exercises in composition done for his master, Steinle, one always notices a remorseless contour. The finer of his performances in this method begin in the years 1853 and 1854, during his stay in Rome, before his success with the Cimabue. The studies of hands, of which there are a number, are wonderful in their perfect delicacy and firmness of outline. Many heads also belong to this period-heads of his friends, male and female, and of models-and a most extraordinary piece of landscape representing the Albano hills, all modelled with astounding precision.

But the finest of all, except the famous Lemon Tree,' which is in silver point and was done in 1859, are the product of a visit to Algeria in 1857. I do not believe that more perfect drawings, better defined or more entirely realised, than these studies of heads of Moors, of camels, &c., were ever executed by the hand of man. They are not of the nature fashionable in this year of grace. They are not particularly summary, nor do they look as if they had been done in a moment or without any trouble. The drawings in question are as complete as if they came from the hand of Lionardo or Holbein.

Of the 'Lemon Tree' and of the 'Byzantine Well,' another drawing in silver point, Mr. Ruskin says, 'These two perfect early drawings determine for you without appeal the question respecting necessity of delineation as the first skill of a painter. Of all our present masters Sir Frederic Leighton delights most in softly blended colours, and his ideal of beauty is more nearly that of Correggio than any since Correggio's time. But you see by what precision of terminal outline he at first restrained and exalted his beautiful gift of "Vaghezza.":

After this period for working drawings, not for show but for use in his pictures, he took to using chalks and tinted paper. It is far the readiest method. His industry in this material is staggering. For the Daphnephoria, besides finished clay models of a group of three figures, and of one single figure, there remain over thirty-six drawings; for 'Cimon and Iphigenia,' two models and fifty-six drawings; for the captive Andromache, fifty-nine; for 'Solitude,' a single figure, nine; for the 'Return of Proserpine,' nineteen, and so on. Few of these are mere sketches. Most of them are careful and for their purpose finished drawings. At times, one must admit, his delight in handling the pencil ran away with him, and he would repeat a whole study for no apparent purpose, but as a rule he kept rigidly to a severe course of progressive definition.

Besides working drawings there are numberless designs and projects for pictures in various materials. Some are done without models, as exercises in composition; others are elaborated sketches. Enchanting groups will be found amongst them, full of tenderness and graceful fancy. During the intervals of work when the model was resting he made innumerable little sketches as he or she moved

about the studio, and it was from notes made at these moments that several of his most natural and graceful figures were derived. These charming little suggestions, often several on one sheet, will recall to many the best of those bewitching terra-cottas which have been recovered of late years at Tanagra. They are slightly but sufficiently indicated, and generally with a certain insistence on the silhouette.

This is a point worth pausing upon for a moment. The insistence on the silhouette is even more marked in what I have called the exercises in composition. He considered it of the first importance and made it the subject of his most anxious study. 'The outline,' he said once to me, 'should be always changing in its subordinate parts, but it should be simple in its general contour. Careful observation of the studies for the Daphnephoria and the South Kensington frescoes will reveal how he acted on this maxim. Not only single figures but whole groups are contained in one carefully considered bounding line. It is, perhaps, most obvious of all in the Arts of War,' which is, therefore, well worth the close attention of any student who has sufficient power of analysis to sift the wheat from the chaff in it.

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To assist his outline Leighton made a most scientific study of draperies. In the heavy materials of the clothing used in the period in which he placed the Arts of War' he found opportunities for breadth and enrichment of the contour, of which he made liberal use. For the Arts of Peace' and for the Daphnephoria, which are placed in the classical period, he employed softer tissues, which fill out the figure less opulently, but the same care is discernible to conceal such parts of the figure as would look poor in that particular pose, and to fill up gaps that would give a meagre effect.

It was this quality of silhouette which gave his figures their charm and grace. In the present moment, when impressionism and painting as distinct from designing holds, and is likely to hold, the field in England, it is well to remind the rising generation that their predecessors had some merits of their own, though of a different kind. Good outline-designing may not be one of those virtues which tell most in a gallery, but it is not to be despised.

He frequently admitted that he was never so much at home with the brush as with the point. Whatever he may have been with the first, no one, after seeing this collection, will deny that he was a master of the latter. There is no trace of the square blocking which is taught in the modern French schools, the effect of which is to train the eye to a certain dry correctness which is perceptible in all but the very best French drawing. The great Italians never drew in this chip-chop fashion, and their line, if occasionally over-rich, is never poor. Even accomplished artists are apt to overlook the difference between good drawing and fine drawing. I have heard it said by some who should know better that such a drawing as the‘Lemon

Tree,' or any other of those studies of plant life in which Leighton delighted, is a mere exercise of patience. It undoubtedly is an exercise of patience, and a severe one, but it is a great deal more. To appreciate the vitality of the curves and twists of the leaves, and to follow them with such exquisite fineness of undulating line, is not given to all. It needs a hand like that ineffabile mano sinistra of Lionardo's to do it.

Our artist's handling of black and white continued to increase in vigour and facility until, in the studies made for 'The Sea giving up her Dead,'' Perseus and Andromeda,' 'The Phoenicians in Cornwall," and for other designs of the last few years, we have the most powerful things he ever did. It would not be unfair to say that they surpass any drawings ever made in England.

The great group of 'The Sea giving up her Dead' is one which no other painter in this country could have attempted with any chance of success. It shows astounding mastery. Unfortunately, in common with some other designs done by Leighton for St. Paul's, it did not. find favour with the clerical authorities. It was dubbed irreligious, a criticism which it is not for me to dispute beyond saying that it applies with equal force to the Sistine ceiling. Anyhow it was a grand piece of work, and it would be much to be regretted if no use is ever made in St. Paul's of the cartoon he executed of it.

Such drawings as those I am now speaking of, or reproductions of them, ought to be hung up in the schools of Art all over the country as examples for students. They are invaluable lessons. However eminent a man may be in other departments of the art, in colour, in sentiment, or in decorative effect, he can never be called a master of his craft unless he can draw the human figure with facility. The severe training it requires is the only path to thoroughness such as it is the aim of all academies to teach. The study of the human figure is like that of the dead languages. It is not an end in itself. Though occasional nude figures do find their way into exhibitions, they are year by year less welcomed, except it may be as exercises and proofs of proficiency. But the figure remains the indispensable basis of Art education, and the man who can draw and paint it can express anything he has in his heart.

This is a time when it is necessary to bear this in mind. It is the fashion to paint, and every one does it. We are flooded with clever amateurs. There is a quantity of their work in the Salon and in the Academy. Too good to be rejected, whatever they do is nevertheless always wanting in 'bottom.' Nothing is in reserve. Where they excel is in the cheaper and more effective parts of the art, in the light and shade or the colour. Now these are just the parts which Leighton left to the last. He spoke of them once to me as 'the jam on the bread-and-butter,' the solid foundation being the drawing, which amateurs are always in haste to get over. He rather

lingered than hurried over the earlier stages. But then he was superficial in nothing. Besides the thoroughness of his drawing he had done all he could to perfect himself in other respects. He was learned in all that the Greeks or Italians had done, and had scientifically analysed their works. He had read everything of value treating of methods and mediums. He had anatomy at his fingers' ends, and his system of procedure was one carefully thought out for the production of the best work in the best way. In fact, he may be held up to younger generations as the very type of the professional craftsman.

When all the evidence of labour given by his drawings is seen it will, I fear, be a shock to many. The belief that an artist's life is an easy one will never be eradicated from the mind of the majority. They will probably continue to think that Art is a charming accomplishment, which, if somewhat difficult to acquire, is, when once learnt, a pleasant employment in moments of inspiration. But if anything would bring it home to them that it is not so, one would suppose it would be these drawings. For here we see a man not only while young and winning his way in the world, but still when loaded with honours and with business, going through the same mill every time he sits down to paint a picture—indeed, ever toiling harder and growing more fastidious as he feels the years before him grow fewer, until finally by continual exertion is brought on a fatal malady and death, which, if he would but have consented to take his ease, the doctors think he might have averted.

But Leighton's indomitable character would yield to nothing less than death. Turning over the portfolios we see it written more legibly than if it were set down in a journal. Here was a man pursued with ambition to excel, clear-headed, sparingly emotional, a man of intellect and iron will. If he was not exactly a poet in the sense of displaying a warm sympathy with human nature, he was eminently so in the sense that he had a cult and love for beauty. He had an ideal, which he pursued with an unswerving passion. It was his habit and his creed to keep his pictures generally impersonal, but now and again his heart appeared in them, and once at any rate the springs of his innermost life were committed to canvas in a picture which was the type of his general mental attitude, viz. The Spirit of the Summits.'

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S. P. COCKERELL.

THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE AFTER DEATH

MEN'S minds in both hemispheres have been drawn with fresh interest to the problems connected with man's persistent life beyond the tomb by the turning of Mr. Gladstone's ever bright and eager intellect in that direction. But though his treatment of the subject has given fresh point to the perennial inquiry: Whither do we go?' the interest aroused by his articles is due to more than the eminence of the writer. More than ever in this age of doubt and of challenge of all traditions does man yearn for a definite knowledge of his future, nay, for some sure knowledge that he has a future at all. It is not enough that heavenly visions shall soothe his heart; his intellect demands satisfaction and refuses to be silenced by authority. The time seems ripe to offer an answer that includes all that is true in the clashing replies of many creeds, that affirms the verifiability of the facts of the post-mortem states, and removes the whole question from the region of doubt into that of investigation and study. If the statement made be regarded in the light of a possible hypothesis. and be applied to the many jostling declarations already before us, it will be found to explain much that seems incredible to some while passionately asserted by others, to reconcile allegations that appear contradictory because they are partial, to illuminate propositions that are obscure because they need analysis and rearrangement. Each must judge for himself whether the hypothesis be sufficiently credible to be taken on trial as a theory, and time alone can decide whether the theory shall ultimately be accepted as a plain record of the facts in Nature.

Believers in the continuing life of man may be grouped into three great classes:

1. Those who believe on the authority of documents-many of them of great antiquity-documents containing statements either directly written by living persons who claimed to possess first-hand knowledge on the matter in question, or written down by the followers of such persons from their oral teachings. This class includes all the members of the religions of the world who base their belief in man's survival after death on the testimony of prophets and seers as recorded in their several scriptures.