THE END 75 



Wales were both represented ; and among the wreaths placed on the coffin, ere it was 

 lowered into the vault, was one from the former inscribed by Her Majesty's own hand. 

 And so Sir Edwin Landseer passed to his final resting-place. 



This volume is a tribute, unworthy as it may prove, to his art ; and therefore 

 of himself personally but little is recorded here. It has been said that there is 

 scarcely one of his principal pictures which has not some incident or story connected 

 with it, and that suggested the work : these may probably be narrated by some 

 future biographer. There is no doubt, when one considers the society wherein the 

 artist was accustomed to move for many years past, — no painter, of our own time at 

 least, was so much flattered and noticed by rank, fashion, and wealth, the peculiar 

 associations arising out of his art, and his social and amiable disposition, — that a book 

 of most interesting and entertaining anecdote might be put together. But the admira- 

 tion he extorted as an artist never spoiled the man: "he drew to him," wrote the 

 Times, "all who came within the range of his influence, man and animal alike, by a 

 personal charm of the strongest and most prevailing kind. A. more lovable, likable 

 man has seldom gathered so closely to him so wide a circle of friends and acquaint- 

 ance. Though fashion took tithe of his genius, and required sacrifices of time and 

 talents which might have been devoted to higher and better work, he remained 

 unworldly as he was amiable." The distinctive attention paid to him had, however, 

 its drawback; for it rendered him, though entirely free from vanity, painfully sen- 

 sitive to anything which seemed like neglect, and to unfavourable criticism of his 

 works : unkindness and the absence of cordiality, where one or both opposites might 

 be reasonably expected of friends, were the skeletons in his home. 



Landseer was never married : his two sisters, both of whom followed him to the 

 grave, resided with him till one of them married Mr. Mackenzie ; the other remained 

 at the house in St. John's Wood to superintend her brother's household. 



Of the character of his works generally, little need be said; they speak for 

 themselves : but one thing may be stated almost with certainty, and it is this ; that 

 if engravings from two or three of his pictures, which directly point out the noble 

 qualities of the domestic animals, were hung in every dwelling of man throughout the 

 kingdom, there would be but little need of such a society as that for the " Suppression 

 of Cruelty to Animals," so powerful is the appeal they make to the best feelings of 

 human nature. Landseer has elevated the art of animal-painting by elevating the 

 creature delineated on his canvas. It has been said that he " paints the dog as if he 

 was its father; paints it chidingly, correctingly, upbraidingly, sympathisingly, and 

 playfully." He must have studied its mental characteristics— and let no one say dogs 

 have not minds ; that is, something more than mere natural instincts— just as closely 

 as he studied the anatomy of their frame and the texture of their skin. He is the poet- 



