29 APRIL 1899, Page 7

Frederic Lord Leighton. By Ernest Rhys. (G. Bell and Sons.

25s.) —The time has not yet come for a complete and lasting estimate of Leighton's work. In many ways he is most difficult to place, he was so near being really great, and it is as difficult to say why he was not so as it is easy to see that he was not. In literature there are men who cannot be credited with the creative genius of Scott or Wordsworth, but who are well described as great men of letters. It is a position similar to this that Leighton will most likely occupy in English art. The present volume is very well and numerously illustrated.