3-011-920 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Escape", by R. Beavis, from the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1864. Engraving of a painting depicting a '...chivalric and important personage - a [Scottish] Border chieftain, we should say - one who, though here obliged to ride for his life, loves fighting even more than plundering. Our impression is confirmed by the quotation which follows the title in the catalogue of the recently-closed Exhibition...: "his sole delight, The moonlight raid, the morning fight". This is a quotation from the fourth canto of Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," and applied to the brave old Lord of Harden...we own to always feeling a fresh and thrilling interest in the Border-stories of daring exploit and hairbreadth escape. And in seeing the imminent peril of this chief, so vividly placed before us by Mr. Beavis, and that, too, threatening a Border hero, who, judging by the blazing buildings in the distance, appears, single-handed, to have done mischief enough for many, and who even now seems half disposed to turn upon his pursuers - can we help sympathising even with the apparent wrongdoer, or expressing a wish that the carbine-bullet will miss, so that...he may soon laugh at his pursuers, and, as the title seems to promise, may safely effect his "escape"?'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.