JVELL'S LITERATURE SERIES, No. 26. 2O CENTS RUSKIN OF OLD ENGLAND AND CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS fornia nal BY ;y JOHN RUSKIN .uthor of "Modern Painters," "Crown cf Wild Olive," etc., etc. NEW YORK : UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY SUCCESSORS TO JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY J50 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE Issued Weekly. Annual Subscription, $15.00. Sept. 14, 1889. BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE AUTHORS. STONES OF VENICE No. 1. 2. 8. 4. 6. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 80. 31. 83. 33. 34. 35. 86. 37. 10. 11. Your. LOVELL'S LITERATURE SERIES ISSUED WEEKLY. DESIRABLE WORKS OF CURRENT AND STANDARD LITERATURE IN A CONVENIENT AND ECONOMICAL FORM. MODERN PAINTERS, Vol. 1. MOUEHN PAINTERS, Vol. 2. MODERN PAINTERS, Vol. 3. MODERN PAINTERS, Vol. 4. MODERN PAINTERS, Vol. 5. CTS. By Ruskin .................................. 30 By Ruskin ................................ 30 By Ruskin .................................. 30 By Ruskin .................................. 30 By Ruskin ................................. 30 HISTORY OP THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, Vol. 1. By Cariylc ............ 30 HISTORY op THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, Vol. 2. By Carlylo ............. 30 STONES OP VENICE, Vol. 1. By Ruskin .................................. 30 STONES OP VENICE, Vol. 2. By Ruskin ................................. 30 STONES OP VENICE, Vol. 3. By Ruskin ................................. 30 SEVEN LAMPS OP ARCHITECTURE. ByRuskiu, ......................... 20 ETHICS OP THE DUST. By Ruskin ...................................... 20 SESAME .AND LILIES. By Ruskin ......................................... 20 THE QUEEN OP THE AIR. By Ruskin ................................... 20 CROWN OP WILD OLIVE. By Ruskin .................................... SO FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 1. FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 2. FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 3. FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 4. By Carlyle FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 5. By Carlyle FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 6. By Carlyle FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 7. By Carlyle By Carlyle ............................ 30 By Carlyle ............................ 30 By Carlyle ............................. 30 30 SO 30 30 FREDERICK THE GREAT, Vol. 8. By Carlyle ............................. 30 PAST AND PRESENT. By Carlyle ...................................... 25 SARTOR RESAUTUS. By Carlyle ................... ...................... 25 ART OP OLD ENGLAND. By Ruskin ..................................... 25 KINO OP THE GOLDEN RIVER. By Ruskin .............................. 25 DEUCALION. By Ruskin ................................................ 30 ST. MARK'S REST. By Ruskin ......................... .................. 25 LECTURES ON ART. By Ruskin .......................................... 25 THE Two PATHS. By Ruskin ............................................ 25 VALD'ARNO; PLEASURES OP ENGLAND. By Ruskin .................... 20. ARROWS, I. By Ruskin .................................................. 20 ARROWS, II. By Ruskin ................................................. 20 OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD Us; THE LAWS op FESOLE. By Ruskin ... 25 A JOY FOREVER ; INAUGURAL ADDRESS. By Ruskin .................... 20 OLIVER CROMWELL, I. By Carlyle ...................................... 80 OLIVER CROMWELL, II. By Carlyle ...................................... 80 OLIVER CROMWELL, III. By Cariyle ..................... ............... 30 CHARTISM. By Carlyle .................................................. 20 POEMS. By Ruskin ..................................................... 20 POETRY OP ARCHITECTURE ; GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS. By Ruskin ..... 26 CONTINUED ON THIRD PAGE OF COVER. ART OF OLD ENGLAND THE AET OF ENGLAND LECTUKES GIVEN IN OXFORD JOHN KUSKIN, D.C.L., LL.D. HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRISTCHURCH, AND HONORARY FELLOW OF CORPUS-CHRISTI COLLEGE DURING HIS SECOND TENURE OF THE SLADE PROFESSORSHIP NEW YORK UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY SUCCESSORS TO JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 142 TO ISO WORTH STREET If ft CO^TEKTS. LECTURE I. PAOB REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING, ...... 5 D. O. Rossetti and W. Holman Hunt. LECTURE II. MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING, ....... 20 E. Burne-Jones and O. F. Watts. LECTURE III. CLASSIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING, ...... ,35 Sir F. Leighton and Alma Tadema. LECTURE IV. FAIRY LAND, . ........ 53 Mrs. AUingham and Kate Greenaway. LECTURE V. THE FIRESIDE, .......... 71 John Leech and John Tennid. LECTURE VL THE HILLSIDE, .......... 8 & George Robwn and Copley Fielding. APPENDIX, INDEX, ...... ,,. THE ART OF ENGLAND. LECTURE I. Realistic Schools of Painting. D. G. KOSSETTI AND W. HOL1LAN HUNT. I AH well assured that this audience is too kind, and too sympathetic, to wish me to enlarge on the mingled feelings of fear and thankfulness, with which I find myself once again permitted to enter on the duties in which I am conscious that before I fell short in too many ways ; and in which I only have ventured to ask, and to accept, your farther trust, in the hope of being able to bring to some of their intended con- clusions, things not in the nature of them, it seems to me, beyond what yet remains of an old man's energy ; but, be- fore, too eagerly begun, and too irregularly followed. And indeed I am partly under the impression, both in gratitude and regret, that Professor Richmond's resignation, however justly motived by his wish to pursue with uninterrupted thought the career open to him in his profession, had partly also for its reason the courtesy of concession to his father's old friend ; and his own feeling that while yet I was able to be of service in advancing the branches of elementary art with which I was specially acquainted, it was best that I should make the attempt on lines already opened, and with the aid of old friends. I am now alike comforted in having left you, and encouraged in return ; for on all grounds it was most desirable that to the imperfect, and yet in many points new and untried code of practice which I had instituted, the foundations of higher study should have been added by Mr. 6 THE ART OF ENGLAND. Richmond, in connection with the methods of art-education recognized in the Academies of Europe. And although I have not yet been able to consult with him on the subject, I trust that no interruption of the courses of figure study, thus established, may be involved in the completion, for what it is worth, of the system of subordinate exercises in natural history and landscape, indicated in the schools to which at present, for convenience' sake, my name is attached ; but which, if they indeed deserve encouragement, will, I hope, receive it ultimately, as presenting to the beginner the first aspects of art, in the widest, because the humblest, relation to those of divinely organized and animated Nature. The immediate task I propose to myself is to make service- able, by all the illustration I can give them, the now un- equalled collection possessed by the Oxford schools of Turner drawings and sketches, completed as it has been by the kind- ness of the Trustees of the National Gallery at the intercession of Prince Leopold ; and furnishing the means of pi'Ogress in the study of landscape such as the great painter himself only conceived the scope of toward the closing period of his life. At the opening of next term, I hope, with Mr. Macdonald's assistance, to have drawn up a little synopsis of the elementary exercises which in my earner books have been recommended for practice in Landscape, a subject which, if you look back to the courses of my lectures here, you will find almost affect- edly neglected, just because it was my personal province. Other matters under deliberation, till I get them either done, or determined, I have no mind to talk of ; but to-day, and in the three lectures which I hope to give in the course of the summer term, I wish to render such account as is possible to me of the vivid phase into which I find our English art in general to have developed since first I knew it : and, though perhaps not without passing deprecation of some of its ten- dencies, to rejoice with you unqualifiedly in the honour which may most justly be rendered to the leaders, whether passed away or yet present with us, of England's Modern Painters. I may be permitted, in the reverence of sorrow, to speak first of my much loved friend, Gabriel Rossetti. But, in jus- REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 7 tice, no less than in the kindness due to death, I believe his name should be placed first on the list of men, within my own range of knowledge, who have raised and changed the spirit of modern Art: raised, in absolute attainment ; changed, in direction of temper. Rossetti added to the before accepted systems of colour in painting, one based on the principles of manuscript illumination, which permits his design to rival the most beautiful qualities of painted glass, without losing either the mystery or the dignity of light and shade. And he was, as I believe it is now generally admitted, the chief intellectual force in the establishment of the modern romantic school in England. Those who are acquainted with my former writings must be aware that I use the word ' romantic ' always in a noble sense ; meaning the habit of regarding the external and real world as a singer of Bomaunts would have regarded it in the middle ages, and as Scott, Bums, Byron, and Tennyson have regarded it in our own times. But, as Rossetti's colour was based on the former art of illumination, so his romance was based on traditions of earlier and more sacred origin than those which have inspired our highest modern romantic liter- ature. That literature has in all cases remained strongest in dealing with contemporary fact. The genius of Tennyson is at its highest in the poems of ' Maud,' ' In Memoriam,' and the ' Northern Farmer ' ; but that of Rossetti, as of his greatest disciple, is seen only when on pilgrimage in Palestine. I trust that Mr. Holman Hunt will not think that in speak- ing of him as Rossetti's disciple I derogate from the respect due to his own noble and determined genius. In all living schools it chances often that the disciple is greater than his master ; and it is always the first sign of a dominant and splendid intellect, that it knows of whom to learn. Rossetti's great poetical genius justified my claiming for him total, and, I believe, earliest, oiiginality in the sternly materialistic, though deeply reverent veracity, with which alone, of all schools of painters, this brotherhood of Englishmen has con- ceived the circumstances of the life of Christ. And if I had to choose one picture which represented in purity and com- 8 THE ART OF ENGLAND. pleteness, this manner of their thought, it would be Rossetti's ' Virgin in the House of St. John.' But when Holm an Hunt, under such impressive influence, quitting virtually forever the range of worldly subjects, to which belonged the pictures of Valentine and Sylvia, of Claudio and Isabel, and of the 'Awakening Conscience,' rose into the spiritual passion, which first expressed itself in the ' Light of the World,' an instant and quite final difference was manifested between his method of conception, and that of his forerunner. To Rossetti, the Old and New Testaments were only the greatest poems he knew ; and he painted scenes from them with no more actual belief in their relation to the present life and business of men than he gave also to the Morte d'Arthur and the Vita Nuova. But to Holman Hunt, the story of the New Testament, when once his mind entirely fastened on it, became what it was to an old Puritan, or an old Catholic of true blood, not merely a Reality, not merely the greatest of Realities, but the only Reality. So that there is nothing in the earth for him any more that does not speak of that ; there is no course of thought nor force of skill for him, but it springs from and ends in that. So absolutely, and so involuntarily I use the word in its noblest meaning is this so with him, that in all subjects which fall short in the religious element, his power also is shortened, and he does those things worst which are easiest to other men. Beyond calculation, greater, beyond comparison, happier, than Rossetti, in this sincerity, he is distinguished also from him by a respect for physical and material truth which ren- ders his work far more generally, far more serenely, exem- plary. The specialty of colour-method which I have signalized in Rossetti, as founded on missal painting, is in exactly that de- gree conventional and unreal. Its light Js not the light of sun- shine itself, but of sunshine diffused through coloured glass. And in object-painting he not only refused, partly through idle- ness, partly in the absolute want of opportunity for the study of nature involved in his choice of abode in a garret at Black- REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. friars, refused, I say, the natural aid of pure landscape and sky, but wilfully perverted and lacerated his powers of concep- tion with Chinese puzzles and Japanese monsters, until his foliage looked generally fit for nothing but a fire-screen, and his landscape distances like the furniture of a Noah's Ark from the nearest toy-shop. Whereas Holman Hunt, in the very beginning of his career, fixed his mind, as a colourist, on the true representation of actual sunshine, of growing leafage, of living rock, of heavenly cloud ; and his long and resolute exile, deeply on many grounds to be regretted both for him- self and us, bound only closer to his heart the mighty forms and hues of God's earth and sky, and the mysteries of its ap- pointed lights of the day and of the night opening on the foam " Of desolate seas, in Sacred lands forlorn." You have, for the last ten or fifteen years, been accustomed to see among the pictures principally characteristic of the English school, a certain average number of attentive studies, both of sunshine, and the forms of lower nature, whose beauty is meant to be seen by its light. Those of Mr. Brett may be named with especial praise ; and you will probably many of you remember with pleasure the study of cattle on a High- land moor in the evening, by Mr. Davis, which in last vear's O 7 v / Academy carried us out, at the end of the first room, into sudden solitude among the hills. But we forget, in the enjoyment of these new and healthy pleasures connected with painting, to whom we first owe them all. The apparently un- important picture by Holman Hunt, ' The strayed Sheep,' which painted thirty years ago you may perhaps have seen last autumn in the rooms of the Art Society in Bond Street, at once achieved all that can ever be done in that kind : it will not be surpassed -it is little likely to be rivalled by the best efforts of the times to come. It showed to us, for the first time in the history of art, the absolutely faithful balances of colour and shade by which actual sunshine might be trans- posed into a key in which the harmonies possible with mate- rial pigments should yet produce the same impressions upon the mind which were caused by the light itself. And remember, all previous work whatever had been either 10 THE ART OF ENGLAND. subdued into narrow truth, or only by convention suggestive of the greater. Claude's sunshine is colourless, only the golden haze of a quiet afternoon ; so also that of Cuyp : Turner's, so bold in conventionalism that it is credible to few of you, and offensive to many. But the pure natural green and tufted gold of the herbage in the hollow of that little sea-cliff must be recognized for true merely by a minute's pause of attention. Standing long before the picture, you were soothed by it, and raised into such peace as you are in- tended to find in the glory and the stillness of summer, pos- sessing all things. I cannot say of this power of true sunshine, the least thing that I would. Often it is said to me by kindly readers, that I have taught them to see what they had not seen : and yet never in all the many volumes of effort have I been able to tell them my own feelings about what I myself see. You may suppose that I have been all this time trying to express my personal feelings about Nature. No ; not a whit. I soon found I could not, and did not try to. All my writing is only the effort to distinguish what is constantly, and to all men, loveable, and if they will look, lovely, from what is vile, or empty, or, to well trained eyes and hearts, loathsome ; but you will never find me talking about what I feel, or what 1 think. I know that fresh air is more wholesome than fog, and that blue sky is more beautiful than black, to people hap- pily born and bred. But you will never find, except of late, and for special reasons, effort of mine to say how I am myself oppressed or comforted by such things. This is partly my steady principle, and partly it is inca- pacity. Forms of personal feeling in this kind can only be expressed in poetry ; and I am not a poet, nor in any articu- late manner could I the least explain to you what a deep element of life, for me, is in the sight merely of pure sunshine on a bank of living grass. More than any pathetic music, yet I love music, more than any artful colour and yet I love colour, more than other merely material thing visible to these old eyes, in earth or sky. It is so, I believe, with many of you also, with mant REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 11 more than know it of themselves ; and this picture, were it only the first that cast true sunshine on the grass, would have been in that virtue sacred : but in its deeper meaning, it is, actually, the first of Hunt's sacred paintings the first in which, for those who can read, the substance of the conviction and the teaching of his after life is written, though not dis- tinctly told till afterwards in the symbolic picture of ' The Scapegoat.' " All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." None of you, who have the least acquaintance with the general tenor of my own teaching, will suspect in me any bias towards the doctrine of vicarious Sacrifice, as it is taught by the modern Evangelical Preacher. But the great mystery of the idea of Sacrifice itself, which has been manifested as one united and solemn instinct by all thoughtful and affectionate races, since the wide world became peopled, is founded on the secret truth of benevolent energy which all men who have tried to gain it have learned that you cannot save men from death but by facing it for them, nor from sin but by resisting it for them. It is, on the contrary, the favourite, and the worst falsehood of modern infidel morality, that you serve your fellow-creatures best by getting a percentage out of their pockets, and will best provide for starving multitudes by regaling yourselves. Some day or other probably now very soon too probably by heavy afflictions of the State, we shall be taught that it is not so ; and that all the true good and glory even of this world not to speak of any that is to come, must be bought still, as it always has been, with our toil, and with our tears. That is the final doctrine, the inevi- table one, not of Christianity only, but of all Heroic Faith and Heroic Being ; and the first trial question of a true soul to itself must always be, Have I a religion, have I a country, have I a love, that I am ready to die for ? That is the Doctrine of Sacrifice ; the faith in which Isaac was bound, in which Iphigenia died, in which the great army of martyrs have suffered, and by which all victories in the cause of justice and happiness have been gained by the men 12 THE ART OF ENGLAND. who became more than conquerors, through Him that loved them. And yet there is a deeper and stranger sacrifice in the sys- tem of this creation than theirs. To resolute self-denial, and to adopted and accepted suffering, the reward is in the con- science sure, and in the gradual advance and predominance of good, practically and to all men visible. But what shall we say of involuntary suffering, the misery of the poor and the simple, the agony of the helpless and the innocent, and the perishing, as it seems, in vain, and the mother weeping for the children of whom she knows only that they are not? I saw it lately given as one of the incontrovertible discov- eries of modern science, that all our present enjoyments were only the outcome of an infinite series of pain. I do not know how far the statement fairly represented but it announced as incapable of contradiction this melancholy theory. If such a doctrine is indeed abroad among you, let me comfort some, at least, with its absolute denial. That in past aeons, the pain suffered throughout the living universe passes calculation, is true ; that it is infinite, is untrue ; and that all our enjoy- ments are based on it, contemptibly untrue. For, on the other hand, the pleasure felt through the living universe dur- ing past ages is incalculable also, and in higher magnitudes. Our own talents, enjoyments, and prosperities, are the out- come of that happiness with its energies, not of the death that ended them. So manifestly is this so, that all men of hitherto widest reach in natural science and logical thought have been led to fix their minds only on the innumerable paths of pleasure, and ideals of beauty, which are traced on the scroll of creation, and are no more tempted to arraign as unjust, or even lament as unfortunate, the essential equivalent of sorrow, than in the seven-fold glories of sunrise to depre- cate the mingling of shadow with its light. This, however, though it has always been the sentiment of the healthiest natural philosophy, has never, as you well know, been the doctrine of Christianity. That religion, as it comes to us with the promise of a kingdom in which there shall be no more Death, neither sorrow nor crving, so it has alwavs REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 13 brought with it the confession of calamity to be at present in patience of mystery endured ; and not by us only, but ap- parently for our sakes, by the lower creatures, for whom it is inconceivable that any good should be the final goal of ilL Toward these, the one lesson we have to learn is that of pity. For all human loss and pain, there is no comfort, no interpre- tation worth a thought, except only in the doctrine of the Resurrection ; of which doctrine, remember, it is an immut- able historical fact that all the beautiful work, and all the happy existence of mankind, hitherto, has depended on, or consisted in, the hope of it. The picture of which I came to-day chiefly to speak, as a symbol of that doctrine, was incomplete when I saw it, and is so still ; but enough was done to constitute it the most im- portant work of Hunt's life, as yet ; and if health is granted to him for its completion, it will, both in reality and in esteem, be the greatest religious painting of our time. You know that in the most beautiful former conceptions of the Flight into Egypt, the Holy Family were always repre- sented as watched over, and ministered to, by attendant an- gels. But only the safety and peace of the Divine Child and its mother are thought of. No sadness or wonder of medita- tion returns to the desolate homes of Bethlehem. But in this English picture all the story of the escape, as of the flight, is told, in fulness of peace, and yet of compassion. The travel is in the dead of the night, the way unseen and unknown ; but, partly stooping from the starlight, and partly floating on the desert mirage, move, with the Holy Family the glorified souls of the Innocents. Clear in celestial light, and gathered into child-garlands of gladness, they look to the Child in whom they live, and yet, for them to die. Waters of the River of Life flow before on the sands : the Christ stretches out His arms to the nearest of them ; leaning from His mother's breast. To how many bereaved households may not this happy vision of conquered death bring in the future, days of peace ! I do not care to speak of other virtues in this design than those of its majestic thought, but you may well imagine 14 THE ART OF ENGLAND. for yourselves how the painter's quite separate and, in its skill, better than magical, power of giving effects of intense light, has aided the effort of his imagination, while the pas- sion of his subject has developed in him a swift grace of in- vention which for my own part I never recognized in his de- sign till now. I can say with deliberation that none even ot the most animated groups and processions of children which constitute the loveliest sculpture of the Robbias and Dona- tello, can 'more than rival the freedom and felicity of motion, or the subtlety of harmonious line, in the happy wreath of these angel-children. Of this picture I came to-day chiefly to speak, nor will I disturb the poor impression which my words can give you of it by any immediate reference to other pictures by our lead- ing masters. But it is not, of course, among these men of splendid and isolated imagination that you can learn the modes of regarding common and familiar nature which you must be content to be governed by in early lessons. I count myself fortunate, in renewing ,my effort to systematize these, that I can now place in the schools, or at least lend, first one and then another some exemplary drawings by young people youths and girls of your own age clever ones, yes, but not cleverer than a great many of you : emi- nent only, among the young people of the present day whom I chance to know, in being extremely old-fashioned ; and, don't be spiteful when I say so, but really they all are, all the four of them two lads and two lassies quite provokingly good. Lads, not exactly lads perhaps one of them is already master of the works in the ducal palace at Venice ; lassies, to an old man of sixty-four, who is vexed to be beaten by them in his own business a little older, perhaps, than most of the lassies here, but still brightly young ; and, mind you, not ar- tists, but drawing in the joy of their hearts and the builder at Venice only in his play-time yet, I believe you will find these, and the other drawings I speak of, more helpful, and as I just said, exemplary, than any I have yet been able to lind for you ; and of these, little stories are to be told, which REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 15 bear much on all that I have been most earnestly trying to make you assured of, both in art and in real life. Let me, however, before going farther, say, to relieve your minds from unhappily too well-grounded panic, that I have no intention of making my art lectures any more one-half sermons. All \\\Q pieces of theological or other grave talk which seemed to me a necessary' part of my teaching here, < have been already spoken, and printed ; and are, I only fear 1 " at too great length, legible. Nor have I any more either strength or passion to spare in matters capable of dispute. I must in silent resignation leave all of you who are led by your fancy, or induced by the fashion of the time, to follow, with- out remonstrance on my part, those modes of studying organic beauty for which preparation must be made by depriving the animal under investigation first of its soul within, and secondly of its skin without. But it chances to-day, that the merely literal histories of the di-awings which I bring with me to show you or to lend, do carry with them certain evidences of the practical force of religious feeling on the imagination, both in artists and races, such as I cannot, if I would, over- look, and such as I think you will yourselves, even those who have least sympathy with them, not without admiration rec- ognise. For a long time I used to say, in all my elementary books, that, except in a graceful and minor way, women could not paint or draw. I am beginning, lately, to bow myself to the much more delightful conviction that nobody else can. How this very serious change of mind was first induced in me it is, if not necessary, I hope pardonable, to delay you by tell- ing. When I was at Venice in 1876 it is almost the only thing that makes me now content in having gone there, two Eng- lish ladies, mother and daughter, were staying at the same hotel, the Europa. One day the mother sent me a pretty little note asking if 1 would look at the young lady's draw- ings. On my somewhat sulky permission, a few were sent, in which I saw there was extremely right-minded and careful work, almost totally without knowledge. I sent back a re- Itf THE ART OF ENGLAND. quest that the young lady might be allowed to come out sketching with me. I took her over into the pretty cloister of the church of La Salute, and set her, for the first time in her life, to draw a little piece of gray marble with the sun upon it, rightly. She may have had one lesson after that she may have had two ; the three, if there were three, seem to me,i now, to have been only one ! She seemed to leax-n everything the instant she was shown it and ever so much more than she was taught Next year she went away to Norway, on one of these frolics which are now-a-days neces- sary to girl-existence ; and brought back a little pocket-book, which she thought nothing of, and which I begged of her : and have framed half a dozen leaves of it (for a loan to you, only, mind,) till you have enough copied them. Of the minute drawings themselves, I need not tell you for you will in examining them, beyond all telling, feel, that they are exactly what we should all like to be able to do ; and in the plainest and frankest manner show us how to do it or, more modestly speaking, how, if heaven help us, it can be done. They can only be seen, as you see Bewick vignettes, with a magnifying glass, and they are patterns to you, there- fore, only of pocket-book work ; but what skill is more pre- cious to a traveller than that of minute, instantaneous, and unerring record of the things that are precisely best ? For in this, the vignettes upon these leaves differ, widely as the arc of heaven, from the bitter truths of Bewick. Nothing is re- corded here but what is lovely and honourable : how much there is of both in the peasant life of Norway, many an Eng- lish traveller has recognised ; but not always looking for the cause or enduring the conclusion, that its serene beauty, its hospitable patriotism, its peaceful courage, and its happy virtue, were dependent on facts little resembling our modern English institutions ; namely, that the Norwegian peasant " is a free man on the scanty bit of ground which he has iu- hei-ited from his forefathers ; that the Bible is to be found in every hut ; that the schoolmaster wanders from farm to farm ; that no Norwegian is confirmed who does not know how to read ; and no Norwegian is allowed to marry who has not \ REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 17 been confirmed." I quote straightforwardly, (missing only some talk of Parliaments ; but not caring otherwise how far the sentences are with my own notions, or against,) from Dr. Hartwig's collected descriptions of the Polar world. I am not myself altogether sure of the wisdom of teaching every- body to read : but might be otherwise persuaded if here, as in. Norway, every town had its public library, " while in many- districts the peasants annually contribute a dollar towards a collection of books, which, under the care of the priest, are lent out to all comers." I observe that the word ' priest ' has of late become more than ever offensive to the popular English mind ; and pause only to say that in whatever capacity, or authority, the essen- tial function of a public librarian must in every decent and rational country be educational ; and consist in the choosing, for the public, books authoritatively or essentially true, free from vain speculation or evil suggestion : and in noble history or cheerful fancy, to the utmost, entertaining. One kind of periodical literature, it seems to me as I study these drawings, must at all events in Norway be beautifully forbidden, the "Journal des Modes." You will see evidence here that the bright fancying alike of maidens' and matrons' dress, capable of prettiest variation in its ornament, is yet ancestral in its form, and the white caps, in their daily purity, have the untroubled constancy, of the seashell and the snow. Next to these illustrations of Norwegian economy, I have brought you a drawing of deeper and less imitable power : it is by a girl of quite peculiar gift, whose life has hitherto been spent in quiet and unassuming devotion to her art, and to its subjects. I would fain have said, an English girl, but all my prejudices have lately had the axe laid to their roots one by one, she is an American ! But for twenty years she has lived with her mother among the peasants of Tuscany under their olive avenues in summer receiving them, as they choose to come to chat with her, in her little room by Santa Maria No- vella in Florence during winter. They come to her as their loving guide, and friend, and sister in all their work, and pleasure, and suffering. I lean on the last word. 2 \ 18 THE ART OF ENGLAND. For those of you who have entered into the heart of modern Italy know that there is probably no more oppressed, no more afflicted order of gracious and blessed creatures God's own poor, who have not yet received their consolation, than the mountain peasantry of Tuscany and Romagna. "What their minds are, and what their state, and what their treatment, those who do not know Italy may best leara, if they can bear the grief of learning it, from Ouida's photographic story of ' A Village Commune ' ; yet amidst all this, the sweetness of their natural character is undisturbed, their ancestral religious faith unshaken their purity and simplicity of household life uncorrupted. They may perish, by our neglect or our cruelty, but they cannot be degraded. Among them, as I have told you, this American girl has lived from her youth up, with her (now widowed) mother, who is as eagerly, and which is the chief matter, as sympathizingly benevolent as herself. The peculiar art gift of the younger lady is rooted in this sympathy, the gift of truest expression of feelings serene in their rightness ; and a love of beauty divided almost between the peasants and the flowers that live round Santa Maria del Fiore. This power she has trained by its limitation, severe, and in my experience unexampled, to work in light and shade only, with the pure pen line : but the total strength of her intellect and fancy being concentrated in this engraver's method, it expresses of every subject what she loves best, in simplicity undebased by any accessory of minor emotion. She has thus drawn, in faithfulest portraiture of these peasant Florentines, the loveliness of the young and the majesty of the aged : she has listened to their legends, writ- ten down their sacred songs ; and illustrated, with the sanc- tities of mortal life, their traditions of immortality. I have brought you only one drawing to-day ; in the spring I trust you shall have many, but this is enough, just now. It is drawn from memory only, but the fond memory which is as sure as sight it is the last sleep from which she waked on this earth, of a young Florentine girl, who had brought heaven down to earth, as truly as ever saint of old, while she lived, and of whom even I, who never saw hery cannot believe REALISTIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. IN that she is dead. Her friend, who drew this memorial of her, wrote also the short stoiy of her life, which I trust you will soon be able to read. Of this, and of the rest of these drawings, I have much to say to you ; but this first and last, r- that they are representa- tions of beautiful human nature, such as could only have been found among people living in the pure Christian faith such as it was, and is, since the twelfth century ; and that although, as I said, I have returned to Oxford only to teach you techni- cal things, this truth must close the first words, as it must be the sum of all that I may be permitted to speak to you, that the history of the art of the Greeks is the eulogy of their virtues ; and the history of Art after the fall of Greece, is that of the Obedience and the Faith of Christianity. There are two points of practical importance which I must leave under your consideration. I am confirmed by Mr. Mac- donald in my feeling that some kind of accurately testing ex- amination is necessary to give consistency and efficiency to the present drawing-school. I have therefore determined to give simple certificates of merit, annually, to the students who have both passed through the required course, and at the end of three years have produced work satisfactory to Mr. Mac- donald and myself. After Easter, I will at once look over such drawings as Mr. Macdonald thinks well to show me, by stu- dents who have till now complied with the rules of the school ; and give certificates accordingly ; henceforward, if my health is spared, annually : and I trust that the advantage of this simple and uncompetitive examination will be felt by succeed- ing holders of the Slade Professorship, and in time commend itself enough to be held as a part of the examination system of the University. Uncompetitive, always. The drawing certificate will imply no compliment, and convey no distinction. It will mean merely that the student who obtains it knows perspective, with the scientific laws of light and colour in illustrating form, and has attained a certain proficiency in the management of the pencil. The second point is of more importance and more difficulty. 20 THE ART OF ENGLAND. I now see my way to making the collection of examples in the schools, quite representative of all that such a series ought to be. But there is extreme difficulty in finding any books that can be put into the hands of the home student which may supply the place of an academy. I do not mean merely as lessons in drawing, but in the formation of taste, which, when we analyse it, means of course merely the right direction of feeling. I hope that in many English households there may be found already I trust some day there may be found wherever there are children who can enjoy them, and especially in country village schools the three series of designs by Ludwig Rich- ter, in illustration of the Lord's Prayer, of the Sunday, and of the Seasons. Perfect as types of easy line drawing, exqui- site in ornamental composition, and refined to the utmost in ideal grace, they represent all that is simplest, purest, and happiest in human life, all that is most strengthening and comforting in nature and religion. They are enough, in themselves, to show that whatever its errors, whatever its backslidings, this century of ours has in its heart understood and fostered, more than any former one, the joys of family affection, and of household piety. For the former fairy of the woods, Richter has brought to you the angel on the threshold ; for the former promises of distant Paradise, he has brought the perpetual blessing, " God be with you " : amidst all the turmoil and speeding to and fro, and wandering of heart and eyes which perplex our paths, and betray our wills, he speaks to us continuous me- morial of the message " My Peace I leave with you." LECTURE H. Mythic Schools of fainting. R BURNE-JONE8 AND G. F. WATTS. IT is my purpose, in the lectures I may be permitted hence- forward to give in Oxford, so to arrange them as to dispense with notes in subsequent printing ; and, if I am forced for MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 21 shortness, or in oversight, to leave anything insufficiently ex- plained, to complete the passage in the next following lecture, or in any one, though after an interval, which may naturally recur to the subject. Thus the printed text will always be simply what I have read, or said ; and the lectures will be more closely and easily connected than if I went always on without the care of explanatory retrospect. It may have been observed, and perhaps with question of my meaning, by some readers, that in my last lecture I used the word " materialistic " of the method of conception com- mon to Rossetti and Hunt, with the greater number of their scholars. I used that expression to denote their peculiar tendency to feel and illustrate the relation of spiritual creat- ures to the substance and conditions of the visible world ; more especially, the familiar, or in a sort humiliating, acci- dents or employments of their earthly life ; as, for instance, in the picture I referred to, Eossetti's Virgin in the house of St. John, the Madonna's being drawn at the moment when she rises to trim their lamp. In many such cases, the inci- dents may of course have symbolical meaning, as, in the un- finished drawing by Rossetti of the Passover, which I have so long left with you, the boy Christ is watching the blood struck on the doorpost ; but the peculiar value and character of the treatment is in what I called its material veracity, compelling the spectator's belief, if he have the instinct of belief in him at all, in the thing's having verily happened ; and not being a mere poetical fancy. If the spectator, on the contrary, have no capacity of belief in him, the use of such representation is in making him detect his own incredulity, and recognise that in his former dreamy acceptance of the story, he had never really asked himself whether these things were so. Thus, in what I believe to have been in .actual time the first though I do not claim for it the slightest lead in sug- gestive influence, jet the first dated example of such literal and close realization my own endeavour in the third volume of ' Modern Painters ' to describe the incidents preceding the charge to Peter, I have fastened on the words, "He girt his fisher's coat about him, and did cast himself into the sea," THE ART OF ENGLAND. following them out, with, " Then, to Peter, all wet and shiver- ing, staring at Christ in the sun ; " not in the least supposing or intending any symbolism either in the coat, or the dripping water, or the morning sunshine ; but merely and straitly striving to put the facts before the reader's eyes as positively as if he had seen the thing come to pass on Brighton beach, and an English fisherman dash through the surf of it to the feet of his captain, once dead, and now with the morning brightness on his face. And you will observe farther, that this way of thinking about a thing compels, with a painter, also a certain way of painting it. I do not mean a necessarily close or minute way, but a necessarily complete, substantial, and emphatic one. The thing may be expressed with a few fierce dashes of the pencil ; but it will be wholly and bodily there ; it may be in the broadest and simplest terms, but nothing will be hazy or hidden, nothing clouded round, or melted away : and all that is told will be as explanatory and lucid as may be as of a thing examined in daylight, not dreamt of in moonlight. I must delay you a little, though perhaps tiresomely, to make myself well understood on this point ; for the first cele- brated pictures of the pre-Raphaelite school having been ex- tremely minute in finish, you rnijht easily take minuteness for a specialty of the style. but it is not so in the least. Minute- ness I do somewhat claim, for a quality insisted upon by myself, and required in the work of my own pupils ; it is at least in landscape Turnerian and Ruskinian not pre-Ra- phaelite at all : the pre-Raphaelism common to us all is in the frankness and honesty of the touch, not in its dimensions. I think I may, once for all, explain this to you, and con- vince you of it, by asking you, when you next go up to Lon- don, to look at a sketch by Vandyke in the National Gallery, No. 680, purporting to represent this very scene I have been speaking of, the miraculous draught of fishes. It is one of the too numerous brown sketches in the manner of the Flem- ish School, which seem to me always rather done for the sake of wiping the brush clean than of painting anything. There is no colour in it, and no light and shade ; but a certain MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 23 quantity of bitumen is rubbed about so as to slip more or less greasily into the shape of figures ; and one of St. John's (or St. James's) legs is suddenly terminated by a wriggle of white across it, to signify that he is standing in the sea. Now that was the kind of work of the Dutch School, which I spent so many pages in vituperating throughout the first volume of 'Modern Painters' pages, seemingly, vain to this day; for still, the brown daubs are hung in the best rooms of the Na- tional Gallery, and the loveliest Turner drawings are nailed to the wall of its cellar, and might as well be buried at Pom- peii for any use they are to the British public ; but, vain or effectless as the said chapters may be, they are altogether true in that firm statement, that these brown flourishes of the Dutch brush are by men who lived, virtually, the gentle, at court, the simple, in the pothouse ; and could indeed paint according to their habitation, a nobleman or a boor, but were not only incapable of conceiving, but wholly unwishful to con- ceive, anything, natural or supernatural, beyond the precincts of the Presence and the tavern. So that they especially failed in giving the life and beauty of little things in lower nature ; and if, by good hap, they may sometimes more or less succeed in painting St. Peter the Fisher's face, never by any chance realize for you the green Avave dashing over his feet. Now, therefore, understand of the opposite so called ' Pre- Raphaelite,' and, much more, pre-Rubensite, society, that its primary virtue is the ti-ying to conceive things as they are, and thinking and feeling them quite out : believing joyfully if we may, doubting bravely, if we must, but never mystify- ing, or shrinking from, or choosing for argument's sake, this or that fact ; but giving every fact its own full power, and every incident and accessory its own true place, so that, still keeping to our illustrations from Brighton or Yarmouth beach, in that most noble picture by Millais which probably most of you saw last autumn in London, the 'Caller Herrin',' picture which, as a piece of art, I should myself put highest of all yet produced by the pre-Raphaelite school ; in that most noble picture, I say, the herrings were painted just as well as the girl, and the master was not the least afraid that, - } 4 THE ART OF ENGLAND. for all he could do to them, you would look at the herringa first. Now then, I think I have got the manner of pre-Kaphaelite ' Realization ' ' Verification ' ' Materialization ' or what- ever else you choose to call it, positively enough asserted and defined : and hence you will see that it follows, as a necessary consequence, that pre-Raphaelite subjects must xisually be of real persons in a solid world not of personifications in a vaporescent one. The persons may be spiritual, but they are individual, St. George, himself, not the vague idea of Fortitude ; St. Cecily herself, not the mere power of music. And, although spiritual, there is no attempt whatever made by this school to indicate their immortal nature by any evanescence or obscur- ity of aspect. All transparent ghosts and unoutlined spectra are the work of failing imagination, rest you sure of that. Botticelli indeed paints the Favonian breeze transparent, but never the angel Gabriel ; and in the picture I was telling you of in last lecture, if there be a fault which may jar for a moment on your feelings when you first see it, I am afraid it will be that the souls of the Innocents are a little too chubby, and one or two of them, I should say, just a dimple too fat. And here I must branch for a moment from the direct course of my subject, to answer another question which may by this time have occurred to some of my hearers, how, if this school be so obstinately realistic, it can also be character- ized as romantic. When we have concluded our review of the present state of English art, we will collect the general evidence of its ro- mance ; meantime, I will say only this much, for you to think out at your leisure, that romance does not consist in the man., ner of representing or relating things, but in the kind of pas- sions appealed to by the things related. The three romantic passions are those by which you are told, in Wordsworth's aphoristic line, that the life of the soul is fed. " We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love." Admiration, meaning primarily all the forms of Hero Worship, and second- arily, the kind of feeling towards the beauty of nature, which MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 25 I have attempted too feebly to analyze in the second volume of ' Modern Painters ' ; Hope, meaning primarily the habit of mind in which we take present pain for the sake of future pleasure, and expanding into the hope of another world ; and Love, meaning of course whatever is happiest or noblest in the life either of that world or this. Indicating, thus briefly, what, though not always consciously, we mean by Romance, I proceed with our present subject of enquiry, from which I branched at the point where it had been observed that the realistic school could only develop its com- plete force in representing persons, and could not happily rest in personifications. Nevertheless, vre find one of the artists whose close friendship with Kossetti, and fellowship with other members of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, have more or less identified his work with theirs, yet differing from them all diametrically in this, that his essential gift and habit of thought is in personification, and that, for sharp and brief instance, had both Rossetti and he been set to illustrate the first chapter of Genesis, Eossetti would have painted either Adam or Eve but Edward Burne-Jones, a Day of Creation. And in this gift, he becomes a painter, neither of Divine History, nor of Divine Natural History, but of Mythology, accepted as such, and understood by its symbolic figures to represent only general truths, or abstract ideas. And here I must at once pray you, as I have prayed you to remove all associations of falsehood from the word romance, so also to clear them out of your faith, when you begin the study of mythology. Never confuse a Myth with a Lie, nay, you must even be cautious how far you even permit it to be called a fable. Take the frequentest and simplest of myths for instance that of Fortune and her wheeL Enid does not herself conceive, or in the least intend the hearers of her song to conceive, that there stands anywhere in the universe a real woman, turning an adamantine wheel whose revolutions have power over human destiny. She means only to assert, under that image, more clearly the law of Heaven's continual deal' ing with man, " He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek." 26 THE ART OF ENGLAND. But in the imagined symbol, or rather let me say, the visit* ing and visible dream, of this law, other ideas variously con- ducive to its clearness are gathered ; those of gradual and irresistible motion of rise and fall, the tide of Fortune, as distinguished from instant change of catastrophe ; those of the connection of the fates of men with each other, the yield- ing and occupation of high place, the alternately appointed and inevitable humiliation : and the fastening, in the sight of the Ruler of Destiny, of all to the mighty axle which moves only as the axle of the world. These things are told or hinted to you, in the mythic picture, not with the imperti- nence and the narrowness of words, nor in any order com- pelling a monotonous succession of thought, but each as you choose or chance to read it, to be rested in or proceeded with, as you will. Here then is the ground on which the Dramatic, or per- sonal, and Mythic or personifying, schools of our young painters, whether we find for them a general name or not, must be thought of as absolutely one that, as the dramatic painters seek to show you the substantial truth of persons, so the mythic school seeks to teach you the spiritual truth of myths. Truth is the vital power of the entire school, Truth its ar- mour Truth its war- word ; and the grotesque and wild forms of imagination which, at first sight, seem to be the reaction of a desperate fancy, and a terrified faith, against the incisive scepticism of recent science, so far from being so, are a part of that science itself : they are the results of infinitely more accurate scholarship, of infinitely more detective examination, of infinitely more just and scrupulous integrity of thought, 'than was possible to any artist during the two preceding cent- uries ; and exactly as the eager and sympathetic passion of the dramatic designer now assures you of the way in which an event happened, so the scholarly and sympathetic thought of the mythic designer now assures you of the meaning, ic what a fable said. Much attention has lately been paid by archaeologists to what they are pleased to call the development of myths : but, MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 27 for the most part, with these two erroneous ideas to begin with the first, that mythology is a temporary form of human folly, from which they are about in their own perfect wisdom to achieve our final deliverance ; the second, that you may conclusively ascertain the nature of these much-to-be-lamented misapprehensions, by the types which early art presents of them ! You will find in the first section of my ' Queen of the Air,' contradiction enough of the first supercilious theoiy ; though not with enough clearness the counter statement, that the thoughts of all the greatest and wisest men hitherto, since the world was made, have been expressed through mythology. You may find a piece of most convincing evidence on this point by noticing that whenever, by Plato, you are extricated from the play of logic, and from the debate of points dubita- ble or trivial ; and are to be told somewhat of his inner thought, and highest moral conviction, that instant you are cast free in the elements of phantasy, and delighted by a beautiful myth. And I believe that every master here who is interested, not merely in the history, but in the substance, of moral philosophy, will confirm me in saying that the direct maxims of the greatest sages of Greece, do not, in the sum of them, contain a code of ethics either so pure, or so practical, as that which may be gathered by the attentive interpretation of the myths of Pindar and Aristophanes. Of the folly of the second notion above-named, held by the majority of our students of ' development ' in fable, that they can estimate the dignity of ideas by the symbols used for them, in early art ; and trace the succession of thought in the human mind by the tradition of ornament in its manufactures, I have no time to-day to give any farther illustration than that long since instanced to you, the difference between the ideas con- vej'ed by Homer's description of the shield of Achilles, (much more, Hesiod's of that of Herakles,) and the impression which we should receive from any actually contemporary Greek art. You may with confidence receive the restoration of the Ho- meric shield, given by Mr. A. Murray in his history of Greek sculpture, as authoritatively representing the utmost graphic skill which could at the time have been employed in the deco- 2$ THE ART OF ENGLAND. ration of a hero's armour. But the poet describes the ruda imagery as producing the effect of reality, and might praise in the same words the sculpture of Donatello or Ghiberti. And you may rest entirely satisfied that when the surround- ing realities are beautiful, the imaginations, in all distin- guished human intellect, are beautiful also, and that the forms of gods and heroes were entirely noble in dream, and in con- templation, long before the clay became ductile to the hand of the potter, or the likeness of a living body possible in ivory and gold. And herein you see with what a deeply interesting function the modern painter of mythology is invested. He is to place, at the service of former imagination, the art which it had not and to realize for us, with a truth then impossible, the vis- ions described by the wisest of men as embodying their most pious thoughts and their most exalted doctrines : not indeed attempting with any literal exactitude to follow the words of the visionary, for no man can enter literally into the mind of another, neither can any great designer refuse to obey the suggestions of his own : but only bringing the resources of accomplished art to unveil the hidden splendour of old imagi- nation ; and showing us that the forms of gods and angels which appeared in fancy to the prophets and saints of an- tiquity, were indeed more natural and beautiful than the black and red shadows on a Greek vase, or the dogmatic outlines of a Byzantine fresco. It should be a ground of just pride to all of us here in Ox- ford, that out of this University came the painter whose inde- fatigable scholarship and exhaustless fancy have together fitted him for this task, in a degree far distinguishing him above all contemporary European designers. It is impossible for the general public to estimate the quantity of careful and investi- gatory reading, and the fine tact of literary discrimination, which are signified by the command now possessed by Mr. Burne-Jones over the entire range both of Northern and Greek mythology, or the tenderness at once, and largeness, of sym- pathy which have enabled him to harmonize these with the loveliest traditions of Christian legend. Hitherto, there has MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 29 been adversity between the schools of classic and Christian. art, only in part conquered by the most liberal-minded of ar- tists and poets : Nicholas of Pisa accepts indeed the technical aid of antiquity, but with much loss to his Christian sentiment ; Dante uses the imagery of ^Esehylus for the more terrible picturing of the Hell to which, in common with the theologians of his age, he condemned his instructor ; but while Minos and the Furies are represented by him as still existent in Hades, there is no place in Paradise for Diana or Athena. Contrari- wise, the later revival of the legends of antiquity meant scorn of those of Christendom. It is but fifty years ago that the value of the latter was again perceived and represented to us by Lord Lindsay : and it is only within the time which may be looked back to by the greater number even of my younger auditors, that the transition of Athenian mythology, through Byzantine, into Christian, has been first felt, and then traced and proved, by the penetrative scholarship of the men belong- ing to this pre-Raphaelite school, chiefly Mr. Burne-Jones and Mr. "William Morris, noble collaborateurs, of whom, may I be forgiven, in passing, for betraying to you a pretty little sacred- ness of their private life that they solemnly and jovially have breakfasted together every Sunday, for many and many a year. Thus far, then, I am able with security to allege to you the peculiar function of this greatly gifted and highly trained Eng- lish painter ; and with security also, the function of any no- ble myth, in the teaching, even of this practical and positive British race. But now, when for purposes of direct criticism I proceed to ask farther in what manner or with what precis- ion of art any given myth should be presented instantly we find ourselves involved in a group of questions and difficulties which I feel to be quite beyond the proper sphere of this Pro- fessorship. So long as we have only to deal with living creat- ures, or solid substances, I am able to tell you and to show that they are to be painted under certain optical laws which prevail in our present atmosphere ; and with due respect to laws of gravity and movement which cannot be evaded in our terrestrial constitution. But when we have only an idea to paint, or a symbol, I do not feel authorized to insist any 30" THE ART OF ENGLAND. longer upon these vulgar appearances, or mortal and temporal limitations. I cannot arrogantly or demonstratively define to you how the light should fall on the two sides of the nose of a Day of Creation ; nor obstinately demand botanical accuracy in the graining of the wood employed for the spokes of a Wheel of Fortune. Indeed, so far from feeling justified in any such vexatious and vulgar requirements, I am under an instinctive impression that some kind of strangeness or quaint- ness, or even violation of probability, would be not merely admissible, but even desirable, in the delineation of a figure intended neither to represent a body, nor a spirit, neither an animal, nor a vegetable, but only an idea, or an aphorism. Let me, however, before venturing one step forward amidst the insecure snows and cloudy wreaths of the Imagination, se- cure your confidence in my guidance, so far as I may gain it by the assertion of one general rule of proper safeguard ; that no mystery or majesty of intention can be alleged by a painter to justify him in careless or erroneous drawing of any object so far as he chooses to represent it at all. The more license we grant to the audacity of his conception, the more careful he should be to give us no causeless ground of complaint of offence : while, in the degree of importance and didactic value which he attaches to his parable, will be the strictness of his duty to allow no faults, by any care avoidable, to disturb the spectator's attention, or provoke his criticism. I cannot but to this day remember, partly with amusement, partly in vexed humiliation, the simplicity with which I brought out, one evening when the sculptor Marochetti was dining with us at Denmark Hill, some of the then but little known drawings of Kossetti, for his instruction in the beauties of pre-Raphaelism. You may see with the slightest glance at the statue of Coeur de Lion, (the only really interesting piece of historical sculpt- ure we have hitherto given to our City populace), that Maro- chetti was not only trained to perfectness of knowledge and perception in the structure of the human body, but had also peculiar delight in the harmonies of line which express its easy and powerful motion. Knowing a little more both of MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 31 men and things now, than I did on the evening in question, I too clearly apprehend that the violently variegated segments and angular anatomies of Sir Lancelot at the grave of King Arthur must have produced on the bronze-minded sculptor simply the effect of a Knave of Clubs and Queen of Diamonds ; and that the Italian master, in his polite confession of inability to recognize the virtues of Rossetti, cannot but have greatly suspected the sincerity of his entertainer, in the profession of sympathy with his own. No faults, then, that we can help, this we lay down for cer- tain law to start with ; therefore, especially, no ignoble faults, of mere measurement, proportion, perspective, and the like, may be allowed to art, which is by claim learned and magis- tral ; therefore bound to be, in terms, grammatical. And yet we are not only to allow, but even to accept gratefully, any kind of strangeness and deliberate difference from merely real- istic painting, which may raise the work, not only above vul- garity, but above incredulity. For it is often by realizing it most positively that we shall render it least credible. For instance, in the prettiest design of the series, by Richter, illustrating the Lord's Prayer, which I asked you in my last lec- ture to use for household lessons ; that of the mother giving her young children their dinner in the field which their father is sowing, one of the pieces of the enclosing arabesque rep- resents a little winged cherub emergent from a flower, hold- ing out a pitcher to a bee, who stoops to drink. The species of bee is not scientifically determinable ; the wings of the tiny servitor terminate rather in petals than plumes ; and the un- pretentious jug suggests nothing of the clay of Dresden, Sevres, or Chelsea. You would not, I think, find your children under- stand the lesson in divinity better, or believe it more frankly, if the hymenopterous insect were painted so accui'ately that, (to use the old method of eulogium on painting,) you could hear it buzz; and the cherub completed into the living likeness of a little boy with blue eyes and red cheeks, but of the size of a humming-bird. In this and in myriads of similar cases, it is possible to imagine from an outline what a finished picture would only pvovoke us to deny in contempt. 33 THE ART OF ENGLAND. Again, in my opening lecture on Light and Shade, the sixth of those given in the year 1870, I traced in some complete- ness the range of idea which a Greek vase-painter was in the habit of conveying by the mere opposition of dark and light in the figures and background, with the occasional use of a modifying purple. It has always been matter of surprise to me that the Greeks rested in colours so severe, and I have in several places formerly ventured to state my conviction that their sense of colour was inferior to that of other races. Nevertheless, you will find that the conceptions of moral and physical truth which they were able with these narrow means to convey, are far loftier than the utmost that can be gathered from the iridescent delicacy of Chinese design, or the literally imitative dexterities of Japan. Now, in both these methods, Mr. Burne-Jones has devel- oped their applicable powers to their highest extent. His outline is the purest and quietest that is possible to the pen- cil ; nearly all other masters accentuate falsely, or in some places, as Kichter, add shadows which are more or less con- ventional. But an outline by Burne-Jones is as pure as the lines of engraving on an Etruscan mirror ; and I placed the series of drawings from the story of Psyche in your school as faultlessly exemplary in this kind. Whether pleasing or dis- pleasing 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, tranquil and swift as a hawk's flight, and never allowing a vul- gar tremor, or a momentary impulse, to impair its precision, or disturb its serenity. Again, though Mr. Jones has a sense of colour in its kind, perfect, he is essentially a chiaroscurist. Diametrically op- posed to Kossetti, who could conceive in color only, he pre- fers subjects which can be divested of superficial attractive- ness, appeal first to the intellect and the heart ; and convey their lesson either through intricacies of delicate line, or in the dimness or coruscation of ominous light. The heads of Medea and of Danae, which I placed in your schools long ago, are representative of all that you need aim MYTHIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 33 at in chiaroscuro ; and lately a third type of his best work, in subdued pencil light and shade, has been placed within your reach in Dr. Aclaud's drawing-room, the portrait of Miss Gladstone, in which you will see the painter's best pow- ers stimulated to their utmost, and reaching a serene depth of expression unattainable by photography, and nearly certain to be lost in finished painting. For there is this perpetually increasing difficulty towards the completion of any work, that the added forces of colour destroy the value of the pale and subtle tints or shades which give the nobleness to expression ; so that the most powerful masters in oil painting rarely aim at expression, but only at general character and I believe the great artist whose name I have associated with that of Burne- Jones as representing the mythic schools, Mr. G. F. Watts, has been partly re- strained, and partly oppressed by the very earnestness and extent of the study through which he has sought to make his work on all sides perfect. His constant reference to the high- est examples of Greek art in form, and his sensitiveness to the qualities at once of tenderness and breadth in pencil and chalk drawing, have virtually ranked him among the painters of the great Athenian days, of whom, in the sixth book of the Laws, Plato wrote : " You know how the anciently accu- rate toil of a painter seems never to reach a term that satis- fies him ; but he must either farther touch, or soften the touches laid already, and never seems to reach a point where he has not yet some power to do more, so as to make the things he has drawn more beautiful, and more apparent KaAAt'w re Kai pro AiJ (f>i\os "Clfjiois lj>6ifjioi(Ti /3aA* Aty'iSa 'Aua\f; veQos eoreDe 8?a 0eaa>f Xpvfftov, (K 8" avrov 8a?e \6ya ira,'j. 8' 46a; f?ea y CLASSIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 47 which are enough to remind you of the whole context, and to assure you of the association of light and cloud, in their ter- rible mystery, with the truth and majesty of human form, in the Greek conception ; light and cloud, whether appointed either to show or to conceal, both given by a divine spirit, according to the bearing of your own university shield, " Dominus illuminatio. " In all ancient heroic subjects, you will find these two ideas of light and mystery combined ; and these with height of standing the Goddess central and high in the pediment of her temple, the hero on his chariot, or the Egyptian king colossal above his captives. Now observe, that whether of Greek or Roman life, M. Alma Tadema's pictures are always in twilight interiors, VTTO vvp.fj.iytl o-Kta. I don't know if you saw the collection of them last year at the Grosvenor, but with that universal twilight there was also universal crouching or lolling posture, either in fear or laziness. And the most gloomy, the most crouch- ing, the most dastardly of all these representations of classic life, was the little picture called the Pyrrhic Dance, of which the general effect was exactly like a microscopic view of a small detachment of black-beetles, in search of a dead rat. I have named to you the Achillean splendour as primary type of Greek war ; but you need only glance, in your mem- ory, for a few instants, over the habitual expressions of all the great poets, to recognize the magnificence of light, terrible or hopeful ; the radiance of armour, over all the field of battle, or flaming at every gate of the city ; as in the blazoned her- aldry of the seven against Thebes, or beautiful, as in the gol- den armour of Glaucus, down to the baser brightness for which Camilla died : remember also that the ancient Doric dance was strictly the dance of Apollo ; seized again by your own mightiest poet for the chief remnant of the past in the Greece of to-day ' ' You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet ; Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone ? " And this is just the piece of classic life which your nine- teenth century fancy sets forth under its fuliginous and can- tharoid disfigurement and disgrace. 48 THE ART OF ENGLAND. I say, your nineteenth century fancy, for M. Alma Tadema does but represent or rather, has haplessly got himself en- tangled in, the vast vortex of recent Italian and French revo- lutionary rage against all that resists, or ever did resist, its license ; in a word, against all priesthood and knighthood. The Roman state, observe, in the strength of it expresses both these ; the orders of chivalry do not rise out of the dis- ciplining of the hordes of Tartar horsemen, but by the Chris- tianizing of the Roman eques ; and the noble priesthood of Western Christendom is not, in the heart of it hieratic, but pontifical. And it is the last corruption of this Roman state, and its Bacchanalian phrenzy, which M. Alma Tadema seems to hold it his heavenly mission to pourtray. I have no mind, as I told you, to darken the healthy work I hope to lead you into by any frequent reference to antago- nist influences. But it is absolutely necessary for me to-day to distinguish, once for all, what it is above everything your duty, as scholars in Oxford, to know and love the perpetual laws of classic literature and art, the laws of the Muses, from what has of late again infected the schools of Europe under the pretence of classic study, being indeed only the continu- ing poison of the Renaissance, and ruled, not by the choir of the Muses, but by the spawn of the Python. And this I have been long-minded to do ; but am only now enabled to do completely and clearly, and beyond your doubt, by having ob- tained for you the evidence, unmistakable, of what remains classic from the ancient life of Italy the ancient Etruscan life, down to this day ; which is the perfection of humility, modesty, and serviceableness, as opposed to the character which remains in my mind as the total impression of the Academy and Grosvenor, that the young people of this day desire to be painted first as proud, saying, How grand I am ; next as immodest, saying, How beautiful I am ; lastly as idle, snying, I am able to pay for flunkeys, and never did a stroke of work in my life. Since the day of the opening of the great Manchester ex- hibition in 1851, every Englishman, desiring to express inter- est in the arts, considers it his duty to assert with Keats, that CLASSIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 49 a thing of beauty is a joy for ever. I do not know in what sense the saying was understood by the Manchester school. But this I know, that what joy may remain still for you and for your children in the fields, the homes, and the churches of England you must win by otherwise reading the falla- cious line. A beautiful thing may exist but for a moment, as a reality ; it exists for ever as a testimony. To the law and to the Avituess of it the nations must appeal, " in secula seculo- rum " ; and in very deed and very truth, a thing of beauty is a law for ever. That is the true meaning of classic art and of classic litera- ture ; not the license of pleasure, but the law of goodness ; and if, of the two words, KaXos /c'dyuflo?, one can be left un- spoken, as implied by the other, it is the first, not the last. It is written that the Creator of all things beheld them not in that they were beautiful, but in that they were good. This law of beauty may be one for aught we know, fulfill- ing itself more perfectly as the years roll on ; but at least it is one from which no jot shall pass. The beauty of Greece depended on the laws of Lycurgus ; the beauty of Rome, on those of Numa ; our own, 011 the laws of Christ. On all the beautiful features of men and women, thi-oughout the ages, are written the solemnities and majesty of the law they knew, with the charity and meekness of their obedience ; on all un- beautiful features are written either ignorance of the law, or the malice and insolence of the disobedience. I showed you, on the occasion of my first address, a draw- ing of the death of a Tuscan girl, a saint, in the full sense of that word, such as there have been, and still are, among the Christian women of all nations. I bring you to-day the por- trait of a Tuscan Sibyl, such as there have been, and still are. She herself is still living ; her portrait is the first draw- ing illustrating the book of the legends of the peasantry of Val d'Arno, which I obtained possession of in Florence last year ; of which book I will now read you part of the preface, in which the authoress gives you the story of the life of this Etrurian Sibyl. " Beatrice was the daughter of a stonemason at Melo, a 4 50 THE ART OF ENGLAND. little village of not very easy access on the mountain-side above Cutigliano ; and her mother having died in Beatrice's infancy, she became from early childhood, the companion and assistant of her father, accompanying him to his winter labours in the Maremma, and as she grew stronger, helping him at his work by bringing him stones for the walls and bridges which he built carrying them balanced on her head. She had no education, in the common sense of the word, never learning even the alphabet ; but she had a won- derful memory, and could sing or recite long pieces of poetiy. As a girl, she used in summer to follow the sheep, with her distaff at her waist, and would fill up her hours of solitude by singing such ballads as ' The "War of St. Michael and the Dra- gon, ' The Creation of the World, and the Fall of Man,' or, ' The History of San Pelegrino, son of Romano, King of Scot- land : ' and now, in her old age, she knows nearly all the New Testament history, and much of the Old, in a poetical form. She was very beautiful then, they say ; with curling black hair and wonderful-inspired looking eyes, and there must always have been a great charm in her voice and smile ; so it is no great wonder that Matteo Bernardi, much older than her- self, and owner of a fine farm at Pian degli Ontani, and of many cattle, chose rather to marry the shepherd .girl who could sing so sweetly, than another woman whom his family liked better, and who might perhaps have brought him more increase of worldly prosperity. On Beatrice's wedding-day according to the old custom of the country, one or two poets improvised verses suitable to the occasion ; and as she listened to them, suddenly she felt in herself a new power, and began to sing the poetry which was then born in her mind, and having once begun, found it impossible to stop, and kept on singing a great while, so that all were astonished, and her uncle, who was present, said "Beatrice, you have deceived me ! if I had known what you were, I would have put you in a convent." From that time forth she was the great poetess of all that part of the country ; and was sent for io sing and recite at weddings, and other festivals, for many miles around : and perhaps she might have been happy, but CLASSIC SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 51 her husband's sister, Barbara, who lived in the house, and who had not approved of the marriage, tried very wickedly to set her brother against his wife, and to some extent succeeded. He tried to stop her singing, which seemed to him a sort of madness, and at times he treated her with great unkindness ; but sing she must and sing she did, for it was what the Lord made her for, and she lived down all their dislike ; her hus- band loved her in his old age, and Barbara, whom she nursed with motherly kindness through a long and most distressing illness, was her friend before she died. Beatrice is still liv- ing, at a great age now, but still retaining much of her old beauty and brilliancy, and is waited on and cared for with much affection by a pretty granddaughter bearing the same name as herself." There are just one or two points I want you to note in this biography, specially. The girl is put, in her youth, to three kinds of noble work. She is a shepherdess, like St. Genevieve ; a spinner and knit- ter, like Queen Bertha ; chiefly and most singularly, she is put to help her father in the pontifical art of bridge-building. Gymnastic to purpose, you observe. In the last, or last but one, number of your favourite English chronicle, the proud mother says of her well-trained daughters, that there is not one who could not knock down her own father : here is a strong daughter who can help her father a Grace Darling of the rivers instead of the sea. These are the first three things to be noted of hei\ Next the material of her education, not in words, but in thoughts, and the greatest of thoughts. You continually hear that Roman Catholics are not allowed to read the Bible. Here is a little shepherdess who has it in her heart. Next, the time of her inspiration, at her wedding feast ; as in the beginning of her Master's ministry, at Cana. Here is right honour put upon marriage ; and, in spite of the efforts made to disturb her household peace, it was entirely blessed to her in her children : nor to her alone, but to us, and to myriads with us ; for her second son, Angelo, is the original of the four drawings of St. Christopher which illustrate the cen- 53 1HE ART OF ENGLAND. tral poem in Miss Alexander's book ; and which are, to the best of my knowledge, the most beautiful renderings of the legend hitherto attained by religious imagination. And as you dwell on these portraits of a noble Tuscan peas- ant, the son of a noble Christian mother, learn this farther and final distinction between the greatest art of past time, and that which has become possible now and in future. The Greek, I said, pourtrayed the body and the mind of man, glorified in mortal War. But to us is given the task of holier portraiture, of the countenance and the heart of man, glorified by the peace of God. Whether Francesca's book is to be eventually kept together or distributed I do not yet know. But if distributed, the draw- ings of St. Christopher must remain in Oxford, being as I have said, the noblest statements I have ever seen of the unchange- able meaning of this Ford of ours, for all who pass it honestly, and do not contrive false traverse for themselves over a widened Magdalen Bridge. That ford, gentlemen, for ever, know what you may, hope what you may, believe or deny what you may, you have to pass barefoot. For it is a baptism as well as a ford, and the waves of it, as the sands, are holy. Your youthful days in this place are to you the dipping of your feet in the brim of the river, which is to be manfully stemmed by you all your days ; not drifted with, nor toyed upon. Fallen leaves enough it is strewn with, of the flowers of the forest ; moraine enough it bears, of the ruin of the brave. Your task is to cross it ; your doom may be to go down with it, to the depths out of which there is no crying. Trav- erse it, staff in hand, and with loins girded, and with what- soever law of Heaven you know, for your light. On the othel side is the Promised Land, the Land of the Leal. VA1RT LAND. 53 LECTTJEE IV. Fairy Land, MES. ALLINGHAM AND KATE GREENAWAY. WE have hitherto been considering the uses of legendary art to grown persons, and to the. most learned and power- ful minds. To-day I will endeavour to note with you some of the least controvertible facts respecting its uses to children ; and to obtain your consent to the main general principles on which I believe it should be offered to them. Here, however, I enter on ground where I must guard care- fully against being misled by my own predilections, and in which also the questions at issue are extremely difficult, be- cause most of them new. It is only in recent times that pict- ures have become familiar means of household pleasure and education : only in our own days nay, even within the last ten years of those, that the means of illustration by colour- printing have been brought to perfection, and art as exquisite as we need desire to see it, placed, if our school-boards choose to have it so, within the command of every nursery gov- erness. Having then the colour-print, the magic-lantern, the electric- light, and the to any row of ciphers magnifying, lens, it becomes surely very interesting to consider what we may most wisely represent to children by means so potent, so dazzling, and, if we will, so faithful. I said just now that I must guard carefully against being misled by my own predilections, be- cause having been myself brought up principally on fairy legends, my first impulse would be to insist upon every story we tell to a child being untrue, and every scene we paint for it, impossible. But I have been led, as often before confessed, gravely to doubt the expediency of some parts of my early training ; and perhaps some day may try to divest myself wholly, for an hour, of these dangerous recollections ; and prepare a lecture for you in which I will take Mr. Gradgrind 5i THE ART OF ENGLAND. on his own terms, and consider how far, making it a rule that we exhibit nothing but facts, we could decorate our pages of history, and illuminate the slides of our lantern, in a manner still sufficiently attractive to childish taste. For indeed poor Louise and her brother, kneeling to peep under the fringes of the circus-tent, are as much in search after facts as the most scientific of us all ! A circus-rider, with his hoop, is as much a fact as the planet Saturn and his ring, and exemplifies a great many more laws of motion, both moral and physical ; nor are any descriptions of the Valley of Diamonds, or the Lake of the Black Islands, in the ' Arabian Nights,' any- thing like so wonderful as the scenes of California and the Rocky Mountains which you may find described in the Apiil number of the ' Cornhill Magazine,' xinder the heading of 1 Early Spring in California ' ; and may see represented with most sincere and passionate enthusiasm by the American land- scape painter, Mr. Moran, in a survey lately published by the Government of the United States. Scenes majestic as these, pourtrayed with mere and pure fidelity by such scientific means as I have referred to, would form a code of geographic instruction beyond all the former grasp of young people ; and a source of entertainment, I had nearly said, and most people who had not watched the minds of children carefully, might think, inexhaustible. Much, in- deed, I should myself hope from it, but by no means an infini- tude of entertainment. For it is quite an inexorable law of this poor human nature of ours, that in the development of its healthy infancy, it is put by Heaven under the absolute necessity of using its imagination as well as its lungs and ite legs ; that it is forced to develop its power of invention, as a bird its feathers of flight ; that no toy you can bestow will supersede the pleasure it has in fancying something that isn't there ; and the most instructive histories you can compile for it of the wonders of the world will never conquer the interest of the tale which a clever child can tell itself, concerning the shipwreck of a rose-leaf in the shallows of a rivulet. One of the most curious proofs of the need to children of this exercise of the inventive and believing power, the besoin FAIRY LAND. 55 de croire, which precedes the besoin d' aimer, you will find in the way you destroy the vitality of a toy to them, by bringing it too near the imitation of life. You never find a child make a pet of a mechanical mouse that runs about the floor of a poodle that yelps of a tumbler who jumps upon wires. The child falls in love with a quiet thing, with an ugly one nay, it may be, with one, to us, totally devoid of meaning. My little ever-so-many-times-grand cousin, Lily, took a bit of stick with a round knob at the end of it for her doll one day ; nursed it through any number of illnesses with the most tender solicitude ; and, on the deeply-important occasion of its having a new nightgown made for it, bent down her mother's head to receive the confidential and timid whisper " Mamma, perhaps it had better have no sleeves, because, as Bibsey has no arms, she mightn't like it." I must take notice here, but only in passing, the subject being one to be followed out afterwards in studying more grave branches of art, that the human mind in its full energy having thus the power of believing simply what it likes, the responsibilities and the fatalities attached to the effort of Faith are greater than those belonging to bodily deed, precisely in the degree of their voluntariness. A man can't always do what he likes, but he can always fancy what he likes ; and he may be forced to do what he doesn't like, but he can't be forced to fancy what he doesn't like. I use for the moment, the word ' to fancy ' instead of ' to believe,' because the whole subject of Fidelity and Infidelity has been made a mere mess of quarrels and blunders by our habitually forgetting that the proper power of Faith is to trust without evidence, not with evidence. You perpetually hear people say, ' I won't believe this or that unless you give me evidence of it.' Why, if you give them evidence of it, they know it, they don't believe, any more. A man doesn't believe there's any danger in nitro-glycerine ; at last he gets his par- lour-door blown into next street. He is then better informed on the subject, but the time for belief is past. Only, observe, I don't say that you can fancy what you like, to the degree of receiving it for truth. Heaven forbid wo 56 THE ART OF ENGLAND. should have a power such as that, for it would be one of volt untary madness. But we are, in the most natural and rational health, able to foster the fancy, up to the point of influencing our feelings and character in the strongest way ; and for the strength of that healthy imaginative faculty, and all the blend- ing of the good and grace, " richiesto al vero ed al trastullo," * we are wholly responsible. We may cultivate it to what bright- ness we choose, merely by living in a quiet relation with nat- ural objects and great and good people, past or present ; and we may extinguish it to the last snuff, merely by living in town, and reading the ' Times ' every morning. "We are scarcely sufficiently conscious, "says Mr. Kinglake, with his delicate precision of serenity in satire, "scarcely suf- ficiently conscious in England, of the great debt we owe to the itrise and watchful press ichich presides over the formation of our opinions ; and which brings about this splendid result, namely, that in matters of belief, the humblest of us are lifted up to the level of the most sagacious, so that really a simple Cornet in the blues is no more likely to entertain a foolish belief about ghosts, or witchcraft, or any other supernatural topic, than the Lord High Chancellor, or the Leader of the House of Commons." And thus, at the present day, for the education or the ex- tinction of the Fancy, we are absolutely left to our choice. For its occupation, not wholly so, yet in a far greater measure than we know. Mr. Wordsworth speaks of it as only impossible to " have sight of Proteus rising from the sea," became the world is too much with us ; also Mr. Kingiake, though in an- other place, he calls it ' a vain and heathenish longing to be fed with divine counsels from the lips of Pallas Athene," yet is far happier than the most scientific traveller could be in a trigonometric measurement, when he discovers that Neptune could really have seen Troy from the top of. Samothrace : and i believe that we should many of us find it an extremely whole- some and useful method of treating our ordinary affairs, if be- fore deciding, even upon very minor points of conduct admit- ting of prudential and conscientious debate, we were in the habit * Daute, Purg. xiv. 93. FAIRY LAND. 57 of imagining that Pallas Athene was actually in the room with us, or at least outside the window in the form of a swallow, arid permitted us, on the condition always of instant obedience, to ask her advice upon the matter. Here ends my necessary parenthesis, with its suspicion of preachment, for which I crave pardon, and I return to my proper subject of to-day, the art which intends to address only childish imagination, and whose object is primarily to entertain with grace. With grace : I insist much on this latter word. We may allow the advocates of a material philosophy to insist that every wild-weed tradition of fairies, gnomes, and sylphs should be well ploughed out of a child's mind to prepare it for the good seed of the Gospel of .Disgrace : but no defence can be offered for the presentation of these ideas to its mind in a form so vulgarized as to defame and pollute the master- pieces of former literature. It is perfectly easy to convince the young proselyte of science that a cobweb on the top of a thistle cannot be commanded to catch a honey-bee for him, without introducing a dance of ungainly fairies on the site of the cabstand under the Westminster clock tower, or making the Queen of them fall in love with the sentry on guard. With grace, then, assuredly, and I think we may add also, with as much seriousness as an entirely fictitious subject may admit of seeing that it touches the border of that higher world which is not fictitious. We are all perhaps too much in the habit of thinking the scenes of burlesque in the ' Mid- summer Night's Dream ' exemplary of Shakespeare's general treatment of fairy character : we should always remember that he places the most beautiful words descriptive of virgin purity which English poetry possesses, in the mouth of the Fairy King, and that to the Lord of Fancies he entrusts the praise of the conquest of Fancy, " In maiden meditation, Fancy free." Still less should we forget the function of household benedic- tion, attributed to them always by happy national super- 58 77/7? ART OF ENGLAND. stition, and summed in the closing lines of the same play, " With this field-dew consecrate, Every fairy take his gait ; And each several chamber bless, Through this palace, with sweet peace." With seriousness then, but only, I repeat, such as entirely fictitious elements properly admit of. The general grace and sweetness of Scott's moorland fairy, 'The White Lady,' failed of appeal to the general justice of public taste, because in two places he fell into the exactly opposite errors of unbecoming jest, and too far-venturing solemnity. The ducking of the Sacristan offended even his most loving readers ; but it of- fended them chiefly for a reason of which they were in great part unconscious, that the jest is carried out in the course of the charge with which the fairy is too gravely entrusted, to protect, for Mary of Avenel, her mother's Bible. It is of course impossible, in studying questions of this kind, to avoid confusion between what is fit in literature and in art ; the leading principles are the same in both, but of course much may be allowed to the narrator which is im- possible or forbidden to the draughtsman. And I necessarily take examples chiefly from literature, because the greatest masters of story have never disdained the playfully super- natural elements of fairy-tale, while it is extremely rare to find a good painter condescending to them, or, I should rather say, contending with them, the task being indeed one of extreme difficulty. I believe Sir Noel Paton's pictures of the Court of Titania, and Fairy Raid, are all we possess in which the accomplished skill of painting has been devoted to fairy-subject ; and my impression when I saw the former picture the latter I grieve not yet to have seen was that the artist intended rather to obtain leave by the closeness of ocular distance to display the exquisite power of minute de- lineation, which he felt in historical painting to be inappli- cable, than to arrest, either in his own mind or the spectator's, even a momentary credence in the enchantment of fairy-wand and fairy-ring. FAIR7 LAND. 5'f And within the range of other art which I can call to mind, touching on the same ground, or rather, breathing in the same air, it seems to me a sorrowful and somewhat unac- countable law that only grotesque or terrible fancies present themselves forcibly enough, in these admittedly fabling states of the imagination, to be noted with the pencil. For instance, without rating too highly the inventive powers of the old German outline-draughtsman, Eetsch, we cannot but attribute to him a very real gift of making visibly terrible such legend as that of the ballad of Leonora, and interpreting, with a wild aspect of veracity, the passages of sorcery in ' Faust. ' But the drawing which I possess by his hand, of the Genius of Poetry riding upon a swan, could not be placed in my school with any hope of deepening your impression either of the beauty of swans, or the dignity of genii. You must, however, always carefully distinguish these states of gloomy fantasy, natural, though too often fatal, to men of real imagination, the spectra which appear, whether they desire it or not, to men like Orcagna, Durer, Blake, and Alfred Rethel, and dwelt upon by them, in the hope of pro- ducing some moi'al impression of salutary awe by their record as in Blake's Book of Job. in Durer's Apocalypse, in Bethel's Death the Avenger and Death the Friend, and more nobly in his grand design of Barbarossa entering the grave of Charlemagne ; carefully, I say, you must distinguish this natural and lofty phase of visionary terror, from the coarse delight in mere pain and crisis of danger, which, in our infidel art and literature for the young, fills, our books of travel with pictures of alligators swallowing children, hippopotami up- setting canoes full of savages, bears on their hind-legs doing battle with northern navigators, avalanches burying Alpine villages, and the like, as the principal attractions of the vol- ume ; not, in the plurality of cases, without vileness of exag- geration which amounts to misleading falsehood unless happily pushed to the point where mischief is extinguished by absurdity. In Stratum's 'Magazine for the Youth of all Ages,' for June, 1879, at page 328, you will find it related, in a story proposed for instruction in scientific natural history, f>0 THE ART OF ENGLAND. that " the fugitives saw an enormous elephant cross the clear, ing, surrounded by ten tigers, some clinging to its back, and others keeping alongside." I may in this place, I think, best introduce though again parenthetically the suggestion of a healthy field for the la- bouring scientific fancy which remains yet unexhausted, and I believe inexhaustible, that of the fable, expanded into nar- rative, which gives a true accpunt of the life of animals, sup- posing them to be endowed with human intelligence, directed to the interests of their animal life. I said just now that I had been brought up upon fairy legends, but I must gratefully include, under the general title of these, the stories in ' Even- ings at Home ' of The Transmigrations of Indur, The Discon- tented Squirrel, The Travelled Ant, The Cat and her Children, and Little Fido ; and with these, one now quite lost, but which I am minded soon to reprint for my younger pupils, The History of a Field-Mouse, which in its pretty detail is no less amusing, and much more natural, than the town and country mice of Horace and Pope, classic, in the best sense, though these will always be. There is the more need that some true and pure examples of fable in this kind should be put within the reach of chil- dren, because the wild efforts of weak writers to increase their incomes at Christinas, and the unscrupulous encouragement of them by competing booksellers, fill our nurseries with forms of rubbish which are on the one side destructive of the mean- ing of all ancient tradition, and on the other, reckless of every really interesting truth, in exact natural history. Only the other day, in examining the mixed contents of a somewhat capacious nursery bookcase, the first volume I opened was a fairy tale in which the benevolent and moral fairy drove a " matchless pair of white cockatrices." I might take up all the time yet left for this lecture in exposing to you the min- gled folly and mischief in those few words ; the pandering to the first notion of vulgar children that all glory consists in driving a matchless pair of something or other, and the im- plied ignorance in which only such a book could be presented to any children, of the most solemn of scriptural promises tj FAIRY LAND. Gl them, f 'tne weaned child shall lay his hand on the cocka- trice' den." And the next book I examined was a series of stories im- ported from Japan,* most of them simply sanguinary and loathsome, but one or two pretending to be zoological as, for instance, that of the Battle of the Ape and the Crab, of which it is said in the introduction that " men should lay it up in their hearts, and teach it as a profitable lesson to their children." In the opening of this profitable story, the crab plants a " persimmon seed in his garden " (the reader is not informed what manner of fruit the persimmon may be), and watches the growth of the tree which springs from it with great delight ; being, we are told in another paragraph, " a simple-minded creature." I do not know whether this conception of character in the great zodiacal crustacean is supposed to be scientific or sesthet- ic, but I hope that British children at the seaside are capa- ble of inventing somewhat better stories of crabs for them- selves ; and if they would farther know the foreign manners of the sidelong-pacing people, let me ask them to look at the account given by Lord George Campbell, in his ' Log Letters from the Challenger,' of his landing on the island of St. Paul, and of the manner in which the quite unsophisticated crabs of that locality succeeded first in stealing his fishbait, and then making him lose his temper, to a degree extremely unbecom- ing in a British nobleman. They will not, after the perusal of that piquant or perhaps I should rather say, pincant, nar- rative, be disposed, whatever other virtues they may possess, to ascribe to the obliquitous nation that of simplicity of mind. I have no time to dwell longer on the existing fallacies in the representation either of the fairy or the animal kingdoms. I must pass to the happier duty of returning thanks for the truth with which our living painters have drawn for us the lovely dynasty of little creatures, about whose reality there can be no doubt ; and who are at once the most powei'ful of fairies, and the most amusing, if not always the most sagacious ! of animals. In my last lecture, I noted to you, though only parentheti- * 3Iacmillan, 1871. 62 TUB ART OF ENGLAND. cally, the singular defect in Greek art, that it never gives you any conception of Greek children. Neither up to the thir- teenth century does Gothic art give you any conception of Gothic children ; for, until the thirteenth century, the Goth was not perfectly Christianized, and still thought only of the strength of humanity as admirable in battle or venerable in judgment, but not as dutiful in peace, nor happy in simplicity. But from the moment when the spirit of Christianity had been entirely interpreted to the Western races, the sanctity of womanhood worshipped in the Madonna, and the sanctity of childhood in unity with that of Christ, became the light of every honest hearth, and the joy of every pure and chastened soul. Yet the traditions of art-subject, and the vices of luxury which developed themselves in the following (fourteenth) cent- ury, prevented the manifestation of this new force in domes- tic life for two centuries more ; and then at last in the child angels of Luca, Mino of Fesole, Luini, Angelico, Perugino, and the first days of Raphael, it expressed itself as the one pure and sacred passion which protected Christendom from the ruin of the Renaissance. . Nor has it since failed ; and whatever disgrace or blame ob- scured the conception of the later Flemish and incipient Eng- lish schools, the children, whether in the pictures of Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke, or Sir Joshua, were always beautiful. An extremely dark period indeed follows, leading to and per- sisting in the French Revolution, and issuing in the merciless manufacturing fury, which to-day grinds children to dust be- tween millstones, and tears them to pieces on engine-wheels, against which rises round us, Heaven be thanked, again the protest and the power of Christianity, restoring the fields of the quiet earth to the steps of her infancy. In Germany, this protest, I believe, began with it is at all events perfectly represented by the Ludwig Richter I have so often named ; in France, with Edward Frere, whose pict- ures of children are of quite immortal beauty. But in Eng- land it was long repressed by the terrible action of our wealth, compelling our painters to represent the children of the poor as in wickedness or misery. It is one of the most terrific facts FAIRY LAND. 63 in all the history of British art that Bewick never draws chil- dren but in mischief. I am not able to say with whom, in Britain, the reaction first begins, but certainly not in painting until after Wilkie, in all Avhose works there is not a single example of a beautiful Scottish boy or girl. I imagine in literature, we may take the ' Cotter's Saturday Night ' and the ' toddlin' wee things ' as the real beginning of child benediction ; and I am disposed to assign in England much value to the widely felt, though little acknowledged, influence of an authoress now forgotten Mary Eusseil Mitford. Her village children in the Low- lands in the Highlands, the Lucy Grays and Alice Fells of Wordsworth brought back to us the hues of Fairy Laud ; and although long by Academic art denied or resisted, at last the charm is felt in London itself, on pilgrimage in whose suburbs you find the Little Nells and boy David Copper- fields ; and in the heart of it, Kit's baby brother at Astley's, indenting his cheek with an oyster-shell to the admiration of all beholders ; till at last, bursting out like one of the sweet Surrey fountains, all dazzling and pure, you have the radiance and innocence or reinstated infant divinity showered again among the flowers of English meadows by Mrs. Allingham and Kate Greenaway. It has chanced strangely, that every one of the artists to whom in these lectures I wished chiefly to direct your thoughts, has been insufficiently, or even disadvantageous!}', represented by his work in the exhibitions of the season. But chiefly I have been disappointed in finding no drawing of the least interest by Mrs. Allingham in the room of the Old Water-colour Society. And let me say, in passing, that none of these new splendours and spaces of show galleries, with at- tached restaurants to support the cockney constitution under the trial of getting from one end of them to the other, \vill in the least make up to the real art-loving public for the loss of the goodfellowship of our old societies, every member of which sent everything he had done best in the year into the room, for the May meetings ; shone with his debited measure of admiration in his accustomed corner ; supported his asso- 64 THE ART OF ENGLAND. ciatea without eclipsing them ; supplied his customers with- out impoverishing them ; and was permitted to sell a picture to his patron or his friend, without paying fifty guineas com- mission on the business to a dealer. Howsoever it may have chanced, Mrs. Allingham has noth- ing of importance in the water-colour room ; and I am even sorrowfully compelled to express my regret that she should have spent unavailing pains in finishing single heads, which are at the best uninteresting miniatures, instead of fulfilling her true gift, and doing what (in Miss Alexander's words) ' the Lord made her for ' in representing the gesture, char- acter, and humour of charming children in country land- scapes. Her 'Tea Party,' in last year's exhibition, with the little girl giving her doll its bread and milk, and taking care that she supped it with propriety, may be named as a most lovely example of her feeling and her art ; and the drawing which some years ago riveted, and ever since has retained, the public admiration, the two deliberate housewives in their village toyshop, bent on domestic utilities and econo- mies, and proud in the acquisition of two flat irons for a far- thing, has become, and rightly, a classic picture, which will have its place among the memorable things in the art of our time, when many of its loudly trumpeted magnificences are remembered no more. I must not in this place omit mention, with sincere grati- tude, of the like motives in the paintings of Mr. Birkett Foster ; but with regret that in too equal, yet incomplete, realization of them, mistaking, in many instances, mere spotty execution for finish, he has never taken the high position that was open to him as an illustrator of rustic life. And I am grieved to omit the names of many other artists who have protested, with consistent feeling, against the misery entailed on the poor children of our great cities, by painting the real inheritance of childhood in the meadows and fresh air. But the graciousness and sentiment of them all is enough represented by the hitherto undreamt-of, and, in its range, unrivalled, fancy, which is now re-establishing throughout gentle Europe, the manners and customs erel\ for illumination ; 5t 19 essentially and perfectly that of true colDur-picture, and tlw.t the most naive and delightful manptev of picture, because, on the simplest terms, it comes nearest reality. No end of mis- chief has been done to modern art by the habit of running semi-pictorial illustration round the margins of ornamental volumes, and Miss Greeuaway has been \vastii.g her strength too sorrowfully in making the edges of her little birthday books, and the like, glitter with unregarded gold, whereru 1 her power should be concentrated in the 4irect illustration of connected story, and her pictures should be made complete on the page, and far more realistic than decorative. There is no charm so enduring as that of the real representation of any given scene ; her present designs are like living flowers flat- tened to go into an herbarium, and sometimes too pretty to be believed. We must ask her for more descriptive reality, for more convincing simplicity, and we must get her to or- ganize a school of colourists by hand, who can absolutely fac- simile her own first drawing. This is the second matter on which I have to insist. I bring with me to-day twelve of her original drawings, and have mounted beside them, good impressions of tbe published prints. I may heartily congratulate both the publishers and posses- sors of the book on the excellence of these ; yet if you exam- ine them closely, you will find that the colour blocks of the print sometimes slip a little aside, so as to lose the precision of the drawing in important places ; and in manv other re- <>8 THE ART OF ENGLAND. spects better can be done, in at least a certain number of chosen copies. I must not, however, detain you to-day by entering into particulars in this matter. I am content to ask your sympathy in the endeavour, if I can prevail on the artist to undertake it. Only with respect to this and every other question of method in engraving, observe farther that all the drawings I bring you to-day agree in one thing, minuteness and deli- cacy of touch carried to its utmost limit, visible in its perfect- ness to the eyes of youth, but neither executed with a magni- fying glass, nor, except to aged eyes, needing one. Even I, at sixty-four, can see the essential qualities of the work with- out spectacles ; though only the youngest of my friends here can see, for instance, Kate's fairy dance, perfectly, but they can, with their own bright eyes. And now please note this, for an entirely general law, again and again reiterated by me for many a year. All great art is delicate, and fine to the uttermost Wherever there is blot- ting, or daubing, or dashing, there is weakness, at least ; probably, affectation ; certainly, bluntness of feeling. But, all delicacy which is rightly pleasing to the human mind is addressed to the unaided human sight, not to microscopic help or mediation. And now generalize that law farther. As all noble sight is with the eyes that God has given you, so all noble motion is with the limbs God has balanced for you, and all noble strength with the arms He has knit. Though you should put electric coils into your high heels, and make spring-heeled Jacks and Gills of yourselves, you will never dance, so, as you could barefoot. Though you could have machines that would swing a ship of war into the sea, and drive a railway train through a rock, all divine strength is still the strength of Herakles, a man's wrestle, and a man's blow. There are two other points I must try to enforce in closing, very clearly. "Landscape," says M. Chesneau, "takes great part in these lovely designs." He does not say of what kind ; may I ask you to look, for yourselves, and think ? There are no railroads in it, to carry the children awaj FAIRY LAND. 69 with, are there ? no tunnel or pit mouths to swallow them up, no league-long viaducts no blinkered iron bridges? There are only winding brooks, wooden foot-bridges, and grassy hills without any holes cut into them ! Again, there are no parks, no gentlemen's seats with at- tached stables and offices ! no rows of model lodging houses! no charitable institutions ! ! It seems as if none of these things which the English mind now rages after, possess any attraction whatever for this unimpressionable person. She is a graceful Gallio Gallia gratia plena, and cares for none of those things. And more wonderful still, there are no gasworks ! no waterworks, no mowing machines, no sewing machines, no tel- egraph poles, no vestige, in fact, of science, civilization, eco- nomical arrangements, or commercial enterprise ! ! ! Would you wish me, with professorial authority, to advise her that her conceptions belong to the dark ages, and must be reared on a new foundation ? Or is it, on the other hand, recommendably conceivable by you, that perhaps the world we truly live in may not be quite so changeable as you have thought it ; that all the gold and silver you can dig out of the earth are not worth the kingcups and the daisies she gave you of her grace ; and that all the fury, and the flutter, and the wonder, and the wistfulness, of your lives, will never discover for you any other than the ancient blessing : " He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me be- side the still waters, He restoreth my soul " ? Yet one word more. Observe that what this unimpression- able person does draw, she draws as like it as she can. It is true that the combination or composition of things is not what you can see every day. You can't every day, for in- stance, see a baby thrown into a basket of roses ; but when she has once pleasantly invented that arrangement for you, baby is as like baby, and rose as like rose, as she can possibly draw them. And the beauty of them is in being like. They are blissful, just in the degree that they are natural ; and the fairyland she creates for you is not beyond the sky nor be^ neath the sea, but nigh you, even at your doors. She does but show you how to see it, and how to cherish. 70 THE ART OF ENGLAND. Long since I told you this great law of noble imagination. It does not create, it does not even adorn, it does but reveal, the treasures to be possessed by the spirit. I told you this of the work of the great painter whom, in that day, everyone accused of representing only the fantastic and the impossible. I said forty years ago, and say at this instant, more solemnly, All his magic is in his truth. I show you, to-day, a beautiful copy made for me by Mr. Macdonald, of the drawing which, of all the Turners I gave you, I miss the most. I never thought it could have been copied at all, and Mve received from Mr. Macdonald, in this lovely rendering of it, as much a lesson as a consolation. For my purpose to-day it is just as good as if I had brought the drawing itself. It is one of the Loire series, which the engravers could not attempt, because it was too lovely ; or would not attempt, be- cause there was, to their notion, nothing in it. It is only a coteau, scarce a hundred feet above the river, nothing like so high as the Thames banks between here and Reading, only a coteau, and a recess of calm water, and a breath of mist, and a ray of sunset. The simplest things, the frequentest, the dearest ; things that you may see any summer evening by a thousand thousand streams among the low hills of old familiar lands. Love them, and see them rightly, Andes and Caucasus, Amazon and Indus, can give you no more. The danger imminent on you is the destruction of what you have. I walked yesterday afternoon round St. John's gar- dens, and found them, as they always are in spring time, almost an ideal of earthly Paradise, the St. John's students also disporting themselves therein in games preparatory to the advent of the true fairies of Commemoration. But, the afternoon before, I had walked down St. John's Road, and, on emerging therefrom to cross the railway, found on my left hand a piece of waste ground, extremely characteristic of that with which we now always adorn the suburbs of our cities, and of which it can only be said that no demons could contrive, under the earth, a more uncomfortable and abomina- ble place of misery for the condemned souls 01 dirty people, THE FIRESIDE. 71 than Oxford thus allows the western light to shine upon ' nel aer dolce, che dal sol s'allegra.' For many a year I have now been telling you, and in the final words of this first course of lectures in which I have been permitted again to resume work among you, let me tell you yet once more, and if possible, more vehemently, that neither sound art, policy, nor religion, can exist in England, until, neglecting, if it must be, your 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 children, shall be again restored to the rule of the spirits, whosoever they are in earth, and heaven, that ordain, and reward, with constant and conscious felicity, all that is decent and orderly, beautiful and pure. LECTUKE V. The Fireside. JOHN LEECH AND JOHN TENNIEL. THE outlines of the schools of our National Art which I at- tempted in the four lectures given last spring, had led us to the point where the, to us chiefly important, and, it may per- haps be said, temporarily, all important questions respecting the uses of art in popular education, were introduced to us by the beautiful drawings of Miss Alexander and Miss Greenaway. But these drawings, in their dignified and delicate, often re- served, and sometimes severe characters, address themselves to a circle, which however large, or even (I say it with thank- fulness) practically infinite, yet consists exclusively of persons of already cultivated sensibilities, and more or less gentle and serious temper. The interests of general education compel our reference to a class entirely beneath these, or at least dis- tinct from them ; and our consideration of art-methods to which the conditions of cheapness, and rapidity of multiplica- tion, are absolutely essential. I have stated, and it is one of the paradoxes of my political i ^ THE ART OF ENGLAND. economy which you will find on examination to be the expres- sion of a final truth, that there is no such thing as a just or real cheapness, but that all things have their necessary price : and that you can no more obtain them for less than that price, than you can alter the course of the earth. "When you obtain anything yourself for half-price, somebody else must always have paid the other half. But, in the sense either of having cost less labour, or of being the productions of less rare genius, there are, of course, some kinds of art more generally attainable than others ; and, of these, the kinds which depend on the use of the simplest means are also those which are calculated to have most influence over the sim- plest minds. The disciplined qualities of line-engraving will scarcely be relished, and often must even. pass unperceived. by an uneducated or careless observer ; but the attention of a child may be excited, and the apathy of a clown overcome, by the blunt lines of a vigorous woodcut. To my own mind, there is no more beautiful proof of be- nevolent design in the creation of the earth, than the exact adaptation of its materials to the art-power of man. The plas- ticity and constancy under fire of clay ; the ductility and fusi- bility of gold and iron ; the consistent softness of marble ; and the fibrous toughness of wood, are in each material car- ried to the exact degree which renders them provocative of skill by their resistance, and full of reward for it by their compliance : so that the delight with which, after sufficiently intimate study of the methods of manual work, the student ought to regard the excellence of a masterpiece, is never merely the admiration of difficulties overcome, but the sym- pathy, in a certain sense, both with the enjoyment of the work- man in managing a substance so pliable to his will, and with the worthiness, fitness, and obedience of the material itself, which at once invites his authority, and rewards his conces- sions. But of all the various instruments of his life and genius, none are so manifold in their service to him as that which the forest leaves gather every summer out of the air he breathes. Think of the use of it in house and furniture alone. I have THE FIRESIDE. 73 lived in marble palaces, and under frescoed loggie, but have nevei been so comfortable in either as in the clean room of an old Swiss inn, whose walls and floor were of plain deal. You will rind also, in the long run, that none of your modern aesthetic upholstery can match, for comfort, good old English oak wainscot ; and that the crystalline magnificence of the marbles of Genoa and the macigno of Florence can give no more pleasure to daily life than the carved brackets and tref oiled gables which once shaded the busy and merry streets, and lifted the chiming carillons above them, in Kent and Picardy. As a material of sculpture, wood has hitherto been em- ployed chiefly by the less cultivated races of Europe ; and we cannot know what Orcagna wouid have made of his shrine, or Ghiberti of his gates, if they Lad worked in olive wood in- stead of marble and bronze. But sven as matters now stand, the carving of the pinnacled stalls in our northern cathedrals, and that of the foliage on the horizontal beams of domestic architecture, gave rise to a school of ornament of which the proudest edifices of the sixteenth century are only the trans- lation into stone ; and to which our somewhat dull respect for the zigzags and dog-teeth of a sterner time has made us alike neglectful and unjust.* But it is above all as a medium of engraving that the easy submission of wood to the edge of the chisel, I will use this plain word, if you please, instead of burin, and the tough durability of its grain, have made it so widely serviceable to us for popular pleasure in art ; but mischievous also, in the degree in which it encourages the cheapest and vilest modes of design. The coarsest scrawl with a blunt pen can be re- produced on a wood-block with perfect ease by the clumsiest engraver ; and there are tens of thousands of vulgar artists who can scrawl with a blunt pen, and with no trouble to them- selves, something that will amuse, as I said, a child or a clown. But there is not one artist in ten thousand who can draw even simple objects rightly with a perfectly pure line ; when such a line is drawn, only an extremely skilful engraver can repro- * Compare ' Bible of Amiens,' p. 14, " aisles of aspen, orchards of apple, clusters of vine." 74 THE ART OF ENGLAND. duce it on wood ; when reproduced, it is liable to be broken at the second or third printing ; and supposing it permanent, not one spectator in ten thousand would care for it. There is, however, another temptation, constant in the practice of wood-cutting, which has been peculiarly harmful to us in the present day. The action of the chisel on wood, as you doubtless are aware, is to produce a white touch on a black ground ; and if a few white touches can be so distributed as to produce any kind of effect, all the black ground becomes part of the imagined picture, with no trouble whatever to the workman : so that you buy in your cheap magazine a picture, say four inches square, or sixteen square inches of surface, in the whole of which there may only be half an inch of work. Whereas, in line-engraving, every atom of the shade has to be worked for, and that with extreme care, evenness and dexterity of hand ; while even in etching, though a great quantity of the shade is mere blurr and scrabble and blotch, a certain quantity of real care and skill must be spent in cover- ing the surface at first Whereas the common woodcut re- quires scarcely more' trouble than a schoolboy takes with a scrawl on his slate, and you might order such pictures by the cartload from Coniston quarries, with only a clever urchin or two to put the chalk on. But the mischief of the woodcut, considered simply as a means in the publisher's hands of imposing cheap work on the purchaser, is trebled by its morbid power of expressing ideas of ugliness or terror. While no entirely beautiful thing can be represented in a woodcut, every form of vulgarity or unpleasantness can be given to the life ; and the result is, that, especially in our popular scientific books, the mere effoi't to be amusing and attractive leads to the publication of every species of the abominable. No microscope can teach the beauty of a statue, nor can any woodcut represent that of a nobly bred human form ; but only last term we saw the whole Asb- molean Society held in a trance of rapture by the inexplicable decoration of the posteriors of a flea ; and I have framed for you here, around a. page of the scientific journal which styles itself ' Knowledge,' a collection of woodcuts out of a scientific TEE FIRESIDE. To survey of South America, presenting collectively to you, in designs ignorantly drawn and vilely engraved, yet with the peculiar advantage belonging to the cheap woodcut, whatever, through that fourth part of the round world, from Mexico to Patagonia, can be found of savage, sordid, vicious, or ridicu- lous in humanity, without so much as one exceptional indica- tion of a graceful form, a true instinct, or a cultivable capacity. The second frame is of French scientific art, and still moro curiousl}' horrible. I have cut these examples, not by any means the ugliest, out of ' Les Pourquoi de Mademoiselle Suzanne/ a book in which it is proposed to instruct a young lady of eleven or twelve years old, amusingly, in the elements of science. In the course of the lively initiation, the young lady has the advantage of seeing a garde champetre struck dead by light- ning ; she is par parenthese entertained with the history and picture of the suicide of the cook Vatel ; somebody's heart, liver, and forearm are dissected for her ; all the phenomena of nightmare are described and portrayed ; and whatever spectres of monstrosity can be conjured into the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, the sea, the railway, and the tele- graph, are collected into black company by the cheap en- graver. Black company is a mild word : you will find the right phrase now instinctively adopted by the very persons who are most charmed by these new modes of sensation. In the ' Cent- ury ' magazine for this month, the reviewer of some American landscape of this class tells us that Mr. , whoever he is, by a series of bands of black and red paint, has succeeded in entirely reproducing the ' Demoniac ' beauty of the sunset. I have framed these French cuts, however, chiefly for pur- poses of illustration in my last lecture of this year, for they show you in perfect abstract all the wrong, wrong unques- tionably, whether you call it Demoniac, Diabolic, or ^Esthetic, against which my entire teaching, from its first syllable to this day, has been straight antagonist. Of this, as I have said, in my terminal address : the first frame is for to-day enough representation of ordinary English cheap-trade woodcutting in its necessary limitation to ugly subject, and its disrespect 76 THE ART Ot ENGLAND. for the veiy quality of the material on which its value depends, elasticity. There is this great difference between the respect for his material proper to a workman in metal or marble, and to one working in clay or wood, that the former has to exhibit the actual beauty of the substance itself, but the latter only its special capacity of answering his purpose. A sculptor in marble is required to show the beauty of marble-surface, a sculptor in gold its various lustre, a worker in iron its ductila strength. But the wood-cutter has not to exhibit his block, nor the engraver his copper-plate. They have only to use the relative softness and rigidity of those substances to receive and multiply the lines drawn by the human hand ; and it is not the least an admirable quality in wood that it is capable of printing a large blot ; but an entirely admirable one that- by its tough elasticity it can preserve through any number of impressions the distinctness of a well cut line. Not admirable, I say, to print a blot ; but to print a pure line unbroken, and an intentionally widened space or spot of darkness, of the exact shape wanted. In my former lectures on Wood Engraving I did not enough explain this quite sep- arate virtue of the material. Neither in pencil nor pen draw- ing, neither in engraving nor etching, can a line be widened arbitrarily, or a spot enlarged at ease. The action of the moving point is continuous ; you can increase or diminish the line's thickness gradually, but not by starts ; you must drive your plough-furrow, or let your pen glide, at a fixed rate of motion ; nor can you afterwards give more breadth to the pen line without overcharging the ink, nor by any labour of etching tool dig out a cavity of shadow such as the wood engraver leaves in an instant. Hence, the methods of design which depend on irregularly expressive shapes of black touch, belong to wood exclusively ; and the examples placed formerly in your school from Bewick's cuts of speckled plumage, and Burgmaier's heraldry of .barred helmets and black eagles, were intended to direct your atten- tion to this especially intellectual manner of work, as opposed to modern scribbling and hatching. But I have now removed these old-fashioned prints, (placing them, however, in always THE FIRESIDE. 77 accessible reserve,) because I found they possessed no attrac- tion for inexperienced students, and I think it better to explain the qualities of execution of a similar kind, though otherwise directed, which are to be found in the designs of our living masters, addressed to existing tastes, and occupied with familiar scenes. Although I have headed my lecture only with the names of Leech and Tenniel, as being the real founders of 'Punch,' and by far the greatest of its illustrators, both in force of art and range of thought, yet in the precision of the use of his means, and the subtle boldness to which he has educated the inter- preters of his design, Mr. Du Maurier is more exemplary than either ; and I have therefore had enlarged by photography, your thanks are due to the brother of Miss Greenaway for the skill with which the proofs have been produced, for first ex- ample of fine wood-cutting, the heads of two of Mr. Du Maur- ier's chief heroines, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns, and Lady Midas, in the great scene where Mrs. Ponsonby takes on her- self the administration of Lady Midas's at home. You see at once how the effect in both depends on the coagulation and concretion of the black touches into masses relieved only by interspersed sparkling grains of incised light, presenting the realistic and vital portraiture of both ladies with no more labour than would occupy the draughtsman but a few minutes, and the engraver perhaps an hour or two. It is true that the features of the elder of the two friends might be supposed to yield themselves without difficulty to the effect of the irregular and blunt lines which are employed to repro- duce them ; but it is a matter of no small wonderment to see the delicate profile and softly rounded features of the younger lady suggested by an outline which must have been drawn in the course of a few seconds, and by some eight or ten firmly swept parallel penstrokes right across the cheek. I must ask you especially to note the successful result of this easy method of obtaining an even tint, because it is the proper, and the inexorably required, method of shade in classic wood-engraving. Recently, very remarkable and ad- mirable efforts have been made by American artists to repre- 78 THE ART OF ENGLAND. sent flesh tints with fine textures of crossed white lines and spots. But all such attempts are futile ; it is an optical law that transparency in shadows can only be obtained by dark lines with white spaces, not white lines with dark spaces. For what we feel to be transparency in any colour or any atmosphere, consists in the penetration of darkness by a more distant light, not in the subduing of light by a more distant darkness. A snowstorm seen white on a dark sky gives us no idea of transparency, but rain between us and a rainbow does ; and so throughout all the expedients of chiaroscuro drawing and painting, transparent effects are produced by laying dark over light, and opaque by laying light over dark. It would be tedious in a lecture to press these technical principles farther ; it is enough that I should state the general law, and its practical consequence, that no wood-engraver need attempt to copy Correggio or Guido ; his business is not with com- plexions, but with characters ; and his fame is to rest, not on the perfection of his work, but on its propriety. I must in the next place ask you to look at the aphorisms given as an art catechism in the second chapter of the ' Laws of Fesole.' One of the principal of these gives the student, as a test by which to recognize good colour, that all the white in the picture is precious, and all the black, conspicuous; not by the quantity of it, but the impassable difference between it and all the coloured spaces. The rule is just as true for wood-cutting. In fine examples of it, the black is left for local colour only for dark dresses, or dark patterns on light ones, dark hair, or dark eyes ; it is never left for general gloom, out of which the figures emerge like spectres. When, however, a number of Mr. Du Maurier's compositions are seen together, and compared with the natural simplicity and aerial space of Leech's, they will be felt to depend on this principle too absolutely and undisguisedly ; so that the quar- terings of black and white in them sometimes look more like a chess-board than a picture. But in minor and careful pas- sages, his method is wholly exemplary, and in the next ex- ample I enlarge for you, Alderman Sir Robert admiring THE FTRESTDE. 79 the portraits of the Duchess and the Colonel, he has not only shown you every principle of wood-cutting, but abstracted for you also the laws of beauty, whose definite and every year more emphatic assertion in the pages of ' Punch ' is the ruling charm and most legitimate pride of the immortal periodical. Day by day the search for grotesque, ludicrous, or loathsome subject which degraded the caricatures in its original, the 'Charivari,' and renders the dismally comic journals of Italy the mere plagues and cancers of the State, became, in our English satirists, an earnest comparison of the things which were graceful and honourable, with those which were grace- less and dishonest, in modern life.' Gradually the kind and vivid genius of John Leech, capable in its brightness of find- ing pretty jest in everything, but capable in its tenderness also of rejoicing in the beauty of everything, softened and illumined with its loving wit the entire scope of English social scene ; the graver power of Tenniel brought a steady tone and law of morality into the license of political contention ; and finally the acute, highly trained, and accurately physio- logical observation of Du Maurier traced for us, to its true origin in vice or virtue, every order of expression in the mixed circle of metropolitan rank and wealth : and has done so with a closeness of delineation the like of which has not been seen since Holbein, and deserving the most respectful praise in that, whatever power of satire it may reach by the selection and assemblage of telling points of character, it never degen- erates into caricature. Nay, the terrific force of blame which he obtains by collecting, as here in the profile of the Knight- Alderman, features separately faultful into the closest focus, depends on the very fact that they are not caricatured. Thus far, the justice of the most careful criticism may grate- fully ratify the applause with which the works of these three artists have been received by the British public. Rapidly I must now glance at the conditions of defect which must neces- sarily occur in art primarily intended to amuse the multitude, and which can therefore only be for moments serious, and by stealth didactic. In the first place, you must be clear about ' Punch's ' poli< 9r > THE ART OF ENGLAND. tics. He is a polite Whig, with a sentimental respect for the Crown, and a practical respect for pi-operty. He steadily flatters Lord Palmerston, from his heart adores Mr. Gladstone; steadily, but not virulently, caricatures Mr. Disraeli ; violently and virulently castigates assault upon property, in any kind, and holds up for the general ideal of perfection, to be aimed at by all the children of heaven and earth, the British Hunt- ing Squire, the British Colonel, and the British Sailor. Primarily, the British Hunting Squire, with his family. The most beautiful sketch by Leech throughout his career, and, on the whole, in all ' Punch,' I take to be Miss Alice on her father's horse ; her, with three or four more young Dians, I had put in one frame for you, but found they ran each other too hard, being in each case typical of what ' Punch ' thinks every young lady ought to be. He has never fairly asked how far every young lady can be like them ; nor has he in a single instance endeavoured to represent the beauty of the poor. On the contrary, his witness to their degradation, as inevi- table in the circumstances of their London life, is constant, and for the most part, contemptuous ; nor can I more sternly en- force what I have said at various times on that subject than by placing permanently in your schools the cruelly true de- sign of Du Maurier, representing the London mechanic with his family, when Mr. Todeson is asked to amuse 'the dear creatures ' at Lady Clara's garden tea. I show you for comparison with it, to-day, a little painting of a country girl of our Westmoreland type, which I have given to our Coniston children's school, to show our hill and vale-bred lassies that God will take care of their good looks for them, even thougli He may have appointed for them the toil of the women of Sarepta and Samaria, in being gatherers of wood and drawers of water. I cannot say how far with didactic purpose, or how far in carelessly inevitable satire, ' Punch ' contrasts with the disgrace of street poverty the beauties of the London drawing-room, the wives and daughters of the great upper middle class, exalted by the wealth of the capital, and of the larger manu- facturing towns. THE FIRESIDE. 81 These are, with few exceptions, represented either as receiv- ing company, or reclining on sofas in extremely elegant morn- ing dresses, and surrounded by charming children, with whom they are usually too idle to play. The children are extremely intelligent, and often exquisitely pretty, yet dependent for great part of their charm on the dressing of their back hair, and the fitting of their boots. As they grow up, their girlish beauty is more and more fixed in an expression of more or less self-satisfied pride and practised apathy. There is no ex- ample in ' Punch ' of a girl in society whose face expresses humility or enthusiasm except in mistaken directions and foolish degrees. It is true that only in these mistaken feel- ings can be found palpable material for jest, and that much of 'Punch's' satire is well intended and just. It seems to have been hitherto impossible, when once the zest of satirical humour is felt, even by so kind and genial a heart as John Leech's, to restrain it, and to elevate it into the playfulness of praise. In the designs of Eichter, of which I have so often spoken, among scenes of domestic beauty and pathos, he continually introduces little pieces of play, such, for instance, as that of the design of the ' Wide, Wide World/ in which the very young puppy, with its paws on its rela- tively as young master's shoulder, looks out with him over the fence of their cottage garden. And it is surely conceiv- able that some day the rich power of a true humorist may be given to express more vividly the comic side which exists in many beautiful incidents of daily life, and refuse at last to dwell, even with a smile, on its follies. This, however, must clearly be a condition of future human development, for hitherto the perfect power of seizing comic incidents has always been associated with some liking for ugliness, and some exultation in disaster. The law holds and holds with no relaxation even in the instance of so wise and benevolent a man as the Swiss schoolmaster, Topffer, whose death, a few years since, left none to succeed him ip perfection of pure linear caricature. He can do more wit'L fewer lines than any draughtsman known to me, and in sev- eral plates of his ; Histoire d'Albert,' has succeeded in entirely 6 82 THE ART OF ENGLAND. representing the tenor of conversation with no more than hall the profile and one eye of the speaker. He generally took a walking tour through Switzerland, with his pupils, in the summer holidays, and illustrated his ex- quisitely humorous diary of their adventures with pen sketches, which show a capacity of appreciating beautiful landscape as great as his grotesque faculty ; but his mind is drawn away from the most sublime scene, in a moment, to the difficulties of the halting-place, or the rascalities of the inn ; and his power is never so marvellously exerted as in de- picting a group of roguish guides, shameless beggars, or hopeless cretins. Nevertheless, with these and such other materials as our European masters of physiognomy have furnished in por- traiture of their nations, I can see my way to the arrange- ment of very curious series of illustrations of character, if only I could also see my way to some place wherein to ex- hibit them. I said in my opening lecture that I hoped the studies of the figure initiated by Mr. Richmond might be found consistent with the slighter practice in my own schools ; and I must say, in passing, that the only real hindi-ance to this, but at present an insuperable one, is want of room. It is a some- what characteristic fact, expressive of the tendencies of this age, that Oxford thinks nothing of spending 150,000 for the elevation and oruature, in a style as inherently corrupt as it is un-English, of the rooms for the torture and shame of her scholars, which to all practical purposes might just as well have been inflicted on them in her college halls, or her pro- fessors' drawing-rooms ; but that the only place where her art-workmen can be taught to draw, is the cellar of her old Taylor buildings, and the only place where her art-professor can store the cast of a statue, is his own private office in the gallery above. Pending the now indispensable addition of some rude work- room to the Taylor galleries, in which study of the figure may be carried on under a competent master, I have lent, from the drawings belonging to the St. George's Guild, such studies of THE FIRESIDE. S3 Venetian pictures as may form the taste of the figure-student in general composition, and I have presented to the Ruskin schools twelve principal drawings out of Miss Alexander's Tuscan book, which may be standards of method, in drawing from the life, to students capable of as determined industry. But, no less for the better guidance of the separate figure class in the room which I hope one day to see built, than for immediate help in such irregular figure study as may be pos- sible under present conditions, I find myself grievously in want of such a grammar of the laws of harmony in the human form and face as may be consistent with whatever accurate knowledge of elder races may have been obtained by recent anthropology, and at the same time authoritative in its state- ment of the eifect on human expression, of the various mental states and passions. And it seems to me that by arranging in groups capable of easy comparison, the examples of similar expression given by the masters whose work we have been re- viewing, we may advance further such a science of physiog- nomy as will be morally useful, than by any quantity of measuring of savage crania : and if, therefore, among the rudimentary series in the art schools you find, before I can get the new explanatory catalogues printed, some more or less systematic gixmps of heads collected out of ' Punch,' you must not think that I am doing this merely for your amusement, or that such examples are beneath the dignity of academical in- struction. My own belief is that the difference between the features of a good and a bad servant, of a churl and a gentle- man, is a much more useful and interesting subject of en- quiry than the gradations of snub nose or flat forehead which became extinct with the Dodo, or the insertions of muscle and articulations of joint which are common to the flesh of all humanity. Returning to our immediate subject, and considering ' Punch ' as the expression of the popular voice, which he vir- tually is, and even somewhat obsequiously, is it not wonder- ful that he has never a word to say for the British manufac- turer, and that the true citizen of his own city is represented by him only under the types, either of Sir Pompey Bedell or 84 THE ART OF ENGLAND. of the more tranquil magnate and potentate, the bulwark of British constitutional principles and initiator of British pri- vate enterprise, Mr. John Smith, whose biography is given with becoming reverence by Miss Ingelow, in the last but one of her ' Stories told to a Child ' ? And is it not also surely some overruling power in the nature of things, quite other than the desire of his readers, which compels Mr. Punch, when the squire, the colonel, and the admiral are to be at once expressed, together with all that they legislate or fight for, in the symbolic figure of the nation, to represent the incarnate John Bull always as a farmer, never as a manufacturer or shopkeeper, and to conceive and exhibit him rather as pay- master for the faults of his neighbours, than as watching for opportunity of gain out of their follies ? It had been well if either under this accepted, though now antiquated, type, or under the more poetical symbols of Bri- tannia, or the British Lion, ' Punch ' had ventured of tener to intimate the exact degree in which the nation was following its ideal ; and mai'ked the occasions when Britannia's crest began too fatally to lose its resemblance to Athena's, and liken itself to an ordinary cockscomb, or when the British Lion had of course only for a moment, and probably in pecuniary difficulties di'opped his tail between his legs. But the aspects under which either British Lion, Gallic eagle, or Russian bear have been regarded by our contem- plative serial, are unfortunately dependent on the fact that all his three great designei'S are, in the most narrow sense, Lon- don citizens. I have said that every great man belongs not only to his own city but to his own village. The artists of ' Punch ' have no village to belong to ; for them, the street corner is the face of the whole earth, and the two only quar- ters of the heavenly horizon are the east and west End. And although Leech's conception of the Distinguished For- eigner, Du Maurier's of the Herr Professor, and Tenniel's of La Liberte, or La France, are all extremely true and delight- ful to the superficial extent of the sketch by Dickens in ' Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings,' they are, effectively, all seen with Mrs. Lirriper's eyes ; they virtually represent of the Con- THE FIRESIDE. 85 iiuent little more than the upper town of Boulogne ; nor has anything yet been done by all the wit and all the kindness of these great popular designers to deepen the reliance of any European nation on the good qualities of its neighbours. You no doubt have at the Union the most interesting and beautiful series of the Tenniel cartoons which have been col- lectively published, with the explanation of their motives. If you begin with No. 38, you will find a consecutive series of ten extremery forcible drawings, casting the utmost obloquy in the power of the designer upon the French Emperor, the Pope, and the Italian clergy, and alike discourteous to the head of the nation which had fought side by side with us at Inkerman, and impious in its representation of the Catholic power to which Italy owed, and still owes, whatever has made her glorious among the nations of Christendom, or happy among the families of the earth. Among them you will find other two, representing our wars with China, and the triumph of our missionary manner of compelling free trade at the point of the bayonet : while, for the close and consummation of the series, you will see the genius and valour of your country figuratively summed in the tableau, subscribed, ' John Bull defends his pudding.' Is this indeed then the final myth of English heroism, into which King Arthur, and St. George, and Britannia, and the British Lion are all collated, concluded, and perfected by Evolution, in the literal words of Carlyle, ' like four whale cubs combined by boiling ' ? Do you wish your Queen in future to style herself Placentae, instead of Fidei Defensor ? and is it to your pride, to your hope, or even to your pleas- ure, that this once sacred as well as sceptred island of yours, in whose second capital city Constantine was crowned ; to whose shores St. Augustine and St. Columba brought bene- diction ; who gave her Lion-hearts to the Tombs of the East, her Pilgrim Fathers to the Cradle of the West ; who has wrapped the sea round her for her mantle, and breathes with her strong bosom the air of every sign in heaven ; is it SC THE ART OF ENGLAND. to your good pleasure that the Hero-children born to her in these latter days should write no loftier legend on their shields than ' John Bull defends his pudding ' ? I chanced only the other day on a minor, yet, to my own mind, very frightful proof of the extent to which this caitiff symbol is fastening itself in the popular mind. I was in search of some extremely pastoral musical instrument, whereby to regulate the songs of our Coniston village chil- dren, without the requirement of peculiar skill either in master or monitor. But the only means of melody offered to me by the trade of the neighbourhood was this so-called ' har- monicon,' purchaseable, according to your present notions, cheaply, for a shilling ; and with this piece of cheerful my- thology on its lid gratis, wherein you see what ' Gradus ad Parnassum ' we prepare for the rustic mind, and that the virtue and the jollity of England are vested only in the money- bag in each hand of him. I shall place this harmonicon lid in your schools, among my examples of what we call liberal edu- cation, and, with it, what instances I can find of the way Florence, Siena, or Venice taught their people to regard themselves. For, indeed, in many a past year, it has every now and then been a subject of recurring thought to me, what such a genius as that of Tenniel would have done for us, had we asked the best of it, and had the feeling of the nation respect- ing the arts, as a record of its honour, been like that of the Italians in their proud days. To some extent, the memory of our bravest war has been preserved for us by the pathetic force of Mrs. Butler ; but her conceptions are realistic only, and rather of thrilling episodes than of great military prin- ciple and thought. On the contrary, Tenniel has much of the largeness and symbolic mystery of imagination which belong to the great leaders of classic art : in the shadowy masses and sweeping lines of his great compositions, there are ten- dencies which might have won his adoption into the school of Tintoret ; and his scorn of whatever seems to him dis- honest or contemptible in religion, would have translated itself into awe in the presence of its vital power. THE FIRESIDE. 87 I gave you, when first I came to Oxford, Tintoret's picture of the Doge Mocenigo, with his divine spiritual attendants, in the cortile of St. Mark's. It is surely our own fault, more than Mr. Tenniel's, if the best portraits he can give us of the heads of our English government should be rather on the oc- casion of their dinner at Greenwich than their devotion at St. Paul's. My time has been too long spent in carping ; but yet the faults which I have pointed out were such as could scarcely occur to you without some such indication, and which gravely need your observance, and, as far as 3 r ou are accountable for them, your repentance. I can best briefly, in conclusion, de- fine what I would fain have illustrated at length, the charm, in this art of the Fireside, which you tacitly feel, and have every rational ground to rejoice in. With whatever restriction you should receive the flattery, and with whatever caution the guidance, of these great illustrators of your daily life, this at least you may thankfully recognize in the sum of their work, that it contains the evidence of a prevalent and crescent beauty and energy in the youth of our day, which may justify the most discontented ' laudator temporis acti ' in leaving the fu- ture happily in their hands. The witness of ancient art points often to a general and equal symmetry of body and mind in well trained races ; but at no period, so far as I am able to gather by the most careful comparison of existing portraiture, has there ever been a loveliness so variably refined, so modestly, and kindly virtuous, so innocently fantastic, and so daintily pure, as the present girl-beauty of our British Islands : and whatever, for men now entering on the main battle of life, may be the confused temptations or inevitable errors of a pe- riod of moral doubt and social change, my own experience of help already received from the younger members of this Uni- versity, is enough to assure me that there has been no time, in all the pride of the past, when their country might more serenely trust in the glory of her youth ; when her prosperity was mo*e secure in their genius, or her honour in their hearts, 88 THE ART OF ENGLAND. LECTUKE VI. The Hill-Side. GEORGE ROESON AND COPLEY FIELDING. IN the five preceding lectures given this year, I have en= deavoured to generalize the most noteworthy facts respecting the religious, legendary, classic, and, in two kinds, domestic, art of England. There remains yet to be defined one, far- away, and, in a manner, outcast, school, which belongs as yet wholly to the present century ; and which, if we were to trust to appearances, would exclusively and for ever belong to it, neither having been known before our time, nor surviving afterwards, the art of landscape. Not known before, except as a trick, or a pastime ; not surviving afterwards, because we seem straight on the way to pass our lives in cities twenty miles wide, and to travel from each of them to the next, underground : outcast now, even while it retains some vague hold on old-fashioned people's minds, since the best existing examples of it are placed by the authorities of the National Gallery in a cellar lighted by only two windows, and those at the bottom of a well, blocked by four dead brick walls fifty feet high. Notwithstanding these discouragements, I am still minded to carry out the design in which the so-called Ruskin schools were founded, that of arranging in them a code of elementary practice, which should secure the skill of the student in the department of landscape before he entered on the branches of art requiring higher genius. Nay, I am more than ever minded to fulfil my former purpose now, in the exact degree in which I see the advantages of such a method denied or refused in other academies ; and the beauty of natural scenery increasingly in clanger of destruction by the gross interests and disquieting pleasures of the citizen. For indeed, as I before stated to you, when first I undertook the duties of this professorship, my own personal liking for landscape made me THE HILL-SIDE. 89 extremely guarded in recommending its study. I only gave three lectures on landscape in six years, and I never published them ; my hope and endeavour was to connect the study of Nature for you with that of History ; to make you interested in Greek legend as well as in Greek lakes and limestone ; to acquaint you with the relations of- northern hills and rivers to the schools of Christian Theology ; and of Renaissance town- life to the rage of its infidelity. But I have done enough, and more than enough, according to my time of life, in these directions ; and now, justified, I trust, in your judgment, from the charge of weak concession to rny own predilections, I shall arrange the exercises required consistently from my drawing- classes, with quite primary reference to landscape art ; and teach the early philosophy of beauty, under laws liable to no dispute by human passion, but secure in the grace of Earth, and light of Heaven. And I wish in the present lecture to -define to you the nature and meaning of landscape art, as it arose in England eighty years ago, without reference to the great master whose works have been the piincipal subject of my own enthusiasm. I have always stated distinctly that the genius of Turner was exceptional, both in its kind and in its height : and although his elementary modes of work are beyond dispute authorita- tive, and the best that can be given for example and exercise, the general tenor of his design is entirely beyond the accept- ance of common knowledge, and even of safe sympathy. For in his extreme sadness, and in the morbid tones of mind out of which it arose, he is one with Byron and Goethe ; and is no more to be held representative of general English land- scape art than Childe Harold or Faust are exponents of the total love of Nature expressed in English or German litera- ture. To take a single illustrative instance, there is no fore- ground of Turner's in which you can find a flower. In some respects, indeed, the vast strength of this unfol- lowable Eremite of a master was crushing, instead of edifying, to the English schools. All the true and strong men who were his contemporaries shrank from the slightest attempt at rivalry with him on his own lines ; and his own lines were 90 THE ART OF ENGLAND. cast far. But for him, Stanfield might have sometimes paint- ed an Alpine valley, or a Biscay storm ; but the moment there was any question of rendering magnitude, or terror, every effort became puny beside Turner, and Stanfield meekly re- signed himself to potter all his life round the Isle of Wight, and paint the Needles on one side, and squalls off Cowes on the other. In like manner, Copley Fielding in his young days painted vigorously in oil, and showed promise of attain- ing considerable dignity in classic composition ; but the moment Turner's Garden of Hesperides and Building of Carthage appeared in the Academy, there was an end to am- bition in that direction ; and thenceforth Fielding settled down to his quiet presidency of the old Water-colour Society, and painted, in unassuming replicas, his passing showers in the Highlands, and sheep on the South Downs. Which are, indeed, for most of us, much more appropriate objects of contemplation ; and the old water-colour room at that time, adorned yearly with the complete year's labour of Fielding, Kobson, De Wint, Barrett, Prout, and William Hunt, presented an aggregate of unaffected pleasantness and truth, the like of which, if you could now see, after a morn- ing spent among the enormities of luscious and exotic art which frown or glare along your miles of exhibition wall, would really be felt by you to possess the charm of a bouquet of bluebells and cowslips, amidst a prize show of cactus and orchid from the hothouses of Kew. The root of this delightfulness was an extremely rare sin- cerity in the personal pleasure which all these men took, not in their own pictures, but in the subjects of them a form of enthusiasm which, while it was as simple, was also as roman- tic, in the best sense, as the sentiment of a young girl : and whose nature I can the better both define and certify to you, because it was the impulse to which I owed the best force of my own life, and in sympathy with which I have done or said whatever of saying or doing in it has been useful to others. When I spoke, in this year's first lecture, of Rossetti, as the chief intellectual force in the establishment of the modern Romantic School ; and again in the second lecture promised, THE HILL-SIDE. 91 at the end of our course, the collection of the evidence oi Romantic passion in all our good English art, YOU will find it explained at the same time that I do not use the word Eonian- tic as opposed to Classic, but as opposed to the prosaic char- acters of selfishness and stupidity, in all times, and among all nations. I do not think of Bang Arthur as opposed to The- seus, or to Valerius, but to Alderman Sir Robert, and Mr. John Smith. And therefore I opposed the child-like love of beautiful things, in even the least of our English Modern Painters, from the first page of the book I wrote about them to the last, in Greek Art, to what seemed to me then (and in a certain sense is demonstrably to me now) too selfish or too formal, and in Teutonic Art, to what was cold in a far worse sense, either by boorish dulness or educated affectation. I think the two best central types of Non-Romance, of the power of Absolute Vulgarity in selfishness, as distinguished from the eternal dignity of Reverence and Love, are stamped for you on the two most finished issues of your English cur- rency in the portraits of Henry the Eighth and Charles the Second. There is no interfering element in the vulgarity of them, no pardon to be sought in their poverty, ignorance, or weakness. Both are men of strong powers of mind, and both well informed in all particulars of human knowledge possible to them. But in the one you see the destroyer, according to his power, of English religion ; and, in the other, the destroyer, according to his power, of English morality : culminating types to you of whatever in the spirit, or dispirit, of succeed- ing ages, robs God, or dishonours man. I named to you, as an example of the unromantic art which was assailed by the pre-Raphaelites, Vandyke's sketch of the ' Miraculous Draught of Fishes.' Very near it, in the' National Gallery, hangs another piscatory subject,* by Teniers, which I will ask you carefully also to examine as a perfect type of the Unromantic Art which was assailed by the gentle enthusi- * No. 817, 'Teniers' Chateau at Perck.' The expressions touchingthe Trant of light in it are a little violent, being strictly accurate only of such pictures of the Dutch school as Vanderneer's 'Evening Landscape,' 152, and ' Canal Scene,' 732. THE ART OF ENGLAND. asm of the English School of Landscape. It represents a fe\v ordinary Dutch houses, an ordinary Dutch steeple or two, some still more ordinary Dutch trees, and most ordinary Dutch clouds, assembled in contemplation of an ordinary Dutch duck-pond ; or, perhaps, in respect of its size, we may more courteously call it a goose-pond. All these objects are painted either grey or brown, and the atmosphere is of the kind which looks not merely as if the sun had disappeared for the day, but as if he had gone out altogether, and left a stable lantern instead. The total effect having appeared, even to the painter's own mind, at last little exhilatory, he has en- livened it by three figures on the brink of the goose-pond, two gentlemen and a lady, standing all three perfectly up- right, side by side, in court dress, the gentlemen with expan- sive boots, and all with conical hats and high feathers. In order to invest these characters Avith dramatic interest, a rus- tic fisherman presents to them as a tribute, or, perhaps, ex- hibits as a natural curiosity, a large fish, just elicited from the goose-pond by his adventurous companions, who have waded into the middle of it, every one of them, with singular exacti- tude, up to the calf of his leg. The principles of National Gallery arrangement of course put this picture on the line, while Tintoret * and Gainsborough are hung out of sight ; but in this instance I hold myself fortunate in being able to refer you to an example, so conveniently examinable, of the utmost stoop and densest level of human stupidity yet fallen to by any art in which some degree of manual dexterity is essen- tial. This crisis of degradation, you will observe, takes place at the historical moment when by the concurrent power of avaricious, trade on one side, and unrestrained luxury on the other, the idea of any but an earthly interest, and any but proud or carnal pleasures, had been virtually effaced through- out Europe ; and men, by their resolute self-seeking, had literally at last ostracised the Spiritual Sun from Heaven, and * The large new Tintoret wholly so, and the largest Gainsborough, the best in England known to me, used merely for wall furniture at th top oi' the room. THE HILL-SIDE: 93 lived by little more than the snuff of the wick of their own mental stable lantern. The forms of romantic art hitherto described in this course of lectures, were all distinctly reactionary against the stupor of this Stygian pool, brooded over by Batavian fog. But the first signs of re-awakening in the vital power of imagination were, long before, seen in landscape art. Not the utmost strength of the great figure painters could break through the bonds of the flesh. Reynolds vainly tried to substitute the age of Innocence for the experience of Religion the true genius at his side remained always Cupid unbinding the girdle of Venus. Gainsborough knew no goddesses other than Mrs. Graham or Mrs. Siddons ; Vandyke and Rubens, than the beauties of the court, or the graces of its corpulent Mythology. But at last there arose, and arose inevitably, a feeling that, if not any more in Heaven, at least in the solitary places of the earth, there was a pleasure to be found based neither on pride nor sensuality. Among the least attractive of the mingled examples in your school-alcove, you will find a quiet pencil-drawing of a sunset at Rome, seen from beneath a deserted arch, whether of Triumph or of Peace. Its modest art-skill is restricted almost exclusively to the expression of warm light in the low har- mony of evening ; but it differs wholly from the learned com- posftions and skilled artifices of former painting by its purity of unaffected pleasure and rest in the little that is given. Here, at last, we feel, is an honest Englishman, who has got away out of all the Camere, and the Loggie, and the Stanze, and the schools, and the Disputas, and the Incendios, and the Battaglias, and busts of this god, and torsos of that, and the chatter of the studio, and the rush of the corso ; and has laid himself down, with his own poor eyes and heart, and the sun casting its light between ruins, possessor, he, of so much of the evidently blessed peace of things, he, and the poor lizard in the cranny of the stones beside him. I believe that with the name of Richard Wilson, the history of sincere landscape art, founded on a meditative love of Nat- ure, begins for England : and, I may add, for Europe, without 94 THE ART OF ENGLAND. any wide extension of claim ; for the only continental lancU scape work of any sterling merit with which I am acquainted, consists in the old-fashioned drawings, made fifty years ago to meet the demand of the first influx of British travellers into Switzerland after the fall of Napoleon. With Richard Wilson, at all events, our own true and mod- est schools began, an especial direction being presently given to them in the rendering effects of aerial perspective by the skill in water-colour of Girtiu and Cousins. The drawings of these two masters, recently bequeathed to the British Museum, and I hope soon to be placed in a well-lighted gallery, contain quite insuperable examples of skill in the management of clear tints, and of the meditative charm consisting in the quiet and unaffected treatment of literally true scenes. But the impulse to which the new school owed the discovery of its power in colour was owing, I believe, to the poetry of Scott and Byron. Both by their vivid passion and accurate description, the painters of their day were taught the true value of natural colour, while the love of mountains, common to both poets, forced their illustrators into reverent pilgrimage to scenes which till then had been thought too desolate for the spectator's interest, or too difficult for the painter's skill. I have endeavoured, in the 92nd number of 'Fors Clavigera,' to give some analysis of the main character of the scenery by which Scott was inspired ; but, in endeavouring to mark with distinctness enough the dependence of all its sentiment on the beauty of its rivers, I have not enough referred to the collat- eral charm, in a Borderer's mind, of the very mists and rain that feed them. In the climates of Greece and Italy, the mo- notonous sunshine, burning away the deep colours of every- thing into white and grey, and wasting the strongest mountain streams into threads among their shingle, alternates with the blue-fiery thundercloud, with sheets of flooding rain, and vol- leying musketry of hail. But throughout all the wild uplands of the former Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, from Edwin's crag to Hilda's cliff, the wreaths of sqftly resting mist, and wandering to and fro of capricious shadows of clouds, and drooping swathes, or flying fringes, of the benignant western THE HILL-SIDE. 95 rain, cherish, on every moorland summit, the deep-fibrea inoss, embalm the myrtle, gild the asphodel, enchant along the valleys the wild grace of their woods, and the green elf land of their meadows ; and passing away, or melting into the translucent calm of mountain air, leave to the open sunshine a world with every creature ready to rejoice in its comfort, and every rock and flower reflecting new loveliness to its light. Perhaps among the confusedly miscellaneous examples of ancient and modern, tropic or arctic art. with which I have tilled the niches of your schools, one, hitherto of the least noticeable cr serviceable to you, has been the dark Copley Fielding drawing above the fire-place ; nor am I afraid of trusting your kindness with the confession, that it is placed there more in memory of my old master, than in the hope of its proving of any lively interest or use to you. But it is now some fifty years since it was brought in triumph to Herne Hill, being the first picture my father ever bought, and in so far the foundation of the subsequent collection, sonic part of which has been permitted to become permanently national at Cambridge and Oxford. The pleasure which that single drawing gave on the morning of its installation in our home was greater than to the purchaser accustomed to these times of limitless demand and supply would be credible, or even conceivable ; and our back parlour for that day was as full of surprise and gratulation as ever Cimabue's joyful ]}orgo. The drawing represents, as you will probably not re- member, only a gleam of sunshine on a peaty moor, bringing out the tartan plaids of two Highland drovers, and relieved against the dark grey of a range of quite featureless and nameless distant mountains, seen through a soft; curtain of rapidly drift ing r.iin. Some little time after we had acquired this unobtrusive treasure;, one of i:iv fellow students, it was in mv under- graduate days at Christ Church came to Herne Hill to see what the picture might be which had ali'orded me so great ravishment. He had himself, as afterwards Kingslake !::ul Cur/on, been urged far bv the thirst of oriental travel ; 06 THE ART OF ENGLAND. the chequer of plaid and bonnet had for him but feeble in- terest after having worn turban and capote ; and the grey of Scottish hillside still less, to one who had climbed Olympus tind Abarim. After gazing blankly for a minute or two at the cheerless district through which lay the drovers' journey, he turned to me and said, "But, Ruskin, what is the use of painting such very bad weather ? " And I had no answer, except that, for Copley Fielding and for me, there was no such thing as bad weather, but only different kinds of pleas- ant weather some indeed inferring the exercise of a little courage and patience ; but all, in every hour of it, exactly what was fittest and best, whether for the hills, the cattle, the drovers or my master and me. Be the case as it might, and admitting that in a certain sense the weather might be bad in the eyes of a Greek or a Saracen, there was no question that to us it was not only pleasant, but picturesque ; and that we set ourselves to the painting of it, with as sincere desire to represent the to our minds beautiful aspect of a mountain shower, as ever Titian a blue sky, or Angelico a golden sphere of Paradise. Nay, in some sort, with a more perfect delight in the thing itself, and less coloring of by our own thoughts or inventions. For that matter, neither Fielding, nor Robson, nor David Cox, nor Peter de Wint, nor any of this school, ever had much thought or invention to distui'b them. They were, themselves, a kind of contemplative cattle, and flock of the field, who merely liked being out of doors, and brought as much painted fresh air as they could, back into 'Jae house with them. Neither must you think that this painting of fresh air is an entirely easy or soon managed business. You may paint a modern French emotional landscape with a pail of whitewash and a pot of gas-tar in ten minutes, at the outside. I don't know how long the operator himself takes to it of course some little more time must be occupied in plastering on the oil-paint so that it will stick, and not run ; but the skill of a good plasterer is really all that is required, the rather that in the modern idea of solemn symmetry you always make the bottom of your picture, as much as you can, like the top. THE HILL-SIDE. 07 You put seven or eight streaks of the plaster for your sky, to begin with ; then you put in a row of bushes with the gas-tar, then you rub the ends of them into the same shapes upside down you put three or four more streaks of white, to inti- mate the presence of a pool of water and if you finish off with a log that looks something like a dead body, your pict- ure will have the credit of being a digest of a whole novel of Gaboriau, and lead the talk of the season. Far other was the kind of labour required of even the least disciple of the old English water-colour school. In the first place, the skill of laying a perfectly even and smooth tint with absolute precision of complex outline was attained to a degree which no amateur draughtsman can have the least conception of. Water-colour, under the ordinary sketcher's mismanage- ment, drops and dries pretty nearly to its own fancy, slops over every outline, clots in every shade, seams itself with un- desirable edges, speckles itself with inexplicable grit, and is never supposed capable of representing anything it is meant for, till most of it has been washed out. But the great pri- mary masters of the trade could lay, with unei'ring precision of tone and equality of depth, the absolute tint they wanted without a flaw or a retouch ; and there is perhaps no greater marvel of artistic practice and finely accurate intention exist- ing, in a simple kind, greater than the study of a Yorkshire waterfall, by Girtin, now in the British Museum, in which every sparkle, ripple, and current is left in frank light by the steady pencil which is at the same instant, and with the same touch, drawing the forms of the dark congeries of channelled rocks, while around them it disperses the glitter of their spray. Then further, on such basis of well-laid primary tint, the old water-colour men were wont to obtain their effects of at- mosphere by the most delicate washes of transparent colour, reaching subtleties of gradation in misty light, which were wholly unthought of before their time. In this kind the depth of far-distant brightness, freshness, and mystery of morning air with which Copley Fielding used to invest the ridges of the South Downs, as they rose out of the blue Sus- f OS THE ART OF ENGLAND. sex champaign, remains, and I believe must remain, insupera- ble, while his sense of beauty in the cloud-forms associated with higher mountains, enabled him to invest the compara- tively modest scenery of our own island, out of which he never travelled, with a charm seldom attained by the most ambitious painters of Alp or Apennine. I vainly tried in writing the last volume of ' Modern Paint- ers ' to explain, even to myself, the course or nature of the pure love of mountains which in boyhood was the ruling pas- sion of my life, and which is demonstrably the first motive of inspiration with Scott, Wordsworth, and Byron. The more I analyzed, the less I could either understand, or justify, the mysterious pleasure we all of us, great or small, had in the land's being up and down instead of level ; and the less I felt able to deny the claim of prosaic and ignobly-minded persons to be allowed to like it level, instead of up and down. In the end I found there was nothing for it but simply to assure those recusant and grovelling persons that they were perfectly wrong, and that nothing could be expected, either in art or literature, from people who like to live among snipes and widgeons. Assuming it, therefore, for a moral axiom that the love of mountains was a heavenly gift, and the beginning of wisdom, it may be imagined, if we endured for their sakes any number of rainy days with philosophy, with what rapture the old painters were wont to hail the reappearance of their idols, with all their cataracts refreshed, and all their copse and crags respangled, flaming in the forehead of the morning sky. Very certainly and seriously there are no such emotions to be had out of the hedged field or ditched fen ; and I have often charitably paused in rny instances in ' Fors Clavigera ' that our squires should live from year's end to year's end on their o\vu estates, when I reflected how many of their acres lay in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, or even on duller levels, where there was neither good hunting nor duck-shooting. I am only able to show you two drawings in illustration o/ these sentiments of the mountain school, and one of those is only a copy of a Robson, but one quite good enough to repre- THE HILLSIDE. 99 sent his manner of work and tone of feeling. He died young, and there may perhaps be some likeness to the gentle depth of sadness in Keats, traceable in his refusal to paint any of the leaping streams or bright kindling heaths of Scotland, while he dwells with a monotony of affection on the clear re- pose of the northern twilight, and on the gathering of the shadow in the mountain gorges, till all their forms were folded in one kingly shroud of purple death. But over these hours and colours of the scene his governance was all but complete ; and even in this unimportant and imperfectly rendered ex- ample, the warmth of the departing sunlight, and the depth of soft air in the recesses of the glen, are given with harmony more true and more pathetic than you will find in any recent work of even the most accomplished masters. But of the loving labour, and severely disciplined observa- tion, which prepared him for the expression of this feeling for chiaroscuro, you can only judge by examining at leisure his outlines of Scottish scenery, a work of whose existence I had no knowledge, until the kindness of Mrs. Inge advised me of it, and further, procured for me the loan of the copy of it laid on the table ; which you will find has marks placed in it at the views of Byron's Lachin-y-Gair, of Scott's Ben Venue, and ot all Scotsmen's Ben Lomond, plates which you may take for leading types of the most careful delineation ever given to mountain scenery, for the love of it, pure and simple. The last subject has a very special interest to me ; and if you knew all I could tell you, did time serve, of the associa- tions connected with it would be seen gratefully by you also. In the text descriptive of it, (and the text of this book is quitft exceptionally sensible and useful, for a work of the sort), Mi*. Robson acknowledges his obligation for the knowledge of this rarely discovered view of Ben Lomond, to Sir Thomas Acland, the father of our own Dr. Henry Acland, the strength of whose whole life hitherto has been passed in the eager and unselfish service of the University of Oxford. His father was, of ah 1 amateur artists I ever knew, the best draughtsman of moun- tains, not with spasmodic force, or lightly indicated feeling, but with firm, exhaustive, and unerring delineation of their 100 TEH ART OF EX GLAND. crystalline and geologic form. From him the faith in the beauty and truth of natural science in connection with art wag learned happily by his physician- son, by whom, almost un- aided, the first battles were fought and fought hard before any of you eager young physicists were born, in the then de- spised causes of natural science and industrial art. That cause was in the end, sure of victory, but here in Oxford its triumph would have been long deferred, had it not been for the energy and steady devotion of Dr. Acland. Without him little as you may think it the great galleries and laboratories of this build- ing, in which you pursue your physical-science studies so ad- vantageously, and so forgetfully of their fii'st advocate, would not yet have been in existence. Nor, after their erection, (if indeed in this there be any cause for your thanks), would an expositor of the laws of landscape beauty have had the priv- ilege of addressing you under their roof. I am indebted also to one of my Oxford friends, Miss Sy- monds, for the privilege of showing you, with entire satisfac- tion, a perfectly good and characteristic drawing by Copley Fielding, of Cader Idris, seen down the vale of Dolgelly ; in which he has expressed with his utmost skill the joy of his heart in the aerial mountain light, and the iridescent wildness of the mountain foreground ; nor could you see enforced with any sweeter emphasis the truth on which Mr. Morris dwelt so earnestly in his recent address to you that the excellence of the work is, cseteris paribus, in proportion to the joy of the workman. There is a singular character in the colouring of Fielding, as he uses it to express the richness of beautiful vegetation ; he makes the sprays of it look partly as if they were strewn with jewels. He is of course not absolutely right in this ; to some extent it is a conventional exaggeration and yet it has a basis of truth which excuses, if it does not justify, this ex- pression of his pleasure ; for no colour can possibly represent vividly enough the charm of radiance which you can see by looking closely at dew-sprinkled leaves and flowers. You must ask Professor Clifton to explain to you why it is that a drop of water, while it subdues the hue of a green leaf THE HlLL-SITjE. 101 or blue flower into a soft grey, and shows itself therefore on the grass or the dock-leaf as a lustrous dimness, enhances the force of all warm colours, so that YOU never can see what the colour of a carnation or a wild rose really is till you get the dew on it. The effect is, of course, only generalized at the distance of a paintable foreground ; but it is always in reality part of the emotion of the scene, and justifiably sought in any possible similitude by the means at our disposal. It is with still greater interest and reverence to be noted as r physical truth that in states of joyful and healthy ex- citement the eye becomes more highly sensitive to the beauty of colour, and especially to the blue and red rays, while in depression and disease all colour becomes dim to us, and the yellow rays prevail over the rest, even to the extremity of jaundice. But while I direct your attention to these deeply interesting conditions of sight, common to the young and old, I must warn you of the total and most mischievous fallacy of the statements put forward a few years ago by a foreign ocu- list, respecting the changes of sight in old age. I neither know, nor care, what states of senile disease exist when the organ has been misused or disused ; but in all cases of dis- ciplined and healthy sight, the sense of colour and form is ab- solutely one and the same from childhood to death. When I was a boy of twelve years old, I saw nature with Turner's eyes, he being then sixty ; and I should never have asked permission to resume the guidance of your schools, unless now, at sixty-four, I saw the same hues in heaven and earth as when I walked a child b} r my mother's side. Neither may you suppose that between Turner's eyes, and yours, there is any difference respecting which it may be dis- puted whether of the two is right. The sight of a great painter is as authoritative as the lens of a camera lucida ; he perceives the form which a photograph will ratify ; he is sen- sitive to the violet or to the golden ray to the last precision and gradation of the chemist's defining light and intervaled line. But the veracity, as the joy, of this sensation, and the one involves the other, are dependent, as I have said, first on vigour of health, and secondly on the steady looking for 102 THE ART OF ENGLAND. and acceptance of the truth of nature as she gives it you, and not as you like to have it to inflate your own pride, or sat- isfy your own passion. If pursued in that insolence, or in that concupiscence, the phenomena of all the universe becomes first gloomy, and then spectral ; the sunset becomes demo- niac fire to you, and the clouds of heaven as the smoke of Acheron. If there is one part more than another which in my early writing deservedly obtained audience and acceptance, it was that in which I endeavoui'ed to direct the thoughts of my readers to the colours of the sky, and to the forms of its clouds. But it has been my fate to live and work in direct antagonism to the instincts, and yet more to the interests, of the age ; since I wrote that chapter on the pure traceries of the vault of morning, the fury of useless traffic has shut the sight, whether of morning or evening, from more than the third part of England ; and the foulness of sensual fantasy has infected the bright beneficence of the life-giving sky with the dull horrors of disease, and the feeble falsehoods of insanity. In the book professing to initiate a child in the elements of natural science, of which I showed you the average character of illustration at my last lecture, there is one chapter espe- cially given to aerial phenomena wherein the cumulus cloud is asserted to occur " either under the form of a globe or a half-globe," and in such shape to present the most exciting field for the action of imagination. What the French artistic imagination is supposed to produce, under the influence of this excitement, we find represented by a wood-cut, of which Mr. Macdonald has reproduced for you the most sublime portion. May I, for a minute or two, delay, and prepare you for, its enjoyment by reading the lines in which Wordsworth describes the impression made on a cultivated and pure- hearted spectator, by the sudden opening of the sky aftex storm ? " A single step, that freed me from the skirts Of the blind vapour, opened to my view Glory beyond all glory ever seen By waking sense or by the dreaming soul ! THE HILL-SIDE. 103 The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty city boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, Far-sinking into splendour without end ! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright, In avenues disposed ; there, towers begirt With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars illumination of all gems ! By earthly nature had the effect been wrought Upon the dark materials of the storm Now pacified ; on them, and on the coves And mountain-steeps and summits, whefeunto The vapours had receded, taking there Their station under a cerulean sky." I do not mean wholly to ratify this Wordsworthian state- ment of Arcana Coelestia, since, as far as I know clouds my- self, they look always like clouds, and are no more walled like castles than backed like weasles. And farther, observe that no great poet ever tells you that he saw something finer than anybody ever saw before. Great poets try to describe what all men see, and to express what all men feel ; if they cannot describe it, they let it alone ; and what they say, say ' boldly ' always, without advising their readers of that fact. Nevertheless, though extremely feeble poetry, this piece of bold Wordsworth is at least a sincere effort to describe what was in truth to the writer a most rapturous vision, with which we may now compare to our edification the sort of object which the same sort of cloud suggests to the modern French imagination. It would be surely superfluous to tell you that this repre- sentation of cloud is as false as it is monstrous ; but the point which I wish principally to enforce on your attention is that all this loathsome and lying defacement of book pages, which looks as if it would end in representing humanity only in its skeleton, and nature only in her ashes, is all of it founded first on the desire to make the volume saleable at 3 04 THE AllT OF ENGLAND. small cost, arid attractive to the greatest number, on what- ever terms of attraction. The significant change which Mr. Morris made in the title of his recent lecture, from Art and Democracy, to Art and Plutocracy, strikes at the root of the whole matter ; and with wider sweep of blow than he permitted himself to give his words. The changes which he so deeply deplored, and so grandly resented, in this once loveliest city, are due wholly to the deadly fact that her power is now dependent on the Plu- tocracy of Knowledge, instead of its Divinity. There are in- deed many splendid conditions in the new impulses with which we are agitated, or it may be inspired ; but against one of them, I must warn you, in all affection and in all duty. So far as you come to Oxford in order to get your living out of -her, you are ruining both Oxford and yourselves. There never has been, there never can be, any other law re- specting the wisdom that is from above, than this one pre- cept, " Buy the Truth, and sell it not." It is to be costly to you of labour and patience ; and you are never to sell it, but to guard, and to give. Much of the enlargement, though none of the defacement, of old Oxford is owing to the real life and the honest seeking of extended knowledge. But more is owing to the supposed money value of that knowledge ; and exactly so far forth, her enlargement is purely injurious to the University and to her scholars. In the department of her teaching, therefore, which is en- trusted to my care, I wish it at once to be known that I will entertain no question of the saleability of this or that manner of art ; and that I shall steadily discourage the attendance of students who propose to make their skill a source of income. Not that the true labourer is unworthy of his hire, but that, above all, in the beginning and first choice of industry, his heart must not be the heart of an hireling. You may, and with some measure of truth, ascribe this de- termination in me to the sense of my own weakness and want of properly so-called artistic gift. That is indeed so ; there are hundreds of men better qualified than I to teach practical THE HILL-SIDE. 105 technique : and, in their studios, all persons desiring to be art- ists should place themselves. But I never would have come to Oxford, either before or now, unless in the conviction that I was able to direct her students precisely in that degree and method of application to art which was most consistent with the general and perpetual functions of the University. Now, therefore, to prevent much future disappointment and loss of time both to you and to myself, let me forewarn you that I will not assist out of the schools, nor allow in them, modes of practice taken up at each student's fancy. In the classes, the modes of study will be entirely fixed ; and at your homes I cannot help you, unless you work in accord- ance with the class rules, which rules, however, if you do follow, you will soon be able to judge and feel for yourselves* whether you are doing right, and getting on, or otherwise This I tell 3 r ou with entire confidence, because the illustrations and examples of the modes of practice in question, wiwch I have been showing you in the course of these lectures, havo been furnished to me by young people like yourselves ; like in all things except only, so far as they are to be excepted at all, in the perfect repose of mind, which has been founded on a simply believed, and unconditionally obeyed, religion. On the repose of mind, I say ; and there is a singular physiea? truth illustrative of that spiritual life and peace which I must yet detain you by indicating in the subject of onr study to-day. You see how this foulness of false imagination represents, in every line, the clouds not only as monstrous, but tumultuous. Wow all lovely clouds, remember, are quiet clouds, not merely ^uiet in appearance, because of their greater height and dis- tance, but quiet actually, fixed for hours, it may be, in the same form and place. I have seen a fair-weather cloud high over Con- iston Old Man, not on the hill, observe, but a vertical mile above it, stand motionless, changeless, for twelve hours together. From four o'clock in the afternoon of one day I watched it through the night by the north twilight, till the dawn struck it with full crimson, at four of the following July morning. What is glorious and good in the heavenly cloud, you can, if JOH will bring also into your lives, which are in- 106 THE ART OF ENGLAND. deed like it, in their vanishing, but how much more in their not vanishing, till the morning take them to itself. As this ghastly phantasy of death is to the mighty clouds of which it is written, ' The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thou- sands of angels,' are the fates to which your passion may con- demn you, or your resolution raise. You may drift with the phrenzy of the whirlwind, or be fastened for your part in the pacified effulgence of the sky. Will you not let your lives be lifted up, in fruitful rain for the earth, in scatheless snow to the sunshine, so blessing the years to come, when the surest knowledge of England shall be of the will of her heav- enly Father, and the purest art of England be the inheritance of her simplest children ? APPENDIX. THE foregoing lectures were written, among other reasons, with the leading object of giving some permanently rational balance between the rhapsodies of praise and blame which idly occupied the sheets of various magazines last year on tho occasion of the general exhibition of Rossetti's works ; and carrying forward the same temperate estimate of essential value in the cases of other artists or artistes of real, though more or less restricted, powers, whose works were immedi- ately interesting to the British public, I have given this bal- ance chiefly in the form of qualified, though not faint, praise, which is the real function of just criticism ; for the multitude can always see the faults of good work, but never, unaided, its virtues : on the contrary, it is equally quick-sighted to the vulgar merits of bad work, but no tuition will enable it to con- demn the vices with which it has a natural sympathy ; and, in general, the blame of them is wasted on its deaf ears. When the course was completed, I found that my audiences had been pleased by the advisedly courteous tone of comment to which I had restricted myself ; and I received not a few congratulations on the supposed improvement of my temper and manners, under the stress of age and experience. The tenor of this terminal lecture may perhaps modify the opinion of my friends in these respects ; but the observations it con- tains are entirely necessary in order to complete the service- ableness, such as it may be, of all the preceding statements. In the first place, may I ask the reader to consider with himself why British painters, great or small, are never right altogether ? Why their work is always, somehow, flawed, never in any case, or even in any single picture, thorough ? 108 APPENDIX. Is it not a strange thing, and a lamentable, that no British art- 1st has ever lived, of whom one can say to a student, "Imitate him and prosper ; " Avhile yet the great body of minor artists are continually imitating the master Avho chances to be in fashion ; and any popular mistake will carry a large majority of the Britannic mind into laboriously identical blunder, for two or three artistic generations ? I had always intended to press this question home on my readers in my concluding lecture ; but it was pressed much more painfully home on myself by the recent exhibition of Sir Joshua at Burlington House and the Grosvenor. There is no debate that Sir Joshua is the greatest figure-painter Avhom England has produced, Gainsborough being sketchy and monotonous * in comparison, and the rest virtually out of court But the gathering of any man's work into an unin- tended mass, enforces his failings in sickening iteration, while it levels his merits in monotony ; and after shrinking, here, from affection worthy only of the Bath Parade, and mourning, there, over negligence ' fit for a fool to fall by/ I left the rooms, really caring to remember nothing, except the curl of hair over St. Cecilia's left ear, the lips of Mrs. Abington, and the wink of Mrs. Nesbitt's white cat. It is true that I was tired, and more or less vexed with my- self, as well as with Sir Joshua ; but no bad humour of mine alters the fact, that Sir Joshua was always affected, often negligent, sometimes vulgar, and never sublime ; and that, in this collective representation of English Art under highest patronage and of utmost value, it was seen, broadly speaking, that neither the painter knew how to paint, the patron to pre- serve, nor the cleaner to restore. If this be true of Sir Joshua, and of the public of Lords and Ladies for whom he worked, what are we to say of the multitude of entirely uneducated painters, competing for the patronage of entirely uneducated people ; and filling our an- nual exhibitions, no more with what Carlyle complains of as the Correggiosities of Correggio, but with what perhaps may be * " How various the fellow is! " Gainsborough himself, jealous of Sir Joshua at the ' private view. ' APPENDIX. 109 enough described and summed under the simply reversed phrase the Incorreggiosities of Incorreggio. And observe that the gist of this grievous question is that our English errors are those of very amiable and worthy peo- ple, conscientious after a sort, working under honourable en- couragement, and entirely above the temptations which betray the bulk of the French and Italian schools into sharing, or consulting the taste only of the demi-monde. The French taste in this respect is indeed widely and rap- idly corrupting our own, but such corruption is recognizable at once as disease : it does not in the least affect the broad questions concerning all English artists that ever were or are, why Hunt can paint a flower, but not a cloud ; Turner, a cloud, but not a flower ; Bewick, a pig, but not a girl ; and Miss Greenaway a girl, but not a pig. As I so often had to say in my lecture on the inscrutability of Clouds, I leave the question with you, and pass on. But, extending the inquiry beyond England, to the causes of failure in the art of foreign countries, I have especially to signalize the French contempt for the 'Art de Province,' and the infectious insanity of centralization, throughout Europe, which collects necessarily all the vicious elements of any coun- try's life into one mephitic cancer in its centre. All great art, in the great times of art, is provincial, showing its energy in the capital, but educated, and chiefly productive, in its own country town. The best works of Correggio are at Parma, but he lived in his patronymic village ; the best works of Cagliariat, Venice, but he learned to paint at Ve- rona ; the best works of Angelico are au Rome, but he lived at Fesole : the best works of Luini at Milan, but he lived at Luino. And, with still greater necessity of moral law, the cities which exercise forming power on style, are themselves provincial. There is no Attic style, but there is a Doric and Corinthian one. There is no Roman style, but there is an Umbrian, Tuscan, Lombard, and Venetian one. There is no Parisian style, but there is a Norman and Burgundian one. There is no London or Edinburgh style, but there is a Kent- ish and Northumbrian one. 110 APPENDIX. Farther, the tendency to centralization, which has been fatal to art in all times, is, at this time, pernicious in totally unprecedented degree, because the capitals of Europe are all of monstrous and degraded architecture. An artist in former ages might be corrupted by the manners, but he was exalted by the splendour, of the capital ; and perished amidst mag- nificence of palaces : but now the Board of Works is capable of no higher skill than drainage, and the British artist floats placidly down the maximum current of the National Cloaca, to his Dunciad rest, content, virtually, that his life should be spent at one end of a cigar, and his fame expire at the other. In literal and fatal instance of fact think what ruin it is for- men of any sensitive faculty to live in such a city as Lon- don is now ! Take the highest and lowest state of it : you have, typically, Grosv'enor Square, an aggregation of bricks and railings, with not so much architectural faculty expressed in the whole cumber of them as there is in a wasp's nest or a worm-hole ; and you have the rows of houses which you look down into on the south side of the South- Western line, between Vauxhall and Clapham Junction. Between those two ideals the London artist must seek his own ; and in the hu- manity, or the vermin, of them, worship the aristocratic and scientific gods of living Israel. In the chapter called ' The Two Boyhoods ' of ' Modern Painters,' I traced, a quarter of a century ago, the difference between existing London and former Venice, in their effect, as schools of art, on the minds of Turner and Giorgione. I w r ould reprint the passage here : but it needs expansion and comment, which I hope to give, with other elucidary notes on former texts, in my October lectures. But since that com- parison was written, a new element of evil has developed itself against art, which I had not then so much as seen the slightest beginnings of. The description of the school of Giorgione ends ('Modern Painters,' vol. v., p. 291) with this sentence, " Ethereal strength of Alps, dreamlike, vanishing in high procession beyond the Torcellan shore ; blue islands of Pa- duan hills, poised in the golden west. Above, free winds and fiery clouds ranging at their will ; brightness out of the north, APPENDIX. Ill and balm from the south, and the Stars of the Evening and Morning clear in the limitless light of arched heaven and cir- cling sea." Now if I had written that sentence with foreknowledge of the approach of those malignant aerial phenomena which, be- ginning ten years afterwards, were to induce an epoch of con- tinual diminution in the depth of the snows of the Alps, and a parallel change in the relations of the sun and sky to organic life, I could not have set the words down with more concen- trated precision, to express the beautiful and healthy states of natural cloud and light, to which the plague-cloud and plague- wind of the succeeding sera were to be opposed. Of the physical character of these, some account was rendered in my lectures at the London Institution ; of their effect on the ar- tistic power of our time, I have to speak now ; and it will be enough illustrated by merely giving an accurate account of the weather yesterday (20th May, 1884). Most people would have called it a fine day ; it was, as com- pared with other days of the spring, exceptionally clear : Hel- vellyn, at a distance of fifteen miles, showing his grassy sides as if one could reach them in an hour's walk. The sunshine was warm and full, and I went out at three in the afternoon to superintend the weeding of a bed of wild raspberries on the moor. I had put no upper coat on and the moment I got out of shelter of the wood, found that there was a brisk and extremely cold wind blowing steadily from the southwest i. e., straight over Black Coomb from the sea. Now, it is per- fectly normal to have keen east wind with a bright sun in March, but to have keen south-west wind with a bright sun on the 20th of May is entirely abnormal, and destructive to the , chief beauty and character of the best month in the year. I have only called the wind keen, bitter, would have been nearer the truth ; even a young and strong man could not have stood inactive in it with safety for a quarter of an hour ; and the danger of meeting it full after getting hot in any work under shelter was so great that I had instantly to give up all idea of gardening, and went up to the higher moor to study the general state of colour and light in the hills and sky. 112 APPENDIX. The sun was the reader may find how high for himself, three o'clock P.M., on 20th May, in latitude 55: at a guess, 40 degrees ; and the entire space of sky under him to the horizon and far above him towards the zenith say 40 degrees all round him, was a dull pale grey, or dirty white, very full of light, but totally devoid of colour or sensible grada- tion. Common flake-white deadened with a little lamp- black would give all the colour there was in it, a mere tinge of yellow ochre near the sun. This lifeless stare of the sky changed gradually towards the zenith into a dim greyish blue, and then into definite blue or at least what most people would call blue, opposite the sun answering the ordinary purpose of blue pretty well, though really only a bluish grey. The main point was to ascertain as nearly as possible the depth of it, as compared with other tints and lights. Holding my arm up against it so as to get the shirt sleeve nearly in 'full sunlight, but with a dark side of about a quarter its breadth, I found the sky quite vigorously dark against the white of the sleeve; yet vigorously also detached in light be- yond its dark side. Now the dark side of the shirt sleeve was pale grey compared to the sunlighted colour of my coat-sleeve. And that again was luminous compared to its own dark side, and that dark side was still not black. Count the scale thus obtained. You begin at the bottom with a tint of russet not reaching black ; you relieve this distinctly against a lighter rus- set, you relieve that strongly against a pale warm grey, you relieve that against the brightest white you can paint. Then the sky-blue is to be clearly lighter than the pale warm grey, and yet as clearly darker than the white. > < Any landscape artist will tell you that this opposition can- not be had in painting with its natural force ; and that in all pictorial use of the effect, either the dark side must be exag- gerated in depth, or the relief of the blue from it sacrificed. But, though I began the study of such gradation just half a century ago, carrying my " cyanometer " as I called it (a sheet of paper gradated from deepest blue to white), with mo always through a summer's journey on the Continent in 1855, APPENDIX. 113 I never till yesterday felt the full difficulty of explaining the enormous power of contrast which the real light possesses in its most delicate tints. I note this in passing for future in- quiry ; at present I am concerned only with the main fact that the darkest part of the sky-blue opposite the sun was light- er, by much, than pure white in the shade in open air (that is to say, lighter by much than the margin of the page of this book as you read it) and that therefore the total effect of the landscape was of diffused cold light, against which the hills rose clear, but monotonously grey or dull green while the lake, being over the whole space of it agitated by strong wind, took no reflections from the shores, and was nothing but a flat piece of the same grey as the sky, traversed by irregular black- ness from more violent squalls. The clouds, considerable in number, were all of them alike shapeless, colourless, and light- less, like dirty bits of wool, without any sort of arrangement or order of action, yet not quiet ; touching none of the hills, yet not high above them ; and whatever character they had, enough expressible by a little chance rubbing about of the brush charged with cleanings of the palette. Supposing now an artist in the best possible frame of mind for work, having his heart set on getting a good Coniston subject ; and any quantity of skill, patience, and whatsoever merit you choose to grant him, set, this day, to make his study ; what sort of study can he get ? In the first place, he must have a tent of some sort he cannot sit in the wind and the tent will be always unpegging itself and flapping about his ears (if he tries to sketch quickly, the leaves of his sketch-book will all blow up into his eyes *) ; next, he can- not draw a leaf in the foreground, for they are all shaking ' like aspens ; nor the branch of a tree in the middle distance, for they are all bending like switches ; nor a cloud, for the clouds have no outline ; nor even the effect of waves on the lake surface, for the catspaws and swirls of wind drive the dark spaces over it like feathers. The entire form-value of the reflections, the colour of them and the sentiment, are lost ; (were it sea instead of lake, there would be no waves, to caU * Xo artist who knows his business ever uses a block book. 8 1 14: APPENDIX. waves, but only dodging and swinging lumps of water -dirty or dull blue according to the nearness to coast). The moun- tains have no contrast of colour, nor any positive beauty of it : in the distance they are not blue, and though clear for the present, are sure to be dim in an hour or two, and will prob- ably disappear altogether towards evening in mere grey smoke. What sort of a study can he make ? What sort of a pict- ure ? He has got his bread to win, and must make his canvas attractive to the public somehow. What resource has he, but to try by how few splashes he can produce something like hills and water, and put in the vegetables out of his head ? according to the last French fashion. Now, consider what a landscape painter's work used to be, in ordinary spring weather of old times. You put your lunch in your pocket, and set out, any fine morning, sure that, unless by a mischance which needn't be calculated on, the forenoon, and the evening, would be fine too. You chose two subjects handily near each other, one for A.M., the other for P.M. ; you sate down on the grass where you liked, worked for three or four hours serenely, with the blue shining through the stems of the trees like painted glass, and not a leaf stirring ; the grass- hoppers singing, flies sometimes a little troublesome, ants, also, it might be. Then you ate your lunch lounged a little after it perhaps fell asleep in the shade, woke in a dream of what- ever you liked best to dream of, set to work on the afternoon sketch, did as much as you could before the glow of the sunset began to make everything beautiful beyond painting : you meditated awhile over that impossible, put up your paints and book, and walked home, proud of your day's work, and peaceful for its future, to supper. This is neither fancy, nor exaggeration. I have myself spent literally thousands of such days in my forty years of happy work between 1830 and 1870. I say nothing of the gain of time, temper, and steadiness of hand, under such conditions, as opposed to existing ones ; but we must, in charity, notice as one inevitable cause of the loose and flimsy tree-drawing of the moderns, as compared APPENDIX. 115 with that of Titian or Mantegna, the quite infinite difference between the look of blighted foliage quivering in confusion against a sky of the colour of a pail of whitewash with a little starch in it ; and the motionless strength of olive and laurel leaf, inlaid like the wreaths of a Florentine mosaic on a ground of lapis-lazuli. I have, above, supposed the effects of these two different kinds of weather on mountain country, and the reader might think the difference of that effect would be greatest in such scenery. But it is in reality greater still in lowlands ; and the malignity of climate most felt in common scenes. If the heath of a hill side is blighted, (or burnt into charcoal by an improving farmer,) the form of the rock remains, and its im- pression of power. But if the hedges of a country lane are frizzled by the plague wind into black tea, what have you left ? If the reflections in a lake are destroyed by wind, its ripples may yet be graceful, or its waves sublime ; but if you take the reflections out of a ditch, what remains for you but ditch-water ? Or again, if you take the sunshine from a ravine or a cliff ; or flood with rain their torrents or water- falls, the sublimity of their forms may be increased, and the energy of their passion ; but take the sunshine from a cottage porch, and drench into decay its hollyhock garden, and you have left to you how much less, how much worse than nothing ? Without in the least recognizing the sources of these evils, the entire body of English artists, through the space now of some fifteen years, (quite enough to paralyze, in the young ones, what in their nature was most sensitive,) have been thus afflicted by the deterioration of climate described in my lec- tures given this last spring in London. But the deteriora- tions of noble subject induced by the progress of manufactures and engineering are, though also without their knowledge, deadlier still to them. It is continually alleged in Parliament by the railroad, or building, companies, that they propose to render beautiful places more accessible or habitable, and that their ' works ' will be, if anything, decorative rather than destructive to th^ 116 APPENDIX. better civilized scene. But in all these cases, admitting, (though there is no ground to admit) that such arguments may be tenable, I observe that the question of sentiment pro- ceeding from association is always omitted. And in the minds even of the least educated and least spiritual artists, the influence of association is strong beyond all their con- sciousness, or even belief. Let me take, for instance, four of the most beautiful and picturesque subjects once existing in Europe, Furness Ab- bey, Conway Castle, the Castle of Chillon, and the Falls of Schaffhausen. A railroad station has been set up within a hundred yards of the Abbey, an iron railroad bridge crosses the Conway in front of its castle ; a stone one crosses the Rhine at the top of its cataract, and the great Simplon line passes the end of the drawbridge of Chillon. Since these improvements have taken place, no picture of any of these scenes has appeared by any artist of eminence, nor can any in future appear. Their portraiture by men of sense or feeling has become for ever impossible. Discord of colour may be endured in a picture discord of sentiment, never. There is no occasion in such matters for the protest of criticism. The artist turns unconsciously but necessarily from the dis- graced noblesse of the past, to the consistent baseness of the present ; and is content to paint whatever he is in the habit of seeing, in the manner he thinks best calculated to recom- mend it to his customers. And the perfection of the mischief is that the very few who are strong enough to resist the money temptation, (on the complexity and fatality of which it is not my purpose here to enlarge,) are apt to become satirists and reformers, instead of painters ; and to lose the indignant passion of their freedom no less vainly than if they had sold themselves with the rest into slavery. Thus Mr. Herkomer, whose true function was to show us the dancing of Tyrolese peasants to the pipe and zither, spends his best strength ip painting a heap of promis- cuous emigrants in the agonies of starvation : and Mr. Albert Goodwin, whom I have seen drawing, with Turnerian pre- cision, the cliffs of Orvieto and groves of Vallombrosa, must APPENDIX. 117 needs moralize the walls of the Old Water-colour Exhibition with a scattering of skeletons out of the ugliest scenes of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and a ghastly sunset, illustrating the progress in the contrary direction of the manufacturing districts. But in the plurality of cases the metropolitan artist passively allows himself to be metropolized, and con- tents his pride with the display of his skill in recommending things ignoble. One of quite the best, and most admired, pieces of painting in the same Old Water-colour Exhibition was Mr. Marshall's fog effect over the Westminster cab-stand ; while, in the Royal Institution, Mr. Severn in like manner spent all his power of rendering sunset light in the glorifica- tion of the Westminster clock tower. And although some faint yearnings for the rural or marine are still unextinguished in the breasts of the elder academicians, or condescendingly tolerated in their sitters by the younger ones, though Mr. Leslie still disports himself occasionally in a punt at Henley, and Mr. Hook takes his summer lodgings, as usual, on the coast, and Mr. Collier admits the suggestion of the squire's young ladies, that they may gracefully be painted in a storm of primroses, the shade of the Metropolis never for an in- stant relaxes its grasp on their imagination ; Mr. Leslie cannot paint the barmaid at the Angler's Rest, but in a-pair of high- heeled shoes ; Mr. Hook never lifts a wave which would be formidable to a trim-built wherry ; and although Mr. Fildes brought some agreeable arrangements of vegetables from Venice ; and, in imitation of old William Hunt, here and there some primroses in tumblers carried out the sentiment of Mr. Collier's on the floor, not all the influence of Mr. Matthew Arnold and the Wordsworth Society together ob- tained, throughout the whole concourse of the Royal or ple- beian salons of the town, the painting of so much as one prim- rose nested in its rock, or one branch of wind-tossed eglantine. As I write, a letter from Miss Alexander is put into my hands, of which, singularly, the closing passage alludes to the picture of Giorgione's, which I had proposed, in terminating this lecture, to give, as an instance of the undisturbed art of a faultless master. It is dated "Bassano Veneto, May 27th," 118 APPENDIX. and a few sentences of the preceding context will better pre sent the words I wish to quote. "I meant to have told you about the delightful old ladj whose portrait I am taking. Edwige and I set out early ia the morning, and have a delightful walk up to the city, and through the clean little streets with their low Gothic arcades and little carved balconies, full of flowers ; meeting nobody but contadini, mostly women, who, if we look at them, bow, and smile, and say ' Serva sua.' The old lady told us she was always ready to begin her sitting by six o'clock, having then finished morning prayers and breakfast : pretty well for eighty-five, I think : (she says that is her age.) I had forgot- ten until this minute I had promised to tell you about our visit to Castelfranco. We had a beautiful day, and had the good fortune to find a fair going on, and the piazza full of con- tadini, with fruit, chickens, etc., and many pretty things in wood and basket work. Always a pretty sight ; but it troubled me to see so many beggars, who looked like respectable old people. I asked Loredana about it, and she said they icere contadini, and that the poverty among them was so great, that although a man could live, poorly, by his work, he could never lay by anything for old age, and when they are past work they have to beg. I cannot feel as if that were right, in such a rich and beautiful country, and it is certainly not the case on the estate of Marina and Silvia ; but I am afraid, from what I hear, that our friends are rather exceptional people. Count Alessandro, Marina's husband, always took an almost paternal care of his contadini, but with regard to other con- tadini in these parts, I have heard some heartbreaking stories, which I will not distress you by repeating. Giorgione's Ma- donna, whenever I see it, always appears to me more beautiful than the last time, and does not look like the work of a mortal hand. It reminds me of what a poor woman said to me once in Florence, ' What a pity that people are not as large now as they used to be ! ' and when I asked her what made her sup- pose that they were larger in old times, she said, looking sur- prised, ' Surely you cannot think that the people who built the Duomo were no larger than we are ? ' ' APPENDIX. 119 Anima Toscana gentillissima, truly we cannot think it, but larger of heart than you, no ; of thought, yes. It has been held, I believe, an original and valuable dis- covery of Mr. Taiue's that the art of a people is the natural product of its soil and surroundings. Allowing the art of Giorgione to be the wild fruitage of Castelfranco, and that of Bruuelleschi no more than the ex- halation of the marsh of Arno ; and perceiving, as I do, the existing art of England to be the mere effluence of Grosvenor Square and Clapham Junction, I yet trust to induce in my readers, during hours of future council, some doubt whether Grosvenor Square and Clapham Junction be indeed the natu- ral and divinely appointed produce of the Valley of the Thames. BRANTWOOD, WJrit- Tuesday, 1884. IJSTDEX. ACHILLES' shield, 27. See HOMER, 27. ACLAND, Dr Henry, his work at Oxford, 99. Sir Thomas, his art powers ; and Robson, 99. ADMIRATION defined. 24. ^EGINA, marbles of, their enjoyment, 44-45. AESCHYLUS, Dante's use of, 29. ALEXANDER, Miss (' Francesca'), her art-gift, 18-19; to what it appeals, 105; letter to Author from, quoted, 83, 93 seq.; her life, 17; works of: ' Ida,' 18, 49, 66; ' Roadside Songs of Tuscany,' drawings from; plans for their use, 52 : twelve given to Oxford, 81 ; portrait of Beatrice degli Ontani, 49-50 ; portrait of St. Christopher, 51-52 ; preface to, quoted, 49, 64. ALLINGHAM, Mrs., her art-gift, 64; children by, 63; 'Tea-party,' 64; 'Toyshop,' ib. ALMA TADEMA. See TADEMA, 38. AMERICA, author's prejudice against, 17; engraving in, 77; govern- ment survey of U. S. , 54; South, illustrations of, 75. ANGELICO, children by, 62 : best works of, at Rome, 89, 109. ANIMALS, fables about, 57-58. "ANIMUS" denned, 36. ARABIAN NIGHTS,' the, 25. ARISTOPHANES, use of myths by, 27. ARNOLD, Mr. Matthew, 117. ART: ancient, its methods inadequate, 27-28; centralization fatal to, 110; for children to be graceful and serious, 57-58; children and legendary art, 53; Christianity and, 13, 19; creative and realistic. 35; criticism of, 107; decline of, its period, 92 ; delight of artists in their work, 90 ; didactic, English dislike of, 34 ; English, its recent development, 6 ; European, its rise, 39 ; and fall, 39 ; execution, mystery of idea no ground for bad, 30 ; for both noble conception and good work are needed, 32; finish in, 21, 44; great, is delicate, 68; great, is praise, 35; is provincial, 110; imitation and suggestion in, 31 ; legendary, and children, 53 ; masterpiece of, ground of de- light in a, 72 ; materials provided by nature, and the needs of, 72; multiplication of, its methods, 71; national, to be studied in its rise, 38: patronage, 108; the product of a nation's surroundings, 119 ; public appreciation of, 108 ; realistic, 35 ; and see REALISM; romantic, 90 sq. ; salability of, 112; schools of, head and body, 43; are provincial, not metropolitan, 109; sight, the unaided, and. 68; study of, 38; surroundings of, the, 106; teaching in Oxford, tee AUTHOR, 6. 122 INDEX. ARTHUR, King, 91. ARTIST, no English, altogether right, 107 ; life of, in great cities, 110 ; effect of modern weather on, 115. ATHENA, her presence to be imagined, 56. ATHLETICISM, useful and useless, 38, 51. AUTHOR, the. 1. Personal. His education, books ' Evenings at Home, 1 60; fairy stories, 54; taught by Copley Fielding, 95; his feelings, not talked of by him, 10 ; his friends, young artists among. 14 ; " laudator temporis acti, 1 ' 87; his love of colour, 10, landscape, 88, mountains, 98 (e.g. Ben Lomond, 99), music, 10. sunshine, ib. ; his manners as a critic, 108 ; painting, days spent in, 1830-49, 113 ; his prejudice against Americans, 17; his sight, the same in age and youth, 101 ; Swiss inns, liked better than Genoese palaces by, 73 ; his religion, 11 ; at Brantwood, May 20, 1884 (weather de- scribed), 111 ; at Royal Academy, etc., 1883, 36, 109; and at Gros- venor Gallery, 110; in Venice (1876) teaches young lady to draw, 16; (1880) copies Carpaccio s St. Ursula, 43. See CONISTON, FIELD- ING, LEIGHTON, and MAROCHETTI, 45, 100, 30. 2. Teaching of. On art, he teaches what is, not what he thinks, beautiful, 10 ; on landscape, his early works, 6 ; later lectures on, unpublished, 89 ; likes minute work, 22; said to teach people to see, 10; study of head and body, 43, 52 ; on clouds and sky, his early work, 302 (see "Clouds 1 '); Oxford work, resumes the chair, 5; plans for, 7, 15, 33, 89, 104; pupils, 87; Tintoret given to, 87 ; Turners given to, 70 ; Political Economy, paradoxes of his, 71. 3. His Writings. (a) General Character: courteous tone of his comments, 108; cannot express all he sees, 10, 11 ; impulse of his best, 107; romantic love of his subject, ib.; serious parts of, 15; sermons, his art lectures not to be, ib. (b) Particular works referred to: ; Aratra Pentelici,' on portraiture and Greek art, 43. 'Ariadne Florentina,' on Florentine engraving, 66 ; on methods of wood-cutting, 76. 'Art of England,' notes to, to be avoided, 22 ; object of, 108 ; plan of, 88 f its style, 108. 'Fors Clavigera,' No. 92; on Scott's scenery, 94; passim, squires to live on their lands, 98. 'Laws of Fesole,' general teaching of, 42; great art is praise, 35; tests of good colour, 78. 'Modern Painters,' its aim. 91 ; on the Dutch school, 23 ; Vol. II. on admiration. 25 ; III. on Peter drowning, 22 ; V. on moun- tains, 102 ; on the sky, 102 ; on the ' Two Boyhoods,' 110 seq. 'Our Fathers have told us ' (' Bible of Amiens,' p. 14), 74. ' Queen of the Air,' on myths, 27. ' Storm Cloud of Nineteenth Century,' 111 et seq. BARRETT and the Old Water Colour Society, 90. BEATRICE degli Ontani. See ALEXANDER, 50. BEAUTY, and goodness, 49 ; dependent on law, 49-50. BELIEF. Se.e FAITH, FANCY, 55. BENEDICTINE MS., Monte Cassino. 38. BERLIN, Holbein's 'George Guysen,' 44 INDEX. 123 BERTHA, Queen, the spinner, 51. BEWICK, draws children in mischief only, 63 ; magnifying glass needed for his vignettes, 10 ; can draw a pig, but not a girl, 109 ; plumage in his woodcuts, 76. BIBLE, the, and Roman Catholics, 51. BIBLE, quoted: And God saw that it was good ' . . Genesis i. 10 . . page 49 ' He maketh me to lie down in green pas- tures' Psalm xxiii. 2 . . "69 ' The chariots of God are twenty thousand ' Psalm Ixviii. 17 . . " 106 'Buy the truth and sell it not' . . . Proverbs xxiii. 23 . " 104 ' The weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den' .... Isaiah xii. 8 " 60 ' Kachel weeping for her children because they were jiot ' Jeremiah xxxi. 15 . " 12 'He hath put down the mighty' . Luke i. 52 ..." 25 ' My peace I leave with you ' 4 Peter girt his fisher's coat unto him ' , ' Gallic cared for none of those things' ' More than conquerors through him tha loved them ' * No death, neither sorrow, nor crying ' John xiv. 27 " 20 John xxi. 7 " 22 Acts xviii. 17 . . " 69 Romans viii. 37 . " 11 Revelation xxi. 4 . "12 BIRKETT FOSTER. See FOSTER, 64. BLAKE'S 'Job,' 59. BOOKS: 011 art, rarity of good, 20 ; cheap, their result, 104 ; choice of, by public libraries, 17 ; French, on science for a child, 75-76, 102 ; illustrations in modern, 53 seq., 65. BOTTICELLI, Sandro, classic and Gothic art united in, 39 ; frescoes on education, 42-43 ; Favonian breeze, 24. BRANTWOOD, weather at (May 20, 1884), 111 seq. BRETT, John, sunshine in his pictures, 9. BRITISH MUSEUM, Elgin marbles, but no Gothic marbles in the, 36 ; Girtin's and Cousin's drawings, 94. BULL, John, the farmer, 84 ; ' defends his pudding,' 86. BURGMAIER'S woodcuts of heraldry, 76. BURNE- JONES, E., chiaroscuro of, 32; colour of, 3P> ; educated at Ox- ford, 28 ; friend of W. Morris. 29 ; of Rossetti, 25 ; a hero-worship- per, 35 ; knowledge of mythology, 29 ; outline perfect, 32 ; per- sonification, his gift, 25 ; photographs from his pictures, 34-35 ; pictures of: 'Danae' (Oxford schools), 32; 'Days of Creation,' 25, 30; 'Miss Gladstone' (portrait of), 33; 'Medea' (Oxford schools), 33; 'Psyche' (Oxford galleries), 32 , 'Wheel of For- tune,' 30. BURNS, on children, 'toddlin' wee things,' 63 ; romance in, 7. BUTLER, Mrs. (Elizabeth Thompson), 86. BYRON, and landscape art, 94 ; morbid ('Childe Harold'), 89 ; moun- tains, his love of, 98 ; romantic, 7 ; quoted, " You have the Pyrrhic dance as ye*. 1 ' ('Don Juan,' iii. 86. 10), 47. CAGLIART, best works of, at Venice, 109. CALDECOTT, M. Chesneau on, 65. CAMILLA, 47. CAMPBELL, Lord G. . 'Log letters from the " Challenger,'" 61. CARICATURE, 79. Set ' PUNCH.' CARLYLE, T., on the British Lion, 85; on Correggio's correggiositiea 109 ; ' Sartor Resartus,' 40. 1 24 INDEX. CARPACCIO, offensive to practical Englishmen, 34 ; S. Ursula, 43. CATHOLICS, old, view of the Bible, 8. CENTRALIZATION, fatal to art, 109. CENTURY MAGAZINE,' on the " demoniac sunset," 75. CERTIFICATES of merit at Oxford, author s plan for art, 19. CHARACTER and faces, 81-82. ' CHARIVARI,' the, 79. CHARLES II. destroys English morality, 91 ; coins of, vulgar, ib. CHEAPNESS, no such thing as, 71. CHESNEAU, M. Ernest, his style and value, 65 ; quoted on English art, 66. CHIAROSCURO, in engraving, 78. CHILDREN, in art and literature, (51-62 ; no, in Greek art, or Gothic till 1200, 61 ; art for, to be graceful and serious, 57-58 ; and legendary art, 53 ; imagination and invention to be stimulated, 54-55 ; and fairy stories, are they to be told true stories only ? 54 ; 'Punch's,' 79 ; toys for, 54-55. CHILLON, the railroad near, 116. CHIVALRY, rise of, 48. CHRISTIAN art and classicism, 29 ; and the peace of God, 52. CHRISTIANITY, imparts feeling for womanhood and children, 6? ; its doctrine of human happiness and pain, 13. CHRISTMAS books, modern, 60-61. CIMABUE'S 'Borgo,' 95. CITIES, monstrous architecture of modern. 110 ; consequent decline of art in them, ib. ; hugeness of, 88 ; their misery, 64. CLASSIC, means anti-Gothic, 36 ; and Gothic art, 28 ; their continuity, 36-37 ; union of, iii Is. Pisano's pulpit, 39 ; no portraiture in classic art, 43. CLAUDE'S sunshine colourless, 10. CLIFTON, Prof., of Oxford, 100. CLOUDS, always look like clouds only, 102; and Greek art, 69; all lovely, are quiet and motionless, 106 ; in modern weather, 113. COCKATRICE, fairy story about a, 60. COINS, of Henry VIII. and Charles II., 91. COLLIER, Mr., primroses by, 117. COLOUR, Greek art and, 32 ; in early landscape, 94 ; in portraiture, 33 ; maxim as to, "all white precious, all black conspicuous," 78; our sensitiveness to, and delight in, varies with our moods, 101, our sight for, unchanging in age, ib.; printing, 53 ; vivid radiancy cannot be given by, 100. COMMERCE, John Bull the shopkeeper, 84. COMPETITION in education, 20. COMPLETENESS of work in art, its difficulty, 33. CONISTON 'Old Man,' clouds over, motionless, 105 ; school, music foij 86. CONSTANTINE, crowned in England, 85. CON WAY, railroad over the, 116. COPLEY FIELDING. See FIELDING, 100. ' CORNHILL MAGAZINE,' April 1883, 54. CORRECTNESS in drawing, 30. CORREGGIO, color-blending of, 46 ; correggiosities of, 109 ; best works of, at Parnia, 109 ; cannot be wood-engraved, 78. INDEX. 125 COSTUME. See DRESS. COUSINS' water-colours, 94. Cox, David, his inventive power small, 96. CRABS, stories of, 61. CRANE, Walter, M. Ernest Chesneau on, 65. CRITICISM, the function of true, is qualified praise, 107. CRYSTAL PALACE,, examples of Gothic architecture in, 38. CURZON'S travels in the East, 95. CUYP'S sunshine colourless, 10. DANTE, use of ^schylus by, in the ' Inferno,' 29 ; quoted (' Purgatory 1 xiv. 93), 56. DARLING, Grace, 51. DAVIS', W. B., 'Highland Moor,' (R. A. 1882,) 9. DE WINT, 90 ; small inventive power, 96. DELICACY of great art, 68. DESIGN in creation, a proof of, 72. DEW on flowers, effect on their colour, 100. DICKENS on children, 6:5 ; ' David Copperfield,' 63 ; ' Hard Times,' 54 ; 'Mrs. Lirriper s Lodgings, 84 ; ' Old Curiosity Shop,' 63. D' ISRAELI, ' Punch's ' treatment of, 80. DOLL, author's cousin and her armless, 55. DOMESTIC spirit of nineteenth century, 20. DONATELLO'S children, 14. DRAMATIC SCHOOL in art, its truth, 26. DRAPERY of Reynolds and Gainsborough, 40. DRESS, national (hi Norway), and the fashion, 17 ; painting of, in Gothic art, 39. Du MAURIER, does not caricature, 79 ; keen observation of, '&./ his power, 78-79 ; woodcuts of, their method, 77-78 ; pictures of : 'Alderman Sir Robert,' 78 ; ' London Mechanic,' the, 80 ; 'Mrs, Ponsonby de Tomkyns,' 77; 'Lady Midas,' ib.; ' Herr Professor,' 84. DUREH'S Apocalypse, 59. DUTCH SCHOOL, the, ' Modern Painters ' on, 22 ; picture of in National Gallery, described, 91 seq. EDUCATION, choice of books, 17; is everyone to learn to read? 17; not a means of livelihood, 104. ELEPHANT, absurd story of an, 60. ELGIN marbles, 36. ENGLAND, artists of, never altogether right, 108 ; engraving in, and its decline, 66 ; former greatness of, 85 ; her hope, in her youth, 86 ; John Bull the farmer, no longer typical, 84 ; ' defends his pudding/ 86; landscape-art, 9; the youth of their beauty and energy, 87. ENGRAVING, chiaroscuro in. 78 ; decline of modern, 66 ; English and Florentine, 66 ; line. 72 ; modern methods of, 78-79 ; wood and steel engraving, comparative difficulty of, 74. ETCHING, labour of, 74. ETRUSCAN people, character and life of, 49. EUROPE, the capitals of, their degraded architecture. 110. EXHIBITIONS, art, new and old, 62 ; of only one man's work, a mis take, 108. 126 INDEX. FABLES for children, about animals, etc., 59-60. FAIKIES, in literature and art, 57 seq. FAIRY-LAND, Lect. IV. ; fairy stories, 53-54, 58-63. FAITH, is to trust without evidence, 55 ; its freedom and responsibility, 54. FANCY, modern extinction of the, 56 ; and faith, 55 ; fostering of the, 56. FEATURES and character, 83. ' FIDES,' defined, 86. FIELDING, Copley, atmospheric effects of, 96-97 ; author taught by, 95 ; and author's father, his first art purchase a picture by, 95; inventive power of, limited, 96 ; Turner's effect on, 90 ; vegeta- tion of, 100; ' Cader Idris,' 100 ; in Oxford Galleries, 93-94. FIGURE, drawing of the, and the rise of art, 38; study, at Oxford, 82-83. FILDES, Mr. Luke, Venetian pictures of, 117. FISHER, Mr. , and the Oxford Galleries, 34. FLEMISH SCHOOL, children of the, 62 ; manner of the, 23. ' FLIGHT into Egypt, 'painting of, by H. Hunt and others, 13. FLORENCE, palaces of, 73 ; Spanish Chapel, frescoes, 42 ; Uffizi, per- fect portrait in the, 44. FORTUNE'S wheel, idea of, 26. FOSTER, Birkett, children by, 64. FRANCESCA. See ALEXANDER, 17. FRENCH modern art, 109 ; book on science for a child, ' Les Pourquoi de Mile. Suzanne,' 75, 102 ; contempt for provincial art, 109 ; landscape, modern, 96 ; language, essentially critical, 65 ; Revo- lution, 62. FRERE, E. , children by. 63. F T JRNESS Abbey, railroad near, 116. FURNITURE, aesthetic, 73. GABORIAU, 97. GAINSBOROUGH, formal, 92 : Gothic, 38 ; greatness of, 40 ; and Rey- nolds, 107; last words of ("Vandyke is of .the company"), 38; pictures by: 'Blue Boy, '40; 'Mrs. Graham,' &).; 'Miss Heath- lield,'6./ large work (No. 789), ' Portraits oc J. Baillie and his fam- ily.') in National Gallery, 91. GENOA, palaces of, 73. GENTLEMAN, essentials of a, Horace on the, 36. GHIBERTI, gates of, 73. GIORGIONE, his home, Venice. 110; his 'Madonna' (Florence), 118. GIRTIN, T., water-colours of, 94 ; waterfall by (British Museum), 97. GLADSTONE, W. E. , ' Punch ' on, 80. Miss, portrait of, by Burne-Jones, 33. GLAUCUS' armour, 47. GOETHE, ' Faust, ' 89 ; morbid side of, ib. GOOD, all, is bought with toil and tears, 11. GOODNESS and beauty, 49. GOODAVIN, Mr. Albert, pictures of (Old Water-colour Society, 1884), 117. GOTHIC ART, no children in, till 1200 A.D., 62 ; and classic, 36 ; their continuity, H6-37 ; and union in N. Pisano's pulpit, 39 ; portrait- ure, especially Gothic, 43 ; period to study in England up to Black Prince, in France, up to S. Louis. 39 ; writing, 38. INDEX. 127 GRACE in art, 57. GREAT men belong to their own village, 39, 84. GREEK AKT, bodily beauty and, 4(5 ; chiaroscuro in, 32, 47 ; no chil- dren in, 45. 02 ; colour in, sense of, weak, 32 ; conception lofty in, ib. ; formalism of, 91 ; the ideal in (Homer quoted on), 46-47 ; period to study. Homer to Marathon, 39 ; portraiture destroys, 43 ; is praise of Greek virtues, 19 ; and the glory of war, 39, 52. GREENAWAY, Kate, M. Chesneauon, 65 seq.; children of, 63 ; delicacy of, 68 ; decorative qualities of, 67-68 ; design of, ornamental, i').; fairies. 66 ; genius of, 63 ; can draw a girl, but not a pig, 109 ; landscape of, simple, 68-69 ; minuteness of, 66 ; pencil-work of, 66 ; to paint pictures, not decorate books, 67 ; public, the, to whom her work appeals, 71 ; realism in, 69 ; reproductions of her works might be better, 67 seq. GREENAWAY, K., brother of, his photographs, 77. GUIDO, cannot be reproduced in wood-cutting, 78. HAPPINESS, doctrine of, 12. HARMONICON, for Coniston school, legend on, 88. HARTWIG, Dr., on Norway, quoted, 16. HEAVEN, the question is, are we going towards, 83. HENRY VIII., destroys English religion, 91 ; coins of, vulgar, t'6. HERKOMER, Mr., his proper and his actual subjects, 116. HERO-WORSHIP, admiration is mainly, 24 ; of painters, 35. HESIOD, on Hercules' shield, 28. HOGARTH, M. Chesneau on, 65. HOLBEIN, 38; delineation of, 79 ; 'George Guysen ' (Berlin Museum), 44. HOMER, on shield of Achilles, 28 ; on Achilles on the ramparts (Iliad xviii. 203-6, 225-7), 46. HOOK, Mr., his sea-pictures, 117. HOPE, defined, 25. HORACE, quoted, 37. HUNT, Holman, and the Bible, his view and Rossetti's, 7 ; as a colourist, 8 ; chiaroscuro of, intense light, 13 (see below, "sunshine"); chil- dren by, 24 ; hero-worship, 35 ; invention, swift grace of, 13 ; ma- terial veracity of, 21 ; Rossetti's disciple, 7 ; Rossetti compared with him, 8-9; sunshine of, 9-10, 11; works by: 'Awakening Con- science,' 8 ; ' Claudio and Isabel,' 8 ; 'Flight into Egypt,' 12-13 ; 'Light of the World,' 8; 'Scapegoat,' 11 ; 'Strayed Sheep,' its greatness, marks an era in art, 9 ; ' Valentine and Sylvia,' 8. HUNT, William, 90 ; limited power of, 109. IDA,' ' The Story of. See ALEXANDER, 50-66. IDEAS, painting of, 40. ILLUSTRATIONS, modern popular, 71 seq. See BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS. IMAGINATION, of children to be stimulated, 73 ; conceives beautifully amid beauty, 40 ; does not create, but reveals, 70 ; of great men, visionary, 59 ; after the Renaissance, its reawakening, 93 ; and repose of mind, 105. INFIDELITY, modern, 55. INGE, Mrs., on Robson, 98 INGELOW, Miss, ' Stories told to a Child,' 84. 128 INDEX. '\ INVENTION, in children, to be stimulated, 55. 'lOLANTHE,' allusion to, 58. IPHIGENIA, 11. ISAAC, 11. ITALY, art of modern, 109 ; comic journals of, 79 ; peasantry and pool of, 16-17. JAPANESE ART, 32 ; book of stories (Macmillan, 1871), 61. JOHN BULL. See BULL, 84. JONES, E Burne. See BURNE-JONES, 32-33. KEATS, sadness of, 99 ; quoted, " A thing of beauty," 72. KENSINGTON Museum, examples of Gothic architecture at, 36. KENT, wood-carving of, 73. KINGLAKE, on the press, 56 ; his travels in the East, 96. KNOWLEDGE, divinity and value of, 104. 1 KNOWLEDGE,' bad illustrations to, 75. LABOUR, good, bought with toil and tears, 11. LADY- ARTIST in Venice 1876, 15. LANDSCAPE, authors love of, 88; and "unaided nature," 68; art, recent and already declining, 88 ; art, as influenced by Byron and Scott, 94 ; especially English, 94 ; French, manner of mod- ern, 96; and the Old Water-colour Society, 90; Richard Wilson and, 93 seq. See GREENAAVAY, 6*6. LANDSEER'S ' Shepherd's Chief Mourner,' 38. LAW, a thing of beauty a law for ever, 49. LEECH, John, M. Chesneau on, 65 ; genius of, 79 ; kindness of, 79; founds ' Punch,' 79 ; satire of, 81 ; wood-cutting, 77 ; pictures of: 'Miss Alice riding,' his best sketch, 80 ; 'Distinguished For- eigner,' 84. LEIGHTON, Sir F. , anatomy of, 44 ; children by, ib.; Correggio-like ' vaghezza ' of, 45 ; figure-study of, 45 ; Gothic spirit of, 43 ; his house, 56 ; drawings of ' Byzantine well,' 45 ; lemon tree, ib. LEOPOLD, Prince, and the Turner drawings at Oxford, 2. 4 LES Pourquoi de Mile. Suzanne ' (see SCIENCE), 74-102. LESLIE, Mr., Thames pictures by, 117. LEWIS, John, technical accuracy of, 46. LIBRARIAN, proper function of a public, 17. /See NORWAY, 17. LIBRARIES in Norway, 17. LIEBREICH, "foreign oculist," on changes of sight, 101. LIGHT, sense of, in art and poetry, 47 ; and cloud, in Greek art, 69. See SUNSHINE. ' LIGHT of the World.' See HUNT, H., 7. LILY, author's cousin, and her doll, 55. LINDSAY, Lord, his book on " Christian art," 28; division of Christian art into spiritual (head) and fleshly (body), 43. LINE-DRAWING, 78. ' LINGUA,' defined, 36. LION, the British, 84-85. LITERATURE. See BOOKS, CHILDREN, NEWSPAPERS, 63. LONDON, as an art-school, 110 ; its effect on artists, 116 tteq.; its misery, 80. INDEX. li'J LOVE, defined, 25. LuCA BELLA KOBBIA, children of, 18, 62 ; ' Nativity' by, story of child kissing, 41 ; unites Classic and Gothic art, 38. LUINI, children by, 62 ; his best works at Milan, 23, 109. LYCURGUS, the laws of, and beauty, 49. MACDONALD, A. (author's assistant at Oxford), 6, 103 ; copy of Turner by, 70. MAGAZINES, modern cheap, 74. MANCHESTER Exhibition 1851, 48. MANTEGNA'S tree-drawing, 115. MANUFACTURES and children, 63; English, 84, MARKS, H. Stacey, his pictures 'The Professor,' 'Three Postboys,' 'Lord Say and Jack Cade,' 45. MAROCHETTI, qualities of greatness, 30; his 'Richard Oceur de Lion,' ib.; sees Rossetti's drawings at Herne Hill, ib. MARRIAGE, honour to, 50. MARSHALL, Mr. Herbert, pictures of (Old Water-colour Society, 1884), 117. MATERIALISTIC conception of Rossetti and Hunt, 6, 21. See REALISM, 70. MICROSCOPE, use of the, in seeing art, 68. See BEWICK, 16. MILLAIS, J. E., ' Caller Herrin,' a Pre-Raphaelite work, 23. MINO da Fesole, children by, 62. MINUTENESS of work in art, 22. MISERY, 12 ; of the poor in London, 80. MISSALS, Gothic, 37. MIST, Scotch, 94. MITFORD, Miss, and feeling for children, 63. MODERNISM, selfish greed of, 11. See INFIDELITY, 55. MONTE CASSINO, Benedictine MS. at, 38. MORAL philosophy and Greek myths, 39. MORAN (American artist), 54. ' MORES ' defined, 36. MORRIS, W., lecture on 'Art and Plutocracy,' 104; friendship with Burne-Jones, 29 ; maxim that excellence of work depends on our joy in it, 100 ; on mythology, 28. MOUNTAINS, love of, in Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth, 143, 151 ; author's early, ib. , 98. MOUSE, fables of town and country, etc. , 60. MURRAY, A., on Greek sculpture (Achilles' shield), 27. , C. F. , his copies of Botticelli's frescoes on education, 41. MUSES, the laws of the, 49. MUSICAL INSTRUMENT for Coniston school, 86. MYSTERY, idea of, in ancient art, 47 ; of conception, no excuse for care- less treatment, 30. MYTHIC ART, its teaching and truth, 26 ; dislike of, by practical peo- ple, 34. MYTHOLOGY, 25 ; men's wisest thoughts expressed in, 27 ; painting of old, by a modern painter, his function, 28. MYTHS, in art, with what precision to be given, 28 ; defined. 26 ; de- velopment of, 26 ; moral philosophy and, 27 ; power of noble, 28 ; how far representative of the ideas they symbolize, 27. 9 130 INDEX. NATIONAL GALLERY, pictures badly hung in the, 23, 92; Turner drawings in its cellars, 86. See TENIERS, 92 ; VANDERNEER, 92 ; VANDYKE, 62. NATIONAL UNITY, impossible, 40. See GREAT MEN, 39, 84. NATURE, author's love of, 7 seg.; beauty of untouched, 68-70; feel- ing for, 24 ; materials of, adapted to art, 72. NEWSPAPERS, illustrated, good portraiture in the, 43 ; influence of, 50 ; Italian comic, 79. NICCOLA PISANO, engrafts classicism on Christian art, 28 ; unites Classic and Gothic art, e.g., his pulpit, 39. NINETEENTH CENTURY, domestic spirit of, 20. See MODERNISM, 11. NITRO-GLYCERINE, compels belief, 55. NORWAY, peasant life in, 16 ; every town has its library, 17. NUMA, 49. OLD-FASHIONED, distinction of being, 14. OLD Water Colour Society, in former years, 90 ; Exhibition (1884), 117. ORCAGNA, 59 ; imaginative vision of, 59. ORIENTAL ART, 37. OUIDA'S 'Village Commune,' 18. OXFORD, education the ford of life, 52, but not a means of livelihood, 104 ; motto, 47 ; town ruined by improvements, 69, 82, 103 ; Magdalen Bridge, widened, 52 ; Museum, and Dr. Acland, 99 ; St. John's gardens, 70 ; Schools, the new, 82 ; Taylorian (Ruskin Art Schools and Galleries), catalogues to, 288 ; author's plans for cer- tificates of merit, etc., 19, 100, 105 ; figure-study at, 81 ; limited room in, 82 ; pictures, etc. , in : Bewick s woodcuts, 76 ; Burg- inaier's woodcuts, ib.; legend on a harmonicon, 86; drawing by Copley Fielding, 95 ; ' Sunset at Rome,' 97 ; Tintoret, ' Doge Mocenigo,' 87 ; Turner drawings, 6, 70. PAIN, pleasure not its outcome, 12. PAINTER, difficulty of finish, 33 ; to paint what he sees, not what h wishes to see, 102. PAINTING, manner of, compelled by realism, 22. PALMERSTON, ' Punch ' on, 80. PARIS, Louvre, Botticelli's frescoes in the, 41. PARLIAMENT, Houses of, Watts' designs for frescoes, 33. PATON, Sir Noel, fairy pictures of 'Titania,' ' Fairy Raid,' 58. PENCIL, the best instrument for fine work, 66. PERSONAL FEELINGS, expressible only in poetry, 10. PERSONIFICATION in art, 25. PERUGINO, children by, 62 ; crowns Gothic art, 37. PETEU, drowning of, 'Modern Painters' on the, 21. PETS, children's, 56. PHOTOGRAPHS and art, 43 ; of Burne-Jones' pictures, 33 ; and portrait- ure, 33. PHYSIOGNOMY, study of, aud character, 83. PICARDY, wood-carving of, 75. PICTURES, only recently made a common means of decoration, 53. PINDAR, myths of, 27. PISA, Xiccola Pieano's pulpit at, 89. INDEX. 131 PITY, the lesson to be learnt, 13. PLATO, myths used by, for his highest teaching, 27 ; on finish in paint- ing (" Laws " quoted), 42. PLEASURE, not the outcome of pain, 12. POETRY, boldness of expression in great, 103 ; the only means of giving personal feelings, 10 ; perfect, precedes perfect painting, 37. POLITICAL ECONOMY, author's paradoxes of, 71. POMPEIAN ART, specimen of, 39. POOR, the, and beauty, 81 ; dwellings of to be orderly, or there can be no art, 71 ; misery of, 12. See ITALY, 38. PORTRAITURE, all, is Gothic, 43 ; great portraits must also be great pict- ures. 44 ; modern, desire to be painted as proud or grand, 48 ; per- fect examples of (set FLORENCE, HOLBEIN), 38 ; power of, a com- mon gift, 44. POWER, the noblest, man's own strength, 66. PRAISE. See CRITICISM, 107. PRE~RAPHAELITISM, modern, denned, 22, 23 ; dislike of by practical people, 34 ; minuteness of work in, not essential, 22 ; personification and, 23 ; the school of, 6 ; truth of, 26. PRESS, the public, its value, 56. PRICE, everything has but one just, 72. PRIEST, dislike of the word by English public, 17. PRIESTHOOD of Western world, its character, 47. PROFESSION, choice of a, and means of livelihood, 104. PROGRESS, the direction more important than the distance reached, 38- PROUT, S., 90. PUBLIC OPINION and the press, 56. 'PUNCH,' the artists of, townsmen, 85; the laws of beauty, 78; Be- dell, Sir Pompey, 83 ; Bull, John, the farmer, 84 ; ' defends his pudding.' 86 ; children in, 80; on the Continent, 85; the found- ers of, 77 ; girls in, 80-81 ; illustrations to, best sketch in, 80 ; 'immortal periodical,' 79 ; on manufactures, says but little, 84; politics of, 80 (see under GLADSTONE and others) ; on the poor, does not give their beauty, 80 ; as expressing public opinion, 84 ; social types in, 80; on society and wealth, 81 ; quoted, 50. See Du MAURIER, LEECH, TENNIEL, 79. PURITAN, old, view of the Bible, 8. PYRRHIC DANCE, the, 47. See BYRON. RAILROADS and scenery, 116 ; as subjects of landscape art, 68. RAPHAEL'S children, 62. REALISM in art, 70 ; its value as compelling belief, 21 ; as affecting manner and minuteness of work, 22. RELIGION and repose, 105-106. REMBRANDT'S children, 62. RENAISSANCE, luxury of the, 62 ; poison of the, 48. REPOSE of mind, 105. RESURRECTION, the, the mainspring of all lovely work, 13. RETHEL, Alfred, his 'Death the Avenger' and ' Barbarossa,' 59. RETSCH'S ' Faust," ' Leonora,' ' Poetry,' 59. REYNOLDS, Sir J., 38 ; children by, 62 ; dress, painting of, 60 ; faults of, 108 ; formality in, 90 ; compared with Gainsborough, 108 ; greatness of, 39, 108 ; exhibition of his works at Academy and 132 INDEX. Grosvenor Gallery (1883), 108; his variety, ib.; pictures by, 'Mrs, Abington' as ' Miss Prue,' 108 ; 'Age of Innocence,' 40 ; Cherubs' heads. 43 ; ' Mrs. Nesbit ' as ' Circe,' 108 ; l Mrs. Pelham,' 40 ; ' Mrs. Sheridan' as 'St. Cecilia,' 108. RICHMOND, George, old friend of author, 5. , Prof. W.. at Oxford, 5; figure-study classes of, 82; resigns the chair, 5 ; portraits by, Grosvenor Gallery (1883), 43. RICHTER, Ludwig, children by, 62 ; designs of, 24 ; outlines of, 32 ; ' Lord's Prayer,' 31 ; ' Wide, Wide World,' 81. RIVALRY, evils of, 59. RIVIERE, B., his ' Sympathy,' 38. ROBBIA. See LUCA. ROBSON, 90 ; inventive power small, 91 ; temper of, 98 ; ' outlines of Scotch scenery,' 99; picture of, copied, 98. ROLFE'S engraving of ' Ida,' 66. ROMAGNA, the poor of, 18. ROMAN CATHOLICS and the Bible, 51. ROMANCE, of an artist in his subject, 91 ; definition of, 24 ; meaning of word, 6, 91. ROME, the pomp of, 48 ; sunset at (picture Oxford schools), 92. ROSSETTI, D. G., anatomy of, 31 ; and the Bible, 8; his colour, 7-8 ; not a chiaroscurist, 33 ; exhibition of his works (1883), 107 ; genius of, when highest, 7 ; a hero worshipper, 35 ; Holman Hunt his dis- ciple, 7 ; compared with him, 8-9 ; " material veracity" of, 8, 21 ; Marochetti's view of his drawings, 31 ; painting of, its faults, 9 ; poetical genius of, 7 ; and the romantic school, its chief force, 6 ; temper of , 9 ; works of: 'Passover' (Oxford schools), 21 ; 'Virgin in the house of St. John,' 8, 21. RUBENS, children of, 62 ; and the Renaissance, 62. SACRIFICE, the doctrine of, 11. ST. AUGUSTINE in England, 85. ST. CECILIA, 24. See REYNOLDS, 24. ST. CHRISTOPHER, 52. See ALEXANDER, 52. ST. COLUMBA in England, 85. ST. GENEVIEVE, 51. ST. GEORGE, 24. ST. GEORGE'S guild, drawings of, lent to Oxford, 82. ST. URSULA, Venice Academy, 43. SATIRE, power of, 80. See LEECH. SCENERY, destruction of, 89 ; northern and southern compared, 94 ; and railroads, 116 ; Scott's, Sir W., love of, ib. SCEPTICISM and science, 26. SCHAFFHAUSEN, railway over the falls of, 116. SCIENCE, French book for a child on, 102 ; modern, on pain and pleas- ure, 12 ; and scepticism, 26 ; suggestions for, 60. SCOTCH mists, 94. SCOTT, Sir W., influence of, on landscape art, 94 ; love of mountains, 95 ; scenery of, 94 ; romance of , 7 ; ' Monastery,' its faults, 58 ; 1 White Lady of Avenel,' 58. SEVERN, Mr. Arthur, picture of Westminster (1884), 117. SIIAKSPERE, ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' on fairies, 57 ; quoted, 57, SHERIDAN, MRS. See REYNOLDS, 108. INDEX. 133 SYBIL, a Tuscan, 49. See ALEXANDER, 49. SIGHT, the unaided, and art, 68 ; does not change in quality, 101 ; and colour. 100 ; a great painter's, authoritative, 100. SIMPLON, the, railroad over, 116. SKETCH-BOOK, no artist uses a block-book, 113 SKY, the blue of the, and sunlight, 112 seq.; cyanometer, author's, 113 j after storm, described by Wordsworth, 102-103. SMOKE nuisance, the modern, 102. SOUL, the best questions of a true, 11. SOUTH AMERICA, hideous illustrations of, 75. STANFIELD, as influenced by Turner, 90. STORM CLOUD, the, 111 et seq. STRAHAN'S ' Magazine for Youth.' June 1879, 59. STRENGTH, the noblest, that of unaided man, 68. SUFFERING, accepted and involuntary, 12. SUN, the descriptio , of (May 20, 1884), 112. SUNSET, the ' demoniac ' beauty of the (Americanism), 75, 102. SUNSHINE, the authors love of, inexpressible, 9-10-11. See CLAUDE, CUYP, HUNT, TURNER, 11, 12. SYMBOLISM in realistic art. Pre-Raphaelitism, 22. SYMBOLS do not give the dignity of the ideas they represent, 25. SYMONDS, Miss (Oxford), Copley Fielding in possession of, 100. SYMPATHY, intellectual, ' no man can enter fully into the mind of an* other,' 26. TADEMA, Alma, classic in what sense, 38 ; marble painting of, 46 ; technical accuracy of, 46 ; tone of revolutionary rage in, 48 ; twilight of his pictures, 47 : Grosvenor Gallery Collection, 47 ; Pyrrhic-dance, 47. TAINE, M. , on the growth of art, 75. TASTE, the formation of, 20. TENDENCY, the direction more important than the distance reached, 38. TENIERS' ' Chateau at Perck,' National Gallery, 92. TENNIEL, his imagination, and Tintoret s, 87 ; his power and tone, 79 ; what he might have done, 85 ; ' Punch ' founded by. 79 ; works of : Cartoon No. 38, 85 ; ' John Bull defends his Pudding,' 86 ; ' Liberty and France,' 84. TENNYSON, his genius highest in ' Maud,' ' In Memoriam,' and 'Northern Farmer,' 7 ; romantic,?; quoted: 'Idylls of the King' "Turn, fortune, turn thy wheel," 25 ; 'In Memoriam,' liv. "The final goal of ill," 15. TERROR in art, 59. THEBES, the seven against, 46-47. THESEUS, 91. TINTORET, masses of, 87 ; pictures by : the new addition to National Gallery, 95 ; Doge Mocenigo (Oxford Schools), 87. TITIAN, drawing of trees by, 115. TOBACCO, 110. TOPFFER, Swiss caricaturist, his life, 81 ; his ' Histoire d'Albert,' ib. TOYS for children, what they like, 54-55. TRANSPARENCY, defined, 78. TREE-DRAWIMG, modern, as compared with Titian's, 114. 134 INDEX. TRUTH, the, in Pre-Raphaelite art, 22-27 ; in Turner, 70. TURNER, his character and genius, 89 ; paints clouds, but never a flower, 10?) ; foregrounds of, no flower in any, 89 ; his landscape, beyond all other, not representative of it, 89 ; effect of, on con- temporary art, 87 ; minuteness in his work, 22 ; sadness of, 89 ; sight of, 101 ; sunshine of, its bold conventionalism, 10 ; truth, his magic in his, 70; works of. 'Loire,' 70; National Gallery draw- ings, 22, 88 ; Oxford, drawings at, 5, 35. TUSCANY, the poor of, 18, 51. VALERIUS, 91. VANDERNEER, his 'Canal Scene ' (National Gallery), 91 ; the 'Evening Landscape' (National Gallery), ib. VANDYKE, children by, 62 ; Gainsborough's last words on, 38 ; and the Eenaissance, 89; 'Draught of Fishes' by (National Gallery), 22, 91. VAUTIER, Bavarian artist, 34. VENICE, Academy, Carpaccio's S. Ursula, 48 ; master of works at Ducal Palace (G. Boni), 14. VIRTUES, the, and Greek art, 19. VISIONS of great men, 58. VIVISECTION, 16. VULGARITY of selfishness, 91. WAINSCOTING, old English, 73. WAR. and Greek art, 47. WATER, effect on colour of a drop of, 74. COLOUR, old English, its methods and labour, 97. WATTS, G. F. , completeness of his work, 83 ; Greek feeling in, tb.f hero-worship of, 35 ; Houses of Parliament frescoes, designs for, 33. WEALTH, evils of, 63. WEATHER, good and bad, 95-96 ; bad, worse in lowlands than in highlands, 115 ; modern, its deterioration, and recent phenomena (May 20, 1884), 110 seq. ; the effect of it on artists, 108, 115. WILKIE, children by, '63. WILSON, Richard, the first sincere landscape artist, 93. WOMEN cannot paint, author's saying that, 15. WOOD-CARVING, mediaeval, 73. WOOD-CUTTING : American, 77 ; not meant to print blots, 76 ; cheap, 75 ; ease and danger of, 74 ; flesh tint, rendering of, 77 ; mod- ern methods of, 77 ; and sculpture, material for, 76 ; transpar- ency in, how given, 77 ; readily expresses ugliness or terrof, 74. WORDSWORTH, children of, 63 ; love of mountains, 100 ; Society, 118 ; quoted : ' Excursion,' Book ii., 100; Sonnets "We live by ad- miration," 24 ; " The world is too much with us," 58. WORK, goodness of, in proportion to our joy in it, 100. YOUTH, praise of modern English, 87. THE END. NOTES CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS BY JOHN KUSKIN, M.A. AUTHOR OF " THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE," ETC. NEW YORK UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY SUCCESSORS TO JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 142 TO 150 WORTH STREET ADYEKTISEMEOT. MANY persons will probably find fault with me for publishing opinions which are not new ; but I shall bear this blame con- tentedly, believing that opinions on this subject could hardly be just if they were not 1800 years old. Others will blame me for making proposals which are altogether new ; to whom I would answer, that things in these days seem not so far right but that they may be mended. And others will simply call the opinions false and the proposals foolish to whose good will, it they take it in hand to contradict me, I must leave what I have written having no purpose of being drawn, at present, into religious controversy. If, however, any should admit the truth, but regret the tone of what I have said, I can only pray them to consider how much less harm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness, than by untimely Fear. Denmark Hill, Feb. 1851. KOTES THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. THE following remarks were intended to form part of the appendix to an essay on Architecture : But it seemed to me, when I had put them into order, that they might be useful to persons who would not care to possess the work to which I proposed to attach them ; I publish them, therefore, in a separate form ; but I have not time to give them more con- sistency than they would have had in the subordinate position originally intended for them. I do not profess to teach Divinity ; and I pray the reader to understand this, and to pardon the slightness and insufficiency of notes set down with no more intention of connected treatment of their subject than might regulate an accidental conversation. Some of them are simply copied from my private diary ; others are detached statements of facts, which seem to me significative or valuable, without comment ; all are written in haste, and in the intervals of occupation with an entirely different sub- ject. It may be asked of me, whether I hold it right to speak thus hastily and insufficiently respecting the matter in ques- tion ? Yes. I hold it right to speak hastily : not to think hastily. I have not thought hastily of these things ; and, be- sides, the haste of speech is confessed, that the reader may think of me only as talking to him, and saying, as shortly and simply as I can, things which, if he esteem them foolish or idle, he is welcome to cast aside ; but which, in very truth, I cannot help saying at this time. 6 NOTES ON THE The passages in the essay which required notes, described the repression of the political power of the Venetian Clergy by the Venetian Senate ; and it became necessary for me in supporting an assertion made in the course of the inquiry, that the idea of separation of Church and State was both vain and impious to limit the sense in which it seemed to me that the word " Church " should be understood, and to note one or two consequences which would result from the ac- ceptance of such limitation. This I may as well do in a sepa- rate paper, readable by any person interested in the subject ; for it is high time that some definition of the word should be agreed upon. I do not mean a definition involving the doc- trine of this or that division of Christians, bub limiting, in a manner understood by all of them, the sense in which the word should thenceforward be used. There is grievous in- convenience in the present state of things. For instance, in a sermon lately published at Oxford, by an anti Tractarian divine, I find this sentence, "It is clearly within the prov- ince of the State to establish a national church, or external in- stitution of certain forms of worship : " Now suppose one were to take this interpretation of the word " Church " given by an Oxford divine, and substitute it for the simple word in some Bible Texts, as for instance, " Unto the angel of the external institution of certain forms of worship of Ephesus," &c. Or, " Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the external institution of certain forms of worship which is in his house," what awkward results we should have, here and there ! Now I do not say it is possible for men to agree with each other in their religious opinions, but it is certainly possible for them to agree with each other upon their religious expressions ; and when a word occurs in the Bible a hundred and fourteen times, it is surely not asking too much of con- tending divines to let it stand in the sense in which it there occurs ; and when they want an expression of something for which it does not stand in the Bible, to use some other word. There is no compromise of religious opinion in this : it is simply proper respect for the Queen's English. The word occurs in the New Testament, as I said, one hun- CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 7 dred and fourteen times.* In every one of those occurrences, it bears one and the same grand sense : that of a congregation or assembly of men. But it bears this sense under four dif- ferent modifications, giving four separate meanings to the word. These are I. The entire Multitude of the Elect ; otherwise called the Body of Christ ; and sometimes the Bride, the Lamb's Wife ; including the Faithful in all ages ; Adam, and the children of Adam yet unborn. In this sense it is used in Ephesians v. 25, 27, 32 ; Colos- sians i. 18, and several other passages. II. The entire multitude of professing believers in Christ, existing on earth at a given moment ; including false brethren, wolves in sheep's clothing, goats, and tares, as well as sheep and wheat, and other forms of bad fish with good in the net. In this sense it is used in 1 Cor. x. 32 ; xv. 9 ; Galatians i. 13, 1 Tim. iii. 5, &c. III. The multitude of professed believers, living in a certain city, place, or house. This is the most frequent sense in which the word occurs, as in Acts vii. 38 ; xiii. 1 ; 1 Cor. i. 2 ; xvi. 19, &c. IV. Any assembly of men : as in Acts xix. 32, 41. That in a hundred and twelve out of the hundred and fourteen texts, the word bears some one of these four meanings, is in- disputable, f But there are two texts in which, if the word had alone occurred, its meaning might have been doubtful. These are Matt. xvi. 18, and xviii. 17. The absurdity of founding any doctrine upon the inexpres- sibly minute possibility that in these two texts, the word might have been used with a different meaning from that which it bore in all the others, coupled with the assumption that the *I may, perhaps, have missed count of one or two occtlrrences of the word ; but not, I think, in any important passages. f The expression " House of God," in Tim. iii. 15, is shown to be used of the congregation by 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17. I have not noticed the word xvpiait}) (oixfa), from which the German "Kirche," the English " Church. "and the Scotch " Kirk," are derived, as it is not used with that signification in the Xew Testament. 8 NOTES ON THE meaning was this or that, is self-evident : it is not so much a religious error as a philological solecism ; unparalleled, so far as I know, in any other science but that of divinity. Nor is it ever, I think, committed with open front by Prot- estants. No English divine, asked in a straightforward man- ner for a Scriptural definition of "the Church," would, I sup- pose, be bold enough to answer " the Clergy." Nor is there any harm in the common use of the word, so only that it be distinctly understood to be not the Scriptural one ; and there- fore to be unfit for substitution in a Scriptural text. There is no harm in a man's talking of his son's " going into the Church : " meaning that he is going to take orders ; but there is much harm in his supposing this a Scriptural use of the word, and therefore, that when Christ said, "Tell it to the Church," He might possibly have meant, " Tell it to the Clergy." It is time to put an end to the chance of such misunder- standing. Let it but be declared plainly by all men, when they begin to state their opinions on matters ecclesiastical, that they will use the word " Church " in one sense or the other ; That they will accept the sense in which it is used by the Apostles, or that they deny this sense, and propose a new definition of their own. We shall then know what we are about with them we may perhaps grant them their new use of the term, and argue with them on that understanding ; so only that they will not pretend to make use of Scriptural authority, while they refuse to employ Scriptural language. This, however, it is not my purpose to do at present. I desire only to address those who are willing to accept the Apostolic sense of the word Church, and with them, I. would endeavor shortly to ascertain what consequences must follow from an acceptance of that Apostolic sense, and what must be our first and most necessary conclusions from the common language of Scripture * respecting these following points : * Any reference, except to Scripture, in notes of this kind would of course be useless : the argument from, or with, the Fathers, is not to be compressed into fifty pages. I have something to say about Hooker ; but I reserve that for another time, not wishing to say it hastily, or te leave it without support. CONSTRUCTION OF SI1EEPFOLDS. 1. The distinctive characters of the Church. 2. The Authority of the Church. 3. The Authority of the Clergy over the Church. 4. The connection of the Church with the State. These are four separate subjects of question ; but we shall not have to put these questions in succession with each of the four Scriptural meanings of the word Church, for evidently its second and third meaning may be considered together, as merely expressing the general or particular conditions of the Visible Church, and the fourth signification is entirely inde- pendent of all questions of a religious kind. So that we shall only put the above inquiries successively respecting the Invis- ible and Visible Church ; and as the two last, of authority of Clergy, and connection with State can evidently only have reference to the Visible Church, we shall have, in all, these six questions to consider. 1. The distinctive characters of the Invisible Church. 2. The distinctive characters of the Visible Church. 3. The Authority of the Invisible Church. 4. The Authority of the Visible Church. 5. The Authority of Clergy over the Visible Church. 6. The Connection of the Visible Church with the State. 1. What are the distinctive characters of the Invisible Church ; that is to say, What is it which makes a person a member of this Church, and how is he to be known for such ? Wide question if we had to take cognizance of all that has been written respecting it, remarkable as it has been always for quantity rather than carefulness, and full of confusion be- tween Visible and Invisible : even the article of the Church of England being ambiguous in its first clause : " The Visible Church is a congregation of Faithful men." As if ever it had been possible, except for God, to see Faith ! or to know a Faithful man by sight. And there is little else written oi> tin's question, without some such quick confusion of the Visible and Invisible Church ; needless and unaccountable 10 NOTES ON THE confusion. For evidently, the Church which is composed of Faithful men, is the one true, indivisible, and indiscernible Church, built on the foundation of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. It includes all who have ever fallen asleep in Christ, and all yet unborn, who are to be saved in Him ; its Body is as yet imperfect ; it will not be perfected till the last saved human spirit is gath- ered to its God. A man becomes a member of this Church only by believing in Christ with all his heart ; nor is he positively recognizable for a member of it, when he has become so, by any one but God, not even by himself. Nevertheless, there are certain signs by which Christ's sheep may be guessed at. Not by their being in any definite Fold for many are lost sheep at times : but by their sheep-like behavior ; and a great many are indeed sheep which, on the far mountain side, in their peacefulness, we take for stones. To themselves, the best proof of their being Christ's sheep is to find themselves on Christ's shoulders ; and, between them, there ai'e certain sym- pathies (expressed in the Apostles' Creed by the term " com- munion of Saints"), by which they may in a sort recognise each other, and so become verily visible to each other for mutual comfort. 2. The Limits of the Visible Church, or of the Church in the Second Scriptural Sense, are not so easy to define ; they are awkward questions, these, of stake-nets. It has been in- geniously and plausibly endeavored to make Baptism a sign of admission into the Visible Church, but absurdly enough ; for we know that half the baptized people in the world are very visible rogues, believing neither in God nor devil ; and it is flat blasphemy to call these Visible Christians ; we also know that the Holy Ghost was sometimes given before Bap- tisni,* and it would be absurdity to call a man on w r hom the Holy Ghost had fallen, an Invisible Christian. The only rational distinction is that which practically, though not pro- fessedly, we always assume. If we hear a man profess him- self a believer in God and in Christ, and detect him in no Acts x. 44. CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLD8. 11 glaring and wilful violation of God's law, we speak of him as a Christian ; and on the other hand, if we hear him or see him denying. Christ, either in his words or conduct, we tacitly assume him not to be a Christian. A mawkish charity pre- vents us from outspeaking in this matter, and from earnestly endeavoring to discern who are Christians and who are not ; and this I hold * to be one of the chief sins of the Church in the present day ; for thus wicked men are put to no shame ; and better men are encouraged in their failings, or caused to hesitate in their virtues, by the example of those whom, in false charity, they choose to call Christians. Now, it being granted that it is impossible to know, determinedly, who are Christians indeed, that is no reason for utter negligence in separating the nominal, apparent, or possible Christian from the professed Pagan or enemy of God. We spend much time in arguing about efficacy of sacraments and such other mysteries ; but we do not act upon the very certain tests which are clear and visible. We know that Christ's people are not thieves not liars not busybodies not dishonest not avaricious not wasteful not cruel. Let us then get ourselves well clear of thieves liars wasteful people avari- * Let not the reader be displeased with me for these short and appar- ently insolent statements of opinion. I am not writing insolently, but as shortly and clearly as I can ; and when I seriously believe a thing, I say so in a few words, leaving the reader to determine what my belief is worth. But I do not choose to temper down every expression of per- sonal opinion into courteous generalities, and so lose space, and time, and intelligibility at once. We are utterly oppressed in these days by our courtesies, and considerations, and compliances, and proprieties. Forgive me them, this once, or rather let us all forgive them to each other, and learn to speak plainly first, and, if it may be, gracefully after- wards ; and not only to speak, but to stand by what we have spoken. One of my Oxford friends heard, the other day, that I was employed on these notes, and forthwith wrote to me, in a panic, not to put my name to them, for fear I should " compromise myself." I think we are most of us compromised to some extent already, when England has sent a Roman Catholic minister to the second city in Italy, and remains herself for a week without any government, because her chief men cannot agree upon the position which a Popish cardinal is to have leave to occupy in London. 12 NOTES ON THE cious people cheating people people who do not pay their debts. Let us assure them that they, at least, do not belong to the Visible Church ; and having thus got that Church into decent shape and cohesion, it will be time to think of drawing the stake-nets closer. I hold it for a law, palpable to common sense, and which nothing but the cowardice and faithlessness of the Church prevents it from putting in practice, that the conviction of any dishonorable conduct or wilful crime, of any fraud, false- hood, cruelty, or violence, should be ground for the excom- munication of any man : for his publicly declared separation from the acknowledged body of the Visible Church : and that he should not be received again therein without public confession of his crime and declaration of his repentance. If this were vigorously enforced, we should soon have greater purity of life in the world, and fewer discussions about high and low churches. But before we can obtain any idea of the manner in which such law could be enforced, we have to con- sider the second question, respecting the Authority of the Church. Now Authority is twofold : to declare doctrine and to enforce discipline ; and we have to inquire, therefore, in each kind, 3. What is the authority of Ihe Invisible Church ? evidently, in matters of doctrine, ah 1 members of the Invisible Church must have been, and must ever be, at the time of then: deaths, right in the points essential to Salvation. But, (A.) we cannot tell who are members of the Invisible Church. (B. ) We cannot collect evidence from deathbeds in a clearly stated form. (C.) We can collect evidence, in any form, only from some one or two out of every sealed thousand of the Invisible Church. Elijah thought he was alone in Israel ; and yet there were seven thousand invisible ones around him. Grant that we had Elijah's intelligence ; and we could only calculate on collecting the TTJ V'oth part of the evidence or opinions of the part of the Invisible Church living on earth at a given mo- ment ; that is to say, the seven-millionth or trillionth of its collective evidence. It is very clear, therefore, we cannot hope CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 13 to get rid of the contradictory opinions, and keep the consist- ent ones, by a general equation. But, it has been said there are no contradictory opinions ; the Church is infallible. There was some talk about the infallibility of the Church, if I recol- lect right, in that letter of Mr. Bennett's to the Bishop of Lon- don. If any Church be infallible, it is assuredly the Invisible Church, or body of Christ ; and infallible in the main sense it must of course be by its definition. An Elect person must be saved and therefore cannot eventually be deceived on essen- tial points ; so that Christ says of the deception of such, "If it were possible" implying it to be impossible. Therefore, as we said, if one could get rid of the variable opinions of the mem- bers of the Invisible Church, the constant opinions would assuredly be authoritative : but for the three reasons above stated, we cannot get at their constant opinions : and as for the feelings and thoughts which they daily experience or ex- press, the question of Infallibility which is practical only in this bearing is soon settled. Observe St. Paul, and the rest of the Apostles, write nearly all their epistles to the Invisible Church: Those epistles are headed, Romans, "To the be- loved of God, called to be saints ; " 1 Corinthians, " To them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus ;" 2 Corinthians, "To the saints in all Achaia ; " Ephesians, " To the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus ; " Philippians, "To all the saints which are at Philippi ;" Colossians, " To the saints and faithful brethren which are at Colosse ; " 1 and 2 Thessa- lonians, "To the Church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus;" 1 and 2 Timothj-, "To his own son in the faith ; " Titus, to the same ; 1 Peter, " To the Strangers, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God ; " 2 Peter, "To them that have obtained like precious faith with us ; " 2 John, " To the Elect lady ; " Jude, " To them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ and called." There are thus fifteen epistles, expressly directed to the members of the Invisible Church. Philemon and Hebrews, and 1 and 3 John, are evidently also so written, though not so expressly inscribed. That of James, and that to the Gala- 14 NOTES ON THE tians, are as evidently to the Visible Church : the one being general, and the, other to persons "removed from Him that called them." Missing out, therefore, these two epistles, but including Christ's words to His disciples, we find in the Script- ural addresses to members of the Invisible Church, fourteen, if not more, direct injunctions " not to be deceived."* So much for the "Infallibility of the Church." Now, one could put up with Puseyism more patiently, if its fallacies arose merely from peculiar temperaments yielding to peculiar temptations. But its bold refusals to read plain English ; its elaborate adjustments of tight bandages over its own eyes, as wholesome preparation for a walk among traps and pitfalls ; its daring trustfulness in its own clairvo} T ance all the time, and declarations that every pit it falls into is a sev- enth heaven ; and that it is pleasant and profitable to break its legs ; with all this it is difficult to have patience. One thinks of the highwayman with his eyes shut, in the Arabian Nights ; and wonders whether any kind of scourging would prevail upon the Anglican highwayman to open "first one and then the other." 4. So much, then, I repeat for the infallibility of the Invis- ible Church, and for its consequent authority. Now, if we want to ascertain what infallibility and authority there is in the Visible Church, we have to alloy the small wisdom and the light weight of Invisible Christians, with large per-centage of the false wisdom and contrary weight of Undetected Anti- Christians. "Which alloy makes up the current coin of opin- ions in the Visible Church, having such value as we may choose its nature being properly assayed to attach to it There is, therefore, in matters of doctrine, no such thing as the Authority of the Church. We might as well talk of the authority of the morning cloud. There may be light in it, but the light is not of it ; and it diminishes the light that it gets ; and lets less of it through than it receives, Christ being its sun. Or, we might as well talk of the authority of a flock * Matt. xxiv. 4; Mark xiii. 5; Luke xxi. 8; 1 Cor. iii. 18, vi. 9, xv. 33 ; Eph. iv. 14, v. 6 ; Col. ii. 8 ; 2 Thess. ii. 3 ; Heb. iii. 13 ; 1 John L 8, iii. 7 ; 2 John 7, 8. CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 15 of sheep for the Church is a body to be taught and fed, not to teach and feed : and of all sheep that are fed on the earth, Christ's Sheep are the most simple (the children of this gen- eration are wiser) : always losing themselves ; doing little else in this world but lose themselves ; never finding themselves ; always found by Some One else ; getting perpetually into sloughs, and snows, and bramble thickets, like to die there, but for their Shepherd, who is for ever finding them and bear- ing them back, with torn fleeces and eyes full of fear. This, then, being the No-Authority of the Church in mat- ter of Doctrine, what Authority has it in matters of Disci- pline ? Much, every way. The sheep have natural and wholesome power (however far scattered they may be from their proper fold) of getting together in orderly knots ; following each other on trodden sheepwalks, and holding their heads all one way when they see strange dogs coming ; as well as of casting out of their company any whom they see reason to suspect of not being right sheep, and being among them for no good. All which things must be done as the time and place require, and by common consent. A path may be good at one time of day which is bad at another, or after a change of wind ; and a position may be very good for sudden defence, which would be very stiff and awkward for feeding in. And common con- sent must often be of such and such a company on this or that hillside, in this or that particular danger, not of all the sheep in the world : and the consent may either be literally com- mon, and expressed in assembly, or it may be to appoint offi- cers over the rest, with such and such trusts of the common authority, to be used for the common advantage. Conviction of crimes, and excommunication, for instance, could neither be effected except before, or by means of, officers of some ap- pointed authority. 5. This, then, brings us to our fifth question. What is the Authority of the Clergy over the Church ? The first clause of the question must evidently be, Who are the Clergy? and it is not easy to answer this without begging the rest of the question. 16 NOTES ON THE For instance, I think I can hear certain people answering That the Clergy are folk of three kinds, Bishops, who over- look the Church ; Priests, who sacrifice for the Church ; Deacons, who minister to the Church : thus assuming in their answer, that the Church is to be sacrificed for, and that people cannot overlook and minister to her at the same time ; which is going much too fast. I think, however, if we define the Clergy to be the " Spiritual Officers of the Church," meaning, by Officers, merely People in office, we shall have a title safe enough and general enough to begin with, and corresponding too, pretty well, with St. Paul's general expression Trpot'0-Tayu.cVoi, in Rom. xii. 8, and 1 Thess. v. 13. Now, respecting these Spiritual Officers, or office-bearers, we have to inquire, first, What their Office or Authority is, or should be ; secondly, Who gave, or should give, them that Authority ? That is to say, first, What is, or should be the nature of their office ; and secondly, What the extent or force of their authority in it? for this last depends mainly on its derivation. First, then, What should be the offices, and of what kind should be the authority of the Clergy ? I have hitherto referred to the Bible for an answer to every question. I do so again ; and behold, the Bible gives me no answer. I defy you to answer me from the Bible. You can only guess, and dimly conjecture, what the offices of the Clergy were in the first century. You cannot show me a sin- gle command as to what they shall be. Strange, this : the Bible give no answer to so apparently important a question ! God surely would not have left His word without an answer to anything His children ought to ask. Surely it must be a ridiculous question a question we ought never to have put, or thought of putting. Let us think of it again a little. To be sure, it is a ridiculous question, and we should be ashamed of ourselves for having put it: What should be the offices of the Clergy ? That is to say, What are the possible spiritual necessities which at any time may arise in the Church, and by what means and men are they to be supplied ; evidently an infinite question. Different kinds of necessities must be met CONSTRUCTION OF SHEBPFOLDS. 17 ty different authorities, constituted as the necessities arise. Robinson Crusoe, in his island, wants no Bishop, and makes a thunderstorm do for an Evangelist. The University of Oxford would be ill off without its Bishop ; but wants an Evangelist besides ; and that forthwith. The authority which the Vau- dois shepherds need, is of Barnabas, the son of Consolation ; the authority which the City of London needs, is of James, the sou of Thunder. Let us then alter the form of our ques- tion, and put it to the Bible thus ; What are the necessities most likely to arise in the Church ; and may they be best met by different men, or in great part by the same men acting in different capacities ? and are the names attached to their offices of any consequence ? Ah, the Bible answers now, and that loudly. The Church is built on the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone. Well ; We cannot have two foundations, so we can have no more Apostles or Pi-ophets : then, as for the other needs of the Church in its edifying upon this foundation, there are all manner of things to be done daily ; rebukes to be given ; comfort to be brought ; Scripture to be explained ; warning to be enforced ; threatening^ to be executed ; charities to be ad- ministered ; and the men who do these things are called, and call themselves, with absolute indifference, Deacons, Bishops, Elders, Evangelists, according to what they are doing at the time of speaking. St. Paul almost always calls himself a dea- con, St. Peter calls himself an elder, 1 Pet. v. 1, and Timothy, generally understood to be addressed as a bishop, is called a deacon in 1 Tim. iv. G forbidden to rebuke an elder, in v. 1, and exhorted to do the work of an evangelist, in 2 Tim. iv. 5. But there is one thing which, as officers, or as separate from the rest of the flock, they never call themselves, which it would have been impossible, as so separate, they ever should have called themselves ; that is Priests. It would have been just as possible for the Clergy of the early Church to call themselves Levites, as to call themselves (ex officio) Priests. The whole function of Priesthood was, on Christmas morning, at once and forever gathered into His Person who was born at Bethlehem ; and thenceforward, all 2 18 NOTES ON THE who are united with Him, and who with Him mate sacrifice of themselves ; that is to say, all members of the Invisible Church, become at the instant of their conversion, Priests ; and are so called in 1 Pet. ii. 5, and Rev. i. 6, and xx. 6, where, observe, there is no possibility of limiting the expression to the Clergy ; the conditions of Priesthood being simply having been loved by Christ, and washed in His blood. The blasphe- mous claim on the part of the Clergy of being more Priests than the godly laity that is to say, of having a higher Holi- ness than the Holiness of being one with Christ, is alto- gether a Romanist heresy, dragging after it, or having its or- igin in, the other heresies respecting the sacrificial power of the Church officer, and his repeating the oblation of Christ, and so having power to absolve from sin : with all the other endless and miserable falsehoods of the Papal hierarchy ; false- hoods for which> that there might be no shadow of excuse, it has been ordained by the Holy Spirit that no Christian minis- ter shall once cah 1 himself a Priest from one end of the New Testament to the other, except together with his flock ; and so far from the idea of any peculiar sanctification, belonging to the Clergy, never entering the apostles' minds, we actually find St. Paul defending himself against the possible imputation of inferiority : "If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's " (2 Cor. x. 7). As for the unhappy reten- tion of the term Priest in our English Prayer-book, so long as it was understood to mean nothing but an upper order of Church officer, licensed to tell the congregation from the read- ing-desk, what (for the rest) they might, one would think, have known without being told, that "God pardoneth all them that truly repent," there was little harm in it ; but, now that this order of Clergy begins to presume upon a title which, if it mean anything at all, is simply short for Presbyter, and has no more to do with the word Hiereus than with the word Levite, it is time that some order should be taken both with the book and the Clergy. For instance, in that danger- ous compound of halting poetry with hollow Divinity, called the Lyra Apostolica, we find much versification on the sin of CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 19 Korah and his company : with suggested parallel between the Christian and Levitical Churches, and threatening that theue are "Judgment Fires, for high-voiced Korahs in their day." There are indeed such fires. But when Moses said, " a Proph- et shall the Lord raise up unto you, like unto me," did he mean the writer who signs y in the Lyra Apostolica ? The office of the Lawgiver and Priest is now for ever gathered in- to One Mediator between God and man ; and THEY are guilty of the sin of Korah who blasphemously would associate them- selves in his Mediatorship. As for the passages in the " Ordering of Priests" and "Visi- tation of the Sick " respecting Absolution, they are evidently pure Romanism, and might as well not be there, for any prac- tical effect which they have on the consciences of the Laity ; and had much better not be there, as regards their effect on the minds of the Clergy. It is indeed true that Christ promised absolving power to His Apostles : He also promised to those who believed, that they should take up serpents, and if they drank any deadly thing, it should not hurt them. His words were fulfilled literally ; but those who would extend their force to beyond the Apostolic times, most extend both promises, or neither. Although, however, the Protestant laity do not often admit the absolving power of their clergy, they are but too apt to yield, in some sort, to the impression of their greater sancti- fication ; and from this instantly results the unhappy conse- quence that the sacred character of the Layman himself is forgotten, and his own Ministerial duty is neglected. Men not in office in the Church suppose themselves, on that ground, in a sort unholy ; and that, therefore, they may sin with more excuse, and be idle or impious with less danger, than the Clergy : especially they consider themselves relieved from all ministerial function, and as permitted to devote their whole time and energy to the business of this world. No mistake can possibly be greater. Every member of the Church is equally bound to the service of the Head of the Church ; and that service is pre-eminently the saving of souls. There is not a moment of a man's active life in which he may 2ft NOTES ON THE not be indirectly preaching ; and throughout a great part ol his life he ought to be directly preaching, and teaching both strangers and friends ; his children, his servants, and all who in any way are put under him, being given to him as especial objects of his ministration. So that the only difference be- tween a Church officer and a lay member, is either a wider degree of authority given to the former, as apparently a wiser and better man, or a special appointment to some office more easily discharged by one person than by many : as, for in- stance, the serving of tables by the deacons ; the authority or appointment being, in either case, commonly signified by a marked separation from the rest of the Church, and the privi- lege or power * of being maintained by the rest of the Church, without being forced to labor with his hands or encumber himself with any temporal concerns. Now, putting out of question the serving of tables, and other such duties, respecting .which there is no debate, we shall find the offices of the Clergy, whatever names we may choose to give to those who discharge them, falling mainly into two great heads : Teaching ; including doctrine, warn- ing, and comfort : Discipline ; including reproof and direct administration of punishment. Either of which functions would naturally become vested in single persons, to the ex- clusion of others, as a mere matter of convenience : whether those persons were wiser and better than others or not : and respecting each of which, and the authority required for its fitting discharge, a short inquiry must be separately made. I. Teaching. It appears natural and wise that certain men should be set apart from the rest of the Church that they may make Theology the study of their lives : and that they should be thereto instructed specially in the Hebrew and Greek tongues ; and have entire leisure granted them for the study of the Scriptures, and for obtaining general knowledge of the grounds of Faith, and best modes of its defence against all heretics : and it seems evidently right also, that with this Scholastic duty should be joined the Pastoral duty of constant visitation and exhortation to the people ; for, clearly, the * ^ova-ia, in 1 Cor. is. 12. 2 Tliess iii. 9. CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 21 Bible, and the truths of Divinity in general, can only be un- derstood rightly in their practical application ; and clearly, also, a man spending his time constantly in spiritual ministra- tions, must be better able, on any given occasion, to deal powerfully with the human heart than one unpractised in such matters. The unity of Knowledge and Love, both devoted altogether to the service of Christ and his Church, marks the true Christian Minister ; who I believe, whenever he has ex- isted, has never failed to receive due and fitting reverence from all men, of whatever character or opinion ; and I believe that if all those who profess to be such, were such indeed, there would never be question of their authority more. But, whatever influence they may have over the Church, their authority never supersedes that of either the intellect or the conscience of the simplest of its lay members. They can assist those members in the search for truth, or comfort their overworn and doubtful minds ; they can even assure them that they are in the way of truth, or that pardon is within their reach : but they can neither manifest the truth nor grant the pardon. Truth is to be discovered, and Pardon to be won for every man by himself. This is evident from innumerable texts of Scripture, but chiefly from those which exhort every man to seek after Truth, and which connect knowing with do- ing. We are to seek after knowledge as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures ; therefore, from every man she must be naturally hid, and the discovery of her is to be the reward only of personal search. The kingdom of God is as treasure hid in a field ; and of those who profess to help us to seek for it, we are not to put confidence in those who say, Here is the treasure, we have found it, and have it, and will give you some of it ; but to those who say, We think that is a good place to dig, and you will dig most easily in such and such a way. Farther, it has been promised that if such earnest search be made, Truth shall be discovered : as much truth, that is, as is necessary for the person seeking. These, therefore, I hold, for two fundamental principles of religion, that, without seeking, truth cannot be known at all ; and that, by seeking, 22 NOTES ON THE it may be discovered by the simplest I say, without seeking it cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in Articles, nor in any wise " pre- pared and sold " in packages, ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by himself out of its husk, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stem labor of his own. In what science is knowledge to be had cheap ? or truth to be told over a velvet cushion, in half an hour's talk every seventh clay ? Can you learn chemistry so ? zoology ? anatomy ? and do you expect to penetrate the secret of all se- crets, and to know that whose price is above rubies ; and of which the depth saith, It is not in me, in so easy fashion ? There are doubts in this matter which evil spirits darken with their wings, and that is true of all such doubts which we were told long ago they can "be ended by action alone."* As surely as we live, this truth of truths can only so be dis- cerned : to those who act on what they know, more shall be revealed ; and thus, if any man will do His will, he shall know the doctrine whether it be of God. Any man : not the man who has most means of knowing, who has the subtlest brains, or sits under the most orthodox preacher, or has his library fullest of most orthodox books but the man who strives to know, who takes God at His word, and sets himself to dig up the heavenly mystery, roots and all, before sunset, and the night come, when no man can work. Beside such a man, God stands in more and more visible presence as he toils, and teaches him that which no preacher can teach no earthly au- * (Carlyle, Past and Present, Chap. xi. ) Can anything he more strik- ing than the repeated warnings of St. Paul against strife of words ; and his distinct setting forth of Action as the only true means of attaining knowledge of the truth, and the only sign of men's possessing the true faith? Compare 1 Timothy vi. 4,20, (the latter verse especially, in con- nection with the previous three,) and 2 Timothy ii. 14, 19, 22, 23, trac- ing the connection here also ; add Titus i. 10, 14, 16, noting "in ino^ka they deny him," and Titus iii. 8, 9, " affirm constantly that they be careful to maintain good works ; hut avoid foolish questions ; " and finally, 1 Timothy i. 4 7: a passage which seems to have been espe* cially written for these times. CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 23 thority gainsay. By such a man, the preacher must himself be judged. Doubt you this ? There is nothing more certain nor clear throughout the Bible : the Apostles themselves appeal con- stantly to their flocks, and actually claim judgment from them, as deserving it, and having a right to it, rather than discouraging it. But, first notice the way in which the dis- covery of truth is spoken of in the Old Testament : " Evil men understand not judgment ; but they that seek the Lord understand all things, "Pro verbs xxviii. 5. God overthroweth, not merely the transgressor or the wicked, but even "the words of the transgressor," Proverbs xxii. 12, and " the coun- sel of the wicked," Job v. 13, xxi. 16 ; observe again, in Prov- erbs xxiv. 4, " My son, eat thou honey, because it is good so shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul, when thou hast found it, there shall be a reward ; " and again, " What man is he that feareth the Lord? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose ; " so Job xxxii. 8, and multitudes of places more ; and then, with all these places, which express the definite and personal operation of the Spirit of God on every one of His people, compare the place in Isaiah, which speaks of the contrary of this human teaching : a passage which seems as if it had been written for this very day and hour. "Because their fear towards me is taught by the pre- cept of men / therefore, behold the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid." (xxix. 13, 14.) Then take the New Testament, and observe how St. Paul himself speaks of the Romans, even as hardly needing his epistle, but able to admonish one another ; ." Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind." (xv. 15.) Any one, we should have thought, might have done as much as this, and yet St. Paul increases the modesty of it as he goes on ; for he claims the right of doing as much as this, only " because of the grace given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles." Then compare 2 Cor. v. 11, where he appeals to the consciences of the people for the manifestation of his having done his duty ; and observe in 24 NOTES ON THE verse 21 of that, and 1 of the next chapter, the " pray " and "beseech," not "command ;" and again, in chapter vi. verse 4, "approving ourselves as the ministers of God." But the most remarkable passage of all is 2 Cor. iii. 1, whence it ap- pears that the churches were actually in the habit of giving letters of recommendation to their ministers ; and St. Paul dispenses with such letters, not by virtue of his Apostolic authority, but because the power of his preaching was enough manifested in the Corinthians themselves. And these passages are all the more forcible, because if in any of them St. Paul had claimed absolute authority over the Church as a teacher, it was no more than we should have expected him to claim, nor could his doing so have in anywise justified a successor in the same claim. But now that he has not claimed it who, following him, shall dare to claim it ? And the consideration of the necessity of joining expressions of the most exemplary humility, which were to be the example of succeeding minis- ters, with such assertion of Divine authority as should secure acceptance for the epistle itself in the sacred canon, sufficiently accounts for the apparent inconsistencies which occur in 2 Thess. iii. 14, and other such texts. So much, then, for the authority of the Clergy in matters of Doctrine. Next, what is their authority in matters of Dis- cipline. It must evidently be very great, even if it were de- rived from the people alone, and merely vested in the clerical officers as the executors of their ecclesiastical judgments, and general overseers of all the Church. But granting, as we must presently, the minister to hold office directly from God, his authority of discipline becomes very great indeed ; how great, it seems to me most difficult to determine, because I do not understand what St. Paul means by " delivering a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh." Leaving this question, how- ever, as much too hard for casual examination, it seems indis- putable that the authority of the Ministers or court of Ministers should extend to the pronouncing a man Excommunicate for certain crimes against the Church, as well as for all crimes punishable by ordinary law. There ought, I think, to be an ecclesiastical code of laws ; and a man ought to have jury trial, CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 25 according to this code, before an ecclesiastical judge ; in \vhich, if be were found guilty, as of lying, or dishonesty, or cruelty, much more of any actually committed violent crime, he should be pronounced Excommunicate ; refused the Sacrament ; and have his name written in some public place as an excommuni- cate person until he had publicly confessed his sin and be- sought pardon of God for it. The jury should always be of the laity, and no penalty should be enforced in an ecclesiasti- cal court except this of excommunication. This proposal may sound strange to many persons ; but as- suredly this, if not much more than this, is commanded in Scripture, first in the (much abused) text, '' Tell it unto the Church ; " and most clearly in 1 Cor. v. 11 13 ; 2 Thess. iii. G and 14 ; 1 Tim. v. 8 and 20 ; and Titus iii. 10 ; from which passages we also know the two proper degrees of the penalty. For Christ says, Let him who refuses to hear the Church, "be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." But Christ ministered to the heathen, and sat at meat with the publican ; only always with declared or implied expression of their in- feriority ; here, therefore, is one degree of excommunication for persons who " offend " their brethren; committing some minor fault against them ; and who, having been pronounced in error by the body of the Church, refuse to confess their fault or repair it ; who arc then to be no longer considered members of the Church ; and their recovery to the body of it is to be sought exactly as it would be in the case of a heathen. But covetous persons, railers, extortioners, idolaters, and those guilty of other gross crimes, are to be entirely cut off from the company of the believers ; and we are not so much as to eat with them. This last penalty, however, would re- quire to be strictly guarded, that it might not be abused in the infliction of it, as it has been by the Romanists. We are not, indeed, to eat with them, but we may exercise all Chris- tian charity towards them, and give them to eat, if we see them in hunger, as we ought to all our enemies ; only we are to consider them distinctly as our enemies : that is to say, enemies of our Master Christ ; and servants of Satan. As for the rank or name of the officers in whom the authori- 26 ties, either of teaching or discipline, are to be vested, they are left undetermined by Scripture. I have heard it said by men who know their Bible far better than I, that careful examina- tion may detect evidence of the existence of three orders of Clergy in the Church. This may be ; but one thing is very clear, without any laborious examination, that " bishop " and " elder " sometimes mean the same thing, as, indisputably, in Titus i. 5 and 7, and 1 Pet. v. 1 and 2, and that the office of the bishop or overseer was one of considerably less impor- tance than it is with us. This is palpably evident from 1 Timothy iii., for what divine among us, writing of episcopal proprieties, Avould think of saying that bishops " must not be given to wine," must be "no strikers," and must not be "novices?" \Ve are not in the habit of making bishops of novices in these days ; and it would be much better that, like the early Church, we sometimes ran the risk of doing so ; for the fact is we have not bishops enough by some hundreds. The idea of overseership has been practically lost sight of, its fulfilment having gradually become physically impossible, for want of more bishops. The duty of a bishop is, without doubt, to be accessible to the humblest clergymen of his dio- cese, and to desire very earnestly that all of them should be in the habit of referring to him in all cases of difficulty ; if they do not do this of their own accord, it is evidently his duty to visit them ; live with them sometimes, and join in their ministrations to their flocks, so as to know exactly the capacities, and habits of life of each ; and if any of them corn- plained of this or that difficulty with their congregations, the bishop should be ready to go down to help them, preach for them, write general epistles to {heir people, and so on : be- sides this, he should of course be watchful of their errors ready to hear complaints from their congregations of ineffi- ciency or aught elst) ; besides having general superintendence of all the charitable institutions and schools in his diocese, and good knowledge of whatever was going on in theological matters, both all over the kingdom and on the continent. This is the work of a right overseer ; and I leave the reader to calculate how many additional bishops and those hard- CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 27 working men, too we should need to have it done even de- centty. Then our present bishops might all become arch- bishops with advantage, and have general authority over the rest.* As to the mode in which the officers of the Church should be elected or appointed, I do not feel it my business to say anything at present, nor much respecting the extent of their authority, either over each other or over the congregation, this being a most difficult question, the right solution of which evidently lies between two most dangerous extremes insubordination and radicalism on one hand, and ecclesiasti- cal tyranny and heresy on the other : of the two, insubordi- nation is far the least to be dreaded for this reason, that nearly all real Christians are more on the watch against their pride than their indolence, and would sooner obey their cler- gyman, if possible, than contend with him ; while the very pride they suppose conquered often returns masked, and causes them to make a merit of their humility and their ab- stract obedience, however unreasonable : but they cannot so easily persuade themselves there is a merit in abstract disobe- dience. Ecclesiastical tyranny has, for the most part, founded itself on the idea of Vicarianism, one of the most pestilent of the Komanist theories, and most plainly denounced in Scripture. Of this I have a word or two to say to the modern " Vicarian." All powers that be are unquestionably ordained of God ; so * I leave, in the main text, the abstract question of the fitness of Epis- copacy unapproached, not feeling any call to speak of it at length at present ; all that I feel necessary to be said is, that bishops being granted, it is clear that we have too few to do their work. But the ar- gument from the practice of the Primitive Church appears to me to be of erroneous weight, nor have I ever heard any rational plea alleged against Episcopacy, except that, like other things, it is capable of abuse, and had sometimes been abused ; and as, altogether clearly and indis- putably, there is described in the Bible an episcopal office, distinct from the merely ministerial one ; and, apparently, also an Episcopal officer attached to each church, and distinguished in the Revelations as an Angel, I hold the resistance of the Scotch Presbyterian Church to Episcopacy to be unscriptural, futile, and schismatic. 28 NOTES ON THE that they that resist the Power, resist the ordinance of God. Therefore, say some in these offices, We, being ordained of God, and having our credentials, and being in the English Bible called ambassadors for God, do, in a sort, represent God. We are Vicars of Christ, and stand on earth in place of Chiist. I have heard this said by Protestant clergymen. Now the word ambassador has a peculiar ambiguity about it, owing to its use in modem political affairs ; and these clergj'men assume that the word, as used by St. Paul, means an Ambassador Plenipotentiary ; representative of his King, and capable of acting for his King. What right have they to assume that St. Paul meant this ? St. Paul never uses the word ambassador at all. He says simply, " We are in embas- sage from Christ ; and Christ beseeches you through us." Most true. And let it further be granted, that every word that the clergyman speaks is literally dictated to him by Christ ; that he can make no mistake in delivering his mes- sage ; and that, therefore, it is indeed Christ himself who speaks to us the word of life through the messenger's lips. Does, therefore, the messenger represent Christ ? Does the channel which conveys the waters of the Fountain represent the Fountain itself ? Suppose, when we went to draw water at a cistern, that all at once the Leaden Spout should become animated, and open its mouth and say to us, See, I am Vica- rious for the Fountain. Whatever respect you show to the Fountain, show some part of it to me. Should we not answer the Spout, and say, Spout, you were set there for our service, and rnay be taken away and thrown aside * if anything goes wrong with you. But the Fountain will flow for ever. Observe, I do not deny a most solemn authority vested in every Christian messenger from God to men. I am prepared to grant this to the uttermost ; and all that George Herbert says, in the end of the Church-porch, I would enforce, at another time than this, to the uttermost. But the Authority is simply that of a King's messenger ; not of a King's Repre~ tentative. There is a wide difference ; all the difference be- tween humble service and blasphemous usurpation. * " By just judgment be deposed," Art. 26. CONSTRUCTION OF 8EEEPFOLDS. 29 Well, the congregation might ask, grant him a King's mes- senger in cases of doctrine, in cases of discipline, an officer bearing the King's commission. How far are we to obey him ? How far is it lawful to dispute his commands ? For, in granting, above, that the Messenger always gave his message faithfully, I granted too much to my adversaries, in order that their argument might have all the weight it pos- sibly could. The Messengers rarely deliver their message faithfully ; and sometimes have declared, as from the King, messages of their own invention. How far are we, knowing them for King's messengers, to believe or obey them ? Suppose for instance, in our English army, on the eve of some great battle, one of the colonels were to give this order to his regiment. " My men, tie your belts over your eyes, throw down your muskets, and follow me as steadily as you can, through this marsh, into the middle of the enemy's line," (this being precisely the order issued by our Puseyite Church officers.) It might be questioned, in the real battle, whether it would be better that a regiment should show an example of insubordination, or be cut to pieces. But happily in the Church, there is no such difficulty ; for the King is always with his army : Not only with his army, but at the right hand of every soldier of it. Therefore, if any of their col- onels give them a strange command, all they have to do is to ask the King ; and never yet any Christian asked guidance of his King, in any difficulty whatsoever, without mental reser- vation or secret resolution, but he had it forthwith. We con- clude then, finally, that the authority of the Clergy is, in mat- ters of discipline, large (being executive, first, of the written laws of God, and secondly, of those determined and agreed upon by the body of the Church), in matters of doctrine, de- pendent on their recommending themselves to every man's conscience, both as messengers of God, and as themselves men of God, perfect, and instructed to good works." * * The difference between the authority of doctrine and discipline is beautifully marked in 2 Timothy ii. 25, and Titus ii. 12 15. In the first passage, the servant of God, teaching divine doctrine, must not strive, but must "in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves; " in 30 NOTES ON THE 6. The last subject which we had to investigate was, it will be remembered, what is usually called the connection of "Church and State." But, by our definition of the term Church, throughout the whole of Christendom, the Church (or society of professing Christians) is the State, and our sub- ject is therefore, properly speaking, the connection of the lay and clerical officers of the Church ; that is to say, the degrees in which the civil and ecclesiastical governments ought to in- terfere with or influence each other. It would of course be vain to attempt a formal inquiry into this intricate subject ; I have only a few detached points to notice respecting it. There are three degrees or kinds of civil government. The first and lowest, executive merely ; the government in this sense being simply the National Hand, and composed of indi- viduals who administer the laws of the nation, and execute its established purposes. The second kind of government is deliberative ; but in its deliberation, representative only of the thoughts and will of the people or nation, and liable to be deposed the instant it ceases to express those thoughts and that will. This, whatever its form, whether centred in a king or in any number of men, is properly to be called Democratic. The third and highest kind of government is deliberative, not as representative of the people, but as chosen to take separate counsel for them, and having power committed to it, to enforce upon them whatever resolution it may adopt, whether consistent with their will or not. This government is properly to be called Monarchical, whatever its form. I see that politicians and writers of history continually run into hopeless error, because they confuse the Form of a gov- ernment with its Nature. A government may be nominally vested in an individual ; and yet if that individual be in such fear of those beneath him, that he does nothing but what he the second passage, teaching us " that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts he is to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world" the minister is to speak, exhort, and rebuke with ALL AUTHORITY both functions being expressed as united in 2 Timothy iv. 3. CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 31 supposes will be agreeable to them, the Government is Demo- cratic ; on the other hand, the Government may be vested in a deliberative assembly of a thousand men, ah 1 having equal authority, and all chosen from the lowest ranks of the people ; and yet if that assembly act independently of the will of the people, and have no fear of them, and enforce its determina- tions upon them, the government is Monarchical ; that is to say, the Assembly, acting as One, has power over the Many, while in the case of the weak king, the Many have power over the One. A Monarchical Government, acting for its own interests, in- stead of the people's, is a tyranny. I said the Executive Gov- ernment was the hand of the nation ; the Republican Govern- ment is in like manner its tongue. The Monarchical Government is its head. All true and right Government is Monarchical, and of the head. What is its best form, is a totally different question ; but unless it net for the people, and not as representative of the people, it is no government at all ; and one of the gross- est blockheadisms of the English in the present day, is their idea of sending men to Parliament to " represent their opin- ions." Whereas their only true business is to find out the wisest men among them, and send them to Parliament to represent their own opinions, and act upon them. Of all pup- pet shows in the Satanic Carnival of the earth, the most con- temptible puppet-show is a Parliament with a mob pulling the strings. Now, of these three states of government, it is clear that the merely executive can have no proper influence over eccle- siastical affairs. But of the other two, the first, being the voice of the people, or voice of the Church, must have such influence over the Clergy as is properly vested in the body of the Church. The second, which stands in the same relation to the people as a father does to his family, will have such farther influence over ecclesiastical matters, as a father has over the consciences of his adult children. No absolute au- thority, therefoi-e, to enforce their attendance at any particular place of worship, or subscription to any particular deed. 32 NOTES ON THE But indisputable authority to procure for them such religious instruction as he deems fittest,* and to recommend it to them by every means in his power ; he not only has authority, but is under obligation to do this, as well as to establish such dis- ciplines and forms of worship in his house as he deems most convenient for his family : with which they are indeed at lib- erty to refuse compliance, if such disciplines appear to them clearly opposed to the law of God ; but not without most solemn conviction of their being so, nor without deep sorrow to be compelled to such a course. But it may be said, the Government of a people never does stand to them in the relation of a father to his family. If it do not, it is no Government. However grossly it may fail in its * Observe, this and the following conclusions depend entirely on the supposition that the Government is part of the Body of the Church, and that some pains have been taken to compose it of religious and wise men. If we choose, knowingly and deliberately, to compose our Parlia- ment, in great part, of infidels and Papists, gamblers and debtors, we may well regret its power over the Clerical officer ; but that we should, at any time, so compose our Parliament, is a sign that the Clergy them- selves have failed in their duty, and the Church in its watchfulness ; thus the evil accumulates in re-action. Whatever I say of the responsi- bility or authority of Government, is therefore to be understood only as sequent on what I have said previous 1 y of the necessity of closely cir- cumscribing the Church, and then composing the Civil Government out of the circumscribed Body. Thus, all Papists would at once be ren- dered incapable of share in it, being subjected to the second or most severe degree of excommunication first, as idolaters, by 1 Cor. v. 10 ; then, as covetous and extortioners, (selling absolution,) by the same text ; and, finally, as heretics and maintainers of falsehoods, by Titus iii. 10, and 1 Tim. iv. 1. I do not write this hastily, nor without earnest consideration both o ' the difficulty and the consequences of such Church Discipline. But either the Bible is a superannuated book, and is only to be read as a record of past days ; or these things follow from it, clearly and inevit- ably. That we live in days when the Bible has become impracticable, is (if it be so) the very thing I desire to be considered. I am not setting down these plans or schemes as at present possible. I do not know how far they are possible ; but it seems to me that God has plainly com- manded them, and that, therefore, their impracticability is a thing to ba meditated on. CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 33 duty, and however little it may be fitted for its place, if it be a Government at all, it has paternal office and relation to the people. I find it written on the one hand, " Honor thy Father ;" on the other," Honor the King ;" on the one hand, " Whoso smiteth his Father, shall be put to death ; " * on the other, " They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Well, but, it may be farther argued, the Clergy are in a still more solemn sense the Fathers of the People, and the People are the beloved Sons ; why should not, therefore, the Clergy have the power to govern the civil officers ? For two very clear reasons. In all human institutions certain evils are granted, as of necessity ; and, in organizing such institutions, we must allow for the consequences of such evils, and make arrangements such as may best keep them in check. Now, in both the civil and ecclesiastical governments there will of necessity be a certain number of bad men. The wicked civilian has com- paratively little interest in overthrowing ecclesiastical author- ity ; it is often a useful help to him, and presents in itself little which seems covetable. But the wicked ecclesiastical officer has much interest in overthrowing the civilian, and getting the political power into his own hands. As far as wicked men are concerned, therefore, it is better that the State should have power over the Clergy, than the Clergy over the State. Secondly, supposing both the Civil and Ecclesiastical officer to be Christians ; there is no fear that the civil officer should under-rate the dignity or shorten the serviceableness of the minister ; but there is considerable danger that the religious enthusiasm of the minister might diminish the serviceableness of the civilian. (The History of Religious Enthusiasm should be written by some one who had a life to give to its investi- gation ; it is one of the most melancholy pages in human records, and one the most necessary to be studied.) There- fore, so far as good men are concerned, it is better the State should have power over the Clergy, than the Clergy over the State. * Exod. xxi. 15. 3 34 NOTES ON THE This we might, it seems to me, conclude by uu assisted rea- son. But surely the whole question is, without any need of human reason, decided by the history of Israel. If ever a bod}' of Clergy should have received independent authority, the Levitical Priesthood should ; for they were indeed a Priesthood, and more holy than the rest of the nation. But Aaron is always subject to Moses. All solemn revelation is made to Moses, the civil magistrate, and he actually com- mands Aaron as to the fulfilment of his priestly office, and that in a necessity of life and death : " Go and make an atone- ment for the people." Nor is anything more remarkable throughout the whole of the Jewish history than the perfect subjection of the Priestly to the Kingly Authority. Thus Solomon thrusts out Abiathar from being priest, 1 Kings ii. 27 ; and Jehoahaz administers the funds of the Lord's House, 2 Kings xii. 4, though that money was actually the Atone- ment Money, the Ransom for Souls (Exod. xxx. 12). ^Ve have, however, also the beautiful instance of Samuel uniting in himself the offices of Priest, Prophet, and Judge ; nor do I insist on any special manner of subjection of Clergy to civil officers, or vice versa ; but only on the necessity of their perfect unity and influence upon each other in every Christian Kingdom. Those who endeavor to effect the utter separation of ecclesiastical and civil officers, are striving, on the one hand, to expose the Clergy to the most grievous and most subtle of temptations from their own spiritual enthusiasm and spiritual pride ; on the other, to deprive the civil officer of all sense of religious responsibility, and to introduce the fearful, godless, conscienceless, and soulless policy of the Radical and the (so called) Socialist. Whereas, the ideal of all government is the perfect unity of the two bodies of officers, each supporting and correcting the other ; the Clergy having due weight in all the national councils ; the civil officers hav- ing a solemn reverence for God in all their acts ; the Clergy hallowing all worldly policy by their influence ; and the mag- istracy repressing all religious enthusiasm by their practical wisdom. To separate the two is to endeavor to separate the daily life of the nation from God, and to map out the domin- CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 35 ion of the soul into two provinces one of Atheism, the other of Enthusiasm. These, then, were the reasons which caused me to speak of the idea of separation of Church and State as Fatuity ; for what Fatuity can be so great as the not having God in our thoughts ; and, in any act or office of life, saying in our hearts, " There is no God." Much more I would fain say of these things, but not now : this only, I must emphatically assert, in conclusion : That the schism between the so called Evangelical and High Church parties in Britain, is enough to shake many men's faith in the truth or existence of Religion at all. It seems to me one of the most disgraceful scenes in Ecclesiastical histoiy, that -Prot- estantism should be paralyzed at its very heart by jealousies, based on little else than mere difference between high and low breeding. For the essential differences, in the religious opinions of the two parties, are sufficiently marked in two men whom we may take as the highest representatives of each George Herbert and John Milton ; and I do not think there would have been much difficulty in attuning those two, if one could have got them together. But the real difficulty, nowa- days, lies in the sin and folly of both parties : in the supercili- ousness of the one, and the rudeness of the other. Evidently, however, the sin lies most at the High Church door, for the Evangelicals are much more ready to act with Churchmen than they with the Evangelicals ; and I believe that this state of things cannot continue much longer ; and that if the Church of England does not forthwith unite with herself the entire Evangelical body, both of England and Scotland, and take her stand with them against the Papacy, her hour has struck. She cannot any longer serve two masters ; nor make curtsies alternately to Christ and anti-Christ. That she has done this is visible enough by the state of Europe at this instant. Three centuries since Luther three hundred years of Prot- estant knowledge and the Papacy not yet overthrown ! Christ's truth still restrained, in narrow dawn, to the white cliffs of England and white crests of the Alps ; the morning star paused in its course in heaven ; the sun and moon stayed, with Satan for their Joshua. 36 NOThS ON THE But how to unite the two great sects of paralyzed Protes- tants ? By keeping simply to Scripture. The members of the Scottish Church have not a shadow of excuse for refusing Episcopacy ; it has indeed been abused among them ; griev- ously abused ; but it is in the Bible ; and that is all they have a right to ask. They have also no shadow of excuse for refusing to employ a written form of prayer. It may not be to their taste it may not be the way in which they like to pray ; but it is no question, at present, of likes or dislikes, but of duties ; and the acceptance of such a form on their part would go half way to reconcile them with their brethren. Let them allege such objections as they can reasonably advance against the English form, and let these be carefully and humbly weighed by the pastors of both churches : some of them ought to be at once forestalled. For the English Church, on the other hand, must cut the term Priest entirely out of her Prayer- book, and substitute for it that of Minister or Elder ; the passages respecting absolution must be thrown out also, ex- cept the doubtful one in the Morning Service, in which there is no harm ; and then there would be only the Baptismal question left, which is one of words rather than of things, and might easily be settled in Synod, turning the refractory Clergy out of their offices, to go to Rome if they chose. Then, when the Articles of Faith and form of worship had been agreed upon between the English and Scottish Churches, the written forms and articles should be carefully translated into the European languages, and offered to the acceptance of the Protestant churches on the Continent, with earnest entreaty that they would receive them, and due entertainment of all such objections as they could reasonably allege ; and thus the whole body of Protestants, united in one great Fold, would indeed go in and out, and find pasture ; and the work appointed for them would be done quickly, and Antichrist overthrown. Impossible : a thousand times impossible ! I hear it ex- claimed against me. No not impossible. Christ does not order impossibilities, and He has ordered us to be at peace, CONSTRUCTION OF SIIEEPFOLDS. 37 one with another. Nay, it is answered He came not to send peace, but a sword. 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