6i2 ikinas of tbe 1Rofc, TCffle, anb Gun 



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, held under the patronage of Lord 

 Gwydyr, which included performances on the bag-pipes, 

 dancing, broadsword exercise, and the like Gaelic 

 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. 



They also visited Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, and 

 to that visit was due the well-known " Scene at 

 Abbotsford," by Landseer, whilst from it he derived 

 inspiration for many other 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. 



I think that Landseer was first inoculated with a 

 taste for sport by that enthusiastic sportsman William 

 Scrope, whose constant companion he was in the grand 

 deer-forest of Atholl, and whose works he enriched 

 with many spirited illustrations of adventures with 

 gun and rifle. Under Scrope's mentorship he learned 

 to handle the rifle and rod with dexterity, and ob- 

 tained a fair mastery of the arts of deer-stalking and 

 salmon-fishing. 



But though Landseer was duly made a freeman of 

 the guild of sport, and could paint hounds, deer, fish, 

 ptarmigan, grouse, otters, hares, rabbits, as no one 

 has ever painted them before or since, he was never 



