236 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



cloak and long hair streaming beyond, made Ms figure seem 

 the very counterpart of a blasted tree in the foreground, the 

 only green limb upon which seemed to have just been partly 

 torn from the trunk, and streamed, too, on the savage blast. 



I shall never forget that picture of desolation ! 



The other was a noble picture pronounced by Christo- 

 pher North, the noblest of all executed by Audubon of a 

 Golden Eagle, the full size of life, which, from a lofty crag 

 of the White Mountains, was in the act of carrying off a 

 lamb upon which it had just pounced, and which was clearly 

 a vagrant from the white flock browsing peacefully beneath, 

 which could be dimly seen through a break in the whirling 

 chaos of vapor, which nearly compassed about the sun-lit 

 rock, upon the grassy edges of which it had been tempted to 

 feed. 



With all this simplicity of elements, there was something 

 indescribably majestic in the picture. In addition to the 

 general effect, there was a degree of microscopic detail in 

 the finish of the two figures of the eagle and the lamb, which 

 has ever since left upon my mind an impression as of an ac- 

 tual scene. 



Alas ! for white-wooled innocence ! it pleads in vain for 

 mercy with the merciless. The full-winged tyrant is an 

 hungered and athirst, and hath no bowels of compassion now 

 that can be moved by piteous bleatings. 



It is very nice, poor lamb I to have a snowy fleece, and 

 such large, bright, gentle eyes, with such a meek appeal in 

 them as might soften a heart of veriest adamant very nice 

 indeed ! and one would think that of all creatures, it was 

 least possible that thou couldst come to harm, even in a sin- 

 ful world like this of ours ! 



But sad enough, these have all been in vain ! A single 

 crime has rendered the J&gis of purity powerless for thee, 

 and forced thee to realize that, indeed, 



" Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt!" 



