BOLTON ABBEY IN THE OLDEN TIME. r, 



and grave" inmates wandered by the sides of the " crystal Wharfe," and counted their 

 beads under the shadows of rock and noble trees. The principal figure in the 

 composition we may assume to be a superior brother of the abbey, perhaps the prior 

 himself, a burly, well-conditioned ecclesiastic, who is evidently more accustomed to 

 feast than to fast. He is reading a letter which has accompanied a present of fish and 

 game from some devoted son of the Church, anxious to stand well with his spiritual 

 advisers. The other figures are a young girl bearing a dish of fine trout ; a youth 

 carrying pheasants and other birds; and a stout retainer stooping over a fat buck; all 

 of which will soon be consigned to the monastic buttery for the refreshing of the brother- 

 hood. The various materials of the composition are simply arranged ; each figure 

 stands well and prominently in its place, yet is brought into union with its companions 

 by accessories in a manner most felicitous ; the artist seems to have been prodigal of 

 his powers in the delineation of the numerous specimens of still-life with which the 

 picture abounds; while it vividly carries the mind back to those olden times when 

 devotion to the Church was considered to be the duty of noble and peasant alike. 



Another picture of that year is "A Highland Breakfast," now in the Sheepshanks 

 Collection at South Kensington. It shows the interior of a Shepherd's cottage, in 

 which is a young mother feeding her child, whom she takes out of its cradle. On a 

 low stool before her is a dish of porridge, and in the background is an oaten cake 

 toasting on the girdle. Several dogs are taking their breakfast from a large bowl of 

 skimmed milk and meal ; among them, a lank sheep-dog, suckling three fat puppies. 

 A third picture of 1834 at the Academy was " A Collie-dog rescuing a Sheep." To 

 the British Institution were contributed the same year " The Eagle's Nest," also in 

 the Sheepshanks Collection ; and another, of which mention will be made hereafter. 



The most important painting by Landseer which, through the liberality of Mr. 

 Sheepshanks, has become the property of the nation, and is now at South Kensington, 

 is " The Drovers' Departure— a Scene in the Grampians," exhibited at the Academy 

 in 1835, and engraved on a scale commensurate with the size of the canvas, by Mr. J. H. 

 Watt, who was engaged four years on the plate— one of the finest examples of line- 

 engraving, of its class, that has been produced within our time in this country. The 

 composition, which is, perhaps, best known by another title, given to it by the 

 publishers of the print, " Highland Drovers departing for the South," consists of a 

 remarkably striking foreground-group in direct relation with a landscape-background; 

 the whole presented under the effect of a clear early morning. There is no interior, 

 yet the home of the departing herdsmen is sufficiently made out. Home is clearly the 

 first chapter of the stofy ; departure is the next; and the conclusion of the well-told 

 tale is-absence. It is one of those works which can afford to dispense with the title 

 given to it by the painter— that which is first stated above— for every circumstance of 

 the composition speaks of the " departure." The group of figures comprehends every 



