The publications of his labours commenced in 1861, when there appeared 'Confucian Analecta: Doctrine of the Mean and Great Learning,' and 'Works of Mencius.' There quickly followed 'The Shoo-king, or Book of Historical Documents,' 1865, 4th edit. 1875; 'The Shi-king, or Book of Poetry,' London, 1871, 8vo; and 'The Ch'un Ch'iu: with the Tso Chwan,' 1872. He received the Julien prize from the French Institut in 1875 for these works. In 1876 there appeared 'The Book of Ancient Chinese Poetry in English Verse.' The last volumes of Legge's edition of the Chinese classics appeared in the series called 'The Sacred Books of the East,' which Max Müller, Friedrich [q. v. Suppl.] edited for the Clarendon Press. To this series Legge contributed vols. iii. xvi. xxvii. xxviii.xxxix.xl., Oxford, 1879–1894, 8vo. Of these the first four volumes dealt with the 'Texts of Confucianism,' and the last two with the 'Texts of Taoism.'
Legge's other writings on Chinese literature and religion were:
- 'The Life and Teaching of Confucius,' London, 1867; 4th edit. 1875.
- 'The Life and Teaching of Mencius,' London, 1875.
- 'The Religions of China: Confucianism and Tâoism, described and compared with Christianity,' London, 1880, 8vo.
- 'Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Travels of the Buddhist Pilgrim, Fa-hsien, in India,' London, 1886, 4to.
- 'The Nestorian Monument of Hsî-an-fû in Shen-Hsî, China, relating to the Diffusion of Christianity in China in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries, with a Sketch of subsequent Missions in China,' London, 1888, 8vo.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Men of the Time. 1895.]
LEIGHTON, FREDERIC, Baron Leighton of Stretton (1830–1896), president of the Royal Academy of Arts, was born at Scarborough on 3 Dec. 1830. His family came originally from Shropshire. His grandfather and father were both physicians. His grandfather James (afterwards Sir James) Boniface Leighton was invited to the Russian court, and was court physician under both Alexander I and Nicholas I. His son Frederic Septimus (1800–1892) was educated for the medical profession at Edinburgh, and practised successfully until about 1843, when increasing deafness compelled him to retire. He settled for a time at Bath, but afterwards returned to Scarborough, and finally to London, where he died on 24 Jan. 1892. In spite of the physical disability just mentioned, he was a man of great social talent and of most agreeable manners. His wife, Lord Leighton's mother, was Augusta Susan, daughter of George Augustus Nash of Edmonton.
The young Frederic Leighton showed an early love for drawing and filled many books with his sketches, but these do not seem to have been of a kind to impress his family very profoundly, and his father, it must be said, disliked the idea of art as a profession. While the boy was still very young, his mother's delicate health gave him his first chance of seeing foreign countries. The family travelled abroad, and in the year 1839, before Frederic was ten years old, he found himself one day in the studio of George Lance in Paris. From this visit his father's acceptance of the idea that possibly nature had made the boy an artist appears to date. Dr. Leighton determined, however, that his choice should not be limited by any one-sided education. In London, Rome, Dresden, Berlin, Frankfort, and Florence, his education was pursued, with the result that, in one particular at least, it was vastly more thorough than usual with an English boy of his condition. He became an accomplished linguist, speaking the four chief modern languages with almost equal facility. It was in Florence in 1844 that his profession was finally settled. Dr. Leighton consulted Hiram Power, the sculptor of 'The Greek Slave,' as to whether he should make his son an artist. 'Sir,' said Power, 'Nature has done it for you,' adding that the boy could become 'as eminent as he pleased.'
Work was begun in earnest in the Accademia delle Belle Arti, under Bezzuoli and Servolini, whose influence did little but harm. Leighton soon left Florence for Frankfort, where he resumed his general education. At the age of seventeen he finally left school, and worked at art for a year in the Staedel Institute. In 1848 he moved with his family to Brussels, where he painted one or two pictures, including a 'Cimabue finding Giotto.' In 1849 he was in Paris, copying pictures in the Louvre, and attending a so-called school of art in the Rue Richer. Leighton's individuality was not robust enough for such constant change, and it is probable that he would have been a greater artist than he was, had his early training been more favourable to concentration. His real and serious studentship began only after he left Paris, when he was already in his twentieth year. He returned to Frankfort, and there worked strenuously for three years under Johann Eduard Steinle (1810–1886), of whom he ever afterwards spoke as his only real master. While under Steinle he painted several pictures, the most notable perhaps 'The Plague
