I think I shall very soon test the public again in this respect--but _what_ I shall paint I do not know. A friend of mine (Mr. Gambier Parry), a great art devotee and first-rate amateur, has discovered a medium to replace fresco painting in our damp climate. I have seen his experiments, and have myself painted a head under his rules,[28] and to my complete satisfaction. The result is scarcely to be distinguished from fresco, and is quite as easy, indeed even easier to achieve. At the same time this method has advantages which _buon_ fresco does not possess; it dries exactly as one lays it on (and is then flat), it has no deposit (_Ansätze_), and one can go over it as often as one likes. The wall (a granular lime wall) is saturated with the same preparation as you paint with. This preparation, which is _stone hard_ against water, can always dissolve _itself_ with moisture, so that one can retouch it perpetually, at the same time the _whole_ of one's palette is available. My friend is going to publish his system; I will then, if you like, tell you exactly about it. And now, farewell, dear Master. Remember me most kindly to your wife and children, and keep in remembrance your friend and pupil, FRED LEIGHTON. He wrote to Steinle in 1862 that he was making studies for the Lyndhurst fresco, and expected to finish it that summer; but it was apparently only begun in August 1863. _Translation._] 2 ORME SQUARE, BAYSWATER, _April 22, 1862_. MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--When I last wrote to you, I promised and hoped that this time I should be able to send you some photographs of my latest works, but unfortunately at the last moment time ran short. My pictures are only just ready for exhibition, and I must send them off unphotographed. In order that you may not think I have been idle, I write these lines; also because I am unwilling, my dear Master, to fade entirely from your memory. I am exhibiting _eight_ pictures this year, an unusually large number. But the case is not so bad as it looks at the first glance. Two only of these pictures are important in size and subject. One of them you already know from a former composition. It represents Michael Angelo with his dying servant Urbino. In the principal idea I have not deviated much from the first sketch, but have endeavoured to treat the whole with more unity and the details with more simplicity than in the drawing which you saw, and the faults of which you pointed out to me. This picture is life-size, and extends down to the knees.