“Titania and Bottom—Fairies attending,” was a happy specimen of Sir Edwin’s poetical invention, and one of the most agreeable pictures which illustrate Shakespeare. The graceful nature of the Queen of the Fairies was shown in Titania, whose figure expresses the love-languor of her absurd dream; she leans with a confiding caress against the most complacent Bottom, who extends his huge paw to handle a fairy. The head of Titania is decorated with a diadem of leaves and glow-worms. Fairies mounted on white rabbits add quaintness to the whole. “A Highlander in a Snow-storm, holding an Eagle he has just shot,” and “Lassie,” were summer and winter scenes which effectively contrast each other. These concluded the pictures of 1851. The year 1852 gave us nothing of immediate profit, but the year after made ample amends.
What one may call the progress of ultra-facility, the decline of Sir Edwin’s power of solid painting, was illustrated by the pictures of 1853, being the dramatic designs—they were little more—styled “The Combat,” and, severally, “Night” and “Morning,” the subjects being a duel of stags, and the ruin of both. The pictures were at the Academy, and, later, at the International Exhibition of 1862. The contrasted effects were those of, 1, romantic gloom, much less than twilight, with a dim moon, with screens of rain flying by a tumultuous lake, and, 2, dawn growing rosier as the day grows over the fields; the subject of the death struggle, and of death. In the one picture the beasts were fighting, with such intensity of action as no one but Landseer could have given, so that they are “locked horn in horn in fight.” The second picture shows the combatants still locked together by their horns—indeed it was this which decided their fate; they are both dead on the hill-side, the day has come, the gusty night winds are hushed and the lake is a mirror again; growing light reveals the outlines of the hills, grey mist creeps on the strand, the bird of prey wheels in the air above the dead, and the fox has come from his lair in the rotting fern; the royal dead are carrion prey. Here is a moral forcibly depicted, on which we need not enlarge. The pictures belong to Viscount Hardinge, and have been engraved by Mr. T. Landseer, to whom not a little is due on their account, for it is certain that the magnificent design lost little in translation, and that the picture was not pre-eminent. “The Children of the Mist,” a group of deer on a cloud-laden moor, was exhibited with these more powerful examples which we have just described.
Whatever may be the defects of the Royal Academy as a society—and most of these are, we trust, in the course of correction—there can be no doubt that collectively it has done many fine things; the members have often acted in a noble manner; the number of instances of sacrifice of cherished advantages to fellows or rivals is considerable, and the story has been told of many Academicians who have taken their own pictures from the walls in order to place those of others in good situations. We believe it was about 1853, or it might have been at an earlier date, that Sir Edwin was one of the Hanging Committee for the Royal Academy Exhibition; it does not signify who was his fellow, but it is certain that he was a landscape painter, and therefore no rival of M. Gudin, an animal painter. Sir Edwin found among the contributions which had been set aside as “doubtful,”—i.e. its chance of being hung was but a poor one,—a work which pleased him greatly, but which had no artist’s name. Taking it to his fellow-hanger, Sir Edwin found that both agreed as to its merits, and that it ought to be hung, and well hung. The difficulty was where to put it; at last the other hanger found that a place accorded to a painting of his would suit this one extremely well, he therefore took down his own and put M. Gudin’s production in its stead. Thus the animal painter found an animal painter’s work, and was the means of inducing a considerable sacrifice in order that it might be seen. It may be asked, why did not Sir Edwin take down one of his own paintings instead of allowing his companion to do so? The answer is, that it is possible that Sir Edwin had no pictures at that gathering; or it is still more probable that M. Gudin’s contribution would not fit one of the places occupied by Landseer. We have an impression that Sir Edwin’s generous companion was W. Daniell, R.A., in which case this circumstance must have happened long before 1853; but this date has been given as that of the circumstance.
The year 1854 was not one of those in which Sir Edwin’s powers shone at the Exhibition; in 1855 he gave nothing; in 1856 he contributed the capital “Saved!”—a fine picture, good enough to have made the reputation of another artist—to the Royal Academy. In 1857 we had the grandest stag which came from his hands, being “Scene in Brae-mar—Highland Deer, &c.,” a magnificent stag, standing in the mist, but not concealed by the vapour, and on the brow of a hill, bellowing defiance to the hunter or to other males of his own kind; a group of does are about him; a rabbit appears on the grass. The stag is superbly drawn, and his action instinct with pride. “Rough and Ready” was of this year; a portrait of a favourite mare, in the yard of her stable. The humour of the picture, one of those capital pieces of by-play which none introduced more happily than Landseer, was presented by the passionate emotion of a hen, who, having just laid an egg, calls all the world to witness the fact. “Rough and Ready” turns a questioning eye on the bird, but is not deeply moved by the event; indeed she looks a little bored by the uproarious mother-bird. This was a good example; but “Uncle Tom and his Wife for sale,” which accompanied it at the Academy, showed that Landseer had occupied some of his time during the years before this one in reading a now almost-forgotten United States novel. “Uncle Tom” is a dog of humble breeding and sturdy constitution; he has been brought to the market for sale, and is chained to his wife, for whom a similar fate is purposed. The best part of the picture was the tearful look of the wife at the dog of her heart. This was a masterpiece wherein Sir Edwin often triumphed—the humanizing of animal expression, or rather, the animalization of human expression.
“The Maid and the Magpie,” given by Mr. Bell to the nation, with better pictures, is, however, by no means unworthy of Landseer. The scene is a shed, where a pretty Belgian girl, with a gay red cap on her head, has come a-milking; the cow is willing, and turns with affectionate docility to her friend; but the girl, whose expression is happy, is ardently listening to her lover, who, leaning against a post, sighing and longing, speaks to her. Thus far she neglects her immediate duties. She is supposed to get into further trouble, because, having placed a silver spoon in one of the wooden shoes at her side, she did not observe how a malicious magpie pilfered the treasure, which, being missed, cause her to suffer grievously. The story belongs to that of Rossini’s “La Gazza Ladra,” with an older source, as Mr. Wornum said, in the French Causes Célèbres. A calf and some goats were Landseerian, one cannot have a better word.
The most remarkable work which Landseer had for some years exhibited was the immense cartoon styled “Deer Browsing.” It is in coloured chalks, black, red, and white, used in a manner analogous to that which Mulready employed for his famous studies from “the life,” and it represented a herd of deer grazing, while hunters have stolen on them from the heights of the mountains, and prepare to fire from behind rocks. A royal stag browses unsuspiciously; but two does have detected the intruders, and, looking up with startled air and erected ears, are about to take to their heels. In the same year we found at the British Institution, to which gathering Sir Edwin had not then contributed for a considerable period, the humorous and characteristic “Twa Dogs,” an illustration of Burns’ poem with the same name. The gentlemanly dog, “they ca’d him Cæsar,”[41] had all the marks of his education about him; not only in “his lockit, letter’d, braw brass collar,” but in the gravity and cleared-eyed dignity of his face, which is wonderfully represented. The other dog, “that gash and faithful tyke,” is evidently for rougher service; and if not so much to be admired, is perhaps to be liked more. There is not the slightest doubt that
“His honest, sonsie, braws’nt face
Ay got him friends in ilka place.”
In the same exhibition appeared the portrait of Sir Walter Scott to which we have referred, styled “Extract from a Journal whilst at Abbotsford.” The poet sits laughing at the gambols of his dogs. Maida, the old deer-hound, famous in his master’s verses, is looking with “inane benevolence,” the humour of which is exquisite, on a little puppy on the floor; the little dog nibbles his senior’s tail. At their side is a letter directed to Sir Walter. In this, as the catalogue lets us infer, a proof of one of the Waverley novels had been received. By means of this, Landseer was convinced that the authorship of those novels was, as many suspected, due to Scott. This was, relatively, not a good picture. As a sketch of canine character and a dexterous piece of painting it had great merits; but the story was incomprehensible without the catalogue. In this respect it was less explicable at sight than “The Maid and the Magpie;” for the latter might be taken for no more than it really was, a picture of lovers gossiping, and the incident of the magpie and the spoon ignored.
“Doubtful Crumbs,” at the Academy in 1859, was hardly equal to its origin; a mastiff lolls at the door of his kennel, and a smaller dog looks anxiously for permission to pick up scraps. The picture, with a title in Highland jargon, in the catalogue of the Royal Academy Exhibition of this year, displayed how a hunted stag escaped two dogs by taking to the water. One of the dogs is hurt to death; the other is about to leave the stag. It was finely and vigorously designed, not less slight than of late from the painter. “The Prize Calf” showed, with a slight touch of humour, a frightened girl leading a calf through a mountain pass. “A kind Star” illustrated a Highland superstition, but in such a manner as proved that the designer’s mind was not in its usual fine tone when it was conceived. The superstition is that hinds are under the protection of beneficent stars: a hind lies dying on the banks of a lake. So far nothing could be said; but the introduction of a spirit, with a star in its hair, to bend over the poor beast, was of quite another order of invention. The production of this idea was the first decided sign of decay in the powers of our artist. Those who owed him much delight stood aghast before it. Some of these tried to ascribe its exhibition, and even its production, to obedience to some unfrequent impulse—deference to some inferior mind, subservience to some vulgar taste. However this might be, there, unfortunately, it was.
The year 1860 put the artist before us as effectively as before, and gave what is probably the strongest of all his pictures, the “Flood in the Highlands,” as to which I cannot do better than borrow from the “Athenæum” of the time the following description, which has the freshest impression because I wrote it on the day when, in the well-known St. John’s Wood studio, and before the picture was sent to the Royal Academy, Mr. Millais introduced me to Sir Edwin Landseer:—“By right of seniority let Landseer come first. His subject is a flood in the Highlands, one of those catastrophes to which villages situated in gorges of a mountain country are exposed by the sudden melting of snow on the hills, or heavy falls of rain, which, swelling the little rivulets, often overwhelm a valley-hamlet at a sweep. The great flood, rushing from the hill-side, rages through the street; up to the very thresholds of the houses it pours along, a torrent irregular and resistless. Behind the village a range of low hillocks bear a few scanty trees, in the boughs of which some black birds have taken refuge, telling the wide extent of the inundation. The water has drowned the adjacent country, bearing along with it multitudes of farming implements and the débris of the swept district. The inhabitants have taken refuge on the roofs of their cottages. Upon one, in the mid-distance, are men urgently endeavouring to save a team, which, borne onwards by the torrent, struggles relentlessly against its force, and, mad with fear, nigh baffles the efforts of the rescuers, straining to the utmost a rope held by them, whose entire strength fails to check the terrified animals that have already been swept past