290 PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT. 



comparatively a few years, been represented in a situa- 

 tion in which they were never seen. This at once 

 accounts for the want of apparent motion in animals 

 drawn by old artists. 



What led them into this great error probably was 

 this: in order to see how a horse trotted, they had 

 him put into that pace at the rate of five or six miles 

 an hour in order to give the artist time to make his 

 observations. Having ascertained how the horse 

 went at six miles, they (with the exception of a little 

 elongating the stride of the two lifted legs) repre- 

 sented them going sixteen just in the same way : con- 

 sequently they looked as if they had hurt their two 

 toes, and were holding their legs up out of the way. 



Whether at this day horses at speed are really truly 

 drawn no one can or ever will be able to decide, 

 because their motions are so rapid that we never can 

 catch a sight of all their legs in any particular situa- 

 tion. It is fair, however, to suppose the artists of the 

 present day are pretty correct, because the pace, as 

 they now represent it, appears natural, and gives us 

 the idea of pace : right or wrong, therefore, it answers 

 every purpose we want. 



And here I must mention one as an artist who 

 never ranked high as a painter, but as a sketcher 

 ought not to pass unnoticed, for to his lively pencil 

 the arts, so far as sporting subjects are concerned, are 

 really very greatly indebted. I allude to Mr. Henry 

 Alken. Nearly all of our recognised animal painters of 

 modern date were and are most decidedly superior to 

 him as painters, but none in the spirit he infused into 

 his sketches of hunting and hunters. His pencillings 

 were all life, his horses and hounds were all going. 

 Why was this ? Alken knew how the thing should 



