The circle of those who were witness to the blossom-period of the city of Munich, that glorious epoch of twenty or thirty years which dawned upon the Bavarian capital when Louis I. ascended the throne, is gradually narrowing, and every year contracts it still further. The name of her to whom this sketch is dedicated belonged to this circle, and is closely associated with the best of those who aided in inaugurating this brilliant epoch, and rendering Munich a hearthstone of culture which attracted the gaze of the educated world. Sunny period of old Munich! They of that time speak of it with the same enthusiasm as of their own youth. Yet to a future generation will their testimony sound like some beautiful tradition. To not a few, the name of Miss Emily Linder appeared for the first time, as the intelligence of her death passed through the public journals of February, 1857. Yet was her life no ordinary one; and though it never tended to publicity, she accomplished more in her great seclusion than many a noisy and feted celebrity. Hers was a quiet and unassuming nature; she belonged to those who speak little and accomplish much. It is therefore befitting, now that she has gone to her home, here to speak of her. Not so much to praise her, for she shrank from all earthly praise; but to keep her memory fresh among her friends and to present to a selfish, distracted age, poor in faith, the animating example of a pure, faith-inspired, and symmetrical character a life full of fidelity, unselfishness, and enthusiasm. Swiss by birth and unchangeably devoted to her circumscribed home, Emily Linder little dreamed, probably, when in early life she wandered to Munich, that she would yet close a long life there. But over this life, swiftly as it glided along, there watched a special, directing Providence; and no one could more cheerfully have recognized this Providence than did she. What originally attracted her to Munich was Art: she probably contemplated, at first, only brief and transient visit there; but the metropolis of German art became a second home to her--even more than this. Emily Linder belonged to a wealthy mercantile family of Basle, and was born at that place on the 11th of October, 1797. She received a careful religious education, (in the reformed faith of her parents,) and that varied instruction which rendered her unusually wakeful mind susceptible to topics of deeper import. She seemed to have inherited from her grandfather, who was a lover and collector of artistic objects, a fondness for fine art. Following this predilection, the gifted girl decided to seize the pallet and devote herself to painting as an occupation. Such was her entirely independent position as to fortune, that nothing but inward enthusiasm could have led her to this step, or have confined her from thenceforth to the easel. {99}