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Updated: June 29, 2025
Landseer declared that these monstrous pictures took away his appetite, so without any permission he one day mounted a ladder, put in high-lights with white chalk over the oils, made the dull eyes sparkle, and gave some semblance of life to these forlorn effigies. Pleased with his success, he then brightened up the flesh tints with red chalk, and put some drawing into the faces.
In fact, both Landseer and Leslie proved poor sportsmen they had no heart for killing things. A beautiful live deer was a deal more pleasing to Landseer than a dead one; and he might truthfully have expressed the thought of his mind by saying, "A bird in the bush is worth two on a woman's bonnet." And indeed he did anticipate Thoreau by saying, "To shoot a bird is to lose it."
There are pictures enough about him, too; though Heaven knows where they all come from. I think Sir Edwin Landseer must have done this one of the goose; it is so deadly natural. Look at it; there he is. Upon my word, whoever did that ought to make his fortune at some of these exhibitions. Here he is again, with a big pair of scissors.
He went on sketching, rubbing out, and making queer expostulatory noises against his pencil, or against the difficulties needlessly invented by Sir Edwin Landseer. Once he rose and changed the position of the gas-bracket, staring fiercely at the engraving as though it had committed a sin. Amy came to lay the supper. He did not acknowledge that she existed.
In 1822 Landseer gained the prize of the British Institution, one hundred and fifty pounds, by his picture of "The Larder Invaded." He made the first sketch for this on a child's slate, which is still preserved as a treasure. But the most famous of this master's early works is the "Cat's Paw," in which a monkey uses a cat's paw to draw chestnuts from a hot stove.
At all events let a pleasant hour go by unquestioned, and do not let us break ordinary gems to pieces because they are not diamonds. I forgot to say Edwin Landseer was in the Duchess's train. He is, in my mind, one of the most striking masters of the modern school. His expression both in man and animals is capital. He showed us many sketches of smugglers, etc., taken in the Highlands, all capital.
So Landseer, his easel and colours and his sheep were all transferred to the garden. On another occasion there was some talk about a savage bull. Landseer, muttering, "Bulls! bulls! bulls!" snatched up an album of my sister's, and finding a blank page in it, made an exquisite little drawing of a charging bull.
First dinner Lady Holland, Eastlake, Lord and Lady Monteagle, Luttrell, Lord Auckland, Lord Campbell, Lady Stratheden, Lady Dunstanville, Baring Wall, and Mr. Hope. Second dinner Lady Charlemont, Lord Glenelg, Lord and Lady Denman, Lord and Lady Cottenham, Lord and Lady Langdale, Sir Charles Lemon, Mr. Hibbert, Landseer, and Lord Clarendon."
He was fond, too, of descanting on Mrs. Pritchard's wonderfully virtuous temperament, notwithstanding her amazing charms. Visitors probably reflected that, given her appearance, the path of duty must have been rendered very easy to her. Landseer painted his last Academy picture, "The Baptismal Font," whilst staying with us.
It was a respectable art then in vogue in England. Frith was the giant of the day, and from the wax figures at Madame Tussaud's to pictures such as the "Rake's Progress" the plastic arts had a moral tendency. Even the animals of Sir Edwin Landseer were the most decorous of all four-footed creatures; Killigrew blasphemed by calling the admired paintings still-life studies of animals.
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