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' SANIA BARSARA •

STUDIES IN RUSKIN:

SOME ASPECTS

WORK AND TEACHING OF JOHN RUSKIN,

HIT II REPRODUCTIONS OF

DRAIl'IXGS BY MR. RUSKIN IN THE RUSKIN

DRAWING SCHOOL. OXFORD.

■tl ,7 E. liOEHU, RA.

" 1, Oxford).

STUDIES IN RUSKIN:

SOME ASPECTS

WORK AND TEACHING OF JOHN RUSKIN.

EDWARD T. COOK, M.A.,

AUTHOR OF
'A POPULAR HANDBOOK TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY.'

WJTH REPRODUCTIONS OF

DRAWINGS BY MR. RUSKIN IN THE RUSKIH

DRAWING SCHOOL, OXFORD.

GEORGE ALLEN,

SUNNY SIDE, ORPINGTON,
AND
BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR, LONDON.
1890.

[AH rights reserved,']

PRINTED BY

IIAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.,

LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

PREFACE.

The object of the First Part of this little book
is not, it will be seen, critical or controversial,
but expository. My desire has been to discuss
not lioiv, but what, Ruskin has written. For
several reasons, such definition seemed to me a
thing worth attempting at this time. Mr. Ruskin
has of late years written so voluminously, and
on subjects so multifarious, that the accidental
and the temporary have been like to overlay
what is essential and permanent in his teaching.
His writings open a vista into a great forest,
but there has been some danger of not seeing
the forest for the trees. This danger, which
always exists when an author spreads himself
over a large area, has probably been increased
by the increasing popularity of Mr. Ruskin's

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY or (CALIFORNIA

SANTA BARBARA

VI PREFACE.

works, and by the cult which has grown up
around his personality. The most ardent are
not always the most di.scriminating of readers.
" The fact is," Mr. Ruskin somewhere says,
" that I have always had three different ways of
writing — one, with the single view of making
myself understood, in which I necessarily omit
a great deal of what comes into m}- head ;
another, in which I saj' what I think ought
to be said ; and my third way of writing is to
say all that comes into m3- head, for my own
pleasure." .Amongst the things that come
most freely into Mr. Ruskin's head, and that
give him most pleasure, are somewhat wilful
paradoxes, uttered often, it would seem, with
the single view of making himself misun-
derstood. On the other hand, what sel-
dom comes into Mr. Ruskin's head, or what,
if it does come, is generally dismissed as
giving him no pleasure, is the desirability of
saving clauses and qualifying statements. The
consequence is that nothing is easier for a
captious critic than to convict Mr. Ruskin of
inconsistencies, and for a superficial reader
than to fall into bewilderment. It has seemed

PREFACE. Vn

to me, therefore, that I might be doing a real
service, in these days of Ruskin Societies and
Ruskin Reading Guilds, by attempting to set
forth what appeared to me to be the main
and essential drift of his teaching.

The pages devoted to this object were
originally written to form part of a series of
articles on " Modern Gospels," contributed by
different hands to a daily periodical. Having
decided to republish the " Gospel according
to Ruskin," I thought it might be well to
carry the design of the " Gospel " chapters
a step farther, by appending some account
of Mr. Raskin's Acts. Mr. Ruskin, like his
master, Carlyle, has loudly proclaimed him-
self a Moral Teacher, and in the case of
moral teachers one has a right to inquire
how far they have practised what they
preach. I have not, however, attempted any
estimate of Mr. Ruskin's life and character,
a task for which the time has happily not
arrived. My object has only been to show
such aspects of Mr. Ruskin's public work as
are in themselves of public interest, and inci-
dentally throw light on his teaching. The

VIU PREFACE.

best claim, indeed, to honour consists, in Mr.
Ruskin's case, as in that of all great teachers,
not so much in what he has himself done, as
in what he has enabled others to think, and
feel, and do. The highest tribute to Mr. Rus-
kin's Gospel is to be found in the thoughts
he has inspired and in the characters he has
helped to mould. Nevertheless, many of Mr.
Ruskin's own schemes have in themselves a
positive value in their generation. They may
serve as sign-posts, pointing the way to social
progress, and they have shown how practical
realization may be given to what the late Prince
Leopold truly and eloquently described as the
last and greatest precept in Mr. Ruskin's Gospel
— the precept, namely, that "the highest wisdom
and the highest treasure need not be costly or
exclusive ; that the greatness of a nation must
be measured, not alone by its wealth and ap-
parent power, but by the degree in which its
people have learned together, in the great world
of books, of art, and of nature, pure and enno-
bling joys."

Dccoiil'cr jist, 1 SS9.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
PREFACE V

PART I.

" THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN."
CHAPTER I.

PRINCIPLES OF ART ....... 1

CHAPTER II.

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE ....... 22

PART II.
SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN'S WORK.

CHAPTER I.

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD ...... 38

PAGE
. 62

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER n.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL

CHAPTER 111.

4MR. KUSKIN AND TllK WOliKIXG JlKx's COLLEGE . . 122

CHAPTER IV.

51K. KUSKINS ".MAY QUEENS " 12?

CHAPTER V.
THE ST. GEOKOe's GUILD (willi SOIIIC accoiiiil of the

" Rtiskin Muscimi" at Sheffield) . . . .140

CHAPTER VI.

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS ..... l6l

§ I. The Langdale Linen Industry . . .164

§ 2. " St. George's " Cloth . . .173

§ 3. " George Thomson & Co." . . . . 17S

CHAPTER VII.

MR. KUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS .... 1S4

.MM'ENDICES.

NOTES ON MR. RUSKIN' S OXFORD
LECTURES.

I. "readings in 'MODERN PAINTERS ' " . . . 2O5

CONTENTS.

II, "the pleasures of ENGLAND
III. A LECTURE ON PATIENCE.

IV. "birds, and how to paint them'

V. A LECTURE ON LANDSCAPE

PAGE
. 211

. 264

. 272

. 28q

REPRODUCTIONS OF DRAWINGS
MR. RUSKIN.

I. MARKET PLACE, ABBEVILLE .

II. PINE FOREST, MONT CENIS

III. LUCERNE ....

IV. OLD BRIDGE AT LUCERNE
V. FRIEOURG, SWITZERLAND

VI. GLACIER DES BOSSONS, CH.^MONI.V

VII. GR.\ND CANAL, VENICE

VIII. CASTLE OF HAPSBURG

IX. KINGFISHER .

X. PLANE LEAVES

XI. SAN MICHELE, LUCCA

XII. AGRIMONY LEAVES .

XIII. GLEN FINLAS .

■ 300

• 302

■ 304

• 306
. 308

■ 310

• 312

■ 314
. 3'6
. 318
. 320

■ 322

• 324

325

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. John Ruskin. From n bust by Sir J. E.

Boeinn, R.A Frontispiece

II. The Ruskin Drawing School : Interior

To face page 73

III. The May Queen's Gold Cross. After a design

by Arthur Severn . ■ To face page 129

IV. The May Queen's Procession. From a drawing

by Edith Capper .... Page 132

V. The St. George's Museum, Walkley : Ex-
terior .... To face page 146

VI. The St. George's Museum, 'V\''alkley : In-
terior .... To face page 148

VII. The Ruskin Museum, Meersbrook Park : E.\-

terior .... To face page 1 58

XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Vlll. The "Bishop's House," Meersbrook Pakk

To face poi^e 159

IX. The Ruskin Museum. Meersbrook Tauk : In-
terior OF Picture-gallery To face page 160

X. Peas.\nt-\voman Spinning. Fioiii a drazviiig

by Erlith Capper .... Page 1 66

XI. "St. Martin's," Laxgd.^le. From a dra-aiing

by Edith Capper .... Page 16S

XII. "Old John," the Weaver. From a drawing

by Edith Capper .... Page 171

XIII. St. George's Mill, La.xey, Isli: of Man (with
fac-similc of Mr. Ruskin's Inscription)

^ To face page 175

NOTE.

Several chapters in this book originally appeared in the
Pall Mall Gazette. To the proprietors of that journal I am
indebted for kind permission to reprint them here. For
the chapter on "The Langdale Linen Industry" I am
indebted to my friend Mr. Albert Fleming.

The Illustrations of the Walkley Museum, Meersbrook
Park, etc., are from photographs kindly taken for me by
Mr. B. Carr and Mr. C. Bradshaw, under the supervision
of Mr. William White, the Curator of the Ruskin Museum.
For permission to engrave Sir J. E. Boehm's bust of Mr.
Ruskin and the Interior of the Ruskin Drawing School
I am indebted to Mr. A. Macdonald, the Master of the
School .

Permission to reproduce a selection from Mr. Ruskin's
Drawings in the Ruskin Drawing School has been kindly
accorded to me by the Curators of the University Galleries,
and by Mr. Macdonald, the Master of the School. To Mr.
Macdonald I am greatly indebted for much help in this
matter, as well as for other kind offices.

PART I.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
RUSKIN."

CHAPTER I.

PRINCIPLES OF ART.

Is there a Gospel according to Ruskin at all ? is there a
The very genius of Mr. Ruskin as a writer '^Jjj' '^"^^
makes the question necessary. Darwin * was
no orator as Mr. Ruskin is. There was no gla-
mour of fine writing, no film of ingenious rhe-
toric, to lend factitious importance or interest
to the " Origin of Species." Darwin was the
deliverer of a gospel, or he was nothing. But
Mr. Ruskin may be a giant of prose writing,
and yet have no gospel to deliver. All is not

* The preceding article in the series of which this paper
formed part was on "The Gospel according to Darwin."

2 ' THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

gold in thought that glisters in words. Tt is
with fine words as Mr. Ruskin says of painted
drapery, " As long as they are in their due
service and subjection — while their folds are
formed by the motion of men, and their lustre
adorns the nobleness of men — so long the lustre
and folds are lovely. But cast them from the
human limbs — golden circlet and silken tissue
are withered ; the dead leaves of autumn are
more precious than they." How, then, is it
with the golden circlets of Mr. Ruskin's periods
and the silken tissues of his phrases ? He has
shown us a new instrument of expression, but
has he opened any new field of thought or
touched any fresh spring of action ? Is it
possible to speak of a "Gospel according to
Ruskin " in anything approaching the same
sense as that in which we speak of a " Gospel
according to Darwin " ? Are there Ruskinians
as well as Darwinians ? Mr. Ruskin's own
answer to the question, when put in that
form, is a decided negative. Many men, he
says, have " hope of being remembered as the
discoverers of some important truth, or the
founders of some exclusive sj'Stem called after
their own names. Hui 1 ha\r ikmi ajiplied

PRINCIPLES OF ART. 3

myself to discover anything, being content to

praise vvhiat had already been discovered ; so

that no true disciple of mine will ever be a

Ruskinian." But now hear some other opinions.

" Do you look out," wrote George Eliot to her

friend Miss Sarah Hennell, " for Ruskin's books

whenever they appear ? . . . I venerate him as

one of the great teachers of the age. . . . He

teaches with the inspiration of a Hebrew

prophet." " Do you read Ruskin's ' Fors Cla-

vigera' ? " Carlyle asked of Emerson. "If you

don't, do, 1 advise you. Also . . . whatever

else he is now writing. There is nothing going

on among us as notable to me."

These estimates of Mr. Ruskin himself on ^noid Gos-
pel with

the one side, and of his admirers on the other, "1Y^!!?p''"

' 1 cations.

are not contradictory. The Gospel according
to Ruskin is one of glad tidings, but not of
" news." What George Eliot admired was his
teaching of " Truth, Sincerity, and Nobleness."
This is an " old, old story." But every age
requires the old story to be applied to its new
interests and its new temptations. The great-
ness of Mr. Ruskin depends on the degree in
which he has met this twofold need. He took
the Gospel of Truth, Sincerity, and Nobleness

4 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

as he had learned it from Carl3le, and applied
it to a new sphere untouched by Carlyle and
of increasing importance in this time. And
secondly, founding his Gospel of Art upon
Principles of Life, he re-applied that Gospel in
its turn to counteract the besetting materialism
and commercialism of his age. In this chapter
an attempt will be made to set out, as far
as possible in the preacher's own words, the
Ruskinian Gospel of Art; whilst in a second
chapter some of its leading applications to poli-
tical and social questions will be considered.
-The origin It has been said of Carlyle, by one of his
imiched" latcst biographcrs, that his taste in art was
withp.aisc. Qj^,^^ ,, ji^^j ^c ,j,^^, Annandale peasant." Then

the Annandale peasant must have a great fac-
ult}-, as indeed the natural man often does have,
for going to the root of the matter. " In all
true Works of Art," says Carlyle in "Sartor,"
" if thou know a Work of Art from a Daub of
Artifice, wilt thou discern Eternit)' looking
through Time ; the Godlike rendered visible."
"Art in all times," he says, in "Shooting
Niagara," " is a higher synonym for God Al-
mighty's Facts, — which come to us direct
from Heaven, hut in so abstruse a condition,

PRINCIPLES OF ART. 5

and cannot be read at all till the better intellect
interpret them. All real Art is definable as
Fact, or say as the disimprisoned Soul of
Fact." In these two passages (the latter of
which, however, was of course long subsequent
to "Modern Painters") is contained the germ
of all Mr. Ruskin's Gospel of Art. What is
Art ? From what instinct in man does it spring ?
To what faculties does it appeal ? By what
rules is it to be judged ? What purpose does
it serve ? The Ruskinian Gospel answers
these fundamental questions with no uncertain
sound. " The art of man," such is the first
article of faith as defined in " The Laws of
Fesole," " is the expression of his rational and
disciplined delight in the forms and laws of
the creation of which he forms a part." Mr.
Ruskin's theory of the origin of Art is thus the
old theory of imitation, with a " rider : " Art
arises out of imitation, but of imitation touched
with delight. Both are necessary. Thus " a
lamb at play, rejoicing in its own life only,
is not an artist." But the child who, looking
at the lamb and liking it, tries to imitate it on
his slate, is an artist. This is the theory
which all Mr. Ruskin's historical studies in

O THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RL'SKIX.

Art serve to illustrate. " All great Art is

Praise." The perfection of the Art of the Greeks

was the expression of their delight in God's

noblest work — the disciplined beauty of the

human body. The perfection of early Italian

Art was its delight in "saints a-praising God."

It is with architecture as with painting : those

fair fronts of mouldering wall were filled with

sculpture of the saints whom the cathedral

builders worshipped and of the flowers they

loved.

The facui- Such being, on the Ruskinian theory, the
ties to °' -' '

a '"eaif"^' o'"'?^" of Art, it is casy to see to what faculties
inlua^fon'^ i" man it appeals. " Like is known of like : "
power." from delight in the forms and laws of God's
creation Art comes ; to that delight it appeals.
This is the central idea of the chief book of
Ruskin's Gospel. " In the main aim and prin-
ciple of ' Modern Painters,' " he says, " there
is no variation from its first syllabic to its last.
It declares the pcrfectness and eternal beauty
of the work of God, and tests all work of
man by concurrence with or subjection to that."
Thus, the greatest picture, he says, is that which
conveys the greatest number of the greatest
ideas. The ideas that can be received iVoni Art

PRINCIPLES OF ART. 7

are fivefold : ideas of power, ideas of imitation,
ideas of truth, ideas of beauty, and ideas of
relation (that is, everything productive of ex-
pression, sentiment, and character). Of these
five sets of ideas, the first two may be classed
as one, and soon dismissed — not because they
are unimportant, but because the recognition
of their importance is included in every Gospel
of Art that was ever sanely preached, and
besides is felt by every one who ever looked
at a picture. " How like it is ! " is always
the first remark of the unsophisticated critic
when he is confronted by a competent picture, .
and feels a perception of gentle surprise at
seeing a piece of canvas covered with pigments
looking like a field or a face. The idea of
imitation is the first received from a picture ;
the idea of power — the recognition, that is, of
the painter's skill — is perhaps the last.

In this aspect of pictures what artists are so t*"^ duty of

* ^ choosing

fond of saying — namely, that only artists have ""bjects.
the right to criticize them — is true. In one
sense it is only the chef of the Cafe Anglais
who can " do justice " to a dinner at the Cafe
Riche ; for it is only he who knows how much
skill in composition and delicacy in handling

8 " THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN."

are involved in producing the dinner. But no
one has yet pretended that you have no right
to discuss a good dinner unless you could
yourself cook it — and why not ? Because the
dinner itself is to be enjoyed, as well as the
skill which produced it to be admired. And
so it is with pictures : they must be like what
they represent ; of course they must ; and a
spectator may or may not know how dii'licult
it is to attain even that, but the more he knows
how difficult is the mastery, the more he will
insist, if he be logical, upon the aim being
worthy. According to Mr. Frith, Turner once
said to Mr. Ruskin, " My dear sir, if you only
knew how difficult it is to paint even a decent
picture, you would not say the severe things
3'ou do of those who fail." As applied to Mr.
Ruskin's criticism of kcliiiiqiic, the remark may
have been trenchant ; as applied to his criticism
of subjects, it cuts precisely the other way.
" The life so short," says Chaucer, " the craft
so long to learne ; " then, for God's sake, do not
waste your hard-won skill and scanty time in
painting a boor instead of a gentleman, or an
" impression " of a ballet-girl instead oi' a vision
of angel choirs.

PRINCIPLES OF ART. 9

And thus we come to the other ideas which j-.'^th''." °'
pictures may convey — ideas of truth, of beauty,
of relation. Ideas of truth need not detain us.
It is a chapter of the Gospel which is indeed
supremely important, but also extremely obvi-
ous. It was not so when Mr. Ruskin first
taught it. The man who in the pre-Ruskinian
era was the High Priest among connoisseurs
was Sir George Beaumont ; and Sir George,
admirable man as he was in other respects,
when he looked at a landscape, asked, not
whether it was true to the facts of nature, but
whether it accorded with the fictions of con-
vention. " But where is your brown tree ? "
he asked of Constable when that painter gave
in his adherence to the then revolutionary
course of proclaiming that trees were green.
No part of Mr. Ruskin's Gospel has won wider
acceptance, and in so doing effected a greater
revolution in Art, than his vindication of truth
in landscape. And one sees whence his success
came. " Out of the fulness of the heart the
mouth speaketh." To the man who has walked
with nature, and seen in it " God Almighty's
facts," the conventions of the ideal school are
flat blasphemy. " No other man in England,"

lO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKl.N.

said Carlyle of Mr. Ruskin's political economy,
" has in him the same divine rage against
falsity." But false wares may be passed in
pictures as well as in trade, and Mr. Ras-
kin's "divine rage" was spent against both
alike.
"Ideas of But it must Hot be supposed tiiat in prcach-

Beauty : " rr i

Ruskinat jne Truth in Art he ignores tiie function of

once a ^ °

a Painter"^ Bcauty. On the contrar}', it is as an inter-
preter of Beauty that Mr. Ruskin has probably
attracted most readers. The peculiarities of
his education have in this respect given him a
unique position and insight. He is at once a
Puritan and a painter, an Evangelical by train-
ing, a Catholic by taste. Hence he has resisted
both the Philistinism of Evangelical religion
and the frivolity or false sentiment of popular
art. To the "aesthetes" in particular he has
ever been a deadly enemy, and there is not a
line in his books which does not give the lie
to the principle, or a rebuke to the practice,
of that school. According to it, the essence
of Art is beauty, and the essence of beauty
consists in its appeal to tiic senses. This is
the theory of the matter which is responsible
for all the sensuality and all the frivolity in An

PRINCIPLES OF ART. I I

which made the Puritans banish it as the
accursed thing.

Mr. Ruskin's theory of the function of Art JJ^^^°^-
is diametrically opposite. According to him, 85^11"/.
" there is no other definition of the Beautiful,
nor of any subject of delight to the aesthetic
faculty, than that it is what one noble spirit
has created, seen and felt by another of similar
or equal nobility. So much as there is in you
of ox, or of swine, perceives no beauty and
creates none : what is human in you, in exact
proportion to the perfectness of its humanity,
can create it and receive." Art, he says, is
no recreation — it is "not a mere amusement, a
minister to morbid sensibilities, a tickler and
fanner of the soul's sleep." And this, not be-
cause Art is not to give pleasure : on the con-
trary, it is not Art unless it does ; but because
the pleasures to which Art should appeal are
the pleasures of the mind, and not of the senses.
That such pleasures of the mind are the highest
prerogative of man is no new Gospel. It is as
old as Aristotle, who defined happiness as " a
sort of energy of contemplation." Thus, ac-
cording to Mr. Ruskin, beauty is " the expres-
sion of the creating Spirit of the universe."

12 "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

Neither is this statement a new one. It was
partly taught by Plato, and more clearly by
Spenser, when he said —

"That Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem.
An outward show of things, that only seem ; "

and when he bade the hearts of men

" Lift themselves up higher,
And learnc to love with zealous humble dewt^-
Th' eternal fountaine of lliat hiavenlj' beauty."

It is the detailed proof of this conclusion — oc-
cupying three volumes and a half of " Modern
Painters" — that is the pith of Ruskin's Gospel.
There is, he begins by arguing, an objective
standard of beauty. It is not, as Keats so
prettily but so absurdly said, the true ; for the
" mirage of the desert is fairer than its samis."
Nor is it the useful ; unless the most beautiful
products of art are spades and millstones. Nor
does it depend on custom : Gower Street ma)'
become less ugly to you if you are used to it,
but it is not custom that is the cause of the
beauty of Giotto's Tower. Nor does it depend
on association of ideas. Associations are a
source of pleasure ; so is beauty ; but beauty is

PRINCIPLES OF ART. 1 3

not therefore association. No ; beauty consists,
says Ruskin, (i) in certain external qualities of
bodies which are typical of Divine attributes ;
(2) in the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of
function in vital things.

Any reader who wants to get at the evi- "Typical"

and

dences of Ruskin's Gospel must study closely g^''^'."
the chapters in which the above propositions ^''p'^'"'^''-
are worked out. All that can be done here is
to take an illustration or two to show the line
of argument adopted. Every one has heard of
the repose of true beauty ; why is repose
beautiful ? Because it is " a type of Divine
permanence," and satisfies

" The universal instinct of repose,
The longing for confirmed tranquillity,
Inward and outward, humble and sublime —
The life where hope and memory are one."

That is what is meant by typical beauty. Again,
every one recognizes the beauty of " the ideal ; "
but wherein does this beauty consist ? Why
is the skylark beautiful ? Because it so per-
fectly fulfils the bird-ideal, so happily performs,
that is, the highest functions of the songsters
of the sky. Why is the face of an ideal man

14 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

more beautiful than that of the man in tlie
street ? Because Art is " the pure mirror that
can show the seraph standing by each human
bodv, as signal to the heavenl}' land." That is
what is meant by vital beauty. There is no
beauty that cannot ultimateh' be traced back
to one or other of these causes, and no work
of art which should not be judged by its
compliance with them. Turner's work is more
beautiful than that of other men, only in the
degree in which it shows more clearly than
they " the disimprisoned soul of fact," and sets
forth more surely "the glorj' of God." And
so with architecture. "The law which it has
been my effort chiefl\^ to illustrate," says Mr.
Ruskin, " is the dependence of all noble design
on the sculpture of organic form." One school
of architecture sets itself to lines and jiropor-
tions and conventional ornaments ; the other
chooses the suggestion of natural laws, the
imitation of natural forms. Let the architects
pause, saj's Mr. Ruskin, with all the seriousness
of a moral teacher, at the parting of " the Two
Paths," before they " wilfully bind uji their eyes
from the splendour, wilfully turn their backs
upon all the majesties, of OuHiipolence."

PRINCIPLES OF ART. IS

One sees from this passage how serious and Ai;j.^!'^d^
sacred is the mission to which Ruskin's Gospel
summons Art as the interpreter of Beauty. No
question has been more often debated than
the relation of Art to Religion. According to
Mr. Ruskin, Art is Religion. By Religion is
meant " the feelings of love, reverence, or dread
with which the human mind is affected by its
conceptions of spiritual being." Recognise this
spiritual bting, and " name it as you will : " if
you recognise it, and recognising revere, you
are religious ; and Art, as the interpreter of
Beauty, is the prime agent in showing you
noble grounds for such noble emotion. Hence
also the true artist is necessarily a man of true
religion. The world of Beauty is like the Beryl
in Rossetti's ballad —

" None sees here but the pure alone."

That such has in fact been the case is the
burden of all Mr. Ruskin's books on the history
of artists and art schools. It is the decadence
of the art of architecture, corresponding with a
decay of vital religion, that he finds written on
the " Stones of Venice ; " the clearness of early
faith that he finds reflected in the brightness of

1 6 "the gospel accordixg to ruskix."

the pictures of Florence ; the gladness of Greek
religion that gives for him its sharpness to the
" Ploughshare of Pentelicus."
"Ideas of Biit i,^ the Gospel according to Ruskin Art

Relation : ^ °

Mo'rality '^ ""'• °"'y Religion ; it is Morality also. To
understand how this conclusion is reached we
must go back to " ideas of relation," which, it
will be remembered, were the last (and highest)
source of pleasures in Art. The meaning and
sphere of these ideas can be seen in a moment
by any one who will go into the National
Gallery and look at Turner's " Building of
Carthage," which he bequeathed to the country
to hang side by side with Claude's " Queen of
Sheba." In the foreground Turner puts a group
of children sailing toy boats. "The choice of
tliis incident, as expressive of the ruling pas-
sion which was to be the source of future great-
ness, in preference to the tumult of busy masons
or arming soldiers, has nothing to do with the
technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen
would have conveyed the same intellectual idea
as an elaborate realization by colour." Yet this
" idea of relation " gives at once an interest to
the picture which no beauty of forms or colours,
no skill of workmanship, could give. And not

PRINCIPLES OF ART. 1/

onl}' that, but it actually enhances the beauty.
Take another illustration, and this fact will be
seen more clearly. In Turner's " Pass of Faido "
the painter introduces a post-chaise in the fore-
ground. He was criticized for so doing, on the
ground that he thereby destroyed the majesty
of desolation in his picture. Not so ; he enhanced
it. " The full essence and soul of the scene,
and consummation of all the wonderfulness of
the torrents and Alps, lay in that post-chaise."
And why ? Because, without the suggestion
of the human element, nature loses in the in-
stant its power over the human heart. Mr.
Ruskin has illustrated this point in a famous
passage in the " Seven Lamps," descriptive of
a scene in the Jura : —

" It would be difficult to conceive one less dependent
upon any otlier interest than that of its own secluded
and serious beauty ; but the writer well remembers
the sudden blankness and chill whicli were cast upon
it when he endeavoured, in order more strictly to arrive
at the sources of its impressiveness, to imagine it, for
a moment, a scene in some aboriginal forest of the New
Continent. The flowers in an instant lost their light,
the river its music ; the hills became oppressively deso-
late ; a heaviness in the boughs of the darkened forest
showed how much of their former power had been
dependent upon a life which was not theirs, how much

i8 "the gospel according to ruskin."

of the glor}' of the imperishable, or contimiall}- renewed,
creation is reflected from things more precious in their
memories than it, in its renewing. Those ever-spring-
ing flowers and ever-flowing streams had been dyed
by the deep colours of human endurance, valour, and
virtue, and tlie crests of the sable hills that rose against
the evening sky received a deeper worsliip, because
their far sliadows fell eastward over the iron wall of
Joux and the four-square keep of Gransou."

Great Art Herein is another fundamental aitick- in the

'* the t^'pc

and'nobfe Gospel accordlng to Ruskin. It is the function
of Art, as we have seen, to declare the beauty
of God ; but man's soul is the mirror of God's,
and hence all the power of nature depends on
its subjection to the human soul. " In these
books of mine," says Ruskin, in a central pas-
sage of " Modern Painters," " their distinctive
character as essays on Art is their bringing
everything to a root in hiuiian passion or hu-
man hope. Every principle of painting which
I have stated is traced to some vital or spi-
ritual fact ; and in my works on Architecture
the preference accorded finally to one scliool
over another is founded on a comparison of
their influences on the life of the workman
— a question by all other writers on the subject
of Architecture wholly forgotten or ilcspised."

PRINCIPLES OF ART. ig

The artist, then, and the amateur are not to
Hve in rapt contemplation of a beauty apart
from the world of man and the interests of
every-day life, but mixing freely in that world
and sharing in those interests, are to show
the things that sustain man's spiritual life, and
the conditions that minister to his peace. " We
live by the sweat of our brow or by the clink
of our machinery," says the man of business.
" We live not by bread alone, but by ' admira-
tion, hope, and love,' " says the artist. Thus
it is that " great Art is nothing else than the
type of strong and noble life ; " for it first
" seizes natural facts, and then orders those facts
by strength of human intellect, so as to make
them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost
serviceable, memorable, and beautiful;" and
hence, too, it is that so far from Art being
immoral, " little else than Art is moral ; for if
life without industry is guilt, industry without
art is brutality."

Such is the Ruskinian Gospel of Art. What significance

^ oi the fore-

is the value of the message to the present o°',"^^ p""^-^

generation ? To answer that question one has p'''=^'="'^s^

to remember the materialism which, owing to

modern science and modern industry, is the

20 "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

besetting danger of the age. The Ruskinian
Gospel has sometimes been spoken of as
wliolly contradictory of both these factors in
modern Hfe. If so, it is so much the worse
for the Gospel. But in fact, it is not con-
tradictory, but corrective of them. Mr. Ruskin
came at the " psychological moment," when
science had reduced all life to physical elements,
and industry all men to machines, to correct
this tendency by showing the other side of
truth. Science teaches us that the stars stink,
Art that they twinkle ; Science that the clouds
are " a sleet}' mist," Art that they are " a golden
throne.'' For Science is of essences, Art of
aspects. The one, be it observed, is as much
a study of facts as the other. It is as much
a fact to be noted in the constitution of things
tlial they produce such and sucii an effect
upon tlie eye or heart, as that thcj' are made
up of certain atoms of matter. And similarly
with the conditions of modern industry as with
the conclusions of modern science. The drift of
modern society under the pressure of economic
forces is all towards materialism also — towards
the material prosperity of money-getting and
the ninterial misery of poverty. The drifl of

PRINCIPLES OF ART. 21

Mr. Ruskin's teaching is to relieve the pres-
sure of poverty by diverting the race after
wealth. The world of industry, with science
to do its bidding, placed happiness in wealth.
" It got the clouds packed into iron cylinders,
and made them carry its wise self at their own
cloud pace. It got weavable fibres out of the
mosses, and made clothes for itself cheap and
fine, and thought that here was happiness." And
all the while, as Mr. Ruskin came to preach,
"the real happiness of man was placed in the
keeping of the little mosses of the wayside
and of the clouds of the firmament " — in the
keeping of these and in the doing of justice
and ministering of mercy. Amid the turmoil
of trade and anarchy of competition, Mr. Ruskin
proclaimed that " Art still has truth," and bade
men " take refuge there." What kind of truth
his Gospel teaches in trade and politics, and
what kind of refuge it provides, will be shown
in the ne.xt chapter.

CHAPTER II.

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE.

Ruskin's No gosDcI is eood for anvthinir which is not

"inc^uire ^ i ^ ^ <j

within good for everythintr. Confront tlie novice with

upon every- ° j a

thing. some experimental problem upon which vour
gospel is silent, or with some logical conclusion
for which it is not prepared, and what authority
is left to you ? For you cannot label a gospel
like a bale of glass, "This side up only." It
must stand four-square to every wind that
blows, or it cannot stand at all. It is one of
the characteristics of Mr. Ruskin as a writer
that he is permeated with a sense of this neces-
sity. "Throughout Ruskin's whole work," says
a French critic of to-day, " we find the applica-
tion of developed theories," and his writings arc
thus " one of the greatest works achieved by
the mind of man." " The teaching of Art," says
Mr. Ruskin iiiiiisilf, "is the teaching of all
things." Aiul in ihf fuhihiunttif this conception

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 23

of his calling there is no word in his Gospel
of Art which he has not driven home to its
utmost application to life, no interest or sphere
of life which he has not related to some prin-
ciple of art. He has laid down the law with
equal decision upon Giotto's painting and goose
pies ; upon Bible and bicycles ; upon railways
and Reynolds ; upon the clouds of heaven and
the circles of hell. A complete index to Mr.
Ruskin's works would be a formidable rival to
Mrs. Beeton : you could " inquire within upon
everything."

This enormous multiplicity of topics touched oisUnction^
upon by the preacher makes two general re- «=/°^jfi
marks necessary. In the first place, no disci- [iari^ws"'
pie— even of the straitest sect — is bound to
accept as gospel every word that falls from
the " Master's " lips. A man may be a sincere
and consistent Ruskinian without abjuring to-
bacco or waiting seven years before he marries
his betrothed. For, be it observed, there are
things which appertain to the Gospel, and
things which do not. The Pope is infallible,
but only when he speaks from the chair and
utters the voice of the Church. The judge's
word is law, but only when he delivers the

24 THE GOSPKL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

judgment of the court, and not when he amuses
himself with ohiicr dicta. But on the other
hand, this liberty of rejection is strictly limited
to such things as are not of the faith. A
disciple may not chop a gospel up into mor-
sels, to eat or refuse at his pleasure. This is
precisely, however, what most people do with
the Gospel according to Ruskin. There has
been a curious instance of it in some recent
criticisms. In art, says the Edinburgh, Mr.
Ruskin is often right ; in political economy he
is alwaj's wrong. As a social jihilosopher,
says the Century, Mr. Ruskin is above praise ;
as an art critic, he is beneath contempt. From
the point of view of Mr. Ruskin's Gospel both
criticisms must necessaril}' be wrong. For
if the teaching of Art be the teaching of
everything, " unfaith in aught is want of faith
in all."
Miftics' ^" order to appreciate the point of contact

to work out between Art and life, consider for a moment
saiv.it'ioii. the only true and vital kind of " historical "
art — the art, that is, which represents the
living forms and daily deeds of its own time.
Teach noble art in this sense, and you be-
come at once a teacher of morality as well.

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 25

" Remember," said Mr. Riiskin, in one of the
earliest of his public lectures, " that it is not
so much in buying pictures as in being pictures
that you can encourage a noble school." In
seeking for beauty of form in a marble image,
you necessarily seek also for beauty of character
in a living person. " On all the beautiful
features of men and women, throughout the
ages, are written the solemnities and majesty
of the law they knew, with the charity and
meekness of their obedience." The importance
of individual character, the value of work in
forming it, the supremacy of duty in directing
it : these are some of the leading moral lessons
which Ml'. Ruskin, like Carlyle, has had to
teach, but to which he has given a new turn
by adding the sanction of Art. It used to be
thought that the " condition of England ques-
tion " would be solved by the ballot-box, by
fresh liberties, by new laws. Not so, said
Carlyle. Not so, says Mr. Ruskin. In life, as
in Art, the only liberty worth having is founded
on personal discipline. This is why Mr.
Ruskin lays so much stress on the dignity and
usefulness of manual labour. " To succeed to
my own satisfaction," he says, " in a manual

'THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

Each man
to be his
brother's
keeper.

piece of work is life — to me, as to all men."
" Little else except Art," he elsewhere says,
"is wise; all knowledge unaccompanied by a
habit of useful action is too likely to become
deceitful, and every habit of useful action must
resolve itself into some elementary' practice of
manual labour." The free hand of the artist
is one (he says) that moves in absolute obe-
dience to felt laws; and the free man is he
who has his passions most perfectly in sub-
jection. And the only way of arriving at this
freedom, in life as in art, is by apprenticeship
to toil. " To do good work whether we live
or die " is the first article of faith which Mr.
Ruskin demands of his disciples. " Be sure
that 3'ou can obey a good law before you seek to
unmake a bad one," was his first injunction to the
" workmen and labourers of Great Britain."

That every man must work out his own sal-
vation is the first article of all moral gospels ;
but it requires to be immediately corrected by a
second one, that each man is his brother's keeper.
The growing recognition of this truth is the
leading feature in the social movements of our
generation. By few men has it been enforced
so earnestly as by Mr. Ruskin ; by no one, so

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 2/

eloquently. No one has shown such powerful
imagination as he in lifting the veil which hides
the grim realities of poverty from the gay dreams
of wealth, or such fearless satire in mocking
the Churches for " dining with the rich and
preaching to the poor." It is only the lack of
imagination, Mr. Ruskin argues, that has ever
caused the question of Cain to be seriously
asked. But if any doubt still lingered, if any How these

■^ o ' ./ maxims

sanction on the other side were still needed, the RysiJ^'n^j"'"
Gospel of Art would supply it. For Art, to be Sr^rt.^'"'
really fine, must, as we have seen, be the repre-
sentation of beautiful realities, and be pursued
in a spirit of delight. And where such con-
ditions are not present, the teacher of Art is
necessarily also a social reformer. It is not
that he wants to be ; he simply cannot help
it. There is a passage in " Fors Clavigera,"
written from Venice, of much interest in this
connection : —

" Here is a little grey cockle-shell lying beside me,
which I gathered the other evening out of the dust of
the island of St. Helena, and a brightly spotted snail-
shell, from the thirsty sands of Lido ; and I want to
set myself to draw these, and describe them in peace.
Yes, and all my friends say that is my business ; why
can't I mind it and be happy ? . . . But, alas ! my prudent

28 "the gospel according to ruskin."

friends, little enough of all that 1 have a mind to may
be permitted me. For this green tide that eddies by
my threshold is full of floating corpses, and I must
leave my dinner to bury them, since I cannot save,
and put my cockle-shell in cap and take my staff in
hand to seek an unencumbered shore."

It would indeed be possible for the artist to
build himself a miserj^-proof studio, as Carlyle
built himself a noise-proof stud}'. But no great
work is on such terms possible. For either
the artist must bury himself in idle unrealities
— but "it is the vainest of aifectations to try
to put beauty into shadows, while all real
things that cast them are left in deformity
arid pain," — or he must be heartless and want-
ing in sensibility — but that is to be wanting
in just those qualities which distinguish the
best art ; for fine art is that " in which tiie
hand, the head, and the heart go together."
And thus it is that Compassion for the Poor
is the last word of Mr. Ruskin's books on Art,
as well as of those on Morals. " I tell you," he
said to the O.xford students, as the conclusion of
his Art teaching, " that neither sound art, policy,
n<ir religion can e.xist in England inilil, neglect-
ing, if it nnist be, your own pleasure-gardens

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 29

and pleasure-chambers, you resolve that the
streets which are the habitation of the poor,
and the fields which are the play-grounds of
their children, shall be again restored to the
rule of the spirits, whosoever they are, in earth
and heaven, that ordain, and reward, with con-
stant and conscious felicity, all that is decent
and orderly, beautiful and pure."

But the applications of Mr. Ruskin's Gospel Ruskin's

^^ ^ Political

of Art do not stop with these general counsels ^^^3°"^
of benevolence. They furnish a system of eco- weSth?'
nomics, as well as a standard of morals and
a code of social duty. Mr. Ruskin's Political
Economy- — alternately adopted and abused —
follows immediately and vitally from his Art
teaching. The point of connection will come out
most clearly if we consider the National Ideal
which is logically deducible from the orthodox
Political Economy and the tendencies of modern
commerce. This Political Economy taught (or
what is the same thing, was believed to teach*)

* Herein is to be found, I think, the true justification
of Mr. Ruskin's economic writings. His Political Economy
has been condemned and contemned as based on a com-
plete misunderstanding. He has attacked the science,
it is said, as if it were not a science, but an art. This
is true ; but the misconception of the nature and scope of

30 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

that the road to national prosperity lies in the
unchecked and competitive pursuit of material
wealth ; and the commercial tendencies of the
time make England become more and more
every day the workshop of the world, until (as
Mr. Ruskin puts it) we shall soon arrive at " the
state of a squirrel in a cage or a turnspit in a
wheel, fed by foreign masters with nuts and
dog's meat." Now, it is obvious that a National
Ideal such as this is absolutely and entirely

Political Economy did not begin with Mr. Ruskin. On the
contrary, it began with a certain school of politicians who
were eager to interpret the "laws" of Political Economy
(i.e., conclusions drawn from abstract assumptions), as if
they were laws enforcing political action. As against this
perversion of the science, Mr. Ruskin has done great
service by insisting (l) "that Political Economy can
furnish sound laws of national life and work only when
it respects the dignity and moral destiny of man ; (2) that
the wide use of wealth, in developing a complete human
life, is of incomparablj' greater moment, both to men and
nations, than its production or accumulation, and can alone
give these any vital significance; (3) that honourable per-
formance of duty is more truly just than rigid enforcement
of right; and that not in competition but in helpfulness,
not in self-assertion but in reverence, is to be found the
power of life.' 1 take this enumeration of Mr. Ruskin's
economic principles from the address presented to him
at Christmas, 1S85, by a large body of his admirers, in-
cluding most of the literary and artistic celebrities of
the day.

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 3 I

incompatible with any National Art such as
Mr. Ruslvin understands. It is incompatible both
in temper and in external conditions. Hence
Mr. Ruskin was driven to the statement both of
a new basis for Political Economy and a new
definition of ivcaltlt. And just as his theory of
Art led him up to the problem, so also did it
give him the clue to its solution. The greatest
work in Art, he found, had always been done,
not in competition, but in co-operation, not to
sell, but to keep. The application of this idea
to economics is the secret of his system. The
well-being of individuals and nations alike con-
sists, according to him, not in the multitude of
things they possess, but in their virtues and
joys. " The wealth of any country," he laid
down, " is the portion of its possessions which
feeds and educates good men and good women.
The strength and power of a country depend
on the quantity of good men and women in it."

How under existing conditions is the wealth Practical

conse-

of England in this sense to be advanced ? In quences

^ therelrom.

three ways principally. First, by the adoption
in politics of the great principle of " Property to
whom proper" — of land and tools to those who
can use them. Secondly, by planting firmly on

32 "THE r.OSriCL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

English land (including the colonies) as manj'
men and women as it will support ; by the
recognition of " Soldiers of the Ploughshare as
well as Soldiers of the Sword ; " and generally
by the substitution of the rest of satisfaction
for the unrest of ambition. "The most helpful
and sacred work which can at present be done
for humanity," says Mr. Ruskin, " is to teach
people, not how to better themselves, but how
to satisfy themselves." Follow out these two
ideas of co-operation instead of competition, of
living instead of getting, and you will see how
Mr. Ruskin's economics would release the
pressure upon poverty. So much for the ac-
quisition of wealth. In its distribution he is
no Socialist, no equalizer. He teaches not
the wickedness of riches, but their use. Thus,
thirdly and lastly, the National Wealth is to
be promoted by the wise direction of expendi-
ture. Happiness is only to be got out of
honesty, food only out of the ground. These
arc two of his leading iirincijilcs in economics ;
but the third is that money is essentially not a
medium of exchange, but a token of right.
And it makes all the difference in the world
whether you use your right to grow " grapes

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 33

or grapeshot," and whether when you have
got them you use them to preserve life or to
destroy. And that being so, just as " that
country is the richest which nourishes the
greatest number of noble and happy beings,"
so " that man is richest who, having perfected
the functions of his own life to the utmost, has
also the widest and most helpful influence, both
personal and by means of his possessions, over
the lives of others." In such a conception of
national economy it is easy to see the large
sphere that Art must play— Art that dignifies
industry and adorns daily life. " The treasures
of true kings," says Mr. Ruskin, in "Sesame
and Lilies," " are the streets of their cities ; and
the gold they gather, which for others is as the
mire of the streets, changes itself for them and
their people into a crystalline pavement for
evermore."

And now having completed the circle ofThci-eia-

° ^ tion of ^

Ruskin's Gospel, having set out from Art, and ^o'lfkJ'Jo
having been brought back to it, we are in a ^^"^^ °^^"'
position to note in conclusion the relation of
the different " sacred books " one to the other.
" Modern Painters " taught, on the testimony of
the graphic arts, " the claim of all lower nature

34 "the gospel according to ruskin.

on the hearts of men ; of the rock, and wave,
and herb as a part of their necessary spirit life."
The "Stones of Venice" taught, on the testimony
of architecture, " the dependence of all human
work or edifice, for its beauty, on the happy
life of the workman." "Unto this Last" and
" Munera Pulveris " taught the laws of that life,
and the dependence of National Wealth upon
the principles of justice, mercy, and admiration.
" Sesame and Lilies " " showed that in a state
of society founded on these principles Women
will be the guiding and purifying power." In
his "Oxford Lectures" Mr. Ruskin preached
the necessity that the national life should be led
by the upper classes, and "the gracious laws
of beauty and labour recognized by them no
less than the lower classes of England ; " and
finally " Fors Clavigera" "showed the relation
of these to each other, by declaring first what is
visibly salutary — namely, that children should
have enough to eat, and their skins be washed
clean ; and secondly, what is invisibly salutary"
— namely, that " in admiration is the chief joy
and power of life ; admiration for all that is
gracious among the living, great among the
dead, and marvellous in the Powers that cannot

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 35

die." And with all this there is scattered up
and down Mr. Ruskin's books, and finally col-
lected and concentrated in " Fors Clavigera,"
an imperious call to all men who believe the
Gospel to purge their consciences from dead
works and join together in helping their
fellow-men.

In which connection it will not be imper- Ruskm's

I preaching

tinent to turn for a moment from Mr. Ruskin's ti'ce.''^'"^
Gospel to Mr. Ruskin's life, or rather from the
Gospel in words to the Gospel in works ; for
Mr. Ruskin is like Chaucer's Parson, who —

" Christes lore, and His Apostles twelve,
He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve."

A detailed examination of some aspects of Mr.
Ruskin's works is to be the subject of the
following pages ; but here it may be stated
generally that he has spent not a tithe, nor
a half, but the whole of a large fortune in
public and private charities. He has set Miss
Octavia Hill to manage his London property
on principles which have since been adopted
as one of the essentials of latter-day philan-
thropy. He has given his most treasured
drawings and minerals to public galleries and

jO "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RUSKIN.

museums. Me has revived village industries
and inspired co-operative undertakings, and
he has established and endowed a Guild which
has for its primary object the redeeming of
waste lands and establishment thereon of well-
ordered lives. Some works are great for what
they accomplish, others for what they suggest.
At present Mr. Ruskin's lame stands on his
achievement as a writer. Twenty j'ears hence
it is conceivable that he ma}' be best remem-
bered for his experiments as a social reformer.
But in Mr. Ruskin's life, as in his Gospel,
the artistic and the social elements cannot be
severed. He is a social reformer because he
is an Art teacher ; and whatever is essential
and characteristic in his Art teaching comes
from his social enthusiasm. In Ruskin's Gos-
pel there are diversities of gifts, but it is the
same spirit.
The sane- And what, it may be asked, is the sanction,

lionollhe i J ' »

Rnskini.in what the reward of this Gospel ? The sanction

Gospel. '

is to be found only in its logical completeness,
the only sure reward in the experience of its
own fulfilment ; for as for rewards beyond the
grave, the virtue which Mr. Ruskin has prin-
cipally taught is that of the Greeks, " whose

APPLICATIONS TO LIFE. 37

notion of heroism was giving one's lite for a
kiss, and not getting it." And the " Crown " that
he promises to his disciples is but of "Wild
Olive : "—

" The tree that grows carelessly, tufting the rocks
with no vivid bloom, no verdure or branch ; only with
soft snow of blossom, and scarcely fulfilled fruit, mixed
with grey leaf and thorn-set stem ; no fastening of
diadem for you but with such sharp embroidery ! But
this, such as it is, you may win, while yet you live ;
type of grey honour, and sweet rest. Free-heartedness,
and graciousness, and undisturbed trust, and requited
love, and the sight of the peace of others, and the
ministry to their pain ; these, and the blue sky above
you, and the sweet waters and flowers of the earth be-
neath j and mysteries and presences, innumerable, of
living things, — may yet be here your riches ; untor-
menting and divine ; serviceable for the life that now
is ; nor, it may be, without promise of that which is to
come."

PART II.
SOME ASPECTS OF tIK. RUSKIN'S WORK.

CHAPTER I.

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD.

A TRENXH-^iNT Writer in the Ediiibnrgli Review
(October, 1889) has recently called attention to
four different views which may be, and have
been, held of the Professorial Ofllce. A Pro-
fessor at Oxford or Cambridge may be ap-
pointed for the purpose of Research, or by way
of ornament, or in order to give General In-
struction, or lastly with a view to Professional
Teaching. Mr. Kuskin's tenure of the Slade
Professorship of Fine Art has illustrated each
and all of these different, but not necessarily
conflicting, functions. In the first instance he
was no doubt elected as the man best able to
combine them all. When he was reappointed

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 39

after an interval of some years, in 1883, his elec-
tion was due in large measure to the " eminent-
man theory" of the professorial office. The
inclusion of Mr. Ruslcin amongst the Profes-
soriate conferred honour, it was felt, upon the
University.* The public, it is curious to note,
seems to have thought that such honour as there
is in the matter was conferred on Mr. Ruskin,
rather than on the University. Even to this
day, when he has no longer any claim to the
title, he is commonly spoken of and written
about as " Professor Ruskin ; " whilst amongst
his neighbours and friends he is almost uni-
versally known as "the Professor." I am not
aware what view Mr. Ruskin himself takes of
the distinction thus conferred upon him. Let
us hope he values the title more highly than

» " Every one will be delighted to hear that Mr. Ruskin
has been re-elected to the Slade Professorship of Art at
Oxford. Before it was known that there was any chance
of his being willing to resume the office, various excellent
suggestions were made for recasting its duties ; but when
once Mr. Ruskin consented to stand, there could be only
one opinion, which has been expressed by his unanimous
election. Genius is not an over-common quality in the
occupants of professorial chairs, and any academical body
would do itself honour by accepting a man like Mr. Ruskin
on his own terms."— Pall Mall Gazelle, January 17th, 1S83.

40 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

another famous O.^ford Professor, who was
"always sh}' of assuming that honourable style,
because," said he, "this is a title I share with so
man3'distinguishedmen — Professor Pepper, Pro-
fessor Anderson, Professor Frickel, and others
— who adorn it, 1 feci, much more thnn I do." *

But Mr. Ruskin's Professorship was very far
indeed from being only titular or honorary. He
spent himself freely in carr3-ing out the other
functions of a Professor also — the functions of
Research, of Education (in the wider sense of
that term), and of Professional Teaching.

Under the first of these three heads it is
unnecessary to say anything here, for the re-
sults of the studies in art history and criticism
which Mr. Ruskin undertook in connection with
the Slade Professorship are for the most part
contained in alreaily published works. The
following is a list of the books which were origi-
nally written for his Oxford Lectures : —

" Lectures on Art." ( Hilary Term, 1870.)
" Aratra Pentelici." (Michaelmas Term, 1870.)
"The Relation between M ichael Angelo and Tint orct." t
* M.illlicw Arnold (at that time Professor of Poetry at
Oxford), in the original Preface to "Essays in Criticism."

t This lecture, published separately in pamphlet form,
for the convenience of travellers, was the last of the pre-
ceding course.

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 4 1

" The Eagle's Nest." (Lent Term, 1S72.)
" Ariadne Florentina." (Michaelmas Terra, 1872.)
" Love's Meinie." (Lent Term, 1873.)
" 'Val d'Arno." (Michaelmas Term, 1873.)
" The Art of England." (Michaelmas Term, 1883.)
" The Pleasures of England." (Michaelmas Term,
1884.)

Besides these lectures delivered at Oxford,
Mr. Ruskin undertook in connection with his
Professorship a series of Foreign Guide-books.
" It seems to me," he said (" IVIornings in
Florence," p. i), "that the real duty involved
in my Oxford Professorship cannot be com-
pletely done by giving lectures in Oxford only,
but that I ought also to give what guidance
I may to travellers in Italy." The books
issued in execution of this self-imposed duty
are —

" Mornings in Florence." Six chapters of " Simple

Studies of Christian Art for English Travellers."
" St. Mark's Rest." An essay in " The History of

Venice, 'Written for the Help of the Few Travellers

who still Care for her Monuments."
" Guide to the Principal Pictures in the Academy of

Fine Arts at Venice. Arranged for English

travellers."

To which should perhaps be added the "Separate

42 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Travellers' Edition " of chapter iv. of the "Bible
of Amiens," being a guide-book to Amiens
Cathedral. This is not the place for entering
upon any critical estimate of Mr. Ruskin's later
writings upon Art, but the foregoing hsts will
show that in point of quantity Mr. Ruskin has
a creditable record of Research to show for
the ten j-ears of broken health during which
he held his Oxford Professorship.

But it is not only, or chief!}', in virtue of his
professorial writings that Mr. Ruskin's connec-
tion with Oxford has left an enduring monu-
ment behind it. The writer in the Edinbiirgli
Review, above quoted, condemns the educa-
tional theory of professorships, no less than
the " eminent-man theory," as an obsolete sur-
vival from medifEval days ; and Carlyle said
that " the true University of these days is a
Collection of Books " (" Heroes," Lecture V.).
There is a large element of truth in this point
of view : larger, perhaps, than the Universities
have as yet recognised. But however wide
may be the dispersion of books, there will
always remain a place in the educational sys-
tem for the Living Teacher and the Living
Voice. Mr. Ruskin's Professorsliip at Oxford

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 43

was notable for the full use he made of these
two opportunities. No professor, I suppose,
has had more power of personal influence over
his pupils, or has used it more for good, than
Mr. Ruskin.* One of the methods which he
adopted for gathering a circle of ardent young
men around him, and impregnating them with
his spirit, was the subject of much sarcastic
comment. This was the famous road-digging
experiment. No one was more alive to the

* Amongst other well-known men who were much under
Mr. Ruskin's influence at Oxford were Mr. W. H. Mallock
and the late Prince Leopold. Mr. Ruskin somewhere
refers to Mr. Mallock's "Is Life Worth Living?" as "fault-
lessly logical ; " and Mr. Mallock described Mr. Ruskin, in
" The New Republic," under the disguise of " Mr. Herbert "
— the only portrait in that clever book which is not also a
caricature. "He is almost the only man of these days,"
some one is made to say of "Mr. Herbert," "for whom I
feel a real reverence — almost the only one of our teachers
who seems to me to speak with the least breath of inspira-
tion." Prince Leopold also entertained a warm admiration
for and friendship with Mr. Ruskin, to whose work the
Prince, in his first public address, paid the following high
tribute : —

" It is not only at Cambridge that it will be felt that men
of culture and of learning hardly have a worthier aim than
to carry their higher thoughts and more cultivated know-
ledge into many homes which perhaps have no other ways
of making progress. Of such aims we, at O.xford, have a
great and striking example. "We have seen a man in whom

44 SOME ASPECTS OF iMR. RUSKIn's WORK.

amusing side of the affair tiian Mr. Ruskin
himself. The road which his pupils made is,
he has been heard to admit, about the worst
in the three kingdoms, and for any level places
in it he gives the credit to his gardener, whom
he incontinently summoned from Brantwood.
Nevertheless the experiment, even from the
point of view of road-making, was by no means
barren. An inch of practice is worth a 3'ard
of preaching ; and Mr. Ruskin's road-digging
at Ilincksey gave a powerful stimulus to the

the highest gilts of rtfinemcnt ;ind of genius reside, who
yet has not grudged to give liis best to others ; who lias
made it his main effort — by gifts, by teaching, by sympathies
— to spread among the artisans of villages and the labourers
of our English fields the power of drawing a full measure
of instruction and happiness from this wonderful world,
which rich and poor alike gain from. We have seen such
a man in Professor Ruskin ; and among all the lessons
which those who have had the privilege of his teaching
and his friendship must have carried with them for life,
none, I think, can have sunk deeper than the last : that
the highest wisdom and the highest treasure need not be
costly or exclusive; that the greatness of a nation must be
measured, not alone by its wealth and apparent power, but
by the degree in which its people have learned together, in
the great world of books, of art, and of nature, pure and
ennobling joys." (.Speech at the Mansion House, in sup-
port of the London Society for the Extension of University
Teaching, February igth, 1879.)

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. ^ 45

Gospel of Labour,* of the same kind as the
later and independent stimulus of Count Tolstoi,
of whom Mr. Ruskin has spoken gratefully in
recent years as his successor. But the fact
is that most of the Oxford road-diggers were
attracted to tlie work, not for its own sake, but
for the reward of it — the reward of the subse-
quent breakfast-party and informal talks in
Mr. Ruskin's rooms at Corpus. It was in Mr.
Ruskin's Oxford Lectures and these supple-
mentary enforcements of their teaching that the
seeds were sown, or watered, of that practical
interest in social questions which is the "Ox-
ford movement " of to-day. Among the under-
graduate road-diggers was Arnold Toynbee,
who rose by his zeal to the rank of foreman.
" He was thus entitled," adds his biographer,
" to appear frequently at those breakfasts which
Mr. Ruskin gave to his young friends, and
enlivened with quaint, eloquent conversation.
Upon men like Toynbee intercourse with Mr.
Ruskin had a stimulating eflect more durable
than the actual improvement of the road near
Hincksey. Toynbee came to think very

* See, for instance, an article on " The New School," in
the Pall Mall Gazelle, August 26th, 1SS9.

46 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

differently from Mr. Ruskin upon many subjects,
and especiall)' upon democracy, but always re-
garded him with reverence and affection." * It
is impossible to saj' in how many leaders and
followers of the "young Oxford" movement
Mr. Ruskin's influence worked directly or indi-
rectly as a stimulus and an inspiration. What
is certain is that the actual course taken by that
movement has followed the principles preached
by Mr. Ruskin. " I tell you," said the Pro-
fessor of Fine Art, at the close of one of his
lectures, " that neither sound art, policy, nor re-
ligion can exist in England until, neglecting,
if it must be, j'our own pleasure-gardens and
pleasure-chambers, you resolve that the streets
which are the habitation of the poor, and the
fields which are the playgrounds of their chil-
dren, shall be again restored to the rule of the
spirits, whosoever they are, in earth and heaven,
that ordain and reward, with constant and con-
scious felicit}', all that is decent and orderly,
beautiful and pure." It is the conviction of
this truth that has led to the Universities'
Settlements in East London. " My Universit)'

* "Arnold Toj'nbce." Hy T. C. Montague. (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University.)

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 47

friends came to me," says Mr. Ruskin, "at the
end of my Inaugural Lectures, with grave faces,
to remonstrate against irrelevant and Utopian
topics being introduced." * Now that the Uto-
pia is beginning to be realized, the relevance of
it is more apparent. Sermons, like trees, must
be judged by their fruits.

Mr. Ruskin's first professorial lecture at
Oxford, it may be interesting to say, was an-
nounced for the theatre in the Museum, but so
great was the crowd that the Professor and
his audience adjourned to the large Sheldonian
Theatre. This, however, was an exception,
and the usual lecture-room was in the Museum. f
The crowd was always very great, and it was
necessary to be outside the doors an hour
beforehand to secure a good seat. At the

* Mr. Mallock has " taken off" such remonstrances very
cleverly in " The New Republic," ** What a dreadful
blowing-up Mr. Herbert gave us," he makes one of the
characters say. " Now that, you know, I think is all very
well in a sermon, but in a lecture, when the things are
supposed to be taken more or less literally, I think it is a
little out of place."

f This is the "Oxford Museum," in the formation and
building of which Mr. Ruskin took so lively an interest.
See "Arrows of the Chace," i. 1S1-213, and "The Oxford
Museum" (1 860).

48 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

first lecture of his second Professorship there
was a large sprinkling of ladies ; subsequently
tickets were issued, which were confined (with
a few exceptions) to members of the Uni\-er-
sity. On man}' occasions Mr. Ruskin repeated
his lectures twice in the week, in order to give
every one who wished to hear him a chance.
The attendance of undergraduates was invari-
ably very large. This was the more remark-
able as the lectures were always given in
the afternoon, which is ordinarily at Oxford
devoted to other purposes than the pursuit of
learning. Mr. Ruskin's lectures were further
remarkable for the number, comparativel}' large,
of graduates which they attracted. At the first
lecture of his second Professorship tiie tlien
Vice-Chancellor (Professor Jowett) attended
in state with the proctors, and rose at the end
to say a few graceful words of welcome and
thanks, which were received witii a storm of
applause.

But the charm of the Living Voice in Mr.
Ruskin's lectures was as potent as the in-
fluence of tile Living Teacher. Tlic ]iul)lished
volumes of these lectures are amongst tlie more
important, as they are the most closely and

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 49

carefully written, of his works. But they
convey to the reader only a faint echo of the
fascination they exercised over the hearer.*

Mr. Ruskin is, indeed, no orator. His elo-
quence is studied, not spontaneous — the elo-
quence of a writer, not of a speaker. His voice,
though sympathetic, is neither strong nor pene-
trating. Of action he has little or none. But
one quality which is essential to a successful
speaker Mr. Ruskin possesses to the full — the
quality of a striking personality. No one who
ever attended his Oxford Lectures is likely to
forget the bent figure with the ample gown —
discarded often when its folds became too hope-
lessly involved — and the velvet college cap, one
of the few remaining memorials of the " gentle-
man commoner." Mr. Ruskin is a great believer
in the importance of distinctive dress. f The

* " I have heard him lecture several times at the Royal
Institution," says Mr. Mallock, in "The New Republic,"
"and that singular voice of his, which would often hold all
the theatre breathless, haunts me still, sometimes. There
was something strange and aerial in its exquisite modu-
lations, that seemed as if it came from a disconsolate spirit,
hovering over the waters of Babylon and remembering
Sion."

t See, for instance, " Eagle's Nest," p. 2 1 2 ; " Two Paths,"
p. Ill ; "Fors," 1872, xv., p. 9; and " Val d'Arno," p. 82, in

50 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

habit with him does, or should, show the man.
And certainly in his own case the quaintnessof
his costume — the light home-spun tweed, the
double-breasted waistcoat, the ill-fitting and old-
fashioned frock-coat, the amplitude of inevitable
blue tie * — accurately reflected something of the
quaintness of his mind and talk. If it were not
for the peculiarly delicate hands and tapering
fingers, denoting the artistic temperament, the
Oxford Professor might have been taken for an
old-fashioned country gentleman. In repose Mr.
Ruskin's face has of recent years been furrowed
into sadness ; but the blue ej'es,t piercing from
beneath thick, bushy eyebrows, have never

which latter passage Mr. Riiskin argues, with an clement
of truth, that the history of the world might have been difie-
rent if soldiers had always been dressed in black instead
of in red, and monks in red instead of in black. I have
heard amusing stories told of the too literal adoption
of " the Master's " views on costume by some of his
disciples.

* The following is an item from "Aflairs of the Master."
as given in "Fors" (1876, p. 297) : —

"July 16. Geoghegan (blue neckties) . . . £^ o o."
f Speaking of |)ortraits of him, Mr. Kuskin says, in
" Praetcrita " (ii. 73), " 1 will be thus far proud as to tell the
disappointed spectator, once for all, that the main good of
my face, as of my life, is in the eyes — and only in those
seen near."

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 5 I

ceased to shine with the fire of genius ; whilst
the smile that was never long absent when he
lectured, lit up his face with the radiance of a
singularly gracious and gentle spirit.

Mr. Ruskin has sometimes been accused of
lack of humour — an accusation made of most
men who are in earnest. That the Professor
of Fine Art took both himself and his subjects
seriously was very obvious ; but not less ob-
vious to any one who ever heard him lecture
was his saving sense of humour. Just as an
ever-recurring smile relieved an expression of
prevailing sadness, so a play of humour relieved
the sternness of teaching. " As solid as the
lecture of a University Professor " was a com-
parison recently applied to the discourse of
some politician. Mr. Ruskin's earlier Oxford
Lectures had much solid stuff in them, but no
lecturer knew better than he how to relieve
the strain by supplying those diverticula aiiKvna
— those pleasant digressions — which are the
salt of oral discourse. Mr. Ruskin's fads and
fancies have often been laughed at, but by no
one more heartily than by himself. It was the
frequent digressions in the form of self-depre-
catory egoism that gave a peculiar charm to

52 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Mr. Ruskin's Lectures, bj' investing them with
what the French call ititiinite, with the per-
sonal note of iamiliar conversation. A lecture
delivered some years ago, at the London Insti-
tution (December 4th, 1882), afforded at the
very outset a case in point. The subject origi-
nallj' announced was " Crj'stallograph}'," but it
had subsequently been changed to "Cistercian
Architecture," and one of the newspapers had
remarked that " no doubt either title would do
equally well." Mr. Ruskin began bj' referring
to this remark, and admitted that there was a
good deal of truth in it, for " in the proposed
lecture on Crystallograph}' there would certainly
have been allusions to Cistercian Architecture,
while it had required all his powers of self-
denial to keep Crystallography out of the lecture
he was actuall}' delivering. He was not equally
successful in including Cistercian Architecture,
and he was amused to find that his lecture was
five-parts written before any allusion to the
architecture in question came in. However,
stones had always been interesting to him only
as expressing the minds of their builders ; and
the main part of the lecture was occupied with a
delightful sketch of the principles and methods

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 53

of the Benedictine monks, with their gospel of
manual labour, and tlieir good work in agri-
culture and letters. Then followed an equally
charming description (illustrated by diagrams)
of the Monastery of Cluny, which was con-
trasted, in Mr. Ruskin's manner, with a picture
of our modern rural economy — with a parson
looking on at the ' restoration ' of his church,
while the squire was busy with plans for
agricultural machinery, which would send the
people off to America." * At Oxford, where he
spoke " among friends, with the chaff of the
citizens winnowed out," Mr. Ruskin permitted
himself greater license in colloquial banter.
He was often behindhand with the preparation
of his lectures, and sometimes he could not
even get through the regulation hour by Charles
Lamb's expedient of making up for beginning
late by ending early. I remember one occa-
sion, during the course on " The Pleasures of
England," when he found some difficulty in
eking out the time, even with the help of co-
pious extracts from himself and Carlyle ; but

* Pall Mall Gazelle, December 5th, 1882. A fuller
report of the lecture, with plan, appeared in the Art
Journal ioi 1883, pp. 46-9.

54 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

he kept his audience in good humour by con-
fessing to some '"bad shots" in previous lec-
tures ; bj' telling them that all pretty girls were
angels; by abusing "the beastly hooter'' that
woke them every morning, and assuring them
that, in spite of appearances, he really was not
humbugging them. The digressions and in-
terpolations in Mr. Ruskin's Oxford Lectures
were, however, by no means confined to pretty
fooling ; often they were passages of serious
and telling eloquence. I remember one such in
the lecture on " The Pleasures of Faith " (see
p. 223), when he turned aside from his manu-
script notes to refer to General Gordon as a
Latter-day Saint whose life still illustrates the
age of faith. Wc are too much in the habit,
Mr. Ruskin had been saying, of " supposing
that temporal success is owing either to worldly
chance or to worldly prudence, and is never
granted in any visible relation to states of re-
ligious temper" — as if the whole story of the
world, read in the light of Christian faith,
did not show " a vividly real yet miraculous
tenour " in the contrary direction ! " I'nit what
need," Mr. Ruskin broke ofT to say, "to go
back to the story of the world when you can

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 55

see the same evidence in the history of to-
day — in the hves and characters of men like
Havelock and Gordon ? " Often, too, the lec-
turer would lay aside his manuscript at some
important point, and giving free play to his
feelings, drive it home in burning passages
of extempore irony. Hence the published lec-
tures, printed from his manuscript, often differed
greatly from the lectures as actually delivered ;
and therefore I have thought it might be in-
teresting to give, in an appendix, besides
some notes of unpublished lectures, my ab-
stracts, made at the time, of a few published
ones.

Another thing which gave special interest to
the Spoken Lecture, as distinct from the Printed
Word, does not, unhappily, admit of similar sam-
pling. This is the copious illustration of the
lectures by means of drawings, diagrams, and
pictures, upon which Mr. Ruskin used at Oxford
to spend incredible pains. Those who have
heard his lectures in London will be already
familiar with this characteristic. At the Royal
Institution, for instance, when lecturing on Flam-
boyant Architecture, Mr. Ruskin prepared quite
a considerable exhibition of pictures, drawings,

56 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

and photographs.* On a more recent occasion,
too, at the London Institution, it will be remem-
bered how the lectures on "The Storm-cloud
of the Nineteenth Century " were illustrated by
a series of coloured pictures executed by Mr.
Arthur Severn from drawings bj' Mr. Ruskin
(" kept bottled like his father's sherries "), and
thrown on a screen by means of Mr. Wilson
Barrett's limelight. But at Oxford, where Mr.
Ruskin had the double purpose of illustrating
his lectures and enriching the University collec-
tions, his system of illustration was yet more
lavish and elaborate. The specimens which he
was in the habit of exhibiting in his lectures
may be divided into two classes — (i) standard
and permanent works of art, and (2) diagrams,
copies, and enlargements prepared specially to
illustrate or enforce some passing point. Many
specimens of the former sort, and a few of the
latter, may still be seen in the cabinets of the
" Ruskin Drawing School " (see next chapter).

' A catalogue of " References to the Scries of Paintings
and Sketches, from M r. Ruskin's Collection, shown in UUis-
tration of the Relations of Flamboyant Architecture to
Contemporary and Subsequent Art, at the Evening Meeting
of the Royal Institution, Friday, January 29th, 1869," is
one of the rarer Ruskin |iani|)hlets.

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 57

For purposes of illustration in this sort Mr.
Ruskin had the University galleries as well as
his own collections to draw upon, and any stu-
dent who attended all the Slade Professor's lec-
tures had the advantage of examining at one
time or another a large and unique gallery of
art under the immediate guidance of the great
critic. The large table in the theatre and the
wall behind were generally covered with draw-
ings and pictures ; most of these would be re-
ferred to in the course of the lecture, whilst at
the end there would be a rush to the front, and
the Professor would hold an informal " class "
(as the University Extensionists call it) for fur-
ther explanation and criticism of the pictures to
such students as cared to stay. But it was the
ingenuity expended in the preparation of tem-
porary illustrations that gave unique interest to
Mr. Ruskin's Oxford Lectures. The few illus-
trated volumes of these lectures that have been
published will give the reader some idea of the
care which the Professor bestowed on this por-
tion of his teaching. But only a few of the
diagrams and pictures exhibited at the lecture-
room have ever been reproduced in book form.
Mr. Macdonald, the talented and zealous master

58 SOME ASPECTS OK MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

of the Ruskin Drawing School, must have a
large collection of them, for it was upon his
willing hands that the work of preparing the
Professor's whimsical illustrations mostl}' fell.
References to some of these will be found in
the reports of the lectures on " The Pleasures
of England " which are given in the Appendix.
Many more were exhibited during the preceding
course on " The Art of England." Tlie Eifth
Lecture, for instance — that on "John Leech
and John Tenniel " — was illustrated by the
original drawing for the frontispiece of Punch,
and by several enlarged reproductions of Mr.
Dli Maurier's drawings — some photographed
by Miss Kate Grcenaway's brother, and others
" drawn more faithfully than any photographer
could do, by Mr. Macdonald."' There was al-
ways a large element of the unexpected in Mr.
Ruskin's illustrations (as there is in his writ-
ings). Generally amongst the pictures placed
beforehand on the wall behind the lecturer,
there would be one with its face turned to the
wall, or two or three would be brought in at
the last moment, carefully covered up, by Mr.
Ruskin's servant. The audicnrc would always
smile in anticipation on such occasions, for they

MK. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 59

knew that some pretty jest or curious fancy
was in store. Great was the amusement on
one occasion when a hidden treasure was dis-
closed in the shape of a sketch from Tintoret's
" Paradise," which the Professor— by chance or
design — held out wrong side up. " Ah, well,"
he said, joining in the general laughter, " what
does it matter ? for in Tintoret's ' Paradise '
you have heaven all round you." In the last
lecture of "The Art of England" also there
was a characteristic incident. Mr. Ruskin was
contrasting the way in which modern French
art looks at the sky with that in which Turner
saw and drew " the pure traceries of the vault
of morning." "See," he said, " what the French
artistic imagination makes of it," and a drawing
done by Mr. Macdonald from a French hand-
book was disclosed, showing the clouds grouped
into the face of a mocking and angry fiend.
When the audience had had their look and
their laugh, Mr. Macdonald modestly proceeded
to turn his sketch with its back to the wall
again. " No, no," interposed Mr. Ruskin,
" keep it there, and it shall permanently re-
main in your school, as a type of the loath-
some and lying spirit of defamation which

6o SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

studies man only in the skeleton and nature
onl}' in ashes."

But perhaps the most effective piece of what
ma}- be called the lecturer's stage-play was one
which occurred in the " Readings in ' Modern
Painters'" (see Appendix I.). Mr. Ruskin was
expatiating, as was his wont, on the vandalism
of the modern world. On an easel beside him
was a water-colour drawing by Turner of (I
think) Leicester. "The old stone bridge is pic-
turesque," he said, " isn't it ? But of course you
want something more ' imposing ' nowadays.
So you shall have it." And taking his paint-box
and brush, Mr. Ruskin rapidl}' sketched in on
the glass what is known in modern specifications
as a " handsome iron structure." " Then," he
continued, "you will want, of course, some tall
factory chimneys, and 1 will give them to you
galore." Which he proceeded to, in like fashion.
" The blue sky of heaven was prett}', but you
cannot have everything, you know." And Mr.
Ruskin painted clouds of black smoke over the
Turner sky. " Your ' improvements,' " he went
on, "arc marvellous 'triumphs of modern indus-
try,' I know ; but somehow they do not seem to
produce nobler men anil wonun, and no modern

MR. RUSKIN AND OXFORD. 6l

town is complete, you will admit, without a
gaol and a lunatic asylum to crown it. So
here they are for you." By which time not an
inch of the Turner drawing was left visible
under the " improvements " painted upon the
glass. " But for my part," said Mr. Ruskin,
taking his sponge, and with one pass of the
hand wiping away those modern improvements
against which he has inveighed in vain in so
many printed volumes—" for my part, I prefer
the old."

CHAPTER II.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL.

In the previous chapter some account has been
given of Mr. Rusicin's Oxford Professorship so
far as his lectures and general educational in-
fluence were concerned. It remains to say
something of his Professional Teaching in the
criticism and practice of Art. Mr. Ruskin, it
should be remembered, had in this matter to
create his own duties. The Professorship of
Fine Art was founded in 1869, in pursuance of
the will of Mr. Slade, and Mr. Ruskin was the
first Professor elected. It fell to him, therefore,
to organize a new study in the University on
his own lines. The conception which he
formed of his duties was clearly defined in his
Inaugural Lectures, and in the less accessible
catalogues referred to therein. " A youth is
sent to the Universities," he said, "not to lie
apprenticed to a trade, nor even always to be

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 6;^

advanced in a profession, but always to be
made a gentleman and a scholar." He con-
ceived it, theretbre, to be " the function of this
Professorship to establish both a practical and
critical School of Fine Art for English gentle-
men : practical, so that if they draw at all, they
may draw rightly ; and critical, so that they
may both be directed to such works of existing
art as will best reward their study, and en-
abled to make the exercise of their patronage
of living artists delightful to themselves by their
consciousness of its justice, and to the utmost
beneficial to their country, by being given only
to the men who deserve it." It was in order to
carry out this double function of the Slade Pro-
fessorship that the " Ruskin Drawing School"
was established. The school has two sides :
first, it includes a large, unique, and very valu-
able collection of works of art ; secondly, it is
a School of Art, under a master appointed by
Mr. Ruskin. The formation of the collections
was necessary in order — as Mr. Ruskin ex-
plained to his pupils — " to call your attention,
by precision of copying, to the qualities of good
art, and to give you, yourselves, such power of
delineation as may assist your memory of visible

64 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

things, and enable j'ou to explain them intelli-
gibly to others." The establishment of a School
of Art under a special master was necessar}' in
order to carr\' out Mr. Ruskin's special theories
of Art education. "After carefully considering,"
he wrote in 1871, " the operation of the Ken-
sington system of Art-teaching throughout the
countr}', and watching for two years its effects
on various classes of students at Oxford, I be-
came finally convinced that it fell short of its
objects in more than one vital particular ; and
I have, therefore, obtained permission to found
a separate Mastership of Drawing in connection
with the Art Professorship at Oxford ; and
elementary schools will be opened in the Uni-
versity galleries, next October, in which the
methods of teaching will be calculated to meet
requirements which have not been contemplated
in the Kensington system" (" Fors Clavigera,"
1871, ix., p. 19). These two sides of the
Drawing School — the School of Art and the
collection of specimens — were developed by
Mr. Ruskin with characteristic zeal and gene-
rosity. Me began to accumulate his specimens
immediately on his appointment to the Profes-
sorship, and he added to lluni throughout his

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 6$

tenure of it. In 1872 the University assigned
the western wing of its galleries in Beaumont
Street to the purpose of the Ruskin Drawing
School, and Mr. Ruskin on his side gave to the
University a sum of £ 5,000 for the school's
endowment. The Master of Drawing appointed
by Mr. Ruskin was Mr. Alexander Macdonald,
to whose steady teaching the Professor bore
repeated testimony, and who happily still occu-
pies the post.

As a School of Art for University students
the Ruskin Drawing School has not been a
success. Its founder did not, indeed, begin
with any great expectations. He was more
anxious, as every University Professor should
be, to lay down standard principles of teaching
than to attract large numbers of scholars. " It
matters comparatively little," he said, " whether
few or many of our students learn to draw ; but it
matters much that all who learn should be taught
with accuracy" ("Aratra Pentelici," p. viii.).
But those who learned were, I fear, fewer than
Mr. Ruskin hoped even in his least sanguine
moments. " As for the undergraduates," he said
in 1883, "I never succeeded in getting more than
two or three of them into my school, even in its

66 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

palmiest days."* In the preface to the new
edition of his Inaugural Oxford Lectures (1887),
Mr. Ruskin ascribes the failure to faults, or
circumstances, in him. " It would have been
necessary' to my success," he says, " that I
should have accepted permanent residence in
Oxford, and scattered none of my energy in
other tasks. But I chose to spend half my
time at Coniston Waterhead, and to use half
my force in attempts to form a new social
organization — the St. George's Guild — which
made all my Oxford colleagues distrustful of
me, and man}' of my Oxford hearers contemp-
tuous." He does not, he added at the same
time, retract one word of hope for the success
of other masters. I have not heard, however,
tliat the other Slade Professors have made any
more progress than did iVIr. Ruskin in esta-
blishing a practical School of Art amongst the
Oxford students. Unless and until Fine Art is
added to the University curriculum, and to the
schools in which degrees may be obtained, any

• On a recent visit to the Drawing School I found these
palmy days continuing. In the morning there was a lull
class of ladies. In the afternoon, set apart for undergradn-
ates, the number of students was two.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 6"]

such hope is chimerical. Moreover, the atmo-
sphere of the Universities does not seem con-
ducive to excellence in the arts. How very-
few of our artists have come, either in the past
or in the present, from the Universities ! * But
though the undergraduates held back, the young
ladies of O.xford came forward, and from the
institution of the school until now it has been
largely and regularly attended by them. The
system of teaching carried out bj' Mr. Mac-
donald, under Mr. Ruskin's instructions, is that
defined in the Inaugural Lectures (see es-
pecially Lecture V.). Its distinctive feature, it
will be remernbered, is that whereas students
generally learn to draw details first, and to
colour and mass them afterwards, in the Ruskin
Drawing School they learn to arrange broad
masses and colours first, and to put in details
afterwards. With regard to the order in which
different objects are studied, the following " Note
by Professor Ruskin " was issued on his re-
sumption of the Slade Professorship in 1883 : —

" I leave for the present to Mr. Macdonald's experi-
ence and judgment the direction of the junior students

* Amongst eminent living artists I can think of none who
was educated at the University besides Mr. Briton Riviere
and Mr. Burne-Jones.

68 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

in the Ruskin schools, and have arranged the following
scheme of work for students of either sex entering our
classes from the age of sixteen and upwards, adapting
the exercises enforced especially to the conditions of
University life, but yet arranging them with the collateral
view of their probable introduction in schools where more
consistent attention to the subject of Art could be given
than is possible in connection with the courses of read-
ing at present necessary to distinction in Oxford. The
pass certificates, however, will ultimately be given only
to students who have attained such a degree of skill
as must imply their having attended in the school with
steadiness during the whole period of their residence in
the University, giving at least a couple of hours in each
week out of tlieir best and untired time, and supple-
menting the work done in residence by some consistent
practice during vacations.

" In the first year the student will be required to
attain steadiness and accuracy in the outline of simple
forms, and ease in the ordinary processes of pure water-
colour painting ; that is to say, he must learn to lay
smooth tints within spaces of complex shape without
transgressing their limits, and over spaces of large
extent with equality and smoothness. The actual exer-
cises given will be primarily map-drawing, with the
necessary projections of the sphere, and such colouring
and shading as may sufficiently express the character
of the country ; next, the delineation of the priimiry
types of <;ood ardiitcctiiral constnictioii ; and, in associa-
tion with these, exercises in the elements of ornamental
design in colour and form ; the drawings being carried
forward to approximate completion in light and shade.

" The second year will be given to the study of
landscape, completing in connection with it that of

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 69

architecture, so as to form the student's taste and judg-
ment in that art, and to increase to the utmost degree
possible his enjoyment of the historic buildings, the
natural phenomena, and the organic beauty of the
inanimate world.

" In the third year he will be required to draw from
the beautiful forms of life, distinguishing the characters
in which such beauty consists from those of awkward-
ness or deformity, and to copy a certain number of
examples of figure-painting, such as may sufficiently
direct, and in part form, his taste is the highest walks
of art, while he is assisted and encouraged at the same
time in the rapid sketching, both of animals and figures,
from nature, so as to give liim interest in familiar
scenes and daily nicidents. "

This note proved, however, somewhat of a
bnitimi fiilnicn. The Professor had given orders
— so he explained in the course of the first
lecture on " The Pleasures of England " — that
no pupils should be admitted who were not
prepared to conform to his edict ; but this
" modest ordinance " having had the effect of
emptying the school of its former pupils, and
not having tempted new scholars, it was sub-
sequently withdrawn, and the young ladies of
Oxford were once more to be admitted "to copy
Turner in their own way." Whether owing to
this licence or to other causes, the Drawing
School is now well attended by them. Probably

/O SOME ASPECTS OF IMR. RUSKIN S WORK.

if the exceptional advantages of it were better
known, it would be better attended still. In
Mr. Macdonald the school has a most capable
and conscientious master. In Mr. Ruskin's
collections, which will presently be described,
there is a series of educational examples un-
rivalled by any other in the country. The
adjoining University galleries are rich in old
masters, in antique sculptures, and in vases and
other similar objects. They contain, moreover,
partly by gift from Mr. Ruskin, partly on loan
from the National Gallery, a superb set of Turner
drawings ; while the collection of drawings in
pen and chalk by Michael Angelo and Raphael
is one of the finest in Europe. There is, further-
more, in the galleries an adequate Fine Art
Library ; whilst the eminently practical lectures
and demonstrations given by the present Slade
Professor, Mr. 1 lerkonur, A.R.A., afford oppor-
tunities for instruction whicii few (if any) schools
of art offer on similarly easy terms. On its
practical side the Ruskin Drawing School de-
serves far greater success than it commands.

The same remark applies with equal force to
the collections contained in the school. These
collections have all been catalogued by Mr.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 7 1

Ruskin, who has added explanatory or descrip-
tive notes to many of the items, and referred at
length to several others, in his writings. But
the catalogues are so scarce and little known
that some general account of the collections,
based on a personal examination, may be of
interest to students of Mr. Ruskin. Of the
pictures and drawings placed on the walls of
his school, Mr. Ruskin gives the following
account : —

" In the alcove I have placed one of my own studies
from a fresco of Luini's at Milan ; * with two original
designs by Edward Burne Jones, ' Love Bringing back
Alcestis from the Grave,' and 'The Two Wives of
Jason.' These two drawings and the original of my
study are consummate in dignity and purity of concep-
tion, and the best examples I can give of the forms of
highest art which 1 think should be held, for standard
and scope, by English students.

" On the west side of this portion of the room is

* Speaking of the colour of gules— a full soft scarlet, not
dazzling, but warm and glowing— Mr. Ruskin says, " It is
used, in opposition to darker purple, in large masses, in the
fresco painting of later Rome ; is the dominant colour of
ornamental writing in the middle ages (giving us the eccle-
siastical term rubric), and asserts itself finally, and most
nobly, in the fresco paintings of Ghirlandajo and Luini.
I have tried. to represent very closely the tint of it Luun
has given to St. Catherine's mantle, in my study in your
schools" ("Eagle's Nest," § 226).

j2 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Tintoret's sketch for his picture of the Doge Avice
Mocenigo pra\'ing. This sketch, once belonging to Baron
Rumohr, is full of interest and of e.vemplary qualities.
The other paintings or drawings on the walls have been
made under my direction for the illustration of archi-
tecture ; except the Copley Fielding at the end of the
room, which is an instructive example of water-colour
painting of the old school, executed by washed tints ;
and my own study from the Castel-barco tomb at Verona,
on the right-hand side of the door, in going out, u^hich
is left in its imfinished state to show the mode of striking
colour at once frankly on the white paper which I wish
the students more generally to adopt.

" None of these paintings or drawings are, as yet,
formally presented to, or accepted by, the University.
Some do not deserve any permanent position ; and I
retain for the present the power of removing any of
them, either for the substitution of others or for my
own occasional use ; but if the collections are found
sen'iceable in the form ultimately proposed for them,
and the system of teaching in accordance with which
they have been arranged is sanctioned by the approval
of the University, and recognized as a part of its edu-
cational curriculum, the entire series of examples would
remain at the disposal of the University authorities. In
the event of my death I mean them to be so left, in
their present form ; left, that is to say, to the Uni-
versity, if it accept them on the condition of not altering
their arrangement. I do not speak of them in my will ;
if this public statement of my intention be not clear
enough to stand in law, it may fall, and I shall not
disturb myself. (" Instructions in the Preliminary Exer-
cises Arranged for the Lower Drawing .School," 1873,
PP- 2, 3.)

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 73

Unfortunately, Mr. Ruskin parted from the
University in anger, as we shall presently see,
and the Drawing School has been considerably
dismantled since the above passage was written.
The only notable additions are a water-colour
copy of Carpaccio's " St. Ursula's Dream," *
and some copies made for Mr. Ruskin, by Mr.
Fairfax Murray, from frescoes by Botticelli.

But far more curious and important than the
works of art hung on the walls of the Drawing
School are the collections contained in the cabi-
nets arranged round the room. The construc-
tion of these cabinets is unique and deserves
a word of explanation. They are of polished
mahogany, and externally resemble somewhat
a set of office washing-stands. Each of them
holds either twelve or twenty-five drawings.
The drawings are all framed — some in plain
oak frames, others in a gilt beading of Mr.

* Fully described, and often referred to, in " Fors ;" e.g.,
1872, XX., p. 13; 1876, pp.329, 340, 350, 357, 3S1; 1S78,
p. 182. See also Appendix II. to this book, p. 4. It used
sometimes to be an Oxford pleasantry to ask of diligent
attendants at Mr. Ruskin's Lectures what new " greatest
painter in the world " the Professor had discovered that
day. The earliest reference to Carpaccio as " consum-
mate " occurred I believe, in his 1872 Lectures ("Ariadne
Florentina,'' p. 94).

74 SOIME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Ruskin's design* — and each frame fits into a
groove, an ivory label giving the number, and
a small leather strap for taking out being fitted
to one side of the frame. The contrivance
combines in an ingenious way security from
exposure to light and dust with handiness for
reference. The main collections are three in
number, entitled respectively, (i)the Standard,
or Reference Series, (2) the Educational Series,
and (3) the Rudimentary Series. Some account
of the meaning of these several titles will be
given presently. Speaking of them generally,
one notes — first and last — that they are all alike
strictly and essentially educational. The his-
torical significance or artistic quality in each
specimen is what is tliought of, not its artistic
finish or material vahie. Hence that quaint
unexpectedness which has been noticed as cha-
racteristic of Mr. Ruskin's lectures meets one at
almost everj' turn in these collections. "Price-
less" Turner drawings are arranged cheek by
jowl with coloured prints from old books of
travels. Exquisite studios from nature by Mr.

* This design, easily recognized when once seen, often
enables one to identify as. having once belonged to Mr.
Ruskin's drawings on view in sale-rooms or exhibitions.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 75

Ruskin and his assistants keep company with
faded photographs. One passes from early
" states " of choice engravings to common
prints from cheap magazines. One soon finds,
nevertheless, that each specimen sufficiently ful-
fils its special purpose ; and any curators or
committees who are organizing educational col-
lections of fine art upon limited resources would
find a visit to the Ruskin Drawing School of
great interest. To the casual visitor the sudden
contrasts in the collections will be perhaps their
principal charm. If there are pleasures of
desultory picture-seeing as well as " pleasures
of desultory reading," the Ruskin Drawing
School — in spite of its elaborate systems — is
the place to enjoy them.

To offer guidance to a desultory reader is
absurd ; and most desultory visitors will prefer
to browse upon the Ruskin collections at their
own sweet will. But it may be worth while
to note one or two points which will be found
of special interest by students of Mr. Ruskin's
work and writing. The first is the evidence,
continually recurring in each of the collections,
of the great labour spent by Mr. Ruskin upon
this part of his Professorial duties. And

^6 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

herein I am speaking not only of the labour —
heavy though that must have been — involved in
collecting, arranging, cataloguing, and describ-
ing nearly nine hundred specimens, but also of
the amount of Mr. Raskin's own handiwork con-
tained in his cabinets. Of the drawings, some
hundred and seventy are by Mr. Ruskin's own
hand, and of these a very large number were
done expressly for his O.xford work. The
quantity of Mr. Ruskin's literary productions
is extraordinary ; but his industry is amazing
when one takes count of his work as a draughts-
man as well.* Moreover, the quality of his
artistic work is as line as the quantity of it is
large. In many places in his writings Mr.
Ruskin has spoken, in terms which have some-
times seemed absurdly exaggerated, of the

* The secret of Mr. Kuskin's enormous output appears to
be his habit of early rising. "In summer," he says, "I
have been always at work, or out walking, by six o'clock,
usually awake by half-past four" (" Proeterita," ii. 217).
And not only in summer ; for I have heard him say that
much of his literary work has throughout his life been done
by morning candle-light. In one of his Oxford Lectures
Mr. Ruskin charged his pupils to remember that "all the
vital functions rise and set with the sun. . . . Sol iUtituitintio
twstra est ; Sol sn/its nostra ; Sot sapicutia nostra'' ("Eagle's
Nest," § t04 ; sec also " Two I'aths," § 137 ; " Fors," 1S7J,
xxviii., p. S ; xxxiv., p. 31 ; 1875, P- 332)-

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. "JJ

amount of time spent by him upon rendering
details in his drawings. In copying Veronese's
'' Queen of Sheba " at Turin it took him six
weeks, he tells us, " to examine rightly two
figures," and one day he was " upwards of two
hours vainly trying to render with perfect accu-
racy the curves of two leaves of the brocaded
silk" ("Cambridge Inaugural Address," p. 12).
" I've been two whole days at work," he writes
at another time, "on the purple marsh orchis
alone" (" Fors," 1876, p. 172). " No one has
the least notion," he complains, "of the quantity
of manual labour I have to go through to dis-
charge my duty as a teacher of Art. Look at
the frontispiece to Letter 20th [" Part of the
Chapel of St. Mary of the Thorn, Pisa "], which
is photographed from one of my architectural
sketches ; and if you can draw, copy a bit of
it ; try merely the bead moulding with its
dentils, in the flat arch over the three small
ones, lowest on the left. Then examine those
three small ones themselves. You think I have
drawn them distorted, carelessly, I suppose.
No. That distortion is essential to the Gothic
of the Pisan school ; and I measured every one
of the curA'es of those cusps on the spot, to

78 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

the tenth of an inch" (" Fors," 1S75, p. 255).
Ever}' one who examines Mr. Ruskin's handi-
work in the Drawing School will soon form a
very clear notion of the quantity of manual
labour he went through in the discharge of his
duty as a teacher of Art. That measuring of
curves to the tenth of an inch — conspicuous
enough already in the illustrations to the
" Stones of Venice" and in the " E.xampies of
Venetian Architecture " — is here seen applied
not to architecture only, but to every natural
form. " If you can paint one leaf," says Mr.
Ruskin, in "Modern Painters" (vol. v., pt. vi.,
ch. 5, § 2), "3'ou can paint the world." Mr.
Ruskin lays no claim to be able to paint the
world, or indeed to any high rank as a painter
at all, but he has at least gone through loyal
apprenticeship in the painting of leaves. Look,
for instance, at the exquisite care in his
"Peacock's Feather" (Reference Series, No.
1 14), with so much patient drawing of every
detail of form and every siiadow of colour ;
or in his "San Michele, Lucca" (Educ, 83);
or in the pieces of rolled gneiss (Educ, 276)
and of quartz (Educ, 277), showing with
the last degree of accuracy every vein and

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 79

weather-stain ; or in the plumage of partridge
(Rudim., 178). No matter what the subject
may be, whether it be as lofty as the towers of
Lucca or as lowly as the grass of the field, the
same infinite patience is conspicuous everywhere.
Not that Mr. Ruskin's work is inartistic from
excess of finish, from painting what he knows
by microscopic examination to be there rather
than what he sees. In many cases, indeed,
he does break this great artistic canon ; but he
does so deliberately, in order to make his speci-
mens lessons in collateral science as well as
examples of draughtsmanship. To Mr. Ruskin,
as we have seen (p. 23), the teaching of Art
is the teaching of everything. One great rea-
son for the method adopted by him in teach-
ing drawing (see above, p. 6"]) was, he says,
that " it enables me to show you many things
besides the art of drawing. Every exercise
that I prepare for you will be either a portion
of some important example of ancient art or
of some natural object. However rudely or un-
successfully you may draw it, you will never-
theless have learned what no words could have
as forcibly or completely taught you, either re-
specting early art or organic structure ; and I

So SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

am thus certain that not a moment you spend
attentively will be altogether wasted, and that,
generally, j'ou will be twice gainer by every
effort." " The first principle," he says again,
" of all I wish to enforce in my system here
at Oxford is, that you shall never make a
drawing, even for exercise, without proposing
to learn some definite thing in doing so ; nay,
I will even go so far as to say that the drawing
will never be made rightly unless the making
it is subordinate to the gaining the piece of
knowledge it is to represent and keep " (" Cata-
logue of the Rudimentary Series," p. 30).

Something of this double gain will accrue to
the visitor who studies Mr. Ruskin's exquisitely
delicate rendering of natural objects, and reads
his discourses upon them in the catalogues.
Especially interesting are the studies in flowers
and leaves, with the system of mytiiological
reference which Mr. Ruskin attaches to tlicni
(see, for instance, Educ, 4-15, and Rudini.,
I, 227). But in man}' of Mr. Ruskin's draw-
ings there is high artistic merit as well as sci-
entific interest. Indeed, the best of them are
chief!)' remarkable for the success with which
breadth of general effect is combined with wealth

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 51

of local detail. As examples in this kind the
drawings of the Grand Canal at Venice (Ref., 66)
and of the market-place of Abbeville (Ref., 6i)
may be mentioned. The latter, being a very
elaborate study of one of Mr. Ruskin's " motlier
cities," is of especial interest. Many of the
architectural drawings are valuable for their
minutely faithful record of buildings since
"restored."* It is in Mr. Ruskin's architec-
tural sketches with the silver-point that his
artistic gift is seen at its best, but the range of
his studies is very wide. Besides the drawings
of architecture and flowers already referred to,
there are numerous studies of clouds, in water-
colour (e.g., Educ, 3) ; etchings from Turner
drawings (e.g., Educ, lOi) ; many studies of
animals {e.g., Educ, 153-7); sketches of shells
and fish, of Japanese enamels, of birds and

* Mr. Ruskin's sketch (Educ, 26) of the north porch of
the west front of Amiens Cathedral, made in 1856, before its
restoration, is a case in point. "The colour, in 1856, was,'"
he says, "an exquisitely soft grey, touched with golden
lichen ; and the sheltered sculpture was as fresh as when
first executed, only the exposed parts broken or mouldering
into forms which made them more beautiful than if perfect.
Ail is now destroyed, and even the sharp, pure rose mould-
ing (of which hardly a petal was injured) cut to pieces, and,
for the most part, replaced by a modern design."

82 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

beasts innumerable (see, especially, the " King-
fishers," Rudim., 201-5); many admirable land-
scapes, especially of Swiss scenes (e.g., Educ,
296, 297) ; and studies in heraldic design (e.g.,
Rudim., 8-1 1). It is amusing, after noticing
the evidence afforded by these cabinets of Mr.
Ruskin's long and various study of Art, to recall
the criticisms which have spoken of the Slade
Professor as "learned in many matters, and of
much experience in all, save his subject," and
as " talking for forty years of what he has never
done."*

• Mr. Ruskin refers to this criticism by anticipation in
the Preface to tlic tliird volume of "Modern Painters."
" There arc two general principles to be kept in mind,'" he
says, " in examining the drawings of any writer on Art : the
first, that they ought at least to show such ordinary skill in
draughtsmanship as to prove that the writer knows what
the good qualities of drawing are ; the second, that they are
never to be expected to equal, in either execution or con-
ception, the work of accomplished artists — for the simple
reason that in order to do rtHvthing thoroughly well the
whole mind, and the whole available time, must be given
to that single art. . . . As, however, it is sometimes alleged,
by the opponents of my principles, that 1 have never done
rtH_>'thing, it is proper that the reader should know exactly
the amount of work for which I am answerable in these
illustrations, etc." It is interesting to note that though
many opponents of Mr. Ruskin's principles do allege (like
Mr. Whistler) that he has "never done anything," the latest
and (next to Mr. Whistler) the most violent o])poiicnt takes

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 83

To the student of Mr. Ruskin's books this
collection of his drawings presents, however,
many points of interest besides their artistic
merit. Here, for one thing, are the original
drawings for many of the plates with which
every one is familiar in his published books.
Readers of " Proserpina," in particular, will re-
cognize many old friends in "Studies of Wayside
Flowers;" and here, too, are "The Dryad's
Crown " and the " Purist Landscape," engraved
in " Modern Painters " (Educ, 264, 269).

a precisely contrary line. " In one respect only," says the
Edinburgh Review (January, l8S8), "we are prepared to
give Mr. Ruskin nearly unqualified admiration, namely, in
regard to his own artistic work as far as it has gone : with
the exception of those unhappy illustrations to the ' Seven
Lamps,' his own drawing, of architecture especially, is ad-
mirable. When two or three of his own landscapes were
exhibited some years ago in Bond Street, along with his
Turners, our impression at the time was that they were
equal to most of the Turner drawings in that collection ;
at all events his drawings of portions of St. Mark's, exhibited
more recently at the Society of Water-colours Exhibition,
were of the highest class, and such as, indeed, of their kind,
it would not be possible to surpass." The reviewer mighi
have added some reference to the admirable plates in
"Modern Painters" of the Matterhorn and the Chamoni.x
Aiguilles, " in which Mr. Ruskin (to quote an ex-President
of the Alpine Club), to whom all mountain-lovers owe a
debt of gratitude that can never be sufficiently acknow-
ledged, set an example to future draughtsmen."

84 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

The drawings are rich, too, in autobiographi-
cal interest. The quality of iiitiinitr which has
been noticed already as characteristic of Mr.
Ruskin's Lectures, and which is the cause at once
of his attraction and repulsion — attraction to
those who, being in full sympathy with an author,
like to be brought near to his personality ; repul-
sion to those who, being without such sympathy,
resent the personal note as "arrogant egotism "
— this intimate qualit)- is strongly marked in
the collection of drawings at Oxford. Some-
times, indeed, Mr. Ruskin has framed actual
leaves of his travelling diaries — diaries com-
posed partly of written notes, partly of rough
sketches. Thus the frame No. 172 in the
Reference Series contains some leaves from
the diary of an Italian tour in 1S71.*' The
leaves are inserted for the sake of their archi-
tectural studies from the tombs of Roger the
First and Frederick the Second at Palermo ; but
they are interspersed with travellers' notes such
as the following : " Segni, west of line, quarter-
hour past N'elletri, worth stopping. Just past

* Some references to this tour, .nnd cspcci.illy to Palermo,
will be found in "Ariadne Floreiitina," § 165. Sec also
Appendix 11. to this book, p. 238.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 85

Segni Station, west portico of temple on hill, very
important. Sparagla, magnificent hill town."
Indeed, a devoted and diligent Ruskinian might
almost compile an autobiography of the Master's
wanderings from these Oxford drawings. Of
his Venetian visits, and of the amount of work
he did in careful architectural study, there is
abundant evidence in several cabinets. Else-
where we find him at Lucca (Educ, 83-85). A
drawing of San Michele, containing much ex-
quisite detail, is dated " 1845. J. R." This
was the year of the visit to Lucca and Pisa
which marked an epoch in Mr. Ruskin's mental
and artistic development. "The inlaying of
San Michele," he tells us, "opposed to Gothic
pierced lace-work (which was all I cared for in
Gothic at that time), and the fine and severe
arcades of finely proportioned columns at San
Frediano, doing stern duty under vertical walls,
as opposed to Gothic shafts with no end, and
buttresses with no bearing, struck me dumb
with admiration and amazement" (Epilogue to
small edition of" Modern Painters," vol. ii. ; see
also " Praeterita," xviii. and xix., and " Fors,"
1874, p. 192). " Dumb with admiration and
amazement," but not paralyzed ; and here, in

86 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

these O.xford drawings, we have the first-fruits
of that course of architectural study which (says
Mr. Ruskin) " reduced under accurate law the
vague enthusiasm of mj' childish taste, and has
been ever since a method with me, guardian of
all my other work in natural and moral philo-
soph}-." Another Italian city, connected with
another epoch in Mr. Ruskin's mental histor}-,
is Assisi. It was there, in 1S74, he tells us, that
he " discovered a fallacy which had underlain all
his Art teaching since the year 185S" (" Fors,"
1877, p. lOi) — the fallacy, namely, that "reli-
gious artists were weaker than irreligious."
From that time forward Mr. Ruskin's critical
estimates of the Italian painters were largely
modified, and the visit to Assisi seems to have
made, as was natural, a great impression on
his mind. " Fors Ciavigera" for 1874-5-6-7 is
full of allusions to the sacristan's cell in which
he worked, and he gave an annual gift of .^£^25
to the monastery, i krc (Rcf , 297) is a sketch
of the very cell, which is described at length in
one letter (see " Fors," 1874, p. 223), and so
often referred to in others. In like manner,
one might follow the vein <if autobiograjiliical
interest in man^' another sketch of foreign travel

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 87

— tracing Mr. Ruskin's course, as one turns over
the contents of these cabinets, to Rheinfelden
(Ref., 93), to Fribourg (Educ, 1 14), to Lucerne,
(Educ, 116), or to " the Rock of Arona " (Ref.,
92). But it is never for long that we find him
away from his country home— studying the
flowers and mosses of the wayside. Here, for
instance (Educ, 11), is an exquisitely faithful
drawing in colour of a wild strawberry plant,
thus inscribed : —

" The Rose of Demeter.*

Spring in a cleft of her rocks.

J. Ruskin. Brantwood, June, '73."

Still more interesting, perhaps, to those who
are in sympathy with the author of " Modern
Painters " is another drawing in the same cabinet
(Educ, 6), a " study of a few blades of grass
as they grew." " Examine for a minute, quietly,

* " I give the strawberry-blossom to Demeter because it
is the prettiest type of the uncultured and motherly gifts
of the earth. Also, I take the blossom as the kindest and
usefullest representative of the Rose tribe, and in a sort
the most central ; for if I took Rosa Canina instead, it would
not suggest the great groups of the potentillas and tor-
mentillas; nor the relation to the anemone through the
Urj'as ; but this strawberry-blossom expresses the place
of all these, and yet is itself clearly a little white rose." —
Catalogue of the Ed\icatwnal Series, p. 30.

88 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

its narrow, sword-shaped strip of fluted green.
Nothing, as it seems, there, of notable goodness
or beauty. A verj' little strength, and a ver}'
little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meet-
ing in a point — not a perfect point neither, but
blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable
or apparently much cared-forexampleof Nature's
workmanship ; made, as it seems, only to be
trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast
into the oven ; and a little pale and hollow stalk,
feeble and flaccid, leading down to the dull brown
fibres of the roots. And yet, think of it well,
and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers
that beam in summer air, and of all strong and
goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes or good for
food — stately palm and pine, strong ash and
oak, scented citron, burdened vine — there be
any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly
graced, as that narrow point of feeble green.
. . . Consider what we owe merely to the mea-
dow grass, to the covering of the dark ground
by that glorious enamel, by the companies of
those soft, and countless, and peaceful spears.
. . . Go out, in the spring-time, among the
meadows that slojx- from the shores of the
Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 89

There, mingled with the taller gentians and
the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and
free; and as you follow the winding moun-
tain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled
and dim with blossom — paths that for ever
droop and rise over the green banks and mounds,
sweeping down, in scented undulation, steep to
the blue water, studded here and there with
new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter
sweetness — look up towards the higher hills,
where the waves of everlasting green roll silently
into their long inlets among the shadows of the
pines ; and we may, perhaps, at last know the
meaning of those quiet words of the hundred
and forty-seventh Psalm, ' He maketh grass to
grow upon the mountains.' "

The contents of the Ruskin Drawing School
are not, however, "precious" only for the sake
of Mr. Ruskin himself. The specimens are
selected, as has been explained, for their appro-
priateness in an educational series ; but they
include, by Mr. Ruskin's generosity, many en-
gravings and drawings of great interest and
value in themselves. Among the former, Mr.
Ruskin notifies the woodcuts by Hans Burg-
kmair (Rudim., 26-38), as " entirely perfect

90 SOME ASPECTS OF MB. RUSKIN S WORK.

examples of execution with the pure black line."
But there are also several by Diirer, as well as
a curious photographic enlargement of a Ma-
donna's head by him (Ref, 144), very instruc-
tive as bringing prominently before the student
the distinctive character of wood-cutting. In
which connection it is interesting to find in an
adjacent cabinet the frame of cheap modern
woodcuts referred to by Mr. Ruskin in the " Art
of England " lectures, in which he maintained
that " while no entirely beautiful thing can be
represented in a woodcut, every form of vul-
garit}' or unpleasantness can be given, to the
life." In illustration of this proposition we
have here (Ref, 164) "a collection of woodcuts
out of a scientific survey of South America, pre-
senting collectively, in designs ignorantly drawn
and vilely engraved, yet with the peculiar ad-
vantage belonging to the cheap woodcut, what-
ever, through that fourth part of the round
world from Mexico to Patagonia, can be found
of savage, sordid, vicious, or ridiculous in
humanity" (" Art of England," p. 169). After
which it will be well, perhaps, to turn for relief
to some of DUrer's engravings again {e.g., ICduc,
74, 75), which " show his power over human

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. QI

character and expression, and are full of sugges-
tions of thought."

Passing next from engravings to copies and
transcripts from natural forms, we shall come
across a great deal of very beautiful work by
Mr. Ruskin's assistant, the -late Arthur Burgess.
His work meets us, indeed, in nearly every
cabinet, and we cannot, therefore, notice it in
detail. The reader maj' be referred to the
general account which Mr. Ruskin recently gave
of his friend in the " Century Guild Hobby
Horse" (vol. ii., 46-53). " During the years,"
he says, " when I was lecturing, or arranging
the examples in my schools, Mr. Burgess was
engaged at fixed salary, executing either the
woodcuts necessary to illustrate my lectures, or
drawings to take permanent place in the school
examples. So far as I was able to continue
' Proserpina,' the woodcuts were always exe-
cuted by him ; and indeed I was wholly depend-
ent on his assistance for the effectual illustra-
tions of my most useful books. Especially those
in 'Ariadne Florentina' and ' Aratra Pentelici '
are unequalled, whether in precision of facsimile
or the legitimate use of the various methods of
wood engraving according to his own judgment."

93 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

In addition to this work, Mr. Burgess had be-
fore, in 1869, been to Verona with Mr. Ruskin,
studying the Scala tombs, and of these drawings
also many examples are to be seen in the Edu-
cational Series : " he drew," says Mr. Ruskin,
"as architecture had never been drawn before."
Another series of architectural drawings of great
interest, historical as well as artistic, arc those
by another of Mr. Ruskin's assistants — the late
Mr. Bunne}\* The drawings of Lucca and
Verona (Ref., 76-83) are good examples of
"the unwearied care and perseverance" of that
conscientious artist. Mr. Ruskin's affection for
Prout and W. Hunt is well known, and his Draw-
ing School is rich in examples by both those
painters. Drawings by Prout will be found in
Educ, III, 129, 133-35, ^'■'d in Rudim., 25,
85, 136, 137, drawings by Hunt in Educ,
168, 192, 213 ; and in Rudim., 59, 60, 179, 180.
Amongst the Prouts special attention may be
called to the drawing of Mayence (Rudim., 136),
both as an admirable example of his fine pencil

• An interesting and sympathetic memoir of Mr. Biinney,
from the pen of Mr. A. Wedderbiirn {" An Oxford Pupil "),
was prefixed to the " Catalogue of the Exhibition held at
the Fine Art Society in 1S82."

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 93

work, and as a record of a singularly pic-
turesque scene now swept away by modern im-
provements. Mr. Ruskin has written so much, in
so many places, about " old William Hunt " that
it is unnecessary to refer to his drawings here.
It may be interesting, however, to mention more
particularly a study of " Peach and Grapes "
(Educ, 213), which Mr. Ruskin contrasts, in
virtue of its " general look of greengrocery and
character of rustic simplicitj'," with the grave
refinement of the Italian designers illustrated
elsewhere in the same series. " Generally
speaking," adds Mr. Ruskin, "you will find our
best modern art has something of this quality
— it looks as if done by peasants or untrained
persons, while good Italian work is visibly by
accomplished gentlemen. . . . ' I like to see a
thing fudged out,' said William Hunt once to
me. Yes, but to see it felt out, and known,
both out and in, is better still." All the Prout
and Hunt drawings in these cabinets have been
presented to the University by Mr. Ruskin, who
has further enriched them with several drawings
by Turner. Of these the most important are
Nos. 2 and 3 in the Reference Series. Speaking,
in his first lecture at Oxford, of " the instinctive

94 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

love of landscape " which is characteristic of
English art, Mr. Ruskin reminded his hearers
that " a nation is only worthy of the soil and
the scenes that it has inherited wlien, by all its
acts and arts, it is making them more lovely
for its children." The first three specimens
selected for the Reference Series were, there-
fore, of landscape scenes. The first — " Brignal
Banks, on the Greta, near Rokeby " — is an en-
graving only (the original drawing by Turner
having been destroyed by fire), but is " a per-
fect type of the loveliest English scenery,
touched by imaginative associations." The
second example — the "Junction of the Greta
and Tees" — is a real drawing by Turner — " of
all 1 have," said Mr. Ruskin, " tiie one 1 had
least mind to part with. It is," he added, " a
faultless example of Turner's work at the time
when it is most exemplary."

The third Turner— a scene on the Loire,
never engraved — is an introduction to the Loire
Series, previously presented by Mr. Ruskin to
the University galleries. "Though small, it
is," he says, " very precious, being a faultless,
and, 1 believe, unsurpassable example of water-
colour painting." As for its place in the

THK RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 95

Reference Series, it was "chosen in further illus-
tration of the pensiveness of the chiaroscurist
school. It is painted wholly in solid colour, as
No. 2 is painted wholly in transparent ; and
the two drawings together show the complete
management of colours soluble in water or thin
liquid of any kind" (Oxford "Lectures on
Art," § 25, "Catalogue of the Reference Series,"
pp. 2-4). In the Rudimentary Series (No.
300) is another Turner drawing, to which in a
different way Mr. Ruskin attaches special im-
portance. This is a "Pen and Sepia Sketch
for Unpublished Plate of Liber Studiorum " —
"unique among Turner's sepia sketches for its
grace and ease." These are the most important
Turner drawings in the collection, but there are
many others of considerable, though slighter,
value. Especially interesting, as showing the
detailed drawing which Turner put into a sketch
before laying on colour, is an unfinished study of
a ruined abbey (Educ, 102) — "a witness to you,
once for all," says Mr. Ruskin, " of the right
way to work : doing nothing without clearly
formed intention, nothing in a hurry, nothing
more wrong than you can help ; all as tenderly
as you can, all as instantly as you can ; all

g6 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

thoughtfully, and nothing mechanically." Far-
ther on, in the same series, are three pencil
sketches (the last with colour begun) by Turner
(Educ, 126-128)"; the first, an earlj' sketch and
rough ; the second, later and full of detail ; the
third, specially interesting for an exquisitely
rendered thistle in the foreground. In the same
cabinet are several of Turner's architectural
sketches ; in another are studies of fish, birds,
and cattle (Educ, 18 1-3, 185) ; and in the last
one, a few sketches ol' clouds and hills (Educ,
292, 293, 300). These are of the same general
characterasthe numerous studies in the National
Gallery. A further batch of Turner's drawings
meets us in the Rudimentary Series. Very in-
teresting, as a specimen of work not common
with Turner, is the Farnley interior (Rudim.,
14), a careful study of armour and bric-a-brac.
This is signed "Turner, R..\., 1815." Some
other drawings in these series were included in
the e.xhibition held at the Fine Art Society's
galleries in 1878, and a simple reference to
those numbers (126-31) will therefore suffice
here. In the cabinet containing these drawings
there are also some of the wonderful copies of
Turner executed for Mr. Ruskin by Mr. William

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 97

Ward* (145-149). The Turner drawings de-
scribed above are, it should be remembered, en-
tirely distinct from the other series of sixty-one
drawings which were presented by Mr. Ruskin
to Oxford some years before, and which hang
in the University galleries above the Drawing
School, t Furthermore, the Trustees of the

* Of these copies Professor Ruskin says, " They are
executed with extreme care, under my own eye, by the
draughtsman trained by me for the purpose, Mr. Ward.
Everything that can be learned from the smaller works of
Turner may be as securely learned from these drawings.
I have been more than once in doubt, seeing original and
copy together, which was which, and I think them about
the best works that can now be obtained for a moderate
price, representing the authoritative forms of art in land-
scape." — Catalogue of the Fine Art Department, Harvard
University.

f Mr. Ruskin's gifts, to various institutions, of Turner
drawings alone, must represent a money value of several
thousand pounds. (Some years ago he assessed his gifts
to Oxford and "St. George" at £15,000.) The series of
Turners given to the Oxford University galleries is es-
pecially fine. Nor was the gift a money sacrifice only.
" When," he says somewhere, incidentally, " I gave away
my Loire series of Turner drawings to Oxford, I thought
I was rational enough to enjoy them as much in the Uni-
versity gallery as in my own study. But not at all ! I
find I can't bear to look at them in the gallery, because
they are 'mine' no more." Elsewhere he makes lighter of
the gift. " It is a woeful fault of this collection of mine,
considered as illustrative of his life, that there are no

98 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIX'S WORK.

National Gallery have placed on loan in the
same galleries a large number of sketches from
those bequeathed to the nation ; * so that the
collection of Turner drawings and sketches at
Oxford is now second, in importance and in-
terest, only to that at the National Gallery
itself.

Finally, we must not forget to mention among
the treasures of the Riiskin School several
drawings by distinguished living artists. Some
studies of flowers by Mr. A. McWIiirter (Educ. ,
258-61) and landscapes by Mr. A. Goodwin
(Rudim., 139-42) arc well worth looking at.
There is a very interesting pencil drawing of a
lemon tree by Sir Frederick Leighton, done at
Capri, and signed " L. 59." The delicac}' with
which every piece of fruit and foliage is rendered
is unsurpassable. It is an example which

Venetian sketches in it. I gave all I liad to Cambridge and
Oxford, not generously, but because to think of Venice now
is mere misery to me " (Notes on his " Drawings by Turner,"
p. 105). ThcCambridge gift consisted of twenty-five Turner
drawings, again very choice specimens, to the Filzwilli.nm
Museum at Cambridge.

* The loan comprises two luindrcd and fifty drawings,
arranged by Mr. Ruskin into twenty-five scries, and eight
sketch-books.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 99

"determines without appeal," says Mr. Ruslcin,
"the question respecting necessity of delineation
as the first skill of a painter. Of all our present
masters, Sir Frederick Leighton delights most
in softly blended colours, and his ideal of beauty
is more nearly that of Correggio than any seen
since Correggio's time. But you see by what
precision of terminal outline he at first re-
strained, and exalted, his gift of beautiful
vaghczza ("The Art of England," pp. 97-8).
Equally exemplary are the pencil drawings of
Mr. Burne-Jones. " His outline," said Mr.
Ruskin, in the same course of lectures (p. 65),
" is the purest and quietest that is possible to
the pencil. Nearly all other masters accentuate
falsely, or in some places, as Richter, add
shadows which are more or less conventional ;
but an outline by Burne Jones is as pure as
the lines of engraving on an Etruscan mirror,
and 1 placed the series of drawings from the
story of Psyche in your school as faultlessly
exemplary in this kind. Whether pleasing or
displeasing to your taste, they are entirely
masterful ; and it is only by trying to copy these
or other such outlines that you will fully feel
the grandeur of action in the moving hand,

lOO SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

tranquil and swift as a hawk's flight, and never
allowing a vulgar tremor or a momentar}' im-
pulse to impair its precision or disturb its
serenity." The Psyche drawings referred to in
this passage are to be found in the Educational
Series, Nos. 64-72, & 223. The last one is par-
ticularly noted by Mr. Raskin, in his catalogue,
as the best possible example of " refinement in
design obtained by perfectly simple and firm
equality of outline, and of the decorative placing
and arranging of every accessory. There is not
a cluster of grass, nor are there two leaves set
side by side, throughout the drawing, without
perfect!}' invented decorative relation to each
other." There are also, b}' Mr. Burne-Jones,
a "Study for Head of Danae" (Educ, 224)
and two studies from Tintoret (Educ, 225, and
Rudim., 1 1 3). Lastly, in a separate cabinet are
" XII. Drawings by Francesca Alexander, given
to Oxford by John Ruskin, 1S83." These are
the original drawings for the " Roadside Songs
of Tuscany," by the American lady Miss
Francesca Alexander, to whose art gift Mr.
Ruskin has of late years paid the highest tri-
butes, and whose drawings have been placed
in his school " to be standards of method, in

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. lOI

drawing from the life, to students capable of
a determined industry." *

The desultory account, now completed, of
the drawings in Mr. Ruskin's School, will have
given the reader some idea of the wealth of in-
terest to be found in its cabinets. But the visitor
who wishes to derive from them their full edu-
cational value should examine them in the
order and upon the system devised by Mr.
Ruskin for his pupils. In order to understand
this system, it is necessary to remember, in the
first place, the double purpose which Mr. Ruskin
had in view. His principal object was to esta-
blish in the University a School of Criticism ;
his second, to establish a School of Art. With
the former object in view, he collected the
Standard or Reference Series of examples ; with
the latter object in view, the Educational and
the Rudimentary Series. The scope of the
former series is sufficiently indicated by its

* Miss Alexander's graceful sketches of the Tuscan pea-
santry — both in pen-drawing and in writing — will be familiar
to many readers in "The Story of Ida," "The Roadside
Songs of Tuscany," and "Christ's Folk in the Apennine.'
An interesting description of the lady herself was recently
published in the New York Crilic and summarized in the
Pall Mall Gazette (May 13th, 18S7).

I02 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

title ; it was to be a series of " standards to
which you may at once refer on any question-
able point, and by the study of which you may
gradually attain an instinctive sense of right,
which will afterwards be liable to no serious
error. . . . The real utility of the series will
depend on its restricted extent — on the severe
exclusion of all second-rate, superfluous, or even
attractively varied examples — and on the con-
fining the students' attention to a few types of
what is insuperably good " (Oxford " Lectures on
Art," § 2i). This Standard Series was origin-
ally intended by Mr. Ruskin to comprise four
sections of a hundred pieces each — illustrating
severally, (i) the schools of painting in general,
(2) the sculpture and allied arts of the Gothic
races, (3) the sculpture and allied arts of the
Greeks, and (4) the special skill of modern times.
This, however, remains "a counsel of perfec-
tion." Mr. Ruskin has always been one of
those (to use a vulgar but expressive phrase)
whose " eyes arc bigger than their stomachs."
All that he actually arranged was the first of the
four sections above enumerated, and even there
he only reached half-way through his task.
The "schools of painting in general '' were, in

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. IO3

their turn, to have been subdivided into two
sections, of fifty each, containing severally, (a)
standards for illustration o'i indliuds, (/>) forms of
thought in Christian painting. It is the first of
these two sub-sections only which got itselt
arranged. It is to be found in the pieces num-
bered 1-50, contained in the first two of the large
cabinets which occupy the alcove of the Draw-
ing School. The following rough analysis of
their contents, with occasional references to Mr.
Ruskin's lectures, etc., may possibly be of in-
terest to the student (pp. 104-5).

Here, as above explained, the so-called " Stan-
dard Series" breaks off; the remaining large
cabinets, placed in the alcove, contain the
" Reference Series," which is described by Mr.
Ruskin as being of " quite mixed character."
There are, moreover, a great many blanks in it ;
but although arranged in no very systematic
order, these cabinets cover to a large extent the
second and third groups mentioned above (see
p. 102), namely, the art of the Gothic races and
of the Greeks respectively. Thus they include
(i) a large number of specimens of " the archi-
tecture which depends chiefly for its effect on
the sculpture or colouring of surfaces, as opposed

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I06 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

to that which depends on construction or pro-
portion of forms," and (2) several designs from
vases, etc., illustrative of the essential features
of Greek Art. But it would be useless to look
for systematic arrangement where none was
intended. The Reference Series was intended
for miscellaneous reference only. It should
be studied in connection with Mr. Ruskin's
lectures. In these lectures he illustrated his
arguments point by point — historical, moral, or
technical — by reference to actual examples of
art : this Reference Series was to be the gradu-
ally' accumulated collection of such examples,
and in the Oxford " Lectures on Art " the reader
will find it continuall}- referred to in this wa}'.

With the Educational and the Rudimentary
Series, which now remain to be explained, the
case is different. These collections were ar-
ranged with a view rather to use in a working
School of Art than for reference in critical lec-
tures. The Educational Series was the first to
be arranged, and was intended for the compara-
tivel}' mature University' students whom I\Ir.
Ruskin originallj' hoped to attract. It soon,
however, became evident that Mr. Ruskin's
pupils would be mainly young ladies, and for

THE RUSKIN' DRAWING SCHOOL. lO/

their benefit the Rudimentary Series was next
arranged. The two series are, thus, nearly
parallel, the latter being slightly more elemen-
tary than the former. Each series consists of
twelve cabinets, and each cabinet contains (or
should contain) twenty-five specimens. The
general arrangement of the cabinets is as
follows (p. io8).

In the following analysis some description is
given of the specimens selected, and of the
method of their arrangement. I go thus into
detail because Mr. Ruskin's Drawing School
may well, I think, afford valuable hints for the
arrangement of school museums and elementary
Art galleries — such as should exist in every
town, if not in every school.

The Educational Series.

I. Introductory : Exercises in Flowers.

These are elementary exercises in outline and flat-
tint. But Mr. Ruskin designedly makes them
exercises also in elementary botany and mytho-
logy. He selects, for copying, sketches of the
tribes of flowers "which have had the strongest
influence on the human mind in all ages " — e.g.,
the amaryllids (Christ's " lily of the field "), the
irids (the ion of Ionia and the fleur-de-lis of

I08 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

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THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. IO9

Christian Europe), the asphodels (the Greek
flower of immortalit)' ), and the lilies (tlic lily of
the Annunciation).
The actual examples here are mostly drawings by
Mr. Ruskin or his assistant.

II. Elementary Greek Design.

Examples of architecture, vase-painting, etc., illus-
trative of the strictness of Greek design. This
cabinet includes engravings of the Parthenon
and the Erechtheium, sketches of the foliage on
Greek coins, and engravings of mythological
designs on Greek vases.

III. Northern Gothic Design: (i) in Arcliitectiirc,
(2) ill its Resultant Art.

The object of this cabinet is to illustrate " the
course of the arts in the North of Europe, from
the development of their first perfect elementary-
school of round-arched architecture to the con-
summate work of German artists in the sixteenth
century."

The examples are arranged in the following order: —
Architecture : (i) the primary form of ecclesias-
tical architecture — photograph of Norman chapel
near Abbeville; (2) a central type of pure
Gothic sculpture — photograph of Chartres Cathe-
dral ; (3) " a quite balanced example of perfect
Gothic, uniting all its elements (figure-sculptures,
diaper surface-ornament, foliation, absolute sim-
plicity of mechanical structure in gable and
arch) " — photograph of small north door of
Notre Dame ; (4) characteristic English Gothic,
when it separated itself from German and

I 10 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

French — Front's drawings of York Minster and
of the chapel on the bridge of Wakefield ; (5)
" the grandest achievement of Gothic architec-
tural science " — photograph of the spire of Stras-
burg Catliedral ; (6) the relation of Late Gothic
to domestic life — photographs of Hotel Bourg-
theroude, Ronen, and of wooden houses at
Abbeville. Resultant Art: engravings from
Diirer and Holbein, etc.

IV'. ItalitiK Gothic Design .• ( i ) in Architecture, ( 2 ) in
its Resultant .Irt.

The corresponding object of this cabinet is to
illustrate " the course of Southern (that is to say,
essentially of Italian) Art, from its fir.st asser-
tion of itself as a distinct style in the thirteenth
century to its perfect results in the sixteenth."
The last cabinet illustrated also, in the work of
Holbein and Diirer, the intellectual power in the
North which led to the Reformation. This "ex-
hibits the full force of pure Catholicism in Italy,
and of the highest Christian Art, which is its
expression."

The examples given are — of Architecture, several
drawings by Mr. Ruskin from Verona, Lucca,
Como, Padua, and Venice (also a photograpli of
the famous Colleone statue) ; of Resultant Art,
photographs of Filippo Lippi's " Annunciation "
and " Nativity " at Florence, and Luini's " Adora-
tion of the Magi."

v. iS: VI. Landscape.
The examples liere arc not arranged on any easily
discernible system, Mr. Ruskin being guided, no

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. I I I

doubt, in their selection, by liis own preferences
and by his possession of Turner drawings. The
landscape examples begin with an etching from
Turner's " Banks of the Loire " (in the Oxford
University Galleries), " because it illustrates the
chief motive in sentiment with Turner, and with
all the great landscapists — rest, in clear air and
by sweet waters, after the day's due labour.
(Compare the saw left in the wood, here, with
the plough in the last vignette to Rogers's
poems, ' Datur hora quieti.')"

'VII. & VIII. Elcniciitary Zoology.

"Illustrations of the treatment of animal form by
the liigher methods of sculpture and painting."
Most of the examples here are drawings by
Turner, Hunt, and Mr. Ruskin. But the follow-
ing studies or photographs from old masters,
etc., are included: "Pulpit at Siena," with sup-
porting animals ; Diirer's " St. Jerome and Lion ; "
" The Lion of St. Mark's ; " Carpaccio's " Red
Parrot" (from the "St. George" Series);* and
Giovanni Pisano's " Eagle " at Pisa.

* "A beautiful scarlet — 'parrot' (must we call him?),
conspicuously mumbling at a violet flower under the steps ;
him also — finding him the scarletest and mumblingest parrot
T had ever seen — I tried to paint, in 1S72, for the Natural
History Schools of O.xford — perhaps a new species, or
extinct old one, to immortalize Carpaccio's name and mine.
■When all the imaginative arts shall be known no more,
perhaps in Darwinian Museums, this scarlet Epops Carpaccii
may preserve our fame " ("St. Mark's Rest," "The Shrine
of the Slaves," p. 9). The " Epops Carpaccii " is Educ, 161.

112 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

IX. Connection between Decorative and Realistic
Design.

" Many of the photographs and engravings in the
first eight cabinets are for study only, not for
copying ; but all in the last four are intended
for exact guidance in practice." The examples
in this cabinet include thirteenth and fourteenth
century missals, the sculpture on the angles of
the Ducal Palace, and Mr. Burnc Jones's Psyche
drawings.

X. Etching, E7igraving, and Outline Drawing.

The models selected by Jlr. Ruskin for these
branches of art are Holbein, Diirer, Leonardo,
and Turner; whilst Rembrandt's "Angels Ap-
pearing to the Shepherds" is given as "an
example of every kind of badness."

XI. Foliage.

Here, again, are several engravings from Turner
("Florence from Fiesole," " Buckfastleigh,"" Aske
Hall," " Rokeby," " Kirkby Lonsdale ") ; also pho-
tographs or sketches from Botticelli ("Spring")
and Raphael ("Madonna of the Tribune").

XII. A'oc/:s, Water, and Clouds.

Here the examples are almost entirely of Turner's
work. Mr. Ruskin was able to include many
originals, and has added some of his own
studies ; but any reader of " Modern Painters "
will know what engravings or photographs from
Turner would best illustrate the subject.

THE RUSKIN DRAWINO SCHOOL. II3

The Rudimentary Series.

This series follows so closely the lines of the Educa-
tional that it does not seem worth while to describe it
in detail. The following points may, however, serve
as supplementary suggestions for the formation of any
similar collection of examples. Under Division I.,
above, Hans Burgkmair's woodcuts representing the
Triumph of Maximilian I., and photographs or sketches
of many royal shields and tombs, are added. Under
Divisions VII. and VIII. the prints of Gould's " English
Ornithology '' are given : " Entire dependence may be
placed," says Mr. Ruskin, " on their accuracy of repre-
sentation, and I believe even a few examples will be
greatly useful in exciting the interest of the younger
students in ornithology, and especially in the living
birds." .Some plates from Curacci's " Natural History "
and Le Vaillanfs " Birds of Paradise " are also given.
The examples of Crasser, etc., are taken from " Floras
Danicse" and Mr. Loudon's " Bulbous Plants."

The inventory of the Ruskin Drawing School
which has now been completed will, I hope,
have given the reader some idea of its curious
and unique interest. It is interesting as things
are ; but if all had gone well with Mr. Ruskin,
it would have been more interesting still, and
even now it might be made far more interesting
than it is. In its present condition the Draw-
ing School, on its exhibition side, is little more
than an outline. There is enough to show

114 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

what Mr. Ruskin intended to make of it, but his
intentions are to a large extent left unfulfilled.
The explanatory catalogues remain half un-
written, and the cabinets are left either imper-
fectly filled or altogether empty. " I must
myself," he wrote in 1870, "make several more
careful drawings, to take the place of hurried
ones ; and, especiallj' in the supplementary ex-
amples of rock and tree drawing, some of the
engravings will be ultimately changed, or have
drawings put in their place." " The greater
number of examples I shall choose," he said, in
his first lecture at Oxford, " will not at first be
costly. But in process of time I have good
hope that assistance will be given me by the
English public in making the series here no less
splendid llian serviceable." l)uring his first
tenure of the Slade Professorship these pur-
poses steadily advanced, though most of the
"splendid" specimens added to the collections
were the result, I fanc)', of Mr. Ruskin's un-
aided generosity. When he resumed the Pro-
fessorship in 1883 he resumed also his work
upon the Drawing School. A rearrangement
of the specimens was begun, and Mr. Ru.skin
placed many fresh treasures at the service of

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. II5

his pupils. In April, 1885, however, Mr. Ruskin
abruptly resigned his post, and resigned it
— as will be seen from the following letter of
explanation — in bitterness and ve.xation of
spirit : —

" MR. RUSKIN AND THE SLADE
PROFESSORSHIP.

" To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette.

" Sir, — By mischance I have not till to-day seen your
kindly meant paragraphs on my resignation of the Slade
Professorship at Oxford. Yet permit me at once to
correct the impression under which they were written.
Whatever may be my failure in energy or ability, the
best I could yet do was wholly at the service of Oxford ;
nor would any other designs or supposed duties have
nterfered for a moment with the perfectly manifest
duty of teaching in Oxford as much Art as she gave her
students time to learn. I meant to die in my harness
there, and my resignation was placed in the Vice-
Chancellor's hands on the Monday following the vote
endowing vivisection in the University, solely in conse-
quence of that vote, with distinct statement to the
Vice-Chancellor, intended to be read in Convocation, of
its being so. Tliis statement I repeated in a letter in-
tended for publication in the University Gazette, and
sent to its office a fortnight since. Neither of these
letters, so far as I know, has yet been made public. It
is sufficient proof, however, how far it was contrary to
my purpose to retire from the Slade Professorship, that

Il6 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIx's WORK.

I applied in March of last year for a grant to build a
well-lighted room for tlie undergraduates, apart from
the obscure and inconvenient Raskin School ; and to
]>urchase for its furniture tlie two Yorljsliire drawings by
Turner of " Crook of Lune ' and " Kirkby Lonsdale " —
grants instantly refused on the pica of tlic University's
being in debt.

" I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"John Ruskin.

"Rrantwood, April T.i,th, i<S8;."

The refusal of the University to meet Mr.
Ruskiii's lavish generosity in any corresponding
spirit undoubtedI\' had something to do with his
resignation.* But whatever may have been the

* I had some conversation with Mr. Ruskin on this sub-
ject a few months afterwai'ds. " Double motives," lie said,
" are very useful things; you can do a thing for two that
you could not do for one.' The vivisection vote was per-
haps tile principal motive of his resignation ; but cUagnn at
what he thought the niggardliness of the University was a
secondary one. Immediately on resuming the Professor-
ship in 1883, he had given expression to this grievance.
" He noticed in his lecture yesterday," said the Pall Mall
Gazelle, Nov. Sth, 1883, "as characteristic of the scientific
tendencies of the present day, that while the University
will spend ^100,000 or even j^l 50,000 in decorating, in a
style as incorrect as it is un-English, rooms for the torture
of her students, she gives her art-workers nothing better
than a cellar to draw in, and her Art Professor no other
place for the storage of his models than a corner of his
private olTicc in the gallery. Mr. Ruskin might have added

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. II7

cause, the fact is certain that he parted from his
old University in anger. He removed from
the Drawing School most of such interesting
specimens as were not included in his previous
deed of gift, and it is unlikely — especially now
that the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield has as-
sumed definite shape — that they will ever be re-
stored. The contemplated rearrangement was
abandoned, and the specimens that remained
were put back into their old places — with the
result that there are a great many gaps in most
of the cabinets.

It is a thousand pities that something should
not be done to bring the collections into a more
completed order, and to make them more gene-
rally useful. I do not doubt that the University

what must have occurred to most of his closely packed and
half-stifled audience, that it was a pity the Slade Professor
had no better place to lecture in than the theatre of the
museum. Meanwhile the study of figure drawing set on
foot by Mr. Richmond is impossible, Mr. Ruskin said, until
the University makes the * indispensable additions' to the
Taylorian buildings." Recently, I may add, the University
has made considerable enlargements to its galleries, and it
was proposed to accommodate the Ruskin Drawing School
in one of the new rooms. It has been decided, however, to
retain the genius /oci, and leave it in its original quarters,
the chief inconvenience of which is that the room is lighted
entirely from the east.

Il8 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

had good reasons for refusing the considerable
expenditure for which Mr. Ruskin asked. But
having in its possession collections of great
\alue, it is surel}- false econonn- to grudge the
trifling expenditure necessar}' to make those
possessions capable of yielding their full return
in usefulness. The University galleries them-
selves(and not the Ruskin Drawing School only)
stand in need of o\erhauling — there is not even
so much as a complete catalogue of the pictures,
and the proper course, therefore, would seem to
be to appoint some one to the dutj- of organizing
and supervising both collections." The work
which such an expert might do in the Ruskin
Drawing School is very simple, but ver}' useful.
The Standard Series should be revised and
completed on the general lines laid down bj'
Mr. Ruskin. The Educational and Rudimen-
tary Series should be amalgamated. An ex-
planator}' and descriptive catalogue should then
be prepared, in the comjiilation of which Mr.

* At Cambridge, Mr. Micldlcloii, the Slado Professor, has
just been appointed Curator also of the University galleries.
The Curators of the University Galleries at Oxford arc a
large board. The Keeper is Mr. Macdonald, whose work,
however, is already too heavy to leave him time for any
sueh task of reorganization as is suggested above.

THE RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. I I9

Ruskin's own catalogues would of course prove
of great value, but which might well give more
systematic and historical treatment than it was
within his purpose to attempt. The service
which the Ruskin Drawing School, thus re-
organized, might render to the cause of artistic
education throughout the country is very great.
Whether O.xford is ever likely to produce a
flourishing School of Art may well be doubted ;
but there is no reason whatever why it should
not set a standard for schools and museums of
art elsewhere. What Manchester with inferior
resources has recently tried to do,'" Oxford has
unique means of doing to much greater effect.
The hope and endeavour of all those who be-
lieve in the humanizing mission of Art is that
an Art Gallery — small but select, and simple
though complete within its range — should be
established in every town, and even in every
school. The essential purposes of such collec-
tions must be those which Mr. Ruskin had in
view in arranging his Drawing School — to ex-
hibit what is best in each department of Art, to

* See an interesting letter from Mr. T. C. Horsfall,
Treasurer of the Mancliester Art Museum, in the Times of
November 26th, 18S9.

I20 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIiN S WORK.

illustrate historical development, to stimulate
or suggest the love of the natural objects por-
trayed, and to arrange such a course of practical
study as shall incidentally conduce to the pre-
vious purposes. Of collections of this kind
Oxford might well set the standard. In each
Universit}' generation there arc many young
men at Oxford who in after life will have op-
portunities not only for the patronage of Art in
the sense of private picture-buying, but for the
popularization of Art by bringing it within the
reach of the people. The Ruskin Drawing
School, efliciently arranged and catalogued,
might become a valuable storehouse of sugges-
tions for tiic utilization of such opportunities.
Every year, too, the University is coming into
closer contact with the provinces, and the num-
ber of earnest men and women, eager for the
extension of University teaching in all kinds,
who visit Oxford on the occasion of the " Sum-
mer Meetings," is already verj' considerable.
To them, too, the Ruskin Drawing School is
capable of being made a source of very useful
inspiration. Moreover, if the collections were
once properly completed, the fame of them
would soon be noised abroad, and any committee

THK RUSKIN DRAWING SCHOOL. 131

or individual, desirous of doing something to
bring Art into schools or villages, would turn
to Oxford as the natural quarter for guidance
and example. This reorganization of the
Ruskin Drawing School would be the best na-
tional purpose to which the University could
turn the treasures committed to its charge. It
would also be the best way of honouring the
giver of them. Mr. Ruskin's connection with
the School is already commemorated — as well
as in its name — by a marble bust of himself,
e.xecuted by Sir J. E. Boehm.* But the gene-
rosity and self-devotion of the founder of the
School is surely deserving also of that more
acceptable memorial which consists in giving
wider fulfilment of his purposes.

* See frontispiece. The bust bears the following inscrip-
tion ; —

" Hanc

JoHAKNis Ruskin

Hujusce scholae fundatoris

Effigiem

Amici posuerunt

iSSi."

CHAPTER III.

MR. RUSKIN AND THE WORKING MEn's COLLKGK.

Mr. Ruskin's services to National Education
have by no means been confined to his work at
Oxford. Of his deep interest in the subject, no
reader either of " Modern Painters " or of " The
Stones of Venice" will need to be reminded.*
Some years ago Mr. Ruskin announced it as
" probable that a volume especially devoted to
the subject of Education may be composed of
passages gathered out of the entire series of
my works " (Preface to " In Montibus Sanctis ").
This probabijit}' has not yet become an accom-
plished fact, perhaps because of the super-
abundance of material which would await the
composer of such a volume, t

• Sec, especially, " Modern Painters," vol. iv., Appendix 3,
and "Stones of Venice," Appendix 7.

t The passages in " Fors Clavigcra" "especially devoted
to the subject of Kducation " arc enumerated in Mr.
Faunthorpe's excellent index. The enumeration occupies
nearly seven pages.

THE WORKING MEN's COLLEGE. 123

In this matter, as in others, Mr. Ruskin has
practised what he preached. He has not merely
propounded theories on the subject of education,
but has never lost an opportunity of putting them
into practice. Readers of " Fors Clavigera "
and of some others of his later books will recall
many allusions to educational experiments made
by Mr. Ruskin at the village school of Coniston.
What in his old age he does at Brantwood he
did long ago in his prime at Denmark Hill.
The new Bibliography shows us how indefati-
gable a lecturer he has been, and most of his
minor books were originally composed with
direct educational purpose. " The Political
Economy of Art " was delivered as lectures at
Manchester. "The Elements of Drawing " was
a school text-book ; and true to the principle
explained in the last chapter, that the teaching
of Art is the teaching of everything, the text-
book contained instructions on what books to
read, as well as on what lines to draw. " The
Two Paths," " Sesame and Lilies," and " The
Crown of Wild Olive " were all written as lec-
tures ; whilst " The Ethics of the Dust " was
written for a girls' school. But the chief of
Mr. Ruskin's earlier educational efforts was in

124 SOME ASPKCTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

connection with the Working Men's College.
Of his work there, thirty years ago, and of his
relations with F. D. Maurice, the founder of the
College, some account was given in a recent
chapter of " Preeterita" (vol. iii., cli. i.). The
following further reminiscences are supplied by
a friend who himself, too, has done yeoman's
service to the same institution. " The other
da\'," he says, " I was in the room of an old Art
pupil of Mr. Ruskin's, at the Working Men's
College. Seeing a very clever sketch of a dead
bird, in carmine lake, on the wall, 1 admired it,
and asked whose it was. ' John Ruskin's,' said
my friend. ' You know he used to come up to
our easels, one after the other, and tell us where
we were right, with a word of praise, and where
wrong, with a " Look here ! this is the way to
do that." Well, that bird which you've just
admired Ruskin did one night, on the edge of
my drawing-paper, in less than ten minutes, to
give me a hint. He dashed the sketch in as
fast as brush would go, and the breast, which is
so effective, he did by dabbing the inside of his
thumb on tlic wet ]iaint. 1 wouldn't part with
it for anytliing. A year or two ago he came
to see me, and I showed him his sketch, and

THE WORKING MEN's COLLEGE. 125

reminded him of when and how he did it. Of
course he'd forgotten all about it. But he
looked at it, and said, smilingly, " Well, it's very
well done." And so it is.' It was in the
drawing-room of the Working Men's College,"
continues the same writer, " that Mr. George
Allen, Mr. Raskin's publisher and engraver, then
a working carpenter and joiner, was trained ;
and no loyaller or better pupil ever lived. There,
too, the late Mr. Bunney, whose Venice paint-
ings are so well known, got his teaching and
the support of Mr. Ruskin. Mr. William Ward,
the skilful copyist of Turner, was another pupil.
It is pleasant to hear Mr. Ruskin's old students
talk of him ; even if they do not agree with
his political economy, they do with his art."
Another devoted " Ruskinian," whose disciple-
ship began at the Working Men's College, was
the late Mr. Henry Swan, the first Curator of
the St. George's Museum.

Mr. Ruskin's services to the College were not
confined to his own work as an Art-teacher.
It was at his prompting * that D. G. Rossetti
also acted for some years (1857-60) in the

* See Mr. W. M. Rossetti's life of his brother, p. 145,
and " Praeterita," vol. iii., p. 27.

126 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

same capacity. Amongst those encountered by
Rossetti, at the College, was Mr. Smetham, who
was then a pupil in the drawing-class. Mr.
Ruskin has spoken two or three times in terms
of disappointment of the work of the College,
but if all its old teachers influenced so many
capable men, and left such pleasant memories
behind them, as did Mr. Ruskin, then the
leaven of Maurice's institution must iiave gone
verj' far.

CHAPTER IV.

MR. ruskin's may queens.

Next to the organization of his Oxford Schools,
the most systematic attempt Mr. Rusl<in has
made to put his educational theories into
practice has been in connection with the St.
George's Museum, which was expressly in-
tended to illustrate his view of the educational
function of the ideal museum. Of this attempt
we shall speak in the next chapter. Mean-
while we may pass to notice another educational
scheme of Mr. Ruskin's, which has been in actual
operation for some years, and has already done
much useful service. Much of Mr. Ruskin's
work, it is said, is only in the air ; but the
scheme which we have now to describe is on
the solid earth, sweetening with its presence the
hard realities of a college in connection with
the State. Some ten years ago, the Rev. J. P.
Faunthorpe, the President of the Whitelands

128 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

Training College in Chelsea, chanced to fall
into correspondence with Mr. Ruskin. He had
noted some passage in " Fors Clavigera," be-
tokening, he tlioiight, undue despondency at
the e.xisting machinery of National Education.
Mr. Ruskin was keenly interested in what Mr.
Faunthorpe had to tell him, and was constant
in counsel and encourageinent. Would Mr.
Ruskin present the College, Mr. Faunthorpe
asked, with a prize ? No ; Mr. Ruskin did not
approve of prizes, at least not if there were any
taint of competition about them ; but he would
be proud to present the College with a set of
his works. The offerwas warmly accepted ; and
Mr. Ruskin, ever avaricious of giving, asked to
be allowed to present the College with the means
for organizing a "May Queen" Festival. In
each year he would present the queen with a
gold cross for herself, and with some forty
bound volumes, more or less, of his books for
her to award to her fellows at her will and
pleasure. Mr. Faunthorpe cheerfully undertook
the organization of the scheme, which was first
carried out in i88i,and has since been con-
tinued year by year. From time to time there
have been some slight modifications in the

THE MAY queen's GOLD CKOSS (iSSS).
{Desigyied by Arthur Sez'tnt.)

MR. RUSKINS MAY QUEENS. 129

ceremonial. The queen's gown, for one thing,
has been altered two or three times. Miss Kate
Greenaway designed one, but Mr. Ruskin did
not like it ; it was a mere robe, he said, and
made its wearer look like " Madge Wildfire."
The new gown has been designed by Mrs.
Faunthorpe, and when Mr. Ruskin sees it, will,
let us hope, meet with greater acceptance. The
cross, too, is of different workmanship each
year, being designed sometimes by Mr. Burne-
Jones, sometimes by Mr. Arthur Severn, some-
times by other artists. One year the cross was
composed out of a wild rose, and Mr. Ruskin
complained because there was no thorn, " as if
a true queen's crown could ever be without its
thorn." But in all essentials the May Queen
Festival at Whitelands has been the same from
year to year ; and the following account of
the ceremony in 1885, written at the time, may
serve as well as another to show the spirit and
the scope of this characteristic scheme, designed
by the " unpractical " Mr. Ruskin : —

" The celebration of May Day is one of tlie glories
which have pretty well passed away from the earth by
this time. The world is too much with us ; and as for
sports on the merry green, we are too old for that

130 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

sort of thing. Indeed, did not Piers say long ago, in
' The Shepherd's Calendar '—

' For younkers, Palinoilc, such follies fitte,
But we tway bene well of ekler witt ' ?

And according to an authority which is always worth
consulting as a sort of ' prosometer,' as a test of how
far the power of prosaic utterance can go, ' the only
people now interested in the maintenance of May sports
are the chimney-sweepers ; for as the commencement
of summer deprives them in a considerable degree
of their business occupation, they naturally seek to
avail themselves of the customary liberality of festive
meetings.'

"But the poetry of May Day still lingers here and
there, even in London. There is Whitelands College, at
Chelsea, for instance, which held high festival yester-
day, and presented a spectacle such as can only be seen
else in Spenser's poems or Miss Greenaway's drawings.
Whitelands is a Training College for Girls, and the
' old girls,' whose work now lies in countrj- parishes,
do not forget the First of May, but send up large
hampers of spring flowers for decorating the ' dear old
school.' You pass in tlirough the iron gate in the
King's Road, and find yourself in such a company of
sweet flowers as you will not sec the like of anj-where
else in the town. Chapel and hall are alike bedecked,
and ' themselves the sweetest flowers among them all '
are the young girls, dressed all of them in their smartest
gowns (there were no bishops present, in lawn sleeves,
to detect the sinful satin shoes), and each wearing
bunches and carrying baskets of flowers. Very pretty
it is to sec the fresh young faces of the girls, a lumdred

MR. RUSKIN S MAY QUEENS. I3I

and fifty, perhaps, or moro, gathered thii.s together in
the chapel, ' not taken out of the world in monastic
sorrow, but kept from its evil in shepherded peace.'
They are possessed now with common interests and
common hopes, and the sweet voice tliat sings, ' Oh, rest
in the Lord' is speaking for them all. But there are
' more variations in women's life than any one would
imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure ; ' and
as one's eye lights on the saints in the painted windows
one turns to wonder which may be a St. Theresa in
the congregation below.

" But it is only after the chapel service is over that the
Whitelands peculiar festival begins. It is a festival,
held this year for the fifth time, which was instituted
and is maintained by Mr. Ruskin, and which realizes
in very quaint and pretty fashion many of his ' romantic
impossibilities ' about education. When the girls are
assembled in the hall they are bidden to proceed at
once to the business of the day — the election of one
among them to be May Queen. There is much sweet
excitement, delightful to behold, to know on whom the
choice will fall, for the voting is secret (is that, by the
way, quite Ruskinian ?) ; and it is only when May Day
comes round that the teachers discover who the school
favourite is. This year it is a beautiful brunette, but
she is chosen not for her beauty nor for learning, but,
like the Rosiere of Nanterre, simply because in the
' fierce white light ' of her schoolfellows she has done
her duty and made herself beloved. The election is
ratified by much clapping of hands, and the Queen then
retires to be robed and crowned. Among her hand-
maidens is last year's Queen, the ' Dowager,' now
crowned only with forget-me-nots. The girls form in
procession, and when the Queen has taken her place on

132 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

the throne, pass, two and two, in front of her, and make
their obeisance. Mr. Ruskin was not present yester-
day himself, and the gold cross which he gives each
year to the May Queen was presented for him by Mrs.
Bishop. But a true queen takes more pleasure in
aiving than receivin", and it is her turn next to dis-

rili: MAY QUEENS PROCESSION.
{From it liraxi'ififf by luiith Capficr.)

tribute thirty-four volumes of Mr. Raskin's works, given
by the author, bound in sumptuous purple calf, to those
of her subjects whom she chooses. There is no com-
petition about these prizes. One girl receives a prize
' because she is faithful to her friends,' another ' be-
cause she is fond of music,' another ' for In-r sunny

MR. RUSKIN S MAY OUEENS. 133

temper,' another just 'because the May Queen Ukes
her.' It was particularly pretty to notice the smile of
recognition that the Queen — pale and nervous else —
would give as some particular friend came up to kiss
hands on receiving a prize ; but, indeed, in every way
the scene was as pretty as could be, as delicately
worked out and as full of suggestion as a sentence in
one of Mr. Ruskin's books themselves.

" Mr. Ruskin's festival gives, it is clear, a great deal of
innocent pleasure, and certainly they repay him at
Whitelands College with their best. His motto, ' To-
day,' was placed on their walls ; they prayed for him
in their chapel service ; and in the address which Mr.
Faunthorpe, the Principal, delivered to the girls yester-
day, they were taught to regard him as one of the major
prophets, as doing for this age what Plato, Aristotle,
and Bacon have done for others. A hundred years
hence, Mr. Faunthorpe told them, the nineteenth century
will be remembered only or chiefly because Ruskiii
lived and wrote in it — which is giving him a victory
with a vengeance over his enemies the steam-engines
and' the railways. However that may be, the girls who
go out from Whitelands College to teach throughout
the country could take no better friends with them than
Mr. Ruskin's books. Those who know most of the
deficiencies of our educational curriculum will appre-
ciate best the value to young teachers of so spiritual
and stimulating an influence." *

The influence of the May Day Festival at
Whitelands soon made itself felt elsewhere.

* Pall Mat! Gazette, May 2nd, 18S5.

134 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

The Ma}' Queens and other pupils who go out
from Chelsea to be teachers in National schools
carry with them the traditions of the place, and
become themselves centres of similar sweetness
and light. Not a year passes, Mr. Faunthorpe
tells me, without his hearing of some new May
Day Festival, and in many a country village
wealthy friends have been found to follow
Mr. Ruskin's generous e.xaniple. But the most
interesting of these derivative festivals is in
Ireland, where Mr. Ruskin himself again plays
the earthly providence. One of the Whitelands
governesses. Miss Martin, was appointed a few
years ago to be Head Mistress of the High
School for Girls in Cork, and Mr. Ruskin at
once acceded to her request to establish a simi-
lar festival there. The Queen in this case — for
reasons which readers of "Prasterita" will guess
— is a Rose Queen, instead of a Queen of the
May ; but Mr. Ruskin presents her in each year
with a gold cross and with a series of his works
for presentation to her chosen Maids of Honour,
as at Whitelands.* Mr. Ruskin has also
presented Miss Martin's school with a case

* A full and interesting account of Uie festival appcaicel
in the Cork Coiisliliilwii, May 2nd, iSSS.

MR. RUSKIN S MAY QUEENS. 1 35

of rare and costly minerals, stones, and gems.
The case includes specimens of Mocha stone,
agate, jasper, flint, diamonds, gold, silver, mica,
quartz, amethysts, beryls, and other precious
stones. Some of the specimens are exceed-
ingly rare and exquisitely beautiful. There
are five uncut BraziUan diamonds, which are
probably worth _^ 40, showing variations of colour
— white, pale yellow, green, and steel grey ; a
really fine nugget of gold in quartz, weighing
about two ounces, and a tress of native silver
with a trace of copper and some other metal.
There are several specimens of amethysts and
quartz, from Brazil, and three from the Ballin-
temple "diamond" quarry, Blackrock. Mr.
Ruskin has, in addition, presented the school
with eighteen of his original drawings, made
for the illustration of "The Stones of Venice,"
and four of the originals of the plates in the
chapters on Vegetation in "Modern Painters."
He has also given an illuminated cover for an
ancient Persian missal. The design is in gold
and colours, of conventional flower and leaf
work. A further gift was a hand-painted orna-
ment, consisting of two panels from the " Book
of Kells." Accompanying Mr. Ruskin's gift

136 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

was the following description of twelve of the
specimens : —

" (l) The best external beginning of Mocha stone I
ever saw, but they may, perhaps, be common at this
localitj'. You can find out at leisure.

"(2) Agate, interrupted by quartz veins, which 1 have
described at greater length somewhere. It cannot be
too carefully looked at with pocket lens, and may
some day be a classical stone.

" (3) Jasper with green coating. I believe Sctittish,
of q\iite infinite interest, and infinitely multiplied into
infinite interest. By the time the youngest pupil in tlic
school is ninety she may know something about it.

"(4) Banded agate and jasper. Scotch; beat it in
Ireland if you can.

"(5) Jasper passing into lake agate, an articular
agate. Scotch also ; but perhaps you may beat it at
the Giant's Causeway.

" (6) Undulating jasper. I never thought to part
with it, but it will be better at Cork,

"(7) Common black-handed flint. A rolled pebble.

"(8) Uncommon handed flint, price is. bit.; but I
don't think you will get the like of it for 2.J. dd,

"(9) Globuhe mica, the American fashion; but it
will never make such good mountain as the uld-
fashioned mica.

" ( 10) Straight amianthus iu quartz. Pretty, but the
value of the specimen is in the three unpolished plains,
with endlessly comple.\ and with extremely minute
cavities, looking like spots.

"(II) Five stories of fairy ami'thyst mountain. Kx-
tremilv mn- and bc.iutiful.

MR. RUSKIN's may QUEENS. 13/

"(12) The last specimen 1 have of Sidmoutli rock
chert, becoming jasper by infusion of colour, reds and
j-ellow oxides of iron. Ever>-\vhere a beautiful enigma."

But Mr. Ruskin's interest in Whitelands
College, and influence upon the successive gene-
rations of its scholars, are not confined to the
May Day Festival. He has presented the in-
stitution with many valuable pictures, books,
minerals, and manuscripts, all of which are care-
fully arranged for use by the girls, and for some
of which Mr. Ruskin himself has written de-
scriptive notes. The presence of all these
beautiful things in the different rooms of the
College lends a very attractive appearance to
the place. The walls of the Refectory are
covered with interesting pictures and prints,
including several copies from Carpaccio, a few
drawings by Prout, some plates from the " Liber
Studiorum," and a series of coloured prints from
Bettoni's " Birds of Lombardy," all presented by
Mr. Ruskin. In the Governesses' Room there
are further gifts of the same kind ; to the Sick
Room Mr. Ruskin has presented a little collec-
tion of books of his own choosing ; whilst the
" Ruskin Library " comprises not only many of
Mr. Ruskin's own books, but a collection of other

138 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

books bought for the College by him. But the
chief Ruskin treasures are in the room of the
Principal, who every Sunday evening during
term time calls in some of the girls to examine
the books and pictures with him. Amongst
the books is a very fine copy of Bishop Gawin
Douglas's " English Virgil" —

"Imprinted at London in 1553,"

to which Mr. Ruskin has added, in printing of
his own hand —

"And given

To the College for training of English maids

at Chelsea on Thames,

I'V

John Ruskin,

On the Christmas Day of 1880."

Another very interesting book is an Arabic
Koran, in silken satchel with a gold cord, every
page being profusely ornamented inflowerscrolls
and gold. Three large folio volumes, contain-
ing water-colour copies made for Mr. Ruskin
by hand from Rinio's "Erbario," show the lavish
generosity with wJiich he lias enriched the
College. The Ruskin Cabinet, containing si.\ty
pictures — illustrative of the work nf Riciiter,

MR. RUSKIN S MAY QUEENS. 139

Diirer, and Turner — framed and mounted in the
same way as the examples in the Ruskin Draw-
ing School, is of great interest and value. Mr.
Ruskin wrote some notes for this cabinet, which
have been published in the Ruskin Reading
Guild Journal for 1889. The College, it is
pleasant to know, has met Mr. Ruskin's gene-
rosity in a corresponding spirit. Everything
that he has given is well cared for, and made
available for every-day use and influence. Every-
where, too, throughout the College, the educa-
tional value of beautiful things is recognized
and enforced, and not one class-room or dormi-
tory is without its exemplary picture. White-
lands is a College where the teachers of to-
morrow are themselves taught, and the influence
for good which Mr. Ruskin's work there has set
on foot throughout the country must be very
great. The Oxford Drawing School is the
practical realization of Mr. Ruskin's ideal for
Schools of Art. Whitelands College shows in
practice the ideal of the movement towards pro-
viding " Art for Schools." *

* The address of the " Art for Schools Association " (of
which Mr. Ruskin is the President, and to which his writ-
ings gave the initial impetus) is 29, Queen Square, W.C.

CHAPTER V.

THE ST. George's guild.

( With some Account of the " Euskhi Museum " at
Sheffield.)

Mr. Ruskin's experiments as a Social Reformer
were, as we have seen (p. 27), a necessary con-
sequence of his Principles of Art. "No great
arts are practicable," he saj's, " by any people,
unless they are living contented lives, in pure
air, out of the way of unsightly objects, and
emancipated from unnecessary mechanical occu-
pation. It is simply one part of the practical
work I have to do in Art teaching to bring,
somewhere, such conditions into existence, and
to show the working of them " (" Fors Clavi-
gera," 1871, ix., p. 20). It was the determina-
tion to carry out this duty that led to the
formation of the St. George's Guild — the btst-
known and most-discussed of all Mr. Ruskin's
practical works. The ideas underlying the

THE ST. GEORGES GUILD. I4I

Guild were, indeed, no new development in his
mind. For many years past he had been ex-
horting " the gentlemen of England " to become,
as he was fond of expressing it, " soldiers of
the ploughshare." But few or none had listened
to his exhortations. " However, this," he said,
" is partly my own fault for not saying more
clearly what I want, and for expecting people
to be moved by writing, instead of by personal
effort. The more I see of writing, the less I
care for it ; one may do more with a man by
getting ten words spoken to him face to face
than by the black-lettering of a whole life's
thought "(" Fors," 1872, xvii., p. 5). Giving
up, then, his reliance on mere writing, he set
himself first to talking face to face with such as
had ears to hear — in " Fors Clavigera " — and
secondly to practising what he preached.

It was in May, 1871, that the scheme was first
made public. In the " Fors " for that month
Mr. Ruskin called on any landlords to come and
help him "who would like better to be served
by men than by iron devils," and any tenants and
any workmen who could vow to work and live
faithfully for the sake of the joy of their homes.
Any such as joined St. George's standard were

142 SOME ASPECTS OK MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

to do as Mr. Ruskin undertook henceforth to
do, and give the tenth of what the}- had and
what they earned, not to emigrate with, but to
Stay in England with, and make a Happy
England of her once more. And this was how
the happy days that are no more were to be
restored : —

" \Vc will try," said Mr. Ruskin, " to make some
small piece of English ground beautiful, peaceful, and
fruitful. We will have no steam-engines upon it, and
no railroads ; we will have no untended and unthought-
of creatures on it; none wretched, but the sick; none
idle, but the dead. We will have no liberty upon it,
but instant obedience to known law and appointed
persons; no equality upon it, but recognition of every
betterness that we can find, and reprobation of every
worseness. When wc want to go anywhere we will
go there quietly and safely, not at forty miles an hour,
at the risk of our lives ; when wc want to carr}' any-
thing anywhere we will carry it either on the backs of
beasts or on our own, or in carts or boats ; we will have
plenty of flowers and vegetables in our gardens, plenty of
corn and grass in our fields — and few bricks. We will
have some music and poetry ; the children shall learn
to dance in it and sing in it — perhaps some of the old
people, in time, may also. We will have some art,
moreover ; we will at least try if, like the Greeks, we
can't make some pots. The Greeks used to paint pic-
tures of gods on their pots ; we probably cannot do as
much, but we may put some pictures of insects on
them, and reptiles — butterflies and frogs, if nothing

THE ST. GEORGES GUILD. I43

better. There was an excellent old potter in France
who nsed to put frogs and vipers into his dishes, to
the admiration of mankind ; we can surely put some-
thing nicer than that. Little by little, some higher art
and imagination may manifest themselves among us,
and feeble rays of science may dawn for us. Botany,
though too dull to dispute the existence of flowers ; and
history, though too simple to question the nativity of
men ; nay, even perhaps an uncalculating and un-
covetous wisdom, as of rude Magi, presenting, at such
nativity, gifts of gold and frankincense."

In taking stock of what Mr. Ruskin has ac-
tually done towards realizing this Utopia it is-
important to remember the limitations which
he expressly made to his enterprise. He had
no thought of setting himself up as leader in
any large movement. He did not even devote
all his time to the work. On the contrary, he
went into it during the very years when, as we
have already seen, he was busily engaged at
Oxford. His socialistic work was, to use a
current piece of political slang, a payment of
"ransom." He wanted to ease his conscience,
and to feel free once more to devote himself
single-hearted to the arts and sciences. His
object was to quit himself of responsibility by
showing what each man might do. " My march-
ing days," he said, " may perhaps soon be over,.

144 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

and the best that I can make of myself be a
faithful sign-post. But what I am, or what I
fail to be, is of no moment to the cause. The
two facts which I have to teach, or sign, though
alone, as it seems, at present, in the signature,
that food can only be got out of the ground, and
happiness only out of honesty, are not alto-
gether dependent on any one's championship,
for recognition among mankind " (" Fors,"
1873, XXX., p. 19).

" That food can only be got out of the ground,
and happiness out of honesty." These were
the first two facts which the Guild of St. George
w^as established to demonstrate ; and the third
was the fact (to cite once more Prince Leopold's
felicitous words) that "the highest wisdom and
the highest treasure need not be costly or ex-
clusive" (see p. 44, «.). The enforcement of these
three facts leads us, it will be seen, to throe cor-
responding experiments, of (i) an agricultural,
(2) an industrial, and (3) an artistic character,
respective!}'. The first and the second cannot,
indeed, be very trenchantly distinguished ; but
it will be more convenient to treat separately
the distinctively industrial part of" St. George's"
scheme : that will form the subject of the next

THE ST. George's guild and museum. 145

chapter. In the present chapter we must no-
tice briefly Mr. Ruskin's experiments under the
other two heads.

The agricultural experiments of the St.
George's Guild have not been a brilliant suc-
cess. Perhaps they have not been given a fair
chance. Perhaps the times and seasons have
been unpropitious. But whatever explanations
or excuses there may be, the fact remains that
the St. George's farms have produced very
little except a plentiful crop of disappointments.
Mr. Ruskin has drawn many charming pictures,
such as the one given above, of his ideal settle-
ments ; but the realities have for the most part
been either grim or grotesque, or (more often)
both. The Guild is, however, the owner of
several acres of land in different parts of the
country, and there is some reason to hope that
past failures will lead to future successes. If
there are any disciples of Count Tolstoi who,
having decided "what to do," are casting about
for plots of ground on which to do it, they
should communicate with the Trustees of St.
George's Guild.*

* Particulars of some of the agricultural experiments
referred to above will be found in many places throughout

146 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

Meanwhile it is pleasant to turn to a branch
of St. George's work which, within its appointed
range, has been completely successful already,
and which is now destined to be more widely
useful. This is the St. George's JVIuseum,
hitherto housed in a cottage at Walkley, situ-
ated upon a hill two miles out of Sheffield. It
was intended to be not a show place, but rather
a model of the Museum which might profitably
and practically be established in every town,
and the lowly aspect of the building at Walkley
is in keeping with the modest object of the in-
stitution. Mr. Ruskin has himself explained
why he selected Sheflleld to be the site of his
experiment : —

"Tin.' aiiswiT in a sim(jlu uiie — Tliat I acknowledge
iron-work as an art necessary and useful to man, and
English work in iron as masterful of its kind. . . .
Therefore it is fitting that of the schools (of St. George)
for the workmen and labourers of England, the first
should be placed at Slieffield. Besides tliis merely
systematic and poetical fitness, there is tlic further
practical reason for our first action being among tliis

"Fors.'' The "Master's Reports" contain fiuthcr informa-
tion. Mr. Ruskin's "General Statemenl, Explaining the
Nature and Purposes of St. George's Guild," may be ob-
tained from Mr. George Allen (6t/.).

THE ST. GEORGES GUILD AND MUSEUM. I4.J

order of craftsmen in England, that in cutler's iron-work
we have (in the town of Sheffield) at this actual epoch
of our history the best of its kind done by English hands,
unsurpassable, I presume, when the workman chooses
to do all he knows, by that of any living nation ; not
for this reason only, however, but because Sheffield is
in Yorkshire, and Yorkshire is yet in the main temper
of its inhabitants Old English, and capable, therefore,
yet of the ideas of honesty and piety by which Old
England lived ; finally, because Sheffield is within easy
reach of beautiful natural scenery, and the best art of
English hands, at Lincoln, York, Durham, Selby, Foun-
tains, Bolton, and Furness. For these great primary
reasons, including many others, I have placed our first
Museum there, in good hope also that other towns, far
and near, when they see how easily such a thing can
be done, will have their museums of the same kind, as
no less useful to them than their churches, gasometers,
or circulating libraries."

Sheffield, it may be added, has justified Mr.
Ruskin's choice by meeting his generosity in
an admirably practical fashion, as we shall pre-
sently see.

As for the contents of the Museum in general,
the following description is given in the Cata-
logue prepared by Mr. Howard Swan, son of
the late Curator : —

"The Museum contains specimens, copies, casts, etc.,
selected by John Ruskin, of the truly greatest of human
art of the times of the highest development in each

148 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

brancli, and from tliose parts of the world where they
best flourished, so arranged and explained as to be —
first, a readily accessible repository of specimens of
the finest work hitherto done, whether in painting,
illumination, engraving, drawing, or sculpture, etc., and
of the finest natural productions, in the shape of crj'stal-
ized gems and precious stones ; it will have nothing in
it but what deserves respect in art or admiration in
nature ; secondly, a guide to the rise and development
of nations, as evidenced in their art ; thirdly, a school
of drawing and painting, with examples and instruc-
tions, after the manner of the old Tuscan masters, as
set forth in Mr. Ruskin's ' The Laws of Fesole,' in
which things interesting in natural liistory or in legend
are utilized as drawing copies, while a true system
of training the eye and hand is taught."

The reader who wishes for more detailed in-
formation about the contents will find all he
wants in the Catalogue just cited.* For the
purposes of a desultory look round, \vc cannot
do better than put ourselves in Mr. Ruskin's
hands. In 1879 the late Prince Leopold spent
some time at the Museum, and Mr. Ruskin
pointed out to him the chief objects of interest.
From the account of this visit published in the
Sheffield Independent I borrow the following
particulars. Mr. Ruskin first drew attention

* It may bo obt.iinccl of Mr. GcorRC Allen, price i.<.

THE ST. GEORGES GUILD AND MUSEUM. I49

to Verocchio's " Madonna and Child," the only
specimen of that master in this country,* and
"given to me," added Mr. Ruskin, "in Venice
by a gracious fortune, to show to the people of
Sheffield," to whom, he explained, it was espe-
cially appropriate, since, besides being an un-
rivalled painter, Verocchio was also a great
worker in iron. Mr. Ruskin dwelt with enthu-
siasm on the teachings and technical merits of
this picture^ — on its lessons of the reverence
that is due to woman, and the reverence that
all Christianity, through that, its purest element,
shows (in the kneeling Virgin) to Christ. That
picture, he said, was an answer to the inquiry
often addressed to him, " What do you want to
teach us about Art ? " It was perfect in all
ways — in drawing, in colouring ; on every part
the artist had worked with the utmost toil man
could give. He drew especial attention to the
beauty and detail of the Virgin's girdle of em-
bossed gold. A copy, by Mr. Ruskin, of Car-

* I do not know the genealogy of Mr. Ruskin's Verocchio.
But in the National Gallery there are two pictures (296
and 7^0 ascribed either to Verocchio or to PoUajuolo. See
my "Popular Handbook to the National Gallery" (Mac-
millan), under 296 (in Room I.).

150 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

paccio's "St. Ursula" next attracted attention.
The power of that Museum would, Mr. Ruskin
went on to say, depend upon its giving pleasure,
and by the attractions of beauty, but as the
foundation from which all teaching must start,
they had there the most perfect specimens of
the Bible — the Baskerville, the German Zurich
Bible, with plates mostly by Holbein and Dtirer
— which are unequalled for perfect illustration
of the meaning of the Scriptures. Then there
were elaborate specimens of English illuminated
MSS. of the Vulgate, and following these the
first perfect copy of Holbein's "Dance of Death."
After that again came Carpaccio's "Death of St.
Jerome," the translator of the Bible into Latin ;
and then St. George.

Turning from these illustrative keys to the
teachings of his Museum, Mr. Ruskin drew
Prince Leopold's attentiim to his unicjuc collec-
tion of minerals and precious stones — to the
specimens of gold and virgin silver, amethyst,
onyx stone, and many other unrivalled examples
of the wonders of mineralogy. " 1 want," sniil
he, "to get everything beautiful;" and in an-
swer to a question, he added, " I am proud to
say that, unlike other collectors, 1 never spare

THE ST. George's guild and museum. 151

cutting my specimens, always looking to that
whicli will best show texture. My main aim
is to get things to show their beauty." Then
passing from the upper case of precious stones
and minerals, Mr. Ruskin showed many of the
treasures in the drawers, beginning with the
simple flint pebble, and passing on in natural
succession to jasper and agates, to specimens
of which, showing all the wondrous laws of
their structure, he called attention ; then on
to quartz and felspar ; " and so we get," said
he, " the constituents of granite ; and getting
that, you go on to the constituents of everything
else." Then there were amethysts, cut so as
to show their stellar form, and opals and crystals,
with their perfectly natural facets — types of a
beauty with which it is Mr. Ruskin's hope to
attract working men to an interest in the struc-
ture of such things.

Turning next to the cabinets, in which are
stored his etchings and photographs, Mr. Rus-
kin showed a photograph from that earliest
church in Venice on which is inscribed his
favourite legend, enjoining on the merchants to
be just, and to have their weights true. That,
said Mr. Ruskin, was the beginning of the whole

152 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

commercial prosperity of V^enice ; from that came
the pure gold of the A^enetian zccchini (ducats).
Mr. Firth would, he thought, be interested to
know that when he was daguerreotyping in
Venice, and wanted absolutely pure gold for his
plates, he could get nothing so pure as these
old Venetian coins; and all the cit3's prosperitj'
was the outcome of that honest thoroughness.
A series of photographs from Venice, showing
the various forms of the Greek acanthus, was
exhibited, Mr. Ruskin drawing especial atten-
tion to the variety introduced by the plaj' of
the workman's hand, no one leaf being like an-
other. In drawings of his own w-hich he pro-
duced, Mr. Ruskin said his object had been to
show how our English leaves were adapted to
the same treatment — the oak leaf, for instance.
He hoped to show a series of rude carvings by
Sheffield hoys and girls, from natural leaves.
He was going to have a series carved in wood,
and the cabbage or kale would be the first, for
tliat was the vegetable whicli in the North was
the origin of our most beautiful sculptures. Mr.
Ruskin showed with pride a cast of one of the
vine leaves from the Ducal Palace, displaying
admirably, witli a fidelitj' that nothing could

THE ST. GEORGE'S GUILD AND MUSEUM. I 53

rival, the patient skill of the workman of the
fourteenth century, and an edge than which
nothing could be finer or clearer.

Next Mr. Ruskin drew attention to a rough
block of sandstone — a specimen showing the
pure cleavage of the sands of England, " which,
thanks again to ' Fors,' I was able to take from
Brantwood." The lesson herein was character-
istic of the whole teaching of the Museum — a
leading up from the simplest thing to those
greater things on which he had been discours-
ing ; and turning to the Prince, Mr. Ruskin
observed, " You, sir, said in your most excel-
lent address that England is the mother of great
nations. May we not teach her to remember
also that she has great ancestors ? " With re-
ference to his projects in regard to the Museum,
Mr. Ruskin said he did not want to build an-
other room until he got that one room into
perfect condition. Then, when that room was
made the vestibule, and in this way showing the
source of all beauty, as he got power — having
been quietly acquiring the necessary land — he
hoped to make reading-rooms for the work-
men, which they could use in connection with
this room. Drawing his Royal Highness's

154 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

attention to the beautiful view from the win-
dows, now lighted up by gleams of sunlight,
Mr. Ruskin continued, " I hope always to have
pretty things for them to see, and light to read
b}', and fitting everything close as I do so.
And 1 hope it may be tilled by workmen who
will join to scientific teaching this study of art
and nature, and that it will be felt by the town
worth making an effort to fill the rooms with
books." "If anything now fails," added Mr.
Ruskin, modestly, "it will be my fault;" but
he was understood to say that the town autho-
rities would find him in every way obedient to
their desires — as his Royal Highness would do
him the justice of admitting that he was ever
submissive to the powers of the land, as repre-
sented by her most Gracious Majesty and her
royal children.

A king's treasury such as this which was
disclosed to the Prince is worth walking a mile
or two, Mr. Ruskin thought, to see, and hence
it was that the Museum was set some little way
out of the town, perched on a hill, and in the
midst of green fields.* For the peculiarity of

• An illiislralcd article on llic Walklcy Museum, with
some particulars supplied by Mr. Swan, appeared in the

THE ST. GEORGES GUILD AND MUSEUM. 1 55

Sheffield among manufacturing towns is the
close proximity to it of some of the most beau-
tiful scenery in England. From the front door
of the Walkley Museum to the right is an ex-
tensive view of the Valley of the Don, with the
woods of Wharncliffe Crags far away in the
distance ; while to the left, and also to be seen
from the Museum windows, is that Rivelian
valley which Elliot, the Corn-law rhymer, made
his favourite resort : —

" Oh tliat I were a primrose,
To bask in sunny air,
Far away from the plagues that make

Town-dwelling men's despair!
Or like a rainbow laughing

O'er Rivelin and Don,
"When misty morning calleth up
Her mountains one by one."

In the visitors' book it is interesting to note
the places from which pilgrims have come —
London, Leeds, Hull, Manchester, Chester, Bir-
mingham, Canada, New York, Australia, and

Pall Mall Gazette, May 14th, 1 886. From that article I have
borrowed the following few paragraphs. Some reminis-
cences of the late Mr. Swan, " the faithful steward of the
Ruskin Museum," appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, April
2nd and 3rd, 18S9.

156 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

even China. Some of these pilgrims have lodged
in neighbouring cottages, and visited the Mu-
seum day after day for as long as six weeks
together. The secret of the attractiveness of
Mr. Ruskin's Museum is its adherence to two
golden rules, which are too often ignored in
more imposing institutions. In the first place,
there is no confusing mass of heterogeneous ob-
jects. In quantity there is very little, and every-
thing is co-ordinated in an intelligible scheme
of artistic education. And in the second place,
whatever there is, is beautiful and good of its
kind. The result is, Mr. Ruskin assures us,
that every visitor, of whatever class, to the little
Walkley Museuni, who has any real love for
Art, has acknowledged the interest and value
of the things collected in its single room.

The Corporation of Sheffield have through-
out shown the warmest interest in the Museum
which Mr. Ruskin thus located near their town."
Some time ago they proposed to build a grand
new casket for these art treasures, and the
negotiations with Mr. Ruskin were nearly

• The folluwing p.nragraphs are mostly borrowed from
an article on tlie Mecrsbrook Park, by " 1".," in the Pall Mall
Gascllf, Janiiaiy 6th, 1890.

THE ST. George's guild and museum. 157

successfully carried through, until the Corpora-
tion made it a condition that the treasures should
be secured to the town in perpetuity, where-
upon Mr. Ruskin waxed wroth, and took to
drawing Anagallis tenclla (or was it wild straw-
berry?), and would have no more to do with
Mayor or Corporation. But that was long ago,
and since then the Guild has fallen on evil
days ; its honoured Master has been stricken
with illness ; its farms have gone the way of
most farms ; but through good report and evil
report the faithful Corporation has ever been
ready to help the afflicted Guild. At last it be-
came evident that the present building could
no longer be tolerated. Every year hundreds
of pilgrims were " symbolically instructed " by
struggling up that awful hill, and the complaints
were loud and many ; besides, Walkley could
not hold half the treasures. Mr. Baker (one of
the trustees) had piles of drawings at Bewdley,
many were still at Brantwood, and at Sheffield
itself the town clerk's office was idealized by
quantities of pictures and minerals, poured out
unexpectedly one day at the feet of the corpora-
tion by the all-generous Master. The public
had an opportunity a few years ago of seeing

158 SOME ASPECTS OF .MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

at the Fine Art Society's galleries several speci-
mens of the drawings which Mr. Ruskin had in
recent years commissioned on behalf of the
St. George's Guild.*

But there was no room for them in tlie Mu-
seum. Indeed, already it had been found ne-
cessary to put up a wooden shed in the garden,
in order to accommodate the large picture of
the facade of St. Mark's which Mr. Ruskin had
bought from the late Mr. Bunne}-. Now, by
happy chance Sheffield has lately bought a park
just on the outskirts of the town, and in it
stands a fine old Georgian mansion. In every
wav it seems suitable for the Ruskin Museum.
Tram-cars run from the heart of the town to
the edge of the park, then a pleasant walk of
three minutes, up an avenue of old trees, brings
the student to Meersbrook Park. The rooms
are spacious, well proportioned, and admirably
lighted. There is a long gallery, with three
large windows, and a smaller one excellently
adapted for lectures and classes, 'i'iicn there
are quiet, airy rooms where students can copy
drawings or study missals, and up-stairs is a

* May, 18S6. A catalomio of this cshibitioii, willi a
prefatory note by Mr. Ktiskin, was published.

i,."';i!fli:\..,. .. ".i'l"*II

THE ST. George's guild and museum. 159

complete set of living rooms for the curator.
All is solid, dr^-, quiet, and well removed from
smoke and dirt. Close to the hall is its fine
old garden, enclosed in red brick walls, and
stocked with an abundance of flowers, fruit,
and vegetables.

Nor were these the only features which seemed
to mark out Meersbrook Park as the ideal
home for the Museum of the St. George's Guild.
Did not the Master write hopefully of a "cloistral
inn," holy tavern, or other ideal hostelry which
(with a no less ideal hostess) was to form part
of the Museum ? Here, then, is the hope real-
ized, for at the end of a little woodland path
is a beautiful open-timbered house, dating back
to the early part of the fifteenth eentury. Two
bishops were born there, and the old building
is known still as the Bishop's House. I do not
presume to judge of the requirements of a
cloistral inn, but the old house seems well fitted
to comfortably lodge students and visitors. This
time the negotiations have been brought to a
triumphant ending. The Corporation offered the
hall, garden, and Bishop's House to the Guild,
conditionally on the art collection being secured
to them for twenty years, and the trustees

l60 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

joyfully accepted the offer (August, 1889). It
is a rule of the Guild "that the Master must
not be bothered," so the matter was briefly laid
before Mr. Ruskin, and his cousin, Mrs. Severn,
promptly forwarded his ratification of the scheme.
The mansion has been suitably decorated ; the
collections have been transferred to it, and the
new Museum was opened by the Earl of Carlisle
on April iSth, 1890. A greatly enlarged career
of usefulness has thus been opened up for the
Ruskin Museum, which will long remain, we
may hope, as a monument of the Acts promoted
by Mr. Ruskin's " Gospel." *

* The Curator of the Museum is Mr. Wilhain White,
from whom al! particulars with regard to its rules, hours of
opening, etc., may be obtained.

CHAPTER VI.

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS.

The place occupied in Mr. Ruskin's schemes of
practical endeavour by the industrial experi-
ments of the St. George's Guild cannot be better
described than in Mr. Ruskin's own words.
" The notices which I see," he wrote in January,
1886, "in the leading journals, of efforts now
making for the establishment of industrial vil-
lages, induce me to place before the members
of the St. George's Guild the reasons for their
association, in a form which may usefully be
commended to the attention of the general public.
The St. George's Guild was instituted with a
view of showing, in practice, the rational organi-
zation of country life, independent of that of
cities. All theefforts, whether of the Government
or the landed proprietors of England, for the help
or instruction of our rural population, have been
made under two false suppositions : the first,

1 62 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

that countr}' life was henceforward to be sub-
ordinate to that of towns ; the second, that the
landlord was, for a great part of the 3'ear, to
live in the town, and thence to direct the man-
agement of his estate. Whatever may be the
destiny of London, or Paris, or Rome in the
future, I have always taught that the problem of
right organization of country life was wholly in-
dependent of them ; and that the interests of the
rural population, now thought, by the extension
of Parliamentary suffrage, to be placed in their
own keeping, had always been so, and to the
same degree, if thej' had only known it.
Throughout my writings on social questions 1
have pointed to the former life of the Swiss (re-
presented with photographic truth by Jereniias
Gotthelf),* and to the still existing life of the
Norwegians and Tyrolese, perfectl}' well known
to every thoughtful and kind-hearted traveller in
their respective countries, — as examples, nearly
perfect, of social order indopendent of cities: —
but with Carlyle, I have taught also that in the
English, French, and Italian natures there was,
superadded to the elements of the German and

* See, e^., his "Ulric llic rarm-scrvant," tianslaU-d by
Mrs. Firth (G. Allen).

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. 1 63

Norwegian mind, a spirit of reverence for their
leaders in worldly things, and for their monitors
in spiritual things, which was their greatest
strength and greatest happiness, in the forfeiture
of which, by their nobles, had passed away their
own honour, and on the loss of which, by the
people, had followed inevitably the degradation
of their characters, the destruction of their arts,
and the ruin of their fortunes " (" Master's Re-
port," 1885, pp. I, 2). The object, then, of the
efforts described in this chapter has been to re-
create these lost arts, not by organizing "in-
dustrial villages," but, what is a very different
thing, by reviving village industries.

" A subject which is of the deepest interest
to me," wrote Mr. Ruskin, in an earlier report
than the one just cited, " is the success of Mr.
Albert Fleming in bringing back the old indus-
try of the spinning-wheel to the homes of West-
moreland, greatly increasing their happiness,
and effectively their means of support, by the
sale, already widely increasing, of the soundest
and fairest linen fabrics that care can weave or
field-dew blanch." The description of this re-
vived spinning industry given in the first of the
following sections has been kindly written for

164 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

me by Mr. Fleming. " For lull account of the
kindly and honest trade in homespun work I
ma}'," wrote Mr. Ruskin, " happilj' and thank-
fuU}' refer the reader to the article in the Pall
Mall Gazette of Monday, February 8th [1886].
... I have nothing more closel}' at heart, nor
can any of my friends oblige me more than by
their support of it." The description of this
second village industry given in the second sec-
tion is reprinted from the article referred to by
Mr. Ruskin ; whilst in the third section I have
given some account of an allied experiment in
the case of a town industry.

§ I-

THE LANGDALE LINEN INDUSTRY.

\_By Mr. Albert Fkiiiiitg.']

Amongst the evils resulting from the gradual
depopulation of the villages is that round us here,
in Westmoreland, all the old trades are dying or
dead- — bobbin-turning, charcoal-burning, wood-
carving, basket-making, hand-spinning and
weaving — some are clean vanished, and others
are the mere ghosts of their old selves. My

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. 1 6$

own personal experiment has been to try and
reintroduce the hand-spinning and weaving of
linen. For years past Mr. Ruskin has been
eloquently beseeching English men and maidens
once more to spin and weave. Wordsworth, too,
melodiously lamented the disuse of the spinning-
wheel ; but for all that, it was as practically ex-
tinct all over England asour great-grandmothers'
sedan chairs. It figured on Covent Garden stage
every season, but Margaret's thread was scarcely
of a marketable quality. And if the wheels
were obsolete, much more so were the distaff
and spindle. When Lady Freake's pretty young
ladies gave their Greek play some years ago,
not one of them (nor the learned Professor who
arranged them either) had any idea how to hold
her distaff, much less how to spin a thread.

In the face of all this prevailing ignorance I
determined to try and bring the art back to the
Westmoreland women. Scattered about on the
fell side were many old women, too blind to
sew and too old for hard work, but able to
sit by the fireside and spin, if any one would
show them how, and buy their yarn. When I
broached my scheme to a circle of practical rela-
tions a Babel of expostulation arose, wild as a

1 66 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

Parsifal chorus. " It won't pay ; no one wants
linen to last fifty years ; it's fantastic, impracti-
cable, sentimental, andqui.xotic." But to balance

i Ciiup'i-

PEASANT-WOMA.N >PJNM.\t..
(From a tiraivittg hy Ktitth Caf^pei.)

all this came a voice from Brantwood, sa^'ing,
"Go ahead;" so I went ahead, hunted up .ui
old woman who had spun half a century ago,
and discovered some wheels of a similar period.

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. 1 6/

I got myself taught spinning, and then set to
work to teach others. I tried my experiment
here, in the Langdale Valley, in Westmoreland,
half-way between Mr. Ruskin's home at Con-
iston and Wordsworth's at Rydal. Sixty years
ago every cottage here had its wheel, and every
larger village its weaver. Happy days those,
"before the present years were sought out, or
ever the inventions of them that now sin were
turned." Our first difficulty was to get wheels ;
we ransacked the country side, advertised far
and wide, and bought and begged anything that
had a leg to stand on or a wheel to turn. De-
lightful old ladies routed out their lumber-rooms
and garrets, and here and there a farmer's wife
brought tidings of a wheel having been heard
of in some remote valley. Some came from
Stornoway, and others from the Isle of Man.
By-and-by the demand became so great that we
held a solemn council with the village carpenter,
and ultimately he made us fifteen good service-
able wheels.

What dire difficulties arose over our first
home-made wheel ! Birmingham either could
not or would not turn out the iron fittings, and
actually all Sheffield could not make us the

1 68 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

necessary left-handed screws. When that first
wheel was completed and worked well I was

" ST. martin's " LANGDALK.
{Front a liratumg by EtUt/t Capper.)

ready to bear it in triumph through tJie street,
like Cimabue's picture. 1 wanted to carry out

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. 1 69

the whole process, from the flax in the field to
the sheet on the bed, but that I found impossible,
and I have to get my flax from Ireland. Then
1 took a little cottage, and made it into a spin-
ning school ; a quaint place, exactly fulfilling
Horace's injunction, " Near the house let there
be a spring of water, and a little wood close bj'."
Kind lady friends rallied round me, and gave me
practical help in organizing and carrying on the
scheme. We soon had many pupils, and appli-
cations for wheels came from all sides. When
a woman could spin a good thread I let her take
a wheel home, and gave her the flax, buying it
back from her when spun, at the rate of 2s. 6d.
per pound of thread. Next came the weaving.
In a cellar in Kendal we discovered a loom ; it
was in twenty pieces, and when we got it home
not all the collective wisdom of the village knew
how to set it up. Luckily we had a photograph
of Giotto's Campanile, and by help of that the
various parts were rightly put together. We
then secured an old weaver, and one bright Easter
morning saw our first piece of linen woven — the
first purely hand-spun and hand-woven linen
produced in all broad England in our generation.
A significant fact that, if you think all round it.

1 70 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Over that first twenty }-ards the scoffers rejoiced
greatly. I own it seemed terrible stuff, frightful
in colour and of dreadful roughness, with huge
lumps and knots meandering up and down its
surface. But we took heart of grace, and re-
freshed ourselves by reading that beautiful
passage in the " Seven Lamps " (" The Lamp of
Life," p. 21) which convinced us that these little
irregularities were really the honourable badges
of all true hand work. Better still, an elect lady
called one day, and even without the prelimi-
nary refreshment of the passage from the
" Seven Lamps," she pronounced the stuff de-
lightful, and bought a dozen yards, at four
shillings a yard.

Having got our linen, the next process was
to bleach it. I read various treatises on bleach-
ing, and discovered that all the processes were
more or less injurious both to workmen and to
stuff; so, as Giotto fi.xed our loom for us. Homer
taught us the true principle of bleaching, and
we adopted the simple method described in the
" Odyssey." Sun, air, and ckw were our only
chemicals : potent magicians they, changing by
their sweet alchemy our coarse brown stuff into
soft white linen. Now, Mr. Howells puts tliis

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS.

171

wise axiom into the lips of one of his heroines,
" Before you learn to do a thing, be sure people
want it." To my great delight, I found people

" OLD JOHN," THE WEAVER.
{Fyoui a lirmvhig hy Edith Cdppi-r.)

did want real hand-made linen, linen that they
could hand down as family heirlooms, and that
rust and moth could not corrupt. Orders and

1/2 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKI.NS WORK.

inquiries came from all parts of England. Fash-
ion helped us, too, for our linen was eager!}'
sought after for embroider^', for curtains, por-
tieres, chair-backs, tea-cloths, and a dozen
other elegant inutilities ; so then, to quote the
" Spectator," " I took the laudable mystery of
embroidery into my serious consideration," and
enrolled a staff of about fortj' poor ladies, who
are experienced workers, and for whose work
we have a read}' sale.

And now to wind up with a few facts. Wc
have two looms going, and about thirty women
at work. The old weaver gets a fi.xed wage of
i6s. a week and a good cottage rent free. The
best of our spinners earn about 6s. a week.
We make seventeen different kinds of linen,
varying in price from 2s. to 6s. a yard. The
widest linen is 44 inches, and its price is
55. 6d. a yard. Stout, durable sheeting (very
white and soft) is our staple production, but we
aspire to table-cloths and body linen by-and-
by. All money produced b}' the sale of linen
is paid into the bank, and the profits will be
divided among the workers at the end of the
year. If any nice old-fashioned people want
any of our linen, or care to know anything more

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS.

'/J

about our little enterprise, let them write to me,
at Neaum Crag, Langdale, Ambleside.

§ 2.

ST. GEORGES CLOTH.

Some ten years ago, when " Fors Clavigera"
was still running its course, and Mr. Ruskin
was telling all true English girls that among
other things they must learn to spin and weave,
a correspondent wrote to him from Laxey, in
the Isle of Man, to say that there was still a
good deal of spinning done on that little island.
Unfortunately, however, there were no longer
any young girls learning to spin, and there
seemed every prospect that in a few years more
the spinning-wheel would be as great a curiosity
in the Isle of Man as it was already in Lanca-
shire. The reason was simple enough. There
was still a healthy native industry for women
in spinning the wool of the Isle-bred sheep, but
the market was so poor that frequently infirm
and aged women were obliged to leave their
cottages and their spinning-wheels to work in
the mines. This was the natural tendency,
everybody said, of inevitable laws ; but Mr.

1/4 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Ruskin was well accustomed to stand contra
mnnduui, and determined to make a last effort
to save "the venerable art" that was being so
remorselessly " torn from the poor."

He at once found his man in the correspon-
dent above referred to, Mr. Egbert Rydings,
with whose intelligent help the decrepit indus-
try was quickly put on its legs. Mr. Rydings's
heart was in the business : there could be
no doubt of that. Why, every blanket and
sheet, every piece of flannel and cloth, every
pair of stockings, in his house, had been spun
either by his wife or by her mother before her.
" We have now linen sheets in wear," wrote
Mr. Rydings, with pleasant pride, "not a hole
or a tear in them, that were spun by my wife's
mother — and she, poor body, has been dead
twenty-eight or twenty-nine years — the flax
grown on their own farm." What do j-ou think
of that ? And did not the daughters of Lord
Auckland, when he was Bishop of Sodor and
Man, go every Saturday afternoon to the dear
old lady to learn to spin ? Mr. Rydings was
thus reviving a family tradition as well as a
village industry. Tirst of all, Mr. Ruskin found
money to encourage some of the older and

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. 1/5

feebler workers, and he then had a water-mill
built. He has often been accused of prefer-
ring the beautiful to the useful, and I give the
accompanying sketch of St. George's Mill, at
Laxey, to refute the accusation. The author
of " The Seven Lamps of Architecture " and of
" The Stones of Venice " is justifiably proud of
this substantial building, and the photograph
of it, with the accompanying legend, from which
this sketch is taken, occupies a prominent place
among the other art treasures in the drawing-
room at Brantwood. The first virtue in any
building is that it should be suitable to its
purpose, and no one can deny to the Laxey
Mill an honest ugliness which exactly suits the
home " of the manufacture of honest thread
into honest cloth."

This romantic building is at once a factory
and a store. It contains, in the first place, the
machinery for carding and spinning the wool
and washing the cloth. The word machinery
may very probably grate on the ear of the more
devout Ruskinian, and I hasten therefore to
explain that the motive power is a water-wheel.
And it may here be noted, for the consolation
of weaker brethren, that the prohibition of

1/6 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

machinery b^' "St. George" is not absolute.
It is not forbidden except where it supersedes
healtliy bodily exercise or the art and precision
of manual labour. It is only steam that is abso-
lutely refused, as being " a cruel and furious
waste of fuel, to do what every stream and
breeze are ready to do costlessly." The moored
river-mill alone, says Mr. Ruskin, " invented by
Belisarius fourteen hundred years ago, would
do all the mechanical work ever required by a
nation which either possessed its senses or could
use its hands." But Mr. Ruskin's mill is a
store as well, and in this capacity it enables
him to revive another piece of the olden time.
There is a sale in the ordinary way for the out-
side work], but there is the good old institution
of barter also. The farmers bring their wool,
wliich is stored in the mill, and are paid for it
either by finished cloth or by yarn for home
knitting, or occasionally by wool prepared for
home spinning. One docs not like to think
what the rigid economists would say to this cal-
culated interference with the division of labour ;
but then, as the lives of the peasants are the
healthier, perhaps the other kind of wealth may
be left to look .ifiir IK.-If.

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. 1 77

But in addition to this work of preparing yarn
and wool, the " hands " at the mill make a good
deal of cloth for outside sale. This, indeed,
was an essential part of Mr. Ruskin's scheme.
There was no good, he saw, in denouncing
people for wearing shoddy unless he could also
put them in the way of buying honest cloth.
The square yard of Laxey homespun was to be
"one of the standards of value in St. George's
currency," but it was also to be a standard of
material in dress. It is "all wool," for one
thing; and for another, it is dyed indelibly,
being, indeed, the natural colour of the black
sheep of the island, blended in certain propor-
tions of white wool. Anybody who likes cloth
warranted not to change colour or to shrink
cannot do better (especiallyjust now, when greys
are so fashionable) than order a dress length of
the Laxey homespun. The Duchess of Albany
wrote to Mr. Ruskin a year or two ago, expres-
sing her great pleasure at receiving a length of
cloth made by the Guild, in whose work her
husband took so great an interest. One fault—
for I must not conceal its dark side— one fault
St. George's cloth cheerfully confesses. It lasts
a very long time, and that, Mr. Rydings says,

lyS SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIiN's WORK.

was what made the Manx-made stuffs go out of
request: theydid not give young women a chance
of having four or five new gowns in the year.

But if there are any English housewives ready
to forgive this fault, they cannot do better than
send some orders to Mr. Rydings (Laxey, Isle
of Man ), or to Mr. George Thomson (Woodhouse
Hill, Huddersfield), who has latterly relieved
Mr. Ruskin of the management of the St.
George's Mill.

§ 3.

" GEORGE THOMSON AND CO."

The " work according to Ruskin " which has
now to be described is not, like the schemes
already' noticed, directly connected with the St.
George's Guild. The prime mover in the matter
is, however, one of the trustees of the Guild,
and the impetus which launched tiic scheme
three years ago was derived from Mr. Ruskin's
teaching. The scheme itself, which is of a more
far-reaching kind than the others, is of deep
interest in days when the condition of England
question is once more in every one's mouth.

Mr. Ruskin is no Socialist. "The division

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. 1 79

of property," he has said, " is its destruction ;
and with it the destruction of all hope, all in-
dustry, and all justice." But while Mr. Ruskin
differs from the Socialists in that he does not
wish for any forcible division of property, he has
proposed an almost equally revolutionary scheme
in saying that property should be only " to whom
proper." The capitalist, for instance, has no
right, according to him, to exact interest. Em-
ployers should be paid just wages for their
superintendence of labour, but not for their
capital ; that is the sum and substance of Mr.
Ruskin's teaching on the capital and labour
question.

It is this " law of political economy " that one
of the companions and trustees of St. George's
Guild is now carrying out into practice, as far
as he can, in the case of his own business — the
well-known woollen and worsted manufactory
of William Thomson and Sons, at Huddersfield.
Mr. George Thomson, the head of the firm, is
converting it into a productive association on
a truly co-operative basis. The new association
takes over the business at a price, of course ;
but the disposition in which " St. George" makes
bargains of the kind is not quite the same as

l80 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

that of some other promoters of companies. The
amount to be paid is fixed on an independent
vahiation, and Mr. Thomson decided that such
vahiation was not to inchide an}- consideration
whatever for goodwill. Further, the whole of
the sum, so far as it is not taken up in shares,
will be paid for b}' loan stock, bearing interest
at the rate of ;^5 P^r cent, per annum, and so
long as this interest is paid the principal cannot
be demanded ; subject to the payment of ;£^5 per
cent, on the shares — which in time will largely
pass, it maj' be hoped, into the hands of the
workmen and women — half the net profits of
the concern will go to the workers. A sum of
;£^SOO has already either been earned as profit
or deposited as share-capital, by the workers,
thus showing their appreciation of the scheme.
The moral effect of it on the general character
of the workers, in increasing their self-respect
and interest in their work, has been particularly
noticed by all visitors.

Out of the other half of the profits, equitable
allowances are made to customers. The cus-
tomers so far have been mainly co-operative
societies, and 50 per cent, of the net profits is
divided amongst all such societies as have done

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. l8l

business to the extent of ;^50 per annum (with
net cash payment). The co-operative societies
are thus practically their own producers, with-
out the trouble of production. One society re-
ceived about ;6^20 last year in this way, over
and above all that they would have had in the
ordinary course of trade.

By this means it is hoped to counteract the
constant efforts of buyers to run down articles
for buying, and run them up for selling. Mr.
Thomson himself — who, by the way, is examiner
of cloth manufacture for the City and Guilds
of London Technical Institute — remains at the
head of the business as manager, and will be
paid his wages like every one else, sharing, I
presume, in proportion with the other workers,
but no more, in such net profits as he may assist
in earning. It is a commonplace with capitalists
to say that " the interests of capital and labour
are identical ; " so, no doubt, in a sense they
are, even under our existing economical condi-
tions. The same good times, tlnat is to say,
that secure to the worker his weekly dole secure
to the capitalist his lion's share. But it is only
under such co-operative organization as I am
describing that the interests of capital and labour

1 82 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

are identical in the sense that the capitalist is
made a labourer and the labourers are made
capitalists.

What Mr. Ruskin himself thinksof the scheme
is sufficiently shown in the following letter, which
he addressed to Mr. Thomson on the subject in
1886:—

" I cannot enough thank you, or express the depth ol'
my pleasure in tlie announcement of the momentous
and absolutely foundational step taken by you in all
that is just and wise, in the establishment of these rela-
tions witli your workmen. I may perhaps yet live to
see ' the pleasure of the Lord prosper in your hand ; '
for though making no sign, I have been steadily ad-
vancing in strength, hope, and lately even in youthful
enjoyment of former work, and continuance of it on the
old terms. ' Praiterita ' is advancing fast toward the
part in which I shall resume the courses of thought
which led to writing ' Unto This Last,' and shall throw
what I was able to say confusedly into more intelligible
and open form. But without your practical power and
faith nothing could have been yet done."

This latest development of Mr. Ruskin's political
economy is not, of course, a new thing; but tiie
concern starts under conditions of success and
upon genuinely co-operative terms, which have
not always attended similar undertakings. It
is not an amateur aftair, set on foot by philan-

SOME INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENTS. I S3

thropic outsiders ; it is the result of tine appeal
which has for so long been addressed to the
manufacturers themselves to organize their in-
dustry on a sounder basis than that of individual
competition. As such Mr. Ruskin may well
describe it as "a momentous and absolutely
foundational step."

CHAPTER VII.

MR. RUSKIN AND THK BOOKSELLERS.

It is a far cry from Paternoster Row to Sunny-
side, at Orpington, where Mr. Ruskin's publish-
ing is carried on. The noise and bustle of a great
commercial establishment are exchanged for a
quiet little family circle ; and instead of the
" city's central roar," you are surrounded by the
hills of Kent. The system of business presents
an even greater contrast. Other authors are
content to grumble — individually or in incor-
porated societies — against the wiles of pub-
lishers and the tricks of trade. Mr. Ruskin
alone has shaken himself free from the trammels,
and establisiied a publisher and bookseller of his
own and on his own terms. This new method
was described as follows in " Fors Clavigcra,"
the first of his books which bore the imprint
of "George Allen" instead of "Smith and
Elder:"—

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. 1 85

" It costs me _^lo to print 1,000 copies, and ^'5 more
to give you a picture, and a penny off my Td. to send
you the book; a thousand sixpences are ^25; when
you have bought a thousand ' Fors ' of me I shall
therefore have ^5 for my trouble, and my single shop-
man, Mr. Allen, £^ for his ; we won't work for less,
either of us. And I mean to sell all my large books,
henceforward, in the same way ; well printed, well
bound, and at a fixed price ; and the trade may charge
a proper and acknowledged profit for their trouble in
retailing the book. Then the public will know what
they are about, and so will tradesmen. I, the first
producer, answer, to the best of my power, for the
quality of the book — paper, binding, eloquence, and
all : the retail dealer charges what he ought to charge,
openly ; and if the public do not choose to give it, they
can't get the book. That is what I call legitimate
business."

It is now fifteen years since Mr. Ruskin
started this plan of campaign, and in view of
the ever-recurring controversy between authors
and pubhshers, I sought an opportunity a year
or two ago of learning how the plan is found
to work. Mr. George Allen inquired for Mr.
Ruskin's wishes in the matter, and Mr. Ruskin
kindly authorized him to tell me " everything I
cared to ask, and show me everything I cared
to see." The following, with such alterations
only as have been necessary to bring the

l86 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

particulars up to date, was the description,
written at tlie time, of what is probably one of
the most successful publishing businesses of
the day : —

" Mr. Ruskin has transferred his publishing," said the
trade circular, contemptuously, some years ago, " to the
middle of a country field." The remark was quite true.
Sunnyside is a pleasant private house, standing in its
own grounds, which slope down into one of the prettiest
vales of Kent. Mr. Allen tells me that he is fond of
roses, and the fame of his cabbages is known to readers
of " Fors Clavigera." The place is only some twelve
miles from London, but the scene is one of complete
rural seclusion. Like his principal, Mr. Allen has his
thorn in the flesh, for one vmcompromisingly ugly
cottage is visible to the right ; but with this e.'cception
the view from the drawing-room windows stretches
uninterruptedly over the vale to the Knockholt Becchi'S.
On one of the walls there hangs, between some pencil
drawings by Mr. Ruskin of his favourite Abbeville,
a water-colour drawing of the view which Mr. Ruskin
sees from his study window. It is drawn by Mr. Ruskin,
and shows "morning breaking along the Coniston Fells,
and the mists, motionless and grey beneath the rose of
the moorlands, veiling the lower woods, and the sleep-
ing village, and the long lawns by the lake-shore."

Uehind Mr. Allen's house, at one side of his back
garden, stands a substantial building which serves for
warehouse. It is a valuable one. " I have taken stock
only recently, and I find we have ;^2S,ooo worth of
goods stowed away. You see our business was not
made; it grew. If I had foreseen its growth I should

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. 1 8/

have built a more commodious vvareliouse, but we
began in a humble way without one at all, and I cannot
go on adding to it, or I should cover my garden in no
time ; so we have to utilize every inch of space, as you
see ; up there is ' The Stones of Venice ; ' down there in
the corner is ' The Seven Lamps of Architecture.' " If the
science of architecture consists in the adjustment of
means to end, Mr. Ruskin's publisher has lit his author's
lamps to some purpose, for a neater and better-kept
warehouse you will not easily find. There are sixty-
three different works (or editions) of Mr. Ruskin's in
stock, most of them in various styles of binding. To
keep all these in due place, so as to execute orders for
one here and there every day, in what is hardly m(jre
than a garden outhouse, requires considerable skill.
And then Mr. Ruskin's books are not like other people's,
which are complete in one volume, or two volumes, or
three. He has at least a dozen of them on hand,
appearing in parts, at irregular intervals — a method
which calls for quite as much method on the publisher's
part as versatility on the author's.

The issuing department is as heavily taxed as the
stockkeepiug. Ordinary publishers deal, of course,
almost entirely wholesale. Most of their books are sub-
scribed for by the trade, and subsequent country orders
are concentrated by Loudon middlemen. But Mr.
Ruskin's leading idea was to eliminate the middleman.
His agent is bookseller and publisher in one. The books
are " published by," and for a long time were only
" to be had of, Mr. George Allen, Sunuyside, Orpington."
This, of course, entails a great deal of labour upon
the central establishment, which in the ordinary course
of the trade is divided among many hands. As Mr.
Ruskin's books are all sumptuously got up, so thej'

1 88 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

liave to be all carefully packed. Every parcel is
protected by straw or deal boards, and the sorting,
packing, tying, weighing, and stamping make up a good
day's work for all concerned. Her Majesty's Post-
master-General sucks no small advantage therefrom, but
he affords no special facilities, and every afternoon Mr.
Allen's man may be seen trudging off with his bundles
on his back to the village post-office, a mile and more
distant from Sunnysidc. The bundles are hcav)-, but
the result is not cumbrous. There was a great run on
tlie new edition of "The Stones of Venice," but every
subscriber had his copy or copies despatched witliiu
four days of publication. " Prseterita," too, is very popu-
lar, but each part is punctually delivered within three
days. In one respect, however, Mr. Ruskin's method
greatly eases his publisher's labour. " Mr. Allen has
positive orders to attend to no letter asking credit."
This rule is not quite strictly enforced as against tlie
trade. Obviously a bookseller could not be expected
to pay for twenty copies, say, of "The Stones of Venice,"
at four guineas each, before delivery, but prompt pay-
ment is e.xpected and is made, and in the case of
private customers credit is very seldom allowed. Tlie
accounts at the Orpington establishment — which Mr.
Allen was good enough to place unreservedly in my
hands — are comparatively simple, and what is more,
arc capable, of course, of being always kept close up
to date. The value of every book disposed of is also
immediately credited, and Mr. Ruskin's balance-sheet
can therefore at any moment be precisely made up to
the exact date. How many authors, I wonder, are in
an equally fortunate condition !

The readers will probably be surprised, 1 tliiiik, to
hear what the staff is which discharges the various

MR. RUSKIN AND THK BOOKSELLERS. 1 89

duties I liave described. It consists of eight persons
only, two of whom, it should be stated, are largely
occupied not so much in the publishing as in the
producing department. Mr. Allen himself is an
engraver by profession. For thirty years he has been
engaged as Mr. Rnskin's assistant in this matter.
Readers of " Modern Painters" will remember Mr.
Ruskin's compliment to " Mr. G. Allen's accurate line
studies from nature,' and nearly all his later works —
from the Oxford lectures to " Prasterita" — have been
engraved by the same careful and skilful hands. Mr.
Allen, in his turn, is assisted in the engraving work by
his second son. The eldest son and daughter are
chiefly responsible for directing the details of the pub-
lishing w^ork, while the remaining members of the
family are the other "hands." Even so, I have not
enumerated all the family tasks. More and more Mr.
Ruskin has come, as he has said, to trust to his good
friends at Orpington. At first he took an active part
in superintending the issue of his books ; but latterly
he has merely said, " Bring out such and such a book,"
and they bring it out ; " Do this," and they do it. Miss
Allen, in addition to her duties as proof-reader, was
mainly responsible, too, for the compilation of the
"Ruskin Birthday Book." "Is not the establishment
rather heavily ta.xed," I asked, " at times, when a new
book, like 'The Stones of Venice,' for instance, is
issued ?" " Well, yes, it is," was the answer ; " but what
we have to do, we do. For one thing, there is no alter-
native. You see there is nobody in this village whom we
could take on for emergencies ; but besides that, we
all have our hearts in the work, and have been deter-
mined from the first to make Mr. Ruskin's e.\-periment
a success." Publishing at Orpington is, it will be seen.

190 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

distinctly a home industry, and the Aliens, as Mr.
Ruskin says, in the Preface to the 1880 edition of " The
Seven Lamps of Architecture," are distinctly "a Iielpful
family."

Visitors to Sunnyside are not unnaturally a good
deal surprised. " Generally," I was told, "they will not
believe it is the right house. They apologize for their
mistake ; they wanted ' the shop ; ' will we kindly
direct them to 'Allen's'?" "And have you had dis-
tinguished strangers among your customers, who have
come in person? " " Not very many. Mr. Darwin used
to live a mile or two off, and members of his family
came sometimes. Carlyle, too, came over once, when
he was staying at Lord Derby's place at Keston. He
was very interesting, and wanted particularly to know
whether we didn't keep 'a coo.'" (It was after this
visit, no doubt, that Carlyle wrote to Emerson of
" the way Ruskin has towards the bibliopolic world.")
" Visitors seldom understand that we can have any
work to do. The greatest sceptic of all is Mr. Ruskin
himself. When he was staying with us last year we
tried to get him to come and help ; but he was quite
frightened at the parcels, and refused to believe that
anybody really wanted to buy his books. We must
take him for walks, he said, and so off we girls went
with him to the flowers and the woods."

The foregoing report will s1k)W that Mr.
Ruskin's new departure in publishing has, at
any rate, carried out in practice two favourite
ideals of the "New PoHtical Economy:" it has
established a happy village industr}-, and it has

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. I9I

partially eliminated the middleman. How far
it has succeeded in securing authors' profits and
preventing " underselling " by the trade (for
all Mr. Ruskin's books are retailed at their
published prices, a fixed discount being allowed
to the trade) will be seen from the following
details, which Mr. Allen gave me respecting his
sales and dealings, both with Mr. Ruskin and
with the trade : —

" I could even sell my books," said Mr. Ruskin ten
years ago, in " Fors," " for not inconsiderable sums of
money if I chose to bribe the reviewers, pay half of all
I get to the booksellers, stick bills on the lamp-posts,
and say nothing but what would please the Bishop of
Peterborough. I could say a great deal that would
please him, and yet be very good and useful ; I should
like much again to be on terms with my old publisher,
and hear him telling me nice stories over our walnuts,
this Christmas, after dividing his year's spoil with me
in Christmas charity." Remembering this passage, and
others of about the same date, in which Mr. Ruskin
spoke, at the outset of his campaign, against the
publishing and bookselling trades, of the sacrifices it
entailed on him, I asked Mr Allen how the fortune
of war had gone since then. " It has been a winning
game," said Mr. Allen, " and a gradually expanding
business. It began sixteen years ago, with Mr Ruskin
employing me to sell 'Fors Clavigera.' His original
battle was against the bookselling trade only. Messrs.
Smith and Elder printed ' Fors ' at first, and I sold

192 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

them. Mr. Ruskin objected to the principle of dis-
counts and abatements adopted by the booksellers,
and I was to sell ' Fors ' at a fixed price to all comers.
Then came the ' Revised Series ' of his already com-
pleted works (' Sesame and Lilies,' etc.) ; these origin-
ally bore the double imprint of Messrs. Smith, Elder,
and Co. and myself. They were sold — in purple calf
bindings only — in both cases, on the same terms as
'Fors.' After 1873 Mr. Ruskin's connection with his
old publishers ceased, and lie gradually threw all his
publishing on me. Since then I liave undertaken
publishing for other authors besides Mr. Ruskin. I
am an engraver, and had no special knowledge of the
publishing trade whatever. But the business has
grown and grown ever since."

" Till it has reached — wliat ? " " Well, Mr. Ruskin
has instructed me to tell you everything you care to
ask, so I shall break no confidence if 1 show you
these accounts. For instance, from the new edition
of ' The Stones of Venice ' Mr. Ruskin has received
already ^1,583 clear profits, besides leaving 1,272
copies unpaid for." * " Is that his greatest success ? "
" I cannot say yet, for the edition was only published
last year. So far, I think, ' The Seven Lamps of
Architecture ' has done best. The author's clear profits
from the editions I have published of that book have
amounted to close upon _^2,5oo. t But without going
into further details, 1 may tell you that last year (1886)
I was able to pay over to Mr. Ruskin, as his profit,

* Mr. Ruskin's profit on the new edition of " Stones of
Venice" up to the end of 18S9 was altogether ;f 3,069,
i.e., since the book was pubh'shcd, in 1886.

t /^3,20o between 1880 and 1889.

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. 1 93

_^4,ooo. And to tliat you should add the fact that
during the year we greatly increased the value of his
stock — as, for instance, by the new edition of ' The
Stones of Venice." We have paid all the cost of pro-
duction, and the profits on it will come steadily in."
It will be seen that IWr. Ruskin's royalties, if one puts
his profits that way, are extraordinarily large. Thus,
2,000 copies of the "Seven Lamps," at ^l is., brought
him a clear profit of ^991, equivalent to a royalty of
10.?. a copy. And this, so far as I examined, was
about the average rate. Thus, to take a cheaper
book, I noticed that 3,000 copies of " .Sesame and
Lilies," at c,s., brought him in ^345.

" And what, if I may ask, is your own arrangement
as publisher with Mr. Ruskin ?" "I first published for
him simply on commission. This arrangement lasted
till the end of 1886. Since then I have worked under
an agreement for proportionate profits."

"You have given me some figures of the profits on
various books ; can you give me any of the sales, to
show their comparative popularity?" Mr. Allen readily
complied with my request, and drew up the following
table, showing the sales during i886 of some of the
more popular of Mr. Ruskin's books : —

Volumes.*
" Sesame and Lilies " (small edition) . . 2,122

" Frondes Agrestes " 1,273

"The Stones of Venice" (large edition),

first half-year of issue . . . .' 939
" Unto This Last " 874

* For 18S9 the figures are 2,902, 1,038, 218, 775, 703,
503. 514, 334, 613, 105, 29S.

194 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Volumes.

" Ethics of the Dust " So8

" Fors Clavigera " (volumes of) . . . 730

" The Seven Lamps of Architecture " . . 668

" Modern Painters," Vol. II. (small edition) 652
"The Stones of Venice" (small travellers'

edition, in two vols.), each . . . 675

" On the Old Road," first year ... 597

" King of the Golden River "... 388

The " King of the Golden River, ' it may be interesting
to add, is largely bought by the London and Sheffield
School Boards for prizes. Mr. Ruskin's " Letter to
Young Girls " has also a large sale, 264 packets (con-
taining 3,i6S copies in all") having been sold during
last year (1886).

With regard to the " Revised Series " of Mr. Ruskin's
works, the following were the sales during 1SS6: —

" Sesame and Lilies " .
" The Crown of Wild Olive
" The Queen of the Air "
" The Eagle's Nest " .
" The Two Paths "
" Time and Tide "
" Munera Pulveris"
' " V'al d'Arno "
' " Aratra Pentclici "
" ' A Joy for Ever"'
' "y\rindne Florentina"

188
108
104
96
89
73
54
53
5'
40

Tliis series, it should be staled, is a very expensive
one, the ordinary volumes costing J^s. each (unbound),

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. 1 95

the illustrated (marked above with an asterisk) 22s. 6d.
These volumes are, however, all in course of being
issued in cheap form, similar to the small " Sesame
and Lilies."

From the sales the conversation turned to the buyers.
"Where," I asked, "do your customers come from?"
" From all parts of the kingdom, but more from Scot-
land and the north than from the south, excepting
London. It is a curious fact, too, that I send very
much fewer books to O.xford than to Cambridge ; a
prophet is of no honour, I suppose, in his own univer-
sity. The circulating libraries do not patronize us at
all, with the exception of Mudie's, which takes perhaps
fifty of each of the smaller works in the course of the
year. Lately the orders from the Continent and the
colonies (especially Australia) have very much in-
creased." "America, I suppose, lives on its pirated
editions ? " " Yes, and tries to export them sometimes.
I remember we were lately asked, as a special favour, to
pass through a set of American editions for a celebrated
traveller. The matter was referred to Mr. Ruskin, who

replied that ' Mr. had much better not burden

himself with stolen property on his missionary expedi-
tion. He shall certainly not do so with permission of
mine.'"

Since the foregoing pages were first written,
the new edition of "Modern Painters" has been
published. This was the biggest job by far
that his present publisher has undertaken. The
money value of the edition, at its retail price,
was not far short of ^20,000. The weight of

196 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIn's WORK.

the special hand-made copies was over six tons.
The publication of any book of these dimensions
would be a heavj- undertaking ; but " Modern
Painters " is a portfolio of engravings, as well
as a library of literature. It is the most im-
portant lof all Mr. Ruskin's literary works, but
it was also, in its original form, one of the most
elaborate and beautiful collections of illustra-
tions ever issued. Mr. Allen was responsible,
not only for the republication of the book, but
for the reissue of these illustrations, compris-
ing eighty-seven full-page engravings and over
200 woodcuts. Such an undertaking would
obviously put to a crucial test the interesting
experiment in publishing which Mr. Ruskin
initiated now nearly twenty years ago. I ap-
pend, therefore, to what has already been said
this further description of a second visit paid
to Orpington, in January, 1889 : —

I found the liousc and household taxed to its utter-
most by the new enterprise. Indeed, a new room had
been specially added to the premises to stock the copies
of tills bulky book. Nothing in any of the largest inib-
lishing houses could e.xcel the neatness and precision
of the arrangements. Indeed, the new warehouse in
this country villa on the Kentish hills reminded me of
nothing so much as some careful housewife's linen-

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. 1 97

closet— only that the sheets were the sheets of a book.
And just as in a well-ordered household each member
has a daily task marked out, so here each member of
Mr. Allen's helpful family has his share, or hers, in the
work of publishing. As 1 glanced round at the piles of
" Modern Painters " (each set of six volumes weighing
29 lbs.) I thought it would be hard on the packer.
Every one was going to lend him a hand, but even so it
had been found necessary for once to bring in outside
help, and two men from London were employed in
doing up the parcels for distribution, which left in
special vans, direct by road, to the principal booksellers.
" Modern Painters" will thus be Ruskinian to the end,
and every devout purchaser in London will have the
satisfaction of knowing that his copy came byroad, and
not by rail.

But indeed " the Masters" ideals have been adhered
to throughout in the production of this final edition of
his chief work. " About the plates I shall have plenty
to tell you presently," said Mr. Allen ; " but first let me
say that the binding has been done by my usual binder,
Mr. Mansell ; I need not add that there is no machine-
stitching about it, but only honest hand-work. With
regard to the printing of the letterpress, the New York
Cn?/f remarked the other day that ' there was something
very attractive in the idea of this printing-house in the
fields, far from the city's rush and roar. Instead of the
compositor snatching a hasty lunch at his case, with the
smell of the inky rollers in his nostrils and the noise of
the stone-paved streets in his ears, he may step outside
of the composing-room into a rose-perfumed garden at
Orpington, and munch his meal with no noise to dis-
turb him save that of the busy bees or the babbling
brook. And how much better work he can do amid

198 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN's WORK.

such surroundings! No wonder that Ruskin's books
are so beautifully printed ! ' As applied to us here,
this is of course incorrect, for m}' printing is all done
by Messrs. Hazell, Watson, and Viney, at Aylesbury ;
but in substance the New York writer was not far wrong.
Messrs. Hazell's place at Aylesbury is quite an ideal
printing-office — with light and cheerful buildings, allot-
ment gardens, recreation-ground, clubs, a magazine,
and all the other machinery for ' mutual improvement.'
You may care to know, by the way, that this edition of
'Modern Painters' took over 5oo reams of paper for the
ordinary copies ; they are printed on specially made
toned paper, of fine surface but tough texture, which
weighed in all well over fifteen tons. The hand-made
paper for the special copies was also made by Whatman
expressly for this book, and is of a size and weight
never before manufactured. The type, too, was a special
fount, cast expressly for this work, and indeed the
printing has, I may say, been done throughout quite
regardless of cost."

"This is even more the case," continued Mr. .•\llcu,
" with regard to the printing of the plates. Mr. Robert
Smith, to whom I entrusted the work, is an out-and-out
good and honest workman. Curiously enough, he was
an apprentice to the printer who did the original edition
for Messrs. Smith and Elder, and he was as anxious as
I to get the best possible results from each plate. I do
not know where else I could have gone to get equally
good work, for Mr Smith is a workman himself, and
gives close and continuous personal superintendence.
Even so, some of the delay in publishing the book has
been due to the difficulty of finding a sufficient number
of conscientious workmen. Such men are never over-
abundant, and a great many of them li;ive been drawn

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. 199

off by Professor Herkomer to his workshops at Bushey.
However, I have not stinted Mr. Smith in the price, and
that is the main essential. You have no idea of the
tricks to which plate-printers often resort— and neces-
sarily—owing to the cutting down of the price: the
mixture of soft soap with the ink is one way— so a
workman told me himself— in which time is saved and
the work scamped."

From the printing of the plates the conversation
turned to the preparation of the plates themselves, and
here the curious may be glad of some detailed particu-
lars. The plates in the new edition of "Modern
Painters" maybe divided under four heads— (i) new
plates, not included in any previous edition ; (2) plates
of which the originals have been destroyed, and which
have been re-engraved for the present edition; (3)
plates in a like case which have been mechanically re-
produced ; and ( 4) original plates retouched. The addi-
tional plates are three in number, and it is these which
will always give a unique value among collectors to the
present edition. The subjects of them are " Chateau
de Blois," "Dawn after the Wreck," and "Lake of
Zug." They were all etched by Mr. Ruskin in 1859,
from Turners drawings, and engraved by T. Lupton.
Intended for the fifth volume, they were held back
owing to the anxiety of Mr. Ruskin's father to see tlie
work fairly off his son's hands. The re-cngravcd plates
are nine in number, and include some of the best-known
illustrations in the book, such as "The Lombard
Apennine" and "Monte Rosa." Three other plates
had also been destroyed, but Mr. Allen fortunately had
in his possession early proofs of the original etchings,
and from these photogravures have been executed for
the present edition by the Goupil process (Messrs.

200 SOME ASPECTS OF MR. RUSKIN S WORK.

Boussod, Valadon, and Co.). " Finally, the remaining
plates have all been looked to," said Mr. Allen, " with
loving care by myself and my son (Mr. Hugh Allen),
both in retouching where necessary, and also in superin-
tendence of printing."

Into the merits of the new edition of " Modern
Painters " I need not enter, for most of my
readers have no doubt formed an opinion of
their own by personal inspection. But in con-
cluding this description of Mr. Ruskin's system
of publication, and with it — for the present at
least — my survey of his work in some of its
aspects, it will not be out of place to record that
the edition has been a great commercial success.
Mr. Ruskin's profits from this one issue of a
single book will not in the end be less than
£6,000. Hitherto he has suffered badly from
the American pirates. Though his American
readers are numbered by tens of thousands, he
has never received a penny fiom them ; but the
cheaper editions of many of his books which
Mr. Allen is now bringing out will doubtless do
something to undermine the pirate's trade. But
even now Mr. Ruskin's profits are steadily grow-
ing every year, and exceed, I imagine, those
made by any other serious author of the time.

MR. RUSKIN AND THE BOOKSELLERS. 201

His system of publishing "in the wilds of Kent"
has — like most other schemes of his devising —
been derided as unpractical, visionary, and mad.
On closer inspection does there not seem to be
some method in Mr. Ruskin's mad work ?

APPENDICES.

CONTAINING NOTES ON MR. RUSKIN'S
OXFORD LECTURES.

APPENDIX I.
"Readings in 'Modern Painters:' 1877."

The first course of Lectures which I heard
Mr. Ruskin deliver at Oxford was one given
in Michaelmas term, 1877. The lectures, which
he called " Readings in ' Modern Painters,'" were
conversational and informal ; and the following
notes embody only some casual reminiscences.
As, however, the lectures were thoroughly cha-
racteristic of their author, even my imperfect
notes may be of interest to some readers.*

The three great principles of Art are, Mr.

* Writing at the end of this course to Miss Beever, Mr.
Ruskin said, " I write first to you this morning to tell yon
that I gave yesterday the twelfth and last of my course of
lectures, this term, to a room crowded by six hundred people,
two-thirds members of the University, and with its door
wedged open by those who could not get in ; this interest
of theirs being granted to me, I doubt not, because for the
first time in Oxford I have been able to speak to them
boldly of immortal life. I intended when I began the
course only to have read 'Modern Painters' to them; but
when I began, some of your favourite bits interested the
men so much, and brought so much larger a proportion of
undergraduates than usual, that I took pains to re-inforce
and press them home ; and people say I have never given
so useful a course yet " (" Hortus Inclusus," p. 47).

206 APPENDIX 1.

Ruskin said, these : First, that the life of Art
is in Religion ; secondly, its food, in the ocular
and passionate love of nature ; thirdly, its
health, in the humility of the artists. To these
three essential Truths he went on to oppose
three popular Fallacies, corresponding to them ;
namely, y//'s/, that the life of Art is in Sensu-
ality ; secondly, its food, in the telescopic and dis-
passionate examination of nature ; and thirdly,
its health, in the pride and riches of the artist.
In architecture, too, the lecturer laid down three
canons ; namel}', first, that the material should
be good and true ; secondly, the ornament,
natural ; and thirdly, the designer, left free to
work from his heart.

"Readings from 'Modern Painters'" led to
few opportunities for enlarging on these architec-
tural canons, and the major part of the lecturer's
running commentar}' was devoted to illustrating
one or other of the three Principles of Art.
More especiallj' did the lecturer's mind appear
to be running on the artistic, as opposed to the
scientific way of viewing nature. The true
artist, he said, if he wishes to paint a dog, looks
at him and loves him ; now we vivisect him.
Yet true science — true knowledge of an}' living
creature — begins in the love of it, not in dissec-
tion. The mere sight of this museum (see p. 47),
he said, with its specimens of death and disease,
instead of life and health, paralyzes me in all
artistic work. The fact is, though modern
science forgets it, that sight is spiritual as well
as physical. The pleasure of modern science

"readings in 'modern painters:' 1877." 207

is the pride of seeing more by instruments than
common people can with the naked eye. Of
the two dominant schools in the University, one
despises Nature, the other despises God. Man's
eye sees through his soul. But nowadays sight
has become mechanical. Instead of learning to
sketch, we buy photographs ; instead of loving
the poets, we try to imitate them. Natural
Philosophy exultingly hopes to be able to turn
on God ; and already we read of a tolling ma-
chine erected in Ealing Cemetery, at a cost of
i^8o, the sexton, like a miller at his dam, turn-
ing on lamentation.

Students of Mr. Ruskin's works will remem-
ber many passages in which several of the
aphorisms thrown out in these Oxford Lectures
have been expanded or illustrated ; and I pass
now to one or two notes on the third Principle
of Art laid down above. The health of Art
consists in the humility of the artist. I have
in my possession, said Mr. Ruskin, Turner's
receipt for i^28 'js., paid for three drawings of
Florence. One of these would now fetch from
;£'500 to ;^8oo. The high prices now paid for
pictures are the cause of the hurry in modern
work. A man can resist a bribe of nine guineas,
but not so easily one of /i"2,ooo. Even here in
Oxford the leaven of pride and riches is at work.
The peace of Isis is disturbed by shouts of
ambition, and all ambition is shamelul. No
natural beauty can be seen through a shameful
passion. It was want of compassion, said Mr.
Ruskin, which often made me fail to appreciate

308 APPENDIX I.

Turner's work, for he painted always in pitj'
or joy.

The illustration from his earlier writings of
the Principles of Art above described was one
of the threads which kept together this discur-
sive course of " Readings in ' Modern Painters.' "
Another was the explanation of the origin and
object of that great book. The first volume of
it was, he said, an expansion of a long letter in
defence of Turner. About i S40 a marked change
took place in Turner's style. The change is to
be seen in the "Rivers of France," and was from
yellow and grey to truth in colour. The central
idea of the defence of Turner, as contained in
"Modern Painters," was that sight depends on
the soul, and that, said Mr. Ruskin, I have shown
you to be entirely true. But I wanted more
knowledge to make the essay reall}' efTective,
and by the time I had got the knowledge the
period of public reprobation had begun. I am
ashamed now of the aflected style of the volume.
Subsequently I read Carlylc, and succeeded in
catching something of his rhythm. lam ashamed
too of my pretended systems. Plato, added Mr.
Ruskin, in an excursus at this point, threw out
systems like the gleam on foam ; Herbert Spencer
throws them out like boys blowing bubbles full
of dirty air. After all, my system onlj' amounted
to this : " The picture must be done well, the
thing must be i^retty, and the motive good."
Mj' denial, in the first volume, of the delight
in "ideas of power" was wrong too. Venera-
tion, desire for exertion, aiul sympathy are all

" READINGS IN 'MODERN PAINTERS:' I 877." 209

involved in "ideas of power," and are all legiti-
mate elements of delight.

This self-criticism of " Modern Painters " was
afterwards written down by Mr. Ruskin in the
new edition of the second volume. But in
these Oxford Lectures it was carried out with
a bantering humour of which no notes can
convey much impression. I remember in par-
ticular one lecture which, setting out from a
criticism of passages in some of his earlier books,
resolved itself into a discourse upon style. He
read to us first the passage from the " Seven
Lamps " — one of the best known of his " purple
patches " — which 1 have already quoted (see
p. 209). With this passage he bade us com-
pare the following from "Unto This Last,"
which he read with fervid emphasis : —

" And if, on due and honest thought over these things,
it seems that the kind of existence to which men are
now summoned, by every plea of pity and claim of right,
may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one ;
consider whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury
would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our
sides the suffering wliich accompanies it in the world.
Luxury is indeed possible in the future — innocent and
exquisite ; luxury for all, and by the help of all ; but
luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant ;
the cruellest man living could not sit at his feast, unless
he sat blindfold. Raise the veil boldly ; face the light ;
and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be through
tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go
thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time
come, and the kingdom, when Christ's gift of bread
and bequest of peace shall be unlo tin's last as unto
thee ; and when, for earth's severed multitudes of the
wicked and the weary, there shall be holier reconcilia-
tion than that of the narrow home, and calm economy,

2IO APPENDIX I.

where the Wicked cease — not from trouljle, but from
troubling — and the VVearj' are at rest."

Compare those two passages carefully, he
said, and you will know for ever afterwards the
difference between bad and good st3'le. Note
in particular, he added, first, that the art which
in the earlier passage is obvious at every point
is in the later one hardly visible at all ; ars cs/
celare artcm ; and secondly, that no word in
the later passage could be changed without loss
of meaning. There is, indeed, one alliteration
("/iiea of />it3'"), but the word plea was the
inevitably right word in its place. In my early
works I used to hunt about for alliterations for
their own sake. What makes Carpaccio's art so
great — Carpaccio had recentlj' been discovered
by Mr. Ruskin as the greatest of painters, and
there were several pas.sing allusions to him in
these lectures — is that it is hidden.

I find among my notes — scattered and dis-
cursive, even as were the lectures — the following
few disjointed aphorisms and sentences which
may be set down as they come : —

Science is bad Knghsh which vanishes when it is
translated.

The modern stage is ruined by its realization ol'
scenery, which is contrary to all noble art. A picture,
whether on canvas or on the stage, should give an idea,
not its realization.

Stacy Marks has produced the first jierfect pictures
of birds ; Coi^ley Fielding produced the best picture of
a moor; Burue Jones is our oidy living real artist.

We can only discern spiritual nature so far as we
are like it.

To speak of " natural " and " supernatural " is like
calling the organic "super-mineral."

APPENDIX II.
"The Pleasures of England:" 1884.

The second complete course of Mr. Ruskin's
Oxford Lectures which I had the privilege of
attending was the one on "The Art of England."
Of these 1 took full notes at the time, for publi-
cation in the Pall Mall Gazette ; but the lectures
had been carefully prepared, and the printed
volume hardly differs at all from the spoken
lectures. There would, therefore, be no point
in republishing my notes. With the lectures
entitled " The Pleasures of England," which I
similarly reported, the case is different. The
course had clearly not been so carefully pre-
pared, nor was the lecturer's line of thought so
closely reasoned, as in " The Art of England."
My reports took the form, therefore, of " digested
plans " (so Mr. Ruskin was kind enough to call
them), " summarizing a line of thought not al-
ways by me enough expressed, and completing
and illustrating it from other parts of mj' books,
often more fully than, against time, 1 could do
myself." Accordingly I reprint these reports
here in their original form, in the hope that

212 APPENDIX II.

they may be found by a reader here and there
to serve as useful companions to the printed
lectures.

Lecturk I.

" Blrtha to Osburga : the Pleasures
OF Learning."

{Pall Mall Gazette, October 20th, 1S84.)

The course of lectures which Mr. Ruskin pro-
poses to give in Oxford this term, and the first
of which was delivered on Saturday, is intended
to trace in rough outline the whole history of
England as written in her art.

The Fill n IT of Eiiglaiitl.

Mr. Ruskin's history, it need hardly be said,
has a purpose and a moral ; and the object of
his survey of English art is, he stated at the out-
set on Saturday, to show what those of us who
have faculty should do, and those of us who have
sensibility should admire. " Such action and
such feeling may even yet create a future for
England which all of you may hopefull}' and
proudly labour for, and some of you even see,
when all the tumult of vain avarice and idle
pleasure has gone to its appointed perdition."
Wherein his hope for the future of England
lies Mr. Ruskin expounded in eloquent words,
written several years ago, whicii, as being "the

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" I884. 213

most pregnant and essential" of all his profes-
sorial teachings, he repeated on Saturday : —

" There is a destiny now possible to us — the highest
ever set before a nation to be accepted or refused. We
are still undegenerate in race : a race mingled of the
best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in tem-
per, but still have the firmness to govern and the grace
to obey. We have been taught a religion of pure mercy,
which we must either now finally betray, or learn to de-
fend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an inheritance of
honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to in-
crease with splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it
be a sin to covet honour, should be the most offending
souls alive. Within the last few years we have had the
laws of natural science opened to us with a rapidity
which has been blinding by its brightness ; and means
of transit and communication given to us, which have
made but one kingdom of the habitable globe. One
kingdom ; — but who is to be its king ? Is there to be no
king in it, think you, and every man to do that which is
right in his own eyes? or only kings of terror, and the
obscene empires of Mammon and Belial ? Or will you,
youths of England, make your country again a roj'al
throne of kings ; a sceptred isle ; for all the world a
source of light, a centre of peace ; mistress of Learning
and of the Arts ; faithful guardian of great memories, in
the midst of irreverent and ephemeral visions ; faitht\il
servant of time-tried principles, under temptation Irom
fond experiments and licentious desires ; and amidst
the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, wor-
shipped in her strange valour, of goodwill towards
men?'

Hisfoiy Written in Art.

Fifteen years have passed since Mr. Ruskin
wrote those words, and he has not lost hope in

214 APPENDIX II.

the interval ; on the contrarj', he is more than
ever convinced that there has been " no time,
in all the pride of the past, when their country
might more serenely trust in the glor^- of her
j'OLith, when her prosperity was more secure in
their genius, or her honour in their hearts."
What, then, are the young men and maidens of
England to do to carry out these hopes ? That
may best be learned, said Mr. Ruskin, by con-
sidering whether London be indeed " the natural
and Divinely appointed produce of the valle}' of
the Thames ; " and if not, how far it may be
altered by our acts and our thoughts. Mr.
Ruskin has said before (in his preface to the
translation of Xenophon's "Economics" in
" Bibliotheca Pastorum ") that all right educa-
tion should include the history of five cities —
Athens, Rome, \'enice, Florence, and London.
The history of Athens, rightly understood,
teaches all that we need to know of the religion
and art of Greece ; that of Rome, the victory of
Christianity over barbarism ; that of Venice and
Florence, all that is essential in Christianity, as
illustrated by Christian painting, sculpture, and
architecture ; that of London, with its sister
Paris, Christian chivalry expressed in Gothic
architecture. Mr. Ruskin had once hoped to
write the history of these five cities, and it is
the history of London, understood in this man-
ner, that he proposes to tell in the present
course of lectures — the historj', that is to say,
ff the English and French nations, as expouiuiicl
in llicir arcliit(( lure, their illuminated manu-

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" I884. 2I5

scripts, and, in a minor degree, their jewellery
and other lesser arts. The change in the title
of his lectures is significant of this historical
purpose. " Hitherto in all my writings I have
considered art solely in relation to the personal
temper of the artist, and so I have simply told
you that you ought to like Turner and dislike
Salvator Rosa, without ever considering what
your own instinct or genius would prompt you
to like or dislike. In this course Art is to be
looked at throughout from the people's side ; it
is to be asked what, as a matter of fact, they
did like ; and hence I have called my lectures
' The Pleasures of England,' instead of, as be-
fore, ' The Art of England.'

t »

"Learning" and "Teaching" Nations.

First in historical order among these pleasures
comes the pleasure of learning — the pleasure,
that is, not of seeking truth for oneself, which
is a completely different thing, but of receiving
instruction — a pleasure which to all who have
the grace to receive is extremely sweet and
sacred. It is a pleasure, though, Mr. Ruskin
here interposed, which can hardly find a place
in your modern theories, "according to which
you turn out what you are to be by the inevita-
ble operation of what is within you ; whereas
the old theory of education was that the baby
material was by external force and wisdom bred
■ — that it was a plastic vase, to be shaped and
mannered as the potter chose, not as it chose,

2l6 APPENDIX II.

until it was filled with sweetness of sound doc-
trine, like H3'bla honey or Arabian spikenard."
Now, Athens and Rome were essentially self-
taught cities, but London and Paris are essen-
tially taught by others : —

■■ Yoii find, from tlu- earliest times, in Greece and Italy
a multitude of artists gradually perfecting the knowledge
and representation of the human hody, glorified by tlie
exercises of war. Yon have, north of Greece and Italy,
innumerable and incorrigibly savage nations, represent-
ing, with rude and irregular ellorts, on huge stones and
ice-borne boulders, on cave bones and forest stocks and
logs, with any manner of innocent tinting or scratching
possible to them, sometimes beasts, sometimes hobgob-
lins, sometimes Heaven only knows what, but never
attaining any skill in figure-drawing until, whetlier in-
vading or invaded, Greece and Italy teach them what a
human being is like ; and with that help they dream and
blunder on through the centuries, achieving many fan-
tastic and amusing things, more especially tlie art of
rhyming, whereby they usually express their notions of
things far better than by painting. Nevertheless, in
due course we get a Holbein out of them ; and in the
end, for best product hitherto. Sir Joshua, and the
supremely Gothic Gainsborough."

B}' "supremely Gothic Gainsborough'' Mr. Rus-
kin e.xplained that he meant, not that Gains-
borough painted " kings and saints turning up
their eyes, such as you buy at so much a hun-
dred, wherewith to ornament your pseudo-Gothic
temples," but that in his portraits the face was
everytiiing, the body nothing, whereas the glory
of classic art is always in the body, and never
in the face. The foregoing summary of English
art may, Mr. Ruskin added, be still further

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1 884. 21/

condensed in Carl3'lean phrase ; and the art of
England may be said to consist of three whales'
cubs combined by boiling under the orders of
the Athena of Homer and Phidias.*

Untaught British Art.

Mr. Ruskin then proceeded to summarize
shortly the characteristics of the learning and
teaching nations respectively. The Huns and
V'andals he passed over, as being merely " forms
of punishment and destruction," and came to
immortal nations living on their native rocks
and unchanging plains. Of the learning nations,
the British have the deepest love of external
nature, of pure music and song ; they were
deeply religious, but neither apprehensive nor
receptive. " I do not speak of the Celtic race,"

* "Mr. Ruskin incidentally referred again on Saturday
(wrote the Pall Mall Gazette a fortnight later) to those
'three whale's cubs combined by boiling' which the Satur-
day Reviczv found so hard a saying as only to be accepted
on our authority. It is a pretty compliment, but one which
we cannot accept, that our imprimatur is necessary to give
currency to a phrase of Carlyle's. Mr. Ruskin was quoting,
of course, from Friedrich, where Carlyle describes how the
Wends * set up their god Triglaph — a three-headed mon-
ster of which I have seen prints, be3'ond measure ugly —
something like three whale's cubs cottibiiied by boiling or a
triple porpoise dead drunk.' The Wends were at this time
(a.d. I02j) ' sturdy heathens," and their representation of
Triglaph was very appropriately, therefore, taken by Mr.
Ruskin as typical of the Northern art, which was subse-
quentlv to be touched through Christianity by ' the spear
of Pallas.' "

2l8 APPENDIX II.

Mr. Ruskin said, " because I should now be
expected to say Keltic, and I don't mean to, if
onl}- for fear that I should next be required to
say St. Kekilia." The Normans were scarcely
more apprehensive, but had more constructive
energy, their chief characteristic being that they
never spend themselves in vain anger, or pas-
sion, or sorrow ; they are like the living rock,
the}' flow like lava, and congeal like granite.
The Saxons and Franks are docile, imaginative,
and active, but with difficulty ration^.l, and rarely
wise. For the type of the Ostrogoths " you
may take the German Caesars, still standing as
a barrier against the license and insolence of
modern Republican Governments." And lastly,
there are the Lombards, sternly indocile, gloomily
imaginative ; for the Lombard, like the Arabian,
never jests. Of Britisli art before the people
were touched by the influence of the tutor nations
there is no well-sifted account ; but they must
have been practical builders in wood, good boat-
builders, skilful in sail-weaving, with knowledge
of stout ironwork and copper for ornamentation.
You have here and there the stones of their
temples standing one on another in the midst
of deserted plains, and it is an ever-increasing
matter of wonder to me that your historians
never ask you to consider what you might have
been if no Roman missionary had ever passed
the Alps in cliarity, and no English king in
pilgrimage ; what the clay of Isis might have
yielded if it had never been touched bj' the
spear of I'allas and the rod of Agricola.

'the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1 884. 2I9

History Made Easy.

Mr. Ruskin then passed in review the chief
tutor nations — " nations of which you generally
learn only the corruptions, though it were better,
surely, if you must choose, to learn only their
virtues. For true knowledge is only of good,
in which alone are nature and life ; what is dis-
eased, and therefore unnatural, should be cut
away in contemplation, as in surgery." Of
these tutor nations, the Tuscan and the Arab
alone had no influence on us. For the influences
of the others you must look at the work of Agri-
cola and Constantius, of Benedict and Gregory ;
of the artists of Ravenna and Byzantium ; of
the teaching of St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom.
Of the period of history when the nations were
thus learning from the Syrians, and the Greeks,
and the Romans I can give you (said Mr.
Ruskin) " a few binding dates, which you will
find more practically useful than the inconse-
quential sequences which form the index of
common histories." Another department of
historical study, by the way, was considerably
simplified by Mr. Ruskin, in some informal re-
marks, after the conclusion of his written lecture.
Map-making is only tiresome when you trouble
yourself about railways leading from one un-
important place to another ; but in drawing the
map of England, for instance, you should put
in London, and Edinburgh, and O.xford, and Lan-
caster, and York, and Winchester — and nothing
else. With regard to the dates, from the Saxon

220 APPENDIX II.

invasion (ad. 449) to Alfred (a.d. 849) is a
period of exactly four hundred years. In 481
Clovis came to the throne ; and he marries Clo-
tilde, his saint-queen, in the year (.-^.d. 493) in
which Theodoric wins the battle of Verona. This
is the historical conjunction which Mr. Ruskin
has described in the " Bible of Amiens : " —

" At tlie close of the tiftli century you liave Europe
divided simply by her watershed, and two Cliristiau kings
reigning, with entirely beneficent and healthy power —
one in the north, one in the south, the mightiest and
worthiest of them married to the other's youngest sister,
a saint-(iueen in the north — and a devoted and earnest
woman, (nieen-mother, in the south. It is a conjunction
of things memorable enough in the earth's history, much
to be thought of, O fast-whirling reader, il ever out of
the crowd of pent-up cattle driven across Rhine or Adige
you can extricate yourself for an hour, to walk peacefully
out of the south gate of Cologne, or across Kva Giocondo's
bridge at Verona — and so, pausing, look through the
clear air across the battle-field of Tolbiac to tlie blue Dra-
chenfels, or across the plain of St. Ambrogio to the moim-
tains of Garda. For there were fought — if you will think
closely — the two victor-battles of the Christian world.
Constantine's only gaveclianged form and dying colour
to the falling walls of Rome ; but the Frank and Gothic
races, thus conquering and thus ruled, founded the arts
and established the laws which gave to all futvire Europe
her joy and her virtue. And it is lovely to see how,
even thus early, the feudal chivalry depended for its
life on the nobleness of its womanhood. There was
no vision seen, or alleged, at Tolbiac. Clovis prayed
simply to the God of Clotilde."

So too with Theodoric. His marriage with
the youngest sister of Clovis is geiurally dis-
missed in a casual sentence, as exhibiting " the

1884. 221

first instance of a definite policy of domestic
alliances for publicends." Itis not asked whether
the King, who on the morning of the battle of
Verona visited his mother and his sister, and
" requested that on the most illustrious festival
of his life they would adorn him with the rich
garments which they had worked with their own
hands," would be a man to marry without love ;
nor is it considered how far his calmly Christian
justice may have been due to the sympathy and
counsel of his Frankish Queen.

The Education of England in Old Times.

A hundred years later sees the marriage of
Ethelbert and Bertha, signalizing the beginning
of erudition and laying the corner-stone of the
beautiful English character. Christianity has
been Accepted ; faith from St. Augustine (not to
be confused with the Bishop) works from the
rule of Benedict — St. Augustine teaching all
men what to think and feel, Benedict what to
say, and be, and do ; and henceforth, for three
hundred years, "from Bertha to Osburga," the
Saxon people are learning of the Christian faith
the humane arts and duties invented and incul-
cated by it. This is the history which is to be
found written in their art, and especially in their
illuminated missals. No effect whatever can be
traced on the Saxons from the luxury of Rome
or from her art. They build no aqueducts or
theatres; they envy no vile pleasures, and admire
no classic art. The pages of a Saxon missal

APPENDIX II.

are the first example of the representation of
immediatel}' imagined scenes. The contest be-
tween Herakles and H\'dra on a Greek vase is
a mere memorandum ; the potter is busy en-
graving his lines with due regard for the inter-
vention of the handle. The Saxon monk scrawls
his figures anywhere and everywhere all over
the page, in explanatory scenes of inexpressible
vision.

Modem English Missionary Enterprise.

The lesson of this page of history — the moral
from past to present — is often strangely mis-
read. The late Dean of Westminster, standing
thirty years ago on St. Martin's Hill, at Canter-
bury, where Bertha praj'ed, and looking down
on the cathedral where once stood the Roman
church given by Etlieibert to Augustine, and
on the missionary college built on the ruins of
Augustine's abbey, found the prospect one of
"the most inspiriting in the world ; " and think-
ing of Augustine's solitary landing, and tlxe sub-
sequent missionary' zeal of the people to whom
he came, was minded to reflect on the mighty
results which may follow from the smallest be-
ginnings. " To this Gregorian chant in honour
of the British Constitution, I grieve," said Mr.
Ruskin, " but am compelled, to ofi'er in conclu-
sion one or two historical objections. ' From
Bertha to Osburga ' the Saxons were learning
too eagerly to take to preaching, and whatever
Christianity left these shores were not from

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1884. 223

Thanet, but from lona ; and as for the new
' Christianized continents ' that have arisen in
these latter days, the missionary office of Eng-
land in Africa and America has chiefly consisted
in stealing lands and exterminating their in-
habitants. Our introduction of Christianity in-
to India has only taught the natives to wear
Paisley shawls instead of Cashmere ; and in
Australasia the ' Christian aid ' that we have
rendered has been principally to help pious
farmers to convict labour. And although I will
take Dean Stanley's word for it that thirty years
ago the prospect from St. Martin's Church was
one of the cheerfullest and most inspiriting in
the world, I have 3'et to say that recent progress
has so accommodated the beauty of the sur-
roundings to the use of the missionary works
above described that the view of Canterbury
Cathedral has been contracted into despised
subservience to the colossal walls of an all-visible
county gaol."

Lecture II.

"Alfred to the Confessor: the Pleasures
OF Faith."

(Pall Mall Gazette, October 27tli, 1S84.)

Mr. Ruskin prefaced the second chapter of his
history on Saturday by noting two omissions :

224 APPENDIX II.

he had to pass by the influence of the Scotrh
missionaries and the whole of the Roman-British
period. The former omission he the less re-
gretted because the facts could all be found in
Montalembert's " Les Moines d'Occident," where
they could be seen better through a nimbus of
sympathetic enthusiasm than in any distortion
of them by the fog of contemptuous Rationalism.

Tlie Roiiiaii-BiilisJi Period.

Of the Roman-British period, Mr. Ruskin's
readers would find a carefully digested account
in the forthcoming number of " Our Fathers
have Told Us," entitled "Valle Crucis." Mon-
talembert, it should be noticed, is entirely blind
to the conditions of Roman virtue which ap-
peared in such of the Emperors as Pertina.x,
Carus, or Constantius, and denies with abusive
violence the good effect of Roman law. To all
of which no better answer could be wanted than
that St. Benedict and St. Gregory were both
Roman patricians, and Imogen and Cordelia
Roman ladies. King Lear and Cymbeline both
belong to this period, and only once— when
Kent exclaims, in the first scene of the play,
" Now, by Apollo, King, Thou swear'st thy gods
in vain " — does Shakespeare throw contempt on
the Roman gods. Nor is it without significance
that the richest fighting element in the British
army to-day is to be found, not in the Saxons,
but amongst the Irish, the Highlanders, and the
Cornishmen.

'the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1884. 225

The Evidence of Alfred's Penny.

Having thus completed his survey of the
sources of instruction open to our Saxon fore-
fathers, Mr. Ruskin went on to answer the
question propounded in his first lecture, what
London would have been like if the nature of
the flowers, and trees, and children growing by
Thames-side had been rightly understood. " Of
what London was like in the days of faith I
can show you," said Mr. Ruskin, "one piece of
artistic evidence. It is Alfred's silver penny,
struck in London mint. The character of a
coinage is quite conclusive evidence in national
history, and there is no great empire in progress
but tells its story in beautiful coins. Here in
Alfred's penny — a round coin, with L. O. N. D.
L N. I. A. struck on it — you have just the same
beauty of design, the same enigmatical arrange-
ment of letters, as in the early inscription which
it is ' the pride of my life ' to have discovered
at Venice. This inscription (' the first words
that Venice ever speaks aloud ') is, it will be
remembered, on the church of S. Giacomo di
Rialto, and runs, being interpreted, 'Around
this temple let the merchant's law be just, his
weights true, and his covenants faithful.'"

A Picture of "Old London."

What the buildings of that old London were
like I cannot tell you, but at least we know that
its groups of ships and sails were exceedingly

226 APPENDIX II.

beautiful. No doubt your ironclads at Ports-
mouth now are extremelj- beautiful too ; but
the Saxon war-ships lay at London's shore, and
shone bright with banner, and shield, and dragon
prow. You may be happier, but you are not
handsomer, now, with your penny steamers
crowded with shop-girls and shop-boys, than
in the old days when " the coracles of the
British tribes, the galleys of Roman armies,
were moored in the Thames, and gave to Lon-
don the most probable origin of its name — the
City of Ships ; when clear, swift rivulets, such
as the Wall Brook and the Hole Bourne, de-
scended from the higher hills through winding
valleys; when the consecrated springs of Clerken
Well, and Holy Well, and St. Clement's Well
were the scene of many a sacred and festive
pageant which gathered round their green mar-
gins." "I am quoting," said Mr. Ruskin, "from
the first chapter of Dean Stanlc3''s ' Memorials
of Westminster ' — a chapter which 1 always tell
my friends who praise my writing that I would
rather have written than any of my own books.
But had I been able to paint so perfect a pic-
ture, the conclusions I should have drawn would
have been widely dift'erent. The Dean describes,
indeed, the ' river of wells ' with all a poet's
joy, but like a true modern citizen of Belgravia,
he sees ' a quaint humour in the fact that the
great arteries of our crowded streets, the vast
sewers which cleanse our habitations, are fed
by the life-blood of those old and living streams ;
that underneath our tread the Tyburn, and the

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1 884. 22/

Holborn, and the Fleet, and the Wallbrook are
still pursuing their ceaseless course, still minister-
ing to the good of man, though in a far differ-
ent fashion than when Druids drank of their
sacred springs, and Saxons were baptized in
their rushing waters, ages ago.' Now, whatever
sympathy you may feel with the entire compla-
cency in the past, present, and future which is
characteristic of Dean Stanley, I would at least
beg you to observe that the transmutation ot
holy wells into sewers has spoiled the Thames
as a salmon stream, from which once a year,
even as late as 1382, one of the London fisher-
men brought in a salmon for St. Peter, and took
his place beside the Prior."

Disbelief in Legends — " Solvitur Auibulando."

"Dean Stanley sees, again, in this legend of
the fish — containing the claim established by
the Abbots of Westminster on the tithe of the
Thames fisheries — an instance of 'the union of
innocent fiction with worldly craft which marks
so many legends both of Pagan and Christian
times.' A capital instance, truly, of the Lon-
donian thought which marks so many of the
w-ell-meant books of your pious metropolis.
Let me say, in the first place, that the fiction of
old time would be no worse than that of to-day
for being innocent instead of guilty ; and, in
the second place, that legends are not fictions
at all, but are the true record of impressions
brought into bright focus by action under the

228 APPENDIX II.

impulse of faith." " Much more," continued Mr.
Ruskin, " I could tell you of the reality of visions
than you would believe; but this at least I would
say to you, that unless you try the rough life
of Christian ages, you cannot judge of the visions
or legends that resulted from it. Because 3'ou
have feather beds instead of ferns for your backs,
carpets instead of rushes for your feet, kickshaws
instead of beef for your eating, and drains in-
stead of holy wells for your drinking, therefore
you think that you are positively the cream of
creation. Stay in those pleasant circumstances
and in that pleasant delusion if you will, but do
not accuse your rough-fed and rough-bred fore-
fathers of bringing back a false report from
earth and sky until, like them, you have trodden
the earth barefoot and looked on the heaven as
they did, face to face. Do what king after king
of them did — put rough shoes on your feet and
walk to Rome, sleeping by the road-side when
it is fine, and in the first outhouse you can find
when it is wet, live, as you travel, on onions and
water, and then see if you will be inclined to
believe those who tell you that your exi)eriences
b}- the way are either poetry or fiction."

The '•Sialics of IVrsliiiiiiski:"

Mr. Ruskin then went on to read the history
of London in the stones of Westminster Abbey
— the monument of the personal character of its
founder, and the shrine and throne of Englisii
faith and truth — quoting from Dean Stanley the

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 18S4. 229

account of Edward's vow to make a pilgrimage to
the Apostle's grave ; of the legend of the Hermit
of Worcester, who charged the King, in the
Apostle's name, to establish instead, " at Thor-
ney, two leagues from the city," a Benedictine
monastery ; the legend of Edric the fisherman,
and his wonderful encounter with St. Peter ; and
finally the two miracles (of the cure of the cripple,
and of the child appearing in the sacramental
elements to the King Leofric and Godiva), which
still further endeared the little chapel of St.
Peter to the Confessor. After describing the
architecture and plan of Edward's Abbey, Mr.
Ruskin read, for purposes of subsequent depre-
cation, Stanley's general reflections on the story
of its foundation, in which the Dean speaks of
the "fantastic circumstances," taking us back
into " a world of poetry," and of the " childish
and eccentric fancies " of the Confessor, whose
"opinions and prevailing motives were such as
in no part of modern Europe would now be
shared by any educated teacher or ruler."

The Age of Faith not the Age of Poetry.

" First, I dispute the implied statement," said
Mr. Ruskin, " that the age of faith is the age
of poetry. Surely the age of poetry in English
historj'is not the ageof Bede, but that of Shake-
speare. The generation, too, which has seen
'Hiawatha,' and George Macdonald's 'Soul's
Diary,' and Keble's Hymns might fairly claim to
be an age not destitute of religious poetry. But,

230 APPENDIX 11.

to settle the matter once for all, take the follow-
ing stor}' from Bede's ' Life of Cuthbert,' which
tells how Cuthbert, on bidding some pilgrims
farewell, had bidden them also to cook a certain
goose they would find prepared for them. The
visitors, finding they had enough of their own,
and to spare, went on their way, but for seven
days were detained bj' contrary winds, and yet
"could not think what iault they had committed."
But when they went back to the holy father, and
he found that the goose had not been eaten, he
reproved their disobedience, and said, ' No wonder
that the storm has prevented you.' So he bade
them put the goose into the cauldron. And lo,
as soon as the kettle began to boil the wind
dropped and the waves were still ! This story,
which Bede had, he tells us, ' not on chance
authoritj-, but from a very pious and reverend
monk who was present at the time,' 1 give you,"
said Mr. Ruskin, "partly as an illustration of
the power of obedience, but chiefly in order
that we may hear no more about the poetry of
the age of Bede."

The Age of Faith vol " Childish."

'" But Dean Stanley tells us, in the second
place, that it was an ' artless and childish ' age.
On the contrary, it was an age which was
eminently productive of, eminently under the
governance and guidance of, men of the widest
and most brilliant faculties, constructive and
speculative, men whose acts became the romance.

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1 884. 23 1

whose thoughts the wisdom, and whose arts the
treasure of a thousand years of futurity. In
illustration of this point Mr. Rusliin said—

"Again and again they would indeed find the stream
of thfT Gospel contracting itself into narrow channels,
and appearing, after long-concealed filtration through
veins of unmeasured rock, with the bright resilience of
a mountain spring. But they would find it the only
candid, and therefore the only wise, way of research to
look in each era of Christendom for the minds of
culminating power in all its brotherhood of nations, and
careless of local impulse, momentary zeal, picturesque
incident, or vaunted miracle, to fasten their attention
upon the force of character in the men whom over each
newly converted race Heaven visibly sets forth its
shepherds and kings, to bring forth judgment and victory.
Of these he would name to them, as messengers of God
and masters of men, five monks and five kings, in whose
arms the life of the world lay as a nursling babe. Let
them remember, in their successive order — of monks,
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Martin, St. Benedict, and
St. Gregory ; of kings, Theodoric, Charlemagne, Alfred,
Canute, and the Confessor."

"Ofthreeofthesemen,"Mr. Ruskin continued,
" I will read you some words which I will ask
you to compare with whatever is best and most
exalted in the literature of to-day. For philo-
sophy Mr. Ruskin recited a passage from St.
Augustine's ' Citie of God ; ' for Christian prayer,
Alfred's expansion of the words, Fiat voluntas
tua : and for Christian poHty, the well-known
letter which Canute sent to England from Rome,
' that all the people of my realm may rejoice in
my well doing.' What think you, in candour
and honour," Mr. Ruskin asked, "you youths
of enlightenment, of the spirit that thus animated

232 APPENDIX 11.

the dark ages ? Whatever you maj- feel respect-
ing the beauty and wisdom of the words I have
read to you, be assured of one thing above all,
that they were sincere. The idea of diplomacy
or priestcraft belongs only to comparatively
recent times. No false knight or lying priest
ever prospered in the ' dark ' ages ; men suc-
ceeded only by following openly declared pur-
poses and preaching candidly beloved and
trusted creeds."

The Pleasures of Faitli.

In so believing and loving the}' were joyous
as well as sincere. " We continually hear,"
said Mr. Ruskin, in conclusion, " of the trials,
and sometimes of the victories of faith, but
scarcely ever of its pleasures. Yet the chief
delight of all good men, in all the ages, has
been in recognizing the goodness of the Master
who had come to dwell in their spirits. In
all we now do we expose ourselves to count-
less miseries, because we depend only on our
own power, and choose only our own gratifica-
tion — with no thought of working, except for
ourselves or others in whose welfare we are
equally selfishly interested, until the idea of
acting with any other object has come to be
like the precentor's invitation to a company of
little voice and less practice to ' sing to the
praise and glory of God.' You cannot any
longer imagine the pleasures of faith, perhaps,
but yoi! can assuredly prove them. Simply as

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1S84. 233

a philosophical experiment, adopt the principles
of Alfred or Augustine for a year. If, then,
you are no happier, at least you will be able
with more grace and more modesty to be of the
same opinion still. If you are minded thus to
try, begin each day with Alfred's prayer ; then
set to work with no thought of ambition, or gain,
or pleasure more than is appointed you, but
with a steady determination to do something
for the help or honour of your country, resolv-
ing not to join in the world's iniquities, nor to
turn aside from its miseries. Live thus, and
believe that with a swiftness of answer pro-
portionate to the truth of your endeavour the
God of hope will fill you with all peace and joy.
But if you have not courage nor art enough to
make the trial, if you allow yourselves to be
hindered by the wishes of your friends, or the
interest of your families, or the bias of your
genius, or the expectations of your college, or
any other bow-wow-wow of this wild dog of a
world, then for very shame give up all title to
be free or independent, and recognize yourselves
for the slaves you are, with your thoughts put
in ward to j^our bodies, and your hearts bound
in manacles to your hands ; then, for very
shame, if you cannot believe that there were
once men who gave their souls to God, know
and confess how surely there are those who sell
themselves to His adversaries."

234 APPENDIX

Lecture III.

"The Confessor to Cceur-de-Lion :
THE Pleasures of Deed."

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 3rd, 1S84.)

Thf. 3rd chapter of Mr. Ruskin's history dif-
fered from the other two in not having been
completely written out when the time came for
the dehvery of the lecture last Saturday. The
work had been interfered with, it seems, partly
by a visit from a Birmingham gentleman — the
trustee of St. George's Guild — and partly by a
dinner with " my dear Professor Westwood,"
both of which events, it will be seen, suggested
happy thoughts which Mr. Ruskin had not time
to full}' work in. So, again, the historical ex-
tracts required for the illustration of his lectures
were on this occasion curtailed, because " the
University insists on building ball-rooms instead
of lecture-rooms, and I do not care to keep
you further imprisoned in this black hole."
The following abstract, however, will perhaps
give a general idea of Mr, Ruskin's line of
argument : —

Saxons versus Normans.

In his first two lectures he had given some
reasons for doubting whether our Sa.xon ances-
tors were as fantastic and childish as Dean

"the pleasures of England:" 1S84. 235

Stanley represents them. He now went a step
farther, and showed that there was such force
in their infancy and grace in their fantasy as
to make extremely disputable the Dean's final
statement that the Norman invasion was entirely
a sanitary, moral, and intellectual blessing to
England, and that the arrow which struck her
Harold was indeed the arrow of the Lord's
deliverance. Was the rule of the Norman really
" the avenging, civilizing, stimulating hand of
a mightier race"? and did the future of the
Saxons indeed depend on the critical advent of
the didactic and disciplinary Norman barons
to polish them, stimulate, and chastise ? One
thing, at least, Mr. Ruskin's audience would,
after his last lecture, be ready, perhaps, to admit,
and that was that the Saxon character, with its
imagination, its docility, its love of knowledge,
gave rise to one of the purest and most intel-
lectual forms of faith that Christendom has ever
seen. It has, however, never been understood
— partly because of the rudeness of its expres-
sion in the illumination of manuscripts, and its
total want of expression in architecture, but
chiefly from its own childlike character, and its
fearless application of great principles to small
things.

Nurman Religion : tlir GosjkI of Works.

Just as this faith was springing to its fruit-
age comes the Norman invasion. How far this
was an advantage may be seen far better by

236 APPENDIX II.

considering Alfred's struggle against the \'ikings
than Harold's against William, whose Normans
had been touched bj- Christianity. They had
been touched, but that is all ; for the first thing
to notice about the Normans is that they never
were Christians, nor ever tried to be, but only
enemies of the Saracens. For detailed know-
ledge about the Normans, between 800 -x.d.
and 1200, Mr. Ruskin referred to the scattered
notices in M. VioUet le Due's Dictionary of
Architecture — the best informed, most intelli-
gent, and most thoughtful of guides — and con-
tented himself with gathering up the general
results. One needful caution, by the wa}', Mr.
Ruskin interposed to his erudite critics : rough
generalizations of four centuries in so many
minutes must not be understood without excep-
tions or taken an pied dc la Icltrc. As he read
them, these Normans were men wholly of this
world, bent on doing the most in it and making
the best of it they could — men of deeds to their
death, never pausing, changing, repenting, or
anticipating more than the completetl square of
their keep and roof of their nave. In religion
they cared neither for its sentiments nor its
promises, but they adopted it solely as an in-
strument of order. Their attitude was thus the
exact reverse of that of the modern believer, of
whom it may be generally said that he values
religion as promising future bliss, not as enforc-
ing present duty. The Norman searches the
Scriptures, adopts every exhortation to do and
govern, and proclaims himself blunt knight of

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1S84. 23/

God— liable to much misapprehension, of course,
as to the services immediately required of him,
but supposing, since the whole make of him,
outside and in, was a soldier, that God meant
him for a soldier, and that he was to establish
by main force the Christian faith and works all
over the world, so far as he comprehended them ;
not with the Mohammedan indignation against
spiritual error, but with a sound and honest
soul's dislike of material error, and resolution
to extinguish that, even if perchance found in
the spiritual persons to whom, in their office, he
yet rendered total reverence.

Norman Art : the Rule of Strength.

So, too, in art, the Normans make no books
of their churches, write no " Bibles of Amiens "
on their porches. As soon as they entered
France —

" They became hardy and active builders. Within
the space of a century and a half they had covered
the country on which they had definitely landed with
religious, monastic, and civil edifices, of an extent and
richness then little common. They set themselves to
build impregnable military walls, and sublime rehgious
ones, in the best possible practical ways. Soldiers
before and after everything, they learned the lockings
and bracings of their stones primarily in defence against
the battenng-ram and the projectile, and esteemed the
pure circular arch for its distributed and equal strength
more than for its beauty."

The pictured wall belongs not to the Normans.
And here came in— brought, we may suppose,

238 APPENDIX 11.

by " Fors Clavigera" — a very happy illustration,
suggested by Mr. Ruskin's Birmingham friend,
Mr. Baker. Mr. Ruskin was showing him, only
the daj' before, the collection of antique casts
which Mr. W. B. Richmond had so wisely
brought to supersede " the modern stuff of
Chantre3%" and on stopping under the Athena
of jEgina Mr. Baker exclaimed, " Hallo ! why,
there's the chopped Norman arch ! " And there,
sure enough (Mr. Ruskin added) it was, and I
had never seen it. The chopped Norman arch
and the fringe in which you 3'oung ladies delight
come alike from the forehead of Athena. Nor
was this all, for on the edge of her cestus Mr.
Ruskin found the foliation which he showed in a
photograph of Poictiers, just as from her peplus
comes the drapery of Rheinis. Mr. Ruskin
gave another interesting instance of the depend-
ence of the Normans on the art of Greece. A
few years ago he went to Sicily to see the tombs
of Roger and of Frederick (cf. p. 84), and to
look at the Norman art he would surely find
there. But not a stroke of the chisel turned
out to belong to the Normans. Their own
masons could not carve, and the tombs of the
Norman kings are the work of Greek slaves.
What the Greeks carved was a lion with
the Gorgon's head — again with the chopped
Norman arch in the fringe ; and what the
Normans themselves made of the Gorgon may
be seen on Iffiey Church. Mr. Ruskin here
showed an enlarged drawing of a grotesque
head — the Gorgon, with long ears, and the face

"the pleasures of England:" 1884. 239

elongated by the Norman helmet— the whole
effect bearing a striking resemblance to Mephis-
topheles, of which gentleman Mr. Ruskin pro-
mised to say more in later lectures.

The Pleasures of Deed— m War.

Both in religion, then, and in art, the plea-
sures of the Normans were those not of faith,
but of deeds. Of these pleasures of deed Mr.
Ruskin gave many illustrations from Sismondi's
" Norman Conquest of Sicily," only " touching
Sismondi up here and there, where he is too
cool, or where he fails to see far enough into
things." Mr. Ruskin referred especially to the
off-hand determination of the Normans in 1041,
that " as they were there they might as well
destroy the Byzantine Empire ; " to the deeds
of Robert Guiscard (so politely described as
" M. Guiscard " by the Daily Nnvs) ; and above
all to the battle of Civitella, on Waterloo Day,
1053, describing how the handful of Normans
routed the Papal forces, and then how Leo
IX. met the Norman army alone, and as he
approached they threw themselves on their
knees, covered themselves with dust, and im-
plored his pardon and his blessing— "a day of
deeds, gentlemen, that, to some purpose, at any
rate. A piece of poetry, too, if you like, but a
piece of steel-clad fact also, compared to which
the battles of Hastings and Waterloo were
mere boys' quarrels. You do not suppose,
you British boys, that you overthrew Napoleon

240 APPENDIX II.

when your Prime Minister folded up the map of
Europe at the thought of him. Not you, but
the snows of Heaven and the acts of Him who
dasheth in pieces with a rod of iron.''

A Defence of Noniiaii " T/iitviiig."

Mr. Ruskin here diverged to meet an objec-
tion which he supposed the extreme probity of
the nineteentii century would feel acutely against
these men — that they all lived by thieving:

Without venturing (said Mr. Ruskin) to allude to the
raison d'etre of the present French and Englisli .Stock
E.xchanges, I will merely ask any of you, whether of
Saxon or Norman blood, to define for yourselves what
you mean by the " possession of hidia." I have no
doubt that you all wish to keep India in order, and in
like manner the Duke William wished to keep England
in order. If you will read the lecture on the life of Sir
Herbert Edwardes* (not Prince Albert Edward, as the
Standard loyally had it), which I hope to give in London
after finishing this course, you will sec how a Cliristian
British ofiicer could, and did verily with his whole Iieart,
keep in order such part of India as might be entrusted
to him, and so doing secured our empire. But the
silent feeling and practice of the nation about India are
based on quite other motives than Sir Herbert's. Every
mutiny, every danger, every terror, and every crime
occurring under or paralyzing our Indian legislation
arises directly out of our national desire to live on the
loot of India ; and the notion of English young gentle-
men and ladies of good position, falling in love with
each other without immediate prospect of establishment
in Belgrave Squaje, that tliey can tind in India, instantly
on landing, a bungalow ready furnished with the loveliest

* Sec "A Knight's Faith," vol. iv. of " Hiljliotlicc.i
Pastorum " (George Allen, 1SS5).

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1 884. 24 1

fans, china, and shavvls, ices and sherbet at command,
four-and-tut-nty slaves succeeding eacli other hourly to
swing the punkah, and a regiment with a beautiful band
to " keep order " outside, all round the house.

The Old Lion and the New.

Mr. Riiskin's peroration had not got itself
written on Saturday afternoon, but thie scorn-
ful moral with which his lectures are wont to
conclude was pointed very effectively by some
pictures instead. The first illustration was the
lucky outcome of his dinner with Professor
Westwood, who had shown him the Bible of
Charles the Bald, the tutor of Alfred. The illu-
minated frontispiece which IVIr. Ruskin showed
is the figure of a true lion, inscribed beneath
with words which run, being interpreted, " This
lion rises, and by his rising breaks the gates
of hell. This lion never sleeps, nor shall sleep
for evermore." Such was the lion as our Saxon
Alfred knew it. For Richard Coeur de Lion
Mr. Ruskin referred his audience to " Fors
Clavigera" (No. 111., March, 1871) and the
later chapters of " Ivanhoe." " Men called him
' Lion-heart,' not untruly ; and the English as a
people have prided themselves somewhat ever
since on having every man of them the heart of
a lion. Many lion-hearted Englishmen there
have been, and are indeed still to this day ; but
for the especial peculiar typical product of the
nineteenth century see this page of Punch."
Mr. Ruskin here displayed in a frame the inside
fold oi Punch for August i6th, 1884, containing

242 APPENDIX II.

on the left-hand page a drawing, by Mr. Du
Maurier, of the different effects of a good din-
ner on two fat old gentlemen, and on the right
a cartoon of Mr. Bright as " The Old Lion
Aroused." Mr. Ruskin had inserted a con-
necting mark between the two pictures, and
christened the whole

" The New Lion Stuffedr

Lecture IV.

" CcEUR DE Lion to Elizabeth :
THE Pleasures of Fancy."

{Pall Mall Gazette, November lotli, 1884.)

Mr. Ruskin's History has been " shoved all
wrong," as he told his audience on Saturday,
by the lucky accidents which he described in
his last lecture. The fourth lecture had to fill
lip some of the gaps in the third, and the result
is that the History is getting a good deal behind
date. No one need complain, however, since
the result is that Mr. Ruskin has now promised
some further lectures to supplement the present
course, as well as a special one on Giorgione,
with a description of whose altar-jiiece at Cas-
tel Franco Saturday's miscellany was, as will
be seen lower down, brought to an elociucnt
conclusion.

'the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1884. 243

" The Five Chrisliiias Days."

The first gap in his last lecture which Mr.
Ruskin filled up on Saturday was an enumer-
ation of the " Five Christmas Days " which, as
it happens, sum up the history of five centuries.
These dates were written down on a diagram
which hung conspicuously on the wall behind
the lecturer, and are as follows : Christmas
Day 496, Clovis baptized ; 800, Charlemagne
crowned ; 1041, the Vow of the Count of Aversa
(the settlement of the Normans, near Naples,
whose vow was referred to in the last lecture) ;
1066, the Conqueror crowned ; 1 130, Roger II.
crowned King of the Two Sicihes. These
Christmas Days will be referred to in later lec-
tures, said Mr. Ruskin, in connection with the
way in which you keep Christmas Days now.

An Ideal Election.

The filling up of another gap was also a
correction. In the last lecture I gave you
incidentally (said Mr. Ruskin) what was, in my
opinion, extremely good advice— namely, never
to make a shot at anything, neither at a word
—no, nor at a bird. I was the better qualified
to give that sage advice because I was at the
moment making a shot myself at the name of
the Venetian Doge who was defeated by Robert
Guiscard. I thought at the time it was Pietro
Orseolo, but I now remember that it was

244 APPENDIX II.

Domenico Selvo. Taking this slip apparently
as an accident sent by " Fors," Mr. Ruskin
proceeded to saj' some more about this great
Doge, reading from the chapter entitled " Divine
Right," in "St. Mark's Rest "—a chapter which
was always meant, Mr. Ruskin said, for a lecture,
since much of its meaning depended on accent.
It describes how the people of Venice went in
armed boats to the Lido, and prayed that " God
would grant to them such a king as should be
worthy to reign over them ; " and how suddenl}',
as thc}^ prayed, there rose up with one accord
among the multitude the cry, " Domenico Selvo,
we will, and we approve." Carlyle has given
you a description of a grand election in that of
the Abbof Samson, but this is a grander still.
The chapter then goes on to tell how Domenico
entered barefoot the Field of St. Mark (all
covered with green grass then), how he gave
the people pillage of his palace ("modern bribery
is quite as costly and not half so merry "),
and how he afterwards took a Greek maid for
his wife, whose luxur}', especiallj' in the use of
"certain two-pronged instruments" wherewith
to eat her meat, was miraculous in the eyes of
simple Venice, but whose reign "first gave the
glories of Venetian art, in true inheritance from
the angels, of that Athenian Rock above which
Ion spread his starry tapestiy, and under whose
shadow his mother had gathered the crocus in
the dew."

"the pleasures of EiNGLAND : " 1 884. 245

A Digression.

The mention of " Ion " led Mr. Ruskin into a
little digression about the violet, for Euripides' , ^ ■ i

violet was the viohi odomta of pure blue, the n^'.ht/ ULi^^M-^ j-

Jh'ur-dc-lis of Byzantine ornament. Gathering '^^.^o Ja^ u

it at its home at Palermo long ago, said Mr.

Ruskin, I matched it against the "violet sea," ..■^■Si u,j^ J'^ i^e-j
and could no^ tell which was which. Here are m^^^ ■ ^^ '' "^^
my drawings of the sea and of the flower. I ii. ir

have given you in the Turner Gallery, here in '^ L^^r-c-'i

Oxford, his rendering of the Mediterranean Sea
— more skilful in its eiTect of haze than mine,
but mine, I think, a little more true in colour;
at any rate I put all the colour in my box on it.
It is a picture of what spring grass is like — in
Sicily you cannot say whether it is green or
blue, pure white in Florence and in France, and
gold here on Isis banks, till your horrible races
came and embanked the stream, and the noisy
crowds of you trampled the flowers.

^^Imagination" and "Fancy."

Returning now " to business," Mr. Ruskin
gave a preliminary definition of what he meant
by imagination. " In ' Modern Painters ' 1 dis-
tinguished unnecessarily between fancy and
imagination. Dean Stanley's word ' fantasy '
is accurate for both, fancy being concerned with
lighter things. When a boy falls foolishly in
love with a girl you say he has taken a fancy

<»a-i

246 APPENDIX II.

for her ; but if he loves her rightly, that is to
say for her noble qualities, you ought to say he
has taken an imagination for her ; for then he
is endowed with the new light of love, which
sees and tells of the mind in her. And not
falsely or vainly. Wordsworth, indeed, says of
his wife, most foolishly and conceitedly —

• .Such if thou wert in all men's view,
An univt:rsal show,
What would my fancy have to do.
My feelings to bestow ? '

thus making of her a mere lay figure for the
drapery of his fancy. But the true lover's love
discovers, not bestows— discovers what is most
precious in his mistress, and what works most
deeply for his life and hajipiness. Day by day,
as he lo\es her better, he discerns her more
truly."

"Imagination" and " Trtit/i."

"The truth and faith of the lover are the
foundation of all the joy in imagination, that is
to say in truths of configuration. When in my
next lecture I speak of the pleasures of truth 1
mean untransfigured truth, whereas what the
imagination exercises itself upon is configured
truth. Thus, you may look at a girl until she
seems to you an angel, because, at best, all girls
are angels; but no amount of looking at a cock-
chafer will convert it into a girl. The conse-
quences of the frank and eager use of the fancy

"the pleasures of England:" 1884. 247

on religious subjects are to be seen in the
change from the ' three whale's cubs ' to the
perfect t3'pes of the Virgin and Son — Divine,
because, with most affectionate truth, human.
This apotheosis by the imagination is the sub-
ject of the present lecture : to-day I only de-
scribe it ; in the next lecture I shall discuss it."

Mythic and Real Saints.

An important distinction is to be noted in
the objects of this apotheosis, according as they
are, or are not, real persons. The first class in-
cludes the mythic saints, who are often merely
revived Pagan deities ; the second includes
men and women who really lived, but whose
memories are illumined by tradition. The
mythic saints belong chiefly to the southern
races ; the Goths have their saints of flesh and
blood, and in all the art by Loire and Seine you
will never find either river personified. The
ideal Charity of Giotto at Padua tramples upon
bags of gold, gives only corn and flowers, while
God's angel gives her, not even these, but a
heart. The Charity on the west porch of
Amiens clothes a beggar with the staple manu-
facture of the town. Under the former exercise
of the imagination the lion personifies the
Evangelists ; an angel, justice ; and some per-
sonification is found for every Platonic myth
and Athanasian article.

248 APPENDIX II.

77?^ Glorious Company of Saints.

Mr. Ruskin then went through some of the
saints, whose glorious company was one of
the pleasures of imagination — speaking first of
St. Sophia, the pacific and scholastic ghost of
Athena ; and of St. Catherine of Egypt, of whom
there are some vestiges of personality, and who
may possibly have existed. However that may
be — witty, proud, fanciful^ — she is the bride in
Solomon's Song, combining the purest life of
the nun with the brightest death of a martyr.
St. Barbara of Egypt — confined, like Danae, in
a tower (inc/usaiii Daiiai'ii liirris an/fa) - is of
all saints the most practical, the personification
of the art of building ; not a pillar in Giotto's
Santa Maria del Fiore, as Mr. Ruskin says of
her in " Ethics of the Dust," which Athena did
not set true by her spear-shaft as it rose ; and
her tower is the perfected symbol of Gothic
architecture. She is protectress against light-
ning, and the first to hear the petition in the
Litany against sudden death. The later legends,
connecting her with cannon and gunpowder —
with attack instead of defence — are a base cor-
ruption ; and no doubt we shall have her next
as the figure-head of an ironclad. St. Margaret
of Antioch — the Genevieve of the East, winning
a soul's victory like Alcestis — is the type of all
meekness and gentleness, the pattern of all
gracious and lowly womanhood. Of St. Cecilia
I may say — like the carter in Miss Edgeworth's

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1884. 249

" Harry and Lucy," who refuses to believe the
story of the upset till he hears the name of the
hill where it took place — that a visit to her
Church in Rome establishes the legend of her.
She is of course the patron saint of music, but
her true note is not so often insisted upon. In
a manuscript dated 1290, in Mr. Ruskin's pos-
session — " I have selfishly kept it in my own
house, but it shall go to your schools now " —
there is this story of St. Cecilia told : While
the organs were playing Cecilia sang to the
Lord, that He would keep her heart in purity.
" We have hardly so clear a notion of the bap-
tizing, purifying power of music now, and St.
Cecilia's presence at a Monday Pop would be
as little expected as desired." Of all the mythic
saints she is the greatest, and all who strive to
purify themselves by fireside or wayside may
hear Cecilia sing. For St. Ursula Mr. Ruskin
referred to "Fors Clavigera ; " and of the second
class of saints, who really lived, he only enu-
merated, taking their French names from St.
Louis's Psalter, Magdalen, Genevieve, Scholas-
tica, Agatha, Felicitas, Christina, Honorine,
Euphemia, Eugenia. Of Magdalen alone Mr.
Ruskin made one remark, that any woman,
whatever her position, who sells herself for
money is a harlot, while Magdalen is the type
of those for whom the guilt of others around
them have " taken away my Christ ; I know
not where they have laid Him."

250 APPENDIX II.

Figures of the Saints.

Mr. Riiskin then passed to a second pleasure
of iniaginatk n — not any longer that of exalting
the memory of dead persons, but that of set-
ting up their images and investing them with
sa^ctit3^ " Fors Clavigera" came in the form
of a letter from Miss Alexander ("Francesca"),
to clench this matter with an illustration from
modern Italian life. In this letter Miss Alex-
ander describes the Madonna whom she saw
enshrined in an orphanage as a stout heavy
person in impossible drapery — much improved
of late in cleanliness, if not in beauty or sanctity,
by a coating of white oil paint. One of the
girls had given her a rose, another a set of ear-
rings. " I pierced the ears myself," added the
Lady Superior, " with a gimlet." There, said
Mr. Ruskin, jou have the perfection of child-
like imagination — making everything out of
nothing.*

Giorgione and Tiiitorct.

Of Saturday's lecture a written peroration
was again wanting, and the conclusion of the
whole matter was shown instead in tw'o pictures

* The letter from Franccsca referred to above will be
found in ch. 3 of vol. i. of "Christ's l"olk in the Apennine"
(George Allen, 1887), where Mr. Ruskin says of the
Madonna story, " There is no passage in all these histories
which claims from the general reader more tender and
loving attention, or in reading which he ought to repent
more solemnly of light thought and scornful mood, or to
remember with mure shame the ieonoclasm of Churches
that had neither sense nor charity."

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1884. 25I

— "the two most perfect pictures in the world."
One was a small piece from Tintoret's Paradise
in the Ducal Palace, representing the group
of St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St.
Augustine, and behind St. Augustine " his
mother watching him, her chief joy in Paradise."
There was some little movement of laughter
among the audience as Mr. Ruskin found that
he had placed the sketch upside down. But it
is little matter, he added, for in Tintoret's Para-
dise you have heaven all round you — a work of
pure imagination, and that, too, by a dyer's son
in Venice. The other picture was the Arundel
Society's reproduction (" a Society which has
done more for us than we have any notion of")
of the altar-piece by Giorgione, in his native
hamlet of Castel Franco. " No picture in the
world can show you better the seeing and real-
izing imagination of Christian painters. Gior-
gione in no wise intends you to suppose that
the Madonna ever sat thus on a pedestal with
a coat of arms upon it, or that St. George and
St. Francis ever stood, or do now stand, in that
manner beside her ; but that a living Venetian
may, in such vision, most deeply and rightly
conceive of her and of them. As such this
picture is alone in the world, as an imaginative
representation of Christianity, with a monk and
a soldier on either side, the soldier bearing the
white cross of everlasting peace on the purple
ground of former darkness."

It would appear (said the Pall Mall Gazette

252 APPENDIX II.

by way of supplement to the above report), from
one of the incidental passages of autobiography
in Mr. Ruskin's lecture on Saturday', that he is
as much a victim of the demon of noise as
was his master Carlyle. Among other passages
which he read was one from Carlyle's " Frede-
rick the Great," in which it is told how Adalbert,
Bishop of Prague, was sleeping by the road-side
when " a Bohemian shepherd chanced to pass
that way, warbling something on his pipe,
as he wended towards looking after his flock ;
and seeing the sleeper on his stone pillow, the
thoughtless Czech mischievously blew louder."
Adalbert awoke, and shrieked in his fury,
" Deafness on thee, man cruel to the human
sense of hearing ! " — or words to that effect.
The curse was punctuall}' fulfilled, and the
fellow was deaf for the rest of his life. What
a pity, said Mr. Raskin, that you have no Bishop
Adalbert in Oxford ! You think yourselves very
musical, with your twiddlings and fiddlings of
organs after service, but you allow " that beastly
hooter " to wake me every morning, and so to
make life among you intolerable in these days.

Lecture V.

" Protestantism : tme Pleasures of Truth."

{Pall Mall Gazette, November 17th, 1884.)

The space in the history of Christianity covered
by the present lecture cannot, Mr. Ruskin began

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" I884. 253

by saying on Saturday, be defined by the reigns
of any particular kings or queens, because the
movement with which it is concerned takes
place at different times, in different countries.
He could only define it, therefore, by its cha-
racter, calling it the period of Protestantism,
including the two movements known severally
in history as the Reformation and the Revo-
lution.

The Rcjonnation and the Revolution.

Every country passes through one Reforma-
tion and one Revolution — reformation, when it
bears witness for spiritual truth against manifest
falsehood ; revolution, when it secures the rights
of the subjects from tyranny. Of the Refor-
mation in all countries and times, John Knox
is the perfect symbol (" or, if you will, Luther ;
but I like Knox better "); and of the Revolution,
John Hampden — the former saying, "I won't
be cheated in religion ; " the latter, " I won't be
taxed in my pockets." " Sometimes, indeed, the
Protestant fights against untruth and taxation
together, and then you have the Protestant
squire ; just as sometimes the Catholic fights for
lies and taxes together, and then you have the
Catholic squire. In Scott the representatives
of the two kinds of Protestantism are Jeanie
Deans of the first, and Major Bridgenorth, in
' Peveril of the Peak,' of the other. I refer to
Scott," said Mr. Ruskin, " now and always, for
historical illustration, because he is far and

254 APPENDIX II.

a\va\' the best writer of history we have. Our
only historians (ordinarily so called) are Carlyle,
Froude, and Helps, but none of them can see
all round a thing as Scott does. Froude does
not even know whether he is a Catholic or a
Protestant ; Carlyle is first the one, and then
the other ; while Helps is deficient because he
never understands Catholicism at all."

The Beauty of Protcstantisnt.

Protestantism (continued Mr. Ruskin) is still
in the ascendant, but we Catholics think that
the day will yet come when we shall again see
visions of things that are not as though they
were, and even be able, like Edward the Con-
fessor, to tax the people in a tenth of their
possessions to build a beautiful church, with a
weathercock upon it, to rise above the filth of
nasty London. All the beauty of Protestantism
is embodied in two great masters — Scott for
English literature, Gotthelf for Continental (not
Goethe, as the Slaiuiaid had it) — in Scott, in
the character of Jeanie Deans; in Gotthelf, in
" Ulric, the Farm Servant." The latter stoiy,
which Mr. Ruskin said some time ago he meant
to add to " Bibliotheca Pastorum," his series
of classical books for the St. George's Library,
has been translated from the German by one
of his " best lady pujjils," and was published
recently. Notiiing can be more perfect or com-
plete, Mr. Ruskin said, as a representation of
the good side of Protestantism.

'the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1SS4. 255

The Beauty of Catliolicisin — in Turner.

Leaving the beauty of Protestantism, the
pleasures of truth, to the description of them
in these two novels, Mr. Ruskin himself turned
to the other side of the question, and proposed
to show rather the narrowness of its rigid truth
in comparison with the beauty of the spectral
phenomena in which Catholicism delights. For
this purpose he had brought with him two
pictures — one by Turner, the other a copy from
Carpaccio. The Turner was a large water-
colour drawing, measuring somewhere about
20 inches by 15 inches, in his early or brown
period, of a stream and a grove. " There,"
said Mr. Ruskin, pointing to it, "is a spectral
grove for you, the very eSxxtkov of a grove.
There never was such a grove or such a stream.
You may photograph every grove in the world,
and never will you get so ghostly a one as this.
I cannot tell 3'ou where it is ; I can only swear
to you that it never existed anywhere except
in Turner's head. It is the very best Turner
drawing I ever saw of his heroic period, the
period in which he painted the ' Ciarden of
the Hesperides' (Nat. Gal., No. 477 — exhibited
1806) and 'Apollo Killing the Python' (No.
488 — exhibited 181 1). I picked it up by pure
chance, the other day, in the shop of my friend
Mr. Sewening, of Duke Street, St. James's, to
whose excellent judgment, by the way, I now
refer any pictures which are sent to me to
verify. He thought it might be a Turner, and

256 APPENDIX II.

asked me ^40 for it. I was sure it was, and
gave him 50 guineas, and I now present it to
your gallery at Oxford, to be an idol to you, I
hope, for evermore."

In Carpaccio's " S(. Ursula."

" And here," added Mr. Ruskin, turning to
the other picture, "is an idol of a girl." This
was a copy of the head in Carpaccio's " Dream
of St. Ursula," the picture of which Mr. Ruskin
has written so much in " Fors Clavigera "
and his Venetian guide-books, and which was
largel}' referred to, by the way, by Mr. Wing-
field, in the recent revival of " Romeo and
Juliet " at the Lyceum, for the details of a
Venetian interior : —

" There never was such a face as hers in the world.
Take the sweetest you can find in your college gardens,
and none will be so sweet. Nor in any Phyllis that
you know will you find such twisted hair as hers —
twisted, like that of all Venetian girls, in memory of the
time when they first made their hair into ropes for the
fugitive ships at Aquilcia. You will never see such
hair, nor such peace beneath it on the brow — the peace of
heaven, of infancy, and of death. No one knows who
she is or where she lived. She is Persephone at rest
below the earth ; she is Proserpine at play above the
ground. She is Ursula, the gentlest yet the rudest of
little bears ; a type in that, perhaps, of the moss rose,
or of the rose sphiosissiiiiii, with its rough little buds.
She is in England, in Cologne, in Venice, in Rome, in
eternity, living everywhere, dying everywhere, the
most intangible yet the most practical of all saints,
cpieen, for one thing, of female education, when once
her legend is rightly understood. This sketch of her

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1884. 257

liead is the best drawing I ever made. Carpaccio's
picture is liung, like all good pictures, out of sight,
seven feet above the ground ; but the Venetian Academy
had it taken down for me, and I traced every detail in
it accurately to a hair's breadth. It took me a day's
hard work to get that spray of silver hair loosening
itself rightly from the coil, and twelve times over had I
to trj' the mouth. And to-day, assuming Miss .Shaw
Lefevre's indulgence, I present it to the girls of Somer-
ville Hall. Perhaps the picture of a princess's room,
of which it is a part, may teach the young ladies there
not to make their rooms too pretty — to remember that
they come to O.xford to be uncomfortable and to suffer
a little — to learn whatever can be learnt in Oxford,
which is not much, and even to live little Ursulas, in
rough gardens, not on lawns made smooth for tennis."

" The Wooden Walls of England."

Such is the lesson of the legend of St. Ursula ;
and now (continued Mr. Ruskin), I must tell
you somewhat of a Doge of Venice who lived
by the light of superstitions such as this, a
Catholic and a brave man withal, Cattolico uomo
c atidace, " the servant of God and of St.
Michael." To avoid mistakes to-day and
corrections to-morrow, Mr. Ruskin craved per-
mission to read again from his Venetian hand-
book, " St. Mark's Rest," which had always
been meant for reading, and had now been
retouched.

The longest of these new touches was sug-
gested by "The Truth about the Navy," which
Mr. Ruskin had been reading, he said, in the
Pall Mall Gazette; from which he gathered
that the British people having spent several

258 APPENDIX II.

hundreds of millions on blowing iron bubbles —
" the earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and
these are of them" — would soon be busy blowing
more. Nothing could be more tragically absurd
than the loss of the Captain and the London, un-
less it were the loss of the Eurydicc — without her
Orpheus then. There was nothing the matter,
except that Governments were donkeys enough
to build in iron instead of wood, just in order
that the ironmongers might get their commis-
sions. They were honest enough, these Go-
vernments, but they allowed the ironmongers
to work them round like screws. Whoever
heard of a Venetian man-of-war going over ?
A gale was nothing at all to a wooden ship ;
Venice would have laughed at it, rejoiced in it.
They never heard of a Venetian being upset or
making for the shore. Why ? Because they
had been broken in to the life of the rough sea.
" You think that you know what boating is ;
but why don't you practise in the open sea, as
the Venetians did, instead of spoiling the Isis,
here ? " But with the London, she was crossing
the Ba}' of Bisca}' when it got a little rough ;
the wind blew the bulwarks down, and down
the ship went bodily-. The only grand thing
connected with it was that the captain, looking
over the bulwarks as the last boat was launched,
gave the crew their latitude, and saitl he would
go down with his ship, and he did. Mr. Ruskin
had no patience, in face of disasters like those
of the London and the Captain, with the talk all
about our splendid British seamanship. It was

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" I884. 259

bombastic English blarney — not Irish, for there
was always wit in an Irish bull, but only a
double blunder in an English one — all that talk
about sweeping the fleets of all other nations off
the seas. You went under Napier and knocked
your heads against Cronstadt, and Cronstadt
cared no more for you than if you had been a
flight of swallows or sparrows. Then you went
and knocked your heads against Sebastopol ;
and, in spite of all the lies in the newspapers,
every one knew that the British fleet had been
thoroughly well licked. And now you have
been bombarding Alexandria, and narrowly
escaped being done for by a few Arabs. So
much for the proud supremacy of the British
navy and its ironclads.* They might say that
all this was irrelevant ; but there was no finer art

* "Mr. Ruskin" (wrote the Pall Mall Gazette), "like the
rest of the world, is fully alive (as will be seen from the
report of his lecture in another column) to the Truth about
the Navy, and to the loss of our vaunted supremacy on the
sea. We can hardly agree with him, however, that every-
thing would again be right if we only got rid of the
'ironmongers' and their ' bubbles,' and sent the mariners
of England to meet the Navies of the world in row-boats.
As for IWr. Ruskin's version of the truth about Protes-
tantism, which was the main subject of his lecture, it will
be interesting to see what the Rock, say, will make of it.
The Catholic community in Oxford must apparently have
been forewarned of IVIr. Ruskin's conversion to their party,
for there was an important deputation of them in the front
seats on Saturday afternoon, and very pretty it was to see
them cheering the winged words of their fiery ally. Every
one who knows Mr. Ruskin's earlier works will remember
how he was brought up by the strictest sect of Protestant
Evangelicalism. In his old age he ought to serve as a
terrible example to Protestant mothers."

260 APPENDIX II.

than ship-building, and they would find that out
when he set them to draw ships ; they were
onl}- drawing shells now. Even a draughtsman
could not draw two sides of a ship alike ; no-
bod)- but Turner ever did. The}' might say one
of the subjects forbidden to him was political
economy ; but that subject, too, would be forced
on them all pretty soon. For when all the pre-
sent ships were destroyed the new ones would
also go " snap " in like fashion.

The Nclsoit of Venice : a Catholic and Brave
Man.

The chapter from which Mr. Ruskin was
reading when this parenthesis came in is the
one entitled " The Burden of Tyre," and tells
the story of Domenico Michicl, the Nelson of
Venice, the doge who brought back in 1 1 26,
from his wars against the Saracens, the famous
pillars of the Piazzetta. Besides them, he
brought the dead bodies of St. Donate and St.
Isidore ; for the Venice of his day was intensely
covetous, not only of mone\', though she loved
that too, nor of kingdom, nor of pillars of marble
and granite, but "also and quite principally of
the relics of good people, of their dust to dust,
ashes to ashes." He himself lies buried behind
the altar of the church of St. Giorgio Maggiore,
and on his tomb there was this inscription
written, " Whoever thou art, who comest to
behold this tomb of his, bow thyself down
before God because of him."

THE PLEASURES OF ENGLAND:" 1884. 261

Tivo Types of Protestant Witness.

That (said Mr. Ruskin) is the feeling of all
" Old Catholics " in the presence of a shrine ;
they worship not the hero or the saint, but " God
because of him." Against all this comes the
witness of Protestantism, partly honest, partly
hypocritical, with good knowledge of a few minor
things, but ignorant hatred of all above and
beyond itself Here I have for you a type of
the honest but not liberally minded Protestant
(said Mr. Ruskin), disclosing a sketch of a little
porker. The little pig walks along, you see,
knowing every inch of its ground, having in its
snout a capital instrument for grubbing up
things. You may be shocked, perhaps, at my
selection of this animal for the type of a religious
sect ; but if you could but realize all the beau-
tiful things which the insolence of Protestant-
ism has destroyed, you would think surely
the Gadarene swine too good for it. But my
illustration is, at any rate, appropriate as signifi-
cant of the Protestant and Evangelical art which
can draw a pig to perfection, but never a pretty
lady. Mr. Ruskin then passed on to the hypo-
critical Protestant, and produced as the type of
him a sketch in black and white of a truly
repulsive Mr. Stiggins with a concertina.

The Heroic Ideal.

These two sketches were to illustrate the
religious ghostly ideal. The heroic ideal was

262 APPENDIX II.

illustrated from poetrj'. The faith in human
honour, taking the place of the faith in religion,
which is the groundwork of this ideal, passes
into the noble pride of the true knight ; and it
is when this noble pride passes into malignant
pride that the Revolution comes. Of the true
knight, the perfect type is Douglas in the " Ladj'
of the Lake." " No one reads Scott now (Mr.
Ruskin here parentheticallj' remarked), and 1 am
going to send his poems and novels by the gross
to classes in our elementary schools — not for
prizes to be awarded by competition, but to be
given to any boy or girl who is good and likes
to read poetry. I should like to see the children
draw lots for the books, and the one who wins
not keep the book, but have the right of giving
it away — a very subtle little moral lesson."
Mr. Ruskin then read some stanzas from the
fifth canto of " The Lady of the Lake," describ-
ing the burghers' sports before King James at
Stirling, the classical passage in Scott corre-
sponding to the games in Virgil. The passage
is typical, too, of that association with his dog,
his horse, and his falcon which is a mark of
the knight, the clown being one who cannot
keep these animals, or does not know how to
use them. It was very bad of Douglas, you
may think, to knock a man down for the sake
of a dog — a creature that we should think
nothing of torturing nowadays for a month to
find out the cause of a pimple on our ow^i
red noses. Mr. Ruskin then went on to the
stanzas which he wished all who cared to

"the pleasures of ENGLAND:" 1884. 263

please him at once to learn by heart, the
stanzas in which

" With grief the noble Douglas saw
The commons rise against the law ; "

and bade them hear

" Ere yet for me
Ye break the bands of fealty."

[The remaining lectures of this course on
" The Pleasures oi' England " were not delivered,
for reasons explained at the beginning of the
next Appendix.]

APPENDIX HI.

A Lecture on "Patience."

{Pall Mall Gazette, November 24th, 18S4.)

No better proof can be given of Mr. Ruskin's
popularity at Oxford than the fact that he played
off a practical joke on the five hundred people
who crowded the Museum theatre to hear him
on Saturday afternoon, and yet aroused no per-
ceptible resentment. They had all come — an
hour before the time, too, many of them — to
hear the sixth of his appointed course of lectures
on the " Pleasures of England ; " but he straight-
way announced that this lecture would be post-
poned till Monday week, and meanwhile he
proposed to read them a little essay on Patience.
The innocent joke, it should at once be said,
was not altogether of Mr. Ruskin's own devis-
ing. The remaining lectures of the proper
course were ready, but pressure had been
brought to bear upon him to suppress or recast
them. The details of these lectures had so far
" fluttered the dovecots of the vivisectionists "
tiiat there had even been threats of the inter-
vention of a Board of Studies, and of the

A LECTURE ON "PATIENCE." 265

incarceration of their single-handed antagonist.*
Why they were so much afraid of his discussing
the pleasures of sense he really could not think.
All the beautiful things he had showed them in
religious art appealed to the pleasure of sense.
Every religious child is happy ; and all religion,
if it is true, is beautiful ; it is only sham religion
— the habit, for instance, of excessive mourning
for the dead — and vice that are ugly. When
they heard the lecture they would see that he
was only going to point out to them some new
and innocent ways of enjoying themselves.

The unkind critics who had caused all this
confusion were — so it was said in O.xford — Mr.
Macdonald and Dr. Acland. Mr. Ruskin had
taken their rebuke meekly ; but if it was on
behalf of science that Dr. Acland was afraid,
Mr. Ruskin clearly means to have his revenge.
For in the meanwhile he promised to give a
scientific lecture (see Appendi.\ IV.) ; and Mr.
Ruskin's scientific lectures do not greatly please
the recognized professors of science. " I shall
not tell you," Mr. Ruskin said, "how long a
bird's larynx is, for I don't know and I don't

* Writing from Oxford on December 1st, 1SS4, to Miss
Beever, Mr. Ruskin said, " I gave my fourteenth, and last
for this year, lecture this afternoon, with vigour and effect
(/.('. the Lecture on Birds, Appendix IV.), and am safe and
well (D.G.), after such a spell of work as I never did before.
1 have been thrown a week out in all my plans, by having
to write two new lectures, instead of those the University
was frightened at. The scientists slink out of my way
now, as if I were a mad dog, for I let them have it hot
and hearty whenever I've a chance at them" ("Hortus
Inclusus," p. 87).

266 APPENDIX in.

care, but I can tell you something about its sing-
ing. I can tell you about its feathers, but not
what is underneath its skin. Whj', I went into
3'our museum to find an Abyssinian kingfisher
— the classical halcj-on — but there was only one,
hidden in a dark corner, and that not a good
enough specimen to draw. A very sad thing
that, and even sadder that they should pack
away the skins of the birds in drawers in ' stink-
ing camphor.' In the British Museum, however,
you can now for the first time see birds poised,
and how they fly. I told Dr. Giinthcr,* the
Keeper of Zoology (in the second chapter of
' Love's Meinie,' for example), and he's now
telling you." Next Saturday, Mr. Ruskin added,
I shall do a little more "peacocking" before
you, and am going to show you some practical
experiments — with the help of the Baliiol College
cook — of glaciers and glacier motion. Here,

* Referring to the above report, Mr. Ruskin wrote to the
Pa/l Ma// Gazelle S.S follows : "84, Woodstock Road, O.xford,
Nos'embcr 25th. — Sir, — Again thanking you for the general
care and fulness of your reports, permit me to correct the
sentence referring to the head of the Zoological Department
in the British Museum, as it is given in your account of my
lecture on Saturday. I said that in ' Love's Meinie ' I had for
the first time explained to my Oxford pupils how birtls tlew,
and that now Dr. Giinthcr had beautifully .sVio.cj; the birds
of England to us all, in the perfect action of Hying. Hut 1
never said I had ' told Dr. Giinther ' anything. Everything
he has so beaiitifully done has been his own bettering of
what had been begun by Mr. Gould ; it fulfils, or supersedes,
much of what I meant to attempt at .Shefiield, and leaves
me, 1 am thankful to say, more free to my proper work
here. Dr. Giinthcr continually tells itte things, in all sorts
of kind ways, but I never told, or coii/r/ have told, him any-
thing. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant, J. Ruskin. "

A LECTURE ON " PATIENCE." 267

again, Mr. Ruskin has an old quarrel, as every
one knows, with the men of science.

The prospect of these two dainty dishes
should itself have made the lesson of patience
easier. As Mr. Ruskin told the girls in the
" Ethics of the Dust," there was obviously no
reason why his audience, because they were the
richer by the expectation of playing at a new
game — of having two new lectures thrown in —
should make themselves unhappier than when
they had nothing to look forward to but the old
ones. And then, even when the little lecture
itself began, Mr. Ruskin often stopped from his
reading to throw sugar-plums to his pupils.
Were there any of them courting, for instance ?
Then his advice was to continue it as long as
possible. " Young people nowadays do not
enjoy their courtship half enough ; it really
becomes nicer and nicer the longer it lasts.
Besides, you are all sure to find fault with your
wives when you marry them ; it is only during
courtship that they are entirely faultless and
seraphic ; and why not keep them so as long
as you can ? " Then there was a little critical
squib, apropos of a citation of Keats's phrase,
" human serpentry." " Read as much Keats
as possible, and no Shelley. Shelley, with due
admiration, notwithstanding, for his genius, is
entirely mischievous, Keats entirely innocent
and amusing." As for the little essay on
Patience itself, it consisted of readings, with
occasional self-criticism, from the " Cestus of
Aglaia " and " St. Mark's Rest." The " Cestus

268 APPENDIX III.

of Aglaia" was the title given to the papers
which Mr. Ruskin contributed to the Art Jour-
nal m 1856-7, on "The Opposition of Modesty
and Liberty, and the Unescapable Law of Wise
Restraint,"' and some of which were afterwards
incorporated in " The Queen of the Air." Were
they the passages in that book, one wonders,
which Carlj'le told Mr. Froude " went into
his heart Hke arrows " ? The passage read
on Saturday, however, was none of these
chapters, but was the analysis of Chaucer's
. " Patience : "—

" Dame Patientia sitting there I fond,
Witli face pale, upon a hill of sond."

Mr. Ruskin apologized for the over-allusive
style in which much of this analysis was written,
for " twenty j-cars ago I was always fond of
showing that I knew a good deal and had read
a good deal." Elsewhere, too, he has explained,
with reference to these same chapters in the Art
Journal, that he has "three different ways of
writing — one, with the single view of making
myself understood, in which I necessarily omit
a good deal of what comes into my head ;
another, in which 1 say what I think ought to
be said, in what I suppose to be the best words
I can find for it (which is in reality an affected
style) ; and my third way of writing is to say
all that comes into my head for my own plea-
sure, in the first words that come, retouching
them afterwards into (approximate) grammar."
The "Ccstus of Aglaia" was written in this

A LECTURE ON " PATIENCE." 269

third style. From the Patience of Chaucer,
Mr. Ruskin passed to the Patience of Venice.
The Patience who really smiles at grief usually
stands, or walks, or even runs. She seldom
sits, though she may sometimes have to do it for
many a day, poor thing, by monuments, or like
Chaucer's, with " face pale, upon a hill of sond."
The Patience of Venice is to be found on a
monument — the statue of St. Theodore, whose
legend Mr. Ruskin has explained in " Fors
Clavigera" (March, 1877), and again in the 2nd
chapter of "St. Mark's Rest," from which he
read on Saturday. In these later books of his,
when he talks in what Mr. Matthew Arnold
calls his " assured way " about the meaning of
legends, he is only collating the results of a
life's work, begun when he was twenty-four
years old, and when, by the good counsel of
Dean Liddell, he took to drawing religious art in
the Christ Church library. All early religious
art is symbolic, and the meaning of the symbols
is well ascertainable. The divinity of Botti-
celli, for instance, is a science at least as well
known as that of the Greek gods, and all Mr.
Ruskin does is to give the result of the Catholic
knowledge of the saints — the interpretation
which is universally recognized of their legends.
St. Theodore, then, standing on a crocodile, as
he may be seen on one of the twin pillars of
the Piazzetta at Venice, represents the power
of the Spirit of God in all noble and useful
animal life, conquering what is venomous, use-
less, or in decay. The victory of his Patience is

2/0 APPENDIX III.

making the earth his pedestal instead of his
adversary ; he is the power of gentle and rational
life, reigning over the wild creatures and sense-
less forces of the world — the dragon-enemy
becoming by hiunan mercy the faithfullest of
creature friends to man.

Besides the essay on Patience, Mr. Ruskin
set to work on Saturday on a clearing-up and
putting right of the " heterogeneous rubble "
which some of the newspapers had made of his
remarks on the British Navy last week. With
a prett\' compliment to his pupils, he asked them
to s3-mpathize with the bewilderment of the
paltry British press in its attempt to reduce to
the level of British press understanding lectures
which were prepared only for their higher intel-
ligence. Mr. Ruskin then repeated what he had
before said about the loss of the London, the
Captain, and the Eurydicc. To these disasters
he now added a much antecedent one — that of
the Royal George, which was sunk in the harbour,
with most of her crew, while the captain was
writing in the cabin, because a few of them
were hunting rats half a minute too long in her
hull. They liad tinis four accurate illustrations
of a kind of shipbuilding and ship management
of which there was no parallel whatever, either
among the Saxons, Vikings, Venetians, Cartha-
ginians, Athenians, or Normans. These catas-
trophes belonged exclusively to modern naval
history, which had itstrium]ihs, but wasdarkened
by many more shadows than tiie features which
beautified it. As for the remedy, Mr. Ruskin

A LECTURE ON "PATIENCE. 2/1

has explained long ago, in "Fors," the incom-
patibility of seamanship with iron. "You need
not think," he said, " that you can ever have
seamen in iron ships ; it is not in flesh and blood
to be vigilant when vigilance is so slightly neces-
sary ; the best seaman born will lose his qualities
when he knows he can steam against wind and
tide, and has to handle ships so large that the
care of them is necessarily divided among many
persons. If you want sea captains indeed, like
Sir Richard Grenville or Lord Dundonald, you
must give them small ships and wooden ones —
nothing but oak, pine, and hemp to trust to,
above or below — and those trustw^orthy."

APPENDIX IV.

" Birds, and How to Paint them."

(Pall Mall Gazette, December 3rd, 1884. For the pre-
paration of this report Mr. Ruskin lent me his own
manuscript notes.)

Town and Countiy Life.

" I liave scarcely any heart to address you
to-day," Mr. Ruskin began by saj-ing on Satur-
day, " so terrified am I, and so subdued, by tlie
changes in Oxford which have taken place even
since first I accepted this Professorship, and
which are directly' calculated to paralyze all my
efforts to be useful in it. I need scarcely tell
any of my pupils that my own Art teaching has
been exclusively founded on the hope of getting
people to enjo}' country life, and to care for its
simple pleasures and modest employments. But
I find now that the ideal in the minds of all
young people, however amiable and well-mean-
ing, is to marry as soon as possible, and then to
live in the most fashionable part of the largest
town they can afiord to coni]i(te with the rich
inhabitants of, in the largest house they can

' BIRDS, AND HOW TO PAINT THEM. 273

Strain their incomes to the rent of, with the
water laid on at the top, the gas at the bottom,
huge plate-glass windows, out of which they may
look uninterruptedly at a brick wall, a drawing-
room on the scale of Buckingham Palace, with
Birmingham fittings, and patent everythings
going of themselves everywhere; with, for all
intellectual aids to felicity, a few bad prints, a
few dirty and foolish books, and a quantity of
photographs of the people they know, or of any
passing celebrities. This is the present ideal of
English life, without exception, for the middle
classes ; and a more miserable, contemptible, or
criminal one never was formed by any nation
made under the wondering stars. It implies
perpetual anxiety, lazy and unjustifiable pride,
innumerable petty vexations, daily more poig-
nant greed for money, and the tyrannous com-
pulsion of the labouring poor into every form of
misery ; and it implies, further, total ignorance
of all the real honour of human life and beauty
of the visible world. I felt all this borne in
upon me, almost to the point of making me give
up all further effort here in England, and going
away to die among the Alps, when I walked
early this week across what were once fields, but
are now platforms of mud and bitumen, to what
we used to call the ' Happy Valley,' and the
scenes, by Ferry Hinksey (but ' in the two
Hinkseys nothing keeps the same '), of my for-
mer endeavours to set some undergraduates to
useful country labour. [See ante, p. 43.] Every
beautiful view, either of Oxford or from it, is now

2/4 APPENDIX IV.

scarified and blasted by the detestable conditions
of labour, which always mean that a company
or a capitalist are ruining either themselves or
somebody else. [Mr. Ruskin need not, though,
have put the alternative, for the O.xford Build-
ing Company has ruined both itself and many
others.] There is not an old path to be trodden,
or an old memory to be traced, except where
the discouraged and desperate cottagers here
and there maintain still a rugged fence or let
run a half-choked ditch round the melancholy
yards or gardens which they can still call their
own."

" Inklligciil Dcstrudioii " of Birds.

" Now, what IS the use," Mr. Ruskin went
on to ask, " under these conditions, of my talk-
ing to you about birds ? Are their nests to be
built in the waterworks reservoir ? is their song
to be heard in the morning above the steam
buzzer and the roll of the tramway ? have you
still hearts to listen to it, if it could be ? What
do you want of them now, but for such deadly
science or deadlier luxury as may best feed 3'our
itch for notoriety of some sort — their skeletons
or their skins ? And I have actually been un-
able, from the mere distress and disgust of what
I had to read of bird-slaughter, to go on with
' Love's Meinie.' I will make you a little mise-
rable, with myself, in letting you hear accurately
described the sort of thing that is going on

" BIRDS, AND HOW TO PAINT THEM." 2/5

continually." Mr. Ruskin then read two ex-
tracts from " a thoroughly trustworthy book,"
Mr. Robert Gray's "Birds of the West of Scot-
land," describing, among other things, how some
ornithologist of the party had shot two parent
divers and their little ones. Some others of the
party had seen the little ones the day before, and
had given them their first swimming lesson,
but the ornithologists wanted their skins. The
other extract told how the same party (minus
the ornithologists this time, it would seem) had
taken on board their yacht a live specimen of
the tystc, or black guillemot, and made a pet of
him. When he desired to leave his basket the
little fellow would "raise himself upon his hinder
end till he was almost as tall as a little spruce
tree ; and then he would waddle on to the palm
of a person's hand, and sit there flapping his
wings as if he were flying at the rate of fifty
miles an hour ; and then he would rest himself
on his abdomen, and shut one eye, and wink with
the other at the sun. But the cabin-boy said
from the beginning that he was too good to
live. The little creature died, I believe," Mr.
Ruskin here put in, " angelically, of being too
happy ; but does not this show you how natural
it is for men and birds to love each other, and
live with other joyfully ? — if it were not for these
ghastly skin and bone mongers who call them-
selves ornithologists, and the still wretcheder
and ghastlier form of English booby squire, who
knows nothing and cares for nothing in all the
earth but how to wink along a gun-barrel till

2/6 APPENDIX IV.

he can sight it to blow the brains out of some-
thing, and he thinks that clever, and the best
part of the life of a lord."

Tlie Scientific Viezc of Birds.

Mr. Ruskin then went on to illustrate, from a
book of scientific travel, a difterent method of
intelligent destruction — that of " the mob, who,
not having guns, take to stones," and the kind
of study of birds in connection therewith. Here
is the method of destruction: "At one place
ten cormorants and three steamer ducks were
assembled on three small rocks, placed side by
side, and would not take their departure till 1
had thrown a succession of stones at them. . . .
One or two which had been hit with stones la^'
on their backs on the beach for some minutes,
emitting strange sounds, and waving ai)out tlieir
splay feet in the air, in the most ridiculous
manner." And here is an example of what
these sportsmen saw in a bird they had " for-
tunately killed : " " The stomach was distinctly
divided into a cardiac and a pyloric ]iortion,
separated b^' a short and narrow interval. Of
these portions the cardiac division possessed a
comparatively feeble muscular coat, and was
remarkably glandular ; while the pyloric, of a
somewhat flattened spheroidal form, was ex-
tremely muscular. The former 1 found dis-
tended, witji a firm mass of semi-digested shi]i
biscuit, wiiile the latter contained the two man-
dibles of a small cephalopod."

BIRDS, AND HOW TO PAINT THEM. ' 277

Birds in English Art.

This is the way EngUsh men of science look
at birds, and English painters have hardly any-
thing better to tell us of them. Art in this kind
may be divided under four heads. There is
first of all common still life—" dead game, with
a cut lemon and a glass and bottle — the most
wretched of human stupidities." Then there is
stilUife, with some enjoyment of colour — "fruit
pieces, usually with handsome plate — things
such as Lance used to paint, and many other
suppliers of the trade — not worth notice." Very
different is William Hunt's work, whether in
fruit or birds — " chiefly doves — unique in ex-
cellence, bat still not didactic." And finally,
there is the animal painting of Landseer and
Mr. Briton Riviere. Landseer, however, is
" strictly only a horse and dog painter ; he sel-
dom attempted birds, and when he did he failed.
Riviere has done some wonderful ornithology —
of a comic kind — as, for instance, in his ' An
Anxious Moment,' in which a flock of geese are
debating whether they may with safety pass by
an old hat." *

The Artistic View of Birds ; their Feathers.

The true portraiture of birds, then, is one of
the things which English painters have still to

* See Appendix I., p. 210, for a reference to the birds of
Mr. Stacy Marks.

2/8 APPENDIX IV.

do, and Mr. Ruskin's pupils would find plenty
of examples in his own studies in plumage in
his drawing-school. But artists will never be
able to paint birds so long as they study in
modern schools of science. " The true artist,"
Mr. Ruskin said, in a former Oxford lecture, "if
he wishes to paint a dog, looks at him and loves
him, does not vivisect him." [See Appendix I.,
p. 206.] So it is with birds. Whatever Science
may be concerned with on its own account, as
a foundation for Art it must look at a bird's
plumage, not at the contents of its stomach.
Mr. Ruskin laid, therefore, some of this true
scientific groundwork on Saturday, by some
notes on feather analysis. Birds, he said, have
three kinds of feathers: (i) feathers for clothing,
which again may be subdivided into flannel
feathers and armour feathers; (2) feathers for
action — either feathers of force in the wing, or
of steerage in the tail ; and (3) feathers for
decoration and expression — which either modify
the bird's form (crests, <'.^>-., or tassels), or its
colour, by lustre or pigment.

Colours in Plumage.

It should be noted generally that the under-
clothing, thedown, is alwayswhite in adult birds ;
and the prevailing colour of the upper feathers,
in land birds of temperate zones, brown, and in
sea birds white. "The theorists of develop-
ment," continued Mr. Ruskin, "say, 1 suppose,
that partridges get brown by looking at stubble,

" BIRDS, AND HOW TO PAINl' THEM." 2/9

seagulls white by looking at foam, and jackdaws
black by looking at clergymen. The theory at
first is plausible, as are the ideas of development
in general, to people who like guessing better
than thinking ; but you may see its fallacy in an
instant by reflecting that if sea birds were really
coloured by the sea, they would be blue, not
white ; if land birds were coloured by their
woods, they would be green, not brown ; and
that birds of darkness, both in feather and
spirit, must have been suited with sable, not by
our cathedral, but our manufacturing towns."
Coming ne.xt to force feathers and decorative
feathers, Mr. Ruskin noted that they are usually
reserved and quiet in colour. " There is no
iridescent eagle, no purple and golden seagull ;
while a large mass of coloured birds — parrots,
pheasants, humming birds — seem meant for
human amusement. Seem meant — dispute it if
you will : no matter what they seem, they are
the most amusing and infinitely delicious toys,
lessons, comforts, amazements, of human exist-
ence. Think of it, for here is a curious thing."

Catcliiiig Butterflies — and Feathers.

" Ever since I have known children," Mr.
Ruskin said, in conclusion, "or heard talk of
them, I have noticed that they liked running
after butterflies, and are represented in poetical
vignettes as if that were an amiable occupation
of theirs. I would give any child I had the care
of a good horsewhip or ponywhip cut over the

280 APPENDIX IV.

shoulders if I caught it running after a butterflj-.
The way to see a butterfly is, as for everything
else, to see it alive. If j'ou're quiet enough it
will settle under your nose or on 3'our sleeve ;
and if it's a rare one, and you don't kill it, it will
be less rare next year, until you may have purple
emperors flying about, as plentiful as now you
have smuts. But also when you've got it and
pinned it wriggling on a cork, what's the good
of it ? It is merely an ill-made bird, the inter-
mediate thing between a bird and a worm. It
has wings, but is for the most part more blown
about by them than lifted ; it has legs, but it
can't hop with them or catch anything with
them ; it has brains, but never has the least idea
where it's going ; it has eyes, but doesn't see
anything particular with them that 1 know of;
ears, perhaps, I don't know ; voice, I don't know ;
anyhow, it can't whistle. Feathers it has, which
rulD oft' if you touch them, like so much mildew.
A precious sort of thing to catch and transfix
what poor little life and succulent pleasure the
creature has evermore out of its body, that you
may pin it on your hat and say it's the Jackiana
Tomfooliensis ! But I will tell you what you
can catch, and catch innocently — feathers; and
a single feather has more to stud}' in it than fifty
butterflies. Here's Christmas coming — general
roast turkey and goose-pie time. You know I'm
no vegetarian. I wouldn't have you dine on
nightingales' tongues ; but quantities of birds
are born, like sheep, to be finally dined on.
Well, you go and help the cook to pluck her

"birds, and how to paint them." 281

game, and in a single Christmas you may
gather plumage enough to be a wonder to you
all your days. Begin with the pheasant. Put
the characteristic breast, shoulder, wing, and
tail feather into explicable order, prettily stitched
down on cardboard, or velvet, or anything that
sets them off. Then put the feathers of any
other birds you can get hold of into the same
order — that is to say, put the main feather of
a seagull's wing, a swallow's, an owl's, a phea-
sant's, and a barn-door fowl's side by side —
similarly the main central types of breast
feather, tail feather, and so on. Then draw
their outlines carefully, then their patterns of
colour, then, analyzed up to the point of easy
magnifying, their shafts and filaments, and see
what a new world of beauty you will have
entered into — before the sun turns to go up
hill again."

"Arise, my love, my fair one, and come
away."

"And when he does turn up hill again, if
any of you care to put your lives a little to
rights, and to prime your own feathers for what
flight is in them — don't go to London, nor to
any other town in the spring — don't let the
morning winds of May find your cheeks pale
and your eyes bloodshot with sitting up all
night, nor the violets bloom for you only in the
salesman's bundles, nor the birds sing around,
if not above, the graves you have dug for

282 APPENDIX IV.

yourselves before your time. Time enough you
will have hereafter to be deaf to their song,
and ages enough to be blind to their brightness,
if you seek not the sight given now. If there
be any human love in your youth, if anj' sacred
hope, if anj- faithful religion, let them not be
defiled and quenched among the iniquities of
the multitude. Your Love is in the clefts of
the Rock, when the flowers appear on the earth,
and the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the God of all Love calls to you ' from the
top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and
Hermon,' calls to every pure spirit among the
children of men, as they to those they love
best —

' Arise my love, my fair one, and come away.' "

APPENDIX V.

A Lecture on Landscape.

(^Pall Mai! Gazette. Decemher loih, 1884. Mr. Ruskin
himself was good enough to subsequently revise
this report.)

Mr. Ruskin's final lecture to his pupils for this
term, given at Oxford last week, began with an
expression of the " disappointment and surprise
which, on reviewing the results of my lecturing
and working here for upwards of twelve years,
I feel in being forced to the sorrowful confession
that not a single pupil has learned the things I
primarily endeavoured to teach, nor used of his
own accord, so far as I know, in a single in-
stance, the examples which I put before him as
most admirable in my especial department of
art, landscape."

Examples of Landscape-drawing at Oxford.

How complete and numerous these examples
are every one knows who has visited the Tay-
lorian picture-gallery or seen in the " Ruskin

284 APPENDIX V.

Drawing-school " the insides of the cabinets
filled with Mr. Ruskin's own drawings. "You
ma}' wonder," continued Mr. Ruskin, "why the
examples I have given you of landscape in
the school are my drawings and not Turner's.
But Turner's are of a finesse be\'ond what has
ever else been attained, and for that reason not
useful as working examples. But I am proud
to think that these drawings of mine " (several
of which were exhibited at the lecture), " done
thirty years ago at the foot of the Matterhorn,
are entirely right as examples of mountain
drawing, with absolutely correct outline of all
that is useful for geological science or landscape
art. And I am proud to think, too, that though
at the time I did them 1 had never seen Turner's
drawings, mine are on exactly the same plan
as his — that is to say, I always drew an ab-
solutely right pencil outline before putting in
any colour whatever. But though I have been
preaching, crying, shrieking to you that this is
the method of all true landscape painting, there
is not one of you who sharpens his pencil
point, instead of seizing his biggest brush and
going dab at the mountains with splashes of
colour. And then in the gallery up-stairs there
is the unequalled collection of Turner drawings,
which with some self-denial I gave you twenty
years ago, and which has lately been completed
by the kindness of the Trustees of the National
Gallery, at the intercession of Prince Leopold."

A LECTURE ON LANDSCAPE. 28$

Neglect of them by Mr. Riiskii/'s Pupils.

Why was it, then, Mr. Ruskin returned to
ask, that none of his examples in landscape
had been used, none of his principles adopted ?
" I perhaps trusted too much to what I had
before written on the subject of landscape, and
in the first years of my Professorship drew the
attention of my pupils only to the higher con-
ditions of pictorial imagination, which had been
occupied in religion and ethics. As it has
turned out, the religion of England being in its
practical power extinct before her science, and
the ethics of England extinct before her avarice,
everything that 1 have written of the religious
painting of Italy has been useless, until lately
in the form of guide-books ; while the value of
the few words I spoke on landscape was still
more hopelessly effaced by the vast irruption
of sensual figure-study, patronized by the now
all-powerful Republican denii-iiwndc of the
French capital. Respecting the general rela-
tions and dignities of landscape and figure-
painting, I purpose very earnestly and carefully
to address you in a spring lecture. But with
respect to the especial danger and corruption
of existing schools of the figure, I must point
out one or two chief facts for your immediate
consideration."

Landscape Superior to Figure Painting.
" First, landscape, however feeble or fantastic,

286 APPENDIX V.

cannot be definitely immoral. It neither mocks
what is venerable nor recommends what is
lascivious. But the sale of figure sketches or
paintings, by persons of inferior talent, depends
almost e.xclusivelj' on its being addressed to the
vanity, the lust, or the idle malice of the classes
of society developed by the corruption of large
towns. Secondly, the idea of greater dignity
naturally attached to figure painting of higher
pretension, because it implies a strict course of
previous academical stud}', entirely' ignores the
primary law of human education, that the more
you teach a fool the more manifold a fool you .
make him. Nothing is so melancholy, nothing
so mischievous, as the academical imitations of
the great men b}' the little ones, and the pompous
display of laboriously artificial attainments by
men of faculties inherently and natively com-
temptible. During the first half of this century
the artists of England were divisible, almost
without exception, into two classes — men of
modesty, sense, and industry, who were forming
a pure school of pathetic and meditative land-
scape, rising with the quiet flow of a mountain
well out of the formality of the older ' views '
of this and that ; and men, on the other hand,
of mean ambition, foolish sentiment, and vulgar
breeding, who reduced the figure-painting of
the Academy to the inanity from which it
was only rescued by the splendid indignation
of Rossetti, Millais, and Holman Hunt — all of
them, observe, introducing, if not as the basis,
at least as an essential and integral part of

A LECTURE ON LANDSCAPE. 287

their conception, a landscape elaborated to the
last grass blade and flower petal."

Greater Difficulty of Landscape.

" Thirdly, I will not in this brief notice touch
on the actual difficulties of landscape, as com-
pared with figure painting, but I beg you to
observe the requirement for it of far greater
industry. With an hour's work a good figure
painter can produce a satisfactorily realistic
image of the fairest human creature ; set him to
paint a heathy crag or a laurel coppice, and see
what he will make of it, giving him an hour for
every former minute, or sixty hours instead of
one. Why, then, paint it with so much care,
do you say, when the painting of the pretty
lady is so much nicer ? Well, my own
answer to that would be, Because the pretty
lady herself is so much nicer than the painting,
and will always be there if you ask her ; but the
laurel coppice or the heather crag won't come
for the asking; you must paint them or forget
them. Returning to my main point, note that
the painting of landscape requires not only
more industry, but far greater delicacy of bodily
sense and faculty than average figure painting.
Any common sign-painter can paint the land-
lord's likeness, and with a year or two's scraping
of chalk at Kensington any cockney student can
be got to draw, effectively enough for public
taste, a straddling gladiator or a curly-pated
Adonis. But to give the slightest resemblance

288 APPENDIX V.

to, or notion of, such a piece of mountain wild-
wood or falling stream as these, in this little
leap of the Tees in Turner's drawing, needs
an eagle's keenness of eye, fineness of finger
like a trained violinist's, and patience and love
like Griselda's or Lad}' Jane Grey's."

Deliglit in Landscape Dependent on I/unian
Sympathy.

" Without, however, further reasoning just
now why or with what feelings we should try
to paint landscape, 1 return to my immediate
business, to ask you why in no single instance
any of you have painted a bit in mj' way. For
one of you that used to go to Scotland or Swit-
zerland a thousand go now ; for one descriptive
passage in poetry or novel that used to be given
before Scott and Byron told 3'ou that nature
was beautiful, a thousand romancers and trou-
badours paint now their landscape backgrounds
for personages whom they couldn't make else of
any account ; and yet here are twelve years I
have been your drawing-master, and not one of
you has brought me a bit of Alpine snow, of
Greek sea, or of English greenwood, drawn with
as much pains or heart as dear old William
Hunt puts into a horn tankard. I do not know
what your answer would or will be. But my
own explanation of this scorn of landscape will
certainly surprise you. I attribute it, and I
attribute it with a very strong conviction, to

A LECTURE ON LANDSCAPE. 289

your having no sympathy with the people who
inhabit the countries you visit. No passage of
mj' old books is more often quoted than that in
the ' Seven Lamps ' as to the entire interest of
landscape depending on our sympathy with its
history and inhabitants." The passage in ques-
tion is that in which Mr. Ruskin describes " the
broken masses of pine forest which skirt the
course of the Ain above the village of Cham-
pagnole, in the Jura," and which has been
quoted above (see p. if), as enforcing the de-
pendence of landscape upon the human element
for its power over the human heart. " But this
point," Mr. Ruskin said, " I have never enough
reinforced. The lecture in which I partly did
so was never published ; and you all go rushing
about the world in search of Cotopa.xis and
Niagaras, when all the rocks of the Andes and
all the river drainages of the two Americas are
not worth to you, for real landscape, pathos,
and power, this wayward tricklet of a Scottish-
burn over its shelves of low-levelled sandstone.''
Mr. Ruskin here showed the early Turner which
he has lately acquired, and to which he referred,
it will be remembered, in a former lecture.
(See Appendix II., p. 255.) "Its whole force,"
he said, "consists in a dreamy and meditative
sense that men were once living there, and that
spirits are still moving there — that it was full
of traces of the valour of our ancestors, just as
it may still be full, if 3'ou will, of the sanctities
of your love."

290 APPKNDIX \'.

Tile Contrary Case, Illustrafedjrom Evelyn's
Diary.

To illustrate the contrary case — the absence
of delight in landscape, accompanied and con-
ditioned by a want of sj'mpath}' for the people
— Mr. Ruskin read a series of extracts from
Evelyn's Diary, written for him bj' his god-
daughter with a type-writer — "the only kind
of machine of which I do approve." First there
was English enjoyment of English landscape at
Spie Park, where the house had "not a win-
dow on the prospect side." That is the rough
type ; for the gentle tj'pe Mr. Ruskin referred to
ICveh'n's building a study, a fishpond, an island,
and some other " solitudes and retirements " at
Wotton, which " gave the first occasion of im-
proving them to waterworks and gardens." As
for English travellers' enjoyment of French
landscape, " we passed through a forest (of
Fontainebleau), so prodigioush' encompassed
with hideous rocks of white, hard stone, heaped
one on another in mountainous height, that 1
think the like is nowhere to be found more
horrid and solitary." For an example of
" French and characteristically European manu-
factured landscape," Mr. Ruskin referred to
Evelyn's description of Richelieu's villa, with
its "walks of vast lengthcs, so accurately kept
and cultivated, that nothing can be more agree-
able," and its " large and very rare grotto of
shell-worke, in tlic shape of satyrs and other wild
fancys." Thehuman sympathy involved innianu-

A LECTURE ON LANDSCAPE. 29I

factiired landscape is to be seen in its cost —
" Me has pulled downe a whole village to make
roome for his pleasure about it " — making a soli-
tude, and calling it delight. And then, lastly, Mr.
Ruskin read an account of how Evelyn took his
pleasure in the Alps, passing through "strange,
horrid, and fearful craggs," and treating the na-
tives — as only the British tourist knows how.
The pious Evelyn, or one of his party, had a
water spaniel, "a huge, filthy cur," that killed
a goat, "whereupon we set spurrs and endea-
voured to ride away ;" but inasmuch as "amongst
these rude people a verj' small misdemeanour is
made much of, we lay'd down the money, though
the proceedings seemed highly unjust." These
proceedings occurred on the Simplon Pass ; and
Mr. Ruskin showed, in contrast to them, a draw-
ing of the St. Gothard, by Turner, in which,
as in other scenes, it is a human interest that
gives the grandeur. The reader will remember
in this connection Mr. Ruskin's description of
the Pass of Faido, in " Modern Painters," where,
in " Turnerian typography," the " full essence
and soul of the scene and consummation of all
the wonderfulness of the torrents and Alps lay
in a postchaise with small ponies and postboy."
(See ante, p. 17.)

From the Alpine Club : Modern Manners.

'Now, I dare say," said Mr. Ruskin, resum-
ing, "you all think you have improved greatly
in sense, and good-nature, and love of scenery

29^ APPENDIX V.

since Evelyn's time. I admit there are a certain
number of j'ou verj- different creatures indeed.
But there is nothing tome so amazing in Evelyn's
injustice to the poor peasants, and terrified hatred
of^ their Alps, as there is in the total absence
from the papers of the Alpine Club of the small-
est expression of any human interest in anything
they see in Switzerland except the soaped poles
they want to get to the top of, and their continual
exultation, over their cheese and beer, in their
guides' legs and their own, without ever appear-
ing conscious for an instant that every valley
of which the blue breaks through the cloud at
their feet is full of the most beautiful human
piety and courage, being gradually' corrupted
and effaced by European vice, after contending
for long ages with conditions of hardship and
disease, prolonged by European neglect, folly,
and cruelty. And of the less adventurous Eng-
lishman, content with flatter mountain tops, here
without question is the central type for this
hour." Mr. Ruskin here showed Punch's car-
toon of "The Old Lion Aroused," to which he
had referred in a former lecture, and in doing
so he apologized for any pain that had been
caused by his thus accidentally ridiculing Mr.
Bright — for whose character he had in most
things a great respect, although it was " an awful
sign of the times " that so honourable and ex-
cellent a man should have stood upon a memo-
rable occasion in the House of Commons to
defend the adulteration of food as a legitimate
form of competition. "You are all of you," Mr.

A LECTURE ON LANDSCAPE. 293

Ruskin resumed, with reference to this cartoon,
" resolving j'ourselves, and that with rapidity,
into this kind of British person, and this kind
of British standard-bearer — consumer of all
things consumable, producer of nothing but
darkness and abomination, with his foot on all
that he once revered, his hope lost in all that
he once worshipped, a god to himself, and to
all the world an incarnate calamity."

The Return to Nature.

" Your way out of all this I told you full
fourteen years ago, in my inaugural lectures, to
not one word of which any of you have prac-
tically attended. I have, indeed, one pupil-friend,
an accomplished and amiable artist, another a
conscientious and prosperous lawyer — of formal
school or consistent disciples no vestige what-
ever. The time may yet come ; anyhow ne.\t
year I have again, with the ever-ready help of
Mr. Macdonald, to begin at the beginning, and
meanwhile I will close my discourses to you
for this year by re-reading the conditions of
prosperous art work which I laid before you in
1S70." The passage which Mr. Ruskin read is
in the fourth of his inaugural " Lectures on
Art," on " The Relation of Art to Use," in which
it was laid down that after recovering, for the
poor, wholesomeness of food, the next steps
towards founding Schools of Art in England
must be in recovering for them decency and
wholesomeness of dress and of lodging, and

294 APPENDIX V.

then after this that " nothing be ever made of
iron that can be as effectually made of wood or
stone, and nothing moved by steam that can be
as effectually moved by natural forces. . . . And
until 3'ou do this, be it soon or late, things will
continue in that triumphant state to which, for
want of finer art, your mechanism has brought
them ; that though England is deafened with
spinning-wheels, her people have not clothes ;
though she is black with digging of fuel, they
die of cold ; and though she has sold her soul
for gain, they die of hunger. Stay in that
triumph, if you choose ; but be assured of this,
it is not one which the Fine Arts will ever share
with you."

"All this," said Mr. Ruskin, in conclusion,
" is called impossible. It may be so. I have
nothing to do with its possibility, but only with
its indispensability. And at anj^ rate this much
is possible to you — to prefer life in the country,
though it be dull, to life in London, though it is
merry ; to look at one thing in the day, instead
of at twenty ; and to think of that one in such
a way as will give j'ou some love for man and
some belief in God."

REPRODUCTIONS OF
DRAWINGS BY MR. RUSKIN.

296

For Mr. J^uxl'/>/'s estimate of his zvor/c as a draughts7na)i,
see above, p;p. 82, 83 n; and for some general retiiarks on his
drazvi7tgs at Oxford, pf>. 76 — 89.

297

LIST OF PLATES.

Plate I. The Market Place, Abbeville.

II. Pine Forest on Mont Cenis, above St. Michel.

III. View of Lucerne, from above.

IV. The Old Bridge at Lucerne.
V. Fribourg, Switzerland.

VI. The Glacier des Bossons, Chamonix.

VII. The Grand Canal, Venice.
VIII. Evening in Autumn under the Castle of Hapsburg.

IX. Study of Kingfisher.

X. .Study of Young Leaves of Plane.

XI. Part of the Facade of the Destroyed Church of San
MicHELE .^T Lucca.

XII. Study of Agrimony Leaves.

XIII. .Study of Gneiss with its Weeds above the Stream of
Glen Finlas

299

PLATE I.

THE MARKET PLACE, ABBEVILLE.

(i86S.)

Reference Series 6i. Pencil-study for detail, placed in the Reference
Series with other similar studies "because they exhibit some archi-
tectural characters which are not seen in photographs, and some-
times present features of the buildings which are now destroyed,
or likely soon to be so" (Catalogue of the Reference Series, p. 22).
This drawing, of which the plate opposite gives a very faithful
representation, is a good example of Mr. Ruskin's fine pencil
work (see ante, p. 81). It was exhibited by Mr. Ruskin on the
occasion of his lecture at the Royal Institution, January 29th,
1869, amongst other illustrations of "The Relations of Flam-
boyant Architecture to Contemporary and Subsequent Art," and
was described in the Catalogue (No. 43) as " showing gabled
wooden houses of the 16th century (though all much defaced,
the two in the angle are characteristic), and quoined brick and
stone houses of the 17th century."

" The gay street of a populous yet peaceful city, — a fellowship of ancient houses
set beside each other, with all the active companionship of business and sociable-
ness of old friends, and yet . . . each with its own character and fearlessly
independent ways, — its own steep gable, narrow or wide.^its special little peaked
windows set this way and that as the fancy took them,— its most particular old
corners, and outs and ins of wall to make the most of the ground and sunshine, —
its own turret staircase, in the inner angle of the courtyard, — its own designs and
fancies in carving of bracket and beam " (Lecture on Flamboyant Architectwe,
above referred to).

"St. Wulfran itself, and all that remain of the parish churches, are of the same
flamboyant Gothic, — walls and towers alike coeval with the gabled timber houses of
which the busier streets chiefly consisted when first 1 saw them. . . . The com-
mercial square, with the main street of traverse, consisted of uncompetitive shops,
such as were needful, of the native wares. . . . Above the prosperous, serenely
busy and beneficent shop, the old dwelling-house of its ancestral masters; pleasantly
carved, proudly roofed, keeping its place, and order, and recognised function,
unfailing, unenlarging, for centuries. . . . My most intense happinesses have of
course been among mountains. Hut for cheerful, unalloyed, unwearying pleasure,
the getting in sight of Abbeville on a fine summer afternoon, jumping out in the
courtyard of the Hotel dc I'Europe, and rushing down the street to see St. Wulfran
again before the sun was oft" the towers, arc things to cheiish the past for, — to
the end " (Pralcrita, vol. i., cli. ix.)

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PLATE II.

302

PIXE FOREST OX MOXT CEXIS, ABOVE ST. MICHEL.

(1854 or 1856.)

Educational Series 275 (Case xi.). Study, in pen and wash, touched
with white, of pine-foliage. The drawing was included in the
exhibition of Mr. Ruskin's drawings and engravings at the Fine
Art Society's Galleries in 1S78. The description of it in the
Catalogue (Xo. 27) is cited below.

"The scene differs from subjects not Swiss by including hundreds of other
scenes within itself, and is mighty, not by scale, but by aggregation. This is more
especially and humiliatingly true of pine forests. Nearly all other kinds of w'ood
may be reduced, over long spaces, to undetailed masses; but there is nothing but
patience for pines ; and this has been one of the principal reasons why artists call
Switzerland 'unpicturesque.' . . . But that is not so; it is only that zi^c cannot paint
it " (Modi-ni Painters, vol. iv., pt. v., ch. 17, § 40).

" Of the many marked adaptations of nature to the mind of man, it seems one
of the most singular, that trees intended especially for the adornment of the wildest
mountains should be, in broad outline, the most formal of trees. The vine, which
is to be the companion of man, is waywardly docile in its growth, falling into
festoons beside his cornfields, or roofing his garden-walks, or casting its shadow
all summer upon his door. Associated always with the trimness of cultivation, it
introduces all possible elements of sweet wildness. The pine, placed nearly always
among scenes disordered and desolate, brings into them all possible elements of
order and precision. . » . Other trees, tufting crag or hill, yield to the form and
sway of the ground, clothe it witli soft compliance, are partly its subjects, partly
its flatterers, partly its comforters. But the pine rises in serene resistance self-
contained ; nor can I ever without awe stay long under a great Alpine clilf, far from
all house or work of men, looking up to its companies of pines, as they stand on the
inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enormous wall, in quiet multitudes, each
like the shadow of the one beside it — upright, fi.xcd, spectral, as troops of ghosts
standing on the walls of Hades, not knowing each other — dumb for ever. You
cannot reach them, cannot cry to them ; — those trees never heard human voice ;
they arc far above all sound but of the winds. No foot ever stirred fallen leaf of
theirs. All comfortless they stand, between the two eternities of the Vacancy and
the Rock : yet with such iron will, that the rock itself looks bent and shattered
beside them — fragile, weak, inconsistent, compared to their dark energy of delicate
life, and monotony of enchanted pride : — unnumbered, unconquerable " {Modem
Painters, vol. v., pt. vi., ch. ix., §§ 4, 7).

" 1 have always felt that with my intense love of the Alps, I ought to have been
able to make a drawing of Chamouni, or the Vale of Cluse, which should give
people more pleasure than a photograph ; but I always wanted to do it as 1 saw it,
and engrave pine for pine, and crag for crag, like Albert DUrer. I always broke
my strength down for many a year, always tiring of my work, or finding the leaves
drop off, or the snow come on, before I hati well begun what 1 meant to do. If 1
had only counted my pines first, and calculated the number of hours necessary to do
them in the manner of Dflrer I " (Afornings in Florence, p. 141). — " Turner counted
his pines, or at least estimated their uncountablcncss. 1 did not understand his
warning, and went insanely at them, at first, thinking to give some notion of them
by sheer labour. This ' Pass of the Cenis ' was one trial of the matter. The place
itself, a glorious piece of Alpine wilderness, radiant with cascades and (lowers
among the forest glades — the modern traveller passes beneath it after some eighteen
hours' night and morning travel, in wearied looking out for the custom-house at
Modanc, and derives much benefit, doubtless, from the dews of morning on those
wild-wood glens. Hut one couldn't draw them with pen and sepia, I found ; nor,
even with one's best pains, in '-.it. r ■■■■ - " ■ \ '../. < l>y Mr. linskin on his Collection of
Drawings, etc., pp. 1 1 7, IIS

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303

PLATE III.

304

VIEW OF LUCERNE, FROM ABOVE.
(1866.)

Educational Series 117 (Case v.). Pencil drawing on tinted paiier ; an
" elementary illustration of landscajie.'' The drawing is one of
several selected by Mr. Ruskin to enforce on his pupils the use of
pure pencil outline as " the most valuable of all means of obtaining
such memoranda of any scene as may explain to another person,
or record for yourself, what is most important in its features "
{Laivs of Fi'solc, ch. iv., § 19). The drawing was included in the
exhibition at the Fine Art Society's Galleries in 1878 (No. 40), and
was described as follows : —

" I spent the summers of some half-dozen years in collecting materials for
etchings of Friboiirg, Lucerne, and Geneva, but had to give them all up, — the
modern mob's madness destroj'ing all these towns before I could get them drawn,
by the insertion of hotels and gambling-houses exactly in the places where they

would kill the effect of the whole Outline of general view (showing) . . .

what I have finally adopted in manner of pencil drawing ; and I believe my pupils
will find it a satisfactory one, for rendering the essential qualities of form " (Notes
by Mr. Riishiit on his Collcciion of Draiuings, f/r., pp. 130, l^l).

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PLATE IV.

3o6

THE OLD BRIDGE AT LUCERNE.
(1862.)

Educational Series 116 (Case v.) Water-colour drawing. The deli-
cate mingling of green and blue reflections which are peculiar to
the Reuss at Lucerne is beautifully rendered in the original, but
the effect is necessarily lost in this reproduction.

" The unhappy alterations which have lately talsen place in the town of Lucerne
have still spared two of its ancient bridges ; both of which, being long covered
walks, appear, in past times, to have been to the population of the town what the
Mall was to London, or the Gardens of the Tuilerics are to Paris. For the continual
contemplation of those who sauntered from pier to pier, pictures were painted on
the woodwork of the roof These pictures, in the one bridge, represent all the
important Swiss battles and victories ; in the other they are the well-known series
of which Longfellow has made so beautiful a use in the Golden Legend, the Dame
of Death. Imagine the countenances with which a committee, appointed for the
establishment of a new 'promenade' in some flourishing modern town, would
receive a proposal to adorn such promenade with pictures of the Dance of Death !
Now just so far as the old bridge at Lucerne, witli the pure, deep, and blue water
of the Reuss eddying down between its piers, and with the sweet darkness of green
hills, and far-away gleaming of lake and Alps alternating upon the eye on either
side ; and the gloomy lesson frowning in the shadow, as if the deep tone of a passing
bell, overhead, were mingling for ever with the plashing of the river as it glides
by beneath ; just so far, I say, as this dilTers from the straight and smooth strip of
level dust, between two rows of round-topped acacia trees, wherein the inhabitants
of an English watering-place or French fortified town take their delight, — so far
I believe the life of the old Lucernois, with all its happy waves of light, and moun-
tain strength of will, and solemn expectation of eternity, to have dill'ercd I'rom the
generality of the lives of those who saunter for their habitu.1l hour up and down the
modern promenade " {Modern Painters, vol. \\., \i\, v., ch. xix., §§ 10, 1 1).

(XI

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PLATE V.

3o8

FRIliOURG, SWITZERLAND.

(1856.)

Educational Series 114 (Case v.) A pen-sketch, made at the same
time as the drawings of Fribourg which are included in Alodern
Painters. (" 1856. With my father and mother to Geneva and
Fribourg. 'J" wo drawings at Fribourg took up the working summer.
My father begins to tire of the proposed work on Swiss towns, and
to inquire whether the rest of Modern Painters will ever be done."
— Pralerita, iii., 23.)

" The notablest thing in tlie town of Fribourg is, that all its walls have got
flexible spines, and creep up and down the precipices more in the manner of cats
than walls ; and there is a general sense of height, strength, and grace, about its
belts of tower and rampart, which clings even to every separate and loss graceful
piece of them when seen on the spot ; so that the hasty sketch, expressing this,
has a certain veracity wanting altogether in the daguerreotype " (MoiUni Painters,
vol. iv., pt. v., ch. 2, § 23").

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PLATE VI.

THE CxLACIER DES BOSSONS, CHAMONIX.

(? 1854.)

Reference Series 91. Pen and wash (warm sepia) touched with white.
One of the very numerous sketches made by Mr. Kuskin at
Chamonix as studies for the chapters on Mountain Forms in
the fourth voknne of Modern Pahiters.

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PLATE VII.

!I2

THE (IRANll CANAL, VENICE.
(1870.)

K(f(rcnce Series 66. Pencil sketch (see passage from the Catalogue to
the Reference Series, cited on Plate I.) This sketch — "given up
in despair " — was included, with some other Venetian studies, in
the exhibition of Mr. Ruskin's drawings in 1878. The following
passage in the Catalogue of that exhibition refers to these Venetian
drawings : —

" It is totally beyond any man's power, unless on terms of work like Albert
Diirer's, to express adequately the mere ' contents " of architectural beauty in any
general view on the Grand Canal. . . . (This) may serve to give the reader some
idea of the mere quantity which must be put into any faithful view of Venice. And
here I will venture to say a few words respecting the labour I have had to go
through in order to make sure of my facts, in any statements 1 have made respect-
ing either Architecture or Painting. No judgment of art is possible to any person
who docs not love it, and only great and good art can be truly loved ; nor that,
without time and the most devoted attention. Foolish and ambitious persons think
they can form their judgment by seeing much art of all kinds. They see all the
pictures in Italy ; — all the architecture in the world — and nearly make themselves
as incapable of judgment as a worn-out Dictionary. But from my youth, I was
protected against this fatal error by intense love for particular places; returning to
them again and again, until I had exhausted what was exhaustible (and therefore
bad), and thoroughly' fastened on the inexhaustible good. To have well studied
one picture by Tintoret, one by Luini, one by Angelico, and a couple of Turner's
drawings, will teach a man more than to have catalogued all the galleries of Europe ;
while to have drawn with attention a porch at Amiens, an arch at Verona, and
a vault at Venice, will teach him more of architecture than to have made plans and
sections of every big heap of brick or stone between St. Paul's and the Pyramids "
(No/es by Mr. Riiskiii oil his Collection of Drmviiigs, etc., pp. loS, 109).

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PLATE VIII.

314

EVENING IN AUTUMN UNDER THE CASTLE OF

HAPSBURG.

(1858.)

Educational Series 299 (Case xii.) Water-colour drawing. The distant
mountains, being blue in the original, have been necessarily lost in
this reproduction.

Mr. Ruskin's landscape-subjects arc generally chosen for their human interest
(sec pp. 17, 288). Some reflections suggested by the scene here depicted — "the
centre of .Swiss feudal power, Ilapsburg, the hawk's nest from which the Swiss
Rodolph rose to found the Austrian empire " — may be read in Mr. Ruskin's
liitiiigiiral Address at the Cambridge School of Art, p. 17 (in On the Old Road,
i., 423).

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PLATE IX.

3i6

STUDY OF KINGFISHER.

(About 1 87 1 ?.)

Rudimentary Series 201. Water-colour drawing. Tiiis is one of several
" exercises in colour with shade, on patterns of plumage and scale "
{Catalogue of the Rudimentary Series, p. 21, and see Fors Clavigera,
Letter 65, p. 162). 'J'hese exercises were done by Mr. Ruskin for
the purposes of his Drawing School, and I have, therefore, dated
this one tentatively as above.

Mr. Ruskin's examples of birds, flowers, etc., were expressly chosen, as already
explained (see pp. 80, 107), with a view to interesting his pupils in mythology and
natural history. His remarks on the kingfisher will be found in Lecture IX. of The
Eagle's Nest. " To-day, as we arc about to begin our exercises in bird-drawing, 1
think it may interest you to review some of the fables connected with the natural
history of a single bird, and to consider what effect the knowledge of such tradition
is likely to have on our mode of regarding the animated creation in general. . . . The
Halcyon, whose mythic history I am about to read to you, belongs essentially and
characteristically to the order of pie.">, picae, or painted birds, which the Greeks
continuallj' opposed in their thoughts and traditions to the singing birds, represent-
ing the one by the magpie, and the other by the nightingale, etc."

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317

PLATE X.

3'8

STUDY OF YOUNG LEAVES OF PLANE, IN LIC.HT
AND SHADE.

(? 1857.)

Educational Series 254 (Case xi.) Pen and wash (violet carmine, a
favourite colour with Mr. Ruskin), touched with white, on tinted
paper. This is one of several examples of foliage : " These old
sketches of mine may be useful as showing the pleasantness of
the simplest forms of foliage when carefully outlined." This study
closely resembles several in Modern Painters, and I liave therefore
dated it tentatively as above.

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PLATE XI.

520

PART OF THE FACADE OF THE DESTROYED CHURCH
OF SAN MICHELE AT LUCCA AS IT APPEARED

IX .845.

Educational Series 84 (Case iv.) Sketched in water-colour, on the
spot, in 1845 ; "given (among other examples of Italian Gothic)
to illustrate the Itahan use of coloured marbles." The church
"was destroyed by having its fa<;ade, one of the most precious
twelfth-century works in Italy, thrown down, and rebuilt with
modern imitative carving and the heads of the King of Sardinia
and Count Cavour instead of its Lombardic ones " {Cafa/o^uc of
t/ie Educational Series, p. 39). An illustration of a portion of the
upper part of the fai^ade shown in this sketch was drawn and
sketched by Mr. Ruskin for Seven Lamps (Plate VI.) The archi-
tectural features of tlie building are fully discussed in that work
(ch. iii.)

" In 1S45, 'h*^ '^''^' volume of Modcyii Painters having already begun to make
its maris, I thought it necessary to look more carefully at some of the pictures at
Florence and Venice before proceeding with the essay. . . . The road usually taken,
at that time, bj' travellers entering Italy from the Riviera, left the coast at Massa
to avoid the Pisan Marcmma, and passed through the southern valleys of the
Carrara hills to I.ucca. Where, with all my new knowledge and freshness of
acceptancy, I found, as if never seen before, the inlaid architecture of San
Michcle. . . . The inlaying of San Michele as opposed to Gothic /)iWr(Y/ lace-work
(wliich was all I cared for in Gothic at that time), and the pure and severe arcades
of finely-proportioned columns at San Frediano, doing stern duty under vertical
walls, as opposed to Gothic shafts with no end, and buttresses with no bearing,
struck me dumb with admiration and amazement ; and then and there on the instant,
I began, in the nave of San Frcdiano, the course of architectural study which
reduced under accurate law the vague enthusiasm of my childish taslc, and has
been ever since a method with me, guardian of all niy other work in natural and
moral philosophy" (Epilogue to new edition of Modern Paiiilers, vol. ii. See also
Praierila, vol. ii., ch. vi.)

SAN MICHELE, LDCCA.
XI.

321

PLATE XII.

322

STUDY OF AGRIMONY LEAVES.

(? 1857.)

Ediicatiimal Series 255 (Case xi.) Pen and sepia, touched with white.
Another example of foliage (see under Plate X. above).

STUDY OF AGRIIJONY LEAVES.
XII.

PLATE XIII.

324

STUDY OF GNEISS WITH ITS WEEDS ABOVE THE
STREAIM OF GLEN FINLAS.

(i8s3-)

Reference Series 89. A study in lamp-black. A characteristic drawing :
the reproduction, though on the whole successful, scarcely does
justice to the delicacy of detail in the original, especially in the
left-hand top corner. The study was included in the exhibition of
Mr. Ruskin's drawings in 1878 (No. 45), when he described it as
follows in the Catalogue : — " Old drawing of Modern Painters time
(1853), which really had a chance of being finished, but the weather
broke ; and the stems in the upper right-hand corner had to be
rudely struck in with body-colour. But all the wall of this rock is
carefully studied with good method." In Praterita (iii., 21) occurs
the following note : — " 1853. Henry Acland in Glen Finlas with
me. Drawing of gneiss rock made ; now in the School at O.xford.
Two months' work in what fair weather could be gleaned out of
that time." The well-known portrait by Sir John Millais of Mr.
Ruskin bareheaded, standing on the rocky margin of a waterfall,
was painted in Glen l-'inlas.

STUDY OF GNEISS, GLEN FINLAS.
Xlll.

INDEX.

Alexander, Miss ("Francesca "), her drawings at Oxford,
lOo; her Italian studies referred to, loi n., 250.

Allen, George, appointed Ruskin's publisher, 184; engraver,
189, 200; Ruskin's pupil at Working Men's College,
125; author's visits to, at Orpington, 185 — 200; Car-
lyle's visit to, 190.

Alpine Club, The, 292.

"Aratra Pentelici," cited, 65 ; referred to, 16,

Architecture, Ruskin's essential principles in, 14, 18.

Art. Duty of choosing noble subjects, 8; Essential truths
and corresponding fallacies about, 206; Ideas to be
conveyed by — beauty, 10; iinitaiion, S; power. 7 ;
relation, 16; IriUli, 9; Origin of, 5; Relation of, to
— history, 24; life, 18; material progress, 20; nwrality,
l6; religion, 15; science, 20.

"Art for Schools Association," 139.

Arundel Society, The, importance of, 251.

Beaumont, Sir George, exponent of the pre-Ruskinian

criticism, 9.
Beauty, objective standard of, 11; relation of, to Art, 10 ;

Spenser's definition of, 12; "typical" and "vital"

distinguished, 13.
Beevek, Miss, Ruskin's letters to, cited, 205 »., 265 u.

326 INDEX.

Birds. Lecture on "Birds, and How to Paint them,"
272 — 282 ; arrangement of, in museums, 266 ; colours
of, in plumage, 278; destruction of, 274; feathers, 278;
in English Art, 210, 277, 27S.

"Bishop's House," The, at Meersbrook, 159.

Bright, John, Ruskin on, 292.

BuNNEV, The late W. J., drawings by, at Oxford, 92;
picture of St. Mark's, by, at St. George's Museum, 158;
Ruskin's pupil at Working Men's College, 125.

BuKGESs, The late Arthur (Ruskin's assistant), work by,
at 0.\ford, 91.

BuRNE-Jo.vES, Edward, A.R.A., "entirely masterful," 99 ;
"our onlj' artist," 210; designs for " Alcestis " and
"Jason" by, at Oxford, 71; "Psyche" drawings by,
at Oxford, 99, 112 ; studies by, at Oxford, 100.

C.xRLYi.E, Thomas, on Ruskin's Gospel, 3, 10 ; its relation
to, 4, 25 ; influence of, on Ruskin's style, 208 ; referred
to, 162, 217, 252, 254.

Carpaccio, greatness of, 210; Ruskin's discovery of, 73 h ;
" Parrot," bj', ill n. ; " St. Ursula's Dream, " by, 73,

256.
"Cestus of Aglaia," referred to, 2C8.
Country ?■. Town Liee, 162, 272.
"Crown of Wild Olive, ' the Sanction of Ruskin's Gospel

in, 37-
Cork, High School for Girls, May Queen Festival at, 134;
Ruskin's gifts to, 135.

" Eagle's Nest" cited, 71 n.

" Ethics of the Dust " referred to, 267,

Evelyn's Diary cited, 290.

Kaunthorpe, Rev. J. P. (Principal of Whitelands College,
q.v.), 127, 128, 133, 134; his index to " Fors Clavigera,"
122 n.

INDEX. 337

Fleming, Albert, revival of spinning industry by, 164 —

173; Ruskin's interest therein, 163, l66.
" FoRS Clavigera " cited, 26, 27, 64, 142, 143. 146; its

place in Ruskin's Gospel, 34, 35.

" Fkanxesca," see Miss Alexander.

GiORGiONE, altar-piece at Castelfranco, by, 25 1.
Goodwin, A., drawings by, at Oxford, 9S.
Gordon, General, Ruskin on, 54.

GOTTHELF, JeREMIAS, 162, 254.

Greenaway, Miss Kate, May Queen's gown designed by,

129, 132 (illustyation) .
GiJNTHER, Dr., and Ruskin, 266.

Hill, Miss Octavia, and Ruskin, 35.
HiNKSEY. See under Oxford (road-digging).
Hunt, William, drawings by, at' Oxford, 92 ; his birds.
277 ; still-life, 288.

Isle of Man, St. George's Mill at Laxey, 173 — 178.

JoWETT, Professor, and Ruskin, 48.

Keats, Ruskin on, 267.

Landscape, Lecture on, 283 — 294 ; contempt of, in l8th
century, 290; how dependent on human interest, 17,
288 ; neglect of, 283 ; superiority of, to figure-painting,
285-2S8.

Landseer, Sir E., 277.

Langdale spinning industry, 164 —173.

Laxey. See Isle of Man.

" Lectures on Art," its place in Ruskin's Gospel, 34 ;
referred to, 62, 66, 67, 102, 106, 114, 213, 293.

Leighton, Sir F., drawing by, at Oxford, 98; Ruskin on,
99-

328 INDKX.

Leopold, Prince, admiration of, for Ruskin, 43 )/., 144 ;

visit of, to the Walkley Museum, 148.
" Love's Meixie " referred to, 266, 274.
Ll'ixi, Copy from frescoes bj-, at Oxford, 71.

Macdoxald, Alexander (Master of the Ruskin Drawing-
school), 57, 58, 59, 65, 67, 70, 265, 293.

Machinery, Ruskin's views on, 142, 175, 294.

McWiiiRTER, A., drawings by, at Oxford, 98.

Mallock, W. H., a disciple of Ruskin, 43 h. ; on Ruskin's
Oxford Lectures, 47 ti., 49 ti.

Manual Labour, dignity of, 25, 45 ; its relation to Art, 25,

Martin, Miss (Head-mistress of the Cork High School for
Girls), 134.

Martin's, St. (head-quarters of the Langdalc spinnhig in-
dustry), 168 (il/iislralion).

May Queen Festival, Ruskin's, at Whitelands : de-
scription of, 127 — 133; origin of, 128; at Cork, 134;
elsewhere, 134; influence of, 133, 134, 139.

Meersbkook Park (site of the new St. George's Museum)
described, 158 — 160; exterior of museum at, 158
{itltislratioii) ; interior of picture-gallery at, 160 {illiis-
Iralion) ; "Bishop's House " at, 159 (illuslralion).

" Modern Painters," its place in Ruskin's Gospel, 33 ;
main principle of, 6, iS ; new edition of, 195—200;
" Readings" in, by Ruskin, 205 — 210.

" Munera Pulveris," its place in Ruskin's Gospel, 34.

Museum. See Meersbrook Park, Oxford Museum,
Walkley Museum.

Navv, Ruskin on the British, 226, 257-9, 270.

Oxford, modern " improvements " at, 273.

Oxford Museum, The, 47, 206, 266.

Oxford, Ruskin's Work as Professor at : his published

INDEX. 329

volumes of lectures, 40; other literary works in con-
nection therewith, 41 ; personal influence, 42-47 ;
road-digging, 43-45, 273 ; his pupils (see Leopold,
Mallock, Toynbee) ; his lectures described, 47-61 ;
Ruskin on them, 47; his popularity, 48, ?0$ n., 264;
first Professorship, 38, 47, 62 ; second, 39, 4S, 67 ;
resignation of Professorship and rupture with Uni-
versity, 115.

Patience, Chaucer's conception of, 26S ; lecture on, 264 —
271 ; St. Theodore, the Venetian type of, 269.

" Pall Mall Gazette," The, on Ruskin's re-election to
Slade Professorship, 39 n. ; on " The New School,"
45 H. ; cited and referred to, 53, loi «., 116 «., 133,
'55 "v 156 "., 211, 217 n.; Ruskin's letter to, on his
resignation of the Professorship, 115; Ruskin's refer-
ences to, 164, 211, 257.

" Pleasures of England," 69 ; reports of the lectures
(from the Pall Mall Gazette), 2H— 263.

•' PrjEterita," 50«., 76 «., 124, 134.

Profit-sharing. See Thomson.

Prout, drawings by, at Oxford, 92.

Publishing, Ruskin's system of, 184 — 201.

RivitRE, Briton, R.A., 277.

RusKiN, John. [1. Personal. 11. His "Gospel." 111.

His 'Work. IV. His Lectures. V. His Drawings.

VI. His Books.]

I. Personal: early rising, 76 n.; explanation of rup-
ture with Ctford, 1 15; dislike of noise, 252; gifts
to public galleries, 97 ». ; to Cork High School,
135 ; to 'Whitelands Training College, 137 ; in-
dustry, 76 ; personal appearance, 50 ; title of
" Professor," 39 ; his conversation, 45 ; voice, 49 ;
bust of, 121; and see frontispiece; his unique

330 INDEX.

equipment as art-teaclicr, lo; as a social reformer,
36, 46.

II. His Gospel. Principles of Art, 1-2 1 ; applications

to life, 22-37 ; its relation to the present age,
19-21; the essential and non-essential in, 23;
principles of politics, 24-29 ; Political Economy,
29-33, '79 ; place of his different books in, 33-35 ;
its sanction, 36 ; its relation to Carlyle, 4, 25 ; its
width, 23; opinions on — Carlyle, 3, 10; Century
Afnga^ine (W. J. Stillman), 24 ; Chesneau, 22 ;
George Eliot, 3 ; Etlhibiirgh Revkzv, 24 ; address
from his admirers (1SS5), 30 </.

III. His WoKK. [a. General Remarks, b. Educa-
tional, c. Industrial.]

a. His practice in keeping with his precept, 35, 123;

his munificence, 35, 36, 97; his iiuiiistry, 76;
dispersion of his energies, 66, 143.

b. His interest in education, 122; in the village school

at Coniston, 123; his writings on, 122; his books
written as lectures, 1 23. Sec also May Queens,
Oxford, Walkley, Working Men's College.

c. His place as a social reformer, 36, 143 ; agricultural

experiments, 145; revival of village industries- in
Westmoreland, 163; in the Isle of Man, 173 ;
interest in "G.Thomson & Co's. industrial partner-
ship," Iib2. Sec also St. George's Guild.

IV. His Lectures, [a. General remarks on. h. Par-
ticular lectures referred to.]

a. Humour of, 51, 209; illustrations at, 55, 242, 243,

24s, 261 ; iiilinii'li of, 52, S4 ; impromptus in, 53,
21 1, 234, 252, 257 ; Mallock on, 47 «., 49 11.

b. " Art of England," 58, 59 ; " Cistercian Architecture,"

52 ; " Hirds, and 1 low to Paint them " (report), 272
—282 ; " Klamboyant Architecture," 55 ; Inaugural
Lectures at Oxford, 62 ; " Patience " (report), 264

INDEX. 331

— 271; "Landscape" (report), 2S3— 294 ; "Plea-
sures of England," 53, (reports), 21 1 — 263 ; " Read-
ings in 'Modern Painters'" 60, (notes), 205 — 210 ;
" Storm Cloud," 56.
V. His Drawings, [a. General remarks on. b. Par-
ticular drawings referred to. See a/so Repro-
tluctioHS, -with no/us, 295 — 324.]

a. General characteristics of, 77, 81 ; wide range of,

81; Edi)ibiirgli Review on, 82 k. ; Ruskin on his
artistic powers, 82 n. ; Mr. Whistler on, 82 «.

b. Abbeville market-place, 81 ; Alpine studies, 83 h.,

2S4 ; Amiens Cathedral, 81 ;/. ; Assisi, sacristan's
cell, 86; "Dryad's Crown," 83; "Epops Car-
paccii," III H. ; Fribourg, 87; Grass, 87; Lucca,
San Michele, 78, 85 ; Lucerne, 87 ; marsh orchis,
77: partridge, 79 J Palermo, sketches at, 84 ; pea-
cock's feather, 78; Pisa, chapel of "The Thorn,'
77 J "Queen of Sheba," 77; "Purist Landscape,"
83; quartz, 78; Rheinfelden, 87; "Rock of
Arona," 87 ; rolled gneiss, 78 ; " Rose of Demeter,"
87; sketch of dead bird, 124; St. Ursula, 73;
Venice, Grand Canal, 81 ; Verona, tomb at, 72.
VL His Books. Eloquence of, I ; style of, 208, 209,
268; alliteration in, 210; profits on, 192; sales of,
193 — 195; manner of publishing, 1S4 — 201 ; piracy
of, in America, 195, 200 ; adopted as School Board
prizes, 194. Sec also several books indexed luider
their titles.

RusKiN Drawing School, The, at Oxford. [1. General.
H. As A School of Art. III. Its Collections.]

I. General. Its objects, 63 ; foundation and endow-
ment, 65; location of, 65, 1 16-7 h. ; possible
developments of, 113 — 121; use as model for
museums, etc., 75, 107, 119.

332 INDKX.

II. As A School of Art: 65-70; system of teaching

at, 67, 79 ; advantages of, 70.
in. The Collections: 70-121 ; description of cabinets,
73; unexpectedness of, 74; Ruskin's drawings
in. 76-89 ; woodcuts (Durer, etc.), Sg ; drawings
by — Burne-Jones, 71, 99, 100, 112; Burgess, 91;
Bunney, 92; " Francesca," 100; Goodwin, 98;
Hunt, 92; Leighton, 98; McWhirter, 98; Prout,
92 ; Turner {q.v.) ; Ward, 96 ; " Standard Series "
described, loi — 106; "Educational," 106 — 112;
"Rudimentary," 113.
Rydings, Egbert. See Isle of Man.

St. George's Guild, 140 — 163; origin of, 140; purposes of,

141, 161 ; agricultural experiments of, 145 ; Museum,

sec Meersbrook and Walkley ; industrial experiments

in connection with, 161 — 183.
"St. Marks Rest," 257, 269.
St. Martin's, Langdalc, spinning industiy at, 164 — 173;

description of, 169 ; view of St. Martin's {illustfatioti)^

168; peasant-woman spinning (iVZ/Ls/rrtto//), 166; "Old

John, the weaver " (illiislralioii), 171.
Science, Modern, Ruskin on, 206, 210, 265 //., 276, 278;

relation of Science to Art, 20, 278.
" Sesame and Lilies " cited, 33 ; its place in Ruskins

Gospel, 34.
"Seven Lamps of Architf.cture" cited, 17, 209; essential

principle of, 14; its place in Ruskin's Gospel referred

to, 170, 2S9.
Severn, Arthur, May Queen's cross designed by (illiislra-

lion), 129.
Sewening, Mr. (picture-dealer), 255.
Sheffield, why chosen as site of St. George's Museum,

146, 155 ; its treatment of the museum, 147, 156.
Shelley, Rubkin on, 267.
SociALis.M, Ruskin's relation to, 178.

INDEX. 333

South Kensington system, Ruskin on, 64.

Stage, Ruskin on, 210.

" Stones of Venice," its place in Ruskin's Gospel, 34 ;

referred to, 15.
Swan, the late Henry, Ruskin's pupil at Working Men's

College, 125 ; first Curator of St. George's Museum,

154 II.

Thomson, George, bis industrial partnership described,
178 — 1S3; Ruskin's interest in, 182; trustee of the
St. George's Guild, 178.

Tintoretto, his " Doge Mocenigo," 72 ; " Paradise," 59,

251-

Tolstoi, relation of his teaching to Ruskin's, 45, 145.

Town and Country Life, 162, 272.

Toynbee, Arnold, a pupil of Ruskin, 45.

Turner on Ruskin's Art-criticism, 8; greatness of, 14, 16,
17; "Modern Painters," a defence of, 2oS ; small
prices obtained by, for early drawings, 207; drawings,
etc., by — " Brignal Banks," 94 ; " Building of Car-
thage," 16 ; drawing of a grove, 255, 2S9 ; drawings in
Oxford University Galleries, 97, 284 ; Farnley interior,
96 ; junction of Greta and Tees, 94 ; Leicester, 60 ;
Loire, 94 ; pen and sepia studies, 95 ; Pass of Faido,
17, 291 ; Ruined Abbey, 95 ; St. Gothard, 291.

"Two Paths," 14.

Universities' Settlements, and Ruskin's teaching, 46.
" Unto this Last," its place in Ruskin's Gospel, 34 ;
referred to, 182; cited, 209.

■Verocchio, " Madonna and Child " in St. George's Museum,

149.
'Vivisection, Ruskin on, 115, 116 »., 206, 264.

'Walkley Museum, purpose of, 146 ; general description

334 INDEX.

of its contents, 147 ; Prince Leopold's visit to, with
Ruskin's explanations, 14S — 154 ; country around,
155; visitors to, 155; principles of its arrangement,

■53, 156.
Ward, William, his copies of Turner, 96, 97 >i. ; Ruskin's

pupil at Working Men's College, 125.
White, William, Curator of the St. George's Museum,

160 II.
Wiiitelands Training College, Chei«ea, Ruskin's gifts to,

137; Kuskin Cabinet at, 13S; Ruskin Librarj' at, 137.

See also May Queen Festival and Faunthorpe.
Working Men's College (London). Ruskin's connection

with, 124; his method of teaching at, 124; Ruskin and

Rossetti at, 125 ; his pupils at — G. Allen, 125 ; Bunney,

125; Swan, 125; Ward, 125.

Printed by Hazcll, Wauon, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

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