connections with vulgarity may be at once exemplified by the expression of the butcher’s dog in Landseer’s ‘Low Life.’ Cruikshank’s ‘Noah Claypole,’ in the illustrations to ‘Oliver Twist,’ in the interview with the Jew, is, however, still more characteristic. It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity absolute and utter with which I am acquainted.” “Poachers Deer-Stalking,” another famous picture, appeared in this year (1831), with “Too Hot!” “A Lassie herding Sheep,” sent to the British Institution in 1832, was at the Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, and at that time the property of William Wells, Esq. It needs no description here. In 1832 was exhibited a picture, which most fortunately illustrates the perfect command of the brush and the extraordinary facility which long-continued and severe studies gave to our painter. This was “Spaniels of King Charles’s Breed,” which is now in the Vernon Gift, in the National Gallery. It is sometimes styled “The Cavalier’s Pets,” and represents two dogs lying on a table, by the side of a grey hat with a large drooping ostrich feather stuck in its band. The dogs were pets of Mr. Vernon’s, and the sketch was made in his house as a commission to Landseer, but, after a short sitting, not continued for some time. One day Mr. Vernon met the artist in the street, and reminded him of the commission. Two days later the work as it now appears was delivered at Mr. Vernon’s house, although it was not begun when the meeting happened. It is due to not more than two days’ labour, and a triumph of dexterity in brush working, showing as much facility as the ancient fresco painters exhibited when they dealt with and completed an important head of a man in one day. The sweeping touches by which the feather in the felt hat is expressed have been placed with exquisite precision, and deserve the most careful consideration of all students and amateurs in dexterous art. This kind of execution, of which Landseer’s pictures exhibit innumerable illustrations, is magical; it is really more like penmanship, in which the artist astounds us by elaborate and super-skilful flourishes and the flow of lines in lines, than downright painting of the stricter order, which is not contented with exquisite craftsmanship alone. In this category of triumphs must be classed the countless imitations of hair and feathers which consummate “dragging” of the brush and incomparable skill enabled Landseer to produce rapidly and frequently. It is said, although our memories cannot verify the statement, that Landseer sent a picture of “Rabbits” to the British Gallery, _i.e._ the British Institution, under which he wrote, “Painted in three-quarters of an hour.”[35] Both the dogs in Mr. Vernon’s picture came to violent ends, so says our authority for this matter.[36] The white Blenheim spaniel fell from a table and was killed; the true “King Charles” fell through the railings of a staircase in his master’s house, and was picked up dead at the bottom.