Catherine Read painted beautiful family scenes, and obtained considerable reputation as a painter of portraits, both in oil and crayon. A crayon, in the possession of a lady of New York, was recognized as hers by an eminent American painter. She lived near St. James’s, and frequently sent pieces to the exhibition. Several mezzotint prints after her pictures were published. In 1770 she went to the East Indies, staid a few years, and returned to England. Her niece, Miss Beckson, also an artist, who went with her to the East Indies, afterward married a baronet. Some of Anna Trevingard’s pictures were engraved. Miss Drax and Miss Martin engraved from Tomkins and Der Petit; Miss Morland and Catharine Mary Fanshawe drew and engraved twenty pictures of historical scenes. The zealous and industrious Mary Spilsbury’s studies from country life, and particularly those in which she represented her rural scenes and sports of children, have been reproduced in engravings. It is certainly surprising that engraving and flower-painting did not boast at this time a greater number of distinguished followers. It now becomes our task to linger a moment over the history of a paintress whose genius and attainments won for her an enviable reputation, and whose life experience illustrates the condition and circumstances of art amid the higher classes of English society. MARIA COSWAY. Maria Hadfield was the daughter of an Englishman who became rich by keeping a hotel in Leghorn. It is said he lost four children in infancy, and detected a maid-servant in the avowal that she sent them to heaven out of love, and meant that the fifth, Maria, should follow the rest. The woman was imprisoned for life, and the child was sent to a convent to be educated. There she received lessons in music and drawing, in common with other branches. Returning home, she devoted herself to painting, and the acquaintance she afterward formed at Rome with Battomi, Mengs, Maron, and Fuseli, with her contemplation of the works of art in churches and palaces, contributed to the farther development of her talents. At her father’s death she formed the resolution of entering a cloister, but her mother persuaded her to accompany her first to London. There the young girl became acquainted with the interesting and popular Angelica Kauffman, who easily prevailed on her to relinquish all idea of taking the veil.