[SECOND OF THE SERIES.]
2. "The Arcadian," or "Pastoral State." (62½X39.)
Ages have passed; a change has been wrought in the scene—man has subjugated "the untracked and rude." We now see the shepherd and his flocks; the ploughman upturning the soil, and the wafting sail; by the shore a village, and on the hill the ascending smoke of sacrifice. In this picture we have agriculture, commerce, and religion. In the aged man describing the mathematical figure, the rude attempt of the boy in drawing; in the female figure with the distaff, the vessel on the stocks; in the primitive temple, and the dance of the peasants to the music of the pipe, we have evidence of the advance made in science, in the useful and the fine arts.
It is early Summer, and the sun has ascended midway to the meridian.