SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. 69 



Smith, of Croydon Lodge, a near connection of the 

 Gilbey family. Mr. Newman Smith by his will 

 left the work to the Nation : it now hangs in the 

 National Gallery. " Roebuck and Rough Hounds," 

 exhibited in 1840 at the British Institution, appeals 

 more directly to sportsmen than to the general 

 public. The art critic of the New Sporting Maga- 

 zine thus eulogises the painting : 



" O ! what skins ! the picture would charm a furrier ! The 

 hounds licking the wound in the neck — the wound itself — the 

 quiet shaggy dogs in front — the death ful roebuck — and the 

 solemn terrier forming the black and back ground — are some- 

 thing more like an oil improvement upon the art of trans- 

 ferring Nature to canvas, as it had been done through light 

 to paper, than the common working of the imagination, the 

 hand and the brush ! " 



This picture also is at South Kensington. 



Inept or hostile criticism, Landseer could not 

 tolerate in his later years, when indifferent health 

 rendered him more than normally sensitive. 

 Writing in 1866 to Mr. Hills, he refers, doubtless 

 with some individual critic in his mind, to men 

 " who through fearful ignorance perpetrate most 

 disgraceful cruelty to deserving and patient origi- 

 nality of mind." From this we may fairly infer 

 that depreciation of his work was a source of real 

 mental suffering to him. 



"The Sanctuary," a grand stag emerging from 

 the water on a reedy shore, exhibited in 1S42, 



