therto had no idea; and whether owing
to its novelty, or the surprise it occasioned, or, indeed, to its real
merit, whatever may have been the true cause, most certain it is that
the English, until then little thought of and almost unknown abroad,
obtained in France a great success."

M. Chesneau, in going on to account further for the great impression
made by the English painters in Paris, attributes it largely to the
_singularity_ which, for foreign eyes, marks their work. It is curious,
indeed, that French critics, and M. Chesneau among them, really admire
this singularity, which they count distinctively British. They look for
it in our pictures, and if they do not find it--as in the work of
Leighton--they feel aggrieved.

British eccentricity, whether thinking its way with the aid of genius
into "Pre-Raphaelitism," or now again, with the aid of extreme
cleverness and talent, into certain cruder forms of "impressionism," is
sure of its effect. But an art like Leighton's, whose aim is beauty and
not eccentricity, is apt to be slighted by both French and English
critics, with some notable exceptions. Not all its grace, its classic
quality, its beauty of line and distinction of treatment, avail it, when
it comes into conflict with doctrinaire theories on the one hand, and a
love for mere sensationalism on the other.

[Illustration: THE DEAD ROMEO
A PENCIL STUDY]

The success of his picture at the Academy, and the incidental
lionizing of a season, did not tempt the artist to stay long in London,
and he went to Paris, where he settled himself in a studio and proceeded
to complete his _Triumph of Music_, and other pictures begun in Rome.

By this time the painter's method might seem assured, but Paris was
still able to add something to his style, with the aid of such masters
as Fleury. English critics, who expected _The Triumph of Music_ to
sustain the reputation won by _Cimabue's Madonna_, were
disappointed--partly because Orpheus was represented as playing a
violin, in place of the traditional lyre. To those who will examine and
compare them more carefully, there is no such discrepancy. _The Triumph
of Music: Orpheus by the power of his Art redeems his wife from Hades_,
which is every whit as distinctive a performance as the _Cimabue's
Madonna_ (as indeed it was conceived and painted largely under the same
conditions), was nevertheless not a popular success. Certainly, it
marks, as clearly as any