Xanfceccr anfc /HMllats 615 



carried to an extreme only paralleled by Mr. Stacey 

 Marks's wonderful birds. Mr. Marks invests his 

 penguins, storks, and puffins with a humour which 

 is purposely human, because he makes them the 

 vehicle for his delicate satire. But I think that 

 Landseer was unable to paint a dog without putting 

 a human expression into its face, even when he had 

 no such deliberate intention, and to a true lover ot 

 dogs for their own sake this habit of his detracts from 

 the fidelity of his canine portaits. But who has ever 

 painted a dog's coat as Landseer has done ? The 

 minute exactness of every hair is marvellous. Take, 

 for example, his spaniels in " Spaniels of King Charles's 

 Breed " and " Spaniel and Rabbit " every glossy curl is 

 perfect. Of the first of these pictures, now in the 

 Vernon Collection, bequeathed to the National Gallery, 

 Mr. F. G. Stephens, in his Life of Landseer, gives the 

 following interesting particulars : 



" The dogs were pets of Mr. Vernon's, and the sketch 

 was made in his house, as a commission to Landseer, 

 but, after a short sitting, not continued for some time. 

 One day Mr. Vernon met the artist in the street, and 

 reminded him of the commission. Two days later the 

 work as it now appears was delivered at Mr. Vernon's 

 house, although it was not begun when the meeting 

 happened. It is due to not more than two days' 

 labour, and is a triumph in brush-working, showing as 

 much facility as the ancient fresco painters exhibited 

 when they dealt with and completed an important head 

 of a man in one day." 



Equally extraordinary are the subjoined instances 



