As I gazed, a shock-headed young man, with a very red nose, whom I at
once recognized as a student of the Life Class, sneeringly observed that
the "flourish of the sword smelt a little of the foot-lights." (Artists
are ever jealous.)
It is easy to see that the clever painter of "SHERIDAN'S Ride" has
meaning in the flourish of the sabre. It indicates that his fleet hero
uses the weapon, not to "fright the souls of fearful adversaries," but
to accelerate with frequent whacks the speed of his heroic charger.
The horse has observable points, too, and especially one that might
be called by the superficial critic "faulty drawing." I refer to the
extraordinary fore-shortening--if the expression is in this case
allowable--of that part of the animal which extends from the saddle
backward. In this, again, there is a touch of nature that genius only
can impart. For what is more conceivable than that the hinder parts of
the heroic steed might have been cut away by an unlucky slash with the
edge of the sabre? There is precedent for this. Every schoolboy can
recall a similar accident which befell the horse of MUNCHAUSEN as he
dashed beneath the descending portcullis.
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