INTRODUCTORY II

 accurate knowledge of their bodily traits, their hoofs, horns,
 and tails, the red fire or the luminous brown discs of their
 eyes, the symmetry of their loins, the glassy texture of their
 coats, or the soft sheen of their feathers-but in the chivalrous
 insight into those instincts in animals which in their sagacity
 and devotion sometimes put to shame the boasted wisdom
 and constancy of man.
 SI cannot help thinking that the wide-spread popularity of
 Sir Edwin Landseer in England is not only a credit to that
 manliness of national character which expresses itself in a
 love of out-of-door sports, and of the animals which share in
 these sports, but is also honourable as an evidence of the
 kindly satisfaction with which a matter of fact and plain-
 spoken race recognize in their four-footed allies attributes
 ,which constitute them far more than useful dependants-
 privileged and cherished comrades.
 I should like to say a word on the other side of the
question-I mean with regard to the sense in which Sir
Edwin Landseer's lively interpretation of the characters of
animals-dogs in particular-has been an element of weakness
in his power.
 It has been alleged by those critics least affected by his
 second sight into the motives of animals, and most enamoured
 of the painters of brutes in their entirety-brutes as apart from
 men, while each specimen is distinct and individual in itself,
 and while it has a relation to the nature, if not the human
 nature, around it-that Sir Edwin sacrificed truth to sentiment
 till it became fantastic, and that in the pursuit he lost, not any
 grain of his popularity among his multitude of admirers, but
 something of his technical skill. It would be presumption in