One representing a meet, and the other full cry, the pack crossing a small river; the meet still and rigid, every horseman in his place--not a bit jingling, or a hoof pawing, or anything in motion. Now the beauty of the meet, as distinct from a drilled cavalry troop, is its animation: horses and riders moving here and there, gathering together and spreading out again, new-comers riding smartly up, in continuous freshness of grouping, and constant relief to the eye. The other--in full cry--all polished and smooth and varnished as when they left the stable; horses with glossy coats, riders upright and fatigueless, dogs clean, and not a sign of poaching on the turf. The dogs are coming out of the water with their tails up and straight--dogs as they trail their flanks out of a brook always, in fact, droop their tails, while their bodies look smaller and the curves project, because the water lays the hair flat to the body till several shakes send it out again. Not a speck on a top-boot, not a coat torn by a thorn, and the horses as plump as if fresh from their mangers, instead of having worked it down. Not a fleck of foam; the sun, too, shining, and yet no shadow--all glaring. And, despite of all, deeply interesting to those who know the countryside and have a feeling knowledge of its hunting history. For the horses are from life, and the men portraits; the very hedges and brooks faithful--in ground-plan, at least. The costume is true to a thread, and all the names of the riders and some of the hounds are written underneath. So that a hunter sees not the crude colour or faulty drawing, but what it is intended to represent. Under its harshness there is the poetry of life. But looking at these pictures the reflection will still arise how few really truthful hunting scenes we have on canvas in this the country of hunting. The best are so conventional, and have too much colour. All nature in the season is toned down and subdued--the gleaming red and bright yellows of the early autumn leaves soaked and soddened to a dull brown; the sky dark and louring--if it is bright there is frost; the glossy coat of the horses, and the scarlet; or what coloured cloth it may be, of the riders deadened by rain and the dewdrops shaken from the bushes. Think for a moment of a finish as it is in reality, and not in these gaudy, brilliant colour-studies.