honour than is given to one who struggled valiantly towards an unselfish end. This process of education must have been common to all the objects of attention and affection. As to the eldest son, but for his admirable skill with the burin, feeling for animal character, and pathetic treatment of his brother’s pictures, we should have known comparatively little about Sir Edwin or his works. The thousands who go to exhibitions, public galleries, and private collections, are few compared with those who day by day study the learned prints for which we are indebted to the skilful hand of Mr. Thomas Landseer. This engraver, trained as a draughtsman and anatomist under the advice of Haydon, and to work on copper under his father, generally exercised his craft in mezzotint, combining with this mode a considerable proportion of etching, because that process is better adapted to the subjects he affected than the more severe mode of line-engraving. He executed, nevertheless, plates in the “line manner.” To him was attributed a cartoon named “Samson forgives Delilah,” No. 34, in the exhibition of such works at Westminster Hall, in 1843. His first work in copper was a “Study of the Head of a Sibyl,” after Haydon, 1816. He engraved a considerable series of early designs by his brother Edwin in “The Sporting Magazine,” 1823-6, which, including original works of his own in the same periodical, were afterwards collected in a folio volume, and published separately as “Annals of Sporting.” “The Sportsman’s Annual,” 1836, owed much to the brothers Edwin and Thomas; “Twenty Engravings of Lions, Panthers, &c.,” 4º., 1823, was likewise so composed, and comprises many excellent specimens of the united arts of the authors. “Stories about Dogs,” 16º., 1864, and “Stories illustrative of Instinct of Animals,” 16º., 1864, are amusing books for juvenile students, and happily illustrated in their way. Probably his most important work, not a production of his brother’s, is the fine mezzotint of Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur’s “Horse Fair.” This, with the series of etchings of monkeys styled “Monkeyana, or Men in Miniature,” which he designed, drew, and etched throughout, secured the reputation of Thomas Landseer, both as an original humourist and a translator of the works of others. He was elected an “Associate-Engraver of the New Class” in the Royal Academy in 1867, after he had been before the public during more than fifty years. In 1873 he became an “Associate-Engraver.” In 1876 he was merged with the “A.R.A’s.,” and this distinction was abolished. This artist died on the 20th of January, 1880. He published “Characteristic Sketches of Animals,” “Drawn from the life and engraved by T. L.,” 1832, Ten Etchings, illustrative of “The Devil’s Walk,” 1831, “Flowers of Anecdote,” with etchings, 1829, and in 1871, “Life and Letters of William Bewick,” a most readable and excellent book, that is full of anecdotes and experiences. Most of the original sketches in pencil for “Monkeyana” are in the British Museum.
As the life of Mr. Charles Landseer does not come within the scope of our purpose in this text, it will be needless to say more about his career than that he became an exhibitor at the Royal Academy in 1828. Before this he travelled in the suite of Lord Stuart de Rothesay in Portugal and to Rio de Janeiro, where he made a large number of studies and sketches, which have been described with admiration. He was elected A.R.A. in 1837; R.A. in 1845; Keeper in 1851. This office Mr. C. Landseer, having held it for an unusually long period, resigned in 1871; he died July 22, 1879, leaving an ample fortune, which somewhat unexpectedly, it is said, accrued to him as the residuary legatee of his brother Sir Edwin. Mr. C. Landseer was a large donor to the artists’ benevolent societies; 10,000l. fell to the Royal Academy for the “Landseer Scholarships,” as appointed and awarded by the President and Council. Miss Landseer (Mrs. C. Christmas) exhibited occasionally at the Royal Academy and British Institution. The name of H. and Henry Landseer frequently appears in the like manner; this gentleman was a brother of John Landseer, a frequent contributor to the Exhibitions, especially to that of the Society of British Artists. Edwin Henry Landseer bore the second name, in honour of his uncle. At one period it was, at least occasionally, his practice to use all three of these names. He made a sketch of Count D’Orsay’s horse, and signed it “E. H. L.,” and, in reply to a question why he did this, said that his second name was Henry, but, as his father had said one name was enough, he had given up using it; (see the Catalogue of the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1874, p. 30.) Miss Jessie Landseer is a painter of considerable ability, and an engraver, who etched some of her brother Edwin’s works. She is now, 1880, the sole bearer of the name of Landseer in the family. Mrs. Mackenzie, her sister, to whom I am much indebted for materials used in this text, practised art with characteristic success. At the British Institution Exhibitions of 1821, 1822, and 1823, Miss Landseer, Mr. E. Landseer, and Mr. H. Landseer appeared together.
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1802 TO A.D. 1817.
EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER—EARLY DRAWINGS—PICTURES OF DOGS—HAYDON’S STUDIO—MR. RUSKIN’S CRITICISM.
Edwin Henry Landseer was, as stated above, born in 1802—the year before another animal painter of modern note, Mr. T. S. Cooper—and that event happened at his father’s house, No. 83,[12] Queen Anne Street East (not Turner’s Queen Anne Street), and consequently at his death he was in his seventy-second year. For the greater part of this long period he retained far more health and activity than are commonly vouchsafed to those who pass the allotted term of human life. How that life was spent, what are the pictures he produced, and under what circumstances they were executed, I have now, to the best of my means, to inquire and detail. The best living authority avers that our subject was by no means diligent at school, in fact, he was “always running away from his teachers, and always drawing.” His artistic education was begun by his father at a very early age, but not before natural ability had made itself evident in sketching and drawing. Training of the best sort was soon afforded by the judicious care of John Landseer, who directed his son’s practice, after the mode of the greatest masters, to Nature, so that “as soon as he could hold a pencil with some steadiness,” says Mr. R. N. Wornum, the biographer of Landseer in the “English Cyclopædia,” the boy was sent or accompanied into the fields to draw from sheep, goats, and donkeys; and especially did he find space for this mode of study on Hampstead Heath, where the creatures grazed or stood as nearly in a state of nature as civilization permits to any of their kind in England; and certainly in that condition of their existence which is familiar to us. The following account, obligingly furnished to me by the late Miss Meteyard, at once confirms and illustrates this early history:—
“In 1849—1850 the Howitts resided in Avenue Road, St. John’s Wood, and the father of Edwin Landseer no great way off. William Howitt and Mr. John Landseer being well acquainted, and often meeting in their walks, would go and return together; sometimes one way, sometimes another, but generally in the direction of Hampstead. One evening, in passing along the Finchley Road towards Child’s Hill, Mr. Landseer stayed by a stile of ancient look, and said to his friend, ‘These two fields were Edwin’s first studio. Many a time have I lifted him over this very stile. I then lived in Foley Street, and nearly all the way between Marylebone and Hampstead was open fields. It was a favourite walk with my boys; and one day when I had accompanied them, Edwin stopped by this stile to admire some sheep and cows which were quietly grazing. At his request I lifted him over, and finding a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket I made him sketch a cow. He was very young indeed then—not more than six or seven years old. After this we came on several occasions, and as he grew older this was one of his favourite spots for sketching. He would start off alone, or with John (Thomas?) or Charles, and remain till I fetched him in the afternoon. I would then criticize his work, and make him correct defects before we left the spot. Sometimes he would sketch in one field, sometimes in the other; but generally in the one beyond the old oak we see there, as it was more pleasant and sunny.’