al
centre, and no one felt above accepting his hasty invitations to his
parties, which were almost always gotten up on an impulse and the guests
invited at the last possible moment.

Among Landseer's friends were Dickens and Thackeray, and Sydney Smith was
very fond of the artist; and it is said that when the great wit was asked
to sit to Landseer for his portrait, he replied in the words of the
haughty Syrian: "Is thy servant a _dog_ that he should do this thing?"

When at his best Landseer had a facility in drawing and painting that was
marvellous. He could draw two entirely different objects at the same
moment, his left hand being equally skilful with the right. He was seen to
draw a horse's head with one hand and a stag's head with antlers at
exactly the same time--and this at an evening party to prove that it could
be done. He once sent to an exhibition a picture of rabbits under which he
wrote, "Painted in three-quarters of an hour." He painted a life-size
picture of a fallow-deer in three hours, and it required no retouching.
One of his comrades said: "Sir Edwin has a fine hand, a correct eye,
refined perceptions, and can do almost anything but dance on the slack
wire. He is a fine billiard player, plays at chess, sings when with his
intimate friends, and has considerable humor."

We have passed over the best and most pleasant part of the life of this
great painter, for in 1840 he had an attack of illness from which he never
recovered. He travelled, and endeavored in every way to go on with his
work; but he was always subject to attacks of depression which were
sometimes so serious that his friends feared loss of reason. Of course
there was a different tone in his works--a seriousness and pathos, and at
times a religious element, which was very acceptable to some persons, and
he gained admirers where he had not found them before. But it can scarcely
be said that his last days were his best days, though he executed some
famous pictures.

In 1866 he exhibited a model of a stag at bay which was afterward cast in
bronze. The lions at the base of the Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square
may be called the work of Sir Edwin, for he modelled one of the colossal
beasts from which the others were formed with but slight changes, and the
whole were cast under the care of Baron Marochetti.

In 1872 he painted "The Font," which is a religious subject. It represents
the sheep and lambs of the Gospel gathering round a font, u