f interest in detail.

The falseness or deficiency of color in the works of Mr. Landseer has
been remarked above. The writer has much pleasure in noticing a very
beautiful exception in the picture of the "Random Shot," certainly the
most successful rendering he has ever seen of the hue of snow under warm
but subdued light. The subtlety of gradation from the portions of the
wreath fully illumined, to those which, feebly tinged by the horizontal
rays, swelled into a dome of dim purple, dark against the green evening
sky; the truth of the blue shadows, with which this dome was barred, and
the depth of delicate color out of which the lights upon the footprints
were raised, deserved the most earnest and serious admiration; proving,
at the same time, that the errors in color, so frequently to be
regretted in the works of the painter, are the result rather of
inattention than of feeble perception. A curious proof of this
inattention occurs in the disposition of the shadows in the background
of the "Old Cover Hack," No. 229. One of its points of light is on the
rusty iron handle of a pump, in the shape of an S. The sun strikes the
greater part of its length, illuminating the perpendicular portion of
the curve; yet shadow is only cast on the wall behind by the returning
portion of the lower extremity. A smile may be excited by the notice of
so trivial a circumstance; but the simplicity of the error renders it
the more remarkable, and the great masters of chiaroscuro are accurate
in all such minor points; a vague sense of greater truth results from
this correctness, even when it is not in particulars analyzed or noted
by the observer. In the small but very valuable Paul Potter in Lord
Westminster's collection, the body of one of the sheep under the hedge
is for the most part in shadow, but the sunlight touches the extremity
of the back. The sun is low, and the shadows feeble and distorted; yet
that of the sunlighted fleece is cast exactly in its true place and
proportion beyond that of the hedge. The spectator may not observe this;
yet, unobserved, it is one of the circumstances which make him feel the
picture to be full of sunshine.

As an example of perfect color, and of the most refined handling ever
perhaps exhibited in animal painting, the Butcher's Dog in the corner of
Mr. Mulready's "Butt," No. 160, deserved a whole room of the Academy to
himself. This, with the spaniel in the "Choosing the Wedding Gown," and
the two dogs