12 MARCH 1927, Page 3

We greatly regret to record the death of Mr. Walter

Leaf, the well-known banker and scholar. He was bracketed Senior Classic at Cambridge, and he collaborated with Andrew- Lang and Frederick Myers in a translation of the Iliad which is not likely to be displaced for its sound scholarship and its exquisite English. His books on Troy gathered up the results of much archaeological research, and convinced an unlearned or unbelieving generation that Troy was a real city and the Trojan War an historical fact. In his combination of classics and banking he recalled Grote; Rogers and Bagehot. We remember that some years ago Mr. Leaf and Mr. Henry Bell exchanged some chaffing verses which were published in the Spectator, and which made play with the nickname of Rogers as the " Banker-Poet."