Faulty Hunting Scenes. 117 



means toned down or their rude contrast moderated : 

 bright scarlet coats, bright white horses, harsh green 

 grass, prim dogs, stiff trees, human figures immov- 

 able in tight buckskins ; running water hard as glass, 

 the sky fixed, the ground all too small for the group- 

 ing, perspective painfully emphasized, so as to be 

 itself made visible ; the surface ever3'where ' painty ' 

 in brief, most of the possible faults compressed 

 together, and proudly fathered by the artist's name 

 in full. 



One representing a meet, and the other full cry, 

 the pack crossing a small river ; the meet still and 

 rigid, every horseman in his place not a bit jing- 

 ling, or a hoof pawing, or any thing in motion. Now 

 the beauty of the meet, as distinct from a drilled cav- 

 alry troop, is its animation : horses and riders moving 

 here and there, gathering together and spreading out 

 again, new-comers riding smartly up, in continuous 

 freshness of grouping, and constant relief to the eye. 

 The other in full cry all polished and smooth and 

 varnished as when they left the stable ; horses with 

 gloss} 1 - coats, riders upright and fatigueless, dogs 

 clean, and not a sign of poaching on the turf. The 

 dogs are coming out of the water with their tails up 

 and straight dogs as they trail their flanks out of 

 a brook alwaj's, in fact, droop their tails, while their 

 bodies look smaller and the curves project, because 

 the water la}"s the hair flat to the body till several 

 shakes send it out again. Not a" speck on a top- 

 boot, not a coat torn by a thorn, and the horses as 

 plump as if fresh from their mangers, instead of hav- 

 ing- worked it down. Not a fleck of foam ; the sun, 

 too, shining, and yet no shadow all glaring. And, 



