CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FI^fE ARTS LIBRARY Cornell Unlvenlty Library ND 497.L25M2S 1902 Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., 3 1924 014 877 645 «■. Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014877645 The Makers of British Art Edited bv JAMES A. MANSON Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This Series, in superior leather bindings, may be had on application to the Publishers, TO RICHARD TAYLOR, A GREAT MASTER OF THE VANISHED ART OF WOOD-ENGRAVING, AND ONE OF THE BEST OF FRIENDS. Preface. It is much to be regretted that no standard biography of Sir Edwin Landseer has ever been published. This surprising neglect borders on the mysterious, for his name is still a household word, and no pictures could be more popular with English-speaking communities than the class of subjects which he made peculiarly his own, and which he painted in such a masterly fashion. The study of his career and experiences, as well as the analysis and illustration of his character and genius, could not fail to have formed a record of unique and enduring interest. Probably it is not now possible to gather the materials for an adequate and sympathetic "Life." If this be really the fact, then we are con- fronted with the paradox that the personality of one of the greatest and most characteristic painters of the British School of Art, who flourished throughout the first half of Queen Victoria's epoch-making reign, has already become as vague and shadowy as the ghost of Hamlet's father. ' Sir Edwin Landseer In the comparative scarcity of purely biographical matter, therefore, I have made a virtue of necessity, and dealt with his pictures as nearly as possible in chrono- ; logical order, instead of treating them in the mass, so to speak, as a thing apart. This plan is not without obvious advantages, for of Landseer it was certainly true that the story of his art-work is the story of his life. Even so, my task was simplified and the way pre- pared for me by the zeal and devotion of Mr, Algernon;! Graves, who brought to the compilation of his Cata- logue of Landseer's works an unrivalled expert know- ledge which has been invaluable to me. Mr. Graves was so kind as to permit me to make a reasonable use of his book, and I hope I have not abused either a cherished privilege or his courtesy. Nor does my obligation to Mr. Graves end here, for, in spite of serious illness, he read all the proofs, and I am sure that the book has benefited greatly by his revisions and the several suggestions which he very consider- ately offered. It seems scarcely necessary to add that he is in no sense responsible for my opinions and criticism. In the Appendix will be found a list of the authorities which I have consulted in connection with this book. I believe I have given in the text every writer the credit Preface which was her or his due, but if I have been guilty of any oversight in this regard, I trust to be forgiven for the unintentional lapse. Several of .Landseer's friends and admirers have assisted me with a cordiality and readiness for which I cannot be too grateful. Especially must I thank Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., for the extremely kindly interest which he has manifested from the day I first saw him until the end of my task. To another of Sir Edwin's old comrades, Mr. Frederick Goodall, R.A., I am indebted for several appropriate reminiscences, which he was so good as to communicate verbally. My hearty acknow- ledgments are also due to the Lady Louisa Wells, Lady George Hamilton, the Earl of Wemyss, Lord Cheyles- more, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Mr. Yeend King, R.L, and Mr. William Roberts, for help and suggestion most generously rendered. I had expected that Mr. T. Sidney Cooper, R.A., a colleague and co-worker in the same field of art, would have been able to afford exceptional aid, but I was disappointed to be told that he had not pre- served his Landseerian letters and memoranda. The Duke of Wellington and Lord Rosebery were so good as to allow me to see their Landseers, and Lord Cheylesmore was at very particular pains to be of use to me in this respect. His Lordship's collection of Thomas Land- seer's " touched proofs " is of course unique, and of ix Sir Edwin Landseer altogether singular interest and value. Nor should I omit to thank most warmly my friends Mr. Emery Walker and Mr. Sydney Cockerell for the great care bestowed upon the preparation of the plates, with results that speak for themselves. Excepting the frontispiece, the plates have all been arranged chronologically. With a view to convenience of consulting them, however, and also to avoid bringing them in some cases too closely together, they have been distributed at equal intervals throughout the volume. But a note of the page on which each is mentioned is appended to the inscription in every instance. For information of a practical and useful kind refer- ence should be made to the Appendix, where have been placed, amongst other things, the lists of the pictures in the London galleries, of the paintings mentioned in this book, and of the prices which many works have fetched from time to time at the historical house of Christie's. J. A. M. The Savage Club, May Day, igos. Contents. CHAPTER I. ANIMALS IN ART. rAGB Sketches by Cave Men — Sphinxes of Egypt and Bulls of Assyria — The Elgin Marbles — Goths and Vandals — The Dark Ages — The Renaissance — Animals on canvas — Stories of the Ancients — The Flemish and Dutch Schools — Snyders — Cuyp — Wouver- mans — Berchem — Paul Potter — Henriette Ronner — German School — Riedinger — French School — Desportes — Oudry — Horace Vernet — Decamps — Rosa Bonheur — Constant Troyon — British School — Hogarth — Gainsborough — Morland — James Ward — Animal-painters of the nineteenth century — Landseer's example, and what came of it - - - i CHAPTER H. JOHN LANDSEER, ENGRAVER TO THE KING. Where and when was he born? — Halcyon days for engravers — Print-publishers' rivalry — Miss Potts — Macklin's Family Picture— Married— Boycotted by the R.A.— A legitimate grievance — Lectures on the Art of Engraving— Not to be daunted — Becomes Associate Engraver — ^At the Surrey Institu- . tion— Babylonian books — Engraver to the King — Thinking ak)ud — Death — His children — Thomas — Charles — Four daughters Sir Edwin Landseer CHAPTER III. BIRTH AND APPRENTICESHIP. [1802-16.] PAGE Birth— Foley Street— Edwin's precocity— His earliest drawings- Under his father's tuition— His "first studio"— The Screen at South Kensington— The model disturbed— Cross's Menagerie at Exeter 'Change— At the Tower— Lion drawings— Truant- Holidays in Essex— Complete self-confidence— " French Hog and "British Boar"— Wins the Isis Medal of the Society of Arts— First pictures at the Royal Academy— Was he a pupil of Haydon's? — Haydon's doctrines — Enters the Royal Academy Schools— Fuseli's " Curly-headed dog-boy "—Model to C. R. Leslie— His record as an Exhibitor— At the Royal Academy— At the British Institution— At other Galleries- End of his apprenticeship 21 CHAPTER IV. A.R.A. [1817-26.] " Lion," an Alpine mastiff — Tracked to its home — The dogs of Saint Bernard— " Fighting Dogs Getting Wind" — Equal to Snyders — "White Horse in a Stable" — Lost for twenty-four years—" The Intruder"—" The Braggart " — "Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller " — Contemporary criticism — Log-rolling — A father's protest — Backgrounds — "The Bull and the Frog" — Dissects a lion — Leonine subjects — Drawings for John Landseer's Essay on the Carnivora — " Rat-Catchers " — " Tapageur "— " To-Ho "— " The Larder Invaded"— A prize picture — Haydon's dishonoured cheque — "The Twa Dogs " — The Upper Ten — Fertility and resource — " The Cat's Paw" — Landseer's own house — "The Angler's Guard" — " Sancho Panza and Dapple "— " Who's to have the Stick ? " —"The Dog-Fox"— First visit to Scotland— Sir Walter Scott —Highland scenery— " The Widow "—" Chevy Chace"— " The Dog and the Shadow" — Anecdotes — Sydney Smith — Elected Associate of the Royal Academy - 38 Contents CHAPTER V. R.A. [1827-31.] PACE Landseer's hobbies — Deer-stalking — In the social circle — Nodes Ambrosiance — Simplicity of a child — His men of affairs — A lavish giver — Aye sketching — Cheque to bearer — " The Deer- stalkers' Return " — His broader manner — "All that Remains of the Glory of William Smith"— John Pye's Story— " The Monkey who has seen the World" — Illustrations for books and magazines—" High Life "— " Low Life "— " The Fireside Party"— "The Death of the Stag in Glen Tilt "—Defects of its qualities— " The Highland Whisky Still "—" Highland Music " — Elected R.A. — Diploma pictures — " The Faithful Hound" 60 CHAPTER VI. THE GOLDEN PRIME. [1831-40.] Dexterity— Wells of Redleaf— The Scribblers' Book— Sir Walter Scott — Plebeian and patrician — "Jack in 0£Sce" — "High- land Breakfast" — Mr. Sheepshanks — Highland scenes — "The Naughty Boy "— " Suspense "— " The Sleeping Bloodhound " —Mr. Jacob Bell— Signs of the times— "Comical Dogs"— The best of mimics — " The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner " — " A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society" — "There's Life in the Old Dog yet " — " None but the Brave Deserve the Fair" — C^ueer criticism — ^Visitor at the R.A. Schools — "Dignity and Impudence" — "Tethered Rams" — Illness— " Laying Down the Law " - - - - 72 CHAPTER VII. ROYAL FAVOUR. The Queen's regard — Lessons in etching — Royal babies — Fancy balls at the Palace— A guest at Balmoral — The Queen and the Sir Edwin Landseer artist — The influence of it all — Landseer in society — The Prince Consort — The pig-dealer's dilemma — Landseer's hyper- sensitiveness — Knighted — The Landseer Album compiled for her Majesty .... . 103 CHAPTER VIII. A GLORIOUS AFTERMATH. [1842-50.] Dog and stag — Lord Wemyss on landscape effects — " The Sanctuary " — Pathetic pictures — " Marmosets " — " My Wife " — Wall frescoes that perished — Rat and dog fight — "The Rout of Comus " — " The Otter Speared " — " Did you order a lion, sir? "— " Shoeing the Bay Mare "— Ruskin's lecture— "The Challenge "—Robert Vernon— " The Lady with the Spaniels " — " The Cavalier's Pets " — Lightning drawings — Billiards— "Peace" — "War"— "Van Amburgh and his Animals"— The Iron Duke— "The Random Shot," and other deer pictures— "A Dialogue at Waterloo "—" The Lost Sheep" - • - . 116 CHAPTER IX. GOLD MEDALLIST. [1850-57.] ■ Strange scene at a dinner-party— Dickens disguised— With D'Orsay at Madame Tussaud's- Election of Sir Charles Eastlake to the Presidency of the Royal Academy-Legislators in a temper ;7-ru ?,'^°T*,°'^"^^ Glen"— "Oberon and Titania'^— h M-^»^' P?^=-" .Night "-"Morning "-"Children of ^^,i^»f ^T I^^. Twms "-Landseer is awarded the great GoldMedal at Paris-" Saved "-" Uncle Tom and his Wife S' I ^^'«.'~r^"^'"""-"®'°ws'°g "-William Wells of xlolme Wood - - 141 XIV Contents CHAPTER X. ST. Paul's. [1858-73-] PAGE Failing sight — Mental distress — "The Maid and the Magpie"— Jacob Bell's munificence — " Flood in the Highlands " — Pen portrait of Landseer at work — The " Forest " Series — " An Event in the Forest " — " Man Proposes, God Disposes " — "A Piper and Pair of Nutcrackers "—" Well-bred Sitters that never say they are Bored " — E. J. Coleman — The running deer — " The Connoisseurs " — " Prosperity" and " Adversity" —Elected P. R. A. —Modelling of "The Stag at Bay"— The Lions in Trafalgar Square — Chillingham Cattle — 111 again — Last great picture — Final works — De Profundis — Death — Burial — Memorial Sermon — Monument in the Crypt of St. Paul's - - - - 153 CHAPTER XI. THE MAN. Appearance — Character — Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Disposition — Of whom was he jealous? — The charge of meanness — Hdbituls of his studio — His way with animals — What he thought of the stag — A bachelor — Rosa Bonheur — Industry — Copying — Forgery — False attributions — Translation — Delight- fiil pictures to live vrith — The Sir Walter Scott of the animal world - - - 17s Appendix I. — The Royal Academy 191 II. — Authorities Consulted - 193 III. — Landseers in London Galleries - - 196 IV. — Landseers in the Auction-Room - 200 V. — Portraits of Landseer - 206 VI. — Landseers named in this Book - 207 Index - ■ - 213 List of Illustrations. "The Connoisseurs" (p. 163) "The Larder Invaded" (p. 46) . "The Cat's Paw" (p. 51) . " A Jack in Office " (p. 78) " Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time" (p. "The Highland Breakfast" (p. 79) "Suspense" (p. 83) . " The Highland Drovers' Departure (p. 81) .... " The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner (p. 89) .... "A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society" (p. 92) "None but the Brave Deserve the Fair" (p. 95) . "The Rout of Comus" (p. 123) . "Shoeing the Bay Mare" (p. 125) "The Challenge" (p. 128) "Peace" (p. 134) "War" (p. 13s) "The Random Shot" (p. 138) "Alexander and Diogenes (p. 139) " The Monarch of the Glen " (p. 146) "The Children of the Mist" (p. 147) "Saved" (p. 150) . "Flood in the Highlands" (p. 156) xvi Frontisj) iece face page 34 J) 32 ») 40 J) 48 » 56 )* 64 72 80 88 96 104 112 120 128 136 144 152 x6o 168 176 184 Sir Edwin Landseer. CHAPTER I. ANIMALS IN ART. Sketches by Cave Men-^Sphinxes of Egypt and Bulls of Assyria — The Elgin Marbles — Goths and Vandals — The Dark Ages — The Renaissance — ^Animals on canvas — Stories of the Ancients— The Flemish and Dutch Schools — Snyders — Cuyp — Wonvermans — Berchem — Paul Potter — Henriette Ronner — German School — Riedinger — French School — Desportes — Oudry — Horace Vernet — Decamps — Rosa Bonheur — Constant Troyon — British School — Hogarth — Gainsborough — Morland — James Ward — Animal- painters of the nineteenth century — Landseer's example, and what came of it Animals have always been a favourite subject for pencil, brush, and chisel. In the infancy of the race, at the rare moments when prehistoric Man yielded to the budding sesthetic impulse, it was animals that he drew. Indeed, if the record of the rocks and the testimony of cave remains can be trusted, we may go as far as to say that our respected progenitor never drew anything else. The creatures which he hunted, and which some- times hunted himj filled his eye, for the altruistic Sir Edwin Landseer sentiment had not yet been born. Of course his sketches could not be other than crude, but still there is no mistaking- the figures of the mammoth and horses and deer scratched upon the stone and ivory which have been found in the caverns of La Madeleine and the Charente. But it is subsequently to the dawn of history that the evidence becomes irresistible of the part which animals were destined to play in Art. The artists of old Egypt and Assyria may have employed a varied assortment of models. What we know is that their sculptors exhibited quite appalling vigour, the one in the sphinxes and colossal statues — some of them, strangely suggestii^ the huge totem images of the Red man, — the other in the monstrous human-headed winged bulls, which they hewed out of the naked granite and other rocks. However, "confirmations strong as proofs of Holy: Writ" accumulate, as we gaze upon those immortal The Elnn ^^'^^^^'^ which will perpetuate the name of Marbles *^^ ambassador who was enlightened enough to save the poor maimed relics from tourist idiocy and the bullets of the ignorant Turk, and patriotic enough to allow the British Government to purchase them at a loss to himself of £,i(),ooo. These Athenian sculptures, by the infinite grace of their line and the perfect beauty of their form, prove that Pheidias and the rest not only possessed technical knowledge and consummate skill, the like of which the world has never seen since their day, but must also have united to their Art-mastery a true love for the animals which they The Newbirth rendered so exquisitely. Listen to the opinion of a horse. B. R. Haydon having occasion to paint from a blood horse, led one into his studio. Perched high up on a bracket in the room stood the plaster cast of a horse's head from the Elgin Marbles. The instant the creature caught a glimpse of this it fell a-neighing. Thus interestingly is the old story corroborated that Apelles painted a horse so deftly that horses neighed on seeing it. Then after ancient Greece was, dark- ness covered the face of the earth, and it seemed as if creative force were spent for ever. In the then state of society it was inevitable for Goth and Vandal to glut their ire. But when, in deliberate contempt of such wholesome discipline, the sovereigns and statesmen in Empire and Church wallowed as madly as before in debauchery, villainy, and warfare, the world grew weary of the shame and misery of it all. The mind of man revolted, and the mists and foul miasma of the Dark Ages dispersed before the blessed breezes of the great Revival of Art and Letters. At first, as was most meet, painters devoted their art to the service of the Highest, . ^" Then, with the process of the suns, their scope widened, and genius worked in specialised modes. Schools of painting arose and animals resumed their sway, but under changed conditions, for obviously the heroic treatment befitting sculpture was scarcely appropriate to canvas. In point of fact, too, it is only since the Renaissance that the painted animal has come within our ken. Sir Edwin Landseer What the ancients achieved in this line we have no means of knowing: their work has perished. But tradition tells of marvellous cunning— how Zeuxis asked Parrhasius to draw the curtain (which the latter had painted) that he might see the picture behind ; ho\n^ birds flew in at the windows to peck at Zeuxis' painted grapes, just as horses neighed at Apelles' painted steed; and similar feats of copying which a Russian might admire to-day. However, for the animal-painter as such — that is, for the man who painted animals rather than genre, history, ™ . , or Madonnas — it would be idle to go back J 7^ J z. beyond the sixteenth century. And some ana Dutch i , . . • .. • ^ 4.1, „ , , schools were richer in this respect than others were. The Flemish and Dutcb painters — it is difficult to separate them — were amongst the strongest, as is not surprising when we consider the genius of the people. At the head may be named Franz Snyders (1579-1657), who excelled in painting animals in their proper pursuits, so to speak, and whose heart was in the chase pre-eminently. He is said to have put in many of the animals in Rubens's pictures, although Rubens could paint animals with a master's hand when he chose. Of quite another stamp was Albert Cuyp (1606-83), who loved flocks and herds, and though too shrewd to idealise his kye and sheep, nevertheless invested his rural scenes with rare poetic feeling. ^ "Cooper," said a brother-artist as he praisedja charming little cow-group by Sidney of that ilk, " Cuyp must look to his laurels." Henriette Ronner " Cuyp ! " quoth the grand old man of Canterbury, " Cuyp couldn't draw a cow like that." " Just so," was the reply, *' but then he was a poet." Philip Wouvermans (1620-68) especially affected the horse, which he handled with extraordinary versatility, a cavalry charge showing him at his best. With Nicholas Berchem (1624-83) we hark back to more homely subjects, and he was notable also for his spirited etchings of sheep, goats, and cows. Paul Potter (1625-54) was only twenty-nine years old when he died, but his picture of a "Young Bull" in the gallery at The Hague has justly given him a place amongst the immortals. Yet this very picture, which is now price- less, was sold at Haarlem by public auction on the 19th of August, 1749, for ;^s6. The Flemish School counts no greater name than that of Henriette Ronner (born 182 1 ), of whom it is simple truth to say that she is the finest painter of cats that ever lived. Her dogs, too, are excellent, but her cats — by which we mean the friend of woman and not the untamed creatures of the zoologist — are supreme. In the German School there is, curiously enough, but one outstanding painter of animals. This was John Elias Riedinger (1695-1767), who was a German huntsman before he took to art, and whose School pictures of stag and boar hunts therefore rank with the very finest work in this kind produced by any school. Although, with few exceptions, the French School has not been conspicuous for its animal-painters, it Sir Edwin Landseer would have been singular had not " le Sport" attracted several exponents. Francois Desportes (1661-1743) and Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755) both worked in^ other lines of art, and both turned later to incident^ „ , connected with the chase, in which they „ , . won their chief successes. With Horace Vernet (1789-1863), on the other hand, "la Gloire" counted for everything, but he must be men- tioned here, not because he was an animal-painter above all things, but because he was the first French»| man that did justice to the horse in battle. His camels also were finely drawn. Nor was Alexandre Gabriel Decamps (1803-1860), who was fatally injured whilst hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau, by any means exclusively a painter of animals, but he loved them so sincerely and had so full a knowledge of their habits' that those pictures of his in which they are the most prominent features are amongst his finest works. But in the French, as in the Flemish School, the greates1| and worthiest name is that of a woman, Rosa Bonheur (1822-99), whose " Horse Fair," of which there is a replica in the National Gallery in London, is a monu- ment to her genius as a painter of animals. And next to her must be placed as "runner-up," Constant Troyon (1810-65), who in the spheres of the blest tastes the sweets of posthumous fame. Although William Hogarth (1697-1764) painted dogs as accessories with wonderful knowledge, and Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) began his career with draw- ings of donkeys, sheep, cows, and horses, it is rather 6 Morland and Ward with poor, ne'er-do-weel George Morland (1763-1804) that the brilliant school of British animal-painters took rise. Not his to idealise and use the grand Ttritiih manner, but place him in barn, or sty, or School stable, and he would paint horses and pigs in such surroundings with extraordinary fidelity and skill. His "Inside of a Stable" in the National Gallery in London, which has been so superbly etched by Mr. C. O. Murray, is a perfect example of what can be done by a man of narrow range and limited vision, who loved animals with the dogged fondness of a Bohemian, and who, within his bounds, was an artist to the finger-tips. An altogether different man, with ampler technical equipment perhaps, was James Ward, R.A. (1770-1859), now best known by the picture of an "Alderney Bull, Cow, and Calf" in the English National Gallery, which was painted in emulation of Paul Potter's famous work, and which, in the judg- ment of Mr. John Forbes-Robertson, is " a stronger, though scarcely a truer or finer piece of animal painting," an opinion which is far too lenient. His " Bulls Fighting," in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, is a vastly better work and has several really great qualities. Ward rejoiced too often to spread himself out over an immense canvas, an eccentricity which jeopardised his fame. No amount of correct drawing and fine observation of animal life could make such a picture as "Gordale Scar, Yorkshire" — a huge chasm with cattle — attractive, and it may be doubted whether the artist himself felt any interest 7 Sir Edwin Landseer in it. But Ward's idiosyncrasy was not infectious. T. Sidney Cooper, R.A. (1803-1902), gained many tri- umphs by the beauty of small pictures of cattle and sheep, distinguished by accuracy of drawing and harmonious composition. J. F. Herring (1795-1865) painted race- horses and sporting dogs admirably, and Richard Ansdell, R.A. (1815-85), showed a delicate touch and was an adept in graceful grouping. Amongst the pre- Raphaelites only W. Holman Hunt made a speciality of animals, and even he did not pursue this line — why, it is not easy to say, for his "Strayed Sheep" is one of the world's masterpieces, a veritable gem. Peter Graham's Highland cattle, Briton Riviere's many beautiful pictures, the learning of which is never abused, J. T. Nettleship's and J. M. Swan's lions and tigers, reaching the very acme of excel- lence, and the remarkable promise of Lucy Kemp Welch's horses, all go to show how varied in achievement and how strong in technique the British School has grown, in respect at least of its animal-, painters. If they sustain comparison with those of any contemporary school whatsoever, and they will pass through the ordeal victoriously, this result is in no slight degree due to the splendid example which was set them by Sir Edwin Landseer. He is rightly placed with the makers of British Art. To describe him, with The Times, as " the Shakespeare of the world of dogs,"| or, with Cuthbert Bede, as the " RaiFaelle des chiens," may be to move the mirth of the groundlings; but what such phrasing is meant to imply is, that he was not 8 His Mission merely a correct and clever copyist, but was gifted with creative power and thought. To be painter, preacher, and poet all in one is to be a well-doer to the race; for the beasts that perish are with us always, and the lesson of humanity, whether taught by picture or by parable, is, like the quality of mercy, "twice bless'd; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes." There is a fashion amongst some critics and painters, especially the younger men, to pooh-pooh Landseer and sneer at him as an anecdotist. Uncon- , sciously they are paymg a great tribute . V • ■ T •.• • Example to his genius. In any case criticism '^ which confounds cause and effect is both futile and superficial. Looking at animals from an altogether fresh standpoint, and detecting in them qualities and investing them with attributes which none of his fore- runners had had the wit to observe or devise, Sir Edwin became the founder of a new school. The sentiment and humour, no less than the technical merits, of his pictures won instant popularity. At one time engravings after his works were to be seen in nearly every home, and in books innumerable. Accordingly a host of imitators, or co-workers in the same field, arose, for demand begets supply in Art as in other things. During fifty years and more one has constantly seen the tamer creatures treated a la Landseer by capable men like Samuel J. Carter, C. Burton Barber, Gourlay Steell, Yates Carrington, Harrison Weir, and by others not so competent. In a sense, therefore, it is not sur- prising to hear superior persons impatiently protest 9 Sir Edwin Landseer that Sir Edwin was only a story-teller. A vogue may be overdone in any art or craft, but this is not to say that the author of it may not have been absolutely sincere and actuated by the loftiest motives, nor that the mode was not worth establishing-, and ought never to have been set up. Else you might fall foul of Raphael because you are sick of Madonnas. Landseer succeeded in realising a high ideal, and he who does that leaves the world a little better than he found it. Let us try to ascertain what manner of man Sir Edwin was, and trace the story of his life and work. CHAPTER II. JOHN LANDSEER, ENGRAVER TO THE KING. Where and when was he born? — Halcyon days for engravers — Print-publishers' rivalry — Miss Potts — Macklin's Family Picture — Married — Boycotted by the R.A. — A legitimate grievance- Lectures on the Art of Engraving — Not to be daunted — Becomes Associate Engraver — At the Surrey Institution — Babylonian books — Engraver to the King — Thinking aloud — Death — His children — Thomas — Charles — Four daughters. Although they little knew it, the Landseer children aptly exemplified the doctrine of Heredity. John Landseer, their father, was a man of remarkable force of character and firmness of purpose. He was the son of a jeweller, and, according to Mr. F. G. Stephens, was born in London in 1761, or, ■' according- to Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse, in Lincoln in 1769. Seeing that he was a man of some note in his day and lived to behold the distinction of all his sons, it is passing strange that neither the place nor the year of his birth is known for sure. After serving his time as an engraver with William Byrne, he soon acquired a good connection with the leading publishers. At that period engraving on metal was a flourishing craft. Thomas Bewick, who was to give wood-engraving its greatest impetus, had not yet Sir Edwin Landseer appeared on the scene, though his day was at hand. Meanwhile the rivalry of print-publishers made things "hum" for artists and engravers alike. When John Boydell, Alderman and Lord Mayor of "famous London Town," projected his gigantic " Shakespeare," Macklin retaliated with an edition of the Bible illustrated on a scale of equal grandeur, and so the competition went on. Linking the present with the past, it may be added that Messrs. Henry Graves & Company, of 6 Pall Mall, occupy Boydell's house, and follow with even greater success the Alderman's business. John Landseer worked for Macklin, and at the publisher's house met the woman who became his wife. This was a Miss Potts, who Miss Potts appears to have mingled on friendly terms with many of the principal painters. She stood to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a reaper in the picture of " The Gleaners," which he painted for Macklin in 1788, and which was, for the nonce, jocularly known as " Macklin's Family Picture," inasmuch as the publisher, his good lady, and his daughter, besides their friend. Miss Potts, all figured in it. John Landseer's wooing sped well, and in 1793 he was "married an' a'." Then bairns began to multiply, but the engraver seemed to think "the mair the merrier," and worked at his plates like a Trojan. In common with his brother-engravers, he had one substantial grievance. For reasons best known to themselves, the Royal Academy, whilst admitting painters, sculptors, and architects to full honours. Engravers and the R.A. drew the line at engravers, whom they recognised only as Associate Engravers, and in a class apart at that, with the privilege (not the right) of exhibiting two works every year, as against -^ the eight which full members might send ^ in. The engravers naturally ' objected to ' " this invidious distinction, and John Landseer, John Pye, Edward Goodall, Sir Robert Strange, and, indeed, the foremost practitioners without exception protested against such scurvy treatment. Some of them decided to ignore the infant institution altogether, whilst others determined to agitate for justice. It would be interest- ing to know why the engravers were thus slighted. They were most of them splendid artists, who would have been an ornament to the Academy. That they resented the wanton insult passed upon them as a body is not to be wondered at, and certain of them boy- cotted the Schools by sending their sons to private classes or to take lessons at the studios of painters. John Landseer was not of this company, as we shall see afterwards, but he constituted himself the champion of his fellows. Being invited in 1806 to deliver a series of lectures on Engraving before the Royal Institution, he vigorously vindicated the claims of his Art to an independent status, and also denounced in scathing terms the °^ ° danger no less than the folly of permitting ignorance to preside over knowledge as manifested in the attempts to palm oflF inferior plates upon the public, this being, as he said, a fraud upon the public taste and the private 13 Sir Edwin Landseer purse, — a not closely veiled allusion to the deterioration caused by the too purely commercial spirit in which some publishers were conducting their business. This was the opinion of John Landseer, who was not given to mincing matters; but so far as Alderman Boydell was concerned, he employed the best talent both in painting and engraving, and did more for the advance- ment of Art than any other man of his day. Such caustic criticism, however, was more than flagellate flesh and blood could stand. A "hole-and-corner" meeting of the Managers of the Royal Institution, act- ing in the interests of Josiah Boydell, the Alderman's nephew, was hastily summoned, and the lectures were brought to a premature close with the delivery of the sixth. But John Landseer was no respecter of persons and declined to be intimidated. His reply was to publish the Lectures in the following year, verbatim et literatim, with comments, in which the original strictures were well "rubbed in." By the irony of events he was elected an Associate Engraver in 1806, the very year in which he fulminated his counterblast. He suffered himself to accept the honour, because he thought he might be able to advance his cause from the inside. He was not the man to sell himself. He petitioned the Academicians and even the Prince Regent for fairplay, ' but he addressed deaf ears, and it was not until after his death — and indeed apropos of the vacancy in their ranks thereby caused — that the disabilities of the engravers were abolished. Thus tardily was justice done. But 14 His Father's Lectures the whirligig of Time brought in a cruel revenge, for, by another turn of Fortune's wheel, the art of engraving has well-nigh perished before the onslaught of the various more or less mechanical processes by which prints after the best originals can be multiplied, without the fine artistic qualities of the older method, but with a rapidity and a cheapness that set all engravers at defiance. 'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true. It looked as if John Landseer had become soured on engraving. He lectured now and again. Henry Crabb Robinson, under date of December 5th, 1813, notes that in the evening he went to the Surrey Institution in Albion Street, Blackfriars Road — a sort of south-side rival to the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, which collapsed after an existence of thir- teen years — to hear a lecture on the Philosophy of Art by John Landseer. " He is animated in his style>" writes the diarist, ' ' but his animation is produced by indulgence in sarcasms, and in emphatic diction. He pronounces his words in italics; and by colouring strongly he produces an effect easily." That was rather odd, for there is nothing flamboyant in his lectures on Engraving; but John Landseer had a life- long habit of dotting his i's and crossing his Ifs, without so much as a " By your leave." Whether or not he was chagrined at the nondescript position of his Art, he turned aside for a period to pursue Archae- ology. As a Fellow of the Society of F.S.A, Antiquaries his studies were something of a hobby, which he rode to much the same purpose IS Sir Edwin Landseer as Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, if with less gusto and parade of learning than was shown by the proto- type of Samuel Pickwick, Esq. With wonted zeal he published two books — one on Babylonian gems (1817), and the other on Babylonian remains (1823) — neither of which made any permanent mark. However, he returned from these incursions into ancient history with renewed interest in his proper vocation. His hand had lost none of its cunning, and in 1826 he was appointed Engraver to the King (George IV.). In 1831 he published what was probably his best plate — namely, "Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller," after the picture, especially fine for a youth of eighteen, which Edwin had painted eleven years before. As he advanced in life John Landseer became dis- tressingly deaf, and had to carry a trumpet about with ~, . , . him. He also contracted the unfortunate Ai J habit of thinking aloud. His son Charles lived in Southampton Street, Fitzroy Square, opposite to the house occupied by Edward Corbould. One rainy day the old gentleman called at Charles's. Corbould knew that the son had gone out, and, as the weather was veiy unpleasant, he stepped across and asked Mr. Landseer to come into his place and wait. Here he did the amiable, showing his pictures and so forth. There was a picture on the easel which John Landseer praised highly. By-and-by Corbould heard a strange soliloquy. " I never saw such damned rub- bish in my life. How on earth can he make a living at it ? Seems a nice, pleasant fellow, too ; but cannot 16 « Tom " paint, and knows nothing of it," with more astounding thoughts, unconsciously outspoken, to a like effect. Corbould related the incident with great glee to Charles, who told it to Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., who was good enough to communicate it to me. It was beautiful to watch the father's honest pride in the growing fame and success of his sons. They owed almost everything to him, and it was a happy dispensa- tion that enabled him to see the fruit of his soul's travail before he passed away. Nisi Dominus frustra,. John Landseer died on the 29th of February, 1852, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. Of his fourteen children only seven reached adoles- cence — three sons and four daughters. Thomas, the eldest son, was born in 1795, and became an j- , engraver. To his sympathy, skill, and taste, t ^ ^ Edwin owed a great deal, for he engraved „ ■ no fewer than one hundred and three of his brother's pictures, including the most famous, in addi- tion to many etchings. In 1827 he published a volume entitled Monkey-ana, or Men in Miniature, a series of twenty-five studies, mostly satirical, designed and etched by himself. These plates are of such surprising cleverness, such extraordinary merit, that it is difficult to believe he was not assisted in the drawing of them by his brother, of whom they are quite worthy — which said, no higher praise can be given. That Thomas was not a Landseerian solely was demonstrated by his splendid plate after Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair." But the Royal Academy were in no hurry to crown his 17 C Sir Edwin Landseer genius, for it was not till 1868 — twelve years before his death — that they elected him an Associate. "Thomas was a most amiable and happy man," Mr. Algernon Graves writes to me. " I knew him „ T " s'"'^^ ^ ^^^ quite a child, when, I remember, ^ he once gave me a bag of sweets that had Landseer gp^gwhat melted in his pocket. As he handed them to me, he said, in the usual accent of a man who could not hear himself speak— ["Tom" was deaf, too] — ' They are fishes in a per-spi-ra-ti-on.' He always wore a beaming smile. Many a time have I been with him in his studio in Cunningham Place, within a stone's-throw of Sir Edwin's house, when he was engraving plates for my father, who first employed him shortly after 1830. He was very conscientious in his work, but his wife was not so particular. She often brought down a proof of a half-finished plate, but before opening the parcel she would dilate for half-an-hour on the splendid qualities of the newest plate, which, by her account in every case, was the finest he had ever done. My father, who was used to it, merely looked at the proof and said, 'Take it back and tell Tom to finish it. It is a splendid first proof.' Mrs. Tom, who wanted a new dress, was always in the hopes she would get the plate passed and draw the money at once. Tom would afterwards tell me he knew the plate was'not finished, but she said to him, ' Oh, you leave it to me. I will get Graves to pass it.' She never did. My father was too experienced an old bird for that. I was rather 18 Charles a favourite with poor old Tom, as when I went to his place to dinner, I used to devote the whole evening to writing him all the Art news on scraps of paper. When he signed proofs my father always gave him one hundred cigars for one hundred signatures. " Charles Landseer, born in 1799, also took to Art, and affected historical subjects. Though consumed with zeal for his art, he was the least talented of the trio. However, honours were not denied him. In 1837 he became an Associate, and eight years later a fully- fledged Academician. He was appointed Keeper in 1851, his chief duty in that capacity being to teach in the antique school. ' This position he filled for twenty years. When he died, in 1879, it was found that he had not been insensible either of the gracious courtesy of his fellows, or of the needs of young artists of promise, for he left the handsome sum of ;^io,ooo to found four scholarships, two in painting and two in sculpture, of the value of £/^o a year each, tenable for two years, to be competed for by students on the com- pletion of their second year of attendance. Of the four daughters, Jane, the eldest, married Mr. Charles Christmas ; and Emma, the youngest, became Mrs. Mackenzie. Neither Anna Maria, the second, nor Jessica, the third, married. The latter, who was born in 1810 and died in 1880, painted miniatures and land- scapes of considerable merit, etched two of Sir Edwin's pictures — the Scots terrier "Vixen" (1824) and "Lady Louisa Russell Feeding a Donkey" (1826, from a draw- ing done in the year before at Woburn Abbey), — and 19 Sir Edwin Landseer made a copy on ivory of his "Beauty's Bath" (a portrait of Miss Emily Peel with her dog Fido, painted in 1839), which is now in the possession of Queen Alexandra. Mrs. Mackenzie and Miss Jessica, but chiefly the latter, the "Jessie" of his letters, officiated as housekeepers to their illustrious bachelor-brother. " Mrs. Mackenzie, when I first knew her," Mr. Graves writes, " was not a favourite with Edwin. I have heard that he quarrelled with her, because she would copy his pictures and sign them E. L. (Emma Landseer). I never saw her in his house after about 1865, but nevertheless she ultimately became the heiress of all three brothers and also of Jessica. The two sisters — the only ones I knew — were quite opposites in appearance and manner. Emma always struck me as being very haughty, whereas Jessica was a meek, amiable little body, who looked after her brother's house in a very quiet, unostentatious way." 20 CHAPTER III. BIRTH AND APPRENTICESHIP. [1802-16.] Birth — Foley Street — Edwin's precocity — His earliest drawings — Under his father's tuition — His " first studio " — The Screen at South Kensington — The model disturbed^ — Cross's Menagerie at Exeter 'Change — At the Tower — Lion drawings — Truant — Holidays in Essex — Complete self-confidence — "French Hog'' and "British Boar" — Wins thelsis Medal of the Society of Arts — First pictures at the Royal Academy — Was he a pupil of Hay- don's ? — Haydon's doctrines — Enters the Royal Academy Schools — Fuseli's "Curly-headed dog-boy" — Model to C. R. Leslie — His record as an Exhibitor — At the Royal Academy — At the British Institution — At other Galleries — End of his apprenticeship. Edwin Landseer was born at 71 Queen Anne Street East, in the parish of Marylebone, London, on the 7th of March, 1802. All the memoirs and t>- ,j, biographical sketches agree that his second / Christian name was Henry. But the point is open to serious question, for, according to the- death certificate, which was signed by Dr. Humby, who was present at the passing, and in all likelihood derived his information from Edwin's brothers or sisters, or both, his Christian names were Edwin John. This fact has hitherto escaped observation. The baptismal Sir Edwin Landseer register of the parish church for 1802 has been carefully searched, but without avail; and his will is described as that of Edwin Landseer, and signed simply " E. Landseer." It is of interest to note that the name of the street was changed a few years afterwards. There had been much confusion between it and Queen Anne Street, its continuation westwards — where Turner and Edmund Burke resided, — and when Portland Place and adjoining thoroughfares came to be built, it was resolved that Queen Anne Street East should be called Foley Street, out of compliment to Lord Foley, whose house had been swept away by these improvements. Thenceforward John Landseer's house was known as 33 Foley Street. In those days the whole neighbourhood was peopled by artists, mostly eminent men. But in Queen Anne Street the painters have been quite unable to withstand the inroads of doctors and surgeons, who now occupy it almost exclusively. As for Foley Street, its case is even sadder, for it presents an aspect of shabby gentility that readily enough explains why the artists have sought other quarters. It will be safe to say that not a single painter now lives in either street — a sweeping change wholly effected within the nineteenth century. Yet here and there a teaching class will still be found in the locality ; in fact, Heatherley's famous studio is within measurable distance of Edwin Landseer's first home. It is not to the credit of the fraternity that the houses of so many distinguished painters, Landseer amongst them, bear no commemorative tablet. Boyish Drawings Just as Pope " lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came," so little Edwin had to draw, for he "couldna help it," like the Paisley body. Wee Davie Wilkie „ covering his nursery walls at Cults with designs made by the aid of burnt stick, and Giotto sketching on rocks whilst herding his sheep, were instances of like precocity. The child's inborn genius manifested itself when he could do little more than toddle. His sisters assured Mrs. Richmond Ritchie that his very earliest drawings were made from copies set him by his mother. But as these efforts were in- variably confined either to a shoe or a currant-pudding, the baby-boy soon wearied of both studies. His industry and budding talents, however, attracted the attention of his father, who took him in hand seriously from the first. If his mother gave him copies, John Landseer — anticipating, by a century the custom of to-day — bade him draw from the objects themselves. It is certain that a drawing on these lines was made when Edwin was only four years old. This was a drawing of a candlestick, rough enough, as may be supposed, but evincing more than boyish skill. The little chap showed it to his father, who pointed out a few defects. "Now," he said, "you must finish it to-night before you go to bed." This was old Land- seer's way occasionally. The boy recognising the note, set to work to improve the drawing and to remedy its faults as best he could. It is the universal testimony that John Landseer, though at times apt to be a trifle Spartan, trained his children splendidly. Sir Edwin Landseer Undoubtedly it was a grand thing for the boy to pass under the influence of such a man. The father sedulously rp » . , impressed upon the child the supreme neces- , . °^ -^ sity then and always of keeping his eyes open and his wits about him, of copying the animals in their haunts, and of studying generally from Nature. This led to constant journeyings to Hamp- stead and the fields and lanes which at that date lay as open country between the Heath and the home in Marylebone. Mr. F. G. Stephens has printed an in- teresting account, which Miss Eliza Meteyard sent him, of those early walks. The old man was in the habit of taking a daily constitutional almost to the very end of his life. William Howitt was often his companion on these tramps abroad, and one evening as they strolled along Finchley Road, towards Child's Hill, John Land- seer paused at an old stile and pointed out two fields as Edwin's "first studio." It seems that the laddie had stopped at the spot to watch the cows as they grazed. His father lifted him over, and giving him paper and pencil, told him to sketch a cow. After that the visits were almost of daily occurrence. The boys left home in the forenoon, and the father went to fetch them a few hours later. He there and then inspected . their work, and made them correct mistakes on the spot. It was nearly a case of " No. song, no supper " with him; or rather, " No accurate drawing, no tea." The method was thorough, and the boys thrived on it in every sense, for they attained distinction in their art and all exceeded the Psalmist's span. 24 J -'•' it •"■''Tif''-*ii"WiW r:- ,^ it*^. il\ tei - -Mm fe^*^rii,. ■ V ■1 ^""^ii^jyy A ■ '■'■'i^fei :■',» '■■' '"' i i;-Ai^.: !; ■ ^ J^^- ^M^HP^I ii m ''.^" J ||B» W ► 1 H^H^H^^^^^ ji K^t^^j^ l^s^^l/l ^ ,1 fjl ^^^BbI ! V-x:^PI 1; *" V ¥ v7 ■J ' I ^BP \t "^8* » '. ^^siHk/ ■[m ^K '■■'i ^^^^^^^^^^B^'<'r. -" ' lA iff ■«r-'i , \|' ^ '^^.^ ^i ■r ' ■*! ^ '^K^^i-w^^Ri P /fi ■>*!l? kl^w^^il^ .'■aR ii nui^ |I //' Juvenile Work There may still be seen, both in private collections and in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, numerous examples of Edwin's youthful skill. — / Many of the former were engraved several -p. ., years ago in the Art Journal, and afterwards published in a large quarto volume to which Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse supplied a very readable commentary, in which, however, he persisted in taking the early works too frequently au grand sdrieux, criticising them with a rigour that is sometimes laughable. Edwin's efforts were wonderful for a mere child, but it is dealing un- fairly with him and them to ignore the fact that they were juvenile productions. They contain the promise of his riper years, demonstrating here, too, that " the child is father of the man," and are interesting as helping us to measure his progress. But they must always be taken for what they are — the work of a clever and diligent student of tenderest years. For instance, one of the nine of such drawings shown on a screen at South Kensington is a carefully-rendered copy of a dog, made at the age of five. The animal carries a tail and hind quarters that a baboon might envy, but we feel the perfect sincerity of the lad's work as we remark the abnormality; we recognise that it is the effort of a young boy, talented, but yet a boy. In short, had the drawing been better it might have taxed credulity. The parrakeet on its perch, another of this set, is remarkable for delicacy and sureness of touch. But for clear and undeniable evidence of grit the little composition, in the same group, of a family of pigs 25 Sir Edwin Landseer demands special mention, for its power of rightly- directed observation, on the part of a boy of eight, can scarcely ever have been surpassed. With legitimate pride, the father, by the friendly hand of John Pye, took the pre- caution to certify these nine drawings . They mostly bear the boy's name and age, and one — that of a lazy bull, lying down chewing the cud — offers the further informa- tion that it was drawn " when he was first breeched." Edwin's industry was always conspicuous. When- ever, owing to stress of weather, he was unable to go out, he was generally at the window taking notes. One day cries of vexation disturbed the household. It then appeared that he had been sketching a horse standing on the cab-rank facing the house in Foley Street. By-and-by the driver, ignorant, of course, of what was going on within-doors, removed the shoulder- cloth from the animal, thereby depriving the artist of an important part of his model and spoiling the study. Naturally, it was domesticated animals that Edwin first sketched, but he was still a young boy when he began to J- ■ draw lions and tigers from life. The only „ • places where he could study such animals Ura/viitngs '^ •' were Exeter 'Change and the Tower. In- terest in them may have been whetted by the proximity to his father's house of the former place, a ramshackle building in the Strand that had once been Exeter House. In the days of its degeneracy part of it was occupied by Pidcock's Wild Beast Show. The animals were con- fined in cages and dens upstairs, in rooms the walls of which were painted with pictures of tropical scenery to 26 The Tower Lions supply local colour, and the roar of the liotis and tigers often scared the horses in the street below. Pidcock was succeeded by Polito, but in Edwin's time Edward Cross was owner of the menagerie, which, it may be added, was removed in 1828 to the King's Mews at Charing Cross, Exeter 'Change being demolished two years afterwards to make way for Exeter Hall. Long before this, however, Landseer's apprenticeship had ended. Cross took a great interest in the young artist, and gave him every facility for prosecuting his studies. Landseer took to the lion with an alacrity that showed how strongly he realised the art potentialities of the king of beasts. There is a sketch of a " Lioness and Cubs," dated 1809, in Mr. Monkhouse's volume, which displays such extraordinary spirit that it hardly seems possible it could have been made from life. Yet at the age of seven it is beyond question that he was already in the habit of paying frequent visits to the Tower of London as well as to Mr. Cross's exhibition. Lions, leopards, tigers, bears, and a few other creatures had been kept in the Tower ever since the thirteenth century, and when the menagerie was abandoned in 1834, the animals were removed to the Zoo. At the Tower,, too, the keeper had taken kindly to the boy. One day Edwin presenting himself as usual, was informed by a warder that the keeper's wife had been dreadfully mauled by one of the animals. The boy went to the keeper to express his sorrow for what had happened. " It's true, my lad, that my wife's been terribly hurt, but go on with your drawing and do not mind me." 27 Sir Edwin Landseer The poor keeper, distracted as he was, wished to pay his customary courtesy to the bright boy who had won the way into his heart. Nor was this the whole measure of Edwin's diligence, for the admirable boy also learned to etch, and handled the needle with ease and dexterity. Mr. Versatility Algernon Graves refers one set of eight etchings of animals of such varied outline and "build" as the lion, tiger, sheep, cow, bull, donkey, boar, horse, and goat to his seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth years. But how did this versatility consort with the gaining of book-learning? There seems reason to believe that Edwin was not "gleg at the uptak," and it has even been insinuated — and we think it highly probable — that he often played truant. What was a boy with a ruling passion to do but give school the go- by when a cattle show was held in Islington, or a new animal arrived at Exeter 'Change, or another visit was due at London Tower? Depend upon it, like Tarn O'Shanter, John Landseer "kenn'd what was what fu' brawly," and winked at the pardonable vagrancy. A hundred years ago, when change of air was needed, it had to be found not far from home. When Edwin required an actual holiday, though his open- ■ jj. air life kept him as a rule in fine fettle, he was generally sent to friends in Essex. Mr. W. W. Simpson, of Beleigh Grange, near Mal- don, or Mr. George Wilson, at Walthamstow, always had a hearty welcome for the lad. But with change of scene there was no change of occupation, and 28 Studies from Life in country as in town the boy steadily pursued his observation of the habits and character of the animals around him. Late in life he was shown the sketch of a Persian cat which he had made at Maldon in 1812, and which he had given to Lucy Potter, one of Mr. Simpson's domestics. It would appear to have in- terested him, for he playfully annotated the drawing- — " Sketched at Maldon by the little boy Edwin when ten years old, and now Sir E. Landseer, an old boy, 1866." From earliest boyhood Landseer took his own measure completely. Such self-confidence is a virtue when grounded, as it was in his case, in solid worth and acknowledged merit. Of his own accord, or on the sug- gestion o^his father, he had begun to study anatomy, and the quality of his work was immediately strengthened thereby. Messrs. Henry Graves & Co. possess a drawing of a pointer's skull which he made in 1812. In the following year he produced his first portrait, that of " C. Simmons, Esq., on a Pony," and tried his 'prentice hand on the human figure in composition, his earliest effort in this line representing a man engaged in " Sheep-shearing," the fruit, no doubt, of one of his Essex excursions. To the same source, probably, we owe a vigorous sketch of a butcher " Ringing a Pig," the mingled distress and alarm of the creature being admirably rendered, and a thoroughly sound and accu- rate drawing of a " Favourite Pointer," both belonging to 1814. In this year, too, he had a sly hit at the European situation, for his "French Hog" and "British 29 Sir Edwin Landseer Boar" — the one lean, lank, wolfish; the other sleek, well-conditioned, impregnable — offer the necessary con- trast which an observant lad would readily detect in the national feeling. In the former a cheeky bantam crows lustily from the roof of the sty, but in the latter the chanticleer is of altogether sedater behaviour, as befits his vast and immovable companion. But 1814 was memorable in a personal sense, for he had now made up his mind to challenge public criticism — a pleasant further proof of his belief in PhT, • 8 ^''"^®lf- "^^^ Society of Arts in the Adelphi X I t e — ^ time-honoured body which still exists ^^ and, one may hope, flourishes — in pursuance of one branch of its usefulness, was in the habit of bestowing medals in encouragement of what was then quaintly called the Polite Arts. Both Edwin and Thomas Landseer secured the Isis silver medal of the Society, the former for a drawing of a "Hunting Horse," the latter for an oil-painting of a " Farmer's Horse." This success was followed up at the age of thirteen — a number of no ill omen for Edwin — by his d^hut at the Royal Academy. In 181 5 he sent two pictures to the annual Exhibition — " Pointer Bitch and Puppy" and "A Mule" (all three animals the property of his friend Mr. W. W. Simpson, of Beleigh Grange) — and both were accepted. He figured in the catalogue as " Landseer, Master E., at Mr. Landseer's, 33 Foley Street." Already a notable lad, his portrait appeared at the same Gallery in the same year under the title of "The Cricketer" (a hint, surely, of some love for the 30 B. R. Haydon noble English pastime), from the hand of a young com- rade, Master J. Hayter. Edwin had now found his feet, and was wise enough to solicit the counsel and instructions of others besides his father and his brothers. Accordingly, whilst the boy was still at his lucky age of thirteen, John Landseer took his three sons to see B. R. Haydon. ' ^ ' ' When do you mean to let your beard grow „ , and take pupils ? " inquired Landseer p&re. " If my instructions are likely to be of use or value, TlOW," It was arranged there and then that Thomas and Charles were to go every Monday to Haydon, who should give them enough work for the week, whilst Edwin was at once entrusted with Haydon's own dissec- tion of the lion, and bidden dissect animals himself as the only means of acquiring a knowledge of their frame and what it contained and supported. Haydon declared that it was this visit of John Landseer's, and its out- come, which decided him to form a school, the Land- seers' rapid progress under his tuition acting as an additional incentive. "I resolved," he writes, "to communicate my system to other young men, and endeavour to establish a better and more regular system of instruction than even the Academy afforded.'' And the sixteenth clause of his will, dated June 22nd, 1846, drawn up just before the unhappy man put an end to his existence, set forth : — " I have done my duty to the Art — educated the greatest artists of the day — Eastlake, 31 Sir Edwin Landseer the Landseers, and Lance — and I hope advanced the whole feeling of the country." It is certainly significant that James Elmes, the editor oi Annals of the Fine Arts, who knew the facts and wrote at the time, in an article on "The Exhibition of Drawings by Mr. Haydon's Pupils," in the fourth volume of that periodical, claims credit for mentioning the efforts of these young men whilst their names were as yet unknown, instead of coming in "at the fag-end" and joining in a common chorus of praise, and includes Edwin amongst those who had received instruction from Haydon. In a broad sense, unquestionably Haydon was one of Landseer's teachers. To what degree, if at all, the IT J > youth attended him systematically is not „ . ■ known : but it was erring on the safe side Jjoctvmes for Edwin to become the pupil,__even inter- mittently, of a man of original ideas and great powers of mind, who in his way was a real genius. It was Haydon's conviction that every student of art should learn two things pre-eminently — namely, to draw from the Antique, and to acquire practically a knowledge of anatomy by actual dissection carried on for some time. The painter, he argued, painted not only better, but also more intelligently, who knew what underlay the surface or the object which he was imitating, who knew from his own handling the muscles which moulded external shape and made it that and no other, and the relation of part to part ; excluding, of course, what concerned the surgeon alone. These, he held, were' the principles upon which the Old Masters had been taught, 32 'The Cat's Paw" (p. 51). Haydon's Services to Art and upon which they worked. He believed he had rediscovered them, and it was his aim, as has been seen, to found a regular school where they might be expounded and practised. Though Haydon's ambition was not realised — ^for the authorities poured ridicule and abuse upon the reformer, and even spared not to oppress him in various ways — his private pupils, such as those whom he named in his will, owed much to his guidance, his erudition, and his devotion to Art, or, as Lord Rosebery (in his short speech on "Biography" delivered at Edinburgh on the isth of November, 1901) preferred to call it, his " mania for Art." " If you do not draw Nature, first," he said, "exactly as she is, what basis, hereafter, will you have to make her as she ought to be ? How can you refer to your drawings as documents of what Nature is, in order to make her as she ought to be ? How can you clear accident from essence, if you do not first be sure what is accident and what essence? Such were the drawings of Wilkie, Edwin Landseer, Eastlake, Lance, Collins, and Mul- ready ; but such were not the drawings of hundreds of paper-geniuses, and where are they ? " It was in accordance with these doctrines that he repeatedly urged Landseer and other pupils to make the Elgin Marbles their daily study. And it must be kept in mind that it was largely in consequence of Haydon's incessant advocacy that the British Governnnent were ultimately induced to acquire those immortal remains. "The last words I should wish to utter in this world," said this splendid zealot, ' ' till Art gave way to more 33 D Sir Edwin Land seer awful reflections, while my voice was articulate, and a fibre of my vitality quivered — are Elgin Marbles ! Elgin Marbles ! " This he said as bettering Reynolds, whose last words in the Royal Academy were ' ' Michael Angelo ! Michael Angelo ! " Edwin entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1816, This step proved that the fever of John Landseer's resentment had passed the acute stage. Perhaps the father had been mollified by the ■ ■ son's success in the previous year, for not only was it a rare honour for a boy of thirteen to have two pictures hung in the annual Exhibition, but it was moreover a privilege which many an older painter has striven after in vain. So far as animals were concerned, the youth had little to learn at these classes ; but with the human figure it was otherwise, and he made profitable use of his time. Henry Fuseli was then the Keeper. He taught the lad, or rather, "wisely neglected" him — to employ C. R. Leslie's suggestive phrase — and loved him for his winning manners as well as for his gifts, speaking of him as " My curly-headed dog-boy." We get a glimpse of Edwin in another capacity at this period, showing him to have been both attractive-looking and glad to make himself useful. It was in this year (1816) that Mr. Leslie painted his "Death of Rutland" in illustration of the following passage from the Third Part of King Henry VI. (Act L, Scene 3) : — Rutland. O ! let me pray before I take my death — To thee I pray : sweet Clifford, pity me ! 34 Record as an Exhibitor Clifford. Such pity as my rapier's point affords. Rutland. I never did thee harm : why wilt thou slay me ? Clifford. Thy father hath. Rutland. But 'twas ere I was born. Thou hast one son, for his sake pity me, Lest, in revenge thereof, sith God is just, He be as miserably slain as I. Ah ! let me live in prison all my days ; And when I give occasion of offence, Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause. Clifford. No cause ? Thy father slew my father : therefore die. \Stabs him. Tom Taylor, who edited Leslie's Autobiography, says that Landseer told him that " he sat for the pleading boy, with a rope round his wrists." But there seems no warrant in Shakespeare's text for the rope. Henceforward Edwin Landseer was a constant, often a generous exhibitor at the Royal Academy. From 1815, the year of his juvenile success, to 1873, the year of his death, he missed only ^ -i y seven of the annual shows, those of 1816, 1841, 1852, 1855, 1862, 1863, and 1871. This statement is based upon an analysis of Mr. Algernoji Graves's catalogue, a labour of love which occupied the compiler for many years, and which speaks volumes for his research, judgment, and skill. Indeed, this book in a fashion forms a most valuable tribute to the illustrious painter who was the hero of it, chronicling, as it does, a record of industry which gives the lie to the malevolent slander that he was a habitual drunkard. 35 Sir Edwin Landseer From first to last Sir Edwin exhibited no fewer than 171 pictures at the Royal Academy. But though Landseer was loyal to the Royal Academy he did not overlook the claims of other galleries. In 1805 rp, there had been founded the "British Institu- „ ... , tion for Promoting the Fine Arts in the T tifi ti United Kingdom," with the threefold object of providing a means for the sale of the works of British artists, of exciting rivalry amongst younger men by the offer of money prizes or premiums, and of forming a collection of examples of British art. Later, a further feature was introduced, that of summer or autumn Exhibitions of the works of deceased painters. Under the patronage of King George the Third, rein- forced by subscriptions to the amount of £'j,i€>^, the Directors acquired the lease of the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, and inaugurated their venture by an Exhibition in 1806. Beaten by the keenness of modern competition, the British Institution closed its doors in 1867, but during the sixty-two years of its existence (saving a long spell in the 'forties and 'fifties) Landseer contributed to it regularly, a few of his most famous works first seeing the light in its rooms. According to Mr. Algernon Graves, eighty-one of his pictures were shown at this gallery. There seems no doubt but that the British Institution was established with a view to " waking up " the Royal Academy, the management of which threatened to lapse into lethargy and favouritism. But the influence of the Institution upon British Art may be said to have been very evanescent, mainly in 36 Early Popularity consequence of the Directors being dilettanti who dis- dained the assistance of expert advice in the conduct of their business, in the selection of pictures, and in the award of their prizes. They are nevertheless entitled to the credit of having established as early as 1813 the prin- ciple of " One-Man Shows," now so generally favoured, their first effort in this line being an Exhibition entirely devoted to the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Other galleries to which Landseer, in the earlier years of his career, sent pictures were the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours, who then held . their Exhibitions in a hall in Spring Gardens, ^ ^ a thoroughfare now more closely identified '' ^ with local self-government than with Art, as the head- quarters first of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and afterwards of the London County Council; and the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East. In at least one instance the same picture ("To- Ho") was shown at three different galleries (Royal Academy, 1820; British Institution, 1821; Society of British Artists, 1826); and in a few cases at both the Royal Academy and the British Institution, but the Royal Academy invariably had the preference. From the first Landseer's paintings sold readily, and speedily became in demand. When a painter exhibits regularly year after year in the leading galleries in London, and sees his pictures bought up with avidity, he has ceased to be an apprentice. So was it with Edwin Landseer, whose onward course fell little short of a triumphal progress. 37 CHAPTER IV. A.R.A. [1817-26.] " Lion," an Alpine mastiff— Tracked to its home — The dogs of Saint Bernard— " Fighting Dogs Getting Wind"— Equal to Snyders— "White Horse in a Stable" — Lost for twenty-four years — "The Intruder" — "The Braggart" — "Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller " — Contemporary criticism — Log-rolling — A father's protest — Backgrounds — "The Bull and the Frog" — Dissects a lion — Leonine subjects — Drawings for John Landseer's Essay on the Carnivora— " Rat-Catchers "— " Tapageur "— " To- Ho " — " The Larder Invaded " — A prize picture — Haydon's dishonoured cheque — " The Twa Dogs " — The Upper Ten — Fertility and resource — " The Cat's Paw " — Landseer's own house — " The Angler's Guard " — " Sancho Panza and Dapple " — " Who's to have the Stick ? "— " The Dog-Fox "—First visit to Scotland— Sir Walter Scott— Highland scenery— " The Widow" — " Chevy Chace "— " The Dog and the Shadow "-Anecdotes- Sydney Smith — Elected Associate of the Royal Academy. From the beginning John Landseer had displayed un- bounded faith in his son. He even engraved a few of his pictures and piiblished prints and "Lion " etchings after many more. To one of these, "An Alpine Mastiff," exhibited at Spring Gardens in 1817, though painted two years before, an interesting little history attaches. The dog's name was 38 " Lion " "Lion," and it belonged to Mrs. L. W. Boode, to whom it had been presented in i8 14 by a Swiss gentleman who received it directly from the famous hospice on Mont Saint Bernard. Edwin saw it in the street one day under the care of a man-servant, and with his usual scent for a subject followed it to its home, where he was allowed to draw it. " Lion" was afterwards con- veyed to Leasowe Castle, near Birkenhead, where it died in 1821. These facts were supplied to Mr. F. G. Stephens by Sir Edward Cust, whose mother-in-law was the dog's owner. As the mastiff when Edwin saw it measured 6 feet 4 inches in length, and stood 2 feet 7 inches at the middle of the back, and was the largest animal of its kind in England, it was not astonishing that it captivated so ardent a lover of dogs as the young painter had already become. Thomas Landseer engraved the picture, the plate being endorsed as "From a Drawing by his brother Edwin, aged 13." The print also recites a few details about the breed, which were probably drawn up by John Landseer, who had an amiable weakness for this sort of literary work. " Dogs of this kind," so the paragraph ran, " are kept at the Convent of Saint Bernard for the purpose of dis- covering and assisting those travellers who, in crossing the mountain, may be overwhelmed and buried in the drifted snow. They are sent forth in pairs, and when they discover a sufferer, one of them returns to the Convent for further assistance, whilst the other remains, doing his utmost to extricate the traveller. These dogs are also used as animals of burthen, and will carry a 39 Sir Edwin Landseer cwt. of provision from Bauch^ to the Hospice, which is i8 miles distant." It may be added that soon after its arrival in England, "Lion" proved its prowess by saving a woman from drowning. This Alpine subject grew upon the painter, and he recurred to it in a few years with dramatic effect. In 1818, when he was under the influence of James Ward, R.A., he achieved his first remarkable success by his "Fighting Dogs Getting Wind," exhibited at the II XT- J, • Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours W^^ ^S" jjj Spring Gardens. This work created a * profound impression, even the critics of the Press waxing vehement in their eulogy. One dog is down and the other is striding victoriously over it, and both are gasping for breath, but still full of the lust of fight. Whilst the painting was yet on the easel, the Annals of the Fine Arts (vol. iii., p. 162) declared that " the head of one of them, the tongue, teeth, and inside of the mouth is as finely painted as anything of Snyders ; " and when it was finished and submitted to public view the critic's notice was pithy — " as perfect a repre- sentation of animal nature as ever was painted. The interior of the dogs' mouths, their panting, their sub- dued rage, their heated breaths, as finely represented as the art is capable of" (vol. iii., p. 308). It is strange to discover a note of jealousy in an unexpected quarter. "Wilkie had rather a tendency," wrote Haydon, "to consider public notice a monopoly of his own; he did not quite like the repute of Davy, he rather under- valued Kean, he fiercely denied at first the. genius of 40 .o "White Horse in a Stable" E. Landseer." "Fighting Dogs" was purchased by Sir George Beaumont, an amateur painter and fashion- able connoisseur, whose patronage of the young man gave him increased vogue. It is a pity that so strong a worlc has never been engraved. Mr. Algernon Graves relates a. curious circumstance concerning another picture painted in this year (1818), "White Horse in a Stable." When this work, a commission from the Right Hon. H. Pierrepoint, was finished it was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and then mysteriously disappeared. Twenty-four years later it was found in a loft where it had been concealed by the thief, a dishonest servant. It was now forwarded to Mr. Pierrepoint with a letter explaining the facts, Landseer adding that the white horse was the first of that complexion he had ever painted. He had not retouched it, he said, preferring to "leave my early style unmingled with that of my old age." Asked what was the price, Landseer replied, "Ten guineas," the fee he would have received at the time he painted the picture, which now belongs to the Duke of Wellington. His successes were continued in 1819, especially with "The Intruder" (British Institution) — a cat driven to take refuge on a shelf on the sudden apparition of "Brutus," Landseer's pet terrier — and " The Braggart " — ^three dogs, said to typify England, Scot- ,^ land, and Ireland, one of which is indulging « . , , in characteristic bounce. But it was his „ fine picture of "Alpine Mastiffs Reani- mating a Distressed Traveller," exhibited at the British 41 Sir Edwin Landseer Institution in 1820, that strengthened his hold upon the admiration of lovers of Art. Two dogs are re- presented as endeavouring to restore a wayfarer over- taken by a storm in the Alps. One ("Caesar," a son of " Lion ") is licking the prostrate man with his rough tongue, the other ("Lion") is lifting its head, howling for help, and both are pawing away the snow. In the background some monks are hastening to render aid. Of this moving picture the Annals of the Fine Arts (vol. v., p. 153) wrote that " Snyders never painted better than the heads of these dogs, could not have painted the dying traveller near so well, and never gave half the historical interest and elevation to any of his pictures, unassisted by Rubens, as this possesses." In the previous volume of this magazine the critic had committed himself to some very emphatic prognosti- cation which is worth repeating. Landseer's last pictures in the British Institution — those of 1819 — ^he maintained: — "placed him at once as the first animal . „ painter of the day; he is not to be spoiled "by such merited praise; he will do better _, things than he has done, but what he has done is better than what any other person can do; he sees deeper into Nature than any of his pictures have hitherto displayed ; he must improve, because he never will be able to equal his ideas." It was glowing praise like this which led John Land- seer to protest — not unamiably and indeed, reading between the lines, really greatly delighted ("an' what for no?") by the writer's obvious sincerity — that Mr. 42 Log-rolling Elmes made too frequent mention of his sons in his book. " Is there not a little too much about my sons in it? I am afraid there is, considering they are but youthful students: but let that pass" (v. 107). "We differ from Mr. Landseer," retorted the Editor. "We have not mentioned them oftener than they deserved, and we shall continue to notice them as long as we think they merit it" (v. 200). But this ingenuous threat soon lost whatever terror it had, even for the older man, for the Annals, alas ! ceased to appear with the issue of the following number. After he had acquired by patient and persevering study a thorough knowledge of animal life, Landseer turned his attention to accessories. Many of his back- grounds had hitherto been more or less conventional and, especially in the case of several of his sketches, weak. Of this he was himself quite conscious, and it is recorded that, in 1822, he invoked the help of Patrick Nasmyth, the accomplished landscape-painter, to put in the background of his " The Bull and the Frog," and that he begged leave to postpone the painting in of the background of "Lion," the Alpine mastiff, until after his first visit to Scotland in 1824. Collaboration on the part of artists and engravers of repute is by no means rare — Sir Augustus W. Callcott, R.A., put in the land- scape to Landseer's "Harvest in the Highlands," exhibited in 1833, and David Roberts, R.A., the arch and church tower in "Geneva," exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, — but it was altogether of good omen that Edwin recognised thus early his temporary 43 Sir Edwin Landseer limitations, and laboured diligently and successfully to overcome them. Nevertheless, want of nerve, of I'audace, could not be laid to his charge, for by sheer force of imagination he was enabled to supply appro- priate, if theatrical, scenery for his great picture of the "Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller," although, as Mr. Monkhouse reminds us, he had not yet seen a mountain either in Switzerland or elsewhere — always excepting Primrose Hill. Moreover, whilst Landseer's knowledge of the animals of everyday life was now intimate and complete, he had To thp "°* forgotten his early loves in the heroic J . line. He and his friend, Thomas Christmas, at intervals still sketched and painted the lions in the Tower and at Exeter 'Change, and on the death of a noble brute at the latter menagerie, Mr. Cross presented them with the carcass, which they removed to their studio. The skin was afterwards preserved and stuffed. They dissected the body, and then the skeleton was articulated and set up. This accounts for the number of leonine subjects that occupied his canvases about this period. The "Lion Enjoying his Repast" and " Lion Disturbed at his Re- past" (both of 1820, and exhibited at the British Institu- tion a year later), and the "Prowling Lion" and "Study of a Lion " (both of 1822, and the former shown at the Royal Academy), all point to a lingering fascination for the reputed King of Beasts — a master passion that remained with him, despite intervals of dormancy, to the very last. This was further borne out by the five 44 The Carnivora drawings which he contributed in illustration of his father's essay on the Carnivora, written by way of text for a volume of ' ' Twenty[-one] Engravings of Lions, Tigers, Panthers, and Leopards," the plates in which were all engraved by Thomas Landseer. The chief pictures which Edwin made for this book were the Title-page, showing a couchant lion, which in its singular nobility of aspect anticipates the majestic creatures at the base of the Nelson Pillar, sovereignty of the animal world being suggested by the sceptre resting beneath its right paw; "Contending Group," representing a mad fight between a lion, leopard, and tiger — a poor fawn, the innocent occasion of the contest, lying crushed below the struggling, seething mass, — in which the rage of the royal beast is terrible to behold; and "Lioness and Bitch." By this last hangs a tale. A cub was found on the West African strand by some sailors, who con- veyed her to their ship, aboard which she was suckled and reared by a bitch. When the vessel reached London the interesting couple were deposited in Cross's menagerie. Long after the lioness (which had been christened "Charlotte") had ceased to be nursed, she still entertained the warmest affection for her foster- mother, fondling and licking her continually. How many folk know that ^his familiar anecdote owes its vitality to Landseer's picture from life ? As if to make amends for his brief desertion of them, he returned in 1821 to his canine friends. A remarkably vivid "Rat Catchers" introduces us to three of his pets, "Brutus," "Vixen," and "Boxer." The scene is 4S Sir Edwin Landseer laid in a barn. A few rats have already received their quietus, another is hopelessly trapped, and though pro- tected for the nonce from the attentions of the terriers, is a terrified spectator of the eager and quivering dogs. "Tapageur," a beautifully-painted poodle of a rather rare breed, and "To-Ho," a pair of pointers at work in a field, the dogs instinct with life, belong, the former to this year, the latter to 1820, when it was shown at the Royal Academy. Although Landseer's merits had now been placed beyond question, substantial recognition awaited his " Thp "Larder Invaded," which was exhibited at J- T the British Institution in 1822, and for which Invaded" *^® original sketch, according to Mr. Alger- non Graves, was made on a schoolboy's slate. A cat has found its way into a room liberally stocked with every variety of victual. Pussy, ignoring the game and hares and other dainty fare, has fastened upon a rabbit, but is suddenly disturbed by the entrance of a dog. The larder has been invaded, and he has come to learn the reason why. The two animals scru- tinise each other closely, the cat with a sense of dread which no doubt will prove to have been well founded. This picture, painted with exquisite finish, won not only marked popular applause, but also secured a premium of ;^i5o from the Directors of the Institution, awarded in discharge of one of their primary duties. It may, to some degree, though not wholly, be regarded as the first distinguished picture in the line which Landseer made peculiarly his own: not altogether, because 46 " The Twa Dogs " something must be said in this respect for the "Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller." As the painter was yet an infant in the legal eye, the cheque for the amount of his prize was sent to his father. A few days later, by one of those coinci- dences which are so common in the annals of im- pecuniosity, Haydon called upon John Landseer and pitched a doleful yarn of temporary distress, concluding by reminding his friend that Edwin could not use the money for a certain time, and asking for the loan of half the sum. Mr. and Mrs. Landseer held Haydon in sincere respect, notwithstanding his importunities, and John Landseer consequently agreed to advance jQ'j^, Haydon handing him a post-dated cheque for that amount. Many years later, at Landseer's table in St. John's Wood, talk turned upon poor Haydon and the incident was recalled. "Jessie," cried Edwin, "bring me Haydon's dishonoured cheque." At the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensing- ton there may be seen another favourite picture of this year, " The Twa Dogs," which the British ..j'^ yvy- nation owes to the munificence of Mr. Sheep- j^ „ shanks. Though the drawing of the New- foundland (Mr. Gosling's dog "Neptune") does not strike me as altogether satisfactory, a happier illustra- tion of Burns's poem could not be desired than this bright and bonnie composition. The poet's word-picture made strong appeal to the painter : — " The first I'll name, they ca'd him Caesar, Was keepit for his Honour's pleasure : 47 Sir Edwin Landseer His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, Show'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs ; But whalpit some place far abroad, Whare sailors gang to fish for cod. His locked, letter'd, braw brass collar Show'd him the gentleman and scholar; But tho' he was o' high degree, The fient a pride' — nae pride had he ; But wad hae spent an hour caressin', Ev'n wi' a tinlder-gips/s messan.' The tither was a ploughman's collie, A rhyming, ranting, roving billie,' Wha for his friend and comrade had him. An' in his freaks had Luath ca'd him, After some dog in Highland sang,* Was made lang syne — Lord knows how lang. He was a gash" an' faithfu' tyke, As ever lap a sheugh" or dyke. His honest, sonsie, baws'nt' face, Aye gat him friends in ilka place ; His breast was white, his tousie back Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black : His gaucie'tail, wi' upward curl, Hung owre his hurdles" wi' a swirl." By-and-by these two fine fellows fell a-talking, but for their "lang digression" the delicious poem itself must be consulted. It is a pity that Landseer did not go to Burns oftener for subjects, for they were both like- natured in their great love for animals. ' The devil a bit o£ ^ Mongrel. ' Fellow. * Ossian's. ' Sagacious. Furrow. ' Brindled. * Briskly wagging. ^ Hind quarters. 48 Enters Society There is in the Tate Gallery a tiny picture prosaically called " Study of a Donkey and Foal," which is, how- ever, the "Mischief in Full Play" (British Institution, 1823) of Mr. Algernon Graves's catalogue. It repre- sents a country lad mounted on the back of a hobbled donkey, which the boy is maliciously beating with a stick to induce it "to go" in spite of its impediment, a piece of mischief in which he is cordially assisted by a terrier viciously yelping at the ass's heels. The painting has all the qualities of a Dutch master, and is mentioned here thus particularly lest, owing to its small size, it be overlooked. It belonged latterly to Mr. H. Vaughan, who bequeathed it to the British nation. About this period Landseer made his entrie into the fashionable world. Starting on a purely professional footing, his acquaintance with many of the noblest-families in the land soon ripened into High Life friendship. He came, he saw, he conquered. In 1823 appeared his portrait of " Georgiana, Duchess of Bedford," an accomplished woman whom he after- wards taught to etch. He was on intimate terms with the Russells from this time forward, being often an honoured guest at Woburn Abbey, where he painted nearly every member of the family, usually introducing a horse, or pony, or dog, or deer into the composition, the animal forming in reality the chief charm of the picture. When lacking the advantage of such acces- sories, however, his portraits of noble dames, though pretty pictures enough in their way, were apt to verge 49 E Sir Edwin Landseer on the theatrical, and too frequently revealed serious defects in drawing. Meanwhile he was now able to reap in full the benefits of the long, patient, and thorough apprenticeship which TT- he had served to his Art. His facility and jj. .J.. resourcefulness could only have come from severe training and ample knowledge. There have been painters, such as Rubens in the past and Dor6 in the present, who produced pictures by the dozen or the yard, so to say, but the bulk of the work was done by students. Their industry and fluency were therefore in no sense remarkable. But Landseer had no pupils (for this purpose), and with the exception of the few instances in which, from creditable motives, he obtained assistance in the matter of backgrounds, or, from failing sight late in life, procured help in minute details, he painted and drew every inch of the hundreds of pictures and sketches which proceeded from his hand. His mastery was obtained in the only way in which it can be obtained — by devotion, drudgery, if you like, intelligence, and love for his art ; and with it came ease and rapidity and sureness of touch. Up to the 'fifties anyhow, his fertility was almost unrivalled. It had its drawbacks no doubt, for superior people who knew nothing of the apprenticeship, or made no allow- ance for all that it involved, shook their wise heads and talked of scene-painting. But whilst he was in the making, his craftsmanship was so painstaking that it might have satisfied Ruskin himself. His famous "Cat's Paw," exhibited at the British SO His Drawings of Pussy- institution in 1824, may be cited as a case in point. A monkey having laid violent hands upon a cat, uses one of the creature's paws to hook off some ~, ... < ... • J Ag pipmg hot chestnuts which are roastmg on •< r f the top of a stove. The disordered state of p „ the ironing-room shows that the outrage has not been quietly submitted to. You can almost hear the agonising yells of the victim, and a touch of grim humour is added by the fatuous protest of the cat's two kittens, which view the scene from a clothes'- basket. The cruel cunning of the monkey's face atxd his business-like method are admirably rendered. The cat in this picture and in the "Larder Invaded" are the best cats Landseer ever painted. It is curious that no animal is so difficult to draw as the cat. Mr. W. J. Broderip, F.R.S., the London magistrate who wrote so sympathetically on many branches of zoology, though sharing this opinion, expressly excepts Landseer; but in this particular we part company. Landseer either shirked it or did not care for the domesticated variety owing to his allegiance to Felis leo; but it is certain that it figures in few of his important works. However, the " Cat's Paw " is full of splendid drawing. Mr. Mayer, the dealer, purchased the picture for ;^ioo; but he was content with a modest profit, for he sold it in a few days to the Earl of Essex for ;^i20. Mayer sized up Landseer very shrewdly, believing it would be to his advantage to stand well with a young 'man who had begun early to climb the ladder of Fame and meant reaching the top. So he ventured to give the artist SI Sir Edwin Landseer some advice. Landseer still lived with his father, but had a studio in Upper Conway Street, afterwards Southampton Street, Fitzroy Square, which seems to have been anything but a comfortable place. At any rate Mayer thought so, for he asked Landseer why he stayed in a room that had not a table, or a carpet, or even decent chairs. "Why not have a place," urged the Tempter, "where you can keep a dog or two, and have a garden, and so on ? " It was an adroit hint, and . rr in due course Landseer acted upon it. He -. , . found a small house with garden, part of the then Red Hand Farm, on the west side of Regent's Park, close to where Lord's Cricket Ground now accommodates the M.C.C. The barn, soon con- verted into a studio, eventually became by successive additions the mansion (No. i St. John's Wood Road) where the painter lived for forty-eight years, and where Mr. H. W. B. Davis, R.A., the landscape-painter, afterwards resided. Landseer greatly improved the property. It was largely built to his own designs, and when it was demolished in 1894 to provide room, amongst other things, for a pile of flats, it attracted the curio-hunters. The panels of one door bore a pictorial commemoration of Queen Victoria's visit to her favourite painter in 1863, and the rustic seats in the shrubbery were adorned with his initials, " E. L. 1857," and "Edwin L.," cut truly and deeply, with a force that a schoolboy would admire. The flitting from the paternal roof involved no rupture of his relations with his father, for whom he cherished a tender affection as 53 " Lion " long as the old man lived. John Landseer, indeed, was his man of affairs, and, as Mr. F. G. Stephens concisely puts it, "settled the prices of his pictures, received the money, and treated Edwin in his twenty-second year as he had done when he was twelve years old." Two of the pictures which Mr. Sheepshanks presented to the nation belong to 1824. These were "The Angler's Guard" (exhibited at the British Institution) and " Sancho Panza and Dapple," both small and painted with almost miniature-like finish. The former represents a mastiff and greyhound keeping watch over the impedimenta of a disciple of Izaak Walton. The dogs are less happy than Landseer's wont, being stiff and formal, and neither of them well observed. Mr. Algernon Graves tells an amusing story of Mr. W. H. de Merle's "Lion" (painted in this year »also), a magnificent Newfoundland, splendidly rendered, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, by the grace of his then owner's widow. Landseer once wished to see the dog excited and, as luck would have it, a trapped mouse was close by. It was set free from its cage, "Lion" gave chase, and suddenly the mouse vanished. It had taken refuge in the dog's great cheeks. When his lips were opened the mouse popped out and escaped. Though "Lion" was usually good- natured, he knew how to resent insult. A bargee once began prodding him with the oar as he walked by a canal side ; instantly " Lion " seized the oar and jerked the man into the water. Another excellent picture of this fruitful year was "Who's to have the Stick?" 53 Sir Edwin Landseer "Brutus " and another dog have grasped the staff and are struggling, so far in amiable rivalry, for its possession. Indefatigable Mr, Graves has a note of still another 1824 picture, which illustrates how heedless to a fault was Landseer of many of his drawings. This one represented a singular hybrid, a " Cross of a Dog and Fox. " In answer to a friend's question, asked long after this period, as to the nature of the animal, Landseer said, "They call it a dog-fox, I painted it many years ago. It was exactly like him." Here he flung the picture through the open window into the garden, adding, " You may have it if you will take the trouble to fetch it." This was easily done, as the picture had lodged in a tree. It is no exaggeration to describe the year 1824 as the turning-point in Landseer's career. C. R. Leslie J-, . . rp ■ having occasion to visit Abbotsford in order .J, to paint a portrait of Sir Walter Scott for Mr. Ticknor, the publisher, of Boston, Massachusetts, prevailed upon Landseer to accompany him. They sailed from London to Leith, but when they arrived in Edinburgh Leslie found that the Wizard would not be at home for a few days. So, reinforced by G. S. Newton, R.A., the friends set out for a trip in the Highlands, by way of Glasgow. Thence the route lay by Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine. To-day every foot of the ground is known, but then it was still terra incognita, full of romance and loveliness. The " Lady of the Lake " was only fourteen years old. The beauty remains, but the glamour has gone for ever. How 54 First Highland Trip could it be otherwise when the Silver Strand had to be drowned and Ellen's Isle shorn of its fair proportions by the damming up of the lake, so that the canny folk of Glasgow might have an adequate water- supply for all time ? But in these matters salus populi is the only safe, as it must also be the final rule. From the Trossachs, the travellers struck across the hills and down the braes of Balquhidder to Loch Earn, bound for an athletic meeting. They were rowed down the lake by Highland boatmen who regaled them the while literally with fairy stories. As they drew near St. Fillans they heard the skirl of the bagpipes, which never sound finer than on loch or ben. Then they witnessed a real Gaelic gathering, where men danced, ran, leaped, threw the hammer, tilted at the ring, putted the stone, tossed the caber, and piped. Such gatherings were once common throughout Scotland, but save the famous Northern Meeting at Inverness, the Braemar Gathering, and the Strathallan Games, they have either died out or have dwindled into "side shows " on local fair days. To Landseer and his merry men they proved a revelation and the tour brought a new world within his ken, haunted by stags and stalwart Highlanders whose strange lingo seemed to suit the wild hills, and whose illicit whisky smacked of the heather and peat reek. Later in the year he spent a week at Abbotsford, where, as Leslie had predicted, he made himself very popular with the master and mistress of the mansion by sketching their doggies, and where, under the Chief's guidance, he explored the Sir Edwin Landseer picturesque dales of the Tweed, when he was not trying for a salmon or dandering about with the keepers. For ever afterwards Landseer's heart was in the Highlands a-chasing or a-sketching the deer. The glorious scenery, too, made a deep and lasting impression. His feeling for Highland landscape was quite remarkable, and he seemed to treat even the climate with brotherly regard. Although the influence of these Scottish holidays told at once, he never abandoned the type of subject with ^^ which his name is popularly associated. 3T ., "The Widow" (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1825) was unusually successful. A handsome drake has fallen dead at the feet of his mate, a comely white duck, who lifts up her voice and weeps. Thin was the partition which divided such a theme from farce — bearing in mind the aspect of the birds — but, greatly daring, Landseer has imparted to it a proper touch of pathos, and made a beautiful picture of it. His journeys across the Border had secured him the friendship of the Earl of Tankervill^, and a visit to , Chillingham Castle, within hail of the scene ■^ of many of the bloody frays between the ^ doughty Douglas and the fiery Percy, suggested the subject of " Chevy Chace." He did not illustrate the battle of the ancient ballad which stirred the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet, but the driving of the deer which precipi- tated the encounter. It was an ambitious picture, 56 ^HhRIP''' ^ J^^l K^ l^^^^^^H Mi ^^k-^^j&HbS 't 14 H ^B|^^^H« flHg" Jh I^M gjn B^^f >ji^^8m WL 11 I^hI ^^^K^s W' ^''^^9^1 1 ^^^f^'^^i II ^l^^H 1 " Is thy Servant a Dog ? " painted for the Duke of Bedford, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1826, and now at Woburn Abbey, and was not wholly successful. The failure, however, went no farther than might have been expected of an artist who should attempt a historical painting on a large scale without adequate pireliminary training in this mode, for it contained many excellent passages. More in his own line was the small picture "The Dog and the Shadow" (British Institution, 1826), which hangs on the walls of the Victoria and Albert Museum by the generosity of Mr. Sheepshanks. It is a render- ing of the old fable, and shows the dog, with a piece of stolen meat in his mouth, standing on a tree that spans a stream and gazing at his reflection in the water. To this date belongs the capital anecdote which has gone the rounds for many a year, and which appears to justify the axiom of a thing being too good to be true. In answer to Lady. Holland's -^ .:; urging of him to sit to Landseer for his portrait, Sydney Smith is alleged to have said, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Leslie always declared the story to be ben trovato, and Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., on the authority of Landseer himself, asserts its apocryphal character. Nevertheless it seems to have a genuine ring ; it is the sort of reply that the witty Canon was quite capable of making. But there was another story, though of a later year. At a Court Ball at which the King of Portugal and Landseer were present, his Majesty expressed a wish to be introduced to the illustrious painter. 57 Sir Edwin Landseer "Oh! Mr. Landseer," said the King in a foreigner's English, " I am delighted to make your acquaintance — I am so fond of beasts." For my part I see no reason why both anecdotes should not be true. Leslie says that Sydney Smith, happening to meet Landseer shortly after the story found its way into print, asked, " Have you seen our little joke in the papers ? " "Are you disposed to acknowledge it?" retorted the painter, Scotick. " /have no objection," quoth the Churchman. These two brilliant men always indulged in playful badinage of each other, Sydney with tongue and Edwin with pen. Indeed, Landseer's sketches of the Canon in the Redleaf Scribblers' Book are so clever as to prove that his faculty of caricature was of no mean order. Landseer, with ^'Mtwi-sympathy, once remarked to the Reverend Sydney Smith, " With your love of humour, it must be a great act of self-denial to abstain from the theatres." "The managers are very polite," was the answer in tones of appropriate resignation. "They send me free admissions, which I can't use, and, in return, I send them free admissions to St. Paul's." Leslie gives us to understand that this colloquy is historical. It is odd that an eminent Dean once sent a pass to me on the occasion of his preaching "below the dome." I pre- ferred to keep the document, as it struck me there was something quaint about the notion, and take my chance with the general public. 58 Elected Associate Landseer was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1826, at the earliest age (24) at which it is possible for an artist to receive this honour. Few men have won this signal mark of A.R.A. Academic favour. Turner, Lawrence, and Millais have been amongst the painters thus dis- tinguished. No doubt Mr. F. G. Stephens is right when he surmises that the Council advanced him on the score of pronounced merit, proved for several years, rather than in recognition of the varied qualities of his " Chevy Chace." They had, so to say, been lying in wait for him, and it must be counted to them for righteous- ness that they seized the very first opportunity open to them to place the sign and seal of august approval upon one who had already been designated for promotion by the public voice, and who was, moreover, the son of John Landseer. 59 CHAPTER V. R.A. [1827-31.] Landseer's hobbies — Deer-stalking — In the social circle — Nodes Ambrosiana — Simplicity of a child — His men of affairs — A lavish giver — Aye sketching — Cheque to bearer — "The Deerstalkers' Return" — His broader manner — "All that Remains of the Glory of William Smith" — John Pye's story — "The Monkey who has seen the World " — Illustrations for books and magazines — " High Life"— "Low Life"— "The Fireside Party"- "The Death of the Stag in Glen Tilt "—Defects of its qualities—" The Highland Whisky Still"— " Highland Music "—Elected R. A.— Diploma pictures—" The Faithful Hound." Landseer had few interests outside of Art. Public life never appealed to him. When he got to know the ^ ,, Scottish Highlands intimately, as he soon ^ , , did, he became an enthusiastic sportsman, and in the social circle confessedly he shone. Yet even these forms of recreation were curiously domi- nated by his absorbing devotion to his craft. The eye of the deer-stalker did not dull the eye of the artist, and indeed often when he went out to shoot he remained to sketch, to the wonderment and sometimes the wrath of the gillies, who thought him daft till they grew familiar with the man and his ways. His companions on hill 60 Amongst Bohemians and moor were the dukes and earls who hunted none the less keenly for being expert critics and perfervid worshippers of Art. And the chief victims of his mirth- provoking joviality were either his fellow-craftsmen or those great patron-friends of his — commoners all — by whose splendid generosity the British public galleries have been enriched with the masterpieces of painter and sculptor. Before the soir6e replaced it, the close of the annual exhibition of pictures in Trafalgar Square used to be celebrated by Academicians and Associates jJnrtp dining together enfamille, so to say. Those . ■, banquets were happy informal gatherings — . nodes ccenceque deorum — to which artists beyond the pale, whose works had been shown on the walls during the season, were bidden welcome, on the introduction of a friend and the payment of a guinea. Jest, and song, and story were the order of the night, and the brethren of the brush "let them- selves go," as only artists can when the spirit moves them. On such occasions Landseer was supreme, and added to the general enjoyment by the evident gusto of his efforts to promote hilarity and make every one feel at home. Youth and manhood were his only periods of unclouded happiness. Mr. Frith avows that he warbled delightfully, and was one of the best story-tellers he ever knew: as to which the painter of " Ramsgate Sands" has preserved the following quaint anecdote that Edwin used to tell of NoUekens, the sculptor, to whom the Prince Regent (afterwards George IV.) was sitting 6i Sir Edwin Lands eer for his bust in marble. A little dust having found its way from the chisel on to the Prince's coat-collar, Nollekens blew it off, saying the while : — " How's your father ? " The nature of Farmer George's occasional illness is well known. " Thank you, Mr. Nollekens," answered the Prince, "he is much better." " Ah ! that's all right ! " remarked the sculptor. " It would be a sad thing if he was to die, for we shall never have another King like him." "Thank you," said the Prince. " Ah, sir, you may depend upon that." This would have suited Du Maurier's series of "Things one might have expressed otherwise." Another characteristic witnessed to a simple-minded- ness that was surely lovable. In money matters, and Unbusi- '° ^^''* ^° business affairs generally, he was ness-lihe ^^ merest child. His father discovered this weakness early and took charge of all these things for many years, and when increasing age com- pelled John Landseer to resign his self-imposed trust, the druggist Jacob Bell, the founder of the Pharma- ceutical Society, who was a Victorian Maecenas if ever there was one, and finally Thomas Hyde Hills, under- took the duty out of pure friendship. Edwin Landseer was lavish to a fault in the bestowal of his sketches. " You must have given away hundreds of pounds, Landseer," was once the gentle remon- strance of Frederick Goodall, R.A. But the painter 62 Superb Sketches only smiled and said nothing — though possibly thinking a lot. If he wrote a letter, as likely as not he would introduce a sketch before he reached the sig- . ^ //g„g„ nature. If he presented a boo^^ to a lady, the , ^i^ , , inscription would in all probability be adorned with a charming little drawing of a Skye terrier. I have seen a cheque for ;^8o, drawn upon Messrs. Gosling & Sharp, of 19 Fleet Street, in his hand- writing, in which, instead of the word " bearer," there appears a beautiful sketch of a horse, such a capital like- ness withal, that I was told that if the lady who rode the hack had presented the cheque it would almost certainly have been honoured. It seemed as if his fingers could not rest idle; as if he suffered from some cacoethes delineandi. All the same, it was a fine failing, by which he benefited after a fashion, for he acquired an almost unrivalled knack of sketching. The Redleaf Scribblers' Book contains enough sketches by Landseer to have gained for him a reputation in ' this manner alone. There is a sketch in these treasure-volumes of a man looking at the wares exposed for sale outside of a poulterer's shop, the rows of strung-up geese being indicated by a few cunning pen-strokes, that is perfect as an example of adequate effect obtained by the simplest of means. The two hurried studies of Turner, surreptitiously observed whilst in the Royal Academy on Touching-day and painted on his palette, from which impressions were skilfully transferred on white blotting-paper, and the y««ji-caricature of Paganini are marvels of adroit drawing. 63 Sir Edwin Landseer One of the first conspicuous fruits of Landseer's earliest jaunts to Scotland was "The Deerstalkers' ,, j^ Return," exhibited at the Royal Academy in , ,, , 1827. The hunters have had a fairly suc- r> , „ cessful expedition, the spoils of the chase being a couple of deer borne homewards on the backs of a white and a black pony. At the head of one of the horses march the young chief and a hench- man, accompanied by two dogs. This was the first important picture in which the artist showed signs of breaking away from his more youthful manner. It is painted in the freer and larger style employed so suc- cessfully in his later works, a fluency that was rendered possible, as has already been argued, by the years of rigorous application during which he had been patiently and with ample knowledge accumulating the reserve of power, ease, and dexterity which were now and ever afterwards to stand him in such good stead. Two other pictures of a popular order belong to the same year. John Pye, the engraver, collaborated with "WW '^'™ '"^ ^^ production of one, which bore ^ .,, „ the mysterious title of "All that Remains of ^^ the Glory of William Smith." Pye's plate (engraved in 1836) contains a legend, which probably is his handiwork also, telling the story in such quaint phrases as to be worth reproducing : — ' ' William Smith, being possessed of combativeness and animated by a love of glory, enlisted in the loist regiment of Foot. At the battle of Waterloo, on the i8th of June follow- ing, a cannon ball carried oif one of his legs; thus 64 An Old Soldier commenced and terminated William's military career. As he lay wounded on the field of battle, the dog here represented, blind with one eye, and having also a leg shattered apparently by a musket shot, came and sat beside him as 'twere for sympathy. The dog became William's prisoner, and when a grateful country re- warded William's services by a pension and a wooden leg, he stumped about accompanied by the dog, his friend and companion. On the 15th December, 1834, William died. His name never having been recorded in an extraordinary Gazette, this public monument, representing the dog at a moment when he was ill and reclining against the mattress on which his master died, is erected to his memory by Edwin Landseer and John Pye." Much more mordant sarcasm than this may be justly indulged in about too many old soldiers, whose wounds are salved by a paltry pension, and for whom the workhouse is often the only asylum ; but we cannot help thinking that it was in a measure lucky for William Smith that his pitiable plight had awakened the sym- pathy of the one-eyed tyke ; for the story of the cur's fidelity was bound to touch the heart of one who could never listen unmoved to any tale of canine loyalty and love. This interesting picture is now in the collection of Lord Cheylesmore. In the case of the second picture the subject might almost have been borrowed directly from Thomas Land- seer's Monkey-ana, for it represents "The Travelled Monkey," or perhaps more suitably, "The Monkey who has seen the World" (Royal Academy, 182^). 65 F Sir Edwin Landseer A monkey who had left his home to make the grand tour has returned to his relatives in the forest — but "T 11 d^°^ changed! Dressed to the nines, in yj, , „ cocked-hat, long square-cut coat, breeches, stockings, and buckled shoon; with powdered wig and face with beauty-spot, dangling a cane and sporting an eye-glass, he looks a simian Sir Benjamin Backbite. The supercilious beau cuts a dash ; most of his humble mates are speechless with admiration and envy, but a few of the baser sort jabber together, heed- less of the dazzling vision, whilst one has contrived to pick his pocket of the snufF-box, the contents of which it is busy sampling. It is an excellent piece of work- manship, though obviously the subject is of the casual order. Though it is true that the busiest man has most time, Landseer really had little leisure for illustrating books j7, . or periodicals. Early in his career some of .. his drawings were engraved as plates for magazines devoted to sport, and he also contributed a few pictures to the Keepsake and one or two others of the Annuals then fashionable. He seldom drew on the wood, one of the rare exceptions being the drawing of "A Black Sheep" which he made for the fourth number of the Comhill Magasine (i860), out of personal regard for Thackeray, in illustration of the novelist's story of " Lovell the Widower." At the period at which we have arrived (1828) — no doubt at the instance of Sir Walter Scott on the one hand, and of Samuel Rogers on the other — he prepared several 66 "High Life" and "Low Life" admirable illustrations (but not all in this year) for the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels (which Messrs. A. & C. Black are still wise enough to use), and for the banker-poet's " Italy," upon the adornment of which the wealthy amateur contemplated spending a small fortune, and which did actually cost him ;^io,ooo. The picture of "The Falconer" (1829), which was engraved for the Amulet, is' interesting as being a portrait of himself. Some of the paintings of 1829 are especially familiar. Two of them, thanks to Mr. Robert Vernon, are public property— " High Life" and "Low Life." These are studies of dogs, one a well- mannered staghound (alleged by certain ,•' " persons, but on insufficient grounds, to be Sir Walter Scott's "Maida") accustomed to move only in the most polite society, the other a butcher's bull-dog as plebeian as his surroundings can make him. Both were remark- ably fine pictures. That the latter was exceptionally successful may be gathered from the moralising of the reluctant Ruskin. In Modem Painters (Part IX., chap, vii.) it is written, "Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of over-reaching, accompanied with enjoy- ment and a sense of superiority. It is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. Its essential connection with vulgarity may be at once exemplified by the expression of the butcher's dog in Landseer's 'Low Life.'" A third picture, which the British nation owes to the enlightened zeal of Mr. Sheepshanks, was also a 67 Sir Edwin Landseer doggy subject. This is the "Fireside Party," and represents the "Pepper" and "Mustard" terriers of honest Dandie Dinmont, immortalised in that extra- ordinary tour de force, Guy Mannering. By-the-bye, Mr. F. G. Stephens, following a pen-slip in Mr. Richard Redgrave's original catalogue of the Sheep- shanks gift, refers these dogs to The Antiquary, an error into which The Times, relying upon Mr. Stephens, was also betrayed in its obituary notice of the painter. Of the Scottish pictures of this year, one was an important portrait composition called "The Death of the Stag in Glen Tilt," and another a homelier group, the "Highland Whisky Still." In the former the central figure is the Duke of AthoU, and around him are posed his son and three keepers. The dead stag and several dogs, and the beautiful scenery of the wild glen, com- plete the picture. Excellent as was the subject, and well suited to the artist, the picture has the defects of its conditions. Stir and bustle that would animate such a scene have been sacrificed, almost unavoidably, to portraiture, which has produced an aspect of for- mality and subservience. Unlike Bowls and Curling, two Scottish pastimes in which rank is obliterated for the nonce, and only skill, whether that of peer or peasant, counts. Stalking is pursued in circumstances which render it impossible for the gillie to forget that he is a servant. The grouping in such a portrait composition as this must therefore be stiff and conven- tional, though wherever Landseer had a chance of 68 "Highland Whisky Still" putting forth his powers he did not hesitate to seize it. No limitations were imposed by the simple annals of the illicit distiller. Satisfied that Landseer was no gauger come to haul him up for defrauding his Majesty's excise, Donald allowed the artist to paint his humble bothy, his dogs and his bairns, not forgetting the still. Indeed, the hero himself condescended to sit, and he looks every inch a connoisseur of "the stuff " as, with tightly-closed lips, he churns in his mouth the contents of the empty glass. I verily believe that Landseer also sampled the " Auld Kirk," as the dram is aifectionately if euphemistically called, ready to subscribe to the doctrine of the immortal revenue officer who sang that "The ae best dance e'er cam to the land, was the De'il's awa' wi' the exciseman." The figure of the bonnie, bare-foot lass standing on the right was greatly admired, and engraved by itself as a type of " Rustic Beauty." This rare good picture belongs to the Duke of Wellington, and now hangs in the drawing-room of Apsley House. As a rule, however, so far as the human figures were concerned, Landseer was not so happy in his lowly Highland interiors as Erskine Nicol was, or Thomas Faed. This was partly seen in the clever picture of "Highland Music" (British Institution, 1830), repre- senting a kilted cotter blowing the grand Highland bagpipes to the evident delectation of a number of dogs yowling out of the ecstasy of their joy. This was another of Mr. Vernon's goodly gifts to his fellow- countrymen. 69 Sir Edwin Landseer At the top of his industry, which was yet to be displayed under high pressure, for a round twenty years or more, Edwin Landseer was elected a R.A. Royal Academician in 1831, at the age of twenty-nine (an honour which Mr. F. G. Stephens antedates by one year). When a painter is admitted to full membership it is incumbent upon him to present an example of his work to the Academy, which returns the compliment by sending the author of it his diploma of membership, signed by the Sovereign. From the attending circumstances these pictures are known as "diploma" pictures, and be it said, in pass- ing, that no collection in London is, in an Academic sense, as interesting or as poorly patronised by the public as is the Diploma Gallery at Burlington House. This is singular, since admission is free ; but perhaps the Council would be better advised to charge an entrance fee, for in such case it might become the vogue to " do the Diplomas." Oddly enough, Landseer's diploma picture was painted in 1830, the year prior to his election — did the coming event cast its shadow before? It was a sombre subject — "The Faithful Hound" (in Mr. Algernon Graves's catalogue it is styled "The Dead Warrior " ; but "The Dying War- rior" was Charles Landseer's diploma picture,, repre- senting a pious monk tendering the last consolations of his faith to an expiring soldier). In the new R.A.'s picture a knight in armour lies dead, pillowed against his prostrate horse, whilst a noble bloodhound howls his anguish to the winds. The pathos of the dog is 70 Diploma Picture beautifully rendered, and tone and feeling are fine. The whole is painted in a low key ; the day, too, is dying, but the last gleams of light on the horizon speak of a brighter morrow beyond the grave. But why, oh ! why, will artists choose such gloomy themes to celebrate occasions which, to them at least, should be as wells of gladness ? 71 CHAPTER VI. THE GOLDEN PRIME. [1831-40.] Dexterity— Wells of Redleaf— The Scribblers' Book— Sir Walter Scott — Plebeian and patrician — "Jack in Office" — "Highland Breakfest" — Mr. Sheepshanks — Highland scenes — " The Naughty Boy "— " Suspense "— " The Sleeping Bloodhound "—Mr. Jacob Bell- Signs of the times — " Comical Dogs " — The best of mimics— " The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner "— " A Distinguished Mem- ber of the Humane Society "—"There's Life in the Old Dog yet" — "None but the Brave Deserve the Fair" — Queer criticism- Visitor at the R.A. Schools — " Dignity and Impudence "— " Tethered Rams" — Illness — " Laying Down the Law." Probably there never was a painter who had such a gift of combined facility and finish as Landseer pos- sessed. When seized with a subject to his Dexterity liking', it was not uncommon for him to complete it at a sitting. But for their being vouched for by men and women whose veracity is unim- peachable, the stories told of his dexterity would be scarcely credible. The astonishing thing about these pictures, apart from the speed at which they were produced, was that they were all surprisingly good. Rapidity in his case did not mean scamped work. This must be emphasised in these days of pot-boilers. More- 72 The Laird of Redleaf over, he would have sinned against his upbringing had he consented to turn out work which he would have been ashamed to sign. Besides, the instances of his swift and sure execution are mostly subsequent to his election to the dignity of Academician — when noblesse oblige and amour propre forbade jerry-work, — though one famous example belongs to that very year. This was the portrait of " Trim," to which title is added, as a pendant, the comment of a bystander — ' ' The old dog looks like a picture." Allusion to it leads to the mention of one of Land- seer's dearest friends, Mr. William Wells of Redleaf, near Tunbridge Wells, justly celebrated for nr n f his hearty encouragement of young men „ ,, '^■ of talent. Many a painter that afterwards reached the ranks of the sacred Forty owed more than his first incentive to go in and win to the kindly and thoughtful consideration of this wise and judicious patron. Landseer was a frequent and wel- come visitor at Redleaf. Mr. Wells believed it to be a privilege to entertain artists, and kept one pleasant re- cord of their forgatherings under his hospitable roof, in the shape of what came to be proudly designated " The Scribblers' Book," already referred to in these pages, in which he good-humouredly required every artist to make at least one sketch, with power to add to the number. One specimen of their skill, however, was de rigueur. They were free to choose their own subject, and many of the contributors ransacked the neighbour- hood for "bits," not sparing the parson of "Penshurst 73 Sir Edwin Landseer and the smock-frocked rustics. Frederick Goodall, R.A., was represented by several choice morceaux, both "plain and coloured;" W. P. Frith, R.A., illustrated Molifere with apt skill; F. R. Lee, R.A., was there, and so too was E. W. Cooke, R.A. ; "Frank" Grant, all unwitting of the distant presidency and knighthood, lent a hand ; and by special licence several distinguished amateurs, titled and untitled, were admitted of the company. But Landseer was easily first, alike for the variety, the excellence, and the number of his sketches. The Book ultimately ran to two volumes before its excellent projector gazed on it for the last time with mortal eye. It is a unique example of the Omnium Gatherum, and its only possible destination surely is manifest. Nor did the genial host expect his guests to loaf, or holiday-make, if they felt disposed for work, Landseer and Goodall were often at Redleaf painting together, each in a room allotted to him. In the evening the dinner-table was the common rendezvous, and there Landseer, if in form, reigned supreme. He was a brilliant conversationalist, full of anecdote and fun, a ready raconteur, endowed with a knack of suiting the action to the word that made some of his recitals quite dramatic. Especially was this noticeable after he had conquered Scotland, or been conquered by it. His experiences in deer-stalking were related with a vivid- ness that was startling, and that presented his hearers with a perfect picture of the scene. Mr. Wells was in some things punctilious. Most of us 74 The Tale of "Trim" would be miserable without our pet idiosyncrasies. A generous host, he yet did not care for beer to be seen at dinner. On one occasion Landseer created much merriment by asking in provokingly deliberate tones, " Would you consider me a beast, Mr. Wells, if I had a glass of beer ? " Another point upon which the laird of Redleaf held strong views was churchgoing. He rather expected his guests, however numerous, to attend service. Most of them complied, but Landseer invariably stood out. He had no objection to Mr. Wells's going, but go himself he positively would not. One Sunday Mr. Wells and company found, on their return, a newly-finished canvas on Landseer's easel. It seemed that the folk had scarcely left for church in the morning, when the painter observed a spaniel bound across the bracken with a rabbit in its teeth. The artist saw a subject at once, went straight to his room, took out a fresh canvas, and finished the picture right away. On the stem of a birch-tree in the background he wrote, "To W. Wells, Esq., with the author's respects. Painted by E. Landseer in two hours and a half. Redleaf, August 1831." If this was meant to soften his refusal to accompany Mr. Wells to church, the ruse succeeded. Mr. Wells greatly prized the gift, which he hung up on the door of his bedroom — a. room which was, so to speak, sacred to Landseer, for its walls were covered only with his drawings. And that is the tale of "Trim." To the diplomate year belongs the pleasant portrait of "Sir Walter Scott," now in the National Portrait 75 Sir Edwin Landseer Gallery in London. This, however, was not the first picture which owed its inspiration to Abbotsford. In 1827 Landseer had exhibited at the ^r Walter g^j^jgjj institution his rendering of a " Scene " at Abbotsford," designed to commemorate " Maida," then old and feeble, who died a few weeks later. Sir Walter was a zealous Landseerian. Under date of February 13th, 1826, he writes in his Diary, as quoted by Lockhart: — " Landseef's dogs were the most magnificent things I ever saw — leaping, and bounding, and grinning on the canvas." Three years later Scott paid the painter the handsome compliment of acknowledged indebtedness in his General Preface to the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels. In 1833 Landseer's "Sir Walter Scott seated in the Rhymer's Glen " was shown at the Royal Academy ■ — a posthumous portrait of which Lockhart says that the artist's " familiarity with Scott renders this almost as valuable as if he had sat for it. This beautiful picture is in the gallery of Mr. Wells [of Redleaf]." A quarter of a century afterwards Landseer harked back to Abbotsford, for one of two pictures by which he was represented at the British Institution in 1858, after six years' desertion, illustrated an " Extract from a Journal whilst at Abbotsford," which recorded, to quote Mr. Algernon Graves's catalogue, that he "found the great poet in his study laughing at a collie dog playing with Maida, his favourite old deerhound, given him by Glen- garry ; and quoting Shakespeare — ' Crabbed age and youth cannot live together.' On the floor was a cover 76 Highland Pictures of a proof-sheet sent for correction by Constable of the novel then in progress [? The Betrothed]. N.B. — This took place before he was the acknowledged author of the Waverley Novels." Highland subjects, on the one hand, and portrait- groups of the dlite of the aristocracy, on the other, kept Landseer very busy in the early 'thirties. . The "Poacher's Bothy" (Royal Academy, ^1^°^^^ 1831) showed how success jeopardised the . . trespasser. The law-breaker has secured a stag, but he wears a worried look lest he be caught red-handed, and has had to give up his box- bed to the victim of his nefarious gun, for the better concealment of the booty. Another Highland interior represents an old crone who lives now wholly in the past, but whose memory still fondly lingers around bonnie Prince Charlie. This is "The Auld Wife" (British Institution, 1832), which is now the property of Lord Cheylesmore. "She minds naething o' what passes the day, but set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She'll ken fine CuUoden's sad day (though, maybe, she couldna tell ye what to-day is). Yon was the guidman's claymore." Mr. Algernon Graves says that when Sir Edwin saw the picture in Manchester (at the Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857), he declared that he ' ' kept the woman alive with whisky while he painted her." As for the pictures in which the nobility figured, they had grown so numerous — and continued so plentiful for many years to come — that Burke might engrave them with advantage to illuminate 77 Sir Edwin Landseer the somewhat stodgy and sawdustish pages of his " Peerage." To the friendships already formed with the Russells and Abercorn Hamiltons he was now privileged to add intimacy with the Cavendishes, which eventuated in the " Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time" of 1834, which Samuel Cousins's fine engraving rendered for at least half a century one of those pictures "which no gentleman's family should be without," and for which, by-the-bye, he obtained the modest sum of ;^400. It was no doubt gratifying to Landseer to mix on equal footing with the highest classes in the land. At present the prospect seemed bright and hopeful, but in later years it was seen that the strain of the intercourse had wrought irreparable mischief. Amongst the Sheepshanks pictures two popular ones were painted in 1833 and 1834, These were "A Jack , in Office" (Royal Academy, 1833) and the ■ o/w " "Highland Breakfast." A vendor of cat's, •"^ meat who has gone in search of "a drop of something short " at the nearest gin-shop has left his goods and chattels under the charge of a brawny mongrel, which, seated aloft on the barrow, eyes with lazy disdain the curs of various breed that, ' ' letting ' I dare not' wait upon ' I would,'" are half-hoping, half- praying that the custodian may be false to his trust and allow them to convey a portion of the coveted fare., "Jack," it is plain, does not care a rap for any of them, and so suffers no temptation to play the traitor. The expressions of the different solicitors are capitally caught, and the picture is an unusually fine example 78 John Sheepshanks of the Landseerian school — well drawn, well painted, well conceived. The "Highland Breakfast" (Royal Academy, 1834) represents a number of dogs at their morning feed in a humble hut. Some of them hatig back, for the mess is yet too hot, but they will all fall to ere long. Meanwhile the puppies of one decline to wait, and assail their mother's dugs with brisk energy. The cotter's wife, too, infected with the spirit of the scene, seizes the opportunity to give her baby its morning draught. The consentaneousness of the meal is amus- ing, if a trifle overdone. Landseer had a trick at times of accentuating the note of his subject. In "There's no Place like Home," for example, it was a happy touch to introduce a crawling snail carrying its home on its . back. John Sheepshanks, it is perhaps time we explained, was a sleeping partner in a Leeds cloth-house. He was one of the most judicious buyers of his day, Af ci. j. and his house at Rutland Gate, Hyde Park, ' , , SflCtttKS was full of treasures. He acquired several of the finest Landseers at prices incredibly small. One of the largest — " The Departure of the Highland Drovers" — was a commission from the Duke of Bedford for ;^5oo. When the picture was finished, the Duke told the painter that he was very poor, and that if he (Landseer) could find another purchaser for the noble work, he would abandon his claim to it. Mr. Sheep- shanks was only too glad to step into his Grace's shoes. He also secured "A Jack in Office," "The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner," "The Tethered Rams," and others, 79 Sir Edwin Landseer " dirt cheap." If any one remarked to this effect, how- ever, Mr. Sheepshanks fired up instantly. The patron, says Mr. Frith, protested pointedly, "Well, I always give what is asked for a picture, or I don't buy it at all — never beat a man down in my life : never sold a picture, and I never will ; and if what I hear of the prices you gentlemen are getting now is true, I can't pay them, so my picture-buying days are over." But the nation is the richer for Mr. Sheepshanks's high- souled self-denial. Moreover, it must be said of Mr. Sheepshanks's point of view, that it would have been better for Art and artists — and, it may be added, for Letters and writers of books — if the practice of paying inflated prices had never "caught on." Incalculable harm has followed it. The painters, of course, were not solely to blame, any more than the authors. When manufacturers and financiers amassed immense fortunes ^er salium, and competed with one another for the pictures of the foremost men of the day, the artists would have been more, or less, than human had they declined these dazzling offers (though Turner did it more than once). But the effect upon most of them was pernicious in the extreme. It en- couraged ostentation and luxury — the mere pride of living — which afforded not only the worst possible, but one might almost say a positively vicious, milieu for the production of the best work, with the inevitable result that when bad times came the men were reduced to pot- boiling. The necessity to keep up a false position clashed disastrously With the pursuit of Art for its own 80 The " Highland Drovers " sake, which would always have been possible, had they been content to live in a more modest fashion, and put by their earnings for the " rainy day." Landseer made a point of spending every autumn, as long as his health permitted, and sometimes even when he was scarcely physically fit to stand „. , , , the climate, in the Scottish Highlands. ^^^'■"■^"' These holidays usually left their mark on his c^nes work. To these golden years of the 'thirties belong his " Harvest in the Highlands " (Royal Academy, 1833) and "Crossing the Bridge" (1834). Though the former lacks concentration, it is an important work, the nature of which is sufficiently indicated by its title. Its back- ground, as has been mentioned, was put in by Sir Augustus W. Calcott, R.A. The latter was of an original design. The bridge occupies the centre of the canvas, and a party of deer-stalkers are in the act of crossing, with the ponies laden with the spoils of the day's sport. At their head, already clear of the bridge, marches a piper, blowing with customary verve. The landscape is well felt. Another subject, " Highland Shepherd's Dog Rescuing a Sheep in the Snow " (Royal Academy, 1834), was expressly alluded to in the Land- seer memorial sermon preached in St. Paul's Cathedral on the 12th of October, 1873, for its fine didactic qualities. But the "Highland Drovers' Departure" (Royal Academy, 1835) is, in many respects, the most admirable of all the Highland pictures. Flocks and herds are ready for the road ; the grandfather (old John Landseer) is to partake of a drop of "the cratur" to 81 G Sir Edwin Landseer fortify him for the journey; a pair of lovers have their last fond crack for the while ; the granny seems upset at the notion of flitting; a hen defends her brood spiritedly from a saucy terrier; a boy teases another dog ; the scene represents just the last spell of rest and refreshment prior to starting on a long and tedious tramp, Landseer painted the picture with obvious zest. In point of colour it must rank with his most excellent work, the scenery is rendered with striking fidelity, and the animals are beautifully drawn. One blemish it has — the artist has introduced too many isolated incidents, a defect which breaks up the composition and makes you feel that it wants "pulling together." It was seldom that Landseer painted a child without any four-footed or other companion, but "The Naughty " The Boy" (British Institution, 1834) of the Sheep- j^ ,. shanks Gift is said to have been the result of ^ „ a fluke. A lady having brought her son to sit, the boy sulked, rebelled, and flatly refused to pose as he had been placed — evidently a spoiled child. (I am told the "boy" was a girl- Lady Rachel Russell.) His mamma having exerted her authority in vain, at last stood him in " the corner," as a punishment for his contumacy. Here the laddie's sturdy, defiant look impressed Landseer, who quickly sketched him for this picture. He -mas naughty, too. His slate lies in pieces at his feet, his hair is all rumpled, his frock dishevelled, his boots undone: but there he stands obdurate and unsubdued. Some of Landseer's masterpieces were produced in 82 Beautiful Dog Pictures 1834 and the following years. They were ushered in with the noble "Suspense" (British Institution, 1834), now national property, thanks to Mr. Sheep- shanks. Abloodhound gazes with tearful eyes "Suspense" at the closed door of a room into which has just been borne the injured form of his knightly master. How serious are his wounds we can only conjecture, but the blood-drops on the floor indicate the gravity of the case, which is emphasised by the infinite pathos and pity of the dog's attitude and aspect. That is the whole subject, for the accessories are few, and merely such as convey some hint of the master's rank and the severity of the struggle in which he has been engaged — the gauntlets on the table and the torn plume on the ground. It is impossible to overrate the dignity of the treatment, the beauty of the sentiment, or the superb technique in the drawing of the dog. One almost expects to see the heart-broken hound break down ; the sobs are quivering on its lips. One marvels, too, at the skill which enabled the painter to read the thoughts that fill the anxious creature's breast. Following hard upon this fine work came another of equal qualities, the "Sleeping Bloodhound" (British Institution, 1835), which also happily is the „ ^i^^p^^^ property of the nation, through the munifi- Rlnod cence of Mr. Jacob Bell, who owned both hnund" dog and picture. The tragic circumstances in which it came to be painted are succinctly related in the account supplied by Mr. Bell, and printed in Mr. Algernon Graves's catalogue. "Countess" had been 83 Sir Edwin Landseer waiting for two or three years her turn for a sitting. She sometimes slept on the balcony outside her master's room in his house at Putney. One moonlight Sunday night she overbalanced and fell a height of twenty-three feet, dying soon afterwards. In the morning she was conveyed to Landseer's house in the hope that the artist would consent to make at least a sketch by way of a souvenir. Ordinarily it was against rules to intrude upon the painter's working privacy, but Mr. Bell decided to take the risk of incurring displeasure. The story of the mishap stirred all Landseer's sympathies, and after expressing his sorrow he bade his friend return in three days. On Thursday, at 2 p.m., Mr. Bell called, and there beheld this great picture of his beloved " Countess," life-size, but by the nature of the case represented as fast asleep. This painting was not achieved without great difficulty, for the poor creature had to be "set up" before her remains became rigid. Fortunately, Landseer's knowledge of dog habits and anatomy enabled him to pose "Countess" with mar- vellous realism. By what felicitous inspiration was it that nearly all Landseer's grandest works, belonging as they did to different owners, were ultimately bequeathed to the nation? Is there a cherub sitting up aloft to whisper good counsel to picture-collectors ? Jacob Bell was an intimate friend of Landseer's, so much so that he took in hand the conduct of his busi- ness affairs, as we have seen, after his father found them too onerous. The son of a druggist who had founded a prosperous business in Oxford Street in London 84 Nipped in the Bud (still carried on under his style), he had a genuine taste for Art, and at one time really intended to adopt the painter's profession. He was a fellow- m T h student of Mr. W. P. Frith's at Sass's ^' q" n Academy in Bloomsbury, and Mr. Frith's story of Bell's discomfiture is told so racily (for he was an eye-witness of it) that I must give it in his own words. " Bell," writes Frith, " went through the drawing from the flat with much tribulation, and at last began the fearful plaster ball [a model from which Sass's students learned light and shade], in the representation of which he had advanced considerably ; but he also had arrived at the limit of his patience, and on one fatal Monday morning, after witnessing an early execution at New- gate, he drew the scaffold and the criminal hanging on it, in the centre of the ball. We were grouped round the artist listening to an animated account of the murderer's last ^moments when Sass appeared. The crowd of listeners ran to their seats and waited for the storm. Mr. Sass looked at the drawing and went out of the studio — a pin might have been heard to drop. Bell looked round and winked at me. Sass returned, and walked slowly up to Mr. Jacob Bell, and addressed him as follows : ' Sir, Mr. Bell ; sir, your father placed you under my care for the purpose of making an artist of you. I can't do it; I can make nothing of you. I should be robbing your father if I did it. You had better go, sir; such a career as this,' pointing to the man hanging, ' is a bad example to your fellow-pupils. You must leave, sir I' 85 Sir Edwin Landseer " ' All right,' said Bell, and away he went, returning to the druggist's shop established by his father in Oxford Street, where he made a large fortune, devoting it mainly to the encouragement of art and artists [he purchased Mr. Frith's famous "Derby Day" and left it also to the nation], and dying prematurely [in 1859], beloved and regretted by all who knew him. "It is reported of his father, a rigid Quaker, who watched with disapproval his son's purchases of pic- tures, that he said to him one day, ' What business hast thou to buy those things, wasting thy substance ? ' " ' I can sell any of those things for more than I gave for them, some for twice as much.' " ' Is that verily so ? ' said the old man. ' Then I see no sin in thy buying more.' "When Bell first appeared at Sass's, he wore the Quaker coat; but finding that the students showed their disapproval in a marked and unpleasant manner — such, for instance, as writing ' Quaker ' in white chalk across his back — he discarded that vestrnent, and very- soon afterwards was discarded himself by the Quakers. His dismissal happened in this wise. At 'meeting' the men sit on one side of the chapel, and the women on the other. Bell disliked this arrangement, and finding remonstrance of rio avail, he disguised himself in female attire and took his place in the forbidden seats. For a time all went well, but a guilty conscience came into play on seeing two of the congregation speaking together and eyeing him suspiciously the while; he took fright, and catching up his petticoats, he went out 86 "Comical Dogs" from ' meeting ' with a stride that proclaimed his sex. For this he was, as I have heard him tell many a time, expelled from the community." About this period, too, there are signs that Landseer was establishing himself in the estimation of the most exalted persons in the United Kingdom; ^. , for "Prince George's Favourites" (Royal /x. y Academy, 1835) was a composition intro- ducing the Duke of Cambridge's pony "Selim," his Newfoundland " Nelson," and his spaniel " Flora," while " Dash " was a portrait of the Duchess of Kent's favourite spaniel, to which, by the way, an inscribed marble monument was erected on the slopes of Windsor Castle, — a similar token of affection being raised there also to "Eos" when it died in July, 1844. In carrying out such intimate commissions as these he must have met the young Princess Victoria, who seems to have regarded him with pointed favour from the first, and was shortly to be in a position to bestow upon him the most coveted patronage. Meanwhile Landseer's love of humour still remained in an almost boyish stage. One phase of it was visible in his "Comical Dogs" (British Institution, 1836), another of Mr. Sheepshanks's presents to the nation. Clap a Tam o' Shanter cap on a shaggy terrier and make him look at you with a palpable wink, and stick a clay pipe in the jaws of a black-and-tan wearing an auld wife's newly-ironed mutch, and you have the materials of this picture, which, though well painted, is not excruciatingly funny. C. R. Leslie gives a laughable account of the 87 Sir Edwin Landseer painter's animal spirits at a dinner-party at Sir Francis Chantrey's, which is typical of the Landseer whom all his fellow-artists loved. The incident dates itself about this period when, in "Pen, Brush, and Chisel" (Royal Academy, 1836), he commemorated the sculp- tor's prowess in killing two woodcocks with one shot. "After the cloth was removed from the beautifully- polished mahogany," writes Leslie, " — Chantrey's furniture was all beautiful — Landseer's attention was called, by him to the reflection, in the table, of the company, furniture, lamps, etc. ' Come and sit in my place and study perspective,' said our host, and went himself to the fire. As soon as Landseer was seated in Chantrey's chair, he turned round, and imitating his voice and manner, said to him, ' Come, young man, you think yourself ornamental; now make yourself useful, and ring the bell.' Chantrey did as he was desired — the butler appeared, and was perfectly be- wildered at hearing his master's voice, at the head of the table, order more claret, while he saw him standing before the fire." Landseer must often have been in the mood for such excellent fooling, for Leslie calls him the "best of mimics." In effect he accepted Horace's philosophy — Dulce est desipere in loco. These hours of ease and jollity, however, were purchased, at this period of his career, by days of closest application to the studio. One trait in canine nature that appealed to Landseer with peculiar force was the animal's devotion to its master. This was the "note" of his diploma 88 e 3 < Praise from Ruskin picture, of "Suspense," and others; nor was the eagerness to save human life which distinguishes certain breeds a very dissimilar, or less ^^ inspiring characteristic. There was no trace of the morbid in this deliberate choice, for ni,- f the feeling was always true and ennobling, ^ and he spared no pains to do justice to such themes. Two fine examples of this class of subject were "The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner" (Royal Academy, 1837) and "The Shepherd's Grave" (1837). The former — which the nation possesses, owing to the magnanimity of Mr. Sheepshanks — is the more famous, because it elicited the praise of Mr. Ruskin, by no means too well affected to Landseer, in a passage -of remark- able beauty and eloquence. "Take, for instance," wrote the author of Modem Painters (Part I., sec. i, chap', ii.), " one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen — 'The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner.' Here the exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp hair of the dog, the bright sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the cofBn and the folds of the blanket, are lainguage — language clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of the dog's breast against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerless- ness of the head laid, close and motionless, upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness, the rigidity of repose which marks that 89 Sir Edwin Landseer there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the coffin-lid, the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the life — how unwatched the departure of him who is now laid solitary in his sleep ; — these are all thoughts — thoughts by which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, and stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as a Man of Mind." And with reference to the value of relation, balance, and congruity in a picture, Ruskin illustrates these qualities by a further allusion to this great work. " It would add little to Landseer's picture," he remarks, " that the form of the dog should be conceived with every perfection of curve and colour which its nature was capable of, and that the ideal lines should be carried out with the science of a Praxiteles; nay, the instant that the beauty so obtained interfered with the impression of agony and desolation, and drew the mind away from the feeling of the animal to its outward form, that instant would the picture become monstrous and degraded" (Part I., sec. I, chap. vii.). It is true that Ruskin's memory misled him in regard to one or two trifling details in the composition, but Criticism has said its last word in this just and worthy eulogy. Excepting for its change of scene, the sentiment of "The Shepherd's Grave" is wrought out on lines of equal simplicity and pathos. 90 Under Arrest The herd's dog has foUo.wed his master to his last resting-place, and we know instinctively what the noble creature's end will be. Mr. Frith told me an amusing story about " The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner." Landseer once accom- panied a number of ladies who were anxious to see the picture. The painter was explaining its points to them, and in the course of his talk had occasion to direct their attention to a particular passage in the work. The better to elucidate his meaning he actually touched the part in question. This was little short of high crime and misdemeanour in the eyes of the guardian of the peace and pictures on duty in the gallery. Going up to Landseer, whom he had viewed all along with considerable suspicion, he asked him what he meant by touching the picture, warning him' not to repeat the offence. "My good fellow," replied the painter, taking in the situation at a glance, " I have touched it over and over again." "Well, if I'd seen you," retorted the zealous constable, "I'd have run you in." Moreover, he insisted upon Landseer's going with him 'to the authorities before whom he lodged his complaint. Then the policeman learned the facts and his case was dismissed. Even more popular than this, because less melancholy, was the picture so happily called "A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society" (Royal Academy, 1838), representing a grand New- 9\ Sir Edwin Landseer foundland sitting at ease on the seaward end of a pier. It is high tide and the water in its gentle swell laps ,,A^- the iron ring to which boats are moored. " The darkening sky flecked with a few j^f , J. gulls indicates that dirty weather may be •^ expected, when, should occasion arise, the noble animal will do its duty. Landseer had . „ first seen the dog carrying a basket of gaily- •^ coloured flowers, and was so impressed with its beauty, that, when dining with its owner, Mr. New- man Smith, of Croydon Lodge, Croydon, he proposed painting its likeness. Accordingly the dog was sent to St. John's Wood Road, where, lying upon a table in the studio, he sat patiently for his portrait, into which, as Mr. Broderip puts it, Landseer infused " Promethean fire." The painter's fee was ;^8o, which those who have seen the picture in the Tate Gallery shall judge whether it were exorbitant or not. The engraving (a great favourite) was dedicated to the Royal Humane Society. In a letter to Mr. Lambton Young, the Secretary of the Society (published many years later in the Athenceum for February 7th, 1885), Landseer afterwards gave an interesting account of the picture, in which he said the dog's name was " Paul Pry." " I wrote in a hurry on the back of the canvas as a title — when it was going from my studio to the Royal Academy Exhibition — the title it now goes by. Mrs. Newman Smith has the picture, and I believe it is left to the National Gallery. I can only, in conclusion, add that Mr. Newman Smith was rather disappointed when 92 Rogers and the Rusty Ring his dog appeared in character rather than ' the property of Newman Smith, Esq., of Croydon Lodge.'" Mr. Edward Walford having committed himself to the opinion that the dog's name was " Leo" — which to be sure fits it much better than its real name does — and a "frequent swimmer in the Wandle" [Greater London, vol. ii. 178), Mr. Algernon Graves set the point at issue beyond dispute by writing directly to Mrs. Newman Smith. "The dog was bred," her answer ran, "by the late Philip Bacon, Esq., and was given to us (his cousins) as a puppy. It was never out of the possession of the family, and lived and died in my husband's house. He was named Paul Pry." After the picture was finished Samuel Rogers, the poet, took a company of ladies to see it at Landseer's house. They were ushered in to the studio. At the moment Landseer was in an adjoining room and could not help hearing what passed. The women were enthusiastic, but Rogers grunted out — "The same old story! But the ring's good; yes, the ring's good." (It will be remembered that the mooring-ring is the merest accessory.) Presently he invited Landseer to breakfast next morning, these famous repasts being usually attended by the flower of Society. At table talk turned on the latest Landseer, of which Rogers spoke in the warmest terms. Landseer was rather taken aback at this apparent insincerity. "You didn't say so yesterday, Rogers," he rapped out, " why don't you stick to the rusty ring? " This year of 1838 was a veritable annus mirabilis. 93 Sir Edwin Landseer " There's Life in the Old Dog yet " (Royal Academy) represented a tragical incident in the chase. A stag and deerhound have both dashed over a precipice in the impetus of their flight, on rju ^^^ ^ deer-stalker, having been lowered by ^"'^ means of a rope, is depicted with one hand on the dog, shouting to the party above the words that gave a title to the picture. When Mr. Vernon Heath — a nephew of the donor of the Vernon Gallery to the fortunate British nation — was at Inveraray in 1871, he drove thence to Dalmally, at the suggestion of Land- seer, to see Peter Robertson, the model of the deer- stalker. He found the old keeper at work in a rick-yard, and the effect of the utterance of Sir Edwin's name was magical. He was beside himself with joy, and plied Mr. Heath with many a question about the painter. On his return to London, Mr. Heath called upon Mr. Henry Graves of Pall Mall and mentioned his visit to Peter Robertson. This set them speaking of the picture, about which Mr. Graves related a curious incident. It was painted for Mr. Henry McConnell, who was asked to lend it to the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in 1857. He had a strong prejudice to railways, and only consented upon the understanding that the picture was to be removed from his house to Manchester by road. This was agreed to, and " There's Life in the Old Dog yet " was one of the most admired features of a remarkable collection. At the close the picture was started on its return journey, and while passing over a level-crossing en route, an 94 Illuminated by the Sun approaching train dashed into the van and smashed it to pieces. From its appearance at the time it was feared the picture was hopelessly destroyed, especially when it was discovered that a portion of the canvas had been caught by and wound around one of the engine- wheels. Luckily, it turned out that the damage, though serious, was not beyond remedy, and the services of a skilled restorer being enlisted, it was so well repaired that its owner was enabled to sell it to Mr. John Naylor for £i,S7S. It is, however, but proper to say that Mr. Algernon Graves throws doubts upon this story. ' ' I have seen the picture since," he writes, "and cannot believe that it was ever smashed. As an expert, if it had been, I should have discovered some damages when looking for them." "None but the Brave deserve the Fair" (Royal Academy) was another brilliant picture representing two stags fighting on a mountain pass, ^ whilst a group of does, the cause of all the woe, gaze on the mortal combat, partly startled, partly in admiration. Lady Louisa r- • » Wells has been good enough to inform me that once when Landseer was her husband's guest at the Holme Wood in Huntingdonshire, he was confined to his room by illness. One afternoon the setting sun poured into the drawing-room full upon this picture and upon none other, lighting up the storm in the glen amongst the hills marvellously. She thought the sight of it thus gloriously illuminated might do the painter good, but when she asked him to come down to see it, 95 Sir Edwin Landseer he begged to be excused, as it would be too much for him in his then state of nervous depression. The picture fetched ;^4,620 at the sale of Mr. Wells's collection. Mr. Frith, who had no bias in favour of the profes- sional art critic, was able to point a moral and adorn a Th A f ^^ from the history of the " Hare and Stoat " ^ ... (British Institution, 1838). The incident is . . so vividly rendered that, said Frith, " one could almost hear the screams of the poor creature." For many years the following choice specimen of art criticism was pasted on the back of the frame, and, indeed, it may perhaps still be there: — " In Mr. Landseer's picture of a rabbit attacked by a weasel, it appears to us that the rabbit is more like a hare, and the weasel has none of the characteristics of that species of vermin, for it is more like a stoat." One of the few ofHcial duties that an Academician has to discharge is that of Visitor at the Schools, a post which each of the more recently elected members fills in rotation. The mention of Mr. Frith's name recalls the fact that whilst he was a student (1838-40) this function fell to Landseer. " He was," writes the ever-genial painter of " Derby Day," " a very fashionable person- . age, and we all rather wondered at seeing him willing to spend evenings usually devoted ■ ' to high society, in the service of the Life Schools School. He read the whole time [founding himself perhaps upon the precedent of Fuseli], and one evening a very old gentleman in list slippers, with a 96 Rebuked by his Father speaking-trumpet under his arm, shuffled into the school. This was John Landseer, an eminent engraver, an Associate of the Academy, and father of Edwin Land- seer, whom he greatly resembled. His son rose to meet him, the book he had been reading in his hand. " ' You are not drawing, then ; why don't you draw ? ' said the old man in a loud voice. " ' Don't feel inclined,' shouted the son down the trumpet. " ' Then you ought to feel inclined. That's a fine figure; get out your paper and draw.' " ' Haven't got any paper,' said the son. " ' What's that book ? ' said the father. " ' Oliver Twist,'' said Edwin Landseer, in a voice loud enough to reach Trafalgar Square. '" Is it about art ? ' '"No; it's about Oliver Twist.' "'Let me look at it. Ha! it's some of Dickens's nonsense, I see [published in 1838]. You'd much better draw than waste your time upon such stuff as that.'" The interview hugely gratified the students, who tittered as they delightedly watched the great animal- painter — " Gathering his brows like gathering storm, Nursing his wrath, to keep it warm." The fact was that Landseer was always late, and kept the students cooling their heels outside the National Gallery, the while he was posing the model, often in an aggravatingly difficult position. The relations between 97 « Sir Edwin Landseer them and Landseer were rather strained. The night following the old gentleman's visit, they were detained outside even longer than usual, and began kicking and stamping. This mutinous spirit produced its natural effect. Next night a notice was exhibited requiring them to stay downstairs until summoned by bell to the Life School, then held in the centre cupola of the National Gallery, which the students profanely called the "pepper-box." Across this order was promptly written in flaring capitals the expressive word HUM- BUG. By-and-by Mr. George Jones, R.A., the Keeper of the Royal Academy, and head of all the Schools, entered the Life School, carrying the obnoxious notice. "Gentlemen," he said, — "I use the word in addressing you collectively, but there is one person amongst you who has no claim to the appellation — I hold in my hand evidence of vulgar insubordination. I am sorry to think that an act which must have been witnessed by some of you was not prevented before it was perpetrated. I seek not, gentlemen, to discover the author of this insult, for if I knew him it would be my painful duty to pursue him to his expulsion," with more in terrorem. But it may be supposed there is a good deal of human nature even in young London art students, without believing them to be guilty of the banality and horseplay so prevalent till a much later date amongst their corv- frkres in the Quartier Latin. However that may be, Landseer never ofliciated again. It was not his fault that he had no gift for teaching. He was the victim of a cast-iron system which required a painter to become a 98 Cheap at jTjo teacher whether he cared for the work or not. Landseer was quite frank in the matter. "There is," he said, "nothing to teach," meaning' probably that he had nothing to impart; that he lacked either the aptitude or the desire, or both. To 1839 belongs another dog picture that has always been a favourite. This was "Dignity and Impudence," the former being typified by a majestic blood- ^ . hound of the Duke of Grafton's breed, and *^ ^ therefore called "Grafton," the latter by a '*'** terrier named "Scratch," which has been , '^ permitted to share a nook of his lordly com- panion's kennel. Mr. Algernon Graves says the blood- hound was a visitor at the studios of several painters and sculptors. The picture was purchased by Mr. Jacob Bell for £i,o. To a friend remonstrating with him for not giving the artist more, Bell retorted, "D'ye mean to say that you wouldn't have taken the picture for ;£so?" Landseer, as we have said, had no notion of the money value of his pictures, and sold several of his choicest works at prices which make one's mouth water to read of. That Bell was actuated by no sordid motive in paying the painter the price he asked, was demon- strated by his bequeathing the picture to the British nation. O si sic omnes! To Mr. Sheepshanks's public spirit his fellow-country- men are indebted for the beautiful picture of the "Tethered Rams" (Royal Academy, 1839). The rams, though tethered, are also guarded by sheep dogs, which keep an eye as well upon the flock nibbling 99 Sir Edwin Landseer the grass on the braes, whilst the herd laddie is court- ing- his lass. The painting of the ram's fleece is a " T ft. J J"®*-'y admired example of the artist's perfect „ „ technique, and the loch in the background and the hills beyond are put in with his wonted happiness when dealing with his beloved Scottish scenery. In 1840 Landseer fell ill. A man of extraordinary sensibility, there is no doubt but that the dual burden was already beginning to tell upon his con- Illness stitution. The decade which opened with his R. A. -ship was a period of great fecundity on the highest plane of excellence. His powers, how- ever, were quite equal to the working strain had he been content to lead the quieter and homelier life of his fellows. But he had been drawn into the vortex of fashionable society, and was eagerly sought after and made much of. This was hitting him on his weaker side, and to associate with "dukes and duchesses,'' with lords and ladies, had for him a certain fascination. Hard work and Society routs set a hot pace and left him no time for "training." There was the personal factor, too. The lionised, especially when of a highly- strung nature, is apt to see slights and affronts where none are offered; to become a prey to jealousy and gnawing suspicion; to be perpetually on the tenter- hooks of a dread of faux pas and the hauntings of imagined neglect. It was such moods and misgivings as these that ultimately wrecked Landseer's peace of mind. This illness of 1840 was a broad hint that he Holiday on the Continent was overtaxing himself, but unfortunately he paid small heed to the monitor. Kind Jacob Bell took him through Belgium and up the Rhine to Switzerland. At Geneva, the guide, philosopher, and friend was himself laid up with an attack of quinsy, but after six weeks' detention they returned home by way of Paris. That this tour left little trace on Landseer's work testifies to the vigilance of his custodian, who having brought him in search of health was determined he should find it, and allowed him to sketch only now and again to "keep his hand in." Before they started the painter had finished several pictures for the Royal Academy, of which the most notable was "Laying Down the Law." Like ^ so many of his popular works, this one had /^ a casual sort of origin. Count D'Orsay's „ French poodle was resting on the table in the attitude represented in the picture, when Lord Lyndhurst — who had held the Seals before, and would hold them again — remarked, "What a capital Lord Chancellor ! " The hint was not lost on Landseer, who painted the picture with wonted spirit and speed. At the request of the Duke of Devonshire, whose property it became, the artist, after the work had been com- pleted, introduced his Grace's Blenheim spaniel just above the highly-bred greyhound which views with so much hauteur its vulgar neighbour, the bulldog. Proofs before spaniel are far scarcer, it need hardly be said, than proofs before letters, — so rare, indeed, that Mr. Algernon Graves has only seen one, and that very lOI Sir Edwin Landseer unfinished : it is in the etching state that the spaniel is absent. This and his later "Alexander and Diogenes" are perhaps the only pictures in which Landseer has carried his so-called humanising of dogs perilously near straining-point. Some malcontent writers, indeed, have held that he often crossed over the border, but students of dog life and character will beg leave to differ. 1 02 CHAPTER VII. ROYAL FAVOUR. The Queen's regard— Lessons in etching— Royal babies— Fancy balls at the Palace — A guest at Balmoral — The Queen and the artist — The influence of it all — Landseer in society — The Prince Consort — The pig-dealer's dilemma — Landseer's hypersensitiveness — Knighted — The Landseer Album compiled for Her Majesty. From the day of her Accession to the end of his life, Queen Victoria evinced a constant, an unwavering admiration for Edwin Landseer's works, and cherished a sincere regard for the man. ^ The Royal collection contains many of his y^BBns pictures, admirably painted ; for during Bga^a several years the commissions of her Majesty and the Prince Consort kept him extremely busy. He began by painting the pets of the Palace — " Islay," a Scots terrier (a favourite subject), " Lorie," the macaw (capitally drawn, with due humour) which Prince Albert brought over from Holland in 1836 as a gift for the Princess Victoria, and spaniels, dachshunds, and other dogs. Later, he was required to perpetuate the features of trusted gillies and keepers. The year before the Queen's marriage she assigned to him the pleasant task of painting her portrait as a present to Prince Albert. 103 Sir Edwin Landseer To the Sovereign and her Consort Landseer was for long persona graiisstma. Each independently of the other made him a confidant on occasions of special interest. As the Queen's birthday (May 24th) approached, the Prince would arrange with him to paint a surprise picture as a birthday gift ; and as the 26th of August came within measurable distance a similar pretty comedy would be performed by her Majesty, Landseer being enjoined, in strictest confidence, to paint some- thing for " the dear Prince." He taught both of them how to etch, and, though they are exceedingly rare, proofs are in existence of plates (after drawings by Landseer) etched by his illustrious pupils. The " Hay Waggon," by the Queen, is decidedly a clever piece of work, in the manner which Sir Seymour Haden has largely affected. Her Majesty etched other little plates besides those after Landseer, but her Landseer ones were the best. Mr. Algernon Graves states that on the 2nd of July, 1842, Edwin etched in Buckingham Palace, from recollection, a plate of " Islay Begging." It occupied thirty minutes, and ten minutes more were consumed by Thomas Landseer in biting it in, the whole process being closely watched by her Majesty. The press was erected under the superintendence of Mr. Henry Graves, who was also present on the occasion, and Mr. Holdgate did the printing. Every one who witnessed the operation, or took an active part in it, has since joined the Great Majority. Another drawing of " Islay," in chalk, made in the same year, long afterwards passed into the possession of the 104 Pictures for the Queen Duke of Edinburgh. I have been told that Messrs. Maclure & MacDonald were authorised to produce a lithograph of it in colours, but it was such a perfect copy of the original that his Royal Highness could not sanction its publication. Landseer even made the drawings, which Thomas etched, for her Majesty's private note-paper. By-and-by, when Royal babies began to arrive, it was to Landseer that the fond parents turned for portraits of the Princes and Princesses. And delight- ful pictures they are, too. The painter ^. worked on them with loving zeal, naturally bent on justifying the patronage so lavishly bestowed. A dog was generally introduced into the composition with consummate skill. Doubtless, such eiforts do not belong to the realm of high art, but taking them merely on their merits, it would be impossible to praise them too highly. If one were to select for special mention any particular picture of this series, choice should fall upon the painting of ' ' The Princess Alice with Eos " (1844), an altogether charming rendering of the infant in her cradle, guarded by a beautiful greyhound. It will be remembered that early in the reign the Queen and Prince Albert made a heroic effort to enliven the Court by holding costume balls at Buckingham Palace. At the function of ^ 1842 her Majesty appeared as Queen Philippa and her Consort as Edward III., and at that of 1845 (dressed in the period of George II.) she figured in fancy costume. Landseer painted pictures of 105 Sir Edwin Landseer the Royal revellers on both occasions. It was in con- nection with the latter entertainment (June 4th) that Mrs. Richmond Ritchie recalled her first sight of the great painter, although herself then too young to know who he was. Thackeray drove his little daughter from house to house, in order that she might behold the ladies and gentlemen in all their picturesque bravery. That night Landseer seemed to be ubiquitous, for in his chivalrous way he had undertaken to officiate as artistic adviser of the guests, and to touch up the ladies' com- plexions with rouge and what not, to bring out more fully the harmonies imperiously demanded by the costumes of the historical figures which they sought to impersonate. Landseer was going to the ball him- self, and appears thoroughly to have enjoyed the post of aesthetic counsellor to the fair women. Her Majesty's esteem for the painter partook of the nature of personal regard, one might truly say ot friendship. For two successive autumns (1850 and 1851) he was a guest at Balmoral, where his society and accomplishments had a peculiar value. On the 30th of September, 1850, her Majesty was present at a salmon leistering, or spearing, on the Dee, and thought the scene so exciting and picturesque she *' wished for Landseer's pencil," — readers of Guy Mannering will recall Sir Walter's graphic account of this form of sport. When, on the 4th of September, i860, she made an excursion to Glen Feshie, she alluded to it as " the scene of all Landseer's glory." With the Prince Consort he was able to organise shooting expeditions, 106 The Deer-book or, when the weather was unpropitious, play billiards. He accompanied the Queen on many of her walks, helping her over the stiles and assisting her in her sketches from nature. He made a thorough examination of the Deer-book, and found it admirably kept by her Majesty. No ledger could have been more diligently posted. There was a column for the date, another for the place, a third for the results of the stalk, and, what gave Landseer particular pleasure, whenever an exceptionally well- antlered head was brought home, a drawing showing all the "points " was sketched in by her Majesty with great ease and taste. Nothing, indeed, seems to have more favourably impressed Landseer, both at Balmoral and Osborne, where he was also an honoured guest, than the apple-pie order in which everything concerning either art or sport was maintained. One of the very last pictures upon which Landseer worked was the large equestrian portrait of her Majesty, which was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1873. The Queen, life-size, rides a white horse, and there is a dog on each side in front. Though no sittings were given for this portrait (which is now the property of Lord Cheylesmore), the studies which Landseer utilised were made at Windsor shortly after her marriage. When he was engaged upon a picture in which her Majesty was intimately interested, she did not hesitate to aid and abet him, if thereby work might be facili- tated and a profound secret preserved. Thus when he painted an exquisite portrait of " Eos " (Royal 107 Sir Edwin Landseer Academy, 1842), Prince Albert's favourite greyhound, the Queen wished the Prince's hat and gloves to be in- troduced into the composition, and sent them ^^, , to the studio for this purpose. Presently, Majesty s „ ^,j -^^^^^^ ^nd spurred," on horse a-foam, a groom rode up from the Palace. The Prince had asked for these particular gloves and this very hat, and must not discover that they had been removed. On another occasion whilst an equestrian portrait of her Majesty was in progress, either the one that was not exhibited till the year in which Landseer died, or the one which Sir J. E. Millais converted into another subject — the Queen called at St. John's Wood Road and waited at the door, while he changed his coat and mounted a groom's horse to ride with her Majesty. This was all managed on the initiative of the Queen, who thought it might assist him in the picture. These are not trifling details. It is necessary to show that Landseer's relations with Royalty and "high ^■^■r ^ . life " generally were very far from being WasRoyal r f • 1 f 4.1/ *• • , . -^ purely professional, for the question in later -^ years became acute as to the eifect upon the -' man and his work of his Sovereign's con- descension and the intimacy of the great. There seems reason to believe that such close association was not without a detrimental influence. The deference which they paid him to some extent spoiled him. Un- doubtedly he was proud of painting for the noblest in the land on the footing of a friend, without thought of fee or reward, for there never was anything mercenary 108 Courted by Society in his disposition, and up till the period of his habitual intercourse with the haut ton, and for years afterwards, he was a charming and natural man, everybody's favourite — a " most pleasant, lively companion," writes Lord Wemyss. To the end his finer qualities were never wholly eclipsed, but it was noticeable that, wittingly or not, he had picked up a manner of speech, the Society drawl of a bygone generation, which, in him, appeared to be aifected, and the airs and graces — the " side," as it is called — which he put on at times, alienated some and wounded all of his old friends, jealous for the man they loved. To be sure, it would have demanded all the strength of a much stronger man than even Landseer was to go through what he experienced and come out unscathed. Yet there is no- where so sad a sight as the deterioration of a man of beautiful nature and shining qualities, partly through his own weakness and partly through the selfishness of others. Until the strain and stress of fashionable life did its cruel work, however, Landseer was perfectly irresistible. Mrs. Richmond Ritchie says his company was '* a wonder of charming gaiety. I have . . heard my father speak of it with the pride -^ he used to take in the gifts of others." When they were girls she and her sister often went to the studio, where tha artist painted whilst he joked with the illus- trious novelist, and talked delightfully always. Her I chief impression of him was of people cheering up as I they saw him. She formulated, partly at haphazard, a (theory which explains to some degree the time which 109 Sir Edwin Landseer he gave to the society of the great. " Perhaps Edwin Landseer," she writes, " was the first among modern painters who restored the old traditions of a certain sumptuous habit of living and association with great persons. The charm of manner of which kind Leslie spoke, put him at ease in a world where charm of manner is not without its influence, and where his brilliant gifts and high-minded scrupulous spirit made him deservedly loved, trusted, and popular." " Land- seer will be with us " was frequently the bait which tempted others to join the social board. But the ambition to emulate Rubens in the nineteenth century, with its totally different environment, was perilous, and Landseer sacrificed himself in the effort to revive the grand style. However, his art suffered less than his body and mind, and he paid the inevitable penalty. To dine with Lord Hardinge, to attend a function at Lord Londesborough's afterwards, and to wind up with a " family hop " at Leslie's, shows how eagerly he was sought after, how good-natured he was; but it also made his nearest and dearest shake their heads at the pity and the waste of it. Could the end of it all be dark to those of his ain fireside, when he himself con- cluded a letter declining another engagement because his day's programme was already full, with these frank but ominous words, " written, with my palette in the other hand, in honest hurry ? " Although proud of mixing on equal terms with the great, it must not be supposed that he ever degenerated into the mere diner-out and tuft-hunter. Even in really no Prince Albert trying circumstances he usually contrived to preserve his self-respect, which saved, a man must be a man for a' that. During one of his numerous visits to Land- seer's studio. Prince Albert lifted a picture which was standing on the floor with its face to the wall. Now, it is a strict rule, an unwritten „ . law, of the studio that a picture so placed must not be disturbed: for one reason or '' another, it is a picture which the artist has withdrawn from inspection for the time being. When the Prince Consort raised the picture, Landseer told him of the custom he had violated, and restored the canvas to its place on the floor. The Prince expressed his regret for the unintentional breach of etiquette and promised not to offend again. Prince Albert was a man with a real love of art, whose considerable services to Esthetics and Education have never been appraised at their proper value, in consequence of the unrestrained adulation beneath which the measure and significance of his work lie buried. He was, indeed, a greater man than his flatterers imagined. His friendly regard for Landseer throws an interesting light on the character of both. No man is said to be a hero to his valet, but most painters seem to be favourably regarded by their models. Apropos of Landseer's relations pipwash with her Majesty, Mr. Frith tells a funny , .^ story of a professional model named Bishop, Palace who often sat to both artists, and evidently thought that Landseer was all-powerful with the Queen. To the vocation of model Bishop united the trade of XII Sir Edwin Lands eer pig-dealer. He fattened porkers for market, and once lamented, whilst sitting to Landseer, the hardness of his lot. He had, he said, no end of trouble to get enough " wash " for his pigs. Suddenly a happy thought seized him. "They tell me, sir, as you knows the Queen." "Know the Queen?" answered Landseer. "Of course, I do. Everybody knows her." " Ah but," said Bishop, " to speak to, you know, sir, comfortable." "Well, I have had the honour of speaking several times to her Majesty, quite comfortably. Why do you ask?" "You see, sir," explained the model-hog-merchant, " there must be such lots of pigwash from Buckingham Palace and them sort of places, most likely thrown away ; and my missis and nje thinks that if you was just to tip a word or two to the Queen — which is a real kind lady one and all says — she would give her orders, and I could fetch the wash away every week with my barrer ! " Landseer counted no warmer admirer than Queen Victoria, but it would have been better for him had her . f, Majesty not taken him up so enthusiastically. nj J When he ceased to be invited regularly to pass a holiday either in the Highlands or the Isle of Wight, so little of a diplomatist was he that he read into the incident much more than it was meant to convey. We are assured that he felt so mortified that he could not hide his vexation at what he chose to 112 ' Shoeing the Bay Mare " (p. 125). Knighthood interpret as an undeserved slight. That was not the gloss which a man of the world would have placed upon a circumstance harmless in itself. The Sovereign can- not continue to invite the same set of guests year in and year out, and after the untimely passing of her Consort it is known that her Majesty did not again receive visitors, excepting her own relations and Cabinet Ministers, and a few men and women who stood on still more friendly terms than even Edwin Landseer. This misunderstanding, if it ever existed, was most unfortunate in the case of a super-sensitive man, but no shadow of blame or responsibility for it can rest upon the good name of the Queen. She was always his friend, and gave public proof of Knighted genuine admiration and esteem when in 1850 she conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. Her Majesty's delight in Landseer's works never waned during her long life. She possessed a remark- able collection of engravings after his pictures, as well as a complete photographic record of almost everything he had done. This last took the form of an album, which was prepared for the Queen by Mr. Algernon Graves. The enterprise had an odd origin. It seemed that Mr. Mann, an amateur photographer, began to illustrate a copy of Mr. Graves's , catalogue on his own account with photo- ^ graphs of all the paintings and plates to which he could get access. Presently he came to a standstill, and was then told that the only person who could help him was Mr. Graves. " He 113 I Sir Edwin Landseer said to a friend that he had always been afraid to approach me," to quote the document which Mr. Graves has placed at my disposal, "for fear I should charge him with infringing- our copyright. His friend bade him see me, when he would form another opinion, and an introduction took place. I agreed to borrow all the rarities from the different collectors, if he would give me a copy of each of his photographs. I obtained all I wanted from the Duke of Buccleuch and Mr. Stirling- Crawfurd, but was still without many unique impres- sions belonging to the Queen. However, her Majesty was good enough to lend these. Yet the collection, I reflected, would be imperfect unless I had the thirteen precious etchings by the Queen and Prince Albert, which had been so strictly guarded that the Prince Consort actually began proceedings against Mr. C. G. Lewis to recover two which had found their way into his possession. At this stage I arranged that Mr. Mann was to supply me with a second set of his photographs, and then I informed her Majesty that I was preparing an album for her of all Landseer's works, but needed the Royal etchings to make it complete. She had already lent them to me for the Exhibition ot Landseer engravings which I organised after his death, but it proved no easy task to prevail upon her to permit them to be photographed. However, in the end the Queen graciously consented. The whole set was royally bound, and on the ist of April, 1878, I had the honour of presenting the volume to her Majesty in the Corridor at Windsor. The Queen — who was. accompanied by 114 Album for the Queen the Princess Beatrice — turned over the leaves of the book as I held it before her, making most interesting- comments upon many of the pictures. After thanking me her Majesty ordered the album to be placed in her private sitting-room. It was afterwards taken to Balmoral, where it remained until 1901, when it was removed to the Library at Windsor Castle. I may add that I hope my own set of the photographs may some day find a home in the Print Room of the British Museum. The third set, badly mounted and arranged by Mr. Mann, was sold at his sale at Cardiff after his death, when I bought all the negatives. As to Queen Victoria's collection of Landseer engravings, under Mr. Holmes I helped to make it the most complete in existence. For this purpose I was commissioned to purchase all the proofs which her Majesty did not possess, at the sales of the Duke of Buccleuch and Mr. Stirling-Crawfurd.'' 11: CHAPTER VIII. A GLORIOUS AFTERMATH. [1842-50.] Dog and stag — Lord Wemyss on landscape effects — "The Sanctuary" — Pathetic pictures — "Marmosets" — "My Wife" — Wall frescoes that perished — Rat and dog fight — "The Rout of Comus" — " The Otter Speared "— " Did you order a lion, sir ? "— " Shoeing the Bay Mare "— Ruskin's lecture— " The Challenge "—Robert Vernon— "The Lady with the Spaniels"—" The Cavalier's Pets" — Lightning drawings — Billiards — " Peace " — " War " — " Van Amburgh and his Animals " — ^The Iron Duke — " The Random Shot," and other deer pictures — "A Dialogue at Waterloo"— " The Lost Sheep." If one were to express Landseer's work in terms of animals, one might say that in the first half of his Dnsr a iJ '^^''^^•' ^^^ ^°Z ^^^ predominant, in the ^.■V second the stag. Obviously, however, this is a very broad generalisation, for, excepting the cat, he drew all domesticated creatures with facility and skill. Although the "wild" life of the British Isles is limited both in variety and character, here, too, he was "immense." His rendering of birds of prey, and particularly of game birds, was masterly in the extreme. At Redleaf several walls were lined with examples of his cunning "from red deer to snipe." 116 Drawings of Game Birds Whenever a pheasant, partridge, or wild-duck fell to the sportsman's gun, "its attitude was carefully pre- served by bits of moss and pebbles so that it might stiffen in death, and thus become a true model for the painter." This shows Mr. Wells's appreciation ot Landseer's powers. Lord Cheylesmore is the fortunate possessor of a water-colour study of a cock grouse in articulo mortis, which for exquisite workmanship will bear comparison with the drawing of any other painter whatsoever, and which is worthy of the careful notice of those who con- sider that Landseer was little better than an anecdotist or a scene-painter. The bird's head is just drooping to the right, as it does in the act of dying, and the colour- ing and drawing of plumage and other minuticB are simply perfect. Landseer's otters and foxes were also admirable, but he loved the whole deer tribe, and knew it almost as thoroughly as he knew the dog. It was abundantly clear that those animals which captivated his affections roused him to display his utmost capacity. Then, as a corollary, one might say as with animals, so with the landscape in which they lived and moved and had their being, I have already insisted j- j „ ^ upon Landseer's feeling for the scenery and tiTr-ffpff^" even the climate of the Scottish Highlands, and I am gratified to find this opinion corroborated by the Earl of Wemyss, who knew Landseer intimately. "At Glen Quoich," his Lordship writes to me, "Mr. Ellice's shooting-lodge, beautifully placed by the beautiful loch of that name, I met him frequently. No man had 117 Sir Edwin Landseer a keener appreciation of the beautiful in Highland scenery, and of what in Art parlance are termed 'effects.' In the Highlands these are unequalled in beauty, and it is especially at or towards dusk, when floundering home after a long day on the hull [Gaelic-English for hill], and possibly a failed stalk or drive, that these effects cheered one's homeward way. Among his sketches and studies there were endless gems which he must, I am sure, have painted from fond memories. The truth is that a landscape-painter, I am convinced, could make his eye-memory photographic. By looking' steadily at a fine landscape light-and-shade and cloud- and-mist effect, and fixing it on his pictorial memory, a man carries it home with him, and can there, while the impression is fresh, reproduce the effect thus seen and noted. Experto crede. Thus only can the effects of passing clouds, lights and shadows, be fixed and rendered. And it always amuses me to see, as I often do here [Gosford House] by the shore, artists sit down to draw carefully effects which have fled for ever before the would-be painters thereof have had time to arrange their stools and set to work. No; what landscape- painters should above all things do is, make their painting-minds, as I have said, photographic. Rightful impressionism is the key to landscape-painting, and it was thus, doubtless, that Turner got his wondrous effects, and not by attempting to copy fleeting clouds." But the division into dog period and stag period is a very broad classification. There were constant over- lappings. Just as he had painted stags ever since his ii8 There's No Place like Home" first tour in Scotland, so Landseer painted dogs to the end of his days. In fact, his very last picture was a dog's portrait. There were fine pictures of both ani- ^ mals in 1842. Although Ruskin speaks of „ "the misfortune of Landseer with his evening -^ sky," the golden glow diffused by the declining orb of day harmonises with the pathos of "The Sanctuary" (Royal Academy), representing a hunted stag seeking refuge in the nick of time by swimming to an islet in Loch Maree. This has always been a popular picture. It was painted to the commission of Mr. Wells, but the Queen fell in love with it, and the laird of Redleaf, of course, at once relinquished his claim. This was a year of pathetic pictures. "Be it ever so Humble, There's No Place like Home" (British Institution) tells the story of a truant t> j.r, f terrier. Like the prodigal of the parable, it had elected to go off on the rampage, but becoming disillusionised, was only too glad to return to its old quarters. This is the moment of the picture; the wanderer looks upwards with a sigh of heartfelt gratitude to be once more at its ain tub-kennel door. A snail carrying its house on its back, as I have elsewhere remarked, is a true Landseerian touch. "The Highland Shepherd's Home" (Royal Academy) is a lowly interior, where peace and happiness and a tenanted cradle blunt the edge of " poortith cauld." Queen Victoria commissioned the " Mar- ,, ., Mar- mosets " (Royal Academy), which Thomas „ Landseer's fine engraving made exceedingly 119 Sir Edwin Landseer popular. A couple of pretty Brazilian monkeys, not bigger than squirrels, crouch on a large pineapple and gaze in wonderment and trembling at an intrusive wasp. One does not look for mysteries or conundrums in Mr. Algernon Graves's catalogue, but in his list of the 1842 pictures there appears an item with the A PuzBle strange title of " My Wife." This is a portrait of Miss Power, the Countess of Bles- sington's beautiful niece. As Landseer was a bachelor, speculation arose whether such a title might not convey a hint of romance and unrequited passion. On appeal, Mr. Graves lent no sanction to my visionary fancies. The title had, he said, nothing to do with matrimony. The publishers issued a set of three prints, and as the two others were called "My Horse" and " My Dog," Mr. Graves concluded that they described, the plate of Miss Power as " My Wife " merely to bring in the word " My " again. He thinks this is the correct theoryj but it does not carry conviction to my mind. Still, in the absence of evidence, all that can be said is that the title is singular, mysterious, and suggestive of much. There is in the Wallace Gallery, Hertford House, a crayon portrait of Miss Power with a bird (1841). In 1840 the Marquis of Abercorn, afterwards the Duke, having obtained the land on lease from Cluny tt;- „ Macpherson, built a shooting-lodge at Ard- Ev. verikie, on the southern shore of Loch Laggan, in Inverness-shire, far from the madding crowd indeed, but in the heart of grand and Frescoes Grave and Gay wildly picturesque mountain scenery. Though a lodge in a vast wilderness, it was a most desirable holiday resort. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert occupied it for a month in 1847. " Stags' horns," wrote her Majesty in her Journal, "are placed along the outside and in the passages ; and the walls of the drawing-room and ante-room are ornamented with beautiful draw- ings of stags by Landseer." In the course of time it passed into the hands of Sir James Ramsden, and was nearly wholly burned down on the isth of October, 1873. Thus those unique works by Landseer perished just a fortnight after his own death. He had in 1842 frescoed two rooms (the "drawing-room and ante-room " of the Queen's diary), as the Earl of Wemyss tells me, with deer and sporting subjects, said to have been drawn on the walls with red brick and burnt stick. It was quite characteristic of the painter's mood for humour to use such materials, and Lord Wemyss says that at Ben Alder Lodge, on Loch Ericht, in the Laggan country, Landseer made from memory, in an outburst of exuberant fun, a fresco of him, then Lord Elcho, with strawberry jam and mustard, which he never saw, and for the likeness of which he is unable, therefore, to vouch. Many years afterwards (October 8th, 1861) the Queen went on an expedition to Glen Feshie, and there turned aside into one of the shooting-huts that had belonged to the Duchess of Bedford "to look at a fresco of stags of Landseer's over a chimney-piece." There were several similar frescoes, on paper, in his own house, which were all sold at Christie's in 1874. 121 Sir Edwin Landseer One of Landseer's best purely natural history pictures was the "Otter and Salmon" (Royal Academy, 1842), in which a snarling, snapping, suspicious otter is shown by the side of a handsome salmon. The otter glances viciously at a mate, as if in fear of disturbance — all poachers seem alike — before falling to. One Saturday in the winter of this year he ran down to Redleaf for what is now termed a " week-end." He r> . J had, he said, called at Buckingham Palace D D- F' hf ^^f*""^ leaving London. He had with him a toy terrier, a kind of dog that was then much rarer than it is now. The Queen took a wonder- ful interest in the tiny creature, and asked Landseer, rather pointedly, as he thought, where such dogs were to be bought. The painter did not take what he believed was intended to be a hint, and left his Royal mistress with the dog still in his pocket. At dinner he dilated eloquently upon its skill as a ratter. The com- pany, misled by the creature's insignificance, were, perhaps not unnaturally, incredulous, and Landseer, seeing that his veracity was under a cloud, offered to match it there and then against a rat, if such vermin could be found. It is never difficult to get a rat in a country-house, and one was obtained without loss of time. The company adjourned downstairs to witness the combat. Though the rat was fully bigger than the dog, the terrier displayed tremendous pluck. In spite of several bites it held the rat at bay for at least twenty minutes. Finally, though it failed to kill " its man," the bystanders (of whom Frederick Goodall, who "The Rout of Comus" told me of the incident, was one) declared it had proved its courage and saved its honour, and a bigger dog — which had heard from outside the battle that was going on, with the utmost anxiety to take the floor itself — was called in to give the brave rat its coup de grdce. Next day was Sunday, and, as usual, Landseer declined pointblank to go to church. But he did not remain idle, and produced a clever and vivid sketch of the "Rat and Dog Fight," which was ultimately placed in the Scribblers' Book. He had great ado to induce the terrier to sit. It was bitter weather and the dog shivered with cold, its nose watered, and the little thing looked blue. But the painter persevered, and the drawing was triumphantly achieved in time for the delectation of the church party. Next year Landseer was seen to remarkable advan- tage in an altogether new vein. Queen Victoria having determined to decorate the octagonal room in the pavilion in the grounds of Bucking- '^ Comus" ham Palace with a set of eight frescoes in illustration of "Comus" — hence the summer-house is sometimes known as Milton Villa, — Landseer undertook to depict the "Rout of Comus." The study for the subject, painted in 1843, is now in the National Gallery, in London, having been bequeathed to the nation by Mr. Jacob Bell. The swinish crew are rendered with notable skill, and the composition justly takes high rank as a sustained eifort of the imagination. Two of the pictures of 1844 gave rise to much criticism from different quarters, Ruskin making himself the 123 Sir Edwin Landseer spokesman both of the humanitarians and the aesthetes. The vigorous design of the "Otter Speared" (Royal " OH Academy) — a huntsman holding aloft a spear „ ,„ with an otter transfixed, and surrounded by a band of frenzied hounds to which the victim will by-and-by be flung — aroused the following comment in Modem Painters (Part III., sec. i, chap, xii.) : — " I know not of anything more destructive of the whole theoretic \yulgo, aesthetic] faculty, not to say of the Christian character and human intellect, than those accursed sports of which man makes of himself cat, tiger, serpent, chaetodon, and alligator in one, and gathers into one continuance of cruelty for his amuse- ment all the devices that brutes sparingly and at intervals use against each other for their necessities." With forthright fearlessness the Oxford Graduate points the moral. " I would have Mr. Landseer," he writes, " before he gives us any more writhing otters, or yelping packs, reflect whether that which is best worthy of con- templation in a hound be its ferocity, or in an otter its agony, or in a human being its victory, hardly achieved even with the aid of its more sagacious brutal allies, over a poor little fish-catching creature, a foot long." It were idle to labour the rebuke, but, however culpable in this instance, Landseer hated cruelty to animals ; and this unjust attempt to make him a scapegoat and to treat him as by habit and repute a painter of such scenes recoiled upon the author of it. The fact is, as his re- marks apropos of " Shoeing " (Royal Academy), another of Jacob Bell's bequests to the nation, amply demonstrate, 124 "Shoeing the Bay Mare" Ruskin had now grown wholly out of sympathy with Landseer. But before considering this further anim- adversion, it will be of interest to add a personal note with which the Earl of Wemyss has favoured me : — " One day Landseer asked me to stand for the figure of the man holding up the otter at the end of a spear in his well-known otter-hunting picture, which I n r\-j did. When thus sitting, or, more accurately , speaking, standing for him, his servant j. „ „ opened the door and said, ' Please, sir, did you order a lion ? ' A man had brought a dead lion to his door in some sort of conveyance, the bestial monarch having died at the Zoo and been sent by the Zooites to him." This explicit statement disposes of the notion that this anecdote was of the ben trovato order and invented by Charles Dickens. "Shoeing the Bay Mare " has enjoyed much popularity. It lends itself exceptionally well to translation, and has been admirably engraved. The mare, "Betty," belpnged to Jacob Bell, and the "Shoeing" artist had been under promise to paint her and her foal, but usually dallied until the foal became too old for the purpose. Some time afterwards, as Mr. Algernon Graves relates in his catalogue, on the authority of "Betty's" owner, Landseer admired her condition so much that he said to Mr. Bell, " I am deter- mined to paint old ' Betty ' after all." A shoeing subject being preferred, the rest was easy. Besides the mare and the farrier, alleged to be a portrait of Jacob Bell, the other occupants of the smithy were a donkey and a blood- 125 Sir Edwin Landseer hound. Mr. Graves clears up a few misstatements. " It has been reported," he says, " that the mare would not stand to be shod unless in company with a donkey. The truth is that the intimacy of the mare and the donkey commenced in the studio, and was cemented on the canvas. Another rumour states that the scene, as painted, occurred in the forge of a country blacksmith, where the mare was having a shoe fastened, and that the painter was so pleased with the composition that he made an elaborate sketch for the picture on the spot.- Some critics have noticed the ' oversight ' of the mare having no bridle or halter. This was not an oversight, as she would stand to be shod or cleaned without being fastened, but had a great objection to be tied up in a forge or against a post or door. When this has been attempted, she often started back with a sudden jerk and broke the bridle. Other critics have remarked that from the mode of painting the toe of the off fore foot, the mare appears as if her weight rested on only two legs. This was noticed before the painting was finished, and she was placed in position several times for the purpose of ensuring accuracy. In every instance she placed the foot exactly in the position represented." None of these points, however, touched the subject of Ruskin's homily. "Again," he wrote, "there is capa- bility of representing the essential characters, form and colour of an object, without external texture. On this point much has been said by Reynolds and others, and it is, indeed, perhaps the most unfailing characteristic of great manner in painting. Compare a dog of Edwin 126 Blame from Ruskin Landseer with a dog of Paul Veronese. In the first the outward texture is wrought out with exquisite dexterity of handling, and minute attention to all the accidents of curl and gloss which can give appearance of reality, while the hue and power of the sunshine, and the truth of the shadow on all these forms, is necessarily neglected, and the large relations of the animal as a mass of colour to the sky or ground, or other parts of the picture, utterly lost. This is a realism at the expense of Ideality, it is treatment essentially unimaginative. With Veronese, there is no curling or crisping, no glossiness nor sparkle, nor even hair ; a mere type of hide, laid on with a few scene-painter's touches. But the essence of dog is there, the entire, magnificent, generic animal type, muscular and living, and with broad, pure, sunny daylight upon him, and bearing his true and harmonious relation of colour to all colour about him. This is ideal treatment." {Modem Painters, Part III., sec. 2, chap. iv.). A dog that never was on sea or land is undoubtedly ideal. But " essence of dog" is good, reminding one of the "this is a cow" of nursery pictures, and Paul Veronese's "scene-painter's touches " may be commended to Landseer's detractors. Still Ruskin's memory of his own writings was acute enough, and he had to save a certain situation. So he resumes : " I do not mean to withdraw the praise I have given, and shall always be willing to give such pictures as • The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner,' and to all in which the character and inner life of animals are developed. But all lovers of animals must regret to 127 Sir Edwin Lands eer find Mr. Landseer wasting his energies on such inanities as 'Shoeing,' and sacrificing,. colour, expression and action, to an imitation .of glbSsy hide." Elsewhere he takes up the parable again'i. "In our modern treatment of the dog, of which the prevailiijg tendency is marked by Landseer, the interest taken in him is dispro- portionate to that taken in man, ajid leads to a somewhat trivial mingling of sentiment, or warping by caricature ; giving up the true nature of 'the" animal for the sake of a pretty thought or pleasant jest. Neither Titian nor Velasquez ever jests ; and though Veronese jests gracefully and tenderly, he never for an instant oversteps the absolute facts of nature. But the English painter looks for sentiment or jest primarily, and reaches both by a feebly romantic taint of fallacy, excepting in one or two simple and touching pictures, such as 'The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner '"' (Part IX., chap, vi.) Clearly, Landseer had got on Ruskin's nerves. The early eulogy of the immortal discourse remains, for the reader ; but the preacher's point of view had changed; perhaps, too, Landseer had worked too persistently in one genre. Still, it does look like a great tribute, unwillingly extorted, to see the renowned names of Titian, Velasquez, and Paul of Verona gravely cited in censure of a solitary tendency of Landseer's art. Landseer painted the stag and deer in many attitudes ,, — in mortal combat, in peaceful pasture, in „ flight, in unadorned grandeur and majesty, Challenge j^ ^j^^ pathos of death— but he never sur- passed "The Challenge" (Royal Academy, 1844), or, 1 28 Robert Vernon as it has sometimes been named, "Coming Events cast their Shadows before them." Simple and direct, this forcibly-drawn figure bellowing, beneath the star- studded sky, defiance to its fast-approaching rival, foretells fight ai outrance. To the honoured names of John Sheepshanks and Jacob Bell must here be added that of Robert Vernon, another benefactor of the British nation. r, i, j. Mr. Vernon, in the course of a successful career as a horse-dealer, had amassed a ^ large fortune, much of which was devoted to the purchase of pictures. He followed his own bent in his selection, and fortunately his taste was attracted by Landseer. When, in 1847, he gave his pictures to the nation the collection included several of Landseer's most noteworthy works. It is remarkable that this noble trio were all business men, all amateurs, and all consumed with a desire to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number by presenting their pictures to their fellow-countrymen rather than see them vanish, through the auction-room, into private hands. It would be interesting to know what was the total sum of money thus voluntarily surrendered. There is a portrait of Robert Vernon in the Tate Gallery by H. W. Pickersgill, R.A. He nurses a King Charles spaniel. Landseer oflfered to paint in the little creature. It is a pity the artist declined his help, for his own dog is a poor wooden apology for the animal that Sir Edwin would have drawn. As it happened^ Mr. Vernon was a fancier of these spaniels, and in 1838 129 K Sir Edwin Lands eer commissioned Landseer to paint a picture in which two of his pets were to be introduced, at the same time drawing a cheque for the fee. Years lapsed before this contract was fulfilled, and the story of the picture is quite romantic. As at first planned, Miss Power had agreed, to sit and toy with the spaniels. For a long time the painter , made little headway, in consequence probably -'^ of his not being satisfied with his rendering ,, of the lovely lady, the heroine of " My spaniels -y^ifg .. already mentioned. Vernon, who thought the picture in progress, was astounded one day at seeing an engraving of it in McLean's window in the Haymarket Qune 24th, 1842). On inquiry he learned that, though unfinished, it was in a sufficiently forward state for engraving, and that Thomas McLean had accordingly arranged to publish it. This was the first intimation Vernon had received even of the intention to engrave, and Landseer was written to. The artist, however, temporised, saying he would deliver the picture when it was ready. In the mean- time the painting had not escaped criticism, and the artist grew vexed and resolved never to touch it again. Vernon was justly incensed at the turn things had taken, but his nephew, Mr. Vernon Heath, afterwards the well-known photographer of Piccadilly, determined to see Landseer and heal the breach. When, however, he found that it was really distasteful to Landseer to go on with the picture, he persuaded him to paint another one for his uncle for the forthcoming exhibition at the 130 Wonderful Dexterity British Institution in 1845. Sending-in day came, but no picture. Instead, an empty frame arrived at the gallery, along with a message that the canvas for it would be delivered in time. The Hanging Committee had ended their labours without a sight of the picture, and Varnishing Day was at hand. Heath dashed off to Landseer's studio, where the artist pointed to a canvas on the easel and promised to send it that night to the Institution a finished picture. The promise was kept and the picture reached the gallery in ^l ti, time to be fitted to its frame. It now hangs , in the National Gallery in London, where it „ bears the title of "The Cavalier's Pets." ^*^ It was painted in two days, and is a crowning example of Landseer's dexterity. It may be doubted whether the ostrich feather in the gallant's hat could have been more exquisitely rendered had he taken two months. Considering the singular circumstances of the case, it is altogether inexplicable how Mr. F. G. Stephens came to ascribe the picture to 1832, — thirteen years before it was conceived ! Mr. Heath says that both doggies came to a violent end in their master's house. The Blenheim fell from a table, and the King Charles spaniel fell between the railings of the staircase. Nevertheless, Landseer did finish the original picture of "The Lady with the Spaniels" (in 1842), in spite of his vow to the contrary. The Queen and Prince Albert called at his studio one day, and whilst her Majesty talked with the painter, the Prince Consort looked at the pictures. Presently he discovered "The Lady with 131 Sir Edwin Landseer the Spaniels," and Landseer told him the whole story of the unfortunate canvas. The Prince, though sympa- thising, pressed him to complete the picture for him, undertaking to send it out of the country, so that the painter might never set eyes on it again. The Queen, it seemed, was anxious to make a present to King Leopold, and this picture was "just the thing." Land- seer gave way, and the canvas was finished and sent over to the King of the Belgians. Landseer had yielded in regard to it once; after his death his humour perhaps did not count. But it was out of no disrespect for his memory that King Leopold sent the picture to the Landseer Exhibition in 1874. Besides "The Cavalier's Pets," other well-authenti- cated instances of rapid workmanship, most of which have already been mentioned in other con- J^ ^f^^ nections, include "Trim" (1831), the spaniel *^ with rabbit, painted in two and a half hours ; Mr. Jacob Bell's "Countess" ("The Sleeping Blood- hound," 1835), painted in three days; "Odin" (British Institution, 1836), a dog belonging to Mr. W. Russell, in twelve hours; "Deerhound and Mastiff" (? British Institution, 1838), in a few hours; "William, 2nd Lord Ashburton" (1841), at one sitting (still at The Grange, Alresford); "Islay Begging" (1842), etched in half-an-hour in presence of Queen Victoria; "The Shepherd's Bible" (1849), two collies, within two days; "Lambkin" (1851), a favourite dog of the Duchess of Kent, at Windsor Castle during church service; . "Dackel" (1851), a dachshund belonging to Queen 132 At Ardington Victoria and Prince Albert, at Windsor Castle during a lesson to her Majesty; "Jacob Bell, Esq." (1859), "at one painful sitting a few days before his death;" "William Wells, Esq., of the Holme Wood, Hunting- donshire," in a few hours (Lady Louisa Wells recollects the occasion, and puts it at four hours). Mr. Conrad Cooke, son of E. W. Cooke, R.A., tells me that he used to hold the paper whilst Landseer drew one animal with his right hand and a different animal with his left. This species of dexterity comes with practice, no doubt, and is akin to the adroit manipulation of the accom- plished pianist, but it is nevertheless extraordinary, and several cases are recorded in which Sir Edwin fairly astounded the onlookers by such displays of manual skill. Two instances of well-applied facility are related by Mr. Vernon Heath. Once whilst staying at Arding- ton House, Mr. Robert Vernon's place near Wantage, Landseer consented to go to church. At luncheon he was asked who had preached. " Really, I don't know; but it was some one like this," and he sketched the priest in a few adroit strokes. "Why, that's Mr. Blank," said Mr. Vernon Heath. " His living is nine miles off, and I don't think he has ever preached here before. I know him only from seeing him at a meet of the old Berkshires. But that's the man, sure enough." At Ardington a billiard-table stood in the hall, and one day during a game, Landseer went across to the black- board which screened the grate and drew upon it in chalk a life-size head of a royal stag. When Mr. 133 Sir Edwin Lands eer Vernon saw it he was so enchanted that he had a sheet of plate-glass placed over the board, which he forbade being taken to the hall any more. Billiards, Billiards like chess, is a game at which even the dearest friends fall out, only to make it up, as a rule, when the cues have been restored to their rack or case. Once, however, in a game which he played at Redleaf with Frederick R. Lee, R.A., a hot dispute arose which ended in permanent estrangement between the latter and Landseer, till then firm friends. It was the customary charge of fluking and the equally customary denial that provoked the sorry quarrel. Landseer's force as a moralist was amply vindicated by "Peace" and "War," two of his very noblest paint- ings, which, by the grace of Mr. Vernon, "Peace" are happily the property of the British nation. Both were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1846, and now hang together in the Tate Gallery. The scene of "Peace" is laid on the chalk downs above Dover. Calm prevails everywhere : a quiet Channel with its slight heat haze shows that the steam packet just clearing the harbour will make an easy trip to la Belle France. Sheep and goats graze idly. A lamb peers inquisitively up the muzzle of a dismounted cannon, rusty from weather and long disuse. Children play at cat's cradle. Sunshine and happiness suffuse all the tranquil scene. It is an admirable picture, beautifully painted, and one is thank- ful that the artist, greatly daring, had the courage to associate the idyl with the white cliffs of "perfidious 134 The Lion-Tamer Albion." Nor is the companion picture less telling, less valuable in its remorseless rendering of the horrors of "War." The dead troopers, the dying frantic horses, the ruined hut, the lurid "War" flames and smoke, bear eloquent testimony to the havoc and madness of battle. This is the true aspect of warfare, too seldom depicted by painters, who have generally shown a culpable facility for delineating the more theatrical side — the clash and tumult and glory of crashing regiments. All honour to Landseer for these two great works ! Probably every artist receives a singular commission at times, which he is at liberty to decline if he chooses. It will partly depend upon the patron, partly ^^ upon the subject, whether he will undertake it or not. In 1847 Landseer accepted a f commission from the Duke of Wellington which was one of the strangest subjects ever given to a painter. This was "Van Amburgh and his Lions." He had painted the subject eight years before for Queen Victoria, and it is possible that his Grace thought her Majesty's example was good enough for him. Van Amburgh was a tamer who was in the habit of ex- hibiting his skill to audiences at Astley's Theatre and elsewhere. Landseer showed him life-size inside the cage, the lions and tigers well under control. It was an uninspiring subject treated accordingly. The Iron Duke hung it in his Library at Apsley House, in a great frame, surmounted with a text from the ist chapter of Genesis,- where it is recorded that the 135 Sir Edwin Landseer Creator gave man dominion over "every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This picture once formed a topic of talk at Mr. Frith's hospitable board. Frith often entertained Landseer, and soon noted his unfortunate habit of unpunctuality. Disrelishing that the ladies of the company should be kept waiting, Mr. Frith resolved to teach Landseer a lesson. At the next dinner the guests sat down at the appointed hour, and the banquet was half over when Sir Edwin turned up with profuse apologies for un- avoidable delay. Ever afterwards he was amongst the earliest to appear at the Friths', and had bettered his instructions so thoroughly that, watch in hand, he rebuked any late comer whom he happened to know. "Look here," he cried, "there is no rudeness equal to that of keeping ladies waiting for their dinner." After-dinner talk turning upon the question of greed as a vice of old age, Landseer warmly vindicated the Duke of Wellington, then alive, from the aspersion of avarice. " Whoever says that knows nothing of the Duke," he began. ' ' I know him well, and he is the very reverse of avaricious. When his Grace inquired the price of my picture of 'Van Amburgh,' I named 600 guineas, but the Duke drew a cheque for double that amount. And I could tell you many more instances of his liberality." There is a story that Wellington gave Sir William Allan jQi200 for his large canvas of the " Battle of Waterloo," now in Apsley House. He paid 136 The Duke of Wellington him in hard cash, and when the painter begged for a cheque, to save his Grace both time and trouble, the old soldier demurred. " D'ye think I'm going to let Coutts's know that I've been such a damned fool ? " The version that makes this anecdote turn upon Sir David Wilkie's " Chelsea Pensioners " is incredible. Wellington was undoubtedly fond of art, and attended exhibitions diligently. He had one delusion. He believed he knew every picture in his gallery at Apsley House. He certainly knew the catalogue by heart, and so long as the pictures were shown in sequence could name them ; but when asked a question about a picture out of its turn, so to speak, he was quite at sea. Landseer once asked him whom a portrait of a sour-looking woman of the later Tudor period represented. His Grace mumbled something and left the room. Presently when Landseer had almost forgotten the incident, a whisper, sotto voce, fell on his ear — " Bloody Mary! " In 1847 Landseer began another otter picture — "Digging out the Otter." He made no headway with it, however, the subject possibly not attracting him, and when he died twenty-three years later it was still unfinished. Uncompleted as it was, at the great sale of his works at Christie's (May 8th, 1874) it fetched ;^640 los. Messrs. Agnew, the purchasers, commissioned Millais to put in the figures, thereby enhancing its value so much that, in another sale at Christie's only seven years afterwards (May 1881), it actually realised £2^91 'os. 137 Sir Edwin Landseer Of all the deer pictures of the later 'forties — including the famous " Stag at Bay" (Royal Academy, 1846) and , " The Drive of Deer in Glen Orchy " (Royal Academy, 1847), painted for the Marquis of Random greadalbane (who derives his title of Baron of Glenorchy from the wild glen), by whom it was presented to the Prince Consort — there was none finer than, none so touching as "The Random Shot" (Royal Academy, 1848). A doe, mortally wounded, has wandered to a snow-clad height in search of water. At last the! poor thing falls dead. Her fawn has followed, and vainly seeks nourishment at the wonted source. Ruskin gave it praise in no unstinted terms, holding that it offered a "very beautiful exception" to Land- seer's "falseness or deficiency of colour." He said that it was " certainly the most successful rendering of the hue of snow under warm but subdued light " that he knew of. "The subtlety of gradation from the portions of the wreath fully illumined," he continued, "to those which, feebly tinged by the horizontal rays, swelled into a dome of dense purple, dark against the green evening sky, the truth of the blue shadows, with which this dome was barred, and the depth of delicate colour out of which the lights upon-the footprints were raised, deserved the most earnest and serious admira- tion ; proving, at the same time, that the errors in colour, so frequently to be regretted in the works of the painter, are the result rather of inattention than of feeble perception." {Modem Painters, Edition of 1873, vol. ii., p. 220.) 138 A Noble Trio The painful pathos of this picture, however, was re- lieved by "Alexander and Diogenes" (Royal Academy, 1848), one of Landseer's most masterly ^ dog subjects. A shaggy terrier in a tub . ., ... / J ., . under and personates the philosopher, and the im- „ perious king is typified by a domineering ° white bull-terrier. A couple of bloodhounds, steeped in loftiest disdain, represent the goldsticks-in-waiting. A greyhound wag retails the latest Court scandal to the credulous spaniel courtiers. It is a delicious picture, drawn with verve, and painted with great gusto. Jacob Bell bequeathed it to the British nation, and it now adorns the Tate Gallery. A beautiful portrait of his old father, "John Landseer, Esq., A.R.A.," completed a distinguished Academy trio. In 1850, the year in which Landseer was knighted, he exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture which was once a special favourite and was pre- ^ sented to the nation by Mr. Vernon three ," years before it was finished — that is, whilst it was still under commission. This was "A Dialogue at Waterloo," representing the great Captain describ- ing on the field the course of the battle to Lady Douro, his daughter-in-law. The portrait of his Grace is an excellent portrait of the Duke as he was in his old age. Mr. Algernon Graves states that David Roberts, R.A., stood for the Belgian farmer. Of the portrait of the Marchioness of Douro, Mr. Frith heard Wellington say to Miss (afterwards the Baroness) Burdett-Coutts, to whom he was explaining the picture, "That's quite 139 Sir Edwin Landseer shocking. " Sir Edwin admitted the blunt impeachment, but added, " I wonder the Duke is any better, for he only sat for half-an-hour." On the other hand, Mr. Graves says that his father, who published the plate, told him that the Iron Duke took the utmost interest in the picture and sat often. Knighthood happily synchronised with another noble example of his powers, also exhibited at the Royal ^ Academy in 1850. This was "The Lost „ ^ Sheep," painted in illustration of the Saviour's ^■^ parable (Luke xv. 4): "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it ? " The oblong canvas represented a Highland shepherd, in his " tartan plaidie," extricating sheep from the mass of snow that has overwhelmed them — a curious variant of the "wilderness" of the text — several collies assisting him in his work of charity. Mr. Graves says the picture was painted for Mr. E. Bicknell, who gave 250 guineas for it without the copyright, and was sold at Christie's, on the 25th of April 1863, for ;^234i los. It passed into the keeping of Sir John Pender, and at the sale of his collection at Christie's in 1897 fetched ;^3iSo. 140 CHAPTER IX. GOLD MEDALLIST. [1850-57.] Strange scene at a dinner-party — Dickens disguised — With D'Orsay at Madame Tussaud's — Election of Sir Charles Eastlake to the Presidency of the Royal Academy — Legislators in a temper — "The Monarch of the Glen "— " Oberon and Titania "— " The Deer Pass"— "Night"— "Morning"— "Children of the Mist"— "The Twins" — Landseer is awarded the great Gold Medal at Paris — " Saved "— " Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale "— " Braemar "— " Browsing '' — William Wells of Holme Wood. Though Landseer was regarded in many quarters as something of a courtier, he shared the artists' love for good-fellowship and Bohemianism. He was on the friendliest terms with Charles Dickens, . frequently visiting at the latter's house in ^ ^^^ Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park, where he was sure of meeting kindred spirits. John Forster mentions one singular dinner-party, on the i8th of April 1849, at which the company passed from the depths of alarm and anxiety to the heights of uproarious mirth. Curiously enough, first Samuel Rogers and then Julius Benedict, the com- poser, were taken suddenly ill. As the poet fell sick first he monopolised most of the household help, but by-and-by both patients came round, seemingly not a 141 Sir Edwin Landseer penn'orth the worse for their indisposition. During dinner there had been some talk, not unmingled with indignation, about certain recent pauper-farming dis- closures at Tooting. The guests now saw their way to improve the occasion, and pretended that, what with bad food and insufficient nursing, Dickens himself was no better than a pauper-farmer. Albany Fonblanque set the joke a-going, and the banter was kept up by Landseer, Lord Strangford, and the rest, the night ending in hearty hilarity. A few weeks later (June 29th) it is on record that Landseer went, along with Dickens, Mr. Justice Talfourd, and Clarkson Stanfield, to Vauxhall Gardens to see the " Battle of Waterloo," a tedious affair, which was nevertheless witnessed on the same night by the Iron Duke, with Lady Douro on his arm. X)ickens, it will be recollected, was bare-faced during the earlier part of his life. He then began to sport a moustache, not to the approval of his friends. When John Forster commissioned W. P. Frith, R.A., to paint the novelist's portrait, he begged the artist to put off the work until Dickens should get sick of his new- fangled ornament and remove it. But the day of disgust never came, and offence was aggravated by his growing a beard as well. . It was when thus successfully disguised that Landseer called upon him one day. After a while Boz said to the painter, "But you don't tell me how you like it." " Like what? " inquired Landseer. "All this," exclaimed Dickens, as he flowingly stroked his beard. 142 "The Last of the Dandies" " Oh," quoth his friend, " / like it very much. I shall see less of you than ever." Another great contemporary was also very fond of Landseer and delighted in his company. This, I have already mentioned, is the testimony of Thackeray's daughter, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, which she has, I may add, kindly impressed upon me. Count D'Orsay, "the last of the dandies," was for many years on a very familiar footing with Landseer, who looked upon his friend's peccadilloes with a lenient eye, and helped him cheat the bailiffs on a memorable occasion. The ex- -^ travagant but gifted Count was a portrait-painter of no mean skill, and had drawn an equestrian portrait of Queen Victoria, which was so generally admired that it was decided to publish an engraving of it. In con- sequence of his spendthrift habits, however, he was in constant danger of arrest for debt. When this risk was imminent his lot was not a happy one. On week-days he had to remain a close prisoner to his place. Gore House in Kensington, Sunday being the only day when he was free to go out of doors without let or hindrance. The plate of the Queen was finished at such a crisis in his affairs, but the publisher would not accept it without the artist's final "touching." D'Orsay could not stir out, and the engraver pointblank declined to transact business on Sunday (but could he not have gone to the painter's on a week-day?), and till the plates were passed the Count would get no money. In this dilemma he consulted Landseer, who advised him to disguise 143 Sir Edwin Landseef himself and go to the engraver's, taking the risk of capture. A morning was fixed for the venture, D'Orsay to breakfast with Landseer. The escape was success- fully effected, and the Count enjoyed a very merry breakfast in St. John's Wood Road. The plate was gone over carefully, and then D'Orsay, having tasted the sweets of liberty, proposed they should adjourn to some place of entertainment. Landseer said he didn't know where they could go at noon unless they visited Madame Tussaud's. "The very thing," quoth D'Orsay, "for I've never seen the wax-works." No sooner said than done, but whilst they were in the rooms the Count saw with alarm that two men were watching them very vigilantly. At last he disclosed his fears to Landseer, and suggested they should retire to the Chamber of Horrors, whither they retreated at once. By-and-by they found that the two men had followed them even there, and soon one of the strangers came up and inquired whether he had the honour of addressing Count D'Orsay. The Count haughtily admitted the fact. Then the man told his mission. He had, he said, been sent by Madame Tussaud to ascertain whether he would consent to being modelled in wax. " In wax," cried D'Orsay, greatly relieved at the unexpected turn of events, " in marble, bronze, or iron, my good fellow. Tell her, with my love, that she may model me in anything." Still, the volatile Count's disguise had been pene- trated, and Mr. Frith, who related the adventure on 144 Sir Charles Eastlake Landseer's own authority, does not say whether D'Orsay returned to his lair in safety, though one may suppose that he contrived to avoid the myrmidons on his track. In point of fact, he never was caught, but ultimately reached Boulogne, where duns and bailiffs ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest. Sir Martin Archer Shee died on the igth of August, 1850, and thus the Presidentship of the Royal Academy fell vacant. Though one vote was actually ,-.,,, cast for Landseer, the choice of the painters r, -d J fell with practical unanimity upon Charles Lock Eastlake, on the 4th of November. The new P.R.A. and his henchman were knighted in the same year. Landseer, indeed, had played an important part in the election. * During a visit to Balmoral he learned that the Queen and Prince Albert were most anxious — they said "they hoped" — that Eastlake should become President. It was notorious that he was very averse from accepting the office, and it therefore occurred to Landseer that such an expression of opinion from her Majesty and her husband could not but carry great weight with him. Sjr Charles Phipps, the Queen's private secretary, wrote a letter ad hoc, which Landseer forwarded to C. R. Leslie. This proved effective. Leslie sent the note to Eastlake just before the election, asking him not to answer it unless he were ready to say "Yes." A few members afterwards complained that Royal pressure had been used in Eastlake's favour. There was, however, nothing of the kind — throughout her long and illustrious reign Queen Victoria was most HS L Sir Edwin Landseer scrupulous in such matters always, — the fact being that, excepting Edwin and Charles Landseer and C. R. Leslie, nobody knew anything whatever of Sir Charles Phipps's letter prior to the voting. In this year H.M. Commissioners on the Fine Arts, who had been appointed in 1841 to deal with the whole ,, y,, question of the internal decoration of West- Tir 7 minster Palace, proposed that Sir Edwin Monarch , , , , , . , . . ... , ., should be authorised to pamt m ou three "Lj „ subjects connected with the chase, to adorn panels in the Peers' Refreshment Room, at a price of ;£^iSoo for the set. The artist con- sented to accept the fee, but the House of Commons, annoyed at what it deemed its cavalier treatment at the hands of Government, struck the amount out of the esti- mates, expressing at the same time their highest opinion of the painter's talent. As one consequence of this fit of temper, the majestic " Monarch of the Glen" (Royal Academy, i85i)^-perhaps, in his brother's splendid en- graving, the most generally popular of all Landseer's stag subjects — passed into private hands. A splenetic vote is seldom justifiable, least of all at the expense of a wholly innocent person, as well as of the nation. Following the lead of Queen Victoria with " Comus," L K. Brunel^the illustrious engineer who designed and built the Great Eastern, and laid the Great Western Railway — commissioned a number of artists to paint a series of subjects from Shakespeare, the fee for each picture to be 400 guineas. Obviously, the theme for Landseer was the scene from "A Midsummer Night's 146 "Night" and "Morning" Dream," in which Titania is enamoured of the translated weaver. The donkey's head, the white rabbits, and the fairy accessories were all excellently ^^ rendered, though as an effort of Fancy the ^^ picture is overshadowed by the exuberant . „ imagery of Sir Noel Paton's famous com- positions of the ' ' Quarrel " and ' ' Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania," in the National Gallery in Edin- burgh. The " Midsummer Night's Dream" was shown at the Royal Academy in 1851, the year of the first great International Exhibition. This was a period during which Sir Edwin's devotion to deer subjects was active and strong. Besides the picture lost to the nation through the pique ^ , of the Commons, there were "The Deer „ Pass" (British Institution, 1852), the set of p. . seven water-colours drawn to illustrate his work on " The Forest," and the three vigorous and characteristic pictures of " Night," " Morning," and "Children of the Mist," which all graced the Royal Academy in 1853. As a rule, Landseer was extremely happy in the choice of titles for his works, as these pages have repeatedly testified, but "Night" and "Morning" convey no hint of their subjects, which were painted to the commission of Lord Hardinge. In the former two stags are shown engaged in mortal combat by the side of a mountain tarn under the fitful beams of the moon ; in the latter we see that the issue has been fatal, for the antlers of both animals having become inextricably interlocked, they were doomed to 147 Sir Edwin Landseer perish miserably. Mr. Algernon Graves mentions that Sir Edwin received more complimentary notes about the poetic " Children of the Mist " than about any other of his pictures, and that Thomas Landseer thought it his best plate. Indeed, all three lost nothing in their translation at the hands of this industrious and most talented engraver. On the pretty picture of „ ™, " The Twins " (Royal Academy, 1853), rp ■ „ two gracefully-painted lambkins with their mother, Mr. Graves gives an interesting note. When the London and North- Western Railway Company offered Mr. Robert Stephenson, their famous engineer, a service of plate, the beneficiary ventured to propose a picture by Sir Edwin instead. Landseer, remarking that this was the first time he had ever heard of such a preference, said, " He shall have a good one." The Company seem to have appreciated Mr. Stephenson's common-sense, for they added to this another picture by Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., of " Wind against Tide — Tilbury Fort." Ruskin had declared in an early volume of Modern Painters that Landseer's reputation on the Continent The Gre t ^^^ farther extended than that of any other ^ J, British artist. Whether this were so or not, Medal of ^^ gained signal distinction at the Universal „ ■ Exposition which was held in Paris in 1855. The Fine Arts jury comprised seventy representatives from all parts of the civilised globe, Count de Morny being their President, and Lord Elcho (afterwards the Earl of Wemyss) Vice-President. To 148 Visit to Paris Sir Edwin the jury awarded the great gold medal, and he was the only British painter thus honoured. He was represented at the Exhibition by his picture of ' ' The Sanctuary," but it was doubtless his long series of brilliant works, and not this particular painting, that weighed with the jury. Mr. F. G. Stephens, who wrongly dates the Exposition in 1853, asserts that many Englishmen favoured the claims of Mulready, and were at a loss to account for the jury's choice. We think this judgment of Paris needs neither defence nor apology. For more than thirty years prior to the date of their decision Landseer had poured forth a vast number of pictures of the very highest class in their kind, which were known everywhere through the extra- ordinary popularity of beautiful engravings, and the merits of which had been universally recognised, and it would have been remarkable if the jury had passed them by. Sir Edwin was then at the top of his vogue, and the compliment, unique as it was, was richly deserved in itself, without provoking odious com- parisons. Landseer went over to see the Exhibition. Dickens was living in Paris at the time, and the two chums forgathered again. The author of A Tale of Two Cities (then possibly germinating) held that, as compared with French, the British art at the Exposi- tion was "small, drunken, insignificant, 'niggling.'" There was, he said, " no end of bad pictures among the French, but, lord ! the goodness also ! — the fearless- ness of them ; the bold drawing ; the dashing concep- tion; the passion and action in them." John Forster 149 Sir Edwin Landseer states that these were also the sentiments of Landseer, " whose praise of Horace Vernet was nothing short of rapture." On the prize-giving day Napoleon III. shook Landseer by the hand and greeted him warmly in English, " I am very glad to see you." The Emperor stood in a recess " so arranged as to produce a clear echo of every word he said, and this had a startling effect." In the evening Sir Edwin dined in the Palais Royal along with Dickens, Boxall, and Leslie, "and three others." It was in this same year that Landseer witnessed a performance of " Fortunio " at Tavistock House by the Charles Dickens Private Theatricals Company. After the play the room was cleared for a dance. The property-man had overlooked the head of Fortunio's horse " Comrade." Douglas Jerrold picked up the mask, and holding it up in front of Landseer, said — we can imagine him saying it — " Looks as if it knew you, Edwin ! " Although dog subjects had been less frequent of recent years, Landseer had lost neither his aflfection for " 9 ipiJ" *^^ animal nor his cunning in portraiture. and This was plainly proved by "Saved" (Royal ^^ Unrip Academy, 1856), a grand Newfoundland Tnm " bringing ashore a child rescued from drown- ing — the picture appropriately dedicated to the Royal Humane Society, — and two sooty-grey bull- terriers, "Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale" (Royal Academy, 1857). The latter, suggested by Unck Tom's Cabin, ultimately belonged to Sir Henry Tate, 150 A Curious Coincidence and now hangs in the Gallery which he so munificently presented to the nation. The grief-stricken animals are conscious of their doom. Old Tom blubbers openly, and his poor wife's sympathy for him and sorrow for herself in their threatened separation after life-long comradeship, are depicted with a beautiful pathos. Two splendid deer pictures were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857, both unusually large, — " Braemar," a defiant stag with does hard ^ by, and " Browsing," a stag at food, in '. '^" blissful ignorance of approaching danger * which has already been sniffed by keener-witted hinds. The latter was a cartoon in red, black, and white chalk, and measured 7 feet 7 inches by 9 feet. It was drawn at the Holme Wood, where, for 'his health's sake, Sir Edwin was staying. Owing to the nature of the materials in which it had been drawn it was essential that it should neither be rubbed nor wetted. For this reason it was protected by a stout sheet of plate-glass. In consequence of its great size it was not removed from Huntingdonshire to Trafalgar Square without considerable difficulty. Strange to say, though this was one of the pictures in the Royal Academy that would suffer damage from rain, it was really exposed to injury in this respect. A heavy downpour forced its way into the gallery through a defective gkylight, and the rain actually passed between the glass and the cartoon. Fortunately the damage was not irreparable, and at the sale of Mr. Wells's collection this fine picture, which was never rendered in oils, fetched ;^2ioo. 151 Sir Edwin Landseer Mr. William Wells was the nephew of Mr. Wells of Redleaf, and inherited his uncle's property. Though W II f ^^^^ ^"'^'^ °^ ^^^' ^^ ^^^ ^°^ ^ patron. He rr 7 besfan life as an officer in the ist Life rrr J Guards, but his hobby was agriculture, and he spent a large sum of money in draining and reclaiming Whittlesea Mere. He was M.P. for Beverley (1851-56) and for Peterborough (1868-74), and was elected to the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1861. He was keenly interested in the Volunteer movement, which owed so much to the Earl of Wemyss, whose sister he married. He often enter- tained Landseer (whom he survived sixteen years) at the Holme Wood, his place in Huntingdonshire. 152 CHAPTER X. ST. PAUL'S. [i8s8-73-] Failing sight — Mental distress — "The Maid and the Magpie" — ^Jacob Bell's munificence — ' ' Flood in the Highlands " — Pen portrait of Landseer at work — The " Forest " Series — " An Event in the Forest" — "Man Proposes, God Disposes" — "A Piper and Pair of Nutcrackers" — "Well-bred Sitters that never say they are Bored" — E. J. Coleman — The running deer — "The Con- noisseurs "—" Prosperity " and "Adversity"— Elected P.R.A.— Modelling of "The Stag at Bay"— The Lions in Trafalgar Square — Cbillingham Cattle — 111 again — Last great picture — Final works — De Profundis — Death — Burial — Memorial Sermon — Monument in the Crypt of St. Paul's. By the irony of things Landseer's triumph at Paris was concurrent with the passing of his meridian. From this time forward, with accelerating speed, a certain decline set in all round. It was not the social high pressure alone that counted. The well of healthy invention seemed running dry, which is hardly sur- prising in a sense when one comes to think Pailintr of the extraordinary fecundity of the previous Sip-ht thirty-five years. But the H*es*- unkindest blow of all fell when he discovered that his sight was growing gradually worse. Thus faults of technique 153 Sir Edwin Lands eer which were due to natural decay were too often attri- buted to failure of power. What this meant to a man who had also become hypersensitive and hypochondriac may readily be imagined. There is no doubt but that it entailed in his case mental suffering amounting to agony and torture. ' ' Long after he had reached his great fame," said the Daily News, both truthfully and sympathetically, "it was his delight to put a magnifying-glass into the hand of an artist-friend and bid him examine the paint- ing of the eye of a bird. He had the same desire for minute finish at the last as in his youthful days ; but it was one of his sorest trials in life that he had to paint in glasses just when the rage for pre-Raphaelite finish was rising. While his eyes served him he could have held his ground with any of the pre-Raphaelite school in regard to accuracy and finish. As it was, he was blamed for slovenliness just when he was striving after finish more than ever before." It was the very con- sciousness of failing sight, as this writer pointed out, that caused him to labour his pictures till they lost the vigour and spirit which might have compensated for inferior handling. If in these circumstances he had boldly cut himself adrift from his innumerable social entanglements, he might have retained his peace of mind Ttr f. J and worked only when the humour pleased j~. . , and he was physically fit. But he could not resist the flattery of those who courted him, which proved, on the one hand, that his magnetic personality still charmed, and, on the other, that this manner of life had fascination of a sort for him. The 1 54 The Thin Partition pity of it ! For always it is the pace which kills, and there is too much reason to fear that at times he sought relief from worry, as well as tonic for the demands of fashionable functions, by resort to brandy. There were seasons, too, when his depression was so extreme that he became the prey of hallucination and delusion to an extent that bordered on actual dementia. I have heard that a fall from his horse did cause injury to his brain, not suspected at the time nor known till after his death ; and this indentation of the skull was doubtless at the root of his mental trouble. At any rate the morbid conditions of mind into which he fell towards the end of his life — fits that grew increasingly numerous — will account for the diseased imagination which found vent in certain of his later pictures. The critic, however, who should judge of such works as he would of those produced by the mens sana in corpore sano would indeed be a despicable creature. Happily, too, there were long spells when the clouds lifted and he was able to design, draw, and paint with almost pristine vigour and ingenuity; when his friends could joyfully exclaim, " Edwin is himself again." Of these worthy pictures mention shall now be made. ' ' The Maid and the Magpie" (Royal Academy, ^ 1858), representing a pretty lass milking ,_ ., & cow and so absorbed in the soft nothings of a young man admirer that she observes f'^" not a wily magpie about to steal a silver ^ spoon from one of her shoon, afforded Mr. Jacob Bell another opportunity of open-handed generosity, for he IS5 Sir Edwin Landseer bequeathed it to the British nation. Mr. Algernon Graves gives an interesting account of the origin of the picture. Sir Edwin had painted another subject for Bell for I GO guineas. Shortly afterwards he was offered 2000 guineas for it and of course accepted the money, which, however, most handsomely, he paid into Landseer's banking account. By-and-by he related the incident to Sir Edwin, only suppressing the names of the parties to the transaction. The vendor, he assured him, would not pocket the money, but wished to have him paint another picture in its stead. "Ah!" remarked Landseer, impressed, as well he might be, with such magnanimity, and repeating the Stephensonian phrase, " he shall have a good one." When he asked for the name of his princely patron, Bell laid his hand upon Sir Edwin's shoulder, saying, " As Nathan said to David, • Thou art the man.' " If Landseer had grappled with complete success with the subject of his "Flood in the Highlands" (Royal Academy, i860), which now hangs in Lord Cheyles- more's collection, this picture would have been entitled II i?r J • to rank with his very finest. As it is, one " Flood zn ,.,.,. , ' . ,, Tj- h, i^ust award it high praise, because of its , , ,f many beautiful passages, even although the invention got beyond his control. The Spey has risen in sudden spate and the cotters in the valley have been forced to seek the shelter of their humble roofs. With their kye and other animals it will go hard. The mute terror of a goat and cow in the fore- ground is appalling, and the frenzied efforts of a team 156 A Portrait in Words of horses will be their undoing. On the roof of the foremost cottage, which, as the sign informs us, had been a wayside inn, a number of human beings are huddled in various conditions of fear and distress. The mother with her babe on her lap is one of the strongest figures Sir Edwin ever drew. The old grandfather, half doting, seems scarcely conscious of his danger ; nor does the boy, boy-like, realise his peril, though from a totally different motive, but cuddles his rescued tyke. On the steps a cat is curiously examining a broken egg just dropped from the hen — a habit of this creature's when under the influence of terror, so Sir Edwin informed Lord Cheylesmore, when he went over the picture in the latter's house. As Mr. F. G. Stephens keenly points out, even the colouring, sometimes not the painter's strongest point, aids the composition, for its "chilly opacity" almost makes one shiver and draw one's auld cloak about one. In a subject of this kind the broken interest does not make for a serious fault, for by the very nature of the catastrophe it would be largely a case of every one for himself, and anything like con- certed action would be out of the question. On a chair in front of the vast canvas Lord Cheylesmore has placed Sir Edwin's study for the head of the woman, as carefully worked up a sketch as he ever drew. Mr. F. G. Stephens saw Landseer putting in the last touches to this picture, and was greatly struck by his changed appearance. "He looked," he writes, "as if about to become old, although his age [58] by no means justified the notion ; it was not that he had lost activity 157 Sir Edwin Landseer or energy, or that his form had shrunk, for he moved as firmly and swiftly as ever, indeed he was rather demonstrative, stepping on and off the plat- / Mz^s form in his studio with needless display, and his form was stout and well filled. Never- theless, without seeming to be overworked, he did not look robust, and he had a nervous way remarkable in so distinguished a man, one who was usually by no means unconscious of himself, and yet, to those he liked, full of kindness. The wide green shade which he wore above his eyes projected straight from his fore- head, and cast a large shadow on his plump, somewhat livid features, and in the shadow one saw that his eyes had suffered. The grey Tweed suit, and its sober trim, a little emphatically 'quiet,' marked the man; so did his stout, not fat nor robust, figure ; rapid movements, and 'utterances that glistened with prompt remarks, sharp, concise, with quick humour, but not seeking occasions for wit, and imbued throughout with a perfect frankness, distinguished the man." It was not until 1861 that he was able to finish the last of the twenty drawings for his contemplated series y,, in illustration of Deer-stalking. The first "Forest" *^° ^^^ been done as far back as 1845, Series ^"'^ *^® whole set were to be published together under the title of "The Forest." He gave himself a great deal of unnecessary trouble and worry — at a period, too, when worry worked like madness in the brain — by undertaking to superintend the business part of the production, a kind of thing that 158 A Bad Business he had hitherto been spared through the thoughtfulness of intimate friends. He commissioned the engravers himself (Thomas Landseer engraved 14 ; C. G. Lewis, 4; and John Outrim, 2) with special instructions that not a single print was to go out. In 1855 C. G. Lewis had a sale of a complete set of engravings after Land- seer, and by accident two or three from "The Forest" were included amongst them. Sir Edwin consulted Mr. Henry Graves on the matter, and in consequence began an action to compel Lewis to withdraw these proofs. In 1862, or thereabouts, Mr. Henry Graves, in his turn, obtained one or two others of the series without knowing they were in his possession. As it happened. Sir Edwin was then due at Pall Mall to sign a large parcel of proofs. Landseer's task was nearly ended when he came to these particular prints. He pitched them across the Gallery in a towering passion and refused to sign any more that day. When all the twenty plates were engraved Sir Edwin determined to publish them himself, but was soon forced to give up that notion. The bother and anxiety were more than he could bear, and his friend, Mr. Hyde Hills, accordingly proposed that Mr. Henry Graves should acquire the twenty plates on the understanding that only 100 sets were to be published, that they were only to be sold in unbroken sets, and that Landseer was to sign the 2000 proofs and desig-n the portfolio. These conditions were accepted, and 100 subscribers at thirty guineas a set were .obtained without difficulty. Then new trouble arose. When Mr. Algernon Graves took the 2000 IS9 Sir Edwin Landseer prints to St. John's Wood for signature, Sir Edwin flung into a fury and threatened to cancel the whole transaction rather than submit to this drudgery. By- and-by, as Mr. Graves discussed the situation, he grew calmer, and at last consented to sign one plate in each set, handing Mr. Graves his signet ring so that a stamp (E.L.) might be made and the remaining 1,900 proofs stamped with it. Even then fresh trouble was a-brewing, in which I cannot say that Sir Edwin was to blame. He wished to sign the first plate — " Wait till he rise" — as the opening incident of the series, but Mr. Henry Graves was anxious that " The Fatal Duel," the finest of the set, should bear the author's signature. The difference was adjusted by his signing 25 of the first and 75 of the finest. Most of the originals remained in his keeping and fetched high prices at Christie's in the year after his death. But the elaborate picture of the Highland Flood took a great deal of creative force out of the painter, and during the next two years he did little work that approached his standard. But in 1864 there was a marked revival of power. It will be recollected that Sir John Pender had acquired the picture of "The Lost Sheep." This was painted on an oblong canvas of con- siderable dimensions, and its new proprietor, feeling the ,, _ . need of a suitable companion picture, com- , missioned a work of similar size in the year following the purchase of the older one. Land- seer called this picture, which was to restore the balance of Sir John Pender's walls, by the somewhat uninspired 160 ' The Monarch of the Glen" (p. 146). The Franklin Picture title of "An Event in the Forest" (British Institution, 1865). But the subject was rendered with characteristic vigour and feeling. It represented a stag lying dead amidst the rocks at the foot of a precipice over which it has fallen. A fox pauses in its scrutiny of its unlooked- for booty, pending the arrival of a bird of prey which is speedily nearing the scene of the disaster, and with which there may be a collision. At Sir John Pender's sale in 1897 the picture fetched ;^26so. "Man Proposes, God Disposes" (Royal Academy, 1864), another large and striking canvas that now adorns the Royal Holloway College for ^ Women at Egham, was a bitter satire upon the vanity of human effort, representing as ^oposes it did Polar bears toying with the relics of the ill-fated expedition of Sir John Franklin and his comrade heroes. "The chief features of the composition," writes Mr. C. W. Carey, the Curator of the Picture Gallery at the Royal Holloway College, "are the two huge bears, one with his head thrown up, cracking a small human bone between his teeth, the other tearing at a portion of the Union Jack upon which rests a broken mast. The artistic charm of the work lies in the exquisite grey- green colour scheme, and the tragi-poetical sentiment embodied in the expressions of the beasts and the introduction of the few objects — telescope, rib bones of a man, portion of sail, etc. — connecting them with the lost sailors. Its merits still rank it among the two or three of the very best of Landseer's produc- tions, just as they did when it was first exhibited, 161 M Sir Edwin Lands eer and when Mr. T. Holloway paid 6,300 guineas for it in 1881" (at Christie's, on the 28th of May). As if to relieve the poignant gloom of this vigorous and truly remarkable composition, Landseer also sent . to the Royal Academy one of the sunniest tper pictures he ever painted, the "Piper and and Nut- p^.^ ^^ Nutcrackers," a bullfinch and couple of squirrels, so delightfully engraved by Samuel Cousins. This picture was so bright, fresh, and charming that some have averred that, though not hitherto exhibited, it had really been painted several years before. Lynx-eyed Mr. Graves says nothing of this theory, and the circumstance would scarcely have escaped him. One is glad there is nothing in it, for such a jolly picture could only have come from a light heart, and it is nice to think that Sir Edwin had thrown off Black Care for a season. Nor did this end the tale of his gayer pictures of 1864, for he showed at the British Institution, and it was almost the last picture he ex- . „^ hibited at that moribund gallery, a composi- tion entitled "Well-bred Sitters that never c-« » say they are Bored." It was a group of the ^ animals, quick and dead, that he had loved to paint all his life — dogs and doves and game. This was sold at Christie's, on the date already mentioned, for the enormous sum of ;^S25o. Both it and the Franklin subject had belonged to his friend Mr. E. J. Coleman, a liberal patron of the arts, at whose fine place. Stoke Park at Stoke Poges, Landseer was ever a welcome guest. The banqueting- 162 Paints his Portrait room of the old manor-house was always at his disposal as a studio whenever he felt inclined for work. It was there that he drew in red crayon a deerhound going at the top of its speed. Afterwards, '•'' in order to justify the dog, he added a ^"'^ quarry in the shape of a stag, and exhibited the picture under the name of "The Chase" at the Royal Academy in 1866. This also commanded the handsome figure of ;^525o at Christie's in May 1881. It was from this picture that, at the request of the Earl of Wemyss, then Lord Elcho, the Chairman of . ^J^'^ the National Rifle Association, Sir Edwin '^^'^S Deer made a life-size drawing of a running deer, from which was fashioned the iron target that figured in the Running Deer competition first at Wimbledon Common and after- wards at Bisley. How many volunteers, one wonders, knew when they were peppering the iron deer, that they were firing at what was practically the handiwork of Sir Edwin Landseer? It almost seemed, however, as if he had to pay a heavy penalty for the industry of this year. He ends a note of September and, "Your used-up old friend," and in another letter he says, "If I am bothered about everything and anything, no matter what, I know my head will not stand it much longer" — ominous phrases. By a happy coincidence his chief picture at the Royal Academy of 1865 was a portrait of himself. He is represented as seated sketching, while, looking over his shbulders, one on the right and the other on the left, are two beautiful dogs, who constitute "The Connois- 163 Sir Edwin Lands eer seurs" of the title. This, the most characteristic por- trait of the painter, was presented by him to the Prince ^ of Wales. One dares hope that his Majesty "The Cbw-j^jjjg. Edward VII. may be moved to place notsseurs ^^^ picture in the National Portrait Gallery. "Prosperity" and "Adversity," both shown at the Royal Academy, told of the ups and downs in the life of a fine bay horse. In the one he is sleek, well- groomed, and in clover ; in the other he has fallen from his proud estate and become the miserable hack of a "growler." Perhaps the most memorable event of Landseer's life happened in 1865. On the death of Sir Charles „ „ . Eastlake in December, Sir Edwin's col- P R A • ' ' ' leagues with one accord elected him Presi- dent of the Royal Academy. He was greatly touched, but refused the honour. Maybe it had come too late. Had the opportunity arisen sooner, he certainly would have proved an ideal Chief. His fellows felt this, although the earlier occasion never offered itself. Bursting into tears, he declared the post was not for him and named Daniel Maclise. His nomina- tion was adopted, but the impulsive Irishman rose at once and, in his delicious brogue, said he was the worst man for the post in the whole Academy and would not listen for a moment to his friends charming never so wisely. Declined by Landseer and Maclise, was this most distinguished office to go a-begging? Perish the thought ! And so they elected Francis Grant, who was a perfect gentleman, and made a capital 164 The Lion Statues President. But it was a memorable and dramatic session, chockfull of moving incidents. Interesting evidence of the coming completion of the lions for Trafalgar Square was afforded in 1866 by his model of the " Stag at Bay." The Duke of ^ , ,,. Abercorn had expressed a wish to have a ^ group of hunted deer and dogs cast in silver for a centre-piece, but he was compelled to abandon his plan in consequence of the large scale on which Sir Edwin had modelled the subject. However, it was cast in bronze as It stood, then painted over by Landseer, and purchased by Mr. H. W. Eaton (afterwards first Lord Cheylesmore), and is now in his son's possession. The model was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the year in which it was produced. "Long looked for, come at last" — Landseer's four lions were placed on their pedestals at the base of the Nelson Monument in 1867 (Mr. Graves says i868, but this must be a slip). He had received the commission from Lord Derby in 1859, just before the great Tory orator *"'** and statesman left office, and they had thus been nearly eight years in hand. The delay was the occasion of the usual facetiousness to groundling and grumbler, but considering that every scrap of the modelling was done by Sir Edwin himself, without help from any source whatever, it does not seem an excessive period, having regard also to the facts that he was a painter and not a sculptor and that his own proper work could not wholly be set aside. The first lion was placed in situ on the 165 . Sir Edwin Lands eer 25th of January (Burns's birthday) 1867, an event which provoked Punch to perpetrate the foUowbg atrocity which, at a guess, we ascribe to Tom Taylor : — "The first lion intended for the Nelson Monument has broken from its distinguished keeper, Sir Edwin Landseer, and is now at large — in fact, at very large — in Trafalgar Square. The inhabitants are gradually regaining composure. A poet in the neighbourhood has already begun a poem, entitled 'A dawning of a Roarer.' " The colossal quartet was unveiled on the 31st of January. Each lion measured 20 feet long and 1 1 feet high, and weighed 7 tons. They were cast in metal by Baron Marochetti at a cost of ;^i 1,000. The fee paid to Sir Edwin was ;^6ooo. Critics carped in the Press for a while, and one person, presumably non compos mentis, was arrested for flinging stones at them. But the nobility of the treatment and the majesty of the pose, and the grand air of distinction which they lent not only to the Column but to the Square, gradually wore down the voice of Unreason and Detraction, until it was freely confessed that Pillar and Lions together formed the most magnificent monument in the metropolis. As Mr. Algernon Graves reminds me, with excellent point, had the lions been erected in the Egyptian desert, they would have attracted travellers from all parts of the globe as to a Wonder of the World ; whereas in London they have become so familiar that nobody properly appreciates them. Still, to the seeing eye their value is enormous. At the instance of the Chief Commissioner of Woods and 166 Wild White Cattle Forests, Mr. Vernon Heath took eight photographs of the statues in the following month. The police held the Square as long as was necessary to enable him to secure his negatives — two of each lion from different ppints. Landseer thought so highly of these photographs that, as he said, "he had recommended no end of friends" to obtain copies, and Tom Taylor in The Times (March 1867) advised all who could not see the very lions to study the photographs of them, if they wished "to form an adequate judgment of this last and best addition " to London's sculptures. In the National Portrait Gallery, too, there is an interesting picture by Mr. John Ballantyne, R.S.A., representing Sir Edwin modelling one of the colossal carnivores on the platform in the Baron's studio. Ever since his first trip to Scotland Landseer had kept up more or less close relations with the Earl of Tankerville, and in this year he was again a . guest at Chillingham Castle, painting the ^r^fj "Red Deer" and "Wild Cattle" (both '^'^'^ ^'^'^"^ exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1867). These animals were noble subjects for his brush. This herd and the Duke of Hamilton's in Cadzow Forest are directly descended from the wild cattle which roamed through the Caledonian Forest long before the Romans invaded the island. All blue-blooded boasts of long descent pale before an ancestry like that. The cattle are beautiful creatures. Except that their hoofs, muzzles, horn tips, tail ends, and eye circles are black, and that the inside of the ears is brownish-red, their colour is a pure white, 167 Sir Edwin Landseer tending in some towards cream. Their back is as strdght as a table, their legs are short, their horns could inflict an ugly gash in the cleanest fashion, and their whole appearance shows that every inch of muscle is developed. Standing on the moors against a black background of firs, and eyeing the distant passer-by with a half-doubting, half-curious gaze, they form an attrac- tive and picturesque group, such as fascinated Sir Edwin many's the time and oft. The Chillingham herd usually numbers between sixty and seventy. Their habits demonstrate their " wildness," for they hide their young, feed by night, and sleep during the day. In stress of wintry weather they will visit the Home Park for food, but in summer they frequently disappear for weeks into the depths of the forest. Their cry is not like "crummie's" at all, resembling rather that of a savage beast. When they travel they move in Indian file, the bulls at the head. The Earl of Tankerville himself, when Lord Ossulston, had the narrowest escape from an awful death. One of the cattle having been wounded in the chase, his lordship rode towards it gun in hand, intending to put an end to its sufferings. All of a sudden the bull turned, charged and gored his horse. Happily the steed ran several hundred yards before it dropped down dead ; but then nothing seemed to stand between Lord Ossulston and instant destruc- tion. Meanwhile, however, the huntsmen and keepers had come up, and succeeded in diverting the creature's attack from his lordship to themselves. Thus the heir of Chillingham, one of Landseer's staunchest friends, i68 ^F''.:>> ' r. ^K"-'' y^;''?". m. ■PI ^^fc^'"': ■1^;,;; A m 1 , ^^-v:' ' "^ ''j^^^p m. 1 ^;^t; ■' V: -^' ■ i 1 p'^^^^^k/: 1 ^■|^:;'i al ^a^^ i^ !^:tl^^^-^^ -'" '/MSk Beginning of the End was saved. In commemoration of this event he painted in 1836 his picture of the "Death of the Wild Bull" (exhibited at the Royal Academy in that year), in which he introduced portraits of Lord Ossulston and Mr. Wells of Redleaf. " The pony's name was ' Hotspur,' " says Mr. Algernon Graves, "and the deerhound's ' Bran.' The dog had saved the keeper's life after he had been tossed by a bull by biting the animal off and holding him at bay until the keeper was got into a cart." But in spite of these successes illness still dogged him, even when, at the kindly instance of friends, he was staying in the country for his health's sake. From Balmoral he writes to Jessie in /// Again June, 1867: — "Why I know not, but since I have been in the Highlands I have for the first time felt wretchedly weak, without appetite. The easterly winds, and now again the unceasing cold rain, may possibly account for my condition, as I can't get out. Drawing tires me ; however, I have done a little better to-day. The doctor residing in the Castle has taken me in hand, and gives me leave to dine to-day with the Queen and 'the rest of the Royal Family.' . . . Flogging would be mild compared to my sufferings. No sleep, fearful cramp at night, accompanied by a feeling of faintness and distressful feebleness." In a letter written from Dingwall, during another visit to Scotland this year, he says, "All my joints ache; the lumbago has reasserted its unkindness; a warm bath is in requisition, and I am a poor devil." It is pathetic to know that, whilst he was lying at the Holme Wood, actually in a 169 Sir Edwin Landseer condition bordering on insanity, it was a sight of a print of Samuel Cousins's skilful handiwork in the plate of the "Midsummer Night's Drea!m," which Mr. Henry Graves had taken to show him, that roused him out of his torpid state and restored him to reason. But though henceforward to the end he was almost con- tinuously racked by mental anguish and physical pain, La. t Gr t ^^^ ^^^ creative energy was well-nigh spent, „. , he produced in 1869 one picture which, in the estimation of so competent a judge as Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., was perhaps the finest he ever painted. This was the "Swannery Invaded by Eagles," exhibited at the Royal Academy in the same year, as to which Mr. F. G. Stephens is, for him, hot in praise. It came, said the Art Critic of The Athenmutn, "a great deal nearer to Snyders' manner than any Landseer had produced for many years; indeed, since youth had ceased with him he rarely worked with so much solidity, firmness, and with such skill as in that which we think his last noble picture." Its subject is almost explained in the title. Eagles have swooped down upon some swans' nests, and a terrible fight ensues. One swan is already slain, two others battle valiantly, their white plumage besmeared with blood. The remnant of the colony vainly seek safety in flight, for other eagles have marked them for their prey, intent upon slaughtering the handsome birds which presumed to build so near to their haunts. The dying swan is said to pass to the loud, clear notes of its most beautiful song, and it is not a little singular that Landseer's last great work, 170 Last Paintings his swan-song, should be a picture of swans defending to the death their home and young from the rapiile of cruel and passionate marauders. But though not on this high level, " Ptarmigan Hill " and the two "Lion Studies," which he made to help him whilst modelling the Lions for Trafalgar „■ , Square (all three shown at the Royal Aca- -^ , demy in 1869), possessed great merit. The last two he presented to his bosom friend, Mr. T. Hyde Hills, who in turn bequeathed them to the British nation. In the following year he exhibited at Burling- ton House his " Doctor's Visit to Poor Relations at the Zoological Gardens," now known as "The Sick Mon- key," representing an ailing monkey nursed by its mother, whilst a Diana monkey, acting as physician, devours an orange for its fee, which was a worthy example of the school which he founded. His health had now broken down permanently. Year in and year out it was nearly always the same sad story of suffering ; indeed, the certificate assigned "cerebral disease" as the general „ , ,. and "cerebral effusion" as the immediate ■' cause of his death, the former pointing to a chronic condition of pain and misery. On the nth of March i86g, when sending his friend Hills some "oil studies of old friends from the Zoo " (the Lion sketches just mentioned) he writes pathetically of his " endless obliga- tions to your unceasing desire to aid a poor old man, nearly used up." On the 5th of June he tells the same friend: " I am anything but well; botherations unfit me 171 Sir Edwin Landseer for healthy work ; " and later still he confesses that his "health (or rather condition) is a mystery quite beyond human intelligence. I sleep well seven hours, and awake tired and jaded, and do not rally till after luncheon." Another visit to the friends at Chilling- ham Castle and the bracing breezes of Northumbrian moorland and hills yields little relief. " Very mortify- ing are the disappointments I have to face," he moans, "one day seeming to give hope of a decided turn in favour of natural feeling, the next knocked down again." As he fell into his final illness he was nursed with the greatest tenderness and care. Although very weak, there were days when he was able, leaning on his sister's arm, to stroll slowly around his well-loved garden. One fine spring morning in 1872, he told Mrs. Mackenzie he "would never see the green leaves again," but he was spared to see another spring and autumn. He could not tear himself away from his studio, where his life's work had been done and so many victories won, and painted here a little and there a little nearly to the last. Mrs. Richmond Ritchie tells how, when he was almost at his worst, his friends ' ' gave him his easel and his canvas and left him alone in his studio, in the hope that he might take up his work and forget his suffering. When they came back they found that he had painted the picture of a little Iamb lying beside a lion. Queen Victoria was the owner of one of the last pictures he ever painted. She wrote to her old friend and expressed her admiration for it, and asked to become the possessor. Her sympathy brightened 172 The End the sadness of those last days for him. It is well known that he appealed to her once when haunted by some painful apprehensions, and that her wise and judicious kindness came to the help of his nurses. She sent him back a message — bade him not be afraid, and to trust to those who were doing their best for him, and in whom she herself had every confidence." Indeed, her Majesty's gracious sympathy with the dying artist might have been anticipated from the sincerity of her lifelong admiration for the man and his works. Her friendship was shared by her Consort so long as he was by her side, and was in signal con- trast with the behaviour of many members of Society for whose unworthy sakes Sir Edwin had spent himself, going down to dusty death before his time. It was his wish to die in his studio, where Death he lay month after month longing for the end, but he passed away in his own room on the ist of October 1873, in the presence of his brother, whom he was able to recognise and whose hand he was holding as he entered the Silent Land. Edwin Landseer was buried on Saturday, the nth of October, in St. Paul's Cathedral, his mortal remains being laid in the Crypt in the south-eastern corner where other great painters sleep. He Burial lies between Sir J. E. Boehm, R.A., the sculptor, and George Dawe, R.A., who died in 1829. Then come Fuseli, his old master, George Dance, the last surviving member of the original Forty Royal Academicians, Sir Benjamin West, P. R.A., Lord 173 Sir Edwin Landseer Leighton of Stretton, P.R.A., whilst Reynolds, Law- rence, James Barry, Opie, Turner, George Richmond, Millais, and Wren are not far off. Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales sent wreaths, and every member of the Royal Academy who was not for- bidden by illness or distance was present. Letters, Politics, and the Army were represented by Browning, Lord Granville, Lord Westminster, Lord Hardinge, and Sir William Codrington. But shame of shames! " with one or two distinguished exceptions," says The Times, "that world of fashion which made Landseer its own during his life was conspicuous by its absence." At the service next forenoon, the pulpit of St. Paul's was occupied by the Rev. J. A. Hessey, D.D., the Preacher of Gray's Inn, who delivered an eloquent discourse In Memoriam from the eleventh verse of the third chapter of Ecclesiastes — "He hath made everything beautiful in his time." In 1882 a sculptured slab in white marble, executed by Thomas Woolner, R.A., was let into the side-wall of one of the window recesses of the Crypt, At the top of this mural monument is a palette and brushes, below is a finely-chiselled medallion portrait, and at the base is a rendering in high relief of "The' Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner," an exquisitely happy symbol of fidelity and love. 174 CHAPTER XI. THE MAN. Appearance — Character — Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Disposition — Of whom was he jealous? — The charge of meanness — Habituh of his studio — His way with animals — ^What he thought of the stag — A bachelor — Rosa Bonheur — Industry — Copying — Forgery — False attributions — Translation — Delightful pictures to live with —The Sir Walter Scott of the animal world. Landseer was of middle height, or possibly a trifle below it. His complexion was fresh, his nose just slightly "tip-tilted like the petals of a rose," his hair hazel-brown (conveying the impres- "^ sion that he was a fair man) and bushy. In his youth his locks were curly, and he looked a bonnie boy. On the whole, his face could not be called a strong one, although he had a fine, broad forehead. Until he lent himself too readily to society, he was something of a home bird. In winter, the day's darg done, he and Charles and their three sisters often indulged in an evening's harmony, Edwin had a good voice and sometimes sang alone, with rare charm of taste and style. In summer his garden was a great hobby, and his dogs and he were a never-failing source of fun and amusement. 175 Sir Edwin Landseer Before he was partly sullied by social success, he was a delightful companion, retaining however, even until the final calamitous breakdown, many of the attri- Character butes that went to his early popularity. His bump of what phrenologists call self-esteem was so slight that he was constrained constantly to lean on the opinion of others. No doubt, unconscious at first of any tendency to "bow and scrape," this deference to rank and wealth carried him in the long run far on the road to wreckage. The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in him grew apace with lapse of time. With the men of his own set and age he was natural and nice, but he threw off much of his amiableness when he put on his Society dress and manners. The oiling and curling of his locks for some "swagger" function did not lubricate his behaviour towards most of those who had the best claim to his friendship. Indeed, his stiff behaviour and distant air were so painful that many of his older comrades preferred to stand aloof rather than behold the deterioration of his nature and character. This vexed him in turn, for in his inmost heart he felt that his friends were justified and that he was to blame. It is necessary to insist upon this dual strain, because it explains the contrariety of views that have been held about Sir Edwin's personal qualities. By Disposition some he was accused of jealousy. Of whom had he need to be jealous? The notion is absurd. Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., who knew him inti- mately, and was man-of-the-world enough to make allowances for foibles and failings, asserts that he was 176 Character without envy; nay more, he has heard him depreciate his own powers in language that was almost startling. "If," he said, "people only knew as much about paint- ing as I do, they would never buy my pictures." Perhaps it was because he knew Society so well that Landseer said to Frith, when the latter told him that he had accepted her Majesty's commission to paint the marriage of the Prince of Wales for the sum of ;^30oo, "Well, for all the money in this world and all in the next I wouldn't undertake such a thing!" Again, in common with all John Landseer's children save "Tom," he has been charged with meanness. Here we are concerned only with Sir Edwin, and his record is surely clean. We have read how Frederick Goodall remonstrated with him on the profuse distri- bution of his sketches; how he cleared the Iron Duke from the imputation of avarice, a step which he was not suificiently brazen-faced to have taken had the vice begun to gnaw at his own vitals ; how Mrs. Richmond Ritchie looked upon him as the restorer of a "certain sumptuous habit of living," a mode which is absolutely incompatible with meanness. Mrs. Ritchie relates a characteristic instance of full-handed generosity which was communicated to her by Mr. Hyde Hills, the victim of it:— "About ten years ago [1863]," said Mr. Hills, "Sir Edwin wished me to keep a dog, thinking that when I came home I should not be so lonely ; he also said that he would look out for one for me himself. I told him that my business occupations [Mr. Hills was a partner in Jacob Bell & Co.] would not allow me to 177 N Sir Edwin Landseer give a dog proper attention, and although Sir Edwin mentioned the subject more than once I still refused. About a month afterwards he came to dine with me one day, and when he arrived he brought a beautifully- finished picture of a dog, saying: 'Here, Hills, I have brought you a parlour boarder ; I hope you won't turn him out of doors."* This was the picture of "Pixie," which he painted in i860. But bring these aspersions to another test. Were Samuel Rogers and Mr. Wells of Redleaf and his nephew of the Holme Wood, were John Sheepshanks and Jacob Bell and Robert Vernon likely men to welcome to their houses whenever he chose to come an atrabilious painter eaten up with meanness and jealousy? Above all, would an artist of such a char- acter and disposition be unanimously elected President of the Royal Academy, an office for which it is notorious that the very opposite qualities are almost more of a sine qud rum than high skill in painting and drawing ? Just consider the men who haunted Landseer's studio, and who would as soon have chummed up to Chadband or Stiggins as to a mean and jealous man. Here are delightful pen-pictures sketched ■^ doubtless by a discerning woman (?Mrs. Mackenzie or Miss Landseer) for Mrs. Richmond Ritchie in a few vivid touches: — "Besides the genial artist and his beautiful pictures, the habitids of his workshop (as he called it) belonged to the ilite of London Society, especially the men of wit and dis- tinguished talents — none more often there than D'Orsay, 178 Companions and Friends with his good-humoured face, his ready wit, and deli- cate flattery. 'Landseer,' he would call out at his entrance, 'keep the dogs off me [the painted ones], I want to come in and some of them will bite me — and that fellow in the corner is growling furiously.' Another day he seriously asked me for a pin, and when I pre- sented it to him and wished to know why he wanted it, he replied, 'To take de thorn out of dat dog's foot; do you not see what pain he is in?' I never look at the picture now without this other picture rising before me. Then there was Mulready, still looking upon Landseer as the young student, and fearing that all this incense would spoil him for future work ; and Fonblanque, who maintained from first to last that he was on the top rung of the ladder, and when at the exhibition of some of Landseer's later works, he heard it said, 'They are not equal to his former ones,' exclaimed in his own happy manner, 'It is hard upon Landseer to flog him with his own laurels,'" Finely said and felicitously, Fonblanque, faithful friend ! But if men of the world are good judges of men, dogs are almost infallible. How does Landseer stand in this particular ? What were his relations with these devoted creatures ? It has been said that his excessively keen sensitiveness and the tenacious aifection of his highly- strung nature endowed him with an acute insight into the character and habits of these animals. He loved his old rough-haired white terrier "Brutus," we are told, so consumedly that he never entirely got over its loss, never again attached himself to one favourite, 179 Sir Edwin Landseer but ever afterwards was usually seen surrounded with half-a-dozen dogs. There was one dog which when it Tf. wanted its walk, and when Sir Edwin tarried .,, too long at his easel, used to bring him his . . , hat and lay it at his feet on the floor. He had a marvellous way of ingratiating himself with dogs, which he knew as few fanciers have ever known them. At Redleaf one afternoon he and Frederick Goodall went out for a stroll, their only companion being a beautiful retriever. In frolicsome spirit the dog was running here, there, and everywhere, and whilst it was racing ahead Landseer unseen hung up one of his gloves on the bough of a tree. After they had walked on for a quarter of a mile or so, he called the dog, showed it his two hands, one ungloved. Without a word from him the creature went back, and in a couple of minutes returned with the missing glove. Mrs. Ritchie's correspondent, the intimate friend already quoted, gave her a most instructive account of Landseer's way with animals. " He had a strong feeling," she wrote, "against the way some dogs are tied up ; only allowed their freedom now and then. He used to say a man would fare better tied up than a dog, because the former can take his coat off, but a dog lives in his for ever. He declared a tied-up dog without daily exercise goes mad or dies in three years. His wonderful power over dogs is well-known. An illustrious lady [whom we shall venture upon identifying as Queen Victoria] asked him how it was that he gained this knowledge. ' By peeping into their hearts, ma'am,' was 1 80 Love for Animals his answer. I remember once being wonderfully struck with the mesmeric attractions he possessed with them. A large party of his friends were with him at his house in St. John's Wood ; his servant opened the door ; three or four dogs rushed in, one a very fierce-looking mastiff. We ladies recoiled, but there was no fear ; the creature bounded up to Landseer, treated him like an old friend, with most expansive demonstrations of delight. Some one remarking 'how fond the dog seemed of him;' he said, ' I never saw it before in my life.' Would that horsp-trainers could have learned from him how horses could be broken in or trained more easily by kindness than by cruelty ! Once when visiting him he came in from Viis meadow [adjoining the house] looking some- what dishevelled and tired. 'What have you been doing ? ' we asked him. ' Only teaching some horses tricks for Astley's [a once famous circus in Westminster Bridge Road], and here is my whip,' he said, showing us a piece of sugar in his hand. He said that breaking-in horses meant more often breaking their hearts, and robbing them of all their spirit." As one transcribes these suggestive sentences, one can scarcely refrain from thinking, " What a rare Book of the Dog Sir Edwin Landseer could have written, and how marvellously he would have illustrated it ! " But if he loved dogs he greatly admired the stag, and upon both animals he lavished all his painter's skill. Sir Edwin once told Browning, writes Mrs. Ritchie, "that he had thought upon the subject, and come to the conclusion that the stag was the bravest of all i8i Sir Edwin Landseer animals. Other animals are born warriors — they fight in a dogged and determined sort of way; the stag D , is naturally timid — trembling, vibrating with Bravery of \, a ■ r j c X the St svery sound, flymg from danger, from the ap- proach of other creatures, halting [hesitating] to fight. When pursued, its first impulse is to escape ; but when turned to bay and flight is impossible it fronts its enemies nobly, closes its eyes not to see the terrible bloodshed, and with its branching horns steadily tosses dog after dog, one upon the other, until overpowered at last by numbers it sinks to its death." Landseer was never married. During the greater part of his life he resided in No. i St.* John's Wood Road, but Life Innir ^o^^^j Studio, and grounds, as we have said D i.7 already, have been replaced by a pile of flats. His sister Jessie was his housekeeper, and the two were devoted to each other ; his other sister, Mrs. Mackenzie, taking her place whenever occasion demanded. At one time it was rumoured that he was Rosa g'"''^? to wfid Rosa Bonheur. It now looks „ i^ like a " wish-father-to-the-thought " report. But Mr. W. P. Frith treated it seriously, and broached the subject one day with Sir Edwin. " Perhaps it's a little late, Landseer," he said, " but I wish to offer my congratulations and best wishes." "On what?" " Why, upon your contemplating matrimony." " Matrimony ! Whom am I going to marry ? " " Well, I understand that Rosa Bonheur is the happy woman." 182 Life-work "This is the first I have heard of it," remarked Landseer; "but it's not a bad idea, and I must think it over." Possibly this may have been banter, but the illustrious Frenchwoman and her rival the famous Englishman entertained sentiments of high admiration for each other. They had met in England and exchanged the heartiest greetings. Frith, Millais, and Gambart, the well-known picture-dealer, went to Paris to see the Exhibition of 1868, and made a pilgrimage to Fontaine- bleau to pay her homage. When Gambart told her of the praise bestowed by Sir Edwin upon one of her pictures then being shown in London, " her eyes filled with tears." Habitually she spoke of him as "the poet-painter of animals." During at least fifty years Landseer worked indefatig- ably. Mr. Algernon Graves catalogues 628 pictures and sketches between 1809 and 1873, of which the last sixteen years of his life ac- Industry count for only 62. In addition to these Mr. Monkhouse's volume contained 180 sketches, more or less elaborate, the originals of which were drawn in every variety of medium (pencil, oil, chalk, ink, sepia, pen and ink, water colour, pencil with tint washes, sepia and colour, pencil and chalk, pencil and ink, pen and sepia). To the Scribblers' Book, besides, he con- tributed sketches by the score, and collectors possess many pictures and sketches that have hitherto eluded the chronicler. This output, if less phenomenal than Turner's amazing record, or even than that of Sir Joshua 183 Sir Edwin Landseer Reynolds or Sir John Gilbert, nevertheless testifies to unflagging zeal and industry. Not that he was a strictly methodical worker. He went to bed late and rose late, breakfasting at noon. This does not mean, however, that he was a sluggard. The course of his art-life forbids such a gloss, just as the course of his social life explains if it does not excuse his late hours. But even when beneath the blankets, he spent much of his time in thinking out his pictures. His facility was unrivalled simply because, before he took his stand at his easel, he had realised in his mind the whole of a composition and saw his completed subject with his mind's eye. This lent to charcoal and brush, as we must reiterate, a sureness of touch, a firmness of modelling, and a swiftness of execution which enabled him to accomplish the most finished effects in a marvel- lously short time. Ease and dexterity did not imply in his case scamped work; they came as the conse- quences of the thoroughness of his training, of the infinite capacity for taking pains which he displayed throughout his entire apprenticeship, of his whole-hearted devotion to Art. Whether or not it is legitimate to produce a replica of a picture is an arguable question, but Mr. Frith em- phatically declares that Landseer was "the Copying only popular punter who kept free from the vice of copying." This was literally true, although the engravers occasionally made separate pictures of isolated passages in fuller and larger works, as, for instance, "My Horse" from the "Return from 184 Forged Pictures Hawking;" "My Dog," from "A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society;" "Rustic Beauty," from "The Highland Whisky Still;" the "Falconer's Son" and the " Fisherman's Daughter," from " Bolton Abbey;" and "Protection — Hen and Chickens," from the " Highland Drovers' Departure." This is a matter well within every artist's control upon which it is impossible to dogmatise ; but there is another thing in which the artist is perfectly irresponsible and often grievously wronged. Amongst the pests of his calling not the least objectionable is the dishonest dealer who palms off upon the new rich who are anxious to cover their walls with the works of the great painters of past and present, but who, ignorant in such affairs, place themselves in the hands of dealers presumably of repute, but often arrant rascals. Mr. Frith with a friend once visited a retired tanner who had been thus victimised. Amongst the pictures in his collection was one called "Daniel in the Lions' Den," which, said the tanner, had never been equalled by Landseer. " I agree with you," remarked Frith's friend, ' ' Landseer could not paint such a picture to save his life," the canvas being the veriest rubbish. Next the tanner showed them as a Landseer "The Keeper's Daughter," which had been painted a few years before by Frith, then face to face with the purchaser, and Ansdell. Mr. Frith disillusionised him on the spot, and went on to assure him that hardly a picture in his house had been painted by the artist to whom it was attributed; that, in short, most of them were forgeries. i8s Sir Edwin Landseer "All the Landseers, do you say?" Frith told him "All," and on being asked whether he thought that Landseer would confirm this, undertook to prevail upon Sir Edwin to call. Landseer went, and corroborated Frith in every particular. There was, however, one landseer in the gallery — a life-sized lion painted by Ch?(rles Landseer, which had once been used as a chimney-board in his house. Somehow it had found its way into the possession of the tanner, who had had nous enough to frame it appropriately, and to hang it on the line with a curtain in front of it. It was a Landseer, though not, as the then owner fondly imagined, by Edwin of that ilk. Few painters have borne translation into black and white so well as has Landseer (see Appendix IV.). This is a severe test of an artist's work. Those who object to his colouring as defective will urge that he had less to lose at the hands of the engraver than painters whose colour is their chiefest charm. Of course there is some force in that, but after every allowance has been made in this and other respects. Sir Edwin's works are mostly very delightful to live with. This is true, too, in spite of his curious fond- ness for the more melancholy phases of animal life, or for strife with death as the end of it all. " He is not only the best animal-painter who ever lived," said the Daily News, in a beautiful appreciation, " but he is of a different order from any of his predecessors in that department of art. Where others have given us the form, substance, and action of the animals, with i86 Appreciation even the masterly handling of Rubens and Snyders, Landseer has disclosed to us the instincts of their nature, the incidents of their experience, and the history of their lives." In other words, rightly re- garded, he is the Sir Walter Scott of the Animal World. 187 Appendices, I. The Royal Academy. II. Authorities Consulted (constituting, in a SENSE, A Bibliography). III. Landseers in London Galleries. IV. Landseers in the Auction-Room. V. Portraits of Landseer. VI. Landseers Named in this Book. 189 I. The Royal Academy. Londoners of the present generation, as well as folk living beyond the bounds of the Metropolis, are so accustomed to associate the Royal Academy with Burlington House, that many readers will be surprised to learn that it only took up its quarters there in 1869 — five years before Landseer's death. Sir Edwin exhibited in the galleries in Piccadilly, in what will doubtless be the Royal Academy's last home, thirteen pictures altogether, of which, though some were good, but one (the " Swannery Invaded by Eagles ") was of first-rate importance. The following brief historical outline has been drawn up with a view to preventing any misconception. Under the active patronage and assistance of George III. the Royal Academy was founded on the loth of December, 1768. At first, the Schools met in rooms in Pall Mall (opening on the 2nd of January, 1769), where also the Exhibitions were held until 1780, when the Royal Academy entered upon the tenancy of rooms placed at its disposal by the King in the new Somerset House, whither the schools and offices had been removed in 1771. Here, in the Strand, the Royal Academy remained till 1837, the year of Queen Victoria's accession, when, its quarters in Somerset House being required for business purposes by the Government of the day, it gave them up in exchange for a suite of apartments in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, then just completed. In course of a com- paratively short time these rooms, too, were needed to lodge the rapidly accumulating treasures of art belonging to the nation. 191 Sir Edwin Landseer Thereupon the Royal Academy acquired the lease, for 999 years, of Old Burlington House, in Piccadilly, where it built its present home, which was opened for the first Exhibition in 1869, and was added to in 1884. R.A. in Somerset House, 1780 — 1837. „ National Gallery, 1837— 1868. „ Burlington House, 1869 — the crack of doom. 192 II. Authorities Consulted. 1. Catalogue of the Works of the late Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. Dedicated by special permission to Her Most Gracious Majesty the ^Queen [Victoria]. Compiled by Algernon Graves. London, N.D. 2. Sir Edwin Landseer. By Frederic G. Stephens. London, 1883. 3. The Studies of Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. Illustrated by Sketches from the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen [Victoria] and other Sources. With a History of his Art- Life. By W, Cosmo Monkhonse. London, N.D. 4. Lectures on Painting and Design. By B. R. Haydon. London, 1844, 1846. 5. Lectures on the Art of Engraving. Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. By John Landseer, Engraver to the King [George III.], and F.S.A. London, 1807. 6. My Autobiography and Reminiscences. By W. P. Frith, R.A. London, 1887. 7- Toilers and Spinsters, and Other Essays. ■ By Anne Thackeray. London, 1876. 8. Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, from his Autobiography • and Journals. Edited by Tom Taylor. London, 1853. 9. Autobiographical Recollections by the late Charles Robert i Leslie, R.A. Edited by Tom Taylor. London, i860. 10. Annals of the Fine Arts. Edited by James Elmes. Lon- don, 1817-21. 11. The Magazine of the Fine Arts. London, 1821. (Only I vol.) 193 o Sir Edwin Landseer 12. Twenty[-one] Drawings of Lions, Tigers, Panthers, and Leopards. From Originals by Rubens, Rembrandt, Reydinger, Stubbs, Spilsbury, and Edwin Landseer. With an Essay on the Carnivora by John Landseer. London, 1823. 13. Monkey-ana; or, Men in Miniature. Designed and Etched by Thomas Landseer, London, 1827. 14. The New Monthly Magazine. London, July ist, 1814. 15. Life of Sir Walter Scott. By John Gibson Lockhart, Edinburgh, 1843. 16. Patronage of British Art : an Historical Sketch. By John Pye. London, 1845. 17. Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, Barrister-at-Law and F.S.A. London, 1869. 18. Modern Painters. By a Graduate of Oxford [John Ruskin]. London, 1843-60. Also the edition of 1873. 19. Vernon Heath's Recollections. London, 1892. 20. Zoological Recreations. By W. J. Broderip, F.R.S. Lon- don, 1849. 21. The Great Painters of Christendom. By John Forbes- Robertson. London, 1877. 22. A Century of Painters of the English School. By Richard and Samuel Redgrave. London, 1866. 23. Dictionary of Artists of the English School. By Samael Redgrave. London, 1878. 24. Dictionary of Painters. By Michael Bryan, Edited by R, E. Graves. London, 1898. 25. Life of Charles Dickens. By John Forster. London, 1872-74. 26. Old and New London. By Walter Thornbury and Edward Walford, London, 1871-77. 27. London Past and Present. By Peter Cunningham and H. B, Wheatley, Londpn, 1891. 28. Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands from 1848 to 1 86 1. [By Queen Victoria,] London, 1868. 39. The Dictionary of National Biography {sub "Landseer," by W. Cosmo Monfchouse), London, N,D. 194 Appendix II. 30. The Waverley Novels. By Sir Walter Scott. Illustrated (based on the Abbotsford) Edition. Edinburgh, 1877. 31. Art Sales. A History of Sales of Pictures and other Works of Art. By George Redford,F.R.C.S. 2 vols. Privately printed. London, 1888. 32. The Year's Art. Edited by A. C. R. Carter. London, 1886 and onwards. 33. The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. Edited by James A. IVIanson. London, 1901. (2 vols., 1896.) 34. Catalogue of the Sheepshanks Gift. By R. Redgrave, London, 1857. 35. Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery. British School. London, 1901. 36. Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery of British Art [Popularly called the Tate Gallery]. London, 1901. 37. Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Portrait Gallery. London, 1900. 38. Catalogue of the Oil Paintings and Water Colours in the Wallace Collection, Hertford House. London, 1901. 39. The Daily News. London, October 3, October 11, 1873. 40. The Times. London, October 2, October 13, 1873. 41. Notes and Queries. London, June 20, 1857 ; November 15, 1879. 42. The Athenxum. London, October 11, 1873; J"Iy 23, 1893- 43. The Landseer Portfolios in the Print Room, British Museum. Besides several Written and Verbal Com- munications (see Preface). After the painter's death, Messrs. Henry Graves & Co. pub- lished a set of 200 small plates of his principal works, under the title of the "Library Edition of the Works of Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A." 19s III. Landseers in London Galleries. (N.D.=Not Described.) THE NATIONAL GALLEI^Y. Picture. BONOR. See Page The Sleeping Bloodhound Jacob Bell - 8^ Dignity and Impudence - »* 99 The Rout of Comus (on loan) >» 123 Shoeing the Bay Mare - It ' ' I2S The Cavalier's Pets (or, Spaniels of King Charles Breed) If . . - 131 Study of a Lion (head fronting) Thomas Hyde Hills 171 Study of a Lion (head in profile) )) 171 THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. The Twa Dogs John Sheepshanks 47 The Angler's Guard S3 Sancho Panza and Dapple S3 The Dog and the Shadow S7 Fireside Party 68 Jack in Office 78 The Eagle's Nest - N.D. Highland Breakfast , 79 The Highland Drovers' Departure - 81 Naughty Child (or, Naughty Boy) - 82 Suspense - . . . 83 Comical Dogs J 87 196 Appendix III. THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT UXiS'EXiU— continued. PlCTHRK. The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner Tethered Rams Young Roebuck and Rough Hounds "There's no Place like Home " Lion Gore House by Moonlight The Stonebreaker's Daughter - Lady Blessington's Dog - Besides, on a screen, the nine drawings made when a child. Donor. See Page John Sheepshanks 89 it 99 9) N.D. 119 Mrs. Ann de Merle • 53 John Jones - N.D. s» N.D. )» N.D, THE TATE GALLERY. High Life - - - - Low Life ..... Highland Music .... The Hunted Stag (or. The Mountain Torrent) - - - - Peace - - War A Dialogue at Waterloo (on loan in Dublin) ... Highland Dogs (or. Waiting) • Alexander and Diogenes . The Maid and the Magpie Scene at Abbotsford Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society A Donkey and Foal (or, Mischief in Full Play) . ' - John Landseer, Esq., A.R. A. Equestrian Portrait .... Robert Vernon 99 - - 67 67 69 >j ■ " N.D. 13s Jacob Bell SJ . . . Sir Henry Tate - 139 N.D. 139 76 ISO Newman Smith - 91 Henry Vaughan - E. L. Mackenzie Anonymous 49 139 198 N.B. — This last is one of the few pictures in which Sir Edwin Landseer presumably failed to carry out his plans — at least to his own 197 Sir Edwin Lands eer satisfaction. The painting was intended for an equestrian portrait of Queen Victoria, but after finishing the horse and its trappings, the artist apparently abandoned the project, for reasons which seem tolerably obvious. Lord Cheylesmore possesses a similarly colossal canvas by Landseer, in which, however, Her Majesty's portrait was completed. It was amongst the last pictures on which Sir Edwin worked, and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the year of his death. The unfinished canvas of which we spoke was even- tually sent to Sir John Everett Millais, who dropped Landseer's original notion, and painted in his daughter on the horse's back in a riding-costume of the period of Charles II., adding appropriate accessories, like the dog and page and the background, and calling the picture " Nell Gwynne." It is, however, also known as "Diana Vernon" — a happier thought. Millais completed it in 1882, and a most handsome picture he made of it. By an interesting coincidence there is also in the Tate Gallery a "Landscape with Figures" by Frederick R. Lee, R.A., the friend with whom Sir Edwin Landseer fell out at Redleaf over a game at billiards. This picture was painted in 1830, and Land- seer's aid was invoked for the figure and animals in the passage representing a huntsman leading a white pony with a. dead stag on its back across a ford. THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY. Picture. Donor. See Page Sir Walter Scott . - - . Dr. John Allen Albert Grant The Widow of General C. R. Fox 75 N.D. A^'-.S.— In the three-quarters length portrait of Landseer by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., the dog's head was painted in by Sir Edwin, who also etched the pheasants and woodcock (for game-cards for Woburn Abbey) which accompany the pen-and-ink portrait sketch by Grant. Both finished picture and sketch are in this Gallery. 198 Appendix III. THE WALLACE COLLECTION, HERTFORD HOUSE. Picture. Donor. See Page The Arab Tent Sir Richard Wallace N.D. A Highland Scene - »» N.D. Miss Ellen Power, with a Bird j» 1 20 "booking for the Crumbs that Fall # from the Rich Man's Table" (or. Doubtful Crumbs) »> N.D. THE DIPLOMA GALLERY, BURLINGTON HOUSE. The Faithful Hound - I The Painter -I 70 199 IV. Landseers in the Auction-Room. Landseer, as we have seen, was such a child in business matters during the greater part of his career that first his father and then Jacob Bell took his affairs under their own control. It is understood that agents found that the latter was, like Carlyle, "gey ill to deal wi'." Whatever prices his pictures may have fetched at Christie's, the painter himself never obtained any but moderate sums for them. But Bell rendered him special service by securing the engraving rights. These often amounted to handsome sums, for his pictures not only were extremely popular, but also when translated into black and white were wonderfully charming and effective. Moreover, he was unusually fortunate in his engravers. Thomas Land- seer, Samuel Cousins, and Charles George Lewis were amongst the best known, and the first and last produced most plates; but B. P. Gibbon, T. L. Atkinson, R. J. Lane, A.R.A. (on the stone), Charles Mottram, H. T. Ryall, J. H. Watt, and J. T. Willmore, A.R.A., rendered him with skill and sympathy. He derived half his income from copyrights — Mr. Henry Graves alone having paid him no less than ;£6o,coo — and painted all his pictures with a view to black and white. Not only so, but he not infrequently materially altered the effect of a picture when touching the proofs. " He once told an engraver," Mr. Algernon Graves informs me, "who had complained of the 200 Appendix IV. extra work that had been caused by his departing from the original, that he could never see the faults in his pictures until they were translated, and so he improved them." From the "touched proofs" which I have examined, even of Thomas Landseefs plates, I have no hesitation in saying that his eye for final effect was marvellously keen. Thus Sir Edwin lost nothing at the hands of his engravers, and prints in excellent condition will always command a good price. With the originals, however, it has been rather otherwise. During the ten years following his death, prices in the auction-room ruled very high; but since then, speaking very generally, there has been a " slump." Speaking less generally, however, it must also be said that no Landseer has depreciated in value which did not deserve to descend from an inflated to a more reasonable figure. Not many modem painters, it may be added, have amassed such a handsome fortune as Sir Edwin earned. His will was proved in 1874 for ;£ 1 60,000, and re-sworn two years later at ;£20o,ooo. In the following table mention is made of most of the pictures which have been sold at Christie's since i860, but no price is quoted below " four figures." Sir Edwin Landseer >>s \ % a ■3S *j MS- 8 n^a C/3 s go & , s s M .w B > c*^ a a J< ^ S^. a ^K^^ o > < <; . 5^5^ ^ P^j '^S "g-E H o oo ooooo ooo oo oo ooo o irj u-iO in«OOt^ O *-t Q Nt^ ON MOO r^ ^« voin onO\n«i-« vDrOM 00^ rod nmm o ■a o (5 ^^f^w .^ P^r3 0J^-M Q, +3 v3 > > > 00 Cd 00 00 00 00 00 00 OOOOcSoO OOriOOOOOO oosooo Appendix IV. a o o o S O rt S/'tJ MMbOMM^y Si ►S'O MO.M ^ 8 o § ■3 ^_ _ ^ " _ m s> ts. Q n U-)U1 ^ n vn li^por^ n •* n ■* ■* 00 o\ r»vo ■*■* cocn« « o\ 00 00 r^r^vo VO NO ^o m « " « N M « « « « « N N •^ ■^ " M »-t *~* w *^ m| 1 |»s1 S I „ o i?.^ SS _ _ «, P -a J3 ?^C 1 -rt ^ fri rS r° V= hoS u ScfS uU-B^Mcn ehS .•4*-' a ^ > > looooo o r^foOf^ooioo o^\o ononocon»h o\ r<»oo o « fo QQodOOOO 00 000000 00 rtOOOOOOOOOOcdOOOOcSoOOOOO 000000c4GO0O 203 Sir Edwin Landseer d i 1 s 'JS J3 g Sir H. Ti Henson Agnew Agnew g D n si SO„ .,»»&» c & s Agne Lord Whiti Whiti Agne Agne Pater Agne 1 Agne McL( Ralli •o i c *- 0) cd 9 kH U O U V a B (A S O w Mi Id of Suth Grant nworth ells 5tcher O "OJ Barter ells ipper Lloyd's E; . Wells ird Cheyles t^ o^ J. Nie Duke Baron 3^. O^ ''^ fe' K^' ^ d hA^ >^^ H^»3 en O o o 2 2 2 o o o o o ir>0 OOOO OOO ,w NH t-f u O r>io M w M O O O OOO CI in l-l o o o i^r^in 2 s?g N IN. « o Ooor^t^t^cn mVO 0\vo ^O in OOO Ai \D in lO »o >o -i- ■* i?5^ 0^*0 ^ !>• o>o\ o\ ONOO ,a t^ o\ a\j2 J^ oooo oooo CO 00 OO OO 00 00 00 rtOO OOOO OOOO 00 d 00 00 00 (d >• M l-l M HI u *^ "^ "^ o 204 Appendix IV. ••H ui u] o rrt •a ^"^1" 2 ^a 3 o S -g S>§6§>.^ *o 32 d X "^ ** •* o^ 09, S c H 5 ^ SS'^ •S.C4 _o^ tSj^lcSSSSg" 000 o o 00 o 00 00000 -g, u S 3 "w - U 'tS O tj 2 Oi hS ,H S S So 000 00000 vgtC^U.og T3 J 'O 'O ° -- ^ ^ 2 o « a^ M>« ^Q afi&^fQ Si's I S-o g «^>2 Sen -g^^-nffl S g M3-S S " S !^ " r^ ^ S " « fi^ "CO'* ■* ■* «^Sroi^O"0 -,»"■' <" 205 V. Portraits of Landseer. 1815. — As " The Cricketer." By Master J. Hayter (see p. 30). 1816. — As the Earl of Rutland in C. R. Leslie's picture of "The Death of Rutland" (see p. 35). 1829.— As "The Falconer." By himself (see p. 67). 1830. — By Edward Dupper. 1843.— Full-length. By Count D'Orsay. 1843.— Oval. By Count D'Orsay. 1852. — Pen and ink. By Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (Pre- sented to the National Portrait Gallery in 1876, by Charles, second Viscount Hardinge.) 1855. — Daguerreotype. i86o(?). — Half-length, with palette. By Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (Presented to the National Portrait Gallery in 1895, by Sir Richard Quain, Bart., M.D., F.R.S.) l86l(?). — Three-quarters, standing. By Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (Presented to the National Portrait Gallery in 1890, by Henri Rochefort.) 1865. — "The Connoisseurs." By himself (see p. 163.) 1 860. — Modelling a Lion in Marochetti's Studio, By John Ballantyne, R.S.A. (Presented to the National Portrait Gallery in 1890, by Sir William Agnew. See p. 167.) i865(?). — Bust. By Baron Marochetti (in the Diploma Gallery, Burlington House). 1882.— Mural Medallion in the Crypt of St. Paul's. By Thomas Woolner, R.A. (see p. 174). 206 Appendix VI. > o G pq CO ■ ^H • 1-1 •* t3 •^ (-t $-1 0) CO G S Be S E o > — a- 2 O O^ g .5 « ^« o .S ■£ "1 3 wi " " o C^.S o S.S H T3 2 " , K CO CO (u S te « '£ g < ^ X m '' .2 S 2 3 !>^ l-i II tl/)— 00 » «00 o 00 " P w S 4> 4-> cu 14 1=5 ■.5--2 5 5"^ HI < H C C rt f. .2 .2 U B^ t-lhJ *i & 207 Sir Edwin Land seer «9 0< a O >,^ yi bo ^^ >rS i-H-a HE-HPnwSOr-) 208 Appendix VI. is. r*. 0^00 0\ O f*i "^ t^ ^N00 m m n M « m ■* *n VO « « CO -, c^co « to « m 00 -00 -00 -00 00 -00 -00 M M M W Is s (u « _r — ■ ^ 209 Sir Edwin Landseer ^ * O On W w ^ I'^vO roOMOO^O'-'CINOs^ O^O^OOv^s 00 00 O\00 CO o^C^O^O^OO^fOO^NO^nc^•-^o t-tMroi-iO tn "^"o w^o) i3uS 2*" -M«> 'rt S .5 a>