220 NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



cerns me to speak. At one end of it is a splendid full-length 

 portrait of a German gamekeeper, in the service of the late Lord 

 Kintore, and his grey pony, with the panniers, which struck me 

 as being the best representation of real life that I had ever before 

 seen on canvas. It is from the pencil of a celebrated artist whose 

 name I cannot recollect, and he had a fine subject for it in this 

 athletic German. Over the fire-place is the meeting of Lord 

 Kintore's fox-hounds, by Ferneley, of Melton Mowbray, a picture 

 of great dimensions, in which the likeness of his lordship and 

 his friends is admirably preserved throughout. Over the side- 

 board are two pictures of equally large dimensions, representing 

 the meetings of the Duke of Buccleuch, and the Fife fox-hounds, 

 in each of which the leading characters of the respective hunts 

 are painted to the very life, especially Mr. Campbell, of Saddel, 

 Sir David Baird, and Williamson, the huntsman, in the former. 

 They are from the pencil of Mr. Francis Grant, and not merely 

 do they reflect the highest credit upon him as an artist, but 

 show, as indeed that of Mr. Ferneley shows, how necessary it is 

 that a painter should be intimately acquainted with the dis- 

 tinguishing features of the subjects on which he exercises his 

 art. Everything in these pictures is in proper keeping ; and 

 how could it be otherwise ? Mr. Ferneley lives in the metropolis 

 of fox-hunting, and Mr. Grant has hunted with most of the best 

 packs in Great Britain. The picture he has lately painted for 

 Lord Chesterfield, of the meeting of the King's stag-hounds, 

 must be considered the chef d'oenvre of modern days in that 

 line. The figures are most admirably grouped, and include 

 about a dozen of the principal noblemen and gentlemen who 

 attend his Majesty's hunt, with Davies, the huntsman, in the 

 midst of them, absolutely starting from the canvas. 



Knowing that Lord Brougham had been visiting at Keith Hall 

 in the autumn, I had the curiosity to ask Lord Kintore, whether 

 his lordship had made any remark on either of these pictures, 

 which could not but have attracted his notice, by reason of their 

 vast dimensions to say nothing of -the striking likeness of his 

 host, which must have faced him as he sat at dinner ; he told 

 me he had not alluded to them in any way, which I must say, 

 surprised me ; and I was naturally led to moralize upon the fact. 

 " Parva sunt hsec," muttered I to myself, in the words of one 

 great man, " sed parva ista non contemaenda ; majores nostri, 

 maximas has res fecerunt." But how much less than little, 

 thought I, must such things appear in the eyes of another 

 perhaps still greater man ! 



" I suppose," said an intimate friend of Lord Kintore's to me 

 at Edinburgh, " you are aware of the manner in which you will 



