18 MEMOIR OP 



tinction as a scientific naturalist, nor can it be 

 affirmed that either her powers of observation or 

 the capacity of her judgment were of the first order. 

 But the extraordinary zeal she shewed in the study 

 of that branch to which her attention was directed, 

 the sacrifices and inconveniences to which she sub- 

 mitted in prosecuting it, the excellent delineation 

 which she has made of many natural objects, and 

 the mass of materials which she has thus provided 

 to facilitate the labours of future inquirers, justly 

 entitle her to an honourable place in a biographical 

 series of those worthies who have exerted them- 

 selves to promote the study of nature, with which 

 it has been our anxious endeavour to enrich the 

 volumes of the NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



Unfortunately not many particulars of her life 

 have been preserved, but the following notices may 

 not be void of interest to those who have had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining the works by which her name 

 has become known to the public. She belonged to a 

 family of which many of the members acquired con- 

 liderable celebrity as painters and engravers. Her 

 father, Mathew Merian, was the son of a magistrate 

 of Bale, and was born in that town in 1593. After 

 learning the art of engraving at Zurich, under 

 Dietrick Meyer, he removed to Nanci, where he 

 was employed in aquafortis engraving, a branch of the 

 art then only newly invented, and in which he par- 

 ticularly excelled. He subsequently went to Paris, 

 and having entered into partnership with an artist 

 of some note, named Jacques Callot, continued to 



