[Illustration: _HYPATIA,
the accomplish’d Lady._
_Parr Sculp_]
_HYPATIA:_
OR, THE
HISTORY
OF A
Most beautiful, most vertuous, most learned,
and every way accomplish’d
LADY;
WHO
Was torn to Pieces by the Clergy of _Alexandria_, to gratify the Pride,
Emulation, and Cruelty of their Archbishop, commonly but undeservedly
stiled
St. _CYRIL_.
_Magnum aliquid instat, efferum, immane, impium._
Sen. Medea, Act. 3. Scen. 1. lin. 16.
_LONDON_:
Printed for M. Cooper, in _Pater-noster-Row_; W. Reeve, in
_Fleet-street_; and C. Sympson, in _Chancery-lane_. 1753. [Price 6d.]
_HYPATIA._
CHAP. I.
A general Character of the Lady; the Contrivers and Executioners of the
Barbarities which she suffered; and the Authorities from whence
this Story is extracted.
I am going to give a short Account, but as full as antient Books afford
us Materials, of the Life and Death of _Hypatia_; who will ever continue
the Glory of her own Sex, and the Disgrace of ours: For the Women have
no less Reason to value themselves, that there existed a Lady of such
rare Accomplishments, without the least Blemish, even as a Foil to her
numberless Perfections; than the Men to be ashamed, that any could be
found among them of so brutal and savage a Disposition, as, far from
being struck with Admiration at so much Beauty, Innocence, and
Knowledge, to stain their barbarous Hands with her Blood, and their
impious Souls with the indelible Character of sacrilegious Murderers. A
Bishop, a Patriarch, nay, a Saint, was the Contriver of so horrid a
Deed, and his Clergy the Executioners of his implacable Fury. The
Authors out of whom I collect my Account (and I omit none that has come
to my Knowledge) were either her Contemporaries, or lived near that Age.
One of them was her School-fellow, another her Scholar. But they who
relate the most odious and flagitious Circumstances, are Ecclesiastical
Historians; counted orthodox in their own Time, as well as eminently so
by most in ours. Nor ought we to forget that several of them were
Priests. To every one of them we shall do the Justice that their
Sincerity or Prevarication deserves, though little remains to do in this
respect; all being agreed about the principal Facts, and some differing
only in Points of no great Importance. They are such Things, as, taken
either Way, neither serve much to alleviate a very bad Cause, nor to
aggravate what cannot be possibly made worse.