At the same exhibition some readers remember the large but not very fortunate “Portrait of Mr. Van Amburgh, as he appeared with his animals at the London theatres.” Many years had passed since Sir Edwin had painted a “lion picture,” and his reputation was uninjured in that respect, although there were not lacking grumblers who averred that his earlier works far surpassed in artistic qualities the more attractive, more popular and, it must be admitted, far more poetical productions of his middle life. At this date our artist had hit the chords in popular feeling to which it would best suit him to appeal, and he did so vigorously and constantly; the chords were two--that of sad pathos and that of gentle, semi-human satire. The pictures of 1848, to which we now turn, being “A random Shot” and “Alexander and Diogenes,” were apt illustrations of the concurrent powers of Landseer’s mind at the best. Technically speaking, he had lost prodigiously by this period; his works were not half so solid as when his spurs were won, but in the higher intellectual and imaginative qualities they now far surpassed their forerunners, notwithstanding occasional dashes of melodramatic taste. “Van Amburgh,” was injurious to the reputation of the painter. The works of the next year--1848--set this higher than ever. In 1848 we were presented with “A random Shot,” one of the most pathetic and epical of Landseer’s works. It is a snow-piece, the scene high on the mountain, whose more distant ridges rise above the mist. The snow lies smooth; and for miles, so far as the eye can penetrate the vapour, there is nothing but snow, which covers, but does not hide, the shapes of the hill-tops. A few foot-prints show that a doe has come hither, attracted, doubtless, by her knowledge of a pool of unfrozen water which would assuage her thirst. Some careless shooter, firing into a herd of deer, had hit the doe whose fawn was with her, and, mortally wounded, she came to die; the poor fawn had followed. There the victim fell, there the innocent one strove, long after the mother’s form was cold, to obtain milk where an unfailing source had been. The mother has fallen on her side, the long limbs, that once went so swiftly, are useless, and the last breath of her nostrils has melted the snow, so that, stained with her blood, the water trickled downwards until it froze again. This year was one of unusual good fortune for Sir Edwin’s admirers; two of his best pictures were exhibited, besides the beautiful “Old Cover Hack,” a horse standing with an air of being at home, at the door of a stable.