ainter, but I am always striving to finish my work up to my first
conception."

There are many mansions in the city of Art, and if the one of Lord
Leighton's building was not to the taste of all his contemporaries, the
edifice can be left to await the final test of years. Fashions in taste
change rapidly, and much of his finish that finds disfavour to-day may
in time charm once again. A career overburdened by official honour was
destined to provoke a certain amount of envious protest; but as a man,
no voice has urged a word against his ideally perfect performance, not
merely of his official duties, but of others which indeed were laid upon
him by his position. These he obeyed without ostentation--almost without
men's knowledge. His kindly help, by commendation or by commission given
to young artists; his broad and tolerant view of work conceived in
direct opposition to all he valued himself, was not hidden from his
friends. "It is with a sense of amazement," a critic writes in a private
letter, "that one afternoon after a protest that nothing he said was to
be published, I heard him discuss the prospects and the works of our
ultra-modern painters. Even in fields beyond his sympathy he picked out
the chaff from the wheat, and was judicially accurate in his verdicts of
the difference between 'tweedle-dum' and 'tweedle-dee,' both one would
have said, entirely unknown to him."

In Lord Leighton British artists lost a truer friend than many of them
suspected, one who wielded his power justly to all, and was more often
on the side of progress than not, a power for reform that can never be
estimated at its actual value, working within a highly conservative
body, full of vested interests and prejudice--as is the habit of
academies of Art and Literature abroad no less than at home. That
Leighton, who controlled its destinies so long, was loyal to its true
interests, and never forgot the institution with which he was associated
so many years is evident from his last words: "Give my love to all at
the Academy."

[Illustration: BOOKPLATE OF LORD LEIGHTON. DESIGNED BY R. ANNING BELL.]

APPENDIX I

LIST OF PRINCIPAL WORKS

_With date and place of exhibition_

1850 (_circa_). *CIMABUE FINDING GIOTTO IN THE FIELDS OF FLORENCE.[15]
(49-1/2 x 37 in.) Steinle Institute (Frankfort).

1850. THE DUEL BETWEEN ROMEO AND TYBALT. (37 x 50 in.)

1851 (_circa_). THE DEATH OF BRUNELLESCHI. Steinle Institute.

1851. [EA