578 The Dog Book 



and secondly that there is no possibility of two men ten years apart drawing 

 from life two dogs and making their work so absolutely similar as are these 

 two illustrations. The solution is to be found in England and is not within 

 our present possibilities, so we must leave the matter where it is. 



Mr. Wynn names Landseer's picture representing St. Bernards rescuing 

 a traveller from the snow, (which by the way was painted in 1819, when he 

 was seventeen years old,) as "Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Traveller." 

 We find that the original title, or the title by which it is recorded in "Cham- 

 bers's Encyclopaedia," was "Dogs of St. Gothard." He also painted a 

 good many dogs which were named St. Bernards and it is very clear that to 

 him the Alpine mastiff was a different dog; and it remains to be shown that 

 he ever saw of the latter more than the one dog, or drew more than the 

 one dog from life. 



Another reputed Alpine mastiff was L'Ami, exhibited in England in 

 1829, and said to have been brought from the Hospice; but that cannot have 

 been so, for the dog was cropped, something of which the monks were never 

 guilty. This dog was a light brindle, the ground colour being a light fawn, and 

 was smooth-coated. The very great probability is that L'Ami was simply a 

 Great Dane, and the name St. Bernard was used for catchpenny purposes, 

 for the dog was shown in several English cities as the largest dog in England. 



Landseer must have seen dogs similar to those he painted as dogs of St. 

 Gothard, but there is no evidence that we know of to show where they were. 

 He had not been away from his father's London home at that time, so far as 

 there is any record. The dogs he drew a little later for the illustrations of 

 Rogers's Italy were St. Bernards, and it is likely that W. R. Smith, the en- 

 graver, made use of these when he drew the St. Bernard used to illustrate 

 Jesse's "Anecdotes," 1846 edition. A much more reliable illustration is that 

 of the St. Bernard, Bass, from Colonel Hamilton Smith's two volumes on 

 the dog families, which form part of Sir Wm. Jardine's "Natural History" 

 (1839). Sir Thomas Dick Lauder got this dog when a puppy direct from 

 the Hospice, and it was a true St. Bernard of the type the monks had been 

 breeding for, as shown by old Barry. 



An early illustration of the two types of St. Bernard is that of the pair 

 owned by Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, and it is singular that 

 there is no reference to this early introduction of the breed by such promi- 

 nent owners. We seem to have "wiped the eye" of English writers in this 

 instance at least. We place the painting at 1840 for want of a more exact 



