CHEVF CHACE. 



period dates the series of pictures associated with that portion of the kingdom. Here 

 he soon found admirers and friends in many of the nobles and country-gentlemen whose 

 estates supplied him with subjects for his pencil in the mountains and glens tenanted 

 by deer-herds. The first of these works was " The Hunting of Chevy Chace." It was 

 exhibited at the Academy in 1826; the catalogue showed it to have been suggested 

 by a verse of the old ballad Chevy Chace : — 



" To drive the deere with hound and home, 

 Erie Percy took his way ; 

 The chiefest harts in Chevy Chace, 

 To kill and beare away." 



This picture, which hangs at Woburn Abbey, the seat of the Duke of Bedford, gained 

 for its painter admission Into the ranks of Associates of the Royal Academy at the 

 earliest age, twenty-four, when, by the laws of the institution, a candidate for honours 

 can be admitted. In the duke's collection is also " Stags in the Park at Woburn." 



It is not without Interest to look back to the list of artists who at that period 

 formed the academical body, only one of whom, Mr. H. W. Pickersgill, survives to 

 remember the election of Landseer. Among these were not a few of whom we 

 now hear little or nothing, and whose works have left scarcely any Impression on the 

 art of the country ; but in the number of Academicians were Beechey, Callcott, Chantrey, 

 Collins, the brothers Danlell, Flaxman, Hilton, Jackson, Lawrence — the President 

 — Leslie, Mulready, Northcote, H. W. Pickersgill, Shee, R. Smirke, Stothard. 

 Soane, Turner, Wilkie, James Ward, Westmacott ; and among the Associates were 

 Washington AUston, Constable, Etty, Danby, W. Allan, and Briggs. These were the 

 men — painters, sculptors, and architects— who, nearly half a century ago, were the 

 leaders of the British School of Art In their respective departments. 



