144 PICTURESQUE ANIMALS. 



ders a scene picturesque. In a representation of a little 

 cottage in the woods nothing could add more to its pleas- 

 ing pastoral expression than the figure of a squirrel run- 

 ning along on a stone-wall or on the branch of an old tree. 

 The sight awakens all those poetical images which are 

 associated with life in the fields: Place the squirrel in a 

 cage, and it reminds us only of the town, and. expresses 

 nothing that is agreeable to a poetic fancy. Every wild 

 animal must appear to be enjoying its freedom, or the 

 representation of it would fail in giving delight. The 

 same is true of the human race. While persons of the 

 laboring classes add to the interesting character of a scene 

 in nature, a single figure, male or female, in fashionable 

 apparel, destroys the whole effect. Hence, almost all the 

 representations of picnics fail in awakening any poetic 

 emotions. 



A shepherd, when properly represented with his crook, 

 which is his staff 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, without any of the ways or the gear of a man 

 of the town. I have seen a picture of two young shep- 

 herds in the mountains, 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 shepherds 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 shepherd ; so 

 nicely is their hair arranged, that the longitudinal parting 

 is distinctly seen, caused by the smoothing away of the 

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

 corresponds with the rest of their appearance ; one, in 



