380 Ser Edwin Landseer’s Lions. 
Before concluding, I should like to ask if any philoso- 
phical or other reason, has been found out wherefore some 
few fresh-water fish will do well in sea water, whilst the 
greater number, I believe, perish almost instantaneously, 
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER’S LIONS. 
IR Edwin Landseer’s animals, so long anticipated, so 
tediously but so unavoidably detained for years, the 
joke and jeer of every one who doubted their coming at 
all, have at last silenced jokes of the dullest, puns of the 
stalest description, and, as our Transatlantic brethren 
would say, rendered sceptical anticipation “tarnation 
small.” 
Sir Edwin Landseer, like men holding that position in 
art he inevitably does, has evoked and still continues to 
call forth that criticism upon so stupendous a work from 
so skilful a master. 
England can boast more public statues than any city in 
the world; what, however, we possess in quantity, we are 
deficient in taste. Our monumental adornments are recog- 
nizable as merely transcrips from Nature in bronze or 
marble; and we naturally wonder where the secret of that 
beauty and grandeur which delights the educated eye of 
taste rests in the glorious triumphs in the noble imagery of 
the middle ages, in the triumphal arts to be found in the 
Parthenon, in Nineveh, and in Egypt. 
In reference, however, to the statues before us, it is im- 
possible to deny that Sir Edwin Landseer, as a painter, 
possessed a knowledge of the brute form unequalled by 
any painter, either ancient or modern. This is an unre- 
served statement, and is naturally a bold assertion. Land- 
seer has been pre-eminently successful in the subjects 
before us, and has more than satisfied the anticipations of 
the public by his truly naturalistic design. There is no 
conventionality in the beasts, but a perfect freedom from. 
adaptation. Whatever of artistic beauty is to be found in 
such monumental remains as the granite lion of the time 
of King Amenophis III. in the British Museum, in the 
R®man traditional wolf, in the magnificent animals which 
support the Siena Pulpit, or in the Florentine boar, or the 
beauty of the horses of the sun both at Naples and Turin, 
