is not yet _care enough_. I am aware of no
instance of a young painter, who was to be really great, who did not in
his youth paint with intense effort and delicacy of finish. The handling
here is much too broad; and the faces are, in many instances, out of
drawing, and very opaque and feeble in colour. Nor have they in general
the dignity of the countenance of the thirteenth century. The Dante
especially is ill-conceived--far too haughty, and in no wise noble or
thoughtful. It seems to me probable that Mr. Leighton has greatness in
him, but there is no absolute proof of it in this picture; and if he
does not, in succeeding years, paint far better, he will soon lose the
power of painting so well."

To Mr. Ruskin's account, which is sufficient to enable one to realize
the picture in some detail, we may add further the criticism of the
"Athenaeum" of May 12th, 1855, which is interesting as showing how the
work affected a contemporary critic of another order. It speaks of Mr.
Leighton as "a young artist who, we believe, has studied in Italy," and
goes on to say: "There can be no question that the picture is one of
great power, although the composition is quaint even to sectarianism;
and though the touch, in parts broad and masterly, is in the lesser
parts of the roughest character." The last clause of the sentence bears
out, it may be perceived, a significant indictment in Mr. Ruskin's
deliverance, which lays stress on a defect that the artist, in his
maturer brush-work, does not show.

Rossetti, writing to his friend William Allingham, May 11th, 1855, says:
"There is a big picture of _Cimabue_, one of his works in procession, by
a new man, living abroad, named Leighton--a huge thing, which the Queen
has bought, which everyone talks of. The R.A.'s have been gasping for
years for someone to back against Hunt and Millais, and here they have
him, a fact that makes some people do the picture injustice in return.
It was _very_ uninteresting to me at first sight; but on looking more at
it, I think there is great richness of arrangement, a quality which,
when _really_ existing, as it does in the best old masters, and perhaps
hitherto in no living man--at any rate English--ranks among the great
qualities.

"But I am not quite sure yet either of this or of the faculty for
colour, which I suspect exists very strongly, but is certainly at
present under a thick veil of paint, owing, I fancy, to too much
continental study. One undoub