THE FORESTER'S FAMILY. 35 



bold fellow, whose incipient growl has perhaps caught the ear of the meat- seller's 

 locum tenens, and is recognised as a sort of battle-cry. In front is a little. dog which 

 has succeeded in filching a skewer, probably flavoured with meat ; this he crunches 

 with the most barefaced impertinence before 'the face of the canine Dogberry. At the 

 entrance of the gateway, and in the far distance, is yet another animal, too timid, 

 probably, to approach nearer to a possible scene of conflict, yet ready to take his 

 share of the spoil if, happily, any came in his way, and he could enjoy it in safety : 

 with him " discretion is the better part of valour." 



Not only are the animals painted to the life, but all the accessories, principal and 

 secondary, are delineated with marvellous truth ; the barrow, with its necessary imple- 

 ments of trade, such as the scales and weights, the cloth, the knife, the bag of skewers, 

 the basket and the plate it contains, &c., were evidently " copied from nature." 



Five pictures were contributed by Landseer to the Academy exhibition of 1849. 

 One, called "The Desert," represents a dead lion, said to have been sketched from 

 one that had recently died at the Zoological Gardens. The scene fully supports the 

 title given to the work, being a drear and rocky solitude, veritably " the place of a 

 skull :" the subject is gloomy enough, yet it is most impressively painted, both the 

 animal and the landscape. Another, "The Forester's Family," is one of the artist's 

 most charming and attractive compositions : there is nothing in it to cast a shadow 

 of sadness over its serenity — no strife of combatants, no mutilated victims, no death ; 

 but, instead, such an entire absence of all which reminds one of the curse pronounced 

 upon man and beast, that Eden could not have exhibited a more harmonious union of 

 the superior and inferior created animals, except that there is something suggestive of 

 labouring " in the sweat of the brow," and of the penalty to be paid by the living, in a 

 pair of huge antlers, once belonging to a creature that had life, and to which is 

 attached a piece of the stag's skin, thereby showing that the horns were not dropped 

 in the natural process of shedding. The "Forester's Family" consists of a young 

 barefooted female, who has been cutting long grasses or ferns, a truss of which she 

 bears on her shoulders ; it attracts to her a herd of fawns, which follow her closely, 

 while others are hastening towards her. They form a most picturesque assemblage, 

 standing on ground that rises up from a lake backed by a range of lofty hills, where, 

 on the right, a long rustic bridge crosses a deep ravine. The principal group, 

 pyramidal in form — including the young boy carrying the gigantic antlers — occupies 

 the centre of the canvas, and reaches almost to its extreme height; but it is 

 judiciously balanced by the nearest hills, which, being in shadow, have sufficient sub- 

 stance and strength to " carry off" the height of the figures. 



"The Free Church" also belongs to the same year. It represents a Highland 

 family worshipping in their kirk. Included in the domestic circle are the aged herdsman 

 and his wife, and their daughter, who have been accompanied to the sacred edifice by the 



