Scissors were forbidden in the Landseer household, and if the boys wanted pictures they had to make them.

And they made them.

They drew horses, sheep, donkeys, cattle, dogs; and when their father took them to the Zoological Garden it was only that they might bring back trophies in the way of lions and tigers.

Then we find that there was once a curiosity exhibited in Fleet Street in the way of a lion-cub that had been caught in Africa and mothered by a Newfoundland dog.  The old mother-dog thought just as much of the orphan that was placed among her brood as of her sure-enough children.  The owner had never allowed the two animals to be separated, and when the lion had grown to be twice the size of his foster-mother there still existed between the two a fine affection.

The stepmother exercised a stepmother’s rights, and occasionally chastised, for his own good, her overgrown charge, and the big brute would whimper and whine like a lubberly boy.

This curious pair of animals made a great impression on the Landseers.  The father and three boys sketched them in various attitudes, and engravings of Edwin’s sketch are still to be had.

And so wherever in London animals were to be found, there, too, were the Landseers with pencils and brushes, and pads and palettes.

In the back yard of the house where the Landseers lived were sundry pens of pet rabbits; in the attic were pigeons, and dogs of various breeds lay on the doorstep sleeping in the sun, or barked at you out of the windows.

It is reported that John Landseer once contemplated a change of residence; he selected the house he wanted, bargained with the landlord, agreed as to terms and handed out his card preparatory to signing a lease.

The real-estate agent looked at the name, stuttered, stammered, and finally said:  “You must excuse me, Sir, but they say as how you are a dealer in dogs, and your boys are dog-catchers!  You’ll excuse me—­but—­I just now ’appened to think the ’ouse is already took!”

* * * * *

The Landseers moved from Queen Anne Street to Foley Street, near Burlington House.  This was a neighborhood of artists, and for neighbors they had West, Mulready, Northcote, Constable, Flaxman and our own picturesque Allston, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Elgin Marbles were then kept at Burlington House, and these were a great source of inspiration to the Landseer boys.  It gave them a true taste of the Grecian, and knowing a little about Greece, they wanted to know more.  Greece became the theme—­they talked it at breakfast, dinner and supper.  The father and mother told them all they knew, and guessed at a few things more, and to keep at least one lesson ahead of the children the parents “crammed for examination.”

Edwin sketched that world-famous horse’s head from the Parthenon, and the figures of horses and animals in bas-relief that formed the frieze; and the boys figured out in their minds why horses and men were all the same height.