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tinguished Member of the Humane Society,' represented by a noble Newfoundland dog; and * There's Life in the Old Dog yet;' 1839, ' Tethered Rams;' in 1841, ' Peace/ and the companion picture, * War; * 1842,
- The Highland Shepherd's Home; ' 1847.
' The Drive, Shooting Deer on the Pass/ one of his largest works, purchased by the Queen; 1848, 'Alexander and Diogenes/ two dogs; 1850, * A Dialogue at Waterloo/ the aged Duke of WelBngton with his daughter-in-law visiting the field; 1851, 'Scene from the Midsummer Night's Dream/ which may be esteemed his last great work; 1856, * Highland Nurses;' 1858, ' The Maid and the Magpie; ' 1860, 'Flood in the Highlands;' 1861, 'The Shrew Tamed' and the 'Fatal Duel.' During the whole of these years, while as a member of the Academy he sent his chief works to their exhibitions, he continued to exhibit at the British Institution, and probably from early associations supported that body by the contribution of his works till nearly its final collapse.
Up to this time his deserved prosperity and success had, to the world, appeared unclouded, but it was not so. A lively companion, gifted with all that made his company desirable, he was admitted and esteemed in the first society, even the Queen's. But from his youtn painfully sensitive, nervously alive to censure, he had suffered occasionally from long periods of mental depression, and then felt most acutely the slights, no doubt purely im- aginary, of his distinguished friends. In 1851-52 he was attacked by illness, arising from these causes, and in those years he did not exhibit. He had when so young reached, and so long maintained, such great excellence in his art that his friends, seeing now some falling off, feared, after his 40 years' practice, they must be prepared to find his place on the Academy walls a blank; but it was not yet. He happily rallied, and again his works appeared, yet in faded excellence. In 1864 he exhibited, with other works, his ' Piper and Pair of Nutcrackers; ' in 1866, ' The Stag at Bay/ a model; in 1868, ' Rent-day in the Wilds/ the concealed tenants paying their rents for their exiled chief; in 1869, two 'Studies of Lions/ with 'The Swannery/ a work which had long lain unfinished in his studio; and continuing to send two or three pictures in the following years, in 1873 he exhibited his last work, ' An Un- finished Sketch of the Queen.' He produced a number of etchings which are highly prized, and modelled the four noble lions which ornament the base of the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square, a commission which he kept many years in hand.
Towards the end of his life his nervous state of health was aggravated by a rail- 258
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way accident in the north, in November 1868, which left a scar on the forehead visible in his coffin. From this time his failing memory became more affected, and for the last two or three years he was a great sufferer. He had lived, since 1825. m the same house at St. John's Wood Road. He was unmarried, but was sur- rounded by the members of his family, and also by his many dogs and animals, whose natures, faculties, and actions, were his amusement and the object of his continual, almost unconscious, study; and here be died on October 1, 1873, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, his funeral attended by his family and friends, the president and members of the Royal Academy, with many persons of distinction and eminence, nor was it unaccompanied by many marks of public sympathy. His art will fill a permanent place in the memories of all. His skill endowed animals with something more than instinct — sometimes highly
Eathetic, sometimes of the most subtle umour. His fertile invention and happy incidents were unrivalled, the titles of his works so cleverly, sometimes wittily, chosen; his drawing truthful and correct; his power of execution dexterous and rapid in the extreme; the facile treatment of nis textures — wool, fur, skin, or feathers — un- surpassed, and all that the Dutch painters reached by the most elaborate skill; his composition without effort, yet always good. But nis colour was often heavy, and latterly grey and leaden. His. portraits, of which he painted several, when his subject was evidently his own choice and his own taste, bore all the successful impress of his art; not so, however, when he was oppressed with the sense of an uncongenial task, perhaps too good-naturedly undertaken.
His works have been so largely circu- lated by the numerous excellent engravings of them, including almost without excep- tion all those mentioned here, that they have become known and have found a
Elace in the affections of all. Eminently appy in the engravers employed, his ' Bolton Abbey/ and ' Midsummer Night's Dream/ are especially distinguished by the happy talent with which they are rendered; and 'The Mothers/ a collection of small designs admirably etched, are tributes no less to the engraver than the painter.
He was fortunate in receiving all the honours which art could give him. He was knighted in 1850, was awarded the large gold medal at the Exposition Universeue m Paris, 1855, and on the death of Sir 0. Eastlake, in 1865, was formally offered, but refused, the office of President of the Royal Academy. He realised, in the latter part of his life, largely from the sale of the copy- rights of his pictures, a handsome fortune, his personal property being sworn under
