Having disposed of our materials about the professional and family lineage of the Landseers, it will be desirable, before entering upon the chief subject of this text, to draw together all it is needful to state of his very remarkable parent, the engraver and engravers’ champion. We shall do so without regard to the chronological parallelism of their lives; a course of treatment which admits simplicity of arrangement. The births of three able sons are important facts in the history of any man who might be so honoured in parentage. Thomas, the eldest son, was born, we believe, in 1796; Charles, the second son, Aug. 2, 1799; Sir Edwin Henry, in 1802; March 7th was the date given on his coffin-plate, but there are doubts about this matter, even among the Landseer family. Including the daughters, the names of this family ran thus in the order of their births:--Jane, who married Mr. Charles Christmas, and died at the birth of her first child; Thomas, Charles, Anna Maria, Edwin, Jessica, i.e. the present Miss Landseer, and Emma, now Mrs. Mackenzie. The last two survive. According to the original constitution of the Academy, engravers had no place in it. Thus they were denied the privilege of considering themselves artists at all. This absurdity was not much reduced when, in the third year of its existence, the body decided on admitting six “Associate Engravers” as a distinct and inferior class.[8] As we have thus noted, the position of engravers in the honour-bestowing body of their profession had been anomalous, and beneath the pretences, as well as the merits and reputations, of many distinguished men, who, while not unwilling to join the academical association, declined to do so on conditions which at once marked their alleged inferiority to the professors of other branches of art, and placed them in a lower grade than the painters, sculptors, and architects with whom, nevertheless, they claimed to be equal. They complained especially, that, in addition to the above-given sources of discontent, a law of the Academy restricted them from more than one of the privileges and advantages of the exhibitions:--1st, of that law which declared that “each Associate-Engraver shall have the _liberty_ [an unfortunate form of expression] of exhibiting two prints, either compositions of his own, or engravings from other masters.” Thus, while other members were entitled to contribute eight pictures, sculptures, or what not, without limitation as to the size of each example, the engravers might exhibit not more than two, which, by the very conditions under which they were produced, must be small. 2ndly, the engravers objected to the concluding section of the same law, which ran thus: “and these shall be the only prints admitted to the Royal Exhibition.” By these measures the engravers were affected, and their art depreciated. This state of things has been mended now, and engravers are admitted to the full academical honours.