A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Fisher, Catharine
FISHER, CATHARINE,
The biographers of this lady appear to have been ignorant of her origin, though they all agree in allowing that she possessed great comprehension of mind, and acknowledge that she was one of the most perfect linguists that adorned the sixteenth century. About the year 1559, she married Gualtheius Gruter, a burgomaster of Antwerp, by whom she had one son, the celebrated James Gruter, whose philosophical works have been so universally admired. In the early part of his life, he had no other instructor than his mother, who was perfect mistress of Latin and Greek; and to her has been ascribed his fondness for study, as it is during childhood that a bias is given to the mind. At what age she died, has not been specified; but the year, her biographers believe to have been 1579, the time when her son left the University of Cambridge to study at Leyden; but this circumstance is not positively ascertained.