erman and Soret"[261] in 1824,
he handed me some etchings by Roos, the famous painter of animals; they
were all of sheep, in every posture and position. The simplicity of
their countenances, the ugliness and shagginess of the fleece--all was
represented with the utmost fidelity, as if it were nature itself.

"I always feel uneasy," said Goethe, "when I look at these beasts. Their
state--so limited, dull, gaping, and dreaming--excites in me such
sympathy, that I fear I shall become a sheep, and almost think the
artist must have been one. At all events, it is most wonderful how Roos
has been able to think and feel himself into the very soul of these
creatures, so as to make the internal character peer with such force
through the outward covering. Here you see what a great talent can do
when it keeps steady to subjects which are congenial with its nature."

"Has not, then," said I, "this artist also painted dogs, cats, and
beasts of prey with similar truth; nay, with this great gift of assuming
a mental state foreign to himself, has he not been able to delineate
human character with equal fidelity?"

"No," said Goethe; "all that lay out of his sphere, but the gentle,
grass-eating animals--sheep, goats, cows, and the like--he was never
weary of repeating; this was the peculiar province of his talent, which
he did not quit during the whole course of his life. And in this he did
well. A sympathy with these animals was born with him, a knowledge of
their psychological condition was given him, and thus he had so fine an
eye for their bodily structure. Other creatures were perhaps not so
transparent to him, and therefore he felt neither calling nor impulse to
paint them."[262]

LORD COCKBURN AND THE SHEEP.

Lord Cockburn, the proprietor of Bonaly, that pretty place on the slopes
of the Pentlands, was sitting on the hill-side with the shepherd, and,
observing the sheep reposing in the coldest situation, he observed to
him, "John, if I were a sheep, I would lie on the other side of the
hill." The shepherd answered, "Ay, my lord, but if ye had been a
_sheep_, ye would hae had mair sense."[263]

WOOLSACK.

Colman and Banister, dining one day with Lord Erskine, the
ex-chancellor, amongst other things, observed that he had then about
three thousand head of sheep. "I perceive," interrupted Colman, "your
lordship has still an eye to the woolsack."[264]

SANDY WOOD AND HIS PETS, A SHEEP AND A RAVEN.

Alexander Wood, a ki