In 1826 appeared “The Dog and the Shadow” now at South Kensington. This is an illustration of the old fable; a dog with a piece of flesh in his mouth is crossing a brook by means of a fallen tree, and stops to gaze at the reflected image of himself and his prize. A worsted cap and a pair of shoes on the bank indicate that a butcher’s boy, who loitered to fish or bathe, has been plundered of part of his charge. Such is the official description. We believe it was about this time that Sydney Smith’s humorous reply was given to an invitation that he should sit to Edwin Landseer. He said, with that dashing readiness which characterized the man of jokes, “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing?” This was a not very reverent paraphrase of the speech of Hazael, the messenger of Ben-hadad, king of Syria, to Elisha. There have been more than one claimant for the honour of saying this good thing; like many others of its kind, it was probably never “said” at all, but deliberately invented, with toil of brain and mental throes. There is another story of Sydney Smith, which is very good, and not less characteristic of the wit. Landseer said to the clerical dignitary, “With your love of humour, it must be an act of great self-denial to abstain from going to the theatres.” “The managers,” he replied, “are very polite; they send me free admissions, which I can’t use, and, in return, I send them free admissions to St. Paul’s.” In 1826, when Landseer was twenty-four years of age, several of his works were etched by his pupil, Georgina, Duchess of Bedford. The exhibition of the picture of “Chevy Chase” can hardly be said to have led to Landseer’s election as an Associate of the Academy. This honour was long anticipated, and the election occurred, as a matter of course, immediately on his attaining the age of twenty-four years, that being the limit prescribed by the laws of the artistic body. Sir Thomas Lawrence and Mr. Millais were among the few to whom similarly early elections have been vouchsafed. “Chevy Chase” is at Woburn Abbey, and the property of the Duke of Bedford, whose ancestor was the original purchaser. In this picture we see the fruits of Landseer’s visit to Sir W. Scott and to the Highlands, a district of which he may be said to have been the artistic prophet, and from which he derived more subjects than any other; its men, animals, and landscapes he illustrated from the picture next before us up to the “Flood in the Highlands” of 1860. [Illustration: _Shepherd’s Dog and Pups._]