To the 1868 Academy Leighton contributed another biblical theme, _Jonathan's Token to David_. With this were four others, as widely varying in subject and conception as need be desired. One was a very charming portrait of a very pretty woman, _Mrs. Frederick P. Cockerell_. Then follow three more in that cycle of classic subjects, of which the painter never tired. The full title of the first runs, _Ariadne abandoned by Theseus: Ariadne watches for his return: Artemis releases her by death_. In it the figure of Ariadne, clothed in white drapery, is seen lying on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. _Acme and Septimius_ is a circular picture, with two small full-length figures reclining on a marble bench. This extract from Sir Theodore Martin's translation of Catullus was appended to its title in the catalogue: "Then bending gently back her head, With that sweet mouth so rosy red, Upon his eyes she dropped a kiss, Intoxicating him with bliss." A love song on canvas, a pictorial transcript from Catullus, it was perhaps the most popular picture of the year. The last of the three was _Actæa, the Nymph of the Shore_. It represents a small full-length nude figure lying on white drapery by the sea-shore. Actæa is a lovely figure, full of that grace which Leighton so well knew how to impart to his idealized figures. After this year, at any rate, there could be no longer any doubt but that the artist's power really lay in the creation of ideal forms; whether presented in monomime or combined in poetic and decorative groups, called up from the wonderful limbo of classic myth and history. With 1869 came _Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon_, a memorable picture, full of characteristic effects of colour and composition, and a notable exercise in the grand style. This work, considered from any side, must be seen to be the outcome of a unique faculty, so unprecedented in English art as to run every risk of misconception that native predilections could impose upon those who stopped to criticise it. The figure of Electra clad in black drapery offered a problem of peculiar difficulty. Another painting shown this year was _Dædalus and Icarus_, a strikingly conceived picture. The two figures are singularly noble conceptions of the idealized nude; the drapery at the back of Icarus is typical of the painter in every fold, while the landscape seen far below the stone platform on which the figures stand, shows a bay of the blue Ægean sea in full sidelight, with a lovely glimpse of the white walls of a distant town. The same exhibition of 1869 saw, also, the vigorously painted diploma picture, _St. Jerome_, which marked his election as R.A. In it the saint, nude to the waist, kneels with uplifted arms at the foot of a crucifix, his lion seen in the background. _Helios and Rhodos_, another painting exhibited at the same time, shows Helios descending from his chariot, which is in a cloud above, to embrace the nymph Rhodos, who has risen from the sea.