was one of the most illustrious characters of her time, being equally distinguished for her personal and mental endowments.
BLAND, ELIZABETH,
This lady was remarkable for her knowledge of the Hebrew lan- guage, and for her peculiar skill In writing it.
She was bom about the period of the restoration of Charles the Second, and was daughter and heir of Mr. Robert Fisher, of Long- Acre. She married Mr. Nathaniel Bland, April 2Gth., 1681, who was then a linen-draper in London, and afterwards Lord of the Manor of Beeston, in Yorkshire. She had six children, who all died in infancy, excepting one son, named Joseph, and a daughter, Martha, who was married to Mr. George Moore, of Beeston. Mrs. Bland was taught Hebrew by Lord Van Helmont, which she understood so thoroughly as to be competent to the instruction in it of her son and daughter. Among the curiosities of the Royal Society is preserved a phy- lacteiy, in Hebrew, written by her, of which Dr. Grew has given a description in his account of rarities preserved in Gresham college.
By the two pedigrees of the family, printed in Mr. Thoresby'» "Dncattts Leodiensis," pages 209 and 687, it seems she was living in 1712.
BLEECKER, ANNE ELIZA,
Onh of the early poetesses of America, was bom in New York, in 1752. Her fother was Brandt Schuyler, of that city. In 1769, she married John J. Bleecker, and afterwards lived chiefly at Tomhanick, a little village not far from Albany. It was in this seclusion that most of her poems were written.- The death of one of her children, and the capture of her husband, who was taken prisoner by a par^ of tories^ in 1781, caused a depression of spirits and melancholy from which she never recovered. She; died in