AT ST. JOHN’S WOOD--MADE ROYAL ACADEMICIAN--FACILITY AT WORK--TECHNICAL DEXTERITY--JACK IN OFFICE. “The Cat’s Paw” was sold, and soon after a renewed offer of pecuniary aid that he might establish himself, was accepted by the painter, and he found, near Regent’s Park, a small house with a garden; here a large barn was converted to a studio, and he set up his staff independently--not, however, without qualms of heart at thus quitting the “old house at home.” The fact is, he was not a man of business, nor a man of the world; he had remained so long in tutelage, and owed so much to his father, that it needed more than ordinary impulses ere he was induced to plunge into the world as the chief of a household. This diffidence was so strongly marked that, on learning that a premium of one hundred pounds was demanded for the house, Landseer was about to break off the negotiation in despair. But his adviser, who had endeavoured to buy “A Cat’s Paw,” came to his aid. “Well,” said he, on learning the difficulty which seemed insurmountable, “if that is the only obstacle, I will remove it. Go to the lawyers, and tell them to make out the lease, and that as soon as it is ready for signatures, you will pay the sum required, and I will lend you the money, which you can repay when it suits you, without interest.” This was agreed to, the lease was made out, and the money paid. Edwin Landseer returned the money by instalments of twenty pounds each, and this transaction concluded the history of the obtaining the house, which was enlarged as his means permitted and his convenience demanded. This is the house in which he lived for nearly fifty years, and in which he died. Here his sister, Mrs. Mackenzie, to whom the reader is much indebted, long acted as his housekeeper. Here the greater part of his life’s work was done, and in it, as we believe, John Landseer died. It was for many years the centre of the kindly painter’s _entourage_, where his friends were summoned to meet by hasty messages bidding them to pleasant parties, and it is the house which of all others in London belonging to artists has received the greatest number of distinguished visitors, always excepting that of Sir Joshua Reynolds in Leicester Square. Not long before, the district was open and the locality pertained to Red Hand Farm.[34] In those days deer were in Hyde Park, where one would now as soon expect to see a phœnix, or be gored by the stag that was painted in our artist’s next picture, as to encounter even a doe. The “Portrait of Lord Cosmo Russell,” 1825, represents a boy in a Highland dress, holding a whip and galloping on a pony over a moor, with a dog running by his side. “Taking a Buck” shows three deer-hounds chasing a buck; one of the dogs has leaped at and seized its prey by the ear, and thus checked the progress of the latter, giving a keeper an opportunity for throwing a noose over his antlers, so that he may be pinioned and secured.