42 Sm EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. 



artist intended to convey? Then, too, there is the ignoble presence of a prowling fox 

 stealthily approaching; it has "sniffed the battle from afar," and comes to feast on 

 the bodies of the dead. The scene is one of impressive solemnity, though its leading 

 features only represent the beasts that perish ; but there is an aipplication of the moral 

 taught by these two pictures which it is impossible not to note; and it is, that 

 if pride and ambition, anger and wrath, strife and bitterness, prevail in the brute 

 world, these tendencies to evil are no less characteristics of all who have been set 

 over the beasts of the field, and were made in the likeness of their Creator. Hence the 

 earth, almost from its foundation, has been filled with mourning, and men have gained 

 an immortality of fame, not so much by the good they have done, as by the injuries they 

 have inflicted upon their fellows. And so the painter of a deer-fight becomes a great 

 moral teacher, if only he be interpreted rightly, and his lessons are profitably read. 

 These two pictures were painted for the late Lord Hardinge. They have been 

 engraved by Mr. T. Landseer. 



" Children of the Mist," the third work exhibited in the same year, represents a 

 group of deer on a mountain-top, enveloped in the mist so common in such regions : 

 it is an original and striking picture. "Twins" was the title given to the fourth 

 subject, two young lambkins lying by the side of their mother, a fine black-faced ewe, 

 on a verdant shelf of the mountain-side. A couple of collie-dogs are their companions, 

 but keeping at a respectful distance. Both dogs and sheep have all the truth and 

 power of the artist, though some portions of the work look thin in colour. 



In that year a few capital pictures belonging to the late Duchess of Bedford were 

 sold by auction at her grace's residence in Kensington. They included the following 

 examples of Landseer: — "The Hermit," which sold for loo guineas; "A River 

 View in Scotland," 198 guineas; "The Three Dogs," 225 guineas; "The Highland 

 Cabin," 770 guineas; and "Dead Game," for which the late Mr. Agnew, of 

 Manchester, gave the enormous sum of 1,200 guineas, though it is a small work. 

 I can find no record of the date of these pictures, nor if they ever were exhibited ; 

 at least under these titles. It is most probable they were painted expressly for the 

 duchess, with whom Landseer was on terms of friendship. 



" The Sleeping Bloodhound," of which an engraving is here introduced, was 

 exhibited at the British Institution in 1835, and is now in the National Gallery, being 

 one of the pictures bequeathed to the nation by the late Mr. Jacob Bell. In the- 

 catalogue of the collection it is thus referred to : — 



" 'Countess,' the hound here represented, sleeping on the top of a balustrade at 

 Wandsworth, one Sunday evening, overbalanced herself, fell a height of twenty-three 

 feet, and died on the same evening. On the next morning she was carried to St.. John's 

 Wood in the hope that Sir E. Landseer would make a sketch of her as a reminiscence 

 of an old favourite. ' This is an opportunity not to be lost,' said the painter ; 



