proofs which he had not destroyed; and when the old engraver remembered how he had lighted his fires, he exclaimed, "I have been burning bank-notes all my life."

COUNTESS GREY AND CHILDREN. (FROM A PORTRAIT BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.)

Turner grew very rich, but he lived in a mean, careless style. As long as his father lived, he waited upon his great son as a servant might have done; and after his death, an untidy, wizened old woman, Mrs. Danby, was the only person to care for the house or the interests of the painter. His dress was that of a very common person, and it is impossible to understand how a man who so admired the beautiful in nature could live in so miserly a manner as that of Turner.

Some time before his death, Turner seemed to be hiding himself; his friends could not discover his retreat, until, at last, his old housekeeper traced him to a dingy Chelsea cottage. When his friends went to him, he was dying, and the end soon came. His funeral, from Queen Anne street, was an imposing one. The body was taken to St. Paul's Cathedral, and there, surrounded by a large company of artists and followed by the faithful old woman, it was laid to rest between the tombs of Sir Joshua Reynolds and James Barry. His estate was valued at about seven hundred thousand dollars and he desired that most of it should be used to establish a home for poor artists, to be called Turner's Gift. But the will was not clearly written—his relatives contested it, and in the end, his pictures and drawings were given to the National Academy; one thousand pounds was devoted to a monument to his memory; twenty thousand pounds established the Turner Fund in the Academy and yields annuities to six poor artists; and the remainder was divided amongst his kinsfolk.

Perhaps there never was a painter about whose works more extreme and conflicting opinions have been advanced. Some of his admirers claim for him the very highest place in art. His enemies can see nothing good in his works and say that they may as well be hung one side up as another, since they are only a mixture of splashes of color, and lights and shades. Neither extreme is correct. In some respects, Turner is at the head of English landscape painters, and no other artist has had the power to paint so many different kinds of subjects or to employ such variations of style in his work. His water-colors are worthy of the highest praise; indeed, he created a school of water-color painting. At the same time, it is proper to say that the works executed in his latest period are not even commended by Ruskin,—his most enthusiastic admirer,—and are not to be classed with those of his earlier days and his best manner.

This master was so fruitful, and he made so vast a number of pictures in oil and water-colors, of drawings, and of splendid illustrations for books, that we have no space in which to speak properly of the different periods of his art. A large and fine collection of his paintings is in the South Kensington Museum; "The Old Temeraire," the picture which he would never sell, is there. "The Slave Ship," one of his finest pictures, is owned in Boston, and other celebrated works of his are in New York; but most of his pictures, outside the South Kensington Museum, and the National Gallery, are in private collections, where no catalogues have ever been made, so that no estimate of the whole number can be given.

I shall tell you of but one more English painter,—an artist whose life and works are both very interesting, and of whom all young people must be fond,—

Edwin Landseer.

He was the youngest of the three sons of John Landseer, the eminent engraver, and was born at No. 83 Queen Anne street, London, in March, 1802. The eldest son, Thomas, followed the profession of his father, and in later years, by his faithful engraving after the works of Edwin, he did much to confirm the great fame of his younger brother. Charles, the second son of John Landseer, was a painter of historical subjects, and held the office of Keeper of the Royal Academy during twenty years.

Edwin Landseer had the good fortune to be aided and encouraged in his artistic tastes and studies, even from his babyhood, for there are now in the South Kensington Museum, sketches of animals made in his fifth year, and good etchings which he did when eight years old.

John Landseer taught his son to look to nature alone as his model. When fourteen, he entered the Academy schools, and divided his time between drawing in the classes and sketching from the wild beasts at Exeter Change. He was a handsome, manly boy, and the keeper, Fuseli, was very fond of him, calling him, as a mark of affection, "My little dog boy."

He was very industrious and painted many pictures; the best of those known as his early works is the "Cat's Paw." It represents a monkey using the paw of a cat to push hot chestnuts from the top of a heated stove; the struggles of the cat are useless and her kittens mew to no purpose. This picture was once sold for one hundred pounds; it is now in the collection of the Earl of Essex, at Cashiobury, and is worth more than three thousand pounds. It was painted in 1822.

Sir Walter Scott was in London when the "Cat's Paw" was exhibited, and he was so pleased by the picture that he sought out the young painter and invited him to go home with him. Sir Walter's well-known love of dogs was a foundation for the intimate affection which grew up between himself and Landseer. In 1824, the painter first saw Scotland, and during fifty years he studied its people, its scenery, and its customs; he loved them all and could ever draw new subjects and new enthusiasm from the breezy north. Sir Walter wrote in his journal, "Landseer's dogs are the most magnificent things I ever saw, leaping and bounding and grinning all over the canvas." The friendship of Sir Walter had a great effect upon the young painter; it developed the imagination and romance in his nature and he was affected by the human life of Scotland so that he painted the shepherd, the gillie, and the poacher, and made his pictures speak the tenderness and truth as well as the fearlessness and the hardihood of the Gaelic race.

Landseer remained in the home of his father, until he was a person of such importance that his friends felt that his dignity demanded a separate establishment and urged this upon him. He could not lightly sever his home ties, and it was after much hesitation that he removed to No. 1 St. John's Wood Road, where he passed the remainder of his life. He named his home "Maida Vale," in remembrance of the favorite dog of Sir Walter Scott. It was a small house with a garden and a barn, which he converted into a studio; from time to time he enlarged and improved it, and it became the resort of a distinguished circle of people who learned to love it for its generous hospitality and its atmosphere of joyous content.

The best period of Landseer's life was from 1824 to 1840. In the latter year, he had the first attack of a disease from which he was never again entirely free; he suffered from seasons of depression that shadowed all his life with gloom, and at times almost threatened the loss of his reason.

It is said that Landseer was the first person who opened a communication between Queen Victoria and the literary and artistic society of England. Be that as it may, he was certainly the first artist to be received as a friend by the Queen, who soon placed him on an unceremonious and easy footing in her household.

He was a frequent visitor at the royal palaces and received many rich gifts from both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Between 1835 and 1866, he painted a great many