precise, and careful, and yet distinguished by a sumptuous breadth of effect, this memorable study of a fine type of feminine beauty takes high rank among the artist's smaller paintings. It bears most plainly the stamp of his correct and cultivated taste.

PLATE VI.—A NOBLE LADY OF VENICE

Into this decade fall two of the greater events of his life, his election as President of the Royal Academy, and the execution of his famous wall paintings, "The Arts of War," and "The Arts of Peace," in the South Kensington Museum. On the death of Sir Francis Grant, who had held the Presidential office since 1866, Leighton was chosen, on November 13, 1878, to fill the vacant post. In making this selection, the members of the Academy did honour to a man who had raised himself, by sheer strength of personality, to a position of acknowledged leadership in the art affairs of this country, but they also secured as their President an artist who was almost ideally fitted to deal with the many responsibilities which have necessarily to be incurred by the head of such an institution. Leighton's commanding and yet attractive presence, his great power of organisation and grasp of details, his wide knowledge of the world, and his unusual capacity as a linguist, gave him not only a high degree of authority as an official, but also ensured to him the sincere confidence of those associated with him. To every one outside the Academy he was the personification of all that was best in academic art; and by his breadth of mind, his wise toleration of all types of earnest effort, and his ready sympathy with the struggling worker to whom merit had not brought success, he gained the respect and even affection of the great mass of the profession. No President since Reynolds has been so worthy to direct the policy of the Academy, and it may fairly be said that none, Reynolds not excepted, has ruled over it with more discretion, or with better appreciation of the possibilities of the position.

The other event, the carrying out of the South Kensington wall paintings, is specially notable because in these works Sir Frederic Leighton—he received the honour of knighthood on his election as President—was able to put to legitimate uses all his capacities as a decorator, and to prove that in paintings on the largest scale he was as much a master of his craft as in the easel pictures to which, for want of greater opportunities, he was obliged to confine himself. He had made a previous experiment in this direction in 1866, when he executed the fresco of "The Wise and Foolish Virgins" in the church at Lyndhurst, an admirable composition treated with rare intelligence and distinctive originality; but the South Kensington lunettes were more exacting undertakings, and calculated to test his powers to the utmost. "The Arts of War" was begun towards the end of the 'seventies and took several months to finish, the companion lunette was painted two or three years later; and both of them, though some of the preliminary work was done by assistants, are substantially from his hand.

In many respects "The Arts of War" is the more satisfying performance. A scene from mediæval Italian life, it is handled with something of his earlier manner, but with an amount of breadth and freshness which he scarcely approached in his younger days. It has infinite grace without a hint of weakness, firmness without formality, and style without conventionality; and it is, above all, a true decoration erring neither in the direction of excessive pictorial effect, nor in that of dull unreality. "The Arts of Peace" is less masculine and more studied, and is neither so ingenious in design, nor so happy in its grouping; though in parts it shows quite his finest art, and there are in it individual figures which are delightful examples of his masterly skill as a draughtsman. It suffers, perhaps, most of all from the want of freedom of brush-work, and from the substitution of an over-careful precision of touch for the looser and larger handling which is one of the sources of the charm of "The Arts of War." Two other decorative achievements must be added to the record of Sir Frederic's effort in this direction, the ceiling for the music-room of Mr. Marquand's house in New York, painted in 1886, and the admirable panel, "Phoenicians Bartering with Britons," executed nine years later for the Royal Exchange.

It is greatly a matter for regret that it should be possible to include in such a meagre list practically the whole of the artist's work as a serious decoration. It is true that he was concerned in one of the many schemes which have been devised for the decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral, but this scheme was never advanced beyond the preliminary stage, and his part in it is represented only by the cartoon symbolical of the Resurrection—"And the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it"—which now hangs in the Tate Gallery. The chances which he desired were denied to him, as they were to G. F. Watts, and to other painters of like ambitions, and the world has in consequence lost much which would have been of supreme interest. That he, with his often renewed memories of the frescoes of the Italian masters, must have felt resentment at the British indifference to this noble form of art can well be imagined. He knew that, with his aspirations, and his power, triumphs as great as any of the old painters achieved were well within his reach, but with all his earnest advocacy, even he was unable to induce the stolid patron of art to believe that an artist should be encouraged to produce anything but canvases of a convenient size, which would serve for the furnishing of modern houses.

So it comes to this, that his only commission for mural decoration on a large scale was for the two lunettes at South Kensington; the Lyndhurst fresco was a gift he made to the church, as a thank-offering, it is said, for his recovery from an illness, and the Marquand ceiling, the Resurrection cartoon, and the Royal Exchange panel were only paintings on canvas. It is a poor record, indeed, and one of which the people in this country have every reason to feel ashamed. But the thwarting of his ambitions in one direction did not make him in others a less conscientious artist. "The Arts of Peace" was finished during 1885, and for another ten years he went on painting pictures into which he put all his love of ideal beauty, and all his striving for greater perfection of technical expression. There is certainly no diminution of power to be perceived in any of these later works, though for some while before his death he suffered increasingly from the heart trouble to which at last he succumbed on January 25, 1896.

PLATE VII.—ELIJAH IN THE WILDERNESS

(At the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool)

Though this canvas is scarcely typical of Leighton's usual achievement, it has a particular value as an illustration of his adaptability as a painter. The contrast between the figure of the Prophet and that of the Angel, between the rugged vigour of the man and the grace of the celestial being, is curiously effective.

PLATE VII.—ELIJAH IN THE WILDERNESS

Indeed, it was during this last ten years that some of the most memorable additions were made to the list of his successes. "The Last Watch of Hero" (1887), as charming in sentiment as in execution; the large composition, "Captive