UNIVERSITY 



MARIA SIBILLA MERIAN. 29 



rellum. Numerous others are to be found in public 

 collections at Petersburg!!, and in the cabinets of 

 Holland and Germany. 



The acquirements of Madam Merian are certainly 

 upon the whole very remarkable, but her abilities 

 as an artist, and the taste displayed in the arrange- 

 ment of the objects which she depicts, may be said 

 to be in some measure unique. Many ladies have 

 distinguished themselves as successful aspirants after 

 distinction in the Fine Arts, but none, excepting 

 the subject of the present memoir, have been cele- 

 brated for the performance of a work so replete 

 with artist-like feeling, as that of the insects of 

 Surinam, which is certainly more elegant and taste- 

 ful in the composition of the objects brought together 

 upon the plates than any of its cotemporaries ; and 

 without instituting any unnecessary or invidious 

 comparison, we rather think, in these respects, her 

 pictures have not been surpassed by any works of 

 art of a similar description, by the moderns, to whom 

 her method of arranging and combining her figures 

 may serve as a lesson. Her manner of introducing 

 the insects in their various stages of metamorphosis, 

 in connexion with the plants upon which they 

 feed, is, in our opinion, not only very instructive 

 but extremely elegant, and her skill in composition 

 has almost invariably led her to do this in an artist- 

 like pleasing way. 



Her opportunities, no doubt, eminently served her 

 in these respects, for she may be said to have been 

 born an artist, surrounded at the period of her early 



