Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/500

 LEIGHTON

MADLBB

supposed invention for Spiritualist com munications, he replied brusquely that he &quot; did not believe a word of it,&quot; as he &quot;did not believe in spirits &quot; (Le Gaulois, Oct. 5, 1920).

LEIGHTON, Frederic, Baron Leighton of Stretton, E.A., D.C.L., LL.D., D.Litt., painter. B. Dec. 3, 1830. Ed. Eome, Dresden, Berlin, Frankfort, and Florence. Leighton showed his talent for drawing at a very early age, but his parents gave him a very wide and thorough education. He spoke Italian, German, and French as well as English. His art studies were accom plished at the Florentine Accademia delle Belle Arti and the Frankfort Staedel Insti tute. After spending some time in Brussels and Paris in 1848 and 1849, he returned to Frankfort, and spent three years under Professor Steinle. He settled at Eome in 1852, and there painted his Cimabue s Madonna, which was exhibited in the Academy in 1855 and was bought by the Queen. In 1858 he returned to London, and joined the Pre-Eaphaelites. He was admitted Associate of the Eoyal Academy in 1864, and became an Academician in 1869. In 1878 he was elected President of the Eoyal Academy and knighted. In 1896 (just before his death) he was raised to the peerage. Lord Leighton had honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and w r as President of the international jury on painting at the Paris Exhibition in 1878. He was an Associate of the French Insti tute ; honorary member of the Berlin Academy, and member of the Vienna, Belgian, St. Luke (Eome), Florence, Turin, Genoa, Perugia, and Antwerp Academies ; Commander of the Legion of Honour and of the Order of Leopold ; Knight of the Prussian Order Pour le Merite and the Coburg Order Dem Verdienste. Mrs. Eussell Barrington, his chief biographer (Life, Letters, and Work of F. Leighton, 2 vols., 1906), does not discuss his creed, though in her G. F. Watts (1905) she classes Leighton with Watts as men to 927

whom &quot; the beauty of nature was a religion in itself &quot; (p. 157). Leighton, however, was fairly outspoken for a man in his position. From 1879 to 1893 he gave occasional addresses to Academy students (Addresses Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, 1896), and in these his Eationalism is plainly expressed. The second address (1881) is particularly valu able as an authoritative refutation of tbe current superstition that religion inspired the great painters of the Middle Ages. In the fifth address, which deals with the Middle Ages, Lord Leighton shows that the serious Christianity of the early Middle Ages was a blight upon painting, which recovered only with the Humanism of the Eenaissance. He uses Theistic phrases in his letters, but there is a plain suggestion of Agnosticism in his reference to &quot; the might and the majesty of the mysterious and eternal Fountain of all good things &quot; (Addresses, p. 159). This is his only ex plicit statement of belief. D. Jan. 25, 1896.

LEVY, J. H., economist and writer. B. July 17, 1838 (of Jewish parents). Ed. City of London School. He was lecturer on Logic, Economics, and Philosophy at the City of London College and at the Birkbeck Institute ; and he started the London Dialectical Society. In 1871 Mr. Levy joined the staff of the Examiner. From 1877 to 1890 he was a weekly contributor to the National Reformer over the signature &quot; D.&quot; He was an Agnostic. He was one of the founders of the Personal Eights Association, and took an active part in obtaining the repeal of the Con tagious Diseases (Women) Acts, editing The Shield newspaper for five years. He was an anti-vaccinator and an anti-vivi- sectionist all these activities being related to his intense belief in Individualism. He was the founder of the Political Economy Circle of the National Liberal Club, and a very keen debater there. D. Nov. 11, 1913.

MADLER, Professor Johann Heinrich von, German astronomer. B. May 29,

928