There rang out perhaps, at times, just a note reminding one of the German pedant in these discourses--a note singularly discordant when sounding together with an ornate diction; but this was only heard when Leighton was not deeply moved by his subject; when, on the other hand, the not over-tutored, bigger instinctive self had full sway, as, in the subjects he chose for the first three discourses, the glowing style harmonised most rightly as the appropriate language for the earnest and lofty feeling in the thought. If, as suggested above, it is only facts and information of an historical character which words have to convey, much eloquence and an ornate style seems inappropriate. Each mood is obviously best expressed when the style is adjusted to it by an intuitive instinct. Leighton, though possessing abnormally flexible and subtle æsthetic instincts when he allowed himself to be his natural self, seemed at times to force himself into a theoretic rigidity when he was at his lessons. And all his official duties he viewed as lessons, which, after he left his easel, it was his first duty in life to learn to perform as correctly as he could. But whatever criticisms may be made on the style of the later discourses, students desiring to possess something more than a merely provincial knowledge of the special power of the magnates in whose work culminates the great Art of the world, should surely not neglect to possess themselves of the wisdom to be acquired from these discourses. Throughout their pages are to be found most suggestive passages, inspiring new thoughts and, to any but experts, new facts on vitally interesting art matters. For instance, take the description of Velasquez:-- "For a long period Italian painting did not cease to enjoy the favour of the Court; it ceased, however, towards the beginning of the seventeenth century to exercise that paralysing influence which had marked its first advent, and the ground was cleared for a new impulse from within. At this conjuncture a man of commanding genius and fearless initiative was given to Spain in the person of Diego Velasquez. It may perhaps have surprised you that with such a name before my mind I should have spoken of Zurbaran, a man so vastly his inferior in the painter's gift, as perhaps the most representative of Spanish artists. I have done so because beyond any other artist he sums up in himself, as I have pointed out to you, all the complex elements of the Spanish genius. In Velasquez, Spanish as he is to the finger-tips, this comprehensiveness is not found. Of Velasquez all was Spanish, but Zurbaran was all Spain.