Introduced into Pictures. 



may have been used to teach them these arts so contrary to 

 their nature. At all events it proves what teachable and clever 

 little creatures they are, how readily they may be made to 

 understand the will of their master, and how obediently and 

 faithfully they act according to it. 



Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence 

 to the animal world. In him the creatures should ever find 

 their friend and protector ; and were it so we should then see 

 many an astonishing faculty displayed ; and birds would then, 

 instead of being the most timid of animals, gladden and beautify 

 our daily life by their sweet songs, their affectionate regard, 

 and their amusing and imitative little arts. 



The early Italian and German painters introduce a gold- 

 finch into their beautiful sacred pictures — generally on the 

 ground — hopping at the feet of some martyred saint or love- 

 commissioned angel, perhaps from an old legend of the bird's 

 sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an intuitive sense 

 that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird and beast 

 as well as to man. 



