30 MEMOIR OF 



education with a perfect gallaxy of talent on every 

 side, both in her domestic circle and by so many of 

 her gifted countrymen in Flanders and Holland. The 

 great and deserved celebrity of Rubens, Vandyke, 

 Rembrandt, and others of the Flemish school of 

 painting, was a means of inducing many others to 

 tread in the same path, emulous of the honours 

 and wealth which had been heaped upon these 

 bright ornaments of a country at that time distin- 

 guished alike by the transcendant abilities of these 

 men, and by the wealth which poured into it from 

 its colonial possessions, and extensive and almost 

 monopolising commercial enterprise. These circum- 

 stances mainly contributed, in our opinion, to foster 

 the genius of that nation for the Fine Arts; 

 and this taste continued to prevail in the Low 

 Countries many years after the time which we have 

 adverted to, and only declined when the enter- 

 prize of other more fortunate and active competitors 

 stepped forward to divide with them the empire of 

 the seas and the sway of their foreign possessions. 

 Flower painting as well as the cultivation of parti- 

 ticular flowers, have ever been favourite luxuries 

 with the Dutch, and we find the works of Van 

 Huisum, Van Os, and many others, were produced 

 about the period of which we are writing, and no 

 doubt were treasured by Madam Merian as models 

 for her study and imitation, along with the other 

 fine pictures which she must have been in daily 

 habit of examining. 



Several of the members of Madam Merian's 



