ighton was born on the 3rd of December, 1830, at Scarborough,
the son of a medical practitioner. His father, Dr. Frederic Leighton,
was also the son of a physician who was knighted for eminence in his
profession. Thus we have two generations of medicine and culture in the
family; but there is no sign of art, or love for art, before the third.
This generation produced three children, all devoted to the graphic arts
and to music, of whom the boy, Frederic was the eldest.

A word or two more must be given to his forbears, on grounds of
character and heredity, before we pass. Sir James Leighton, the
grandfather, was Physician to the Court at St. Petersburg, where he
served in succession Alexander the First, and Nicholas, with whom he was
on terms of considerable intimacy. His son, Dr. Frederic Leighton, who
promised to be a still more brilliant practioner, was educated at
Stonyhurst, but after taking his M.D. degree at Edinburgh, just as he
was rapidly acquiring the highest professional reputation, contracted a
cold that led to a partial deafness. This made it impossible for him to
go on practising with safety, and retiring to his study he turned from
physical to metaphysical pursuits. In spite of his deafness, as severe
an embargo on social reputation as can well be laid, Dr. Leighton is
said to have been equally noted among his friends for his keen
intellectual quality and his urbanity.

To be the son of his father, then, counted for something in our hero's
career. Even in art, which Dr. Leighton did not care for particularly,
the boy had very great opportunities. Before he was ten years old, he
went abroad with his mother, who was in ill health; and already he had
shown such decided signs of the _furor pingendi_ during a chance visit
to Mr. Lance's studio in Paris, that it is without surprise that we hear
of him in 1840 as taking drawing lessons from Signor F. Meli, at Rome.
During these early travels the boy's sketch books were full (we are
told) of precociously clever things. The climacteric moment came early
in his career. At Florence, in 1844, when he was fourteen, he delivered
himself of a sort of boyish ultimatum to his father, who, after taking
counsel of Hiram Powers, the American sculptor, wisely gave the boy his
wish, and decided to let him be an artist. Powers when asked, "Shall I
make him an artist?" exclaimed in no uncertain terms, "Sir, you have no
choice in the matter, he is one already;" and on further qu