Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/91

 hibited 1824), in which his racy but refined humour first had full scope. It was repeated four times (Mr. Vernon's picture is now in the National Gallery), but the picture of 1824, the first and best, though not the largest, was painted for Lord Egremont, and is now at Petworth, Sussex, with four other pictures by Leslie which were afterwards purchased by the same patron.

In 1824 he went to Scotland with Edwin Landseer and visited Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. Here he painted Sir Walter's portrait, and shortly afterwards he made six illustrations for the Waverley novels, which were engraved. In 1825 Leslie removed to the house in St. John's Place, Lisson Grove, where B. R. Haydon [q. v.] painted ‘Christ's Entry into Jerusalem,’ and shortly afterwards he married Miss Harriet Stone, to whom he had been engaged for some years. She had been introduced by him in his first picture of ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’ as a yeoman's daughter. The next year saw him a father and a Royal Academician, and his life hereafter was one of constant domestic happiness. This year he painted ‘Don Quixote doing Penance in the Sierra Morena,’ for the Earl of Essex, and about the same time his diploma picture, ‘Queen Katherine and her Maid.’ In 1829 came his second picture of Addison's famous country squire, which was called ‘Sir Roger de Coverley among the Gipsies,’ and in 1831 he exhibited his inimitable ‘Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman,’ ‘The Dinner at Mrs. Page's House,’ and ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’ The original of the first picture and replicas of the two others were painted for Mr. Sheepshanks, and are now at the South Kensington Museum. ‘The Taming of the Shrew,’ or ‘Katharine and Petruchio,’ was painted for the Earl of Egremont, and chiefly at Petworth, where the artist and his family paid yearly visits in the summer. During its composition he received some valuable hints from Washington Irving. In 1833 Leslie was induced by his brother in America to accept the appointment of teacher of drawing at the Military Academy at West Point, on the Hudson River, but after six months' trial at the instance of his wife he returned to England. In 1835 Leslie exhibited ‘Gulliver's Introduction to the Queen of Brobdingnag,’ painted for the Earl of Egremont, and ‘Columbus and the Egg,’ painted for Mr. W. Wells. In 1835 came ‘Autolycus,’ and in 1837 ‘Perdita,’ both painted for Mr. Sheepshanks and now in the South Kensington Museum. In 1838 Leslie was summoned to Windsor to paint ‘The Queen receiving the Sacrament at her Coronation,’ which was followed by ‘The Christening of the Princess Royal,’ 1841. The former picture was not exhibited till 1843, the year of the admirable scene from the ‘Malade Imaginaire’ (now in the South Kensington Museum), and a large picture of the ‘fudge’ scene from ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ the only one he painted in illustration of Goldsmith's masterpiece. In 1844 he exhibited a ‘Scene from Comus,’ which was afterwards painted in fresco in the pavilion in Buckingham Palace Gardens. In 1845 he published ‘The Memoirs of John Constable, R.A.’ In 1848 Leslie succeeded Howard as professor of painting at the Royal Academy, and began to deliver the series of lectures which afterwards formed the substance of his excellent ‘Handbook for Young Painters,’ published in 1855. In 1852 his delicate health obliged him to resign the professorship of painting. In 1855 he exhibited another ‘Sancho Panza,’ his last picture from ‘Don Quixote;’ in 1856 ‘Hermione;’ in 1857 ‘Sir Roger de Coverley in Church;’ and in 1859 ‘Hotspur and Lady Percy,’ and ‘Jeanie Deans and Queen Caroline.’ He died in Abercorn Place, St. John's Wood, 5 May 1859, the day after the Academy exhibition was opened. His death was hastened by the shock received by the loss of a daughter (Mrs. A. P. Fletcher) shortly after her marriage.

His ‘Autobiographical Recollections,’ edited by Tom Taylor [q. v.], were published in 1865, and his ‘Life of Reynolds,’ which he left unfinished, was completed by the same writer and published in 1865. A collection of thirty of his works was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the winter of 1870.

Leslie occasionally painted a scene from scripture, as ‘Martha and Mary’ in 1833, and ‘Christ and his Disciples at Capernaum’ in 1843, repeated for Mr. Henry Vaughan in 1858. His serious scenes from Shakespeare also, like those from ‘Henry VIII’ and the ‘Winter's Tale,’ which he painted for I. K. Brunel the engineer, have much merit. But it is as a humorous illustrator that Leslie's special merit as an artist lies. He threw himself so completely into the spirit of his author, whether Cervantes, Sterne, Addison, Shakespeare, or Molière, that we seem to see the very creation of the writer untinged by the personality of the artist. His humour, though hearty, is always refined. Technically, he was an excellent draughtsman, with a vital quality akin to that of Hogarth, with whose works he had been familiar from his youth. He was skilful in composition and deft in execution. His principal defect as a painter was his colour, which, especially in his later works, was harsh.

Among the many portraits which he