LEIGHTON HOUSE 



a course of lectures there on the Italian Schools of painting ; and 

 have also attended in it many meetings of the Imperial Art League ; 

 so that the more recent memories have partly effaced that very 

 early impression. 



It was characteristic of the owner to collect round him things he 

 required in the production of his classical subjects, and to contrive 

 for them copies of furniture as near the originals as might be. 

 I remember there was a chair with long rockers, copied, no doubt, 

 from an Etruscan vase or frieze. Crossing the room quickly to 

 fetch something, Leighton tripped over the projecting rocker and 

 nearly fell. " That comes of having Greek chairs ! " he exclaimed. 



From the little Venetian balcony at the East end of the great 

 Studio shown from without in my drawing, and suggestive of 

 Romeo and Juliet we get a charming view of the garden at the 

 back of the house. 



Into that garden the owner presently took us. It is reached by a 

 flight of steps descending from the dining-room window. 



The comprehensive title of this book has enabled me to include 

 in it the " little garden, so called," of the great author of " Sartor 

 Resartus," which played no small part in his life at Cheyne Row. 

 Of the garden of Leighton House, though it is very many times 

 larger than Carlyle's, I can find less to tell the reader. It was 

 much prettier in the days I have been speaking of than it is now, 

 when it is rather closely built up with houses, and more or less 

 overlooked, overgrown, and comparatively neglected ; and 

 Holland Park Lane is no longer a " lane ! ' : 



Mr. Cockerell speaks of delightful Sunday mornings in summer, 

 spent in the garden, when " he sat chatting on random subjects 

 with the President, who in slippers, a so-called c land and water hat,' 

 and a smock'-frock, leant back in a garden chair and talked as no 

 one else could. The quiet, the sun overhead, the grass under our 

 feet, the green trees around us, and the house visible between them, 

 form an ineffaceable picture of aesthetic contentment it is a delight 

 to recall." He " received " every Sunday morning when the weather 

 was fine and warm. As mentioned already, it was a lovely 

 June day when I saw the garden first my drawing of it was 

 made in autumn but Leighton did not receive us in the free- 

 and-easy costume just described. So far as I remember he wore 

 a brown velvet coat, such as on ater occasions I usually saw him 



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