departure for Italy he had acquired in German artistic circles a wide reputation as being able to draw anything. The earlier studies from the nude show a conscientious adherence to clumsy German models, and are interesting chiefly for their faithfulness. But he grew rapidly more and more distinguished in his style.

As for draperies in that school, they were but little considered. A student was expected to be able to invent them, and Leighton with his perfectly clear head was a great adept at it. There are several elaborate drawings of that time. with complicated draperies, done entirely de chic, as he told me himself, which if rather stiff look astonishingly well. The most remarkable one is the water color of the "Plague of Florence," in which he assured me that all the draperies again were done out of his head.

When he left Germany to continue his studies in Rome he learnt the error of evolving draperies out of his moral consciousness and never again trusted himself to put in anything without warrant from nature. It is true that the folds were not such as would naturally fall about the figure. They were carefully and even elaborately arranged. He would spend hours in arranging folds which he would copy in half an hour; but he never drew again out of his head. Experience had taught him the danger of trusting to intuition, as leading surely to mannerism, and it took shape in a remark of his late in life on being shown a student's drawing with the recommendation that the student had done it all out of his head. "How lucky," he said, "to be able to get it out!"

Careful lead-pencil drawing, so much practised by Ingres, Delaroche, and the French school generally in the first half of this century, was still the fashion when Leighton was a student. It is a material which lends itself to, and indeed demands, a perfectly definite outline, and in all the Academy studies done in pencil and the exercises in composition done for his master, Steinle, one always notices a remorseless con

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tour. The finer of his performances in this method begin in the years 1853 and 1854, during his stay in Rome, before his success with the Cimabue. The studies of hands, of which there are a number, are wonderful in their perfect delicacy and firmness of outline. Many heads also belong to this period-heads of his friends, male and female, and of models-and a most extraordinary piece of landscape representing the Albano hills, all modelled with astounding precision.

But the finest of all, except the famous "Lemon Tree," which is in silver point and was done in 1859, are the product of a visit to Algeria in 1857. I do not believe that more perfect drawings, better defined or more entirely realized, than these studies of heads of Moors, of camels, etc., were ever executed by the hand of man. They are not of the nature fashionable in this year of grace. They are not particularly summary, nor do they look as if they had been done in a moment or without any trouble. The drawings in question are as complete as if they came from the hand of Lionardo or Holbein.

Of the "Lemon Tree" and of the "Byzantine Well," another drawing in silver point. Mr. Ruskin says, "These two perfect early drawings determine for you without appeal the question respecting necessity of delineation as the first skill of a painter. Of all our present masters Sir Frederic Leighton delights most in softly blended colors, and his ideal of beauty is more nearly that of Correggio than any since Correggio's time. But you see by what precision of terminal outline he at first restrained and exalted his beautiful gift of 'Vaghezza.'

After this period for working drawings, not for show but for use in his pictures, he took to using chalks and tinted paper. It is far the readiest method. His industry in this material is staggering. For the Daphnephoria, besides finished clay models of a group of three figures, and of one single figure, there remain over thirty-six drawings; for "Cimon and Iphigenia," two models

and fifty-six drawings; for the captive Andromache, fifty-nine; for "Solitude," a single figure, nine; for the "Return of Proserpine," nineteen, and so on. Few of these are mere sketches. Most of them are careful and for their purpose finished drawings. At times, one must admit, his delight in handling the pencil ran away with him, and he would repeat a whole study for no apparent purpose, but as a rule he kept rigidly to a severe course of progressive definition. Besides working drawings there are numberless designs and projects for pictures in various materials. Some are done without models, as exercises in composition; others are elaborated sketches. Enchanting groups will be found amongst them, full of tenderness and graceful fancy. During the intervals of work when the model was resting he made innumerable little sketches as he or she moved about the studio, and it was from notes made at these moments that several of his most natural and graceful figures were derived. These charming little suggestions, often several on one sheet, will recall to many the best of those bewitching terra-cottas which have been recovered of late years at Tanagra. They are slightly but sufficiently indicated, and generally with a certain insistence on the silhouette.

P

This is a point worth pausing upon for a moment. The insistence on the silhouette is even more marked in what I have called the exercise in composition. He considered it of the first importance and made it the subject of his most anxious study. "The outline," he said once to me, "should be always changing in its subordinate parts, but ic should be simple in its general contour." Careful observation of the

studies for the Daphnephoria and the South Kensington frescoes will reveal how he acted on this maxim. Not only single figures but whole groups are contained in one carefully considered bounding line. It is, perhaps, most obvious of all in the "Arts of War," which is, therefore, well worth the close attention of any student who has VOL. XII. 624

LIVING AGE.

sufficient power of analysis to sift the wheat from the chaff in it.

To assist his outline Leighton made a most scientific study of draperies. In the heavy materials of the clothing used in the period in which he placed the "Arts of War" he found opportunities for breadth and enrichment of the contour, of which he made liberal use. For the "Arts of Peace" and for the Daphnephoria, which are placed in the classical period, he employed softer tissues, which fill out the figure less opulently, but the same care is discernible to conceal such parts of the figure as would look poor in that particular pose, and to fill up gaps that would give a meagre effect.

It was this quality of silhouette which gave his figures their charm and grace. In the present moment, when impressionism and painting as distinct from designing holds, and is likely to hold, the field in England, it is well to remind the rising generation that their predecessors had some merits of their own, though of a different kind. Good outline-designing may not be one of those virtues which tell most in a gallery, but it is not to be despised.

He frequently admitted that he was never so much at home with the brush as with the point. Whatever he may have been with the first, no one, after seeing this collection, will deny that he was a master of the latter. There is no trace of the square blocking which is taught in the modern French schools, the effect of which is to train the eye to a certain dry correctness which is perceptible in all but the very best French drawing. The great Italians never drew in this chip-chop fashion, and their line, if occasionally over-rich, is never poor. Even accomplished artists are apt to overlook the difference

between good drawing and fine drawing. I have heard it said by some who should know better that such a drawing as the "Lemon Tree," or other of those studies of plant life in which Leighton delighted, is a mere exercise of patience. It undoubtedly is an exercise of patience, and a severe one, but it is a great deal more. To appreciate the

vitality of the curves and twists of the leaves, and to follow them with such exquisite fineness of undulating line, is not given to all. It needs a hand like that ineffabile mano sinistra of Lionardo's to do it.

Our artist's handling of black and white continued to increase in vigor and facility until, in the studies made for "The Sea giving up her Dead," "Perseus and Andromeda," "The Phoenicians in Cornwall," and for other designs of the last few years, we have the most powerful things he ever did. It would not be unfair to say that they surpass any drawings ever made in England.

The great group of "The Sea giving up her Dead" is one which no other painter in this country could have attempted with any chance of success. It shows astounding mastery. Unfortunately, in common with some other designs done by Leighton for St. Paul's, it did not find favor with the clerical authorities. It was dubbed irreligious, a criticism which it is not for me to dispute beyond saying that it applies with equal force to the Sistine ceiling. Anyhow it was a grand piece of work, and it would be much to be regretted if no use is ever made in St. Paul's of the cartoon he executed of it.

Such drawings as those I am now speaking of, or reproductions of them, ought to be hung up in the schools of art all over the country as examples for students. They are invaluable lessons. However eminent a man may be in other departments of the art, in color, in sentiment, or in decorative effect, he can never be called a master of his craft unless he can draw the human figure with facility. The severe training it requires is the only path to thoroughness such as it is the aim of all academies to teach. The study of the human figure is like that of the dead languages. It is not an end in itself. Though occasional nude figures do find their way into exhibitions, they are year by year less welcomed, except it may be as exercises and proofs of proficiency. But the figure remains the indispensable basis of art education,

and the man who can draw and paint it can express anything he has in his heart.

This is a time when it is necessary to bear this in mind. It is the fashion to paint, and every one does it. We are flooded with clever amateurs. There is a quantity of their work in the salon and in the Academy. Too good to be rejected, whatever they do is nevertheless always wanting in "bottom." Nothing is in reserve. Where they excel is in the cheaper and more effective parts of the art, in the light and shade or the color. Now these are just the parts which Leighton left to the last. He spoke of them once to me as "the jam on the bread-and-butter," the solid foundation being the drawing, which amateurs are always in haste to get over. He rather lingered than burried over the earlier stages. But then he was superficial in nothing. Besides the thoroughness of his drawing he had done all he could to perfect himself in other respects. He was learned in all that the Greeks or Italians had done, and had scientifically analyzed their works. He had read everything of value treating of methods and mediums. He had anatomy at his fingers' ends, and his system of procedure was one carefully thought out for the production of the best work in the best way. In fact, he may be held up to younger generations as the very type of the professional craftsman.

When all the evidence of labor given by his drawings is seen it will, I fear, be a shock to many. The belief that an artist's life is an easy one will never be eradicated from the mind of the majority. They will probably continue to think that art is a charming accomplishment, which, if somewhat difficult to acquire, is, when once learnt, a pleasant employment in moments of inspiration. But if anything would bring it home that it is not so, one would suppose it would be these drawings. For here we see a man not only while young and winning his way in the world, but still when loaded with honors and with business, going through the same mill every time he sits down to paint a pic

ture indeed, ever toiling harder and growing more fastidious as he feels the years before him grow fewer, until finally by continual exertion is brought on a fatal malady and death, which, if he would but have consented to take his ease, the doctors think he might have averted.

But Leighton's indomitable character would yield to nothing less than death. Turning over the portfolios we see it written more legibly than if it were set down in a journal. Here was a man pursued with ambition to excel, clearheaded, sparingly emotional, a man of intellect and iron will. If he was not exactly a poet in the sense of displaying a warm sympathy with human nature, he was eminently so in the sense that he had a cult and love for beauty. He had an ideal, which he pursued with an unswerving passion. It was his habit and his creed to keep his pictures generally impersonal, but now and again his heart appeared in them, and once at any rate the springs of his innermost life were committed to canvas in a picture which was the type of his general mental attitude, viz., "The Spirit of the Summits."

S. P. COCKERELL..

From The Speaker.

THE FRENCH WIFE.

Squire Barnard of Castle Barnard was a man filled with the fulness of life. He looked round upon his castle and his pastures, his park-land and his plough-land, and had no more thought to his latter end than the man in the Scriptures. He had an ancient house, from the windows of which he surveyed three counties, and which had been his father's before him, and would be his son's after him. He had the land-hunger and the house-hunger for his own possessions. He was incredibly proud, under his rough exterior, of his name and his race. He was a redfaced, blustering, overbearing man; handsome, if you like the sort-blue

His

eyed, red-haired, white-toothed. friends said that the heart of him was as sound as a nut; others, and these with no cause of disaffection towards him, held him a man whose will was born to over-ride the wills and the rights of the weak. His dogs and his horses knew the lash of his whip, but loved him withal. His servants held him honest, although his face in the stable-yard and the cattle-byre was as good as a high wind.

There was one he was never rough with his French wife. She was little, and merry as a squirrel, with bright, dancing brown eyes, and a pretty manner of appeal that went to one's heart. She hung on Squire Barnard's life like a rose on his coat. She was always prattling to him, or nestling by him with her little brown hand in his great paw, or perched on his chair-arm whispering in his ear some innocent jest, at which he would shout his big laugh and swear that there was never such a girl.

She was more babyish and more witching than her two boys-solemn, serious-eyed, brown-skinned children, beautiful in roundness and health. Those boys were the crown of Squire Barnard's pride. They were called Pierre and Antoine-Peter and Antony the squire said, were names good enough for him. He had them riding their ponies before they were three years of age, and he was as proud of their pluck as he was of their health and beauty.

He had found his French wife abroad -no one quite knew where. It was certain that she seemed to have no relatives; at least, no one out of France ever came to visit her. There was a rumor that Squire Barnard had eloped with her a foolish rumor perhaps; but Nelly Egan, a housemaid at Castle Barnard, swore to the conversation she had heard one morning when she was dusting the inner library and the squire and his wife in the outer had not seen or heard her presence because of the heavy curtains drawn across the arcli between.

The squire was at his papers, his

lady as usual seated on the arm of his chair. For a miracle, she was silent, and after a time the squire seemed to notice so unusual a happening, for Nelly heard him say:

"What, my chicken, silent so long! I shall think thy music is out of season with the blackbird's and the lark's."

She answered nothing, and then, according to Nelly, who must have had her eye between the curtains, he swung her on to his knee, and laid her down on his shoulder as if she were a bit of a child. Then he swore a great oath, which Nelly was too good a Presbyterian to record, that he would have no tears; yet, for all that, he pulled out his big bandanna, and mopped away at the French wife's eyes affectionately.

"It is the birthday of my mother, Robert," she said in broken English, that fell from her lips as prettily as the drops of water from a fountain.

"And what then? I have a birthday in a week from now; and whatever thou askest of me I shall give thee. Is that enough, child?"

He gathered her up closer in his arms, and held her against his rough cheek.

"I would go into France, if I might, and pray my mother's pardon. She is old, and I left her without a word. What would we do, thou and I, if some day our sons should do the like?"

"Thy lady-mother would have none of me," the squire said, with a tremble of anger in his voice, "because I prayed as my fathers had prayed before me. Why dost thou think of her? thou not me?"

Hast

"Yes, yes, Robert," answered the French wife timidly, and lifting a hand to stroke his cheek. "I ought not to weep having so dear a husband."

"And thy lads, thy gift to me. Come to the terrace to see them. Antony is playing with his ball, and Peter, when I last saw him, was setting his pony to jump the sunk fence."

"Oh, my boy," cried the French wife, getting up and running

fast to the door. "He will kill himself! Why dost

thou not bid him, Robert, that he should be careful?"

"Nay," said the squire, following and detaining her, "I will not have my boys taught fear. I would rather to see them dead than afraid. I will let thee go when thou hast gained courage."

The French wife, indeed, was fluttering in his grasp like a snared bird, and turning great eyes of appeal upon him; but though he caught her in his arms and held her close, he was merciless to her. Only when she had promised him not to frighten the boy did he let her go, and then he went with her.

It was Nelly, again, who heard this scrap of conversation between them when she ought to have been minding her own business. The squire had. been away, and on his return had brought his wife a barbaric piece of jewellery. It was his custom to load her with gems and gold. She was thanking him, with her heart in her eyes, and the children were rolling together with the dogs on the hearth-rug. His glance fell upon them, and pride leaped into his eyes.

"Thou hast given me the boys," he said, pointing at them. "I have a right to love thee."

"Thou wouldst love me without the boys, Robert?" she said in alarm.

"I don't know that I could love a childless woman, even thee. What would become of the land, then? Be content, my pretty. Thou art the mother of brave sons, and I adore thee."

Not so long after this, as time goes, Squire Barnard and his cousin James met over a card-table. The two men hated each other, and both were inflamed by drink. Squire Barnard was the loser and was savage. Insult after insult he flung into his cousin's pale, sneering face, which had a look of triumphant malice that almost maddened him. His ill-luck continued, and he grew wilder and more savage. He played his cards amid a shower of oaths, and his insults to the man opposite increased so that James Barnard's veins swelled in his forehead, his lips worked, and into his little grey