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Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 04 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters by Elbert Hubbard
page 246 of 267 (92%)
walk thirty miles a day; but now that riches had come that way he bought
a horse and rode.

Then other horses were presented to him, and he began to picture horses,
too. That he knew horses and loved them is evidenced in many a picture.
In every village or crossroads town of America can be found copies of his
"Shoeing," where stands the sleek bay mare, the sober, serious donkey,
and the big dog.

No painter who ever lived is so universally known as Landseer, and this
is because his father and brothers made it their life-business to
reproduce his work by engraving.

Occasionally, rich ladies would want their own portraits painted with a
favorite dog at their feet, or men wanted themselves portrayed on
horseback, and so Landseer found himself with more orders than he could
well care for. People put their names, or the name of their dog, on his
waiting-list, and some of the dogs died of old age before the name was
reached.

"I hear," said a lady to Sydney Smith at a dinner party--"I hear you are
to have your portrait painted by Landseer."

"Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" answered the wit.
The story went the rounds, and Mulready once congratulated the clergyman
on the repartee.

"I never made the reply," said Sydney Smith; "but I wish I had."

Sydney Smith was once visiting the Landseer studio, and his eye chanced
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