AUGUST. 365 



male or female, in fashionable apparel, destroys the whole 

 effect. Hence almost all the representations of picnics fail in 

 awakening any picturesque emotions. 



A shepherd, when properly represented Avith his crook, 

 which is his stalf of office, and surrounded by the animals of 

 his charge, his faithful dog, the rustic cottage, the sheepfold, 

 and the general rude scenery of nature, is always picturesque. 

 But his appearance must be entirely that of a shepherd, with- 

 out any of the ways or the gear of a man of the town. I 

 have seen a picture of two young shepherds in the Ambruzzi 

 mountains, painted by an eminent English artist, in which 

 the characteristic qualities of the scene are entirely destroyed 

 by a certain genteel or finical air and expression observed 

 in their countenance and attitudes. Instead of rustic shep- 

 herds we see two young men, each with a crook, sitting and 

 reclining upon a rock. They are very neatly dressed, and 

 look as if they were young sprigs of the nobility, who had 

 gone into the mountains for a few days merely to play shep- 

 herd ; so nicely is their hair arranged, that the longitudinal 

 parting is distinctly seen, caused by the sleeking away of the 

 hair on each side of the head. The expression of their faces 

 corresponds with the rest of their appearance, one, in partic- 

 ular, having that look of conscious self-satisfaction which we 

 often observe in a silly fop of the town. The very manner 

 in which he leans his head upon his thumb and fingers 

 betrays his concern lest he should spoil the arrangement of 

 his hair. How strange that the painter of this piece should 

 not have seen that all these little trifles completely ruined the 

 picturesque character of his painting ! 



One of the most picturesque engravings I have seen repre- 

 sents a peasant girl, in the neat and simple attire of her own 

 humble station in life, in the act of bearing a pitcher of water 

 which she has just dipped from a rustic well. How easily 

 might the designer have ruined the whole expression of this 

 piece, either by making the well an elegant and fanciful 

 structure, or by making the damsel a fine lady in her silks 

 and laces. The sight of a picnic party assembled together in 

 the woods and pastures, is always pleasing ; but, as I have 



