CRYPT UNDER ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, WHERE BARRY, SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, TURNER, AND LORD LEIGHTON WERE BURIED
From a photo, by permission of Messrs. S.B. Bolas & Co.[ToList]
Attached to the wreath which lay on his coffin were the lines written by our Queen:—
"Life's race well run,
Life's work well done,
Life's crown well won,
Now comes rest."
In Leighton's own letters, more than is possible in any other written words, will be traced those qualities of character and feeling which guided the rare gifts nature had bestowed. These, used with unstinting generosity for the benefit of others, established for our national art a position, cosmopolitan in its influence, never previously attained by English painting and sculpture, and of which it may be fairly hoped, future generations, no less than the present, may reap the benefit.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] George Eliot—"Romola."
[2] Lord Loch's cousin, Colonel Sutherland Orr, married Leighton's elder sister in the year 1857.
[3] Quoted in G.F. Watts' "Reminiscences."
[4] An incident, one out of many that tell of Leighton's hearty, eager helpfulness, happened on one of the evenings at the Academy, after the prizes had been given away. A student was passing through the first room, on his way to the entrance. He looked the picture of dejection and disappointed wretchedness, poorly and shabbily dressed, and slinking away as if he wished to pass out of the place unnoticed. Millais and Leighton, walking arm in arm, came along, pictures of prosperity. Leighton caught sight of the poor, downcast student. Leaving Millais, he darted across the vestibule to him, and, taking the student's arm, drew him back into the first room, and made him sit down on the ottoman beside him. Putting his arm on the top of the ottoman, and resting his head on his hand, Leighton began to talk as he alone could talk; pouring forth volumes of earnest, rapid utterances, as if everything in the world depended on his words conveying what he wanted them to convey. He went on and on. The shabby figure gradually seemed to pull itself together, and, at last, when they both rose, he seemed to have become another creature. Leighton shook hands with him, and the youth went on his way rejoicing. It is certain that if other help than advice were needed, it was given. But it was the extraordinary zest and vitality which Leighton put into his help which made it unlike any other. He fought every one's cause even better than others fight their own.