Leighton was linguist, student, antiquary, man of fashion, administrator, even philanthropist. His oratory was an accomplishment; albeit, in its addiction to ingenious ornament, his style was not quite of our period. His tact in dealing with men and with affairs was almost faultless. His opinions were decided, and he never concealed them; yet, in uttering them, he hardly ever gave offence--never, indeed, to the reasonable. When all these things are remembered, and when there is added to them the recollection of a presence elegant and stately, and of a manner which, though it could well keep intruders at a distance, had singular and winning charm for the many whom it was intended to please, it will be fully realised what a difficult and heavy honour awaits Lord Leighton’s successor in his great function--that of President of the Royal Academy, and official representative of English Art. The Academy contains several painters of genius; several amiable and distinguished men of the world; but as those who can look back the furthest declare that no past President of whom they had any knowledge ever equalled Lord Leighton, it may well be doubted whether a future President is likely to equal him. So much by way of rough indication of the character of the man, and of the public man. A further explanation of his individuality must, of course, be discovered in his Art; and even a cursory survey of it--and of the creations which were the events of his life--will disclose something of his strength, and something, too, of his weakness. The son of a physician whose life was extended to a most ripe old age, and grandson of Sir James Leighton, also a doctor--long resident at the Court of St. Petersburg--Frederic Leighton was born at Scarborough, on the 3rd December 1830. A Yorkshireman in fact--like William Etty, and another remarkable artist of a later generation, Thomas Collier--no one could have been less of a Yorkshireman in character than was the late President. To what is understood or conjectured to have been a Jewish strain in his blood are possibly to be attributed his profoundly artistic inclinations, which were manifested very early, and which, as the public knows, dominated the whole of his career. It is recorded that young Leighton received drawing lessons in Rome as long ago as the year 1842; and not two years afterwards he entered as a student at the Academy of Berlin. With Rome, perhaps, began that long series of _Wanderjahre_ which made him so cosmopolitan an artist and so many-sided a man. He had some general education at Frankfort; then, after a removal to Florence, where the American sculptor, Hiram Powers, was consulted with a view to an opinion on his ability, and prophesied that the boy ‘could become as eminent as he pleased,’ young Leighton’s father withdrew his long-standing objections to the adoption of painting as a profession; and the new decision was followed by a sojourn in Brussels and a longer stay in Paris. In Paris the