THE RANDOM SHOT.
If any one wishes to know how finely, and to what fine issues, the painter's spirit and his own may be touched, how much of gentleness may be in power, how much of power in gentleness, let him peruse the "Random Shot" by Landseer.
On the summit of some far remote Highland mountain, on the untrodden and azure-tinted snow, lies a dead or dying hind, its large brown velvety ears set off against the pure, pearly, infinite sky, into whose cloudless depths the darkness of night is already being poured. The deep, unequal footsteps of the miserable mother are faintly traced in blood, her calf is stooping down, and searching for its comfortable and ever-ready drink, but finding none. Anything more exquisite than this long-legged, bewildered creature, standing there all forlorn, stupid and wild—hunger and weariness, fear and amazement, busy at its poor silly heart—we have never seen in painting. By the long shadows on the snow, the delicate green tint of the sky, the cold splendour on the mountain tops, and the- gloom in the corries, we know that day is fast going, and night with all her fears drawing on, and what is to become of that young desolate thing?
This is not a picture to be much spoken about; it is too quick with tenderness, and reaches too nicely that point which just stops short of sadness; words would only mar its pathetic touch.
Here is another by the same painter, which, though inferior and very different in subject, is not less admirable in treatment. It consists of the portraits of three sporting dogs. A retriever, with its sonsy and affectionate visage, holding gingerly in its mouth a living woodcock, whose bright and terror-stricken eye is painted to the life. In the centre is a keen thoroughgoing pointer, who has just found the scent among the turnips. This is perhaps the most masterly among the three, for colour and for expression. The last is a liver-coloured spaniel, panting over a plump pheasant, and looking to its invisible master for applause. The touch of genius is over them all, everywhere, from the rich eye of the retriever to the wasted turnip-leaves. Yet there is no mere cleverness, no traces of handiwork; you are not made to think of work at all, till you have got your fill of pleasure and surprise, and then you wonder what cunning brain, and eye, and finger could have got so much out of so little, and so common.
We often hear of the decline of the Fine Arts in our time and country, but any age or nation might well be proud of having produced within fifty years, four such men as Wilkie, Turner, Etty, and Landseer.