ROFAL SPORTS ON HILL AND LOCH. 43 



'go away, come on Thursday at two o'clock.' At the appointed time the ' Sleeping 

 Bloodhound ' was a finished picture." * Several versions of this incident have been 

 made public, but the main facts are as here related. 



To paint the portrait of a dog not " in character" would be almost the last thing 

 one would expect to see from the pencil of Landseer; and "Countess" is not the 

 poor lifeless animal which met an untimely death, and was laid down in the painter's 

 atelier that he might make a post-mortem study of her. She is a magnificent specimen 

 of animated canine flesh and blood, a "retainer" in some lordly mansion of old. 

 She is said to be asleep, but she has an eye more than half open, and is keeping good 

 watch and ward against any intruder. Her ears, too, are on the listen, as if she 

 heard the approach of some familiar footstep — possibly that of her master. With 

 the skill of a true master, the painter has given marvellous power to the subject by 

 his management of light and shade. 



In 1854 he exhibited but two pictures at the Academy. One, a large canvas, he 

 called " Royal Sports on Hill and Loch : the Queen, the Prince Consort, the Prince of 

 Wales, and the Viscountess Jocelyn." Landseer was not unfrequently honoured by 

 being the guest of the royal party when visiting Scotland, and he sometimes accompanied 

 the Prince Consort on his sporting expeditions. It is probable that on one of these 

 occasions he sketched this scene, or, at least, collected the materials for it. When 

 exhibited, the picture was labelled " unfinished." " Such a notice," wrote a critic at 

 the time, — I did not chance to see the work, — " under certain circumstances might be 

 a 7ioli me tangere ; but in the present case, if it be sufficiently advanced for exhibition, 

 it is so for criticism. The errors we observe in the work seem to us to arise from its 

 having been wrought too near the eye ; that is. In a space too limited to admit of such 

 a focus as would enable the eye to collect the entire composition. The Prince is 

 handing the Queen out of a boat ; and, behind her Majesty, Lady Jocelyn stands in 

 the boat, which is steadied by four stalwart lochsmen. On the right, the Prince of 

 Wales Is dismounting from his grey pony, assisted by a figure, on the other side of the 

 animal, so disproportionately large as to reduce the prince to dimensions unduly 

 diminutive. This must assuredly be altered. In the base of the picture lies its 

 power ; the game and fish, the result of the day's sport, consisting of trout, buck, roe, 

 and birds, which, with the dogs, pony, and all the accessories, are incomparably fine. 

 The portrait of the Queen Is unfinished, and that of Lady Jocelyn may be improved : 

 that of her Majesty Is certainly at present by no means agreeable. Notwithstanding 

 the many upright lines In the picture, it has an obtrusive parallelism ; first in the near 

 dispositions, then in the margin of the lakes, and, again, in the line of the hills ; and, 

 with respect to colour, the upper section Is altogether too ' foxy '—it is the least 



* Anecdote recorded by Mr. Bell, the testator. 



