It must, of course, be left to others to pronounce on his artistic qualities, and to judge of the results which they produced. But it may be well to refer to the intellectual characteristics by which his mind seemed pre-eminently distinguished. One was a remarkable quickness of conception, which was intuitive on his own subjects, but which did not fail him even upon others. This quickness occasionally appeared to supersede any long abstract study. Not indeed that he would not spend infinite pains in maturing his conception, but these were given to practical developments and variations, which might be what mathematicians call “Formulas of Verification,” rather than to search for authorities and abstract reflection upon principles. I imagine that such half-unconscious intuition is characteristic of the artistic temperament, and doubt whether even Shakspere or Turner grasped, in abstract theory, those principles, which have been most truly discovered and commented upon in their works. Joined to this quickness there was in him a remarkable fertility of design and contrivance. If a plan proved impracticable, if a design was rejected, the failure never seemed to disconcert him. Like the English infantry, he “never knew when he was beaten,” and his scattered forces were rallied instantly to another attack. This fertility was stimulated by an indestructible power of taking interest in the minutest details, and of despising all trouble in the search after perfection, whether it were in the design of a Victoria Tower, or the alteration and realteration of a drawing-room drapery. And it was perhaps supported by that resolution to have his own way, good humoured but determined, of which he was not untruly accused. For he was entirely, almost amusingly, unconscious that it had anything to do with any personal characteristic or any assertion of individual will. It seemed to him to be dictated by an artistic necessity, so strong that it was hardly possible to oppose it. The very readiness with which the ideas occurred seemed to him a guarantee that they were reasonable and almost self-evident, and why they did not occur to others, or why, when suggested, they did not commend themselves to others, he could not understand. With these characteristics were naturally united a sanguine disposition and a quick temper. That sanguineness was of course tempered, and even over-clouded, by experience of life, and it had its period of natural reaction, when all things seemed gloomy to him, and he would pronounce his own powers a mere pretence and his life a failure. These periods acted upon, and suffered reaction from, his bodily health, and in them work was his best relief. Some excitability of temper belongs to such disposition, but there were few whom one could more truly describe as “Irasci celerem, tamen ut placabilis esset.”