4 6 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. 



was brought to the hammer, and the black pair decreased in value, Messrs. H. Graves 

 and Co. securing it for the price of 590 guineas. The picture subsequently passed into 

 the hands of Mr. Frederic Somes, of Loughton, Essex, whose collection was sold in 

 1867 : " Uncle Tom and his Wife" now rose prodigiously in favour, for the purchaser, 

 Mr. Harter, wa.s compelled to offer the enormous sum of 1,010 guineas ere he could 

 secure it. 



There seems to be in all civilised countries such a natural sympathy between man 

 and the tribes of domestic animals, that a bond of union — oftentimes of affection — draws 

 them towards each other; the one rendering duty and obedience in return for the 

 fostering care and attention of the other ; and thus a feeling of mutual regard exists 

 between them, which in the case of the superior animal, man, is carried heartily and 

 sincerely into everything that directs his mind towards the inferior. 



Dogs, especially of the larger kinds, show a love towards children which is often 

 most marvellous, and as if the animals were their natural protectors. It is very rarely a 

 dog will retaliate upon a child, however roughly he may be treated ; but let a grown-up 

 person, even though he be the owner of the animal, attempt the same experiments, and 

 the chances are that he will suffer for his imprudence. The dog is not only the friend 

 of the child, but his companion and playmate ; and nothing can be more pleasing 

 and amusing to witness than the perfect understanding and good faith each exhibits 

 towards the other. 



Landseer's "The Friends" — an early picture, engraved here — represents a little 

 incident which is very likely to have occurred between such companions. The scene 

 almost explains itself: the boy's boat has been blown into the water out of reach, the 

 dog has regained it, and now stands with it in his mouth before the child, and gazes at 

 him with a self-satisfied look. The boy's countenance indicates surprise more than 

 anything else, as if the dog had never before accomplished such a feat. 



" The Maid and the Magpie," exhibited by Landseer in 1858, was bequeathed to the 

 nation by Mr. Jacob Bell, and is now in the National Gallery. It is a large picture, of 

 which the subject is borrowed from a trial that took place many years ago in France ; 

 wherein a young girl, servant to a farmer, was tried on a charge of robbing her master 

 of certain valuables, some spoons being among them. The innocence of the girl was 

 however proved by the discovery that a magpie belonging to the farmer had carried 

 away and hidden the lost property. The exact incidents, of the case I have forgotten, 

 but the groundwork of it is as narrated. Landseer's composition shows a kind of shed 

 in a farmyard, in which a pretty rustic girl is milking a cow ; a young man stands 

 behind her, who is, doubtless, offering her some compliments, to which she pays more 

 attention than to her business. But the point of the subject lies in a pair of sabots in 

 the immediate foreground, in which are a basin and a spoon ; the latter object a 

 magpie is in the act of appropriating to itself, unobserved by the milkmaid and her 



