SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. 7 1 



1862 and 1863 included no works from his easel. 

 Happily he recovered — as letters quoted on pre- 

 vious pages indicate — and in 1865, on Sir Charles 

 Eastlake's death, he was offered the president's 

 chair of the Royal Academy. This well deserved 

 distinction, however, Landseer declined, feeling 

 doubtless that his health was unequal to the duties 

 of the office. In 1868, a railway accident, in which 

 he sustained some slight physical injury, shook his 

 delicately organised nervous system, and though 

 he recovered and gave the world a few more pic- 

 tures worthy of his reputation, a relapse followed, 

 and during the closing years of his life he practically 

 withdrew from society. He died on ist October, 

 1873, and was buried with public honours in St. 

 Paul's ten days later. 



Lord Tankerville has been kind enough to give 

 me the following personal sketch of Sir Edwin 

 Landseer : 



" Some of the happiest days of my deer-stalking times 

 were spent with him in Glenfishie and the Blackmount, and 

 we knew pretty nearly every bunch of heather in Perthshire 

 and Argyllshire. He was a delightful companion ; so full of 

 enthusiasm for scenery and sport, and with his natural 

 humour and power of description we enjoyed over again all 

 the events of the day. As an actor, with his powers of 

 mimicry of voice and even of face, he was unsurpassed ; even 

 Charles Mathews, who was one of our party at Glenfishie, 

 was sometimes in the background. In his description of his 

 day's stalking, or at another time of some debate in Parlia- 



