Having now brought our artist to the verge of his career; shown the course of his studies; and indicated that quality of his genius which seems to have been most effective in making him what he was, we have next to set forth, in chronological order, some of his more remarkable works, and to describe their production as we should relate the history of special incidents in the life of a man of action. In one sense pictures are the actions of a great artist: he lives in them, and his life is of them.

We said that the first exhibited works of Edwin Landseer, “Portrait of a Mule,” and “Portraits of a Pointer Bitch and Puppy,” were sold with the collection of Mr. Simpson, the artist’s early friend;[26] the next painting that comes into notice is the portrait of “Brutus,” the property of the same gentleman, which was exhibited in 1817. This was, we believe, the little circular picture originally intended for the top of a snuff-box, and representing the head of a dog in full face, or nearly so, which was afterwards very finely engraved in 1818 by Mr. T. Landseer; the print styled “Old Brutus.” “Brutus” is depicted with a grizzled muzzle, ears not closely cropped, and having eyes expressing habits of consideration, as if he had seen the world and profited by experience; a hawk’s bell hangs beneath his chin. After the wont of dogs and men, this “wise and venerable” “Brutus” had a son, another “Brutus,” who became a very much-favoured and frequent model of Landseer’s; the animal was a gift from Mr. Simpson to the painter.

This son “Brutus,” whom we must, for distinction’s sake, call the second of the name, whose portrait appears in an early “Sportsman’s Magazine,” was a rough-hided, very sagacious-looking white dog, with a short tail, and signs, so far as strangers were concerned, of a shorter temper. Thus we judge by his portrait, as it was taken, whole canine generations since “Brutus II.” appeared. The picture was engraved by Mr. T. Landseer, having its scene in a stable, the floor of which is strewn with straw; a pipe and a bone are there to tell their tales. The canine inmate is a wiry-looking creature, tough, and light in limb, yet, withal, having every muscle instinct with life, and in courage such as makes him anything but loth to begin a combat. He has seemingly heard, or smelt, for he cannot yet see, the approach of a stranger of his own kind, whose muzzle is visible to us by means of the stable door being a few inches ajar, “with the chain up,” as folks say. This stranger is a representative of that ill-conditioned race, the bull-dog breed—the so-called “bull-poop”—much loved by Staffordshire colliers, whose wives, such is the local legend, are not seldom known to suckle the “poop” with the baby; although the former is, out of the Black Country, much abhorred by many men and dogs. Of the latter class, “Brutus II.” is evidently one, and we may thank the chain of the stable-door for keeping the animals apart; but for this, there would have been a dire “scrimmage” between the champions. We believe the same plate which supplied “The Sportsman’s Magazine” with this capital illustration was again used for the collected series of “engravings” before referred to from the works of our artist. The print is one of the most masculine specimens of its kind, and full of spirit and character. Edwin Landseer made a great pet of “Brutus II.,” taught him tricks, and very often painted him.

In the Anderdon Collection of Royal Academy Catalogues, which is now in the Print Room, British Museum, is a copy of a letter, formerly in the possession of Dawson Turner, which is characteristic of a young artist, and, as referring to this important picture of “Brutus,” may well find a place here. It was, no doubt, directed to Mr. W. W. Simpson:—

At the foot of the paper is a sketch of a greyhound chasing a hare, designed with great spirit. To this the following memorandum refers: “I don’t mean this for the subject.” The signature comprises the usual flourish which accompanied Landseer’s autograph; the handwriting is very neat and clear.

The “Portrait of Brutus” showed a white dog, lying at the full length of his chain, near a red earthenware dish. It is very small; and was sold, with the pictures of Sir John Swinburne, June, 1861, for seventy guineas. The bidding began at five guineas, and rose by one guinea at a time.

It will be observed that we are now writing of Edwin Landseer as an accomplished artist; yet, strange as it may seem, it is true that only the year before this picture of “Brutus” was exhibited, he was admitted a student in the Royal Academy. This is generally considered one of the earlier steps in an artistic career. So much, however, did our artist differ from most students, that he was an exhibitor before entering the Academy, and his progress had been carefully recorded in one of the periodicals of the day.

There is a pleasant story told of Fuseli, the Keeper, and Landseer’s entry to the Academy as a student, then a bright lad, with light curling hair, and a very gentle, graceful manner, and much manliness withal. He was a diligent student; and Fuseli would look round the room for him, and, alluding to the picture of “Brutus,” exhibited that year, say, “Where is my little dog boy?”

In the year 1817 was exhibited the “Portrait of an Alpine Mastiff,” which we have noticed while giving an account of early drawings and etchings by and after Edwin Landseer. This drawing, and two others, were exhibited with works by the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours, at the gallery in Spring Gardens. It is doubtless that which has been engraved by Mr. T. Landseer in 1818.

The year 1818 is noteworthy as constituting an important epoch in the life of our artist. He then produced a picture from which the present height of his reputation might have been predicted. This appeared at the before-mentioned exhibition of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours, Spring Gardens, entitled “Fighting Dogs getting Wind” (No. 140); it excited an extraordinary amount of attention. The work was purchased by Sir George Beaumont, and this fact was accepted as giving a stamp of the higher order of distinction to the artist, who immediately rose in fame, and became “the fashion,” in a way in which those persons will easily realize who have read Haydon’s account of his own and Wilkie’s positions in the world under similar circumstances.

Here is a criticism on “Fighting Dogs getting Wind,” from “The Examiner,” p. 269, 1818, in a review of the exhibition of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours. After refering

to the merits of certain landscapes which commanded the critic’s admiration, we are told, “Their pictures alone would elevate the character of this Exhibition; but when we add the ‘Fighting Dogs getting Wind,’ by our English Schneiders, young Mr. E. Landseer, and the masterly Drawings and Paintings by Mr. Haydon, we give overflowing evidence of the justness of our preference of this Exhibition. It behoves the Keeper of the room to be careful how he admits any animals of the same species before the ‘Fighting Dogs,’ when we recollect the exciting effect which a ‘Mastiff’ by this young Animal Painter had last year upon a canine judge admitted to the room. We hope that E. Landseer will not deviate from his large touch into a littleness of style. His may be called the great style of Animal Painting, as far as it relates to the execution and colour; and the natural, as far as it concerns their portraiture. Did we see only the Dog’s collar, we should know that it was produced by no common hand, so good is it, and palpably true. But the gasping, and cavernous, and redly-stained mouths, the flaming eyes, the prostrate Dog, and his antagonist standing exultingly over him, the inveterate rage that superior strength inflames but cannot subdue, with the broad and bright relief of the objects, give a wonder-producing vitality to the canvas.” The writer was evidently deeply moved. It is impossible to refrain from smiling at the thought that Leigh Hunt’s, or his brother’s, influence in respect to “The Examiner” was thus represented with regard to pictures by their friend Haydon and Edwin Landseer. The painting is still at Coleorton; it was No. 422, in the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition of 1874. It has not been engraved.

Of one of Landseer’s contributions to the Royal Academy in 1818 Wilkie thus wrote to Haydon: “Geddes has a good head.[27] Etty has a clever piece, and young Landseer’s jackasses are also good.”[28] The picture thus referred to as by Landseer is styled “Portrait of a Donkey.” Wilkie’s memory tricked him about it, but his testimony of admiration is valuable. In these days the British Institution received superior attention from Landseer: and the Academy gatherings—where, however, his dÉbut was made—rarely contained his more important productions.

Lady Charles Wellesley has a picture of this year, a thoroughly characteristic example of Landseer’s then current mode, which was mounted for the Hon. H. Pierrepoint, but not sent home, and when inquired for could not be found. It is called “White Horse in a Stable.” In 1842, many years after its disappearance, the work was discovered in a hayloft, where it had been hidden by a dishonest servant, and was sent by Sir Edwin with a letter to Mr. Pierrepoint, stating that the white horse “was the first of that complexion I ever painted,” and that he had not retouched it, thinking “it better when my early style unmingled with that of my old age.” In answer to a question as to price, he mentioned that the sum he was accustomed to receive at the time of painting this picture was Ten Guineas: see the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition Catalogue, 1874, p. 24.

In 1818 a satirical print was published in Elmes’s “Annals of the Fine Arts,” representing Haydon and his pupils drawing from Raphael’s Cartoon of “Elymas struck blind,”[29] which, as Haydon boasted, had by his means been brought to London and placed for the use of artists in the British Institution. This print is a rough etching, and entitled “A Master in the Grand Style & his Pupils;” it represents the interior of the gallery with three enormous canvases placed before the Cartoon, besides a smaller one and a portfolio, at which last a boy is drawing one of the heads on our right of Raphael’s work. Five copyists are busy, two of whom are identified by their portraits and inscriptions on their canvases, as, 1, Bewick, a “romantic” looking youth, who assumes “the grand style” of drawing, pressing his lips together demonstratively after the fashion of poor Haydon himself, while he steps backwards on the rickety platform and draws at arm’s length, sustaining his right elbow with his left hand; his inner mind is evidently divided between his studies and concern for his personal appearance, which is intended to be more than commonly beautiful by means of long curled locks tucked behind his ears, and a falling shirt-collar; his boots are of the smallest. The next artist, 2, is Thomas Christmas, one of Haydon’s pupils, wearing very big boots, his hair and collar being similar to those of his neighbour. The figures working at the smaller canvases on our left do not concern us here; but the portrait of a lad, who, perched on a ladder, measures with a pair of compasses the features of one of the faces in Raphael’s work is important, as it probably represents Edwin (see below) or Charles Landseer, the younger two of Haydon’s pupils, in the figure of a modest-looking, neatly-dressed boy. In the air is Haydon, wearing his broad-brimmed hat and spectacles, busily flying about as a bird and blowing his own trumpet as “Director of the Public Taste.”[30]

The joke is heightened by the publication line of the print stating that it was “Published for the Annals of the Fine Arts, No. 8, by Sherwood, Neely & Jones, Paternoster Row, April 1, 1818.” In this Journal it appeared with a long letter animadverting on Haydon and his pupils. If anybodies’ merits were certain to be recorded in Elmes’s “Annals,” they were those of Haydon and his pupils; but the editor, in order, as he stated, to show his impartiality, did not hesitate to publish the satire on his friends; he was doubtless assured that there was nothing Haydon enjoyed so much as notoriety. “Mr. E. Landseer” is named with his brother in the “Annals,” for 1818, p. 360, as among those who drew in chalk from the Cartoon of “The Beautiful Gate.” According to the “Annals,” ii. 433, the brothers, Thomas and Charles, drew the lictors and the figure of Elymas in the “Elymas struck blind” in 1817.[31]

Some of these drawings were exhibited by Haydon, 1819, in Pall Mall. “Messrs. Thomas Christmas and the two Landseers have taken their canvases to the Academy (British Institution), to make drawings from the Ananias,” &c., so says the “Annals,” No. 6, p. 436; and there seems to have been a tolerably unwise squabble about the pupils of Haydon and their drawings from this cartoon. (See pp. 442-3 of the same volume.)

“The Cat disturbed” was a picture of the year 1819, contributed to the British Institution, and afterwards engraved with the title of “The Intruder.” It, we believe, reappeared at the Gallery of the Society of British Artists in 1826, with the title of “The intrusive Visitor,” and represents a cat hunted to a high place in a stable by a dog, into whose quarters she had ventured. This was probably the work belonging to Sir C. Coote, of which Dr. Waagen wrote, in complete harmony with the opinion intimated in these pages, that Landseer at an early stage painted with greater solidity than in later days. It is now in the possession of Sir Philip de Malpas Egerton. Dr. Waagen says, “This picture exhibits a power of colouring”—by this he doubtless meant depth of tone, for colouring is simply out of the question in Landseers’s art—“and a solidity of execution recalling such masters as Snyders and Fyt.” Here we may as well say that no one has a true and complete, or even a satisfactory, notion of the spirit and vigour of our painter’s powers at this time unless he has studied these triumphs. They possess qualities not discoverable in his later works, but, of course, lack extraordinary merits which predominated when he grew older.

The preference often exhibited by Landseer for the British Institution appeared strongly in 1820, when a picture, which had been much talked about in professional circles, was shown at the gallery in Pall Mall, and attracted more admiration than the foregoing works. This was the famous “Alpine Mastiffs re-animating a distressed Traveller,” afterwards engraved by John Landseer, and due to studies of the magnificent dog of St. Bernard, to which we have referred as the property of “a gentleman of Liverpool,” according to the catalogue of the Spring Gardens gallery of 1817. This picture now belongs to Mr. S. Addington. (See below on the Exhibition in 1835 of “A Sleeping Bloodhound,” now at South Kensington.)

It must not be supposed that Landseer, so young as he was, produced small pictures only; on the contrary, the British Institution contained two paintings, one of which measured six feet by seven feet six inches; while its companion, “A Lion disturbed at his Repast,” was six feet by eight feet, “landscape way,” as artists say; i.e. the longer dimension was horizontal. At the same gathering appeared “A Lion enjoying his Repast.” We have observed Landseer with his brothers copying parts of the Cartoons of the same sizes as the originals. At this period—1821—he exhibited at the British Institution “The Seizure of a Boar,” with life-sized figures, which belongs to the Marquis of Landsdowne; it is full of action and worthy of the artist’s rising fame. We believe it has not been engraved. Haydon’s advice had been adopted—large works were undertaken, and a lion was dissected. An opportunity for the latter study occurred through the death of a lion in the Exeter Change Menagerie; this chance was seized, and the results were several lion pictures, as the above, and “A prowling Lion,” which was at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1822.

After these, lion subjects were not produced for a considerable time; opportunities for anatomizing such costly and rare animals as lions do not often occur; yet, as we may presently observe, our artist was at a later day fortunate in obtaining at least one other chance of this kind. The history of this matter, and an anecdote respecting it, are narrated further on.

In 1821 the progress of our subject was continued with rapidity and honour. The pictures of that year were, at the Royal Academy, “Ratcatchers,” which is now at Lambton Castle, the property of the Earl of Durham, and may be taken to illustrate Landseer’s admirable inventive powers at this period, although it is by no means the most important of his productions of the kind and date. Three dogs are in an old barn, and as if they had gone wild with passion and anxiety, because a fourth, whose extreme latter end is visible, is “scurrying” rats in depths below the broken floor of the

place. His tail gives expressive signals of excitement and rage, and, beyond all misunderstanding, indicates his furious desire to get at his foes. It is but slight comfort to the eager creatures that several of their enemies are already stretched on the floor, or that a living rat, half conscious of impending doom, springs and dances at the wires of a trap near his dead brethren—he is at once confined and fortified in bars of iron. A maltster’s shovel, birch broom, old cart-harness, traces of cart-gear, a bottle, and stray wisps of straw, litter the ground and aid the composition. This composition, as regards the dogs, is worthy of admiration. The three entirely visible dogs, may be described as follows: A big white terrier, in whom one fancies the “Brutus” of former pictures, plunges and “scurries” round the hole where the sunken comrade is at work; he grovels with his nose near the floor, and thrusts his head and chest forward in fierce action; his jaws are set, and his breath goes quickly in and out of his nostrils; his ears are thrown to the front as if to listen for squeaks in the region of the rafters; his eyes protrude and glitter with ravenous desire; his fore feet are spread widely apart, and his hind legs thrust far behind. The chiaro scuro is disposed so that the white body of this dog is the chief object; the light falls powerfully on him, so that his colour aids the effect in the manner of the great masters of chiaro scuro—which is much more than mere “light and shade” in the common sense of that term. Behind,—with a white mark, like a splash of chalk on the back of his head and between his ears, his figure coming above that of the last-named animal,—squats on his haunches a black dog of less demonstrative but equally excitable temperament; his back is arched in a bow, he quivers, and bends his head over the searching terrier with an eager gaze that is very finely expressed. He seems to whimper now and then; but “Brutus,” if it be he, yelps, snaps, barks, and almost howls in his ardour. One sees that if the hole were big enough to admit the bigger dog he would swiftly pull out the pioneer and go in himself, confident in his own resources, in an emergency like this; but with all this valour he has discretion enough to know that the hole would never admit a bulky carcass like his own, and that the sole chance for him consists in the possibility that a rat may appear at some apparently unguarded crevice, or, delirious with fear, rush between the legs of the half-buried hunter. Farthest off is a smaller and younger terrier, who has the air of an amateur or representative of the “lay-element” of rat-catching.[32] This dog sits in a formal, affected manner, his ears are uncropped and hang like lappels[33] quaintly above his head, with no unapt likeness to the decorations on a cap of a fool of the Middle Ages. This is a younger dog, and as eager as his fellows, although less impressionable. The joys of rat combating are as yet untasted by him, or he may be the dilettante he seems. This picture was, like many more by Landseer, engraved by his brother Thomas; it was published in 1823.

In the same year 1821, which produced the “Ratcatchers” for the Royal Academy, the British Institution was enriched with a picture that was engraved for “The Sporting Magazine,” or “Annals of Sporting,” and styled “Pointers To-ho!” The background shows a long level landscape, which is evidently a piece of nature; two pointers stand in the front, at the “foot” of the picture; behind them is a man with a gun: it is a thoroughly “sporting picture,” and as true to life as it is possible to be. A pen and ink sketch for “To-ho!” was sold at the artist’s sale, May 11, 1874, for twenty guineas. Of Landseer’s paintings of this year at the British Institution, Wilkie wrote to Sir George Beaumont, who was interested as the purchaser of a former picture: “Ward, Etty, Stark, Crome, and Landseer are successful, but in no great work.”

The year 1822 was to be marked with a white stone in the annals of a young artist like Edwin Landseer, because he then received the premium of one hundred and fifty pounds from the Directors of the British Institution for “The Larder invaded,” which was contributed to this exhibition of that date. In the same year Mr. George Jones, R.A., late Keeper of the Royal Academy, obtained two hundred pounds in acknowledgment of the merit of his “Battle of Waterloo.” In 1821, John Martin received two hundred pounds on account of his “Belshazzar’s Feast.” As to Martin, there is a story, originally told by himself, to the effect that he contributed a picture to the Royal Academy in 1812, and before sending it, and while washing his brushes in an adjoining room, had the pleasure of hearing the framemaker’s men dispute as to which was the top and which the bottom of the painting. This work is one of Martin’s finer productions, the poetical “Sadak in search of the Waters of Oblivion.”

In 1822, our painter likewise contributed “The watchful Sentinel” to the British Institution. This picture is in the possession of Mr. Chapman, of Manchester, and represents a large black dog watching packages by a road side; a post-chaise is in the distance.

There is an interesting passage in a letter by Wilkie to Sir George Beaumont, dated from No. 24, Lower Phillimore Place, 14th February, 1823; it throws a double light on the writer and our artist. The passage refers to what Sir David called a “niggling touch” in painting, as “very common of late in our pictures,” a defect, if such it was, that was due, no doubt, to over anxiety on the part of the artists, and to the desire “for fulness of subject,” whatever that may be. The writer stated: “I have been warning our friend Collins against this, and was also urging young Landseer to beware of it.” The fact was, Wilkie’s health, then breaking up, precluded that extreme care which distinguished his early and good pictures; moreover, his reputation was made, and he wanted to make money; this could not be done by “niggling,” so he aimed at breadth, as he called it, went abroad for health, came back over head and ears in asphaltum, and never painted a sound picture afterwards. Unfortunately, his better pictures, such as “The Blind Fiddler,” and “The Village Festival,” now in the National Gallery, have been repaired on account of excessive cracking.

Edwin Landseer’s early practice is thus curiously illustrated by Wilkie’s advice. At a later time, no one could caution the former against “niggling,” or enjoin cultivation of “breadth.” Nor was this required since the Highland subjects were taken up after the northern journey with Leslie in 1824; to the first of these we shall presently refer, under the title of “Highlanders returning from Deer-Stalking,” exhibited in 1827, the first contribution of the artist as an Associate of the Royal Academy.

“Neptune,” a picture of 1824, represents the head and shoulders of a huge Newfoundland dog, in full front view, with his mouth open and tongue shown; the head is black, with a white stripe dividing it, and having an oval spot of black on the white of the forehead; it is superbly designed, and treated in honour of the noble animal. It was painted for Mr. Ellis Gosling, and has been admirably engraved by the artist’s brother.

The best known of Edwin Landseer’s early pictures is “The Cat’s Paw,” which was exhibited at the British Institution in 1824, and now hangs in the dining-room at Cassiobury, the seat of the Earl of Essex. This work, which is painted on a panel, was bought of the artist for one hundred pounds, and sold a few days afterwards to the late Earl of Essex, a great patron of the arts, for one hundred and twenty pounds, and would probably be worth, if now sold, about three thousand pounds.

This was Sir Edwin’s estimate, made some years since, when, soon after the fever caused by Mr. Bicknell’s remarkably well-managed sale of pictures, the present Earl of Essex met the painter, and asked what he thought “The Cat’s Paw” would produce if it were sold. “About three thousand pounds,” was the answer. At the sale, which occurred in 1863, appeared illustrations of the increase in the value of Landseer’s pictures; thus “The Prize Calf,” which is by no means one of his best works, and for which he four years earlier received four hundred and twenty pounds, was resold for one thousand eight hundred and ninety pounds; “The Twa Dogs,” purchased for three hundred pounds, was sold for two thousand four hundred and fifteen pounds; “The Highland Shepherd,” exhibited in 1850, and bought for three hundred and fifty pounds, brought back again two thousand three hundred and forty-one pounds, ten shillings. As “The Cat’s Paw” now appears, it is hot and dark in tone, if compared with some silvery and more solid productions. It scarcely needs a description, yet we may point out how admirably the incident is told. The scene is a laundry, or ironing-room, probably in some great house, to which a monkey of most crafty and resolute disposition has access. The place is too neat and well-maintained to be part of a poor man’s house. The “ironing-woman” has left her work, the stove is in full combustion, and the hand of some one who appreciated the good things of life has deposited on its level top, together with a flat iron, half-a-dozen ripe sound chestnuts. To the aromatic, appetizing odour of the fruit was probably due the entrance of the monkey, a muscular, healthy beast, who came, dragging his chain, and making his bell rattle. He smelt the fruit and coveted them; tried to steal them off the cooking-place with his own long, lean digits, and burnt his fingers. He looked about for a more effective means and—heedless of the motherhood of a fine cat who, with her kittens, was ensconced in a clothes-basket, where she blandly enjoyed the coverings and the heat—pounced upon Puss, entangled as she was in the wrappings of her ease. Puss resisted at first with offended dignity and wrath at being thus treated before the faces of her offspring. She resisted as a cat only can, with lithe and strenuous limbs; the muscular, light, and vigorous frame of the creature quivered with the stress of her energy; she twisted, doubled her body, buckled herself, so to say, in convulsions of passion and fear, but still, surely, without a notion of the object of her captor. Yet he had by far the best of the struggle, for her tiger-like claws were enveloped in the covering which erst served her so comfortably; and, kicking, struggling, squalling, and squealing as strength departed from her, she flounced about the room, upset the coal-scuttle on the floor, and hurled her mistress’s favourite flower-pot in hideous confusion on the “ironing-blanket.” It was to no purpose, for the quadruped with muffled claws was no match for her four-handed foe. He dragged her towards the stove, and dreadful notions of a fate in its fiery bowels must have arisen in her heart, as nearer and still more near the master of the situation brought his victim. Stern, resolute, with no more mercy than the cat had when some unhappy mouse felt her claws—claws now to be deftly, yet painfully employed, Pug grasped her in three of his powerful hands, and, as reckless of struggles as of yells, squeals, and squalls, with the fourth stretched out her soft, sensitive, velvety fore-paw—the very mouse-slayer itself—to the burning stove and its spoils. What cared he for the bowed backs or the spiteful mewlings of her miserable offspring, little cats as they were? He made their mother a true “Cat’s Paw.”

This picture was engraved by C. G. Lewis. Shortly after its exhibition Sir Walter Scott came to London, and took the young painter to Abbotsford on his return, “where,” said

Leslie, recording the circumstance, “he will make himself very popular, both with master and mistress of the house, by sketching their doggies for them.” It was probably due to the vein of thought and fancy most cultivated by Scott, and sure to affect his young visitor, that Landseer after this painted Scotch subjects and romantic themes, such as he had not previously indulged in. “Chevy Chase” was commenced shortly afterwards, and exhibited with marked effect on young Landseer’s fortunes. Leslie had been with Sir Walter, taking his portrait, and found the novelist to “dislike sitting very much,” and to be fonder of dashing out of doors with the “doggies,” rabbit-killing, and landscape hunting. The incident referred to by the picture at the British Institution in 1858 (see the Catalogue) probably occurred at this time. Landseer’s first visit to the Highlands was made in 1824. Leslie and he went in the London and Leith steamer. They visited Glasgow, and Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, and crossed the mountains on foot to Loch Earn, in order to be present at an annual meeting of Highlanders, which occurred under the patronage of Lord Gwydyr, and included performances on bagpipes, dancing, broadsword exercise, and the like pastimes; the painters traversed Loch Earn in a large row-boat, with Highland rowers, who told them, says Leslie, in his “Autobiography,” stories of the fairies who haunted the shores. To this visit to Abbotsford was due the well-known “Scene at Abbotsford,” by Landseer, and from it he derived inspiration for Highland pictures. After this period he rarely failed to visit the north annually, and the catalogue of his works bears evidence of his studies there.

“Taking a Buck,” and “The Widow,” were Landseer’s contributions to the Royal Academy in 1825, with a portrait. “The Poacher” appeared in the same year at the British Institution. “The Hunting of Chevy Chase,” an important work, which has been repeatedly exhibited, was shown in the following season at the Academy. The affectionate deference paid by Edwin Landseer to his father at this time has been illustrated by the account of the difficulty he experienced in leaving the paternal roof. No one who knew the painter believes that he was likely to be weakly subservient to his father or any one else; or that in 1824, when in his twenty-second year, and already the possessor of a very considerable reputation, he was in any respect a timid recluse. Nevertheless, it is recorded that when one interested in bringing his pictures into note, called on the painter in the dingy studio he occupied in the Fitzroy Square region—it was, we believe, Upper Conway Street, now Southampton Street, Fitzroy Square, near where Mulready lodged in Cleveland Street—the visitor asked, “Why are you in this place, without a table, carpet, or proper chairs? why not have a place where you can keep a dog or two, and have a garden, and so on?” The answer was that the painter lived with his father, and occupied the place only to paint in. The offer of a hundred pounds for “The Cat’s Paw,” then just finished, a price satisfactory to the artist, did not induce him to conclude the bargain and set himself free from the paternal control. John Landseer managed his son’s affairs, settled the prices of his pictures, received the money, and treated Edwin in his twenty-second year as he had done when he was twelve years old. John Landseer did what Mr. Jacob Bell, many years afterwards, did for his friend, i.e. managed his affairs with zeal and discretion, and, perhaps, the father kept a tighter hold on the painter than the friend was able to maintain. This affectionate arrangement was proof against the second offer of one hundred pounds in a crisp bank-note for “The Cat’s Paw,” which thus came into the possession of the Earl of Essex, and not into that of the young artist’s friend. The same affection for his parent appeared in “Sketch of my Father,” 1848, the pathos of which was as simple as it was kindly. Of the same vein of feeling we find it recorded that in 1817 or 1818, the Landseers, in order to make a present to Haydon, when they were about to quit his tutelage, prepared a copy of one of the Cartoons which were at the British Institution; this copy—we are not certain if it was more than an important group—was a gift to Haydon. Sir Edwin bought and carefully preserved Haydon’s “Judgment of Solomon,” not only on account of the fineness of the picture, but, it is said, in kindly remembrance of his old adviser.