friendship as to be worth recording. She was an elderly widow of
small means, Landseer's neighbour in St. John's Wood; a little
dried-up, shrivelled old woman. The two became firm allies, and
when Landseer's reason became hopelessly deranged, Mrs. Pritchard
devoted her whole life to looking after her afflicted friend. In
spite of her scanty means, she refused to accept any salary, and
Landseer was like wax in her hands. In his most violent moods when
the keeper and Dr. Tuke both failed to quiet him, Mrs. Pritchard
had only to hold up her finger and he became calm at once. Either
his clouded reason or some remnant of his old sense of fun led him
to talk of Mrs. Pritchard as his "pocket Venus." To people staying
with us (who, I think, were a little alarmed at finding themselves
in the company of a lunatic, however closely watched he might be),
he would say, "In two minutes you will see the loveliest of her
sex. A little dainty creature, perfect in feature, perfect in
shape, who might have stepped bodily out of the frame of a Greuze.
A perfect dream of loveliness." They were considerably astonished
when a little wizened woman, with a face like a withered apple,
entered the room. He was fond, too, of descanting on Mrs.
Pritchard's wonderfully virtuous temperament, notwithstanding her
amazing charms. Visitors probably reflected that, given her
appearance, the path of duty must have been rendered very easy to
her.

Landseer painted his last Academy picture, "The Baptismal Font,"
whilst staying with us. It is a perfectly meaningless composition,
representing a number of sheep huddled round a font, for whatever
allegorical significance he originally meant to give it eluded the
poor clouded brain. As he always painted from the live model, he
sent down to the Home Farm for two sheep, which he wanted driven