all which she conducted with judgment and success. She was married, on leaving the court, to a young German physician, by the name of Greunthlerus, who had taken his medical degree at Ferrera, and had fallen in love with her, for her beauty and talents. She went with her husband to Germany, and took her little brother with her, whom she carefully instructed in the Latin and Greek languages. They arrived at Augsburg in 1548, and after a short stay there, went to Sweinfurt, in Franconia, but had not been long there, before the city was besieged and burnt. They escaped, however, but remained in great distress until the elector Palatine invited Greunthlerus to be professor of Physic at Heidelburg. He entered upon this new office in 1554, and began to enjoy some degree of repose, when illness, occasioned by the hardships they had undergone, seized upon Morata, and proved fatal, October, 6th, 1555, before she was quite twenty-nine years old. She died in the protestant religion, which she embraced on her coming to Germany, and to which she resolutely adhered. Her husband and brother did not long survive her, and were interred in the same grave, in the church of St. Peter, where is a Latin epitaph to their memory. Most of her works were burnt with the town of Schweinfurt, the remainder were collected and published by Cœlius Secundus Curio, and are to be found in the libraries of the learned. They consist of orations, dialogues, letters and translations.

MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN, much and justly esteemed for her skill in drawing insects, flowers, and other subjects of natural history, was born at Frankfort, on the Maine, in 1647; being the grand-daughter and daughter of Dutch engravers, of some celebrity, whose talents were continued and improved in her. She was instructed by Abraham Mignon. She married John Anduez Graff, a skilful painter and architect, of Nuremberg, but the fame she had previously attached to her own name, prevented that of her husband from being adopted. They had two children, both daughters, who were also skilful in drawing. By liberal offers from Holland, this ingenious couple were induced

to settle there. This spirited woman traveled on the continent, and crossed the Atlantic to South America, to study nature, and to make drawings from her entomological researches. Madame Merion died at Amsterdam, in 1717, at the age of seventy. Her daughters, Dorothea, and Helena, extended, in a new edition of her works, the number of plates from their own pencils. Her works have been several times printed in French and Dutch, and in French and Latin. Many of the original drawings of this artist are in the British Museum in two large volumes, which were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, at a large price. The father of this lady, Matthew Merion, published many volumes of topographical engravings, and collections of plates in sacred history. In Holland her works are sold, when found, at a very high price, and their biographers are just to her memory.

DAMARIS MASHAM, a lady distinguished for her piety and extraordinary accomplishments, was the daughter of Dr. Ralph Cudworth, born at Cambridge on the eighteenth of January, 1658. Her father, perceiving the bent of her genius, took such particular care of her education, that she quickly became remarkable for her uncommon learning and piety. She was the second wife of Sir Francis Masham, of Oates, in the county of Essex, Bart., by whom she had an only son, a lawyer of considerable eminence. She was skilled in arithmetic, geography, chronology, history, philosophy, and divinity. She owed a great part of her improvement to the care of the famous Mr. Locke, who lived many years in her family, and at length died in her house at Oates; and whom she treated with the utmost generosity and respect. She wrote " A discourse concerning the love of God," published in London 1696; and "Occasional Thoughts in refer, ence to a virtuous and Christian life." This amiable lady died in 1708, and was buried in the cathedral church at Bath, where a monument is erected to her memory, full of just and affectionate praise. The mind of the Christian philosopher was infused into this example of industry and piety. This learned, pious, and excellent pupil was worthy so distinguished a master. Where Locke was there must have been intelligence.

Julia Mammea, mother of Alexander Severus. She was possessed of equal genius and courage; and educated her son for the throne, in the same manner as Fenelon afterwards educated the duke of Burgundy, rendering him at the same time a man of virtue and sensibility. Severus thought so highly of his mother, that he did nothing without her counsel, and paid more deference to it than to that of any other person. This princess having heard of Origen, wished to see him, and in the conferrences they had together, conceived so high an opinion of Christianity, that she is supposed to have embraced it. She was murdered with her son, in Gaul, by the discontented soldiery.

MARIA THERESA, empress of Germany and queen of Hungary, was born at Vienna, the capital of Austria, on the thirteenth of May, 1717. Her father, Charles VI., was a man of a slow and phlegmatic temper, a narrow capacity, and a grave and formal deportment; he was seldom seen to smile, and was only once known to laugh. He attached the most extraordinary importance to the observance of courtly etiquette, yet was not without good sense, and the capability of strong domestic affection. He however appears to have had but two passions, hunting and music. The imperial musician presided in his own orchestra, and his two daughters, Maria Theresa and Maria Anne, danced in the ballet. It should not be omitted, speaking of the character of Charles, that he was remarkable for a compassionate and benevolent disposition, for honest intentions, and for an extreme aversion to all hypocrisy. These qualities were not, however, sufficient to ensure either his own or his people's happiness. His reign was, upon the whole, one of the most disgraceful and disastrous in the history of the empire.

The mother of Maria Theresa, was Elizabeth Christina, of Brunswick, a lovely and amiable woman, who possessed and deserved her husband's entire confidence and affection. Lady Wortley Montague, who visited the court of Vienna only a few months before the birth of Maria Theresa, speaks of the beauty and beneficence of the empress, and of her sweet and gracious manners with a kind of rapture.

The two archduchesses were brought up

under the superin

tendence of their mother, and received an education, in no respect different from that of other young ladies of rank, of the same age and country, except that they were kept in more strict seclusion. Maria Theresa had beauty, spirit, and understanding. Maria Anne was as lovely as her sister, but inferior in capacity, and of a very mild and reserved disposition; both sisters were tenderly attached to each other,

It does not appear to have entered into the mind of Charles, to give his daughter an education befitting the situation to which she was destined; he, indeed, admitted her, at the age of fourteen, to be present at the sittings of the council, but he never disclosed to her any of his affairs, never conversed with her on any subject of importance, never even allowed her an opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the forms of business. While she sat in the council, she was always silent; but it was observed, that, however protracted the deliberations, she never betrayed any signs of weariness, but listened with the most eager attention to all she could, and all she could not understand. only use she made of her new privilege, was to be the bearer of petitions in behalf of those who prevailed on her benevolence or her youthful inexperience, to intercede for them. The emperor becoming at length impatient at the increasing number of these petitions, said to her on one occasion, You seem to think a sovereign has nothing to do but to grant favors!" "I see nothing else that can make a crown supportable," replied his daughter she was then about fifteen.

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Her taste for music was highly cultivated. She studied Italian, with much success; but much of her time was given to the strict observance of the forms of the Roman catholic faith; and though she could not derive from the bigoted old womenand ecclesiastics around her, any very enlarged and enlightened ideas of religion, her piety was at least sincere. She omitted no opportunities of obtaining information relative to the history and geography of her country, and she appears to have been early possessed with a most magnificent idea of the power and grandeur of her family, and of the lofty rank to which she was

destined. This early impression of her own vast importance was only counterbalanced by her deep feelings and habits of devotion, and by the natural sweetness and benignity of her disposition.

Such was Maria Theresa at the age of sixteen or seventeen. She had been destined in her infancy to marry the young duke of Lorraine, who was brought up at the court of Vienna as her intended husband. It is very, very seldom, that these political state marriages terminate happily, or harmonize with the wishes and feelings of those principally concerned; but in the present case "the course of true love" was blended with that of policy. Francis Stephen, of Lorraine, was the son of Leopold, duke of Lorraine, surnamed the Good and Benevolent. His grandmother, Leonora, of Austria, was the eldest sister of Charles VI., and he was consequently the cousin of his intended bride. Francis was not possessed of shining talents, but he had a good understanding, and an excellent heart; he was, besides, eminently handsome, indisputably brave, and accomplished in all the courtly exercises that became a prince and a gentleman. In other respects his education had been strangely neglected; he could scarcely read or write. From childhood, the two cousins had been fondly attached, and their attachment was perhaps increased, at least on the side of Maria Theresa, by those political obstacles which long deferred their union, and even threatened at one time, a lasting separation.

Charles died, October 20th, 1740. Maria Theresa was in her twenty-fourth year, when she became, in her own right, queen of Hungary and Bohemia, archduchess of Austria, sovereign of the Netherlands, and duchess of Milan, of Parma, and Placentia; in right of her husband she was also grand duchess of Tuscany. Naples and Sicily had indeed been wrested from her father, but she pretended to the right of those crowns, and long entertained the hope and design of recovering them. She reigned over some of the finest and fairest provinces of Europe; over many nations speaking many different languages, governed by different laws, divided by mutual antipathies, and held together by no common link except that of acknowledging the