Chapter V: Leighton as President of the Royal Academy (1)

1878-1896

Leighton was at Lerici in the autumn of 1878, visiting his dear old friend Giovanni Costa ("an artist in a hundred--a man in ten thousand," were Leighton's words describing him), when he received a telegram stating that Sir Francis Grant was dead. "The President is dead! Long live the President!" exclaimed Costa. Leighton remained in Italy, sketching landscapes and painting heads--one, the portrait of Costa--till his holiday was over, the end of October. On the 18th of November he was elected President of the Royal Academy. Thirty-five Academicians voted for Leighton, five for Mr. Horsley.

Leighton wrote to his younger sister:--

1878.

DEAREST GUSSY,--You perhaps have heard from Lina that I had an
overwhelming majority, and that the outer world beyond artistic
has warmly received my election, which is of course infinitely
gratifying, but fills me with a dread of disappointing
everybody. Monday I go to Windsor to be knighted. Yes, I got a
first-class gold medal for my statue[58]--at least, it was
awarded, and I shall get it some time. I also don't mind telling
you in _strict confidence_--because it is not yet a _fait
accompli_--that I am, I believe, to have the "ruban" of an
Officier de la Legion d'Honneur. I am so glad, dear, your wrists
are better--may they keep so. Love to old Joseph (Joseph
Joachim) when you see him.

Most treasured of all congratulations were doubtless these lines from his beloved master, Steinle:--

_Translation._]
FRANKFURT AM MAIN,
_December 1, 1878_.

DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND,--To-day I have read in the paper that
the choice of President of the Royal Academy has fallen upon
you, and since I am convinced that this distinguished position
is both appropriate to your services to art, and also certainly
well merited, you must permit an old friend, who remains bound
to you in love only, to offer you his dearest and warmest good
wishes upon this honour. I pray God, that your position may
provide you with great power in your country for good so as to
enable you to encourage the noblest things in art. I am
convinced that you, dear friend, will make a right and fruitful
use of it. I often set my pupils to make enlarged drawings of
single groups from your medieval Equipment for the Defence of
the Town,[59] and rejoice in the admirable studies which you
made for that cartoon. I, dear friend, am in my old age still
active and industrious, and would gladly go on learning. Should
God grant life, I shall next year complete my work on the
Strassburg master, which will demand all my love and strength.
Here we have now built a new gallery, on the other side of the
river Main, and a new studio. The collections are good, and more
suitably accommodated than heretofore, and there is no want of
space for future additions. Perhaps one of your journeys will
bring you again to the old Main town, and so to the arms of your
old friend. My dear President, I repeat my good wishes, and
remain with all my heart, your truly devoted,

EDW. STEINLE.

From his birthplace Leighton received the following announcement:--

BOROUGH OF SCARBOROUGH.

At a meeting of the Council of the Borough of Scarborough, in
the County of York, held in the Town Hall in the said Borough,
on Monday the ninth day of December, 1878,--

Present,--
THE MAYOR (W.C. LAND, Esq.) in the chair,--

It was moved by the Mayor, seconded by Alderman Woodall, and
resolved unanimously: "That this Council learns with peculiar
satisfaction and pleasure of the election of a native of
Scarborough, in the person of SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON, to the
Presidency of the Royal Academy, and respectfully offers to Sir
Frederic its warm congratulations, and records its conviction
that his great talents as an artist, his attainments as a
scholar, and his many striking qualifications, eminently fit him
to adorn the high position to which he has been called."

W.C. LAND, Mayor.

Robert Browning wrote:--

19 WARWICK CRESCENT, W.,
_November 14, 1878_.

DEAR LEIGHTON,--I wish you joy with all my heart, and
congratulate us all on your election. There ought to have been
no sort of doubt as to the result, but the best of us are
misconceived sometimes, though in your case never was a right
more incontestable. All I hope is that your new duties will in
no way interfere with the practice of your Art. I only venture
to write, now, as one who, so many a year ago, saw your
beginning with "Cimabue," and from that time to this remained
confident what your career would be. But you know all this, and
it requires no answer, being rather a spurt of satisfaction at
my own original discernment than any assurance which I can fancy
you need from,--Yours very truly,

ROBERT BROWNING.

Pen's letter to me, two days since, contained his earnest wishes
for what has just happened, and he will be delighted
accordingly.

From Matthew Arnold:--

ATHENAEUM CLUB, PALL MALL, S.W.,
_November 15_.

MY DEAR LEIGHTON,--One line (which you need not answer) to say
how delighted I am to see what an excellent choice the Royal
Academy has made.

I only hope poor O'Conor may not take advantage of the occasion
to plant an ode and a letter.--Ever sincerely yours,

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

From Hubert Herkomer:--

_November 27, 1878._

MY DEAR SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON,--I am just recovering from an
attack of brain fever, and although I am not allowed yet to
write, I can no longer wait without dictating a letter to
express my own individual pleasure at your being the new
President.

Three years ago you wrote me a letter after seeing my "Chelsea
Pensioners." Perhaps you little dreamt of the tears of joy that
that letter caused in a young painter, who will always feel that
he owes you a debt of gratitude; and now he glories in your
being the chief of that body which attracts to it all the
principal art of the country. All England feels that you, from
your new position, will give new life to it. Perhaps you will
allow me, when I am sufficiently recovered, to come and see you.

In the meantime believe me to be, with most heartfelt
congratulations,--Sincerely yours,

A.H., _pro_ HUBERT HERKOMER.
SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON, P.R.A.

A friend writes:--

_November 15._

DEAR MR. LEIGHTON,--I have tried to keep silence, telling myself
that it cannot matter what I think or feel on the subject (and
that it may seem to you a very unnecessary proceeding!); but I
_cannot_ resist the temptation to tell you how warmly I rejoice,
and how earnestly I congratulate _myself_ and all other
hungerers after wholesome beauty of colour and form, and high
ideals of greatness and purity, on your acceptance of a position
that one may hope will, nay must, influence the Art of this time
for good in every sense. One takes a great breath of relief as
one thinks of it!

Were I to describe to you the effect your works produce on me,
and the feeling of real reverence I have for them, I should
appear to exaggerate, and should certainly bore you, so I will
say no more! and I am not given to that sort of thing.

My beloved Lady Waterford was much disappointed that you could
not come and meet her; I need not say, so were we: it was a
great enjoyment to have her, she is like no one else; and I yet
hope you may come and meet here some day. Pray do not answer
this; of course you are overwhelmed with business, and it would
hurt me to have it considered and acknowledged as a
complimentary civility! whereas it is nothing but an involuntary
overflowing to relieve my mind.

From Lord Coleridge:--

1 SUSSEX SQUARE, W.,
_November 24, 1878_.

MY DEAR LEIGHTON,--Let me add one voice more, small but true, to
the great chorus of applause with which your election has been
greeted. It might seem left-handed praise to say that your
election was the only possible one; but it is very true praise
to say it was the only possible one if the highest interests of
English Art, and of the Academy itself, were the sole object of
the electors.

It would have pleased and touched you to hear old Boxall speak
of it. I dined with him alone on Friday, and he was just and
generous, as he always is, in his appreciation of you, and
looked forward to your reign as likely to be one of high aims
and noble motives. It is a small thing to say, but I venture to
agree with him.--Ever sincerely yours,

COLERIDGE.

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.

On December 10, 1879, Leighton delivered his first address to the students of the Royal Academy--one of the finest of the many fine achievements of Leighton's life. "Purely practical and technical matters" he put aside to look into a wider and deeper question, that of the position of Art in its relation to the world at large in the present and in the past time, in order to gather something of its prospects in the future. If the question why Leighton held indisputably the great position he did were asked me by one who for a first time had heard his name, I should be inclined to answer, "Because he contained within him the combined powers to execute completely the art which he created, and to think out and feel such profound, sympathetic, and wise truths as those to be found in this address."[60]

Among the large number of appreciative letters Leighton received were the following.

Millais wrote:--

2 PALACE GATE, KENSINGTON,
_December 11, 1879_.

DEAR LEIGHTON,--I was suffering all yesterday with tooth-ache,
otherwise I would have attended the distribution last night. The
ceremony is always most interesting to me, awakening as it does
many anxious and happy recollections. My object in writing to
you is to say I have read your address, which I think so
beautiful, true, and _useful_ that I cannot but obey an impulse
of congratulating you upon it. For some time past I have been
putting down notes on Art which some day may be put into form,
and I find we are thinking precisely in the same way. I have
used identical words in what I have written to those you
delivered yesterday.

The exponents of Art surround it in such a cloud of mystery
that it is a real gain when a practical authority is able to say
something definite and clear the way.--Yours sincerely,

J.E. MILLAIS.

His poet-friend wrote:--

WOODBERRIE, LOUGHTON, ESSEX,
_December 11, 1883_.

MY DEAR SIR FREDERIC,--Have any of the multitude of men who love
you ever called you Chrysostom? It seems so natural after
reading yesterday's address. Will it be published by itself and
obtainable in some handier form than the broadsheet of the
_Times_? I want it as part of the education of my daughter, who
now, at sixteen, is beginning to take a new interest in
whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, and I want it
for myself, for in its lovely suggestiveness and exquisite
English I could often find refreshment when I wanted (and
needed) to "travel in the realms of gold," and forget my own
invalided personality under the magic of such guidance.

My wife desires me to say a word of gracious remembrance to you,
and I am ever, faithfully yours,

ROBIN ALLEN.

Mr. Briton Riviere:

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 RIVIERE.

Don't trouble to answer this.

Matthew Arnold:--

ATHENAEUM CLUB, PALL MALL,
_April 19, 1880_.

MY DEAR LEIGHTON,--You have been _better_ than your word, for I
see you have made me the actual possessor of your "address."
From the glance I have already taken at it, I see that I shall
both like it and you with it; but of this I might have been sure
beforehand. A thousand thanks, and believe me, always sincerely
yours,

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

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 Mediaeval 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 AEsthetic 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.

Mr. Briton Riviere, 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."

There rang out perhaps, at times, just a note reminding one of the German pedant in these discourses--a note singularly discordant when sounding together with an ornate diction; but this was only heard when Leighton was not deeply moved by his subject; when, on the other hand, the not over-tutored, bigger instinctive self had full sway, as, in the subjects he chose for the first three discourses, the glowing style harmonised most rightly as the appropriate language for the earnest and lofty feeling in the thought. If, as suggested above, it is only facts and information of an historical character which words have to convey, much eloquence and an ornate style seems inappropriate. Each mood is obviously best expressed when the style is adjusted to it by an intuitive instinct. Leighton, though possessing abnormally flexible and subtle aesthetic instincts when he allowed himself to be his natural self, seemed at times to force himself into a theoretic rigidity when he was at his lessons. And all his official duties he viewed as lessons, which, after he left his easel, it was his first duty in life to learn to perform as correctly as he could. But whatever criticisms may be made on the style of the later discourses, students desiring to possess something more than a merely provincial knowledge of the special power of the magnates in whose work culminates the great Art of the world, should surely not neglect to possess themselves of the wisdom to be acquired from these discourses.

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 Estremeno. 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.'"[62]

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

"Albert Duerer 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."

When the last addresses were given Leighton was getting very tired. The wheels were running down--vitality was waning. The great mental machine had begun to work more mechanically. We trace this in the manner in which he tackled his last discourse. While writing it at Perugia he wrote to his elder sister:--

PERUGIA, _Thursday, October 12, 1893_.

You have misconstrued my knee; I have no _pain_ in it, at most
occasionally a dull ache in the muscles and a slight soreness in
the joint; but it is an incapacitating and depressing nuisance,
and it won't move on. (I am writing near a window opening on to
a clear, star-bright sky; far below, in the _paese_, I hear the
tinkle of a wandering, nocturnal mandoline--how I like it!) You
do me the honour to appreciate my having, during my recent
precipitate odyssey, visited thirty towns in thirty days, noting
things of which I had already accurate knowledge _d'avance_; but
I can "go one better" than that: _ten_ of the towns were
_absolutely new_ to me, and of the whole subject on which I am
preaching, I knew as good as nothing when you last saw me. I
suspect that, in spite of a lack of memory which _baffles
belief_, I have a certain "uptaking" knack. My preachment will
bore you, but you will (if you read it) detect an _ensemble_;
but, for goodness' sake, _zitti!_ They'll think, when they hear
the P.R.A., that, Lor' bless him! he'd known it all his life.
Nevertheless, enough for the day, &c. Best love to
Gussy.--Affect. bro.,

FRED.

I remember--when my husband and I were sitting with him one afternoon after his return home that autumn--his saying, "I feel distinctly I have dropped one step down off of the ladder," and it was truly about that time that his doctor, Doctor Roberts, discerned the beginning of the disease which proved fatal. Already in 1888 he wrote:--

"The reasons which have now for a good many years impelled me to
decline any 'public utterances' outside Burlington House have
increased in weight and force as life and strength wanes, and as
demands on me grow in every direction. I am sometimes asked to
speak in public, not only in London, but all over the country,
and in all cases the demand is grounded on strong claims in so
far as I am an 'official' artist. Assent once is assent
always--assent in half the cases would mean the _gravest_ injury
to my _work_, and I am a workman first and an official
afterwards. Things have their humorous side, for those who press
me most are sometimes those who on other occasions most
earnestly assure me that I '_do too much_.' How tired I am of
hearing it."

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]

On asking Gladstone to the Banquet of 1880, Leighton received the following characteristic answer:--

MY DEAR PRESIDENT,--I have received your letter with mixed
feelings. You do me great honour, and I must obey you. But I
long for the return of the good old times, lying within the long
range of my memory, when the dinners of the Academy did not
suffer the contamination of political toasts, and kept us all
for three precious hours in purer air. Can you tell me when the
practice was changed? I am not, I think, under the dominion of a
pleasant delusion.--Yours most faithfully,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

In 1883 Leighton found it impossible to continue his duties as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 20th Middlesex (Artists) Volunteers, which post he had held since 1876, and he therefore resigned. He was then made Hon. Colonel and holder of the Volunteer Decoration.[66]

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 feting 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:--

1894.

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.

In 1888 Leighton delivered the superb Address at the Art Congress held at Liverpool on December 3 (see Appendix). No Life of this great man would be complete were his utterances on this occasion not given in full, for therein is found his creed on Art, and the records of those principles on which it was founded, expounded with clear force, fine analysis, and, above all, with supreme courage. The subject, moreover, as touching England's condition respecting Art, is one directly affecting English readers.

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]

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.

_Private._]
_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.