ter all its associations. Its floors have been trodden by all that was
most notable in the society of its owner's day, people whose names alone
would be an epitome of our times. It was also the workshop of a great
artist. But, above all, it was the centre of a great influence which
profoundly modified English art.

Whatever judgment the future may pass upon his own productions, the fact
must never be lost sight of that even without them Leighton was a great
man. Intellectually, spiritually, and socially he was the most brilliant
leader and stimulator of artists we have ever seen in England. His
earnest example and lifelong persistence fanned the flame of enthusiasm
among all branches of art workers. He taught Englishmen to study form,
and it was under his encouragement that sculpture, which was fallen so
low, has now risen into so good a place. Finally he did more than anyone
else has done to raise the status of the artist in society.

The house which he built himself was his hobby, and in the refinement
and catholicity of taste it shows, there is so just a reflex of his
characteristics that an account of it is indispensable to any book which
claims to describe the man.

S. PEPYS COCKERELL.

CHAPTER XI

THE ARTIST AND HIS CRITICS

Before closing our record it will be well to quote, as we promised
earlier, some of the contemporary criticism that Sir Frederic's work has
encountered from time to time; and especially the criticism of his
earlier performances, while he was still in the years of his
pre-Academic probation.

As a provocation to criticism, most interesting of all is his picture,
the _Cimabue's Madonna carried in Procession through the Streets of
Florence_, upon which we have already commented. As we may here remind
our readers, it was painted at Rome chiefly, in 1853-4, and was
exhibited at the Academy of 1855. In that year, as good fortune would
have it, Mr. Ruskin issued for the first time, "Notes on some of the
Principal Pictures Exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal Academy." Some
pages of this famous pronouncement are devoted to this very picture, and
we cannot do better than quote freely from a criticism so remarkable.

"This is a very important and very beautiful picture," says Mr. Ruskin.
"It has both sincerity and grace, and is painted on the purest
principles of Venetian art--that is to say, on the calm acceptance of
the whole of nature, small and great, as, in its place, deserving of