74 Sm EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. 



rally; and he never did entirely recover ground thus lost." These were the 

 "events" that "cast their shadow before," and which culminated in the last and 

 long -attack that secluded him from the world, and foreboded the end. 



"The dark hours of his life" — to quote again the writer just referred to — 

 " multiplied as he drew near its close. Nothing could rouse him from his depression. 

 Beset by a vision of his own funeral, he lay silent,' and tolerating no interruption, his 

 vital forces sinking under his too easy and long indulgences in images of terror and 

 mystery. His life, apparently so full and exuberant, so rich and so cheerful, was at 

 times a burden of fear and gloom." It is melancholy to know so much of the inner- 

 workings of a mind that had given to the world what had been, and will be for 

 generations to come, the intense delight of millions ; for. his thoughts, as embodied by 

 the art of the engraver, can never die, though, as imprinted on his canvases, they 

 may perish. 



Profoundly ignorant of all this as was the public generally, and as ignorant, also, 

 of the cause which had so long kept him in retirement, it was not without some 

 surprise to the many, and deep regret to all, when the daily papers of the 2nd of 

 October announced his death on the preceding day, at the age of seventy-one. There 

 was a universal feeling that the light of a great genius had passed away for ever, and 

 of sorrow that the hand which once held a pencil speaking a language all could 

 understand was cold and lifeless, and that henceforth the walls of the Academy would 

 never again be hung with works which, for nearly half a century, had drawn all 

 eyes to them. It is not too much to say that Sir Edwin Landseer was the most 

 popular painter England ever had, or is likely to have. No greater evidence of this 

 could be adduced than the mingled chorus of grief and laudation which broke forth 

 from the public press on all sides when the intelligence of his death was known. 



On the I ith of October the body of the dead painter was carried, with appropriate 

 solemnity, but denuded of all funereal pomp and ceremony, from the house he had 

 occupied at St. John's Wood for nearly fifty years, to St. Paul's Cathedral, and was there 

 deposited in a crypt in the south-east angle of the church, which may lay claim to the 

 title of the " artists' corner," for in that spot lie the " mortal remains" of a few whose 

 names are legibly written in the foremost annals of British art. Forty-five members 

 and Associates of the Academy, out of a total of sixty-three, were present to pay the 

 last tribute to him who had so long been one of them; while men, eminent in station, 

 in literature, &c., formed a portion of the multitude that had gathered within the pre- 

 cincts of the Cathedral on this mournful occasion. Nor was the public feeling outside 

 of the sacred edifice less demonstrative ; for the principal streets through which the 

 unpretentious procession passed were crowded with spectators, in the vast majority of 

 whom it was not difficult to note a feeling of deep sympathy with the melancholy occa- 

 sion which had caused tliem to assemble together. The Queen and the Prince of 



