You will wish to know some particulars about my studio. Of course after Paris and Rome it is a sad falling off--narrow and dark, though I believe, for London, very fair; when I _live_ here I must have a much larger light or I shall go blind--however, I must not look a gift horse in the mouth. I have had to furnish--this costs me about nine or ten shillings a week; I keep a servant (a stupid, pompous, verbose, dirty, willing, honest scrub) to run my errands and clean my brushes, &c. &c., at half-a-crown a day; models are five shillings a sitting here--ruination!--men with good heads there are none--women, tol-lol!--a lay figure, twenty-five shillings a month; in short, historical painting here is not for nothing; I am working at my "Samson" picture; God knows how I shall finish it in so short a time! Dearest Mammy, I shall have but a very short peep at you this year, I am very sorry to say--I lost a full month waiting for this wretched studio. I don't see my way through my work before the middle or even end of the second week in August, and I cannot well give up going to Scotland though only for a very few days, as I have accepted so long ago. I am to go there on the 20th; after that I must rush back post-haste to Stourhead to finish Lady Hoare; all this will make me very late for Italy, as I am anxious to revisit the north of that country and study the Correggios a little at Parma before going south. I shall be obliged to scamper across the country. I _must_ be in Rome or the neighbourhood in October; I am going to finish my Cervara landscape on the spot. I am in very fair health, London decidedly agrees with me, and I don't suffer as much as I expected from the obligato spleen of blue devildom. I need not say this is a source of immense congratulation to me. When the picture "Nanna" returned from the Royal Academy, where it was exhibited in 1859, Leighton sent it to Bath, writing to his mother to announce its arrival. LONDON, 1859. DEAREST MAMMY,--I scribble a word in haste to announce to you that I have sent "Nanna" off to Bath for you to see, she wants varnish very badly as you see, but is not dry enough for that yet. You must mind and put her in the right light, the window must be on the left of the spectator--the more to the _left_ of the picture you stand yourself the less you will see the want of varnish. If you stand to the _right_ of the painting you won't see it at all. Please send "Nanna" back when you have shown to whom you wish, as she is overdue at Paris. _Saturday Morning, 1859._