that minute collection and progressive study could do to sustain her
popularity. Distant and exhausting journeys, diligent examination of
far-scattered examples of Art, voluminous and various reading, became
seemingly more and more necessary to her; and at the very time of life
when rest and slackened effort would have been natural,--not merely
because her labours were in aid of others, but to satisfy her own high
sense of what is demanded by Art and Literature,--did her hand and
brain work more and more perseveringly and thoughtfully, till at last
she sank under her weariness; and passed away.

The father of Miss Murphy was a miniature-painter of repute, attached,
we believe, to the household of the Princess Charlotte. His daughter
Anna was naturally taught by him the principles of his own art;
but she had instincts for all,--taste for music,--a feeling for
poetry,--and a delicate appreciation of the drama. These gifts--in
her youth rarer in combination than they are now (when the connection
of the arts is becoming understood, and the love of all increasingly
diffused)--were, during part of Mrs. Jameson's life, turned to the
service of education.--It was not till after her marriage, that a
foreign tour led her into authorship, by the publication of "The Diary
of an Ennuyée," somewhere about the year 1826.--It was impossible to
avoid detecting in that record the presence of taste, thought, and
feeling, brought in an original fashion to bear on Art, Society,
Morals.--The reception of the book was decisive.--It was followed, at
intervals, by "The Loves of the Poets," "Memoirs of Italian Painters,"
"The Lives of Female Sovereigns," "Characteristics of Women" (a series
of Shakspeare studies; possibly its writer's most popular book). After
this, the Germanism so prevalent five-and-twenty years ago, and now
somewhat gone by, possessed itself of the authoress, and she published
her reminiscences of Munich, the imitative art of which was new, and