ON THE BRIGHTON LINE.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY THE LATE ABRAHAM COOPER, R.A.

It is just fifty years since Abraham Cooper painted a little picture for The Sporting Magazine of the fox-hunter's return. And how different in its rendering from that jack-booted Byron-collared gentleman, who is trying to get the beaten old plater back to Tollitt's stables in time for the afternoon express up. He has of course been having a gallop with Mr. Christie and the Southdown; but has promised to be back to an early dinner in order to take the boys to the Haymarket. Had it been with the stag with Her Majesty's, or over the Vale or in Essex, Mr. Sothern might have kept him company; for Lord Dundreary is a mighty hunter, and goes as straight as the crow flies.

For sixty years-but in these days it is no sin for a man to borrow from himself, and it is thus that The Field has already told the story

out:

There should be no more familiar name to the sportsman than that of Abraham Cooper, a sportsman himself, who for the last sixty years has been painter in ordinary to our national pastimes. His industry was extraordinary, as his zest for his subject never wearied; and there can be few country houses, few snug smoking Sancta, but show some reflection from his easel-a September scene in the stubbles, hounds finding their fox, Piscator striking his fish, some famous racehorse in his box, or the portrait of that rare-shaped old nag which the Squire rode for so many seasons. Cooper was at all in the ring, and the secret of his success may be traced to his own personal experience of those studies he especially delighted to dwell over. He was often enough the hero of his own canvas-was a good shot at most kinds of game, could throw a fly deftly, and, if at no time so regular a man with hounds, he still saw enough of hunting to imbue all he did in this way with the true feeling, and to give here again the Hall-mark to his works.

But, as with most animal painters, the horse was the god of young Cooper's idolatry. A thorough Londoner by birth and bringing up-for he was born in Red Lion-street, Holborn, in 1787, and never changed his permanent residence beyond the next street or so the fortunate misfortunes of his family served to procure for him an early introduction to that noble animal, whom he soon came to know and love so well. The father, in the first instance a tobacconist, subsequently failed as an innkeeper, and at thirteen years of age the son had, in homely phrase, to shift for himself. He eventually entered the service of Messrs. Meux, the well-known brewers, in a very humble capacity, and it was whilst engaged in this business that his passion for the horse first developed itself. Amongst others in the well-stocked stable was an old favourite called Frolic, that the lad Abraham had driven and ridden many hundreds of miles; and of Frolic his friend and companion resolved to have a portrait. An artist was accordingly applied to; but, as might have been expected, the terms were too high for the pocket of the brewer's boy, who in this dilemma determined to paint the picture himself! He had evinced some natural taste in this way when at school, and, arming himself with a work upon oils, the rash

attempt upon old Frolic was made. It was more than a "promising" production, for it decided the draughtsman's future career. Mr. Henry Meux secured the Frolic for his own collection, and from Cooper's employer became, in the best sense of the word, his patron. The young artist received some further assistance from his uncle, Mr. Davis, an cquestrian of some note, and thus the inclination for horses was confirmed. An introduction to Marshall, then at his zenith, followed; and, after a year or so's run of this quaint character's studio, Abraham Cooper felt strong enough to set up for himself.

It is noticeable how this association gave the bent to Cooper's genius. He was wont to tell, with great glee, how he occasionally figured in a grand tourney at his uncle's circus; how he once unintentionally knocked over that most irascible of managers in a joust, and how he had to fly the house, accoutred as he was. But all this chance teaching told, and Abraham Cooper first became famous for his battle pieces-the Naseby Field and Marston Moor, the Standard Bearer, the Flight, and so forth. And how squarely he sat those grim troopers of old Oliver on their horses-those same great grand dray horses he had known so long; and how well he distinguished, in the very thick of the fight, those burly Roundheads from the dandy Cavaliers :

For the man of blood was there, with his long essenced hair,
And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine.

Or, as Ireton's Obadiah anathematizes them:

Fools! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and bold,
When you kiss'd your lily hands to your lemans to-day.

Cooper caught the true spirit of the thing, and Marston Moor was the subject which led to his being elected a Royal Academician in 1820, within ten years or so of his first start in his profession.

The chance possession of a few odd volumes of The Sporting Magazine gave Cooper's taste a turn in another direction, and for close upon sixty years have engravings after his pictures continued to illustrate that work. And how good and how sportsmanlike they are! As you turn on from one subject to another, a very history might be written after such a fashion. The grey, short-docked shooting pony, and his faithful companion, the big-boned coarse Spanish pointer; or the fox-hunter's return, with the brush in his hat, as he pulls up at the way-side inn for a glass of home-brewed, on that good little black mare that looks so like coming two days a-week, let alone an off-morning with the harriers or the longtails. What pleasant stories these pictures tell of times passed away, when sport was not quite so fine perhaps as it is now, but when a man found his birds and shot to his dogs, or when One good horse would carry him throughout the longest day.

And he rode to hunt, rather than hunted to ride. Or the race-horses, again, with their tails squared to the length of coach-horses, and respectful, respectable-looking trainers standing at their heads, in frocks as long in the skirt as Sir Tatton's, fairly shadowing the serviceable boots and breeches they never got out of except on going to bed, if even then. What a contrast to the satin-tied, gold-studded swell who now condescends to superintend the saddling of a favourite! But Cooper scarcely succeeded so well with the race-horse, which, by his rendering,

was a rather three-cornered, tucked-up animal in work; whereas he did far better with them at the stud. Some of his stallion portraits are full of character, and his dishevelled beauties of the harem yet more to our liking; a favourable specimen of which is the picture-and it is a picture, although a single figure-of Harriet, the dam of Plenipotentiary.

There was always a spice of poetry in Cooper's composition, and, no question, he could never give your mere horse and jockey like his tutor Marshall, or his pupil Herring. Still, the thorough-bred horse was continually his subject. He painted Partisan, Whisker, Minuet, Penelope, and many others, for the Duke of Grafton; the race for the Derby, in Little Wonder's year, for Mr. Robertson; and the winners of the great events for many seasons in succession; while he was quite at home at Danebury. Old John Day and Abraham Cooper were indeed fast friends, as it is written the Royal Academician had more sittings at John than any other artist, and painted him in turn on Elis, Deception, and Crucifix. The most successful portrait, however, was one in a family picture, painted by order of Lord George Bentinck, who presented it to the late John Day, with the understanding that it was to descend to his eldest son. In this group John stands in his great-coat by the side of the mule phaeton, in which are seated his wife and his mother, while his son Sam is mounted on the game Venison, and William on Chapeau d'Espagne. We remember the picture well when exhibited, and it was no doubt the best thing with race-horses in it that Cooper ever produced. There was more scope to get away from the dry detail of the mahogany-polished coat, and the staid demeanour of the mannikin in the silken suit.

A lounge through the studio in Milman-street was by no means a morning ill-spent. There is a deer-stalking remembrance on the easel, where the gillies are loading the venison on to a white sheltie, that is somehow familiar enough to the eye. In the corner is a study of the exuberant countenance of Old Mac, the jockey; and in close company an onslaught, half-finished, by "the bravoes of Alsatia and pages of Whitehall;" while yonder, with her full-blown charms partly hidden by an old racing jacket carelessly thrown over the canvas, we recognise Madame Warton in the guise of one of Araby's daughters tending a desert steed; as a chief in a turban, looking vastly like Father Abraham himself, regards the group with evident complacency. Comparatively late in life the R.A. gave a deal of study to these nude beauties, who cropped up in the Highlands, on the battle field, or by the burnside, dressed a deal after the fashion of Musidora, although apparently by no means "at the doubtful breeze alarmed." And thus, as you went on from one sketch to another, the artist's own running commentary, as he took his short pipe from his mouth, was anything but the least enjoyable feature of the visit. He was so full of anecdote, had always something so pleasent to say of what you were looking at, some seasonable reminiscences of horses or men; for on the nudes he would touch but slightly. The very pipe itself was not without its story, for Cooper had perhaps an hereditary love for the weed, long before the habit was so general as it is now. He was, then, years since, staying in a great house where there was not only no smoking room, but where smoking was "strictly prohibited." Our artist endured this with