hich time he was
ordered abroad for rest and change, being thus unable to preside at the
annual banquet in May, Leighton returned to England apparently
convalescent. Although unable to deliver the biennial presidential
address, which fell due in December, 1895, he met the students on that
occasion, and apologized for not delivering the Discourse which was due,
in these words: "The cloud which has hung over me hangs over me
still."[14]

Early in 1896 a peerage was bestowed upon him, and all the world
applauded the honour conferred on Art in his name. On January 13th,
1896, the news of his death came as a terrible surprise. The new peer,
Baron Leighton of Stretton, was buried with much state at St. Paul's
Cathedral, before men in general had wholly recognized that Lord
Leighton was the popular "Sir Frederic," the President of the Royal
Academy, and one of the most familiar figures at any important
function--at court or elsewhere.

Except perhaps in the case of politicians, who live in some degree by
the public recognition of their personal qualities, it is difficult to
render tribute gracefully and well to a contemporary. But we cannot
close these pages, now, without pausing to recall how fortunate it has
been that English Art, for seventeen years, had as its titular head an
artist whose affluent artistic faculty was but the open sign of a
crowded life, loyal throughout to the great causes, high ideals, and,
let us add, the early friendships, chosen long ago in the mid century.
We are now at that century's end,--an end not without its reproach, as
expressed by a decadence more self-conscious than dignified, more
critical than creative; but in Lord Leighton's Art there was little
diminution in his active energy, and of that finer health and spirit of
life, which is behind all beauty! Like his distinguished friend and
colleague, Mr. G. F. Watts (whose tribute to him as a man and as an
artist has been expressed again and again in eloquent terms), Leighton
remained, in his later period as in his youth, generously alive to all
the things that count, devoted still to the Art, the current life, and
the great national traditions, of his own country.

From another famous colleague, Sir E. J. Poynter, P.R.A., one may fitly
add here the following further sentences of contemporary tribute, which
were written by way of dedication to his "Ten Lectures on Art,"
published some years ago:--"I came to-day from the 'Varnishing Day' at
t