ardships seem to
knit the friendship, and the tie between them is unusually close. We
can easily understand that a faithful dog deprived of his master would
mourn him deeply. Such grief is the subject of our picture, The
Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner.

An old shepherd living alone in his rude cottage has thrown down his
hat and staff for the last time. His neighbors have prepared his body
for decent burial, the coffin has been closed and nailed, and now
stands on the trestles ready for removal. The shepherd's plaid has
been laid over it as a sort of pall, and a bit of green is added by
some reverent hand. For the moment the house is deserted, and the dog
is left alone with all that represents his master's life to him. His
mute grief is intensely pathetic; speech could not express more
plainly his utter despair.

A beautiful description by Ruskin suggests the important points to
notice in the picture,--"the close pressure of the dog's breast
against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has
dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerlessness of the
head laid close and motionless upon its folds, the fixed and tearful
fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness, the rigidity of repose
which marks that there has been no motion or change in the trance of
agony since the last blow was struck on the coffin-lid, the quietness
and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles marking the place where the
Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the life--how
unwatched the departure of him who is now laid solitary in his sleep."

The critic shows that the skill with which the painting is executed,
remarkable as it is, is not so great a thing to praise the painter for
as the imagination which could conceive so pathetic a scene. The
picture is, he says, "one of the most perfect poems which modern times
have seen."

The incident which Landseer imagined has doubtless many a parallel in
actual life. There is a story of a traveller who was killed by a fall
from a precipice near Mt. Helvellyn. Three months later his remains
were discovered, watched over by the faithful dog. Scott's poem
"Helvellyn" commemorates the incident,[21] and the line telling how--

"Faithful in death, his mute favorite attended,"

expresses well the spirit of our picture.

[Footnote 21: Wordsworth's verses on Fidelity apparently refer to the
same story.]

XV

A LION OF THE NELSON MONUMENT

Our conception of th