These are a few among many hundred congratulatory letters Leighton received on his election. One from Mrs. Fanny Kemble he answered in the following March, when already he was beset by requests to use his influence to get friends' friends' work hung on the walls of the Academy:—

March 20, 1879.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,—Many thanks for your very amiable words of congratulations on the honour done me by the Royal Academy. The kind sympathy shown towards me by my friends had added very greatly indeed to the pleasure my election gave me. The belief entertained by Miss —— that the admission of works to an exhibition is a simple matter of personal favour, is shared by all foreigners—and I fear by many English people—and places me at this time of year in much and often painful embarrassment. So robust is this belief, that those who, having applied to me, fail to find their works on our walls ascribe their absence to personal unfriendliness or discourtesy on my part, or, to say the least, to lukewarmness. As a matter of fact each work of art is admitted or rejected by a separate vote of the Council, and that in complete ignorance (except where authorship saute aux yeux) of the artist's name. This applies equally to English painters and foreign artists who reside here. In regard, however, to foreigners sending from abroad, whilst the vote is taken in the same way, admission is much more difficult. We have so many Anglo-foreign painters who live amongst us that, our Exhibition not being international, we can only admit a very limited number of really prize works. These works are therefore brought before us separately, and a small number of them selected, according to the space we have to deal with; I myself as a rule dissuade my foreign friends from sending except in cases where their merit is really very great; this may be Miss —— case; you will best know. I am quite sure, my dear Mrs. Kemble, that you do not doubt the pleasure it would give me to serve you in the person of your friend, and will not misinterpret these lengthy explanations.

And now I have a favour to ask of you. On Wednesday the 26th, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Joe will, I hope, play at my studio, and with him Miss Janotha and Piatti; Henschel will, I hope, sing. Will you give me the great pleasure of seeing you amongst my friends on that occasion?—Believe me always, yours very truly,

Fred Leighton.

Mr. Briton Rivière:

Flaxley, 82 Finchley Road, N.W., December 11, 1879.

Dear Sir Frederic,—After hearing your admirable address last night, I came home in despair, for what little basis of thought is contained in my lectures (more especially in the second one) is built chiefly upon two or three of the lines of argument that you have already expressed so beautifully: Sincerity in the student—The effect of his own time upon him—That time in its relation to the time of the Old Masters, and the temper of mind in which the Old Masters should be studied; on these points my lectures are but a feeble echo of what I heard last night.

My first thought was to change my whole line of battle, and re-write them, but the extreme limitation of my powers of work would make this too great a sacrifice. To throw them up altogether, which I should much like, is impossible, for I am pledged to the Academy to do my best.

Clearly, I must go on, but I shall do so more easily now that I have explained my position, so that if any one who hears me should tell you that my lectures were only a parody of what you had already said so well, you will believe that it has been the misfortune and not the fault of yours very truly,

Briton Rivière.

Don't trouble to answer this.

The scheme Leighton formed, when first considering the duty among all others he undertook,[61] of addressing the students at the biennial meetings, was begun and continued in the nine addresses he gave, but unfortunately it could not be completed, a fact he sorely regretted when discussing the question with me three months before his death. On December 10, 1879, "The position of Art in the World" was the subject. In 1881, "Relation of Art to Time, Place, and Racial Conditions; Underlying Mystery of its Growth and Decay." In 1885, "Summary of Foregoing Lecture." In 1887, "Art in Mediæval and Modern Italy." In 1889, "Relation of Artistic Production to Surrounding Conditions considered in reference to Spain." In 1891, "The Art of France: its uninterrupted development; its wide field; eminent achievement in Architecture; the Gothic style." In 1893, "The Art of Germany: its high qualities; deficient Æsthetic Inspiration." The tenth was to have consisted, Leighton told me, in a summing up of the nine former addresses, in order to prove how they had affected the past and present condition of Art in England. To any thoughtful artist these utterances, delivered by so great and accomplished an authority, cannot fail to prove profoundly interesting and invaluable as references, on account of the sound knowledge and the absolutely reliable quality of the facts given; but it may be doubted whether the more informative matter, contained in the six later lectures, suited Leighton's style of oratory so happily as did the more abstract quality of the three first. There appeared to be too many names crowded into the comparatively short time which Leighton allotted to himself for the delivery of these discourses, for the normal taking-in power of an audience; the very finished rhetoric, moreover, in which the enormous amount of information contained in each was disclosed, did not seem quite appropriate to their condensed form. In conversation I have heard Leighton far more convincing, on the same subjects as those he treated in the last six discourses. The same intense sense of the duty he felt to do the thing as completely as it was possible, which he evinced in painting, cropped up again in his oratory, no less than the intense modesty—which would not recognise how great he could be if he relaxed all effort, and was simply himself.

Note 61. "Not everybody," wrote the late Mr. Underhill, who for some time, as private secretary to Sir Frederic Leighton, had special opportunities of knowing, "is aware of the tax upon a man's time and energy that is involved in the acceptance of the office in question. The post is a peculiar one, and requires a combination of talents not frequently to be found, inasmuch as it demands an established standing as a painter, together with great urbanity and considerable social position. The inroads which the occupancy of the office makes upon an artist's time are very considerable. There is, on the average, at least one Council meeting for every three weeks throughout the whole year. There are, from time to time, general assemblies for the election of new members and for other purposes, over which the President is bound, of course, to preside. For ten days or a fortnight in every April he has to be in attendance with the Council daily at Burlington House, for the purpose of selecting the pictures which are to be hung in the Spring Exhibition. He has to preside over the banquet which yearly precedes the opening of the Academy, and he has to act as host at the annual conversazione. Finally, it is his duty every other year to deliver a long, elaborate, and carefully prepared 'Discourse' upon matters connected with art, to the students who are for that purpose assembled. It is a post of much honour and small profit." "To administer the affairs of the Academy, to fulfil a round of social semi-public and public engagements, and to paint pictures which invariably reach a high level of excellence, would, of course, be impossible—even to Sir Frederic Leighton—were it not for the fact that he makes the very most of the time at his disposal. 'That's the secret,' remarked a distinguished member of the Academy to the present writer some little time before the President's death; 'Sir Frederic knows exactly how long it will take to do a certain thing, and he apportions his time accordingly.'"—"Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A.: His Life and Works." By Ernest Rhys.

Mr. Briton Rivière, in the notes he furnishes for this book, writes:—

"Those perhaps sometimes too perfectly built-up sentences, of which his admirable addresses and speeches were formed, were the outcome of this same quality of mind. One of his most intimate friends, when we were talking about the mental strain occasioned by these, once said to me: 'Leighton would never get over a slight lapse of grammar,' and I can believe it. The accidental was hateful to him when considered in reference to his own work of any kind, though probably no one knew better than he did its value in a work of art; but, as Watts deplored, he never would use it or admit it into his own pictures. This quality and its strain upon him was illustrated by an accident which occurred at his last R.A. Banquet speech, the last he ever made, and which gained immensely from the fact that in one place he forgot for a moment the next sentence, and came to a pause (as he told me afterwards), in fear that he had broken down altogether; but his suspense, painful as it must have been to him, looked perfectly natural and spontaneous, and gave to his speech that touch of something which his better remembered periods did not express so well. This system of speaking entirely from memory added much to the constant strain of his Academy work. He had what he called a 'topical memory,' viz. he remembered the place of each word in his written speech and used to read it off in the air with never-failing accuracy, but did so always with the belief that a forgotten sentence would shipwreck the whole. If he would have been content now and then to lapse from this high pitch of the accuracy he aimed at in all his work, few could have reached a safer or higher standard spontaneously, as he proved in the Royal Academy, General Assembly, and Council meetings, when he never failed to speak admirably on the spur of the moment; and his summing up of a debate there on any subject was invariably marked by the same elegance and cleverness as his prepared speeches, but with more vitality and flexibility, which, however, never led him into anything that was not almost fastidiously exact and precise. I have always felt that no one who had heard only his elaborately prepared speeches knew his real power as a speaker."

Throughout their pages are to be found most suggestive passages, inspiring new thoughts and, to any but experts, new facts on vitally interesting art matters. For instance, take the description of Velasquez:—

"For a long period Italian painting did not cease to enjoy the favour of the Court; it ceased, however, towards the beginning of the seventeenth century to exercise that paralysing influence which had marked its first advent, and the ground was cleared for a new impulse from within. At this conjuncture a man of commanding genius and fearless initiative was given to Spain in the person of Diego Velasquez. It may perhaps have surprised you that with such a name before my mind I should have spoken of Zurbaran, a man so vastly his inferior in the painter's gift, as perhaps the most representative of Spanish artists. I have done so because beyond any other artist he sums up in himself, as I have pointed out to you, all the complex elements of the Spanish genius. In Velasquez, Spanish as he is to the finger-tips, this comprehensiveness is not found. Of Velasquez all was Spanish, but Zurbaran was all Spain.

"Viewed simply as a painter, the great Sevillian was, as I have just said, vastly the superior of the Estremeño. He was in more intimate touch with Nature, and none, perhaps, have equalled the swift magic of his brush. On the other hand, depth of feeling, poetry, imagination were refused to him. The painter of the 'Lanzas,' the 'Hilanderas,' the 'Meninas'—works in their kind unapproached in Art by any other man—painted also, be it remembered, the 'Coronation of the Virgin' and the 'Mars' of the Madrid Gallery—types of prosaic treatment. In one work, indeed, Religion seems for a moment to have winged his pencil; but striking and pathetic as is his famous 'Crucifixion,' it does not equal in poignancy and imaginative grasp the presentment of the same subject by Zurbaran in Seville. But if we miss in Velasquez the higher gifts of the imagination, we find him also free from all those blemishes of extravagance which we have so often noted in this land of powerful impulses unrestrained by tact. Whatever gifts may have been refused to Velasquez, in his grave simplicity he is unsurpassed. If fancy seldom lifts him above the level of intimate daily things, neither does she obstruct for him with purple wings the white light of sober truth. In days in which the young Herrera could find favour; in a country in which Churriguera was possible, and euphuism was applauded, he never overstepped the modesty of Nature, nor forgot in Art the value of reticent control. I have not here to follow his career, nor the evolution of his unique and dazzling genius. Still less need I, before young artists of the present day, dwell on the wizardry and the luscious fascination of the brush of this most modern of the old masters. I will only, in conclusion, touch briefly on one or two points that are of interest, and one that is, perhaps, of warning.

"First, I would notice the purity and decorum of his art; a decorum not, I think, due to the characteristically Spanish laws under which the Inquisition visited with heavy penalties every semblance even of impurity in a work of art, but to a spirit dwelling in the people itself, of which those laws were but the somewhat exaggerated expression. It may be worth while also to note that yet another virtue of the Spaniards is, in one of his works, reflected in an unexpected manner, namely, their sobriety. It is a curious thing that in a certain class of Spanish literature a peculiar relish is shown for the portraying of moral squalor and the grovelling criminality of social outcasts. In Spanish Art, on the other hand, the picturesqueness alone of low life seems to have sought expression. You know what gentle Murillo made of his melon-eating beggar boys. Again, you saw not long ago upon these walls, in the 'Water-Carrier of Seville,' how at the outset of his career Velasquez turned his thoughts to subjects drawn from humble life, and you know how to the end he dwelt with peculiar gusto on the fantastic physiognomy of the privileged buffoons, dwarfs, and hombres de placer who haunted the Palace in his day. You know further that one of the most powerful works painted by him before reality of atmospheric effect had become his chief preoccupation, and when he sought exclusively after truth of character, a picture known as 'Los Borrachos,' represents a group of drunkards doing homage to Bacchus. It is a work of the most naked realism. Bacchus (Dionysos!), showing his repulsive vulgarity (what a blank to Velasquez was the poetic side of classic myths), is surrounded by a circle of kneeling rascals, rude and ragged enough, and supposed, no doubt, to be carousing; but here is the strange peculiarity of this work—in spite of all the accessories of a revel, and the flash of grinning teeth, we are unable to persuade ourselves that any one of the disreputable crew could ever be drunk. Imagine the subject treated by a Fleming.

"And now, though I am loth to touch one leaf of the laurels of so dazzling and so great an artist, I cannot pass in silence a circumstance which must be weighed in estimating Velasquez as a man, and which is not without bearing on his art. The virtues of his race, as we have seen, purified his work and gave it dignity; a Spanish foible, though it could not dim his genius, cramped, no doubt, and curtailed its production—namely, a tendency to subordinate everything to the pursuit of royal favour. I said a Spanish foible; for a superstitious rendering up of will and conscience to the sovereign, such as is, I believe, without example, had long been a growing characteristic of the Spaniard. On a memorable occasion Gonzalo de Cordoba himself, one of the noblest figures recorded in Spanish history—a man of a mind so fearless that he was bold to rebuke Pope Borgia himself face to face in the Vatican for the scandals of his life—did not scruple to break, in deference to what he considered this higher duty of obedience to his king, his solemn pledge and oath to the unfortunate young Duke of Calabria. So all but divine did majesty appear to the Spaniards, that divinity and majesty became almost as one in their eyes, and they spoke, in all solemnity, as 'Su Majestad,' not only of the Divine persons of the Trinity, but also of the sacrificial wafer. The prevalence of this feeling must plead to some extent in mitigation of the tenacity with which Velasquez canvassed—with success, alas!—to obtain at Court a post of an onerous and wholly prosaic character—the office of 'Aposentador Mayor,' a sort of purveyor and quartermaster, who, when his Majesty moved from one place to another, had to convey, to house, to feed, not the sovereign only, but all his suite. A post demanding all his attention, says Polomino, who goes on to deplore that this exalted office (which he has just told us any one could fill) should have deprived the world of so many samples of the painter's genius. We shall agree with our sententious friend, not, perhaps, in the satisfaction he derived from the honour conferred, as he imagines, on his calling, but in his sorrow over the loss we have sustained! And in the sight of canvases in which the execution of a sketch is carried out on the full scale of life we shall at once bow before the product of a splendid genius, and regret the signs of haste, the evidence of too scanty leisure, by which its expression has been marred. Truly it has been said, 'Art requires the whole man.'"

Note 62. While writing this discourse Leighton wrote to his father:—

Perugia, October 5, 1889.

Dear Dad,—You will be surprised to hear that your letter (for which best thanks) only came to my hands yesterday on my arrival here; it had apparently, after enjoying a junket through Spain, returned to England before its final despatch here. The envelope, which I enclose, will amuse you; Ulysses himself did not visit more cities of men! I am glad my Spanish tour is at an end; the insufferable heat, the long journeys, the frequent night travelling, have conspired to make it rather trying to me physically. I have never been thoroughly well the whole time. Here it is absolutely cold, and I shall probably soon begin firing; it rains also, and I fear the weather is altogether unpromising; but the air is magnificent, and I am very fond of the place, and I shall enjoy my stay as much as the necessity of writing my (adjective) Address will allow.

My journey through Spain, though fatiguing, was extremely interesting and very profitable to me for the matter in hand. My stay in Madrid was made more enjoyable by the extreme amiability of my very old friend our ambassador, who brought me into contact with two or three interesting people, from whom I gathered valuable information in regard to things Spanish; to say nothing of getting compartments reserved for me in trains, &c. &c. It is rather fortunate that our diplomatic representatives abroad are mostly personal friends of mine. Post is just going, so good-bye for the present.—Your affectionate son,

Fred.

Leighton mastered the Spanish language completely in the course of the few weeks he spent in Spain in 1866. A friend who was present gives an amusing account of an incident which occurred when Leighton dined with Mrs. Adelaide Sartoris after his return. He was sitting next Señor Garcia (only now just dead at the age of 102); the conversation was being carried on in Spanish. Mrs. Sartoris, in astonishment and admiration at the fluent manner in which Leighton was talking the language of which he did not know a word a few weeks before, exclaimed, "But, Señor Garcia, do say he makes some little mistakes!" "But he doesn't," replied Garcia; "he hasn't made one!"

Again, the seventh discourse is replete with inspiring suggestions about French architecture,[63] and in the last discourse the description of Albert Dürer is one which, in a few lines, gives a complete and vividly interesting setting to the great name.

"Albert Dürer may be regarded as par excellence the typical German artist—far more so than his great contemporary Holbein. He was a man of a strong and upright nature, bent on pure and high ideals; a man ever seeking, if I may use his own characteristic expression, to make known through his work the mysterious treasure that was laid up in his heart; he was a thinker, a theorist, and, as you know, a writer; like many of the great artists of the Renaissance, he was steeped also in the love of science. His work was in his own image; it was, like nearly all German art, primarily ethic in its complexion; like all German art it bore traces of foreign influence—drawn, in his case, first from Flanders and later from Italy. In his work, as in all German art, the national character asserted itself above every trammel of external influence. Superbly inexhaustible as a designer, as a draughtsman he was powerful, thorough, and minute to a marvel, but never without a certain almost caligraphic mannerism of hand, wanting in spontaneous simplicity—never broadly serene. In his colour he was rich and vivid, not always unerring as to his harmonies, not alluring in his execution—withal a giant."

Note 63. Mr. Norman Shaw wrote the following letter the day after he heard this address in 1891:—

6 Ellerdale Road, Hampstead, N.W., December 11, 1891.

Dear Sir Frederic,—I was so sorry I missed you last night. After the election I went into the galleries to find my people, and when I came out you had gone—and quite right too, for you must have been very tired.

I thank you very sincerely for your most admirable address. I had heard that it was to be on the subject of French Art, but I had not realised that it was to be entirely about Architecture! and as an architect I naturally feel very deeply its great and permanent value. It is altogether a new sensation to have a Presidential address devoted to the Mother of the Arts! and I am sure its influence will be wide, deep, and lasting.

Amongst the many regrettable phases of modern art, there is none that I feel more than the isolation that the three great branches of art exist under in this country (for in France I am sure it is quite different), and I cannot help feeling that your address is a tremendous step in the right direction; but, alas! I don't believe one in twenty of our colleagues understood what you were so clearly explaining, and I fear not one in fifty cared! But it is absurd to suppose that with the advancement of knowledge this state of things can last, so it is intensely satisfactory to have it on record that not merely have we had a President that knew all that is to be known about the art, but who also cared and loved it!

I thought your remarks on the French apse quite delightful. I have always felt this strongly, and though as an Englishman (Scotchman!) I like our square east ends, still I am bound to admit that there is a logical completeness about a chevet that the square end cannot claim. But I shall only weary you if I go on in this prosy way! so thanking you again most heartily for your grand contribution, believe me to remain,—Yours very sincerely,

R. Norman Shaw.

The speeches at the yearly banquets of the Royal Academy were extraordinary tours de force. Wherever Leighton took the lead—and he was seldom anywhere when he did not take the lead,[64]—he raised the tone of the proceedings, and convinced the outside world, no less than those taking a part in them, that the matter in hand was important and essentially worth doing. Personally I have always felt that the finished form of Leighton's diction tended rather to hide than to explain the real nature of the power which had this vitalising, elevating influence. This influence emanated, I believe, from the greatness of his "magnificent intellect" (to use Watts' words) being united with extraordinary will-force invariably employed in the service of the principles in which he had a profound faith. It was his persistent loyalty to these principles—backed by this abnormal will-force, giving it extra weight—which lifted Leighton's work in all directions on to so distinguished a level—and not—in the case of his speeches—his rounded periods, or his power over words, or his gift of facility in grasping a subject, though the Banquet speeches are also remarkable on account of the versatility he displayed in grasping many subjects from the point of view of the expert. Whether it was the Army, the Navy, Politics, Music—whatever, in fact, was the affair of the moment, he proposed the toast from what might be called the inside of the question, not merely treating his text as a matter of form.[65]

Note 65. From a boy, without any effort or thought on his part, he exercised an unquestioned domination over others. Speaking of the days when he, as a boy of seventeen, first made friends with Leighton in Rome, Sir E. Poynter said, "He knew he was clever, but he hadn't a particle of conceit. I never saw him cast down, he was always jolly and noble; none ever thought of refusing him obedience." Again, Sir E. Poynter refers to these early days in his Dedication to Leighton of "Ten Lectures on Art": "I came to-day from the 'Varnishing Day' at the Royal Academy Exhibition with a pleasant conviction that there is, on all sides, a more decided tendency towards a higher standard in Art, both as regards treatment of subject and execution, than I have before noticed; and I have no hesitation in attributing this sudden improvement, in the main, to the stimulus given us all by the election of our new President, and to the influence of the energy, thoroughness, and nobility of aim which he displays in everything he undertakes. I was probably the first, when we were both young, and in Rome together, to whom he had the opportunity of showing the disinterested kindness which he has invariably extended to beginners; and to him, as the friend and master who first directed my ambition, and whose precepts I never fail to recall when at work (as many another will recall them), I venture to dedicate this book with affection and respect." Signor Giovanni Costa wrote: "I remember once in Siena there was an unemployed half-hour in our programme. Leighton happening to go to the window of the hotel, exclaimed, 'The Cupola of the Duomo is on fire!' and as he said it he rushed downstairs to go there. I, being lame, could not keep pace with him, but followed, and on arriving in the Piazza attempted to enter the Duomo past a line of soldiers who were keeping the ground; but they would not allow me to. Seeing them carrying wooden hoardings into the cathedral, I shouted. 'You are taking fuel to the fire! Let me in—I am an artist and a custodian of artistic treasures.' The word 'custodian' moved them, and they let me pass. When I got inside the Duomo I found Leighton commanding in the midst. He was saying, 'You are bringing fuel to the fire.' There was a major of infantry with his company, who cried out, 'Open the windows!' Leighton exclaimed, 'My dear sir, you are fanning the flames; you must shut the windows.' He had placed himself at the head of everybody, and the windows were shut. From the cupola into the church fell melting flakes of fire ('cadean di fuoco dilatate falde'—Dante) from the burning and liquefied lead, which would certainly have ignited the boards with which they had intended to cover the graffitte by Beccafumi on the marble pavement. Our half-hour was over. Leighton looked at his watch and said, 'In any case the cupola is burnt; let us be off to the Opera del Duomo; Duccio Buoninsegna is waiting for us!'"

Note 65. Sir George Grove wrote after the banquet in 1882: "Dear Leighton,—Let me say a word of most hearty congratulations on the brilliant way in which you got through your Herculean task on Saturday. You are really a prodigy! Your last speech reads just as fresh and gay and unembarrassed as the first, and every one of the nine is as neat, as pointed, as perfectly à propos as if there were nothing else to be said! Thank you especially for the reference to the music business."

A few years later he made the following speech at a dinner given by his Corps, in response to a toast proposed to himself:—

We live in times so hustling and breathless, times in which so much happens in so short a space, that a few years seem to divide men and habits like a deep gulf, and I feel that in the eyes of many of you the toast that your C.O. has invited you in such friendly terms to drink is one possessing an almost antiquarian flavour interest; the more grateful therefore am I for the cordial response with which, not, I hope, solely in a spirit of discipline, but from a more human point of view, you have given to the call of Colonel Edis.

The sight of the old uniform recalls to me, in a vivid manner, a period when not only my years, but my circumferencial inches, were fewer, during which it was my pride, first in one grade, then successively in others, from the ranks to the command, to take my share in the doings of and the life of what I hope I may call, without egotism, one of the finest corps in the Volunteer service. I have now for some years laid by the coat, to be furbished up only for these annual gatherings, not without misgivings as to my power of getting into it; but I have not laid by, nor shall I lay by while I have life, my deep interest and my high respect for that great defensive force of which it is the sign, and which, having sprung into existence in a moment of emergency and national excitement, has shown through over more than a quarter of a century that it requires no excitement to sustain it, and is fed by no transitory fires.

But whilst I watch this great sign of national vitality with unchanging interest, there is of course an inmost corner of my heart in which that national movement appears to me clad in grey and silver, and the old corps still sits in the warmest place; praise of its performance is always to me the most grateful praise; strictures on its shortcomings, if like other human things it has any, will always find me sensitive, and the account which your excellent Colonel furnishes on these occasions of your year's growth, comes home to me more than other like utterances. Gentlemen, I have named your energetic and efficient commanding officer; there is this year a special reason why his name should be on my lips; he is about shortly to acquire by length of service the full colonelcy of which his long devotion to the cause makes him so worthy a recipient; and I should wish before sitting down to offer him an old comrade's hearty congratulation, and the expression of my confident hope that his advanced rank will only confirm him in his loyal and faithful efforts to promote the honour of the corps to which he, more fortunate than I, is still privileged to belong as an active member.

In 1894, on the occasion of fêting his friend Joseph Joachim and presenting the gift to the great master of a Stradivarius violin and bow from his friends, in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of his first performance in London, Leighton made the following speech:—

Ladies And Gentlemen,—It was necessary that the motives and feelings which have drawn us together to-night should find brief expression on somebody's lips; and, in obedience to a command which has been laid on me by this Committee, I have to ask you to accept me, for a few moments, as your mouthpiece. Of the varied duties which life lays on us, there are some which we perform in simple discharge of conscience and with little joy; some, if few, into the discharge of which we can pour all our hearts; and such a duty is this which I have risen to perform.

I have said that I shall only ask your attention for a few moments, and you will feel with me the fitness of brevity; for besides that, in every case, taste imposes restraint in praise of those who are present before us, long drawn and redundant eulogy would clash strangely with that rare simplicity which is one of the qualities by which Joachim, the Man, compels the esteem of all whose fortune it is to know him. But there would be in it, I think, also a further deeper-lying incongruity, for we know that Joachim, the Artist, has risen to the heights he occupies, perhaps alone, by fixing his constant gaze on high ideals, and lifting and sustaining his mind in a region above the shifting fickle atmosphere of praise or blame. Well, it is now fifty years since he took his first step along the upward path, which he has trodden in wholeness of heart and singleness of purpose from earliest boyhood to mellow middle age. During these fifty years he has not only ripened to the full his splendid gifts as an interpreter, ever interpreting the noblest works in the noblest manner, leading his hearers to their better comprehension; not only marked his place in the front ranks of living composers by works instinct with fire and imagination; but shown us also, as a man, how much high gifts are enhanced by modesty, and how good a thing to see is the life of an Artist who has never paltered with the dignity of his Art.

Deep appreciation of these titles to respect and admiration has, as you know, led in Germany, the country of his adoption and his home, to an enthusiastic celebration of this, the fiftieth year of his artistic career; and we, his English friends, living in a country which we hope, nay, believe, is, after his own, not the least dear to him, have felt strongly impelled to express to him also in some form our gratitude, our sympathy, and our esteem. It has seemed to your Committee that these sentiments could not take a more fitting outward shape than that of the instrument over which he is lord: such an instrument, signed with the famous name of Stradivarius, and, as I am told, not unworthy of his fame, flanked with a bow the work of Tourte, and once the property of Kiesenwetter—such a fiddle and such a bow I now offer to him in your name. Its sensitive and well-seasoned shell will acknowledge and respond to the hand of the master, and the souls of many great musicians will, we hope, often speak through it to spellbound hearers. But we nourish another hope—the hope that, through the great waves of melody that shall roll forth from it under his compelling bow, a still small voice may now and again be interfused which, reaching his heart through his ears, shall speak to it of the many friends who, in spirit or in the body, are gathered round him affectionately to-night.

A matter of interest to the general Art world came under discussion at the Council meetings of the Academy in the winter of 1879 and 1880, namely, whether women were to be admitted as members of their body. A correspondence took place between Leighton and the late Mr. Henry Wells, R.A., on the subject. Leighton's personal inclination was certainly for admitting women into the body of the elect, as I know from conversations he had with me on the subject. He invariably sought to extend all art privileges to those who were, as artists, worthy to receive them. He told me, however, that the majority of votes against the inroad of women would be given as having regard to a question of convenience rather than to one of principle, namely, the difficulty the Academicians foresaw in admitting only one or two lady artist Academicians to the yearly Banquets, and the greater difficulty of extending invitations to lady guests.[67]

Note 67. The following correspondence took place between Leighton and Mr. Henry Wells, R.A.

To Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A.

January 27, (?) 1880.

I will avail myself of this opportunity to remark upon the statement you made in your summing up, viz. that if women were made members under the existing law they would not have the right to sit on Council.

If you can establish this, if you can show us that any one elected a "member" under our law can be debarred on the score of sex from taking a seat on the Council, then I will instantly allow that our laws do provide for the election of women, and that the very ground of our argument is proved to be a quicksand. When you endorsed the statement that came so naturally from Millais, Calderon, and Leslie, I felt the matter was serious, for I saw at once that you could not do justice to our argument in the summing up because its very foundation was misapprehended by you. Although the question is now disposed of, I beg of you to look closely into the matter and assure yourself of it. I only wish I had known beforehand where your doubts were centered, for I would have done my best to remove them. I know you will find, beyond all doubt and controversy, that any one made a "member" by election can make good a claim to a seat on the Council, just as Mr. Tresham made good his claim; and it is because our laws provide for only one kind of members—a Council-sitting kind—that we felt the necessity of providing for the election of a non-Council-sitting kind.

In making this distinction we follow the example of George the Third and the founders of the Academy (who presumably knew something of the understanding upon which the two ladies became connected with the Society), for their decision, when they administered the law in the Tresham case, excluded women from a privilege which could not be denied to a "member" elected under the law. Of course their and our interpretation is open to dispute; but this much is beyond dispute, that if the law is interpreted as providing for women being "members," then it also places them (against the intention, as we see, of the founders) upon the Council; and as the great majority of the present Academicians have made up their minds that women shall not sit on Council, legislation would be necessary on either reading of the law.

The schedule of privileges to be given on the one hypothesis, would on the other give place to a subtraction of privileges, and either schedule would be determined according to the varying shades of opinions of the members.

There would remain only this difference in the result; one schedule would be based upon a law that is open to varying interpretations, whereas according to our method the schedule was based upon a positive resolution providing for the election of women, thus removing the question from all future discussion and doubt.

H.T.W.

From Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A.

January 30, 1880.

"In regard to the women question, I perfectly saw your contention and the logical cohesion of your view, and I was familiar with the Tresham episode, only I dissent from your view; I maintain that there were from the first non-Council-sitting members—for 'members' the women certainly were. 'It is the King's pleasure that the following forty persons be the original members of the Society,' and they did not serve on Council, as the roster shows, though all members were supposed to have sat; of course the laws were for the original as well as the elected members, and if the privilege could be refused to an original member whose name stands on the paper that says that all members shall serve in Council, it can and must on the same grounds be refused to elected female members after the custom is consecrated by Royal sanction."

January 31, 1880.

"Dear Wells,—I should much like to hear what you wish to say about the office of Treasurer—there are several points connected directly or indirectly with the office which it will be well to consider before I ask the Queen to appoint, and I have called a Council for Thursday (the funeral is not till Tuesday), at which these matters may be considered. It would seem advisable and convenient that the Treasurer's work be done at the Academy, and not away from it. I think also that the wording of the clause appointing a Surveyor might be made clearer; it ought not to be possible for any one to misunderstand or misinterpret its bearing. Unfortunately I have an appointment to-morrow afternoon at 4.30, and my work in the day is so urgent, having to be handed over on a fixed day, that I cannot leave it—would Tuesday at five do? say at the Athenæum, or here a little later? we should still be forty-eight hours in advance of the Council. In regard to the women question, I perfectly saw your contention and the logical cohesion of your view, and I was familiar with the Tresham episode, only I dissent from your view; I maintain that there were from the first 'non-Council-sitting' members—for 'members' the women certainly were: 'It is Her Majesty's pleasure that the following forty persons be the original members of the Society,' and they did not serve on Council as the roster shows, though all members were supposed to have sat. Of course the laws were for the 'original' as well as for the 'elected' members, and if the privilege could be refused to an original member whose name stands on the paper, that says that all members shall serve on Council, it can and must on the same grounds be refused to 'elected' female members after the custom is consecrated by Royal sanction.—In haste, yours very truly,

Fred Leighton.

"I have said nothing in this letter about poor Barry, but you may imagine whether the tragic event has moved and haunts me."

To Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A.

February 1, 1880.

I am very glad indeed to have the statement of your views which you have given me on the women question. Everything is now clear, side matters are disposed of, and only a single point remains on which we have to join issue. On my part I hold that our laws are in a definite and unequivocal form. That their foundation is in the "Instrument" and that every addition to, or modification, or annulment of the provisions in that document has been made in the manner prescribed, viz. by "resolutions" passed by the General Assembly and afterwards sanctioned by the Sovereign. These acts of legislation are all drawn up in a special way (as to size and pattern), to receive the sign manual of the Sovereign; and the tablets arranged in the order of their dates constitute our Statute-Book. I hold that no law can be changed or privilege taken away except by a subsequent act of legislation done in the prescribed manner.

On your part you hold that laws can be changed and privileges taken away by a "custom consecrated by Royal sanction." Thus the issue raised is very clear and distinct indeed.

I will point out that the question as to women sitting on Council was only on one occasion, and then only incidentally, before the Academy. Until the Tresham case arose the ballot had been used in forming the Council, and consequently no question of rights could appear while that process remained unchallenged. But whether we are discussing a single act of adjudication, or such a succession of acts as may be called a "custom," is really immaterial, because the sole question before us is this—can any act or acts other than those of legislation override and supplant the enactments of our law?

If it could be established that our laws must give way to the class of acts you point to, it would then be the first duty of the Academy to have our records minutely searched to ascertain what other laws have been supplanted by administrative actions sanctioned by the Sovereign; and the historical method so much discountenanced at our last Assembly would in truth rise into paramount importance. Many cases would most probably be found. We have one in suspense before us at this moment—the case of the engravers.

The laws of the Academy distinctly provide (but not more distinctly than that without discrimination "members" shall sit on Council) that a vacancy in the case of R.A. engravers shall not be filled up until the assent of the General Assembly has been taken by vote. Since the making of that law only two vacancies have occurred. They were both filled up without a preliminary permission, and the Sovereign sanctioned the election. On your contention, therefore, the custom consecrated by these sanctions must override the law itself, and nothing at this time stands between Barlow and the Queen's signature to his Diploma.

The Constitutional question you have raised is certainly one of the highest importance, and I shall watch its development with great interest. It is a matter of little moment what the view of an ordinary member like myself may be, but not so with the President, and I offer no apology for endeavouring to throw light upon the subject.

H.T.W.

The following letters from Leighton to Mr. Wells give an insight into the kind of work which his office of President entailed, and of the characteristically thorough manner in which Leighton fulfilled them.

Thursday Evening, 1879 or 1880.

Dear Wells,—I have noticed during my last two sittings at your studio, that, whenever the deeply interesting subject of our Academy appeared on the tapis, it stood in the way of your work, and I have therefore purposely abstained, as you no doubt remarked, from going beyond the merest surface in the discussion of any of the points on which we have touched. I felt that the sittings I gave you being so few and so scantily measured out, the least I could do was not, wittingly, to make you lose your time. That is to say, I did not tell you to-day orally what I now write, namely, my impression on your proposed question concerning the Chantrey purchases. The characteristic straightforwardness and loyalty with which you wished me to be informed on the point beforehand will not permit me to be silent in regard to your view. I have looked with the greatest care into the extract from the will which we all have, and have given the matter that thought which is due to your earnest conscientiousness, and I have satisfied myself that the General Assembly is wholly without a locus standi in claiming to control the expenditure of the Chantrey trust moneys in any way whatever; those moneys never pass into its hands or come under its cognisance; they are paid into the hands of the president and treasurer, against their receipt, and are dealt with solely by the president and council for the time being. An attempt, therefore, on the part of the General Assembly to assume control in this matter is in my view out of order, and it would therefore be out of order to ask or answer a question based, as yours is, on that assumption. I think you will find this view in harmony with the opinion of the body; if it is largely challenged, I shall postpone the answer till I have taken a legal opinion, as the point is very important. Here are my cards on the table.—In haste, yours sincerely,

Fred Leighton.

Monday.

Dear Wells,—The usual stress of business has prevented me till now from thanking you for your note and valuable information; I shall, with great interest, turn to the passages you allude to as soon as I get a good opportunity, and what I read will have the greatest weight with me when I vote again on a purchase. It would not, however, touch my point in regard to the General Assembly, which can only interfere with a past purchase if it can be shown to be illegal; this can, of course, only be established by legal authority, and I am, myself, sorry that your first resolution does not run thus: That the President be requested to consult high legal authority as to whether such and such purchases are barred by the will of Sir F. Ch. If your misgivings on that head are shared by a majority the thing would pass immediately and undiscussed, almost.

As concerns your motion on the pension resolution, I own to much misgiving; I should not dream of alluding to this had you not yourself taken me aside about it the other day. I am so far at one with you in principle that I feel, I can't say how deeply, that it is our paramount duty to interpret in the largest and most elevated sense our duty to the art of the country that we may be worthy in the eyes of the enlightened portion of the community of our high place, and that it is equally incumbent on us to keep our personal interests vigilantly in sub-ordination. I think that one of the present resolutions militates against this last view, and I need not conceal from you that it has not my sympathy. I am, however, very strongly of opinion that the form of your opposition to it will not be supported, and that in your desire for a logical comprehensiveness, you will fail of your end, which by simple direct opposition to the particular measure on the principle you have already enunciated and explained, you might very probably, I believe, achieve. I need not, I think, assure you, my dear Wells, that nothing is further from my thoughts than any interference with a member's freedom; indeed, on that head my views are known to you; but I can't refrain from saying thus much to give you an opportunity of quietly thinking matters over (don't answer this) before Wednesday. After all, you want primarily to get rid of paragraph 6, not to ensure a dialectical triumph. If the alternative is between your Committee and the resolution as it stands, I feel absolutely convinced that you will be left in a very cold minority; but if you point out that paragraph 6 takes our bounties off the ground of necessity, our only tenable ground, in fact commutes a bounty into an unconditional claim (of a formidable pecuniary nature, too), you will march in, I can't help thinking, with flying colours.

Don't, I repeat, be at the trouble to answer this expression of the opinion of,—Yours sincerely,

Fred Leighton.

Monday, February 1, (?) 1881.

Dear Wells,—Since receiving your letter I have been so absolutely engrossed with business and work that I have not had time till now to answer it. I am sincerely glad you have asked for a little modification in the terms of the Lucy petition; meanwhile I have written to Gladstone, and my letter has been acknowledged with a promise to note its contents.

In regard to your Chantrey resolution, I feel that, after the manner of very busy men, I have written in haste and not made myself quite clear. I should like, first, to remove one apprehension which you seem to have entertained; however strongly I may be convinced of the correctness of my own view on the matter under discussion, I cannot too emphatically say that as long as the points at issue were still sub judice I should not countenance a purchase which should assume my view to be the right one; but no such postponement as would lead to this dilemma is to be feared; what I propose is this: as soon as ever we have closed the discussion on the schools, and whilst they are being printed in their amended form for final consideration, therefore, on Friday next, if we get through on Wednesday, or failing that on the 22nd or 23rd of February, the resolutions of Council will be put on the table in their rotation; as, however, the next step in the Chantrey affair is to merely hear my answer to your memorandum, and as I understand that discussion on it will not be expected till members shall have had it to consider at their leisure, I will read it and lay it on the table before I take up the resolutions of Council which stand on the paper before it, so that when it comes up for final discussion, presumably in the first days of March, it can be discussed and voted on with full mastery of the subject. It is on the agenda paper of THAT meeting that your affirmative motion will stand; it does not come into force till then, since it is contingent on the effect produced on your mind by my answer of Friday (or of the next meeting after).

With respect to Redgrave's motion, it may lead to a technical "censure" of the Council; but there are censures and censures, and nobody will suppose, certainly I never dreamt, that you meant to imply moral obliquity to us in regard to what we have done. I have not a word to object to what you advance about the right of complaint, but it does not exactly cover the case: if you caught us, say, taking our friends to the Exhibition (or ourselves) on Sunday, a matter on which no two opinions are admissible, then "a complaint" would be in its place; but in the matter of payment to Treasurer, two opinions may and do exist, and they can only be measured against one another by a vote, and a vote can only be taken on a motion.

Lastly, as to the new codification committee, I think with you, in strictest confidence, that —— was not a good choice; but he was chosen in the usual manner by a majority of votes: that your labours were not remunerated in the usual manner is an oversight, which, of course, must and shall be set right. There seems altogether, and your letter corroborates that impression, to have been much vagueness about the doings of the Committee as a Committee, though, as usual, much zealous work on your part. I do not gather that attendances were entered in a book, which is the machinery by which payment is generally regulated, and the Committee having lapsed without reporting to the Council on its labours (being a sub-committee of the Council of 1878, it lapsed by a natural death with that Council), the whole thing had fallen out of notice. I hope that the old sub-committee will put in their claims, which will very certainly be satisfied. The codification has frequently been in my mind, for I consider it of very great importance, but as it is my impression that I am considered to drive the work of the Academy full hard as it is, I have hesitated to impose more labours on my colleagues, even though I am always ready to share them.—Sincerely yours,

Fred Leighton.

In the first R.A. Exhibition after his election, three pictures of the eight Leighton sent have, I think, a special interest—"Elijah in the Wilderness" (the picture into which he said he put more of himself than into any other he had painted up to that time); the portrait of his very dear friend Professor Costa, painted in the previous autumn at Lerici, and the head "Neruccia." Leighton with Costa studied the methods used in painting by the Venetians and Correggio, and Costa wrote the following with reference to them:—

The result of these studies and of the experience of years was that Leighton and I definitely adopted the following method. Take a canvas or panel with the whitest possible preparation and non-absorbent—the drawing of the subject to be done with precision and indelible. On this seek to model in monochrome so strongly that it will bear the local colours painted with exaggeration, and then the grey, which is to be the ground of all the future half-tones; on this paint the lights, for which use only white, red, and black, avoiding yellow, and, stabbing (botteggiando) with the brush while the colour is wet, make the half-tints tell out from the grey beneath, which should be thoroughly dry. When all is dry, finish the picture with scumbles (spegazzi), adding yellow to complete the colour.

Leighton formed his method of painting from these general maxims, and he painted my portrait at Lerici on these principles as an experiment, and then in 1878 we adopted the system definitely. For this portrait he had four sittings—one for the drawing and the monochrome chiaroscuro, one for the local colours; then, having covered all with grey, he painted the lights with red, white, and black, making use of the thoroughly dried grey beneath for his half-tints. With scumbles he completed the colour and the modelling.

The study for the group of sleeping figures reproduced here is almost identical in design with the sketch in plaster from the clay, so lamentably destroyed when Watts lent it to be cast in bronze after Leighton's death. Leighton also gave the drawing of this group to his fellow artist, so enthusiastically did Watts admire it. He, in his turn, gave it to the Leighton House Collection in the year 1897, together with the fine painting which Leighton exchanged for his own portrait, painted about 1863, and which greeted friends as they mounted the staircase in Leighton House during all the years he lived in Holland Park Road (see frontispiece to Vol. I.). The study for "Cymon and Iphigenia" is particularly valuable now as an example of Leighton's rapid sketches where every touch reflects a mine of knowledge, because it was put under glass before any of the crispness of the touch was blurred by rubbing.[71]

Note 71. Leighton kept these precious studies he made for his pictures in a drawer where I was often invited, rather apologetically, to turn them over as if they were absolutely of no importance. I protested against the cursory treatment they received at the hand of their creator; and on seeing one superlatively beautiful study of drapery pinned on his easel one day, I implored him to have it glazed and framed before it ran any danger of being rubbed. He did so, and always alluded to it after as "that sketch you lost for me," because, being framed, he lent it to some one—he did not remember to whom—and it never came back. Periodically I asked if it had returned; "No—some one, I suppose, has taken a fancy to it," Leighton would reply. The pace at which he had to live in order to fulfil the work he had set himself, enforced great carelessness about his own interests in such matters. Unfortunately, after Leighton's death, the sketches were exposed to much defacement, a natural consequence of their being moved before being secured under glass.

In at least fourteen of the eighty pictures shown at the Academy during the last seventeen years of Leighton's life, there can be traced an earnest sentiment beyond the "sincerity of emotion" for beauty which all evince. This feeling is, however, always guarded by a marked reticence from sentimentalism. "Elijah in the Wilderness," "Elisha Raising the Son of the Shunammite," "The Jealousy of Simœtha, the Sorceress," "The Last Watch of Hero," "Captive Andromache," "Return of Persephone," "Rizpah," "Tragic Poetess," "Sibyl," "Farewell," "The Spirit of the Summit," "Fatidica," "Lachrymæ," and the last passionate figure of "Clytie." The most popular pictures Leighton painted during these years appear to be "Sister's Kiss," "The Light of the Harem" (developed into a picture from the design of a group in the fresco, "The Industrial Arts of Peace"), "Idyll," "Whispers," "Wedded" (now in Australia), "Memories," "Letty," "Invocation," "Solitude," "The Bath of Psyche," "Bacchante," "Corinna of Tanagra," "The Bracelet," "Summer Slumber," "Atalanta," "Flaming June," and "The Fair Persian" (unfinished). Two sketches in the Leighton House Collection record effects which greatly fascinated Leighton in Scotland—"A Pool, Findhorn River," deep tortoiseshell brown; and "Rocks in the Findhorn," pink and grey enriched by lichen, and it was in Scotland that the Lynn of Dee inspired the subject of "Solitude." Leighton described to me the deep impression this Lynn of Dee had made on him. "It is the veriest note of solitude! a wonderful spot, full of poetic inspiration." In order to transmit a vivid record of this sentiment to his canvas, he took a second journey to the place.[74]

Note 74. Miss Emily Hickey, the poetess, was inspired by Leighton's picture to write the following lines:—

SOLITUDE

O'er the grey rocks, like monarchs robed and crowned,

High tower the firs in swart magnificence,

Where, winter after winter, vehemence

Of the wild torrent's rush, unstayed, unbound,

Hath scooped and worn the rocks till so profound

The deep pool's depth that all the gazer's sense

Fills with the absolute, dark-brown night intense.

The rapid current swirls, but never a sound.

By the high grandeur of the silence wooed

Into its bond of comradeship, the maid

Sits with the quiet on her bosom laid;

Not on the great unknowable to brood;

Only to wait a while till, unafraid,

She see the spirit of the solitude.

E.H. Hickey. Oct. 26, '91.

Leighton wrote the following letter to his father when first visiting Forres, in which he described the "craze" he had for these "dark brown Scotch rivers":—

Royal Station Hotel, Forres, N.B.

I drove over to Dunkeld (twelve and a half miles) to lunch at the Millais'; I think the drive one of the most enchanting things I know, and I was favoured, moreover, by a few of those divine glimpses of blue and silver sky of which Scotland has the monopoly (a monopoly which she uses, perhaps, just a trifle too modestly). This is Forres, as the paper shows you; if Macbeth's witches really did live in this neighbourhood, it is just as well they had their hands pretty full, for they would have found the place uncommonly dull otherwise, especially on the "Sawbath." On the other hand, the drive to and the walk along the banks of the Findhorn—the excursion for which one comes here—is quite delightful, and indeed surpassed my expectations. I must tell you that I have nothing short of a craze for your dark brown Scotch (and Irish) rivers, as dark as treacle, and as clear as a cairngorm. This particular stream contrives to rush part of the way through fantastic rocks of pink granite—you may imagine the effect. Here again from the heights over the river I ought to have seen the sea and the coast of Sutherlandshire; but the weather was sulky and I had to draw on my imagination for the view.

In the forenoon I went over by train to Elgin, to see the ruined cathedral, which is fine, but, like all Scotch architecture that I have seen, crude and barbaric. As I stood on the platform before starting, I heard a gruff, good-humoured voice hailing me from a train on the other side; it was the voice which goes so well with the rubicund face of the Duke of Cambridge. I was going by the same train, so he made me get into his compartment; he was going to Balmoral or Aberfeldie. He was very comic about B—— and his article in the Nineteenth Century—"A fellow who fouls his own nest is always a d——d bad lot—a d——d bad lot," with which sentiment I close a d——d long letter.—From your affectionate son,

Fred.

At the age of twenty-five, in the wing-like petals of a cyclamen, Leighton had succeeded in securing with the pencil the quality towards which he aimed from the beginning to the end of his studies—and these only ended with his life—namely, absolute completeness as far as human eye and hand can reach completeness in rendering the perfection of nature's forms. Notably in "Neruccia" and in "Psyche" he reached that aim with the brush, but in "Atalanta," and in such studies as those for "Flaming June," "Fatidica," and—imbued with a yet further interest of dramatic feeling—for "Clytie," his aim was reached with more freedom and power of touch. The quality of beauty in these works was no invention of his—only, as has been noted before, a discernment and echo in the artist's apprehension of nobler truths in nature than are discovered by the many. They are nobler, because possessing the germ of life and movement. In all nature's forms, beauty and style result from the spring and moving on—the development of growth, whether it requires æons to develop the form as in mountains, years as in trees, or only days as in flowers. In the human limbs there is the further power of varied movement, and in the countenance of varied expressions. The greatest art stamps a suggestion of this power of growth and movement into the form and line expressing the facts it records; and, making it harmonise graciously with perfect structure in nature, the great artist evolves a thing of beauty. In our northern climes, and in our modern civilisation, beauty of form and line excite little genuine emotion. That is reserved for colour, tone, texture, and, in these very latter days, for the cleverness of the executant. The greatest opposer Leighton's teaching has had is laziness. Students will not take the trouble to go through irksome labour to secure knowledge, therefore they only aim at those qualities which are made comparatively easy by an emotional preference; and such emotional preference is rarely excited by form. There are exceptions, such as Watts, whose greatest artistic emotion was excited when he seized the beauty and style in Pheidias. He felt also the same enthusiastic excitement over Leighton's studies, stamped with a like Pheidian quality of style. Because the modern eye is so often blind to these qualities, therefore Leighton's work has been disposed of by many as merely academical and the result solely of taking inordinate pains! Surely those desirous of any true culture might learn one lesson at all events of Leighton: the value of Catholicity through learning "to master what they reject as fully as what they adopt ... the better motives of men" with whom they are not in sympathy. Catholicity is the outcome of the best natures, the best understandings, the best educations. It overrides those subtle egoisms and commercial interests which so often guide while distorting a true judgment in art matters, keeping the preferences of the public wriggling about without any definite instinct or principal on a never truly-convincing dead level. The mainspring of catholicity in art is a fervent reverence for nature. All works in which such fervent reverence is found, in whatever direction it is displayed, are worthy to be admitted into the fold, whether it be form, colour, or tone in nature's aspect—whether it be the stirring whirls of northern tempests, the rural peace of English glades, or the fineness of rarefied atmosphere in the south, as in Greek isles and sea. Whichever mood of nature appeals to a true artist and inspires in him the sacred fire, and consequently the expression in his touch, should find a place in the heart of the true lover of art. Because the æsthetic pores of a music-lover are open to the rapturous tumult of the wildly whirling Schumann symphony in A minor, is he, therefore, incapable of being entranced by the rare refinement of Palestrina's cameo-like phrases? Because he feels a rapturous excitement as the curtain falls at the end of the first act of "Lohengrin," can he not also feel a soul-satisfaction in the elevated serenity of Bach's "Christmas Oratorio"? Does it not rather denote a want of elasticity in the æsthetic perceptions, a want of flexibility in the sensibilities flavouring somewhat of the Philistine, to be touched by a limited range of emotions? Because Leighton is not Whistler, or Watts is not Sargent, why must the one be admired at the expense of the other? With Leighton's rare intellectual acumen he knew well that these limitations in viewing various outlooks on art arose chiefly from a want of wide culture and experience. In the great galleries of Europe, among the treasures in the churches of Italy, his own vision had been enlarged, and he had felt how nourishing to his own best instincts such enlargement had proved. Hence his earnest endeavours when first entering the Academy to establish the Winter Exhibitions of Old Masters, and later, when President, to give as many facilities as possible for students to travel abroad. Probably, it never will be fully realised how greatly Leighton's initiations in starting new ventures for young students and artists have helped the real progress of English art. His great modesty and rare tact prevented this initiation from being fully appreciated even at the time. When such an one as Leighton is working on great lines, the last thing he thinks of is, Who is really achieving the work? The aim has to be accomplished; it matters little who is used as the tool to achieve the work. The real satisfaction to such a nature is the fact that the work has been achieved.

One day, somewhere in the winter of 1879, on opening a gate which leads from our garden to the Holland Park Studios, I saw standing at one of the studio doors a figure which I described to Leighton as a "vision of beauty (age 20)" - a young girl with a lovely white face, dressed in deepest black, evidently a model. Needless to say, Leighton, ever eager to procure good models, obtained her name from the artist to whom she was sitting when I first saw her, and engaged her as a model for the head. Shortly after she began to sit to Leighton, he wrote to me saying the young girl was in sad circumstances, and he would be very glad if I could help her by making some studies from her. I agreed, and he arranged with her to give me sittings. She told me that she had recently lost her mother, her father had deserted his family of five girls and two boys, and she with her elder brother were left to support them. She was endeavouring to act the part of mother to her younger sisters and brother. As Leighton and I grew to know her better we found her very intelligent and conscientious in acting this part, and she enlisted our sympathies entirely. She confided to me, while sitting one day, that she longed greatly to find something to do more interesting and remunerative than spending her days as a model. She thought she could act. I consulted Leighton. His first exclamation was, "Impossible! with that voice! How could she go on the stage?" I thought the voice, which had a singularly unpleasant Cockney twang in it, might be trained, as I had observed how very eager she was to learn to speak in a more educated manner, quite realising her own shortcomings. Leighton came round to my opinion; and, once having made up his mind that she was bent on educating herself for the stage, showed himself as ever the most unselfish and untiring befriender. Meanwhile four of these beautiful children became useful to him as models. From the second daughter [Edith Ellen Pullen (age 13)], who afterwards married an artist (age 22), Leighton painted "Memories," reproduced here; from the third, Hetty (age 11), he painted "Simœtha the Sorceress" and "Farewell"; but it was the youngest, Lina (age 6), quite a small child, who delighted him most, and who had a rare, refined charm which must have captivated any child-lover. She took the place of little Connie Gilchrist (age 13) of the "Cleobouline," the "Music Lesson," and other of the earlier paintings, in the later pictures. She sat for "Sister's Kiss," "The Light of the Harem," "Letty," the sleeping group in "Cymon and Iphigenia," "Kittens," in the friezes "The Dance" and "Music," and "A little girl with golden hair and pale blue eyes" -

"Yellow and pale as ripened corn

Which Autumn's kiss frees—grain from sheath

Such was her hair, while her eyes beneath,

Showed Spring's faint violets freshly born."

Robert Browning.

VVHxNnGcalso the child (age 20) in "Captive Andromache." Of the sister-mother of this little family, beautiful as she was, Leighton declared he never could paint a successful likeness, notwithstanding his attempts in "Viola,"[75] "Bianca," "Serenely wandering in a trance of sober thought," and "Miss Dene." Her very beautiful throat, however, was reproduced worthily in many of his subject-pictures, and the true dramatic instinct she undoubtedly possessed enabled her to be of help in such pictures as "Antigone," "Return of Persephone," and the last picture, the passionate "Clytie." But however useful she proved as a model, Leighton never for a moment thought of his own interests before the serious welfare of the young girl's life. He realised that if she was to make a successful actress, it involved serious and concentrated study. One morning I received the following note:—

Dear Mrs. Barrington,—Miss Pullen (age 20) will be very happy to sit to you on Monday, and will talk over the rest when you meet. You are very kind about it all, as is, indeed, your wont.

P.S.—You see my harassed old head does sometimes remember what I promise.

Note 75. As portraits, the two heads Watts painted from "Dorothy Dene (age 20)" were superior to those Leighton painted.

We succeeded in making the little girl work exclusively at her acting, and Leighton, Watts, and I frequently visited the school where she was being trained under Mrs. Glyn, to hear her and her fellow-students perform the pieces they had studied. Eventually she appeared in London and in the provinces, and quickly communicated all her successes and failures to Leighton and to me. Constant notes passed between us as we each received news from our young protégée, or when we thought some fresh step might be taken for her advantage. For instance, one of these notes runs as follows:—

Dear Mrs. Barrington,—It has occurred to me that I perhaps seemed this morning what I certainly did not mean to seem, churlish in regard to that letter from Irving.[77] If Miss Pullen is now ripe for him to hear her—this is the most important point (for to go to him too soon would be the most unwise thing possible in view of her getting a good engagement)—and if, having declined a letter on a previous occasion, she has any unnecessary scruple about now asking for one, it will be quite enough for you to tell me from her that she wishes for one, and I will at once write it. Kemp will always be able to tell you where to get at me. I can write as easily from Vienna or Constantinople as from here.

Note 77. Among Leighton's correspondence is the following interesting letter from Irving, who was an ardent admirer of Leighton's, and was among the first to join the committee formed to preserve his house for the public.

15a Grafton Street, Bond Street, W.,

January 1, 1889.

Dear Sir Frederic,—I am glad that you are coming to "Macbeth," and I wish you had been with us on Saturday.

The seats you wish for I enclose, though I should ever look upon it as a great privilege to welcome you myself.

Ellen Terry's performance is remarkable, and perfectly delightful after the soulless and insipid imitations of Sarah Siddons to which we have been accustomed.

You will find the cobwebs of half a century brushed away.

There is an amusing article in to-day's Standard, which overshoots the mark, and clearly shows how offensive it is to some minds to be earnest and conscientious in one's work. But I need not point this out to you.—Remaining, my dear Sir Frederic, yours sincerely,

H. Irving.

An engagement for two matinées was made for her début in London.

"Dear Mrs. Barrington, 'Dorothy' acts at the Globe on Monday and Tuesday afternoons," wrote Leighton; "I mean to go on Monday." I took a party of eight to see her, including the late Lord Lytton, who took much interest in the stage. After the performance Leighton wrote to me, "Poor Dorothy was paralysed with terror yesterday—but I hope intelligent people will have seen through that." Again, later, "she is adding, as she deserves, to the number of her friends, several of whom treat her with really maternal kindness." I can indeed very truly endorse Leighton's good opinion. Dorothy and three of her sisters were worthy of all the interest shown in them. They were entirely self-respecting, conscientious children, most affectionately devoted to one another, and striving their utmost to improve in every sense, and make themselves worthy of the help they received. Naturally they adored their chief benefactor, Leighton. Unfortunately, Dorothy, notwithstanding dramatic gifts, great perseverance and intelligence, lacked charm on the stage. Her very beautiful face and throat were not seen to advantage, as they were hardly in proportion with her figure, which was short and too stiffly set to move gracefully on the stage. Leighton in fun always called her "the little tee-to-tum," or when she wore a large hat, "the mushroom." As he felt vitality waning and mental effort a greater strain, the little family of Pullens had to Leighton somewhat the same resting charm that Italy had in early days, when he turned from the German austerity in study to the relaxation of the dolce far niente of Italian national life. "I go to see them," he used to say, "when I want to let my back hair down and get off the stilts." When Leighton was dying, his sister, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, took Dorothy into his room. He was too ill to speak, but only smiled to her in answer to her saying, "If I have or ever will do anything worth doing, I owe it all to you—everything I owe to you." It is almost unnecessary, as it is distasteful, to mention that this beautiful paternal attitude Leighton displayed towards these orphans was made the subject of ugly gossip—for are there not always the misérables of the world who seek the ugly rather than the beautiful? misinterpreting the beautiful so that it should come within the range of their scandalous arrows, more especially when the darts attack a man in the high position Leighton held. Some of these offshoots of envy and jealousy came within earshot of Leighton's sisters, who thought it well to warn him in a letter that such malice was in the air. He wrote a lengthy answer, ending with the following sentence: "But let me turn away from the whole thing, it has pained me more than enough. I implore you not to reopen it. On the only thing that matters, you are absolutely assured, if you believe in my honour. If you hear these rumours again, meet them with a flat, ungarnished denial. Let that suffice—it does for me." To a lady friend he wrote still more explicitly, in order, as he said, that there should exist in his own handwriting an implicit and unmitigated denial of the malicious falsehood. Leighton never knew under whose auspices this scandal was conducted. As is the case invariably, it was impossible to put the finger exactly on the culprit—for these fulsome things have to be propagated under the rose, in order that they should get a firm root before an authoritative denial can be given. However, after Leighton's death, the lie was stated more boldly—even directly to his two sisters. It is necessary, therefore, to include in the account of his life the full and truthful version of the kind and fatherly protection Leighton gave to this family.

From the "Manchester Courier," August 30, 1890.

Sir Frederic Leighton on the Management of Art Galleries.

To the Editor of the Manchester Courier.

Sir,—On the 4th and 6th inst. I published two long letters on the management of art galleries, of some part of which this is a summary:—No one can intelligently and fully enjoy any picture or statue unless he has some measure of three kinds of knowledge. (1) He must know something about the subject represented, or he cannot enjoy the expression by the work of the artist's feeling and thought; (2) he must know something of the processes of the art in which the artist has worked, or he cannot know what effects the artist sought or might have sought; (3) he must know something of the history of the art, or he cannot understand what elements in the work are due to the artist himself and what to his time and place; or enjoy at all some of the finest works ever produced. For the giving of the second and third of these three kinds of knowledge there ought to be subsidiary collections in our Manchester galleries, kept distinct from the principal collection, and for the giving of the first kind there ought to be several distinct subsidiary collections, of which some should be for the purpose of giving knowledge of flowers, birds, trees, and the other beautiful objects which are "elements of landscape." As a very large proportion of the people of all large towns are ignorant of all that is interesting in nature, and of all that is noblest and most interesting in history and in contemporary life, and as pictures can very effectively give some knowledge both of nature and of the deeds of men while fulfilling their special function, which is to give certain kinds of æsthetic pleasure, the principal collections in our galleries ought to be used for the purpose of giving knowledge of nature and of noble human nature. A gallery of good pictures of the kind would, by reason of the interest of the subjects represented, attract so much attention that the public would to a far larger extent than now feel the influence of the artistic qualities of pictures. In order to obtain pictures of suitable subjects, the directors of art galleries, instead of only buying pictures in exhibitions and studios as they now do, should, as a rule, revert to the custom which prevailed in the ages when art influenced life deeply, and should ask artists to paint pictures of prescribed subjects. I believe that they would get thus better pictures and at lower prices. Many artists certainly would be at their best when they knew they were working to enlighten a great community, and would gladly accept a moderate price for a picture ordered for a public gallery.

I sent a copy of my letters to Sir Frederic Leighton, and asked him if he would let me have his opinion respecting the principal suggestions contained in them. With the great kindness which distinguishes him, Sir Frederic Leighton has written me the following letter, which contains advice so valuable that I am sure every person in Manchester who cares for art will be glad to have an opportunity of reading it:—

"Dear Mr. Horsfall,—I must apologise for my very long delay in answering your letter—a delay due in great part to lack of time, but in part also to the fact that your questions could not be answered hastily, or without due consideration. I may say at the outset that I very warmly appreciate the depth of your interest in the subject of art, and the constancy of your efforts to spread its influence in Manchester; and I am glad to be able to add that on not a few points, I find myself in harmony with your views.

"It is evidently not possible for me to touch, within the compass of a letter, upon more than one or two of the matters with which you deal in your two long communications to the Manchester press; and, indeed, the question on which you mainly dilate, and in regard to which I am not wholly at one with you, would require to be dealt with at far greater length than is possible to me here. I must content myself with saying what little seems to me sufficient to indicate the grounds of my dissent from you. But first I should like to say a word in passing on the vexed subject of copies.

"There can be no doubt that it would be an immense advantage to those who cannot travel—that is to say, to the enormous majority of men—to bring before their eyes, through reproductions—if these reproductions were absolutely faithful—the masterpieces to which distance deprives them of access. This is, in the case of sculpture and architectural detail, in a large measure achieved by the means of plaster casts, though it is needless to point out that the capacity of the material robs the reproduction of much of the life and light of the original. With pictures the case is different. The subtle and infinite charm which resides in the handiwork of a master, and in the absence of which half the personality of his work is lost, can hardly ever be rendered by a copyist. For this reason the overwhelming majority of even reasonable copies is to my mind worse than useless. Such copies can kindle no enthusiasm, and they virtually misinform the student. It has always seemed to me that the best way to acquaint young people with pictures which they are not able to see is to put before them photographs of the originals, which, besides giving design, form, and light and shade, with absolute fidelity, render, in a wonderful way, the executive physiognomy of the work; and by the side of these photographs free, but faithful, coloured sketches of the pictures should hang, giving the scheme, harmony, and tone of the colour, but not, like finished copies, professing an identity with the original, which is never achieved.

"Turning now to what you say on the subject of the acquisition of works for a public gallery, I should at once dissuade you from any idea of giving definite commissions—I mean commission to paint specially selected subjects. I have always felt very strongly that artistic work, to be of real value, must be the outcome of entirely spontaneous impulse in an artist. I believe that in the immense majority of cases work done under any other conditions lacks vitality and sincerity, and will not show the worker at his best. A subject which does not impose itself unbidden on the artist will never elicit his full powers. I have myself on that ground for many years past invariably declined to paint under any kind of restriction.

"Neither does your idea of—practically—refusing encouragement to any work which does not commemorate a noble deed, and, if possible, the noble deed of a well-known personage, commend itself to me. It seems to me, on the contrary, to be a harmful one, inasmuch as it misdirects the mind of a people, already little open to pure artistic emotion, as to the special function of Art. This can, of course, only be the doing of something which it alone can achieve. Now, direct ethical teaching is specially the province of the written and the spoken word. A page or two from the pen of a great and nobly-inspired moralist—a Newman, say, or a Liddon, or a Martineau—can fire us more potently and definitely for good than a whole gallery of paintings. This does not, of course, mean that a moral lesson may not indirectly be conveyed by a work of art, and thereby enhance its purely moral value. But it cannot be the highest function of any form of expression to convey that which can be more forcibly, more clearly, and more certainly brought home through another channel. You may no more make this direct explicit ethical teaching a test of worth in a painted work than you may do so in the case of instrumental music; indeed by doing so you will turn the attention of those before whom you place it from the true character of its excellence—you will, so to speak, mis-focus their emotional sensibility. It is only by concentrating his attention on essentially artistic attributes that you can hope to intensify in the spectator that perception of what is beautiful in the highest, widest, and fullest sense of the word, through which he may enrich his life by the multiplication of precious moments akin to those which the noblest and most entrancing music may bestow on him through different forms of æsthetic emotion. It is in the power to lift us out of ourselves into regions of such pure and penetrating enjoyment that the privilege and greatness of art reside. If, in a fine painting, a further wholly human source of emotion is present, and if that emotion is more vividly kindled in the spectator by the fact that he is attuned to receive it by the excitement of æsthetic perception through the beauty of the work of art as such, that work will gain no doubt in interest and in width of appeal. But it will not therefore be of a loftier order than a great work in architecture or music—than the Parthenon, for instance, or a symphony of Beethoven, neither of which preaches a direct moral lesson.

"But I am being led away into undue length without the possibility, after all, of doing more than roughly indicate the grounds of my dissent from a rather vital article of your creed—a dissent which will, I am afraid, jar on you in proportion to the great sincerity with which you hold your faith. I may say, by the way, that I dwelt at rather greater length on this very subject in my first presidential address to the Royal Academy, delivered on 16th December 1879.—And, herewith, I remain, dear Mr. Horsfall, yours very truly,

Fred Leighton.

"2 Holland Park Road, Kensington, "August 18, 1890."

The following letter is Mr. Horsfall's answer to the one published in the Manchester Courier, August 30, 1890:—

Swanscoe Park, near Macclesfield, August 20, 1890.

Dear Sir Frederic Leighton,—It is most kind of you to answer my letter so fully. I shall show my gratitude by doing my best to make your counsel as useful as possible to Manchester.

The system which you suggest for giving some idea of masterpieces which are too distant to be visited seems to me to be admirable, and I cannot but believe that it will be adopted in one of our Manchester Galleries.

With regard to the advisableness of choosing for public galleries chiefly pictures of noble subjects respecting which most people have, when they see the pictures, or can be expected to gain, some knowledge, though I feel the great weight of your argument, I am still of the same opinion. I may say this without presumption, because the great question which we are discussing: "How can Art be made most useful to England?" involves the two other questions: "What are the best conditions under which artists can work?" and "How can the best work of artists be made to influence the rest of the community?" In considering the second of these questions an artist is, I think, impeded by his special gifts, while I, not an artist, aided by the qualités de mes défauts, and by the results of several years of experiment in the use of pictures, believe myself to have gained much trustworthy knowledge! Speaking from the standpoint which I have thus reached, I should say that whilst the artist is most conscious of the analogy which exists between painting and instrumental music, there is really a much closer analogy between painting and poetry, or between painting and song, and that it is this closer analogy which should guide the action of the directors of public galleries. Painting deals, while instrumental music does not, with subjects respecting which we think and feel, and it must accept the results for good and evil of this; its products cannot be, as instrumental music is, without definite relation to our feeling and thought, and a simply neutral relation being impossible, the relation must be ennobling or debasing in some degree. I think that my analysis of the conditions which must be fulfilled if the relations is to be an ennobling one was sound.

In asking that painters shall choose subjects pure and lovely "and of good report," I am not asking that painting shall leave its special function—shall cease to do that which it can do better than any other art; but only that it shall recognise that its function differs from that of instrumental music, and is the creation in us of a symphony of feeling or emotional thought and enjoyment of form and colour, and human skill, and love of beauty.—With very many thanks, I am, dear Sir Frederic Leighton, yours sincerely,

T.C. Horsfall.

2 Holland Park Road, Kensington, W., August 22, 1890.

Dear Mr. Horsfall,—I have to thank you for your kind and interesting letter of the 20th.

Knowing of old the views you entertain, and the radical divergence which exists between them and my own, I had fully anticipated the spirit of your answer; in fact, it almost seemed to me when I wrote at some length the other day that I ought to explain that it was out of deference to your wish and in high appreciation of the long and earnest thought which you have given to a grave subject that I did so, rather than in the hope that my views would carry conviction or commend themselves to you.

The divergence between us is, as I said, at the root of things, and is one on which I do not think experience either qualifies or disqualifies us to judge. The question is not what effect pictures may have had on certain people, but what the proper function of Art is. The question is theoretic rather than practical. If the primary function of Art is definitely didactic, if its first duty is to inculcate a specific moral truth, then, indeed, there is, as you very rightly say, no neutral ground. Either the teaching is wholesome or it is mischievous.

Meanwhile, our brief correspondence only throws into stronger light the impossibility to which I believe I alluded in my first letter, of dealing with such a subject within the compass of a letter, and in broad and sweeping outlines. So, for instance, when I used instrumental music as a parallel, I did not for a moment mean to describe its province as being identical with that of painting. Neither, on the other hand, would you, I presume, in instancing song on your side wish to be taken too literally; for you would have, according to your theory, to excommunicate, let us say, for instance, Schubert, the king of song-writers, who has played on more varied chords of feeling and imagination than any other musician of his kind, and of whom I am not aware that he ever inculcated (I feel pretty certain that he never meant to inculcate) a definite moral lesson.

But I am beginning again. Let me at once draw rein, and abandoning a barren, however interesting controversy, remain, dear Mr. Horsfall, yours sincerely,

Fred Leighton.

2 Holland Park Road, Kensington, W., August 28, 1890

Dear Mr. Horsfall,—Before starting for my holiday, of which I stand in much need, I write one line to acknowledge and thank you for your amiable and interesting letter, which shows me, I am very glad to see, that we are much less divided in opinion than I should have gathered from what you had previously written, and indeed printed.

Judgments given as absolute in your letters to the Manchester press are shown by the commentary which your last letter furnishes to be in a manner conditional, and without that commentary your words were rather misleading. I was not unnaturally a little startled—I, who do not think a "subject" in the ordinary sense of the word imperative at all—to find you condemn the purchase of Yeames's "Arthur and Hubert" (which, for the element of human emotion, certainly satisfies the Aristotelian demand in reference to tragedy), because the emotion does not turn on an heroic act; and I may say, in passing, that I am unable to see how a scene in which deep pity for the helpless is aroused, can be justly described as a "horror which it is foolish to try to realise."

Meanwhile, I fully feel the practical difficulty which your last letter describes. It is a difficulty of the most perplexing kind. For it must be evident that whilst with a people of strong moral fibre and an almost entire absence of æsthetic sensibility—at all events, on the side of form—you may indirectly insinuate some perception of the beautiful—of that essence which lifts us out of ourselves—under the cover and pretext of a moral emotion—we cannot ignore the danger of producing the exactly opposite effect of confirming the dully-strung spectator in the belief that the stirring of that moral emotion is in fact the raison d'être of the work. One is, of course, glad, as the world goes, that the doors of righteousness should be opened, even by the wrong key; but one would still more desire that the door which yields only to that key should not itself remain closed.

Pray do not take the trouble to acknowledge these parting words: but believe me, very truly yours,

Fred Leighton.

Leighton, needless to say, took infinite interest in Sir Henry Tate's splendid scheme for memorialising the success of a commercial life, by presenting to his nation a gallery in which the best British works of art might find a home, and, moreover, by the gift to the public of the nucleus of such a collection. It was truly amazing to see the amount of time and trouble which Leighton devoted to this scheme, considering how full to overflowing his life already appeared to be. But, whether it was a question of a splendid enterprise, or a struggling artist of whom the world had never heard, or even an earnest amateur, once his sense aroused that he could be of help, Leighton manufactured time somehow to give that help.[78] But the high-minded, public-spirited view Sir Henry Tate took of the responsibilities of wealth specially enlisted Leighton's sympathies, and he evinced an intense interest in helping to work out the great idea.

Note 78. Needless to say that time was invariably forthcoming to welcome and entertain the friends he loved. The following letter from Costa gives a picture of his delight in so doing:—

London, Dec. 10, 1888, 2 Holland Park Road.

"Dearest Tonina,—A thousand thanks for the twelve letters which I have found awaiting me here.

"I have just arrived from the station, where I found the President, who was shedding light all round him, all radiant with his white beard. Note that the train arrived at a quarter past five, and there was an hour's drive from the station to his house, and then he had to dine, and at half-past seven he was due at the Academy for a distribution of prizes to the students, where I, too, was to have accompanied him. However, in London there was one of those fogs which put a stop to all traffic, and it took us an hour and three-quarters to reach home.

"The cabman had to get down and lead the horse; with one hand he guided the animal, which was slipping on the ice, and with the other he held a lantern. What darkness,—the gloom of hell itself! Boys holding torches and shouting, showed us the way; foot passengers called out, 'Hi there! look where you're going to!' but, in spite of everything, the cabman with his lantern banged into a railing.

"At last we arrived at our destination, having discussed all the way along the speech which Leighton made at Liverpool. The dinner was ready, and eaten hurriedly, with the obligatory champagne. I had eaten nothing since the morning. Whilst dining, I got off accompanying him to the Academy, pleading my rheumatic pains, and I ate like a famished and attentive dog. But the President, spite of the hurry he was in, never once ceased from tracing the iron line along which I am to run as long as I am with him, and so he has set me down for a trip on Saturday.

"Good-night; I am going to bed, as I am deadly sleepy. Did you receive a letter of mine from Castle Howard?

"Thank for me the kind writers of the twelve little letters; in the midst of these fogs they have been twelve stars to me. A kiss to dear Tonachino. Frederic was much amused by Georgia's letter, and embraces you all.

"Love to all, from Ninaccio, who has the greatest possible desire to repass the Channel."—(See "Giovanni Costa: His Life, Work, and Times," by Olivia Rossetti Agresti.)

Another matter which concerned him very seriously was the fact that a work by the greatest sculptor England can claim—Alfred Stevens—purporting to memorialise our great warrior, the Duke of Wellington, was allowed to remain unfinished and shunted away in a side chapel of St. Paul's Cathedral, instead of being completed and placed in the position for which it was designed. The following letters to Mr. Henry Wells show that in 1888 Leighton had induced others to view the matter in the same light:—

2 Holland Park Road, August 12, 1888.

Dear Wells,—The list for the Memorial Committee is practically complete, and though it is not in every particular the list which you or I might have drawn up, it is a good one, and as I told you I think in a previous note, I have not liked to interfere too much, as Agnew has so zealously taken the work on himself. I meant to send you the list, but have cleverly come away from home (I am writing at the Senior United Service Club) without it. I have of course asked Agnew to add his own name; for the Academy I have proposed to him the four Trustees—not as Trustees, but because they offer a ready-made group in a body where none is afore or after—Sir J. Gilbert, Linton, and Coutts Lindsay will complete the artistic section for the present. The next step, as I have suggested to Agnew, is to get at the Dean of St. Paul's—this I have offered to do. A chairman will have to be appointed; I should suggest, or rather have suggested, the D. of Cleveland—if he joins; I believe his answer has not yet come in. And there must be a banker: then a letter from the Committee should appear in the Times inviting adhesions and subscriptions, to be published from time to time: is all this in harmony with your own view? Are you not afraid that the moment when "everybody" (for our purposes it is everybody) is leaving town or has left it—I go myself in a few days—is a very bad one? Many people lose sight of their Times, or would not write from the country or foreign parts. How would it strike you to wait a month or two, having now laid the foundation? It is a nice point. There are pros, but there are also cons. With all good wishes, yours sincerely,

Fred Leighton.

You have seen no doubt in your Times that we mean to exhibit our lamented friend's work in a worthy manner.

P.P.S.—By-the-bye, S. Kensington ought to be represented. I will ask Agnew to write to T. Armstrong.

The following extracts may prove of interest and value to painters.[81]

ydWop8i08th

Dear Prof. Church,—I write to acknowledge your letter of the 6th, the information in which (Jaune de Naples) is to me of very great importance indeed. I believe Hills to be really anxious to help us in the matter of medium. I should be peculiarly glad if we could send forth a thoroughly trustworthy, hard-drying, supple, and not yellowing vehicle. Let us consider it. I find myself using a mixture, roughly, of equal parts of amber varnish (Roberson's) and oil of spike; and, say, a sixth of the whole of poppy oil (Roberson's): that is, 3/7 amber, 3/7 spike, 1/7 poppy; but I vary according to the work; and again I don't know what Roberson's amber varnish is, it does not seem very drying. Of course one would want a good middle drying power, to which, mixing the ingredients, one might add any one at will. I think that "Siccatif de Haarlem" has about that middle quality, if I remember it rightly. It is, I think, copal, poppy oil, and turps.; but it seemed to me to yellow a little, why, I don't know; poppy should not darken. Chromophile is delightful up to a certain point, and then the work sinks extraordinarily blind and tallowy; and as you want something in the way of varnish at the end, it seems desirable to carry that or some varnish in a moderate degree right through. Chromoph. becomes a little milky in a bottle with spir. of turp., and turns bright green when left in a dipper.

Your proposal to report to us annually is very valuable, and could be worked to the general advantage.

Note 81. The questions raised in these letters have been very fully answered in the third edition of Professor Church's "Chemistry of Paints and Painting" (see Index), published in 1901.

April 21, 1888.

I am so much enamoured with the method, so far as vehicle is concerned, which I have used during the last year, that I should like to feel quite certain that it is absolutely safe. I use a "single-primed" canvas, and underpaint with "Bell's medium" and rect. spir. turps., which, under your advice, I have in small bottles, so that using it freely a bottle lasts a very short time, and the stuff is therefore always fresh. The mixture I use up to the end (except when I now and then use the pigment alone), and letting the turps. rather preponderate as I advance. I have found to my amazement that this mixture dries even in winter weather excellently, and that I can use with it even scarlet madder and aureolin, which, at least the former, hitherto I never attempted to use except stiffened with amber or copal; and I further find that this mixture, though of course it "sinks" to some extent (and especially with the blues), in the main bears up very fairly, incomparably better than I should have expected, and in fact quite enough. Before beginning to paint I rub over the part each time with Bell's medium and saliva nearly equal parts, or say five oil to four saliva beaten up with the knife on the palette to a white mucilage. This, if left alone, makes a good varnish, and is delightful to paint into. So far, so good; at least I suppose so. (Do you see any elements of danger? cracking? darkening?) But at the end something must go over it all, if only to lock it up (I suppose), certainly to get uniform gloss and strength. I propose in the Academy to put Roberson's medium over the whole of my large one and to retouch with the same. A portrait on to which I don't intend to work I should cover with mastic and a little poppy oil; there is no harm in this, I suppose, and the small quantity of mastic is not likely to yellow, is it? I know this mixture won't come off, but why should it?

Foggia, October 15, 1895.

You will be surprised to get a letter from me with an Italian superscription; I am writing thus early before my return to save time. When I was in Venice the other day, Van Haanen spoke to me, with approval, of a certain vehicle, of which I had already heard before vaguely, the invention of the French painter, Vibert. You probably know of it, as the subject of media has occupied you. There are, it appears, three forms of this medium: the vehicle for painting, the medium for painting into in retouching, and the final varnish. As far as I understood Van Haanen in a hurried conversation—he was a little vague—the painting medium contains no gum, only, he seemed to think, petroleum and oil; I assume that in the final "vernis" there is gum of some kind.

I am perfectly satisfied with Bell's medium and fresh turpentine for the very little use I make of vehicle in painting; but there is always the difficulty of the final varnish in the Academy. I don't like risking mastic or copal so soon on work which contains nothing but oil (and if I ever do use a little, I put poppy oil with it), and the result is that I generally varnish with Roberson's medium, which is safe, but I fear a little inclined to yellow in time.

Now what I want you kindly to tell me, my dear Church, is the exact composition of the three Vibert media, and your opinion about the safety of using all three in the prescribed order; and this I should like to know on my return at the beginning of November (hence my haste in writing), and also whether I can safely use these vehicles on work begun in my usual medium.

It is just possible you may not have heard of the Vibert vehicles; if so, I would ask you to be so kind as to obtain (of course at my expense) a bottle of each of the mixtures and to test them carefully.

A line to say this has reached you would find me at the Hôtel Royal Mazzeri, Via 20 Settembre, Rome.

With kind regards and anticipated thanks.