Chapter 11

[76]Shenstone: Elegy xxvi. The subject of the poem is that of the picture described here. The girl speaks—“If through the garden’s flowery tribes I stray,Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure,Hope not,” etc.The prize of the Liverpool Academy was awarded in 1858 to Millais’s “Blind Girl.” Popular feeling, however, favored another picture, the “Waiting for the Verdict” of A. Solomon, and a good deal of discussion arose as to whether the prize had been rightly awarded. As one of the judges, and as a member of the Academy, Mr. Alfred Hunt addressed a letter on the matter to Mr. Ruskin, the main portion of whose reply was sent by him to theLiverpool Albionand is now reprinted here. Mr. Solomon’s picture had been exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1857 (No. 562), and is mentioned in Mr. Ruskin’s Notes to the pictures of that year (p. 32).[77]The defence was made in a second notice (March 6, 1858) of the Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy, then open to the public. The picture of Mr. Waller Paton (now R.S.A.) alluded to here was entitled “Wild Water, Inveruglass” (161); he also exhibited one of “Arrochar Road, Tarbet” (314). The platitudes of theScotsmanagainst the pre-Raphaelites were contained in its second notice of the Exhibition (February 20, 1858).[78]There must be some error here, as it is thetruedreams that come through the horn gate, while the fruitless ones pass through the gate ofivory. The allusion is to Homer (Odyssey, xix. 562).[79]In illustration of the old Scottish ballad of “Burd Helen,” who, fearing her lover’s desertion, followed him, dressed as a foot-page, through flood, if not through fire—“Lord John he rode, Burd Helen ran,The live-lang sumer’s day,Until they cam’ to Clyde’s Water,Was filled frae bank to brae.“ ‘See’st thou yon water, Helen,’ quoth he,‘That flows frae bank to brim?’‘I trust to God, Lord John,’ she said,‘You ne’er will see me swim.’ ”This picture (No. 141 in the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1858) was first exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1856. In the postscript to his Academy Notes of that year, Mr. Ruskin, after commenting on the “crying error of putting it nearly out of sight,” so that he had at first hardly noticed it, estimates this picture as second only to the “Autumn Leaves” of Mr. Millais in that exhibition. The following is a portion of his comment on it: “I see just enough of the figures to make me sure that the work is thoughtful and intense in the highest degree. The pressure of the girl’s hand on her side; her wild, firm, desolate look at the stream—she not raising her eyes as she makes her appeal, for fear of the greater mercilessness in the human look than in the glaze of the gliding water—the just choice of the type of the rider’s cruel face, and of the scene itself—so terrible in haggardness of rattling stones and ragged heath,—are all marks of the action of the very grandest imaginative power, shortened only of hold upon our feelings, because dealing with a subject too fearful to be for a moment believed true.”The picture was originally purchased by Mr. John Miller, of Liverpool; at the sale of whose collection by Christie and Manson, two years later, in 1858, it fetched the price of two hundred guineas. At the same sale the “Blind Girl,” alluded to in the previous letter, was sold for three hundred.For the poem illustrated by the picture, see Aytoun’s “Ballads of Scotland,” i. 219, where a slightly different version of it is given: it may also be found in “Percy’s Reliques” (vol. iii. p. 59), under the title of “Child Waters.” Other versions of this ballad, and other ballads of the same name, and probably origin, may be found in Jameson’s collection, vol. i. p. 117, vol. ii. p. 376, in Buchan’s “Ancient Ballads of the North,” ii. 29 (1879 ed.) and in “Four Books of Scottish Ballads,” Edin., 1868, Bk. ii. p. 21, where it is well noted that “Burd Helen” corresponds to the “Proud Elise” of northern minstrels, “La Prude Dame Elise” of the French, and the “Gentle Lady Elise” of the English—(Burd, Prud, Preux). It is also possible that it is a corruption of Burdalayn, or Burdalane, meaning an only child, a maiden, etc.[80]TheWitnesshad objected to the “astonishing fondness” of the pre-Raphaelite school for “conceits,” instancing as typically far-fetched that in the picture of “Burd Helen,” where Lord John was represented “pulling to pieces a heart’s-ease,” as he crosses the stream.[81]The first exhibition of Turner’s pictures after his death was opened at Marlborough House early in November, 1856, seven months subsequent to the final decision as to the proper distribution of the property, which was the subject of Turner’s will.[82]See Rogers’ “Italy,” p. 29.[83]William Hookham Carpenter, for many years Keeper of the prints and drawings at the British Museum. He died in 1866.[84]Mr. Ruskin’s offer was accepted, and he eventually arranged the drawings, and, in particular, the four hundred now exhibited in one of the lower rooms of the National Gallery, and contained in the kind of cases above proposed, presented by Mr. Ruskin to the Gallery. Mr. Ruskin also printed, as promised, a descriptive and explanatory catalogue of a hundred of these four hundred drawings. (Catalogue of the Turner Sketches in the National Gallery. For private circulation. Part 1.1857.—Only one hundred copies printed, and no further parts issued.)Writing (1858) to Mr. Norton of his whole work in arranging the Turner drawings, Mr. Ruskin said: “To show you a little what my work has been, I have facsimiled for you, as nearly as I could, one of the nineteen thousand sketches (comprised in the Turner bequest). It, like most of them, is not a sketch, but a group of sketches, made on both sides of the leaf of the note-book. The note-books vary in contents from sixty to ninety leaves: there are about two hundred books of the kind—three hundred and odd note-books in all; and each leaf has on an average this quantity of work, a great many leaves being slighter, some blank, but a great many also elaborate in the highest degree, some containing ten exquisite compositions on each side of the leaf, thus (see facsimile), each no bigger than this—and with about that quantity of work in each, but every touch of it inestimable, done with his whole soul in it. Generally the slighter sketches are written over it everywhere, as in the example inclosed, every incident being noted that was going on at the moment of the sketch.”—“List of Turner’s Drawings shown in connection with Mr. Norton’s Lectures.” Boston: 1874. p. 11. The facsimile alluded to by Mr. Norton is reproduced here.[85]July 3, 1857, upon the vote of £23,165 for the National Gallery.[86]The late Mr. Ralph Nicholson Wornum, who succeeded Mr. Uwins as Keeper of the National Gallery in 1855, and retained that office till his death in 1878.[87]“The family of Darius at the feet of Alexander after the Battle of Issus,” purchased at Venice from the Pisani collection in 1857. Lord Elcho had complained in the course of the debate that the price, £13,650, paid for this picture, had been excessive; and in reply allusion was made to the still higher price (£23,000) paid for the “Immaculate Conception” of Murillo, purchased for the Louvre by Napoleon III., in 1852, from the collection of Marshal Soult.—Of the great Veronese, Mr. Ruskin also wrote thus: “It at once, to my mind, raises our National Gallery from a second-rate to a first-rate collection. I have always loved the master, and given much time to the study of his works, but this is the best I have ever seen.” (Turner Notes, 1857, ed. v., p. 89, note.) So again before the National Gallery Commission, earlier in the same year, he had said, “I am rejoiced to hear (of its rumored purchase). If it is confirmed, nothing will have given me such pleasure for a long time. I think it is the most precious Paul Veronese in the world, as far as the completeness of the picture goes, and quite a priceless picture.”[88]The present letter was written in reply to a criticism, contained in theLiterary Gazetteof November 6, 1858, on Mr. Ruskin’s “Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings exhibited at Marlborough House 1857-8.” The subjects of complaint made by theGazettesufficiently appear from this letter. They were, briefly, first, the mode of exhibition of the Turner Drawings proposed by Mr. Ruskin in his official report already alluded to, pp. 78 and 80, note; and, secondly, two alleged hyperboles and one omission in the Catalogue itself.[89]The cloud-forms which have disappeared from the drawings may be seen in the engravings.[90]“Notes on theoilpictures,” to be distinguished from the later catalogue of the Turner sketches and drawings with which this letter directly deals. See ante, p. 88, note.[91]By the way, you really ought to have given me some credit for the swivel frames in the desks of Marlborough House, which enable the public, however rough-handed, to see the drawings on both sides of the same leaf.[94][92]The rest of this letter may, with the exception of its two last paragraphs, and the slight alterations noted, be also found in “The Two Paths,” Appendix iv., “Subtlety of Hand” (pp. 226-9 of the new, and pp. 263-6 of the original edition), where the words bracketed [sic] in this reprint of it are, it will be seen, omitted.[93]From a vignette design by Stothard of a single figure, to illustrate the poem “On a Tear.” (Rogers’ Poems, London, 1834 ed.)[94]The identical frames, each containing examples of the sketches in pencil outline to which the letter alludes, may be seen in the windows of the lower rooms of the National Gallery, now devoted to the exhibition of the Turner drawings.[95]Doubly emphasized in “The Two Paths,” where the words are printed thus: “I still look with awe at the combined delicacy and precision of his hand;IT BEATS OPTICAL WORK OUT OF SIGHT.”[96]“The Two paths” reprint has “put in italics.”[97]The following note is here added to the reprint in “The Two Paths:” “A sketch, observe—not a printed drawing. Sketches are only proper subjects of comparison with each other when they contain about the same quantity of work: the test of their merit is the quantity of truth told with a given number of touches. The assertion in the Catalogue which this letter was written to defend was made respecting the sketch of Rome, No. 101.”[98]No. 45 was a “Study of a Cutter.” Mr. Ruskin’s note to it in the Catalogue is partly as follows: “I have never seen any chalk sketch which for a moment could be compared with this for soul and power.... I should think that the power of it would be felt by most people; but if not, let those who do not feel its strength, try to copy it.” See the Catalogue under No. 45, as also under No. 71, referred to above.[99]In a letter to Mr. Norton written in the same year as this one to theLiterary Gazette, Mr. Ruskin thus speaks of the value of these plates: “Even those who know most of art may at first look be disappointed with the Liber Studiorum. For the nobleness of these designs is not more in what is done than in whatis notdone in them. Every touch in these plates is related to every other, and has no permission of withdrawn, monastic virtue, but is only good in its connection with the rest, and in that connection infinitely and inimitably good. The showing how each of these designs is connected by all manner of strange intellectual chords and nerves with the pathos and history of this old English country of ours, and with the history of European mind from earliest mythology down to modern rationalism and irrationalism—all this was what I meant to try and show in my closing work; but long before that closing I felt it to be impossible.”—Extract from a letter of Mr. Ruskin, 1858, quoted in the “List of Turner Drawings, etc.,” already mentioned, p. 5.[100]TheLiterary Gazetteof November 20, 1858, contains a reply to this letter, but as it did not provoke a further letter from Mr. Ruskin, it is not noticed in detail here.[101]There was at the date of this and the following letter an exhibition of Turner drawings at the South Kensington Museum. These pictures have, however, been since removed to the National Gallery, and the only works of Turner now at Kensington, are some half dozen oil paintings belonging to the Sheepshanks collection, and about the same number of water-color drawings, which form part of the historical series of British water-color paintings.[102]This refers to a letter signed “E. A. F.” which appeared inThe Timesof October 19, 1859, advising the adoption of Mr. Gilbert Scott’s Gothic design for the Foreign Office in preference to any Classic design. The writer entered at some length into the principles of Gothic and Classic architecture, which he briefly summed up in the last sentence of his letter: “Gothic, then, is national; it is constructively real; it is equally adapted to all sorts of buildings; it is convenient; it is cheap. In none of these does Italian surpass it; in most of them it is very inferior to it.” See the letters on the Oxford Museum as to the adaptability of Gothic—included in Section vi. of these Letters on Art. With regard to the cheapness of Gothic, the correspondent ofThe Timeshad pointed out that while it may be cheap and yet thoroughly good so far as it goes, Italianmustalways be costly.[103]Hardly a debate. Lord Francis Hervey had recently (June 30, 1876) put a question in the House of Commons to Lord Henry Lennox (First Commissioner of Works) as to whether it was the fact that many of Turner’s drawings were at that time stowed in the cellars of the National Gallery, and had never been exhibited.The Daily Telegraphin a short article on the matter (July 1, 1876) appealed to Mr. Ruskin for his opinion on the exhibition of these drawings.[104]Now I trust, under Mr. Poynter and Mr. Sparkes, undergoing thorough reform.{*}{*} Mr. Poynter, R.A., was then, as now, Director, and Mr. Sparkes Head Master, of the Art School at the South Kensington Museum.[105]For notes of these drawings see the Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings already mentioned—(a) The Battle of Fort Bard, Val d’Aosta, p. 32; (b) the Edinburgh, p. 30; and (c) the Ivy Bridge, Devon, p. 32.[106]I have omitted to add to my note (p. 84) on Mr. Ruskin’s arrangement of the Turner drawings a reference to his own account of the labor which that arrangement involved, and of the condition in which he found the vast mass of the sketches. See “Modern Painters,” vol. v., Preface, p. vi.[107]The Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, being the year in which the lectures contained in the “Political Economy of Art” were delivered. (See “A Joy for Ever”—Ruskin’s Works, vol. xi. p. 80.)[108]“The Plains of Troy;”—see for a note of this drawing Mr. Ruskin’s Notes on his own “Turners,” 1878, p. 45, where he describes it as “one of the most elaborate of the Byron vignettes, and full of beauty,” adding that “the meaning of the sunset contending with the storm is the contest of the powers of Apollo and Athene;” and for the engraving of it, see Murray’s edition of Byron’s Life and Works (1832, seventeen volumes), where it forms the vignette title-page of vol. vii. For the Richmond and the Egglestone Abbey, also in the possession of Mr. Ruskin, see the above mentioned Notes, p. 29 (Nos. 26 and 27). The Langharne Castle was formerly in the possession of Mr. W. M. Bigg, at the sale of whose collection in 1868 it was sold for £451.[109]A misprint for “wares;” see next letter, p. 104.[110]Addressed to Mr. Ruskin by Mr. Collingwood Smith, and requesting Mr. Ruskin to state in a second letter that the remarks as to the effect of light on the water colors of Turner did not extend to water color drawings in general; but that the evanescence of the colors in Turner’s drawings was due partly to the peculiar vehicles with which he painted, and partly to the gray paper (saturated with indigo) on which he frequently worked. Mr. Ruskin complied with this request by thus forwarding for publication Mr. Collingwood Smith’s letter.[111]The references toThe Timesallude to an article on the “Copies of Turner Drawings,” by Mr. William Ward, of 2 Church Terrace, Richmond, Surrey, which were then, as now, exhibited for sale in the rooms of the Fine Art Society.Of these copies of Turner, Mr. Ruskin says: “They are executed with extreme care under my own eye by the draughtsman trained by me for the purpose, Mr. Ward. Everything that can be learned from the smaller works of Turner may be as securely learned from these drawings. I have been more than once in doubt, seeing original and copy together, which was which; and I think them about the best works that can now be obtained for a moderate price, representing the authoritative forms of art in landscape.”—Extract from letter of Mr. Ruskin, written in 1867. List of Turner Drawings, etc., shown in connection with Mr. Norton’s lectures. Boston, 1874, p. 9. (See also “Ariadne Florentina,” p. 221, note.)The following comment of Mr. Ruskin on one of Mr. Ward’s most recent copies is also interesting as evidence that the opinions expressed in this letter are still retained by its writer: “London, 20th March, 1880.—The copy of Turner’s drawing of ‘Fluelen,’ which has been just completed by Mr. Ward, and shown to me to-day, is beyond my best hopes in every desirable quality of execution; and is certainly as good as it is possible for care and skill to make it. I am so entirely satisfied with it that, for my own personalpleasure—irrespective of pride, I should feel scarcely any loss in taking it home with me instead of the original; and for all uses of artistic example or instruction, it is absolutely as good as the original.—John Ruskin.”—The copy in question is from a drawing in the possession of Mr. Ruskin (see the Turner Notes, 1878, No. 70), and was executed for its present proprietor, Mr. T. S. Kennedy, of Meanwoods, Leeds.[112]“Italy,” a reputed Turner, lent by the late Mr. Wynn Ellis. No. 235 was “A Landscape,” with Cattle, in the possession of Lord Leconfield.[113]See also “Modern Painters,” vol. v. pp. 345-347, and “Lectures on Architecture and Painting,” pp. 181-188, where the character of Turner is further explained, and various anecdotes given in special illustration of his truth, generosity, and kindness of heart.[114]The book was also referred to in “Modern Painters,” vol. v. p. 344, where Mr. Ruskin speaks of this “Life of Turner,” then still unpublished, as being written “by a biographer, who will, I believe, spare no pains in collecting the few scattered records which exist of a career so uneventful and secluded.”[115]Nearly eight years after Leech’s death on October 29, 1864.[116]The number of theArchitectin which this letter was printed contained two sketches from Mr. George’s “Etchings on the Mosel”—those, viz., of the Elector’s Palace, Coblentz, and of the interior of Metz Cathedral. The intention of theArchitectto reproduce these etchings had apparently been previously communicated to Mr. Ruskin, who wrote the present letter for the issue in which the etchings were to be given. Mr. George has since published other works of the same kind—e.g., “Etchings in Belgium,” “Etchings on the Loire” (see Mr. Ruskin’s advice to him at the end of this letter, p. 116).[117]The reference must, I think, be to “Ariadne Florentina: Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving given before the University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term, 1872,” and afterwards published, 1873-6. The lectures given in the year 1873 were upon Tuscan Art, now published in “Val d’Arno.”[118]The value of Rembrandt’s etchings is always in the inverse ratio of the labor bestowed on them after his first thoughts have been decisively expressed; and even the best of his chiaroscuros (the spotted shell, for instance) are mere child’s play compared to the disciplined light and shade of Italian masters.[119]This letter was written to Mr. H. Stacy Marks, A.R.A., in answer to a request that Mr. Ruskin would in some way record his impression of the Frederick Walker Exhibition, then open to the public. Frederick Walker died in June, 1875, at the early age of thirty-five, only four years after having been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.[120]The “Hornby Castle” was executed, together with the rest of the “great Yorkshire series,” for Whitaker’s “History of Richmondshire” (Longman, 1823).—The picture of John Lewis here alluded to is described in Mr. Ruskin’s “Academy Notes,” 1856, No. II., p. 37.1. “The Almshouse”—No. 52—called “The House of Refuge.” Oil on canvas. A garden and terrace in quadrangle of almshouses; on left an old woman and girl; on right a mower cutting grass. Exhibited R. A. 1872.2. “The Old Gate”—No. 48—oil on canvas. Lady in black and servant with basket coming through the gate of old mansion; four children at play at foot of steps; two villagers and dog in foreground. Exhibited R. A. 1869.3. “The Cottage Gardens”—No. 71, “The Spring of Life.” Water-color. Lady in a garden with two children and a lamb; a cherry-tree in blossom. Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Winter 1866-7. See also Nos. 14 and 21.4. “Ladies and Lilies”—No. 37, “A Lady in a Garden, Perthshire.” Water-color. A lady seated on a knoll on which is a sun-dial; greyhound on left; background, old manor-house. No. 67, “Lilies.” Water-color. Lady in a garden watering flowers, chiefly lilies. Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Winter 1869-70 and 1868-9 respectively.5. “The Chaplain’s Daughter”—No. 20, subject from Miss Thackeray’s “Jack the Giant-killer.” Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Summer 1868.6. “Daughter of Heth,” by W. Black. No. 87. “Do ye no ken this is the Sabbath?” Young lady at piano; servant enters hurriedly. (Study in black and white, executed in 1872.)—[See vol. i. p. 41. “ ‘Preserve us a’, lassie, do ye ken what ye’re doing? Do ye no ken that this is the Sabbath, and that you’re in a respectable house?’ The girl turned round with more wonder than alarm in her face: ‘Is it not right to play music on Sunday?’ ”—(No. 131. Three more studies for the same novel.)7. “The Old Farm Garden”—No. 33—Water-color. A girl, with cat on lawn, knitting: garden path bordered by tulips; farm buildings in background. Painted in 1871.8. “Salmon-fishers”—No. 47—“Fisherman and Boy”—Water-color. Keeper and boy on bank of river. Glen Spean. Salmon in foreground. Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Summer 1867.9. Mushrooms and Fungi—No. 41—Water-color. Painted in 1873.10. “Fishmonger’s Stalls”—Nos. 9 and 62 (not 952)—viz., No. 9, “A Fishmonger’s Shop.” Water-color. Painted in 1873; and No. 62, also “A Fishmonger’s Shop.” Water-color. Fishmongers selling fish; lady and boy in costumes of about 1800. Exhibited at Water-Color Society, Winter 1872-3. (The “Tobias” of Perugino has been already alluded to, p. 44, note.)11. No. 68. “The Ferry.” Water-color. Sight size, 11 ¾ X 18 in. A ferry boat, in which are two figures, a boatman and a lady, approaching a landing-place; on the bank figures of villagers, and children feeding swans. Exhibited at Water-Color Society, Winter 1870-71.][122]In 1858 the Oxford Museum was in course of building, its architects being Sir Thomas Deane and Mr. Woodward, and its style modern Gothic, whilst amongst those chiefly interested in it were Dr. Acland (the Regius Professor of Medicine) and Mr. Ruskin. The present letter, written in June, 1858, was read by Dr. Acland at a lecture given by him in that summer “to the members of the Architectural Societies that met in Oxford” at that time. I am permitted to reprint the following passage from Dr. Acland’s preface to the printed lecture, as well as one or two passages from the lecture itself (see below, pp. 130 and 132): “Many have yet to learn the apparently simple truth, that to an Artist his Art is his means of probation in this life; and that, whatever it may have of frivolity to us, to him it is as the two or the five talents, to be accounted for hereafter. I might say much on this point, for the full scope of the word Art seems by some to be even now unrecognized. Before the period of printing, Art was the largest mode of permanently recording human thought; it was spoken in every epoch, in all countries, and delivered in almost every material. In buildings, on medals and coins, in porcelain and earthenware, on wood, ivory, parchment, paper and canvas, the graver or the pencil has recorded the ideas of every form of society, of every variety of race and of every character. What wonder that the Artist is jealous of his craft, and proud of his brotherhood?”—See “The Oxford Museum,” p. 4. The reader is also referred to “Sesame and Lilies,” 1871 ed. §§ 103-4.[123]See next letter, pp. 131seqq.[124]After reading this letter to his audience Dr. Acland thus continued: “The principles thus clearly enumerated by Mr. Ruskin are, on the main, those that animate the earnest student of Gothic. It is not for me especially to advocate Gothic Art, but only to urge, that if called into life, it should be in conformity to its own proper laws of vitality. If week after week, in my youth, with fresh senses and a docile spirit, I have drank in each golden glow that is poured by a Mediterranean sun from over the blue Ægæan upon the Athenian Parthenon,—if, day by day, sitting on Mars’ Hill, I have watched each purple shadow, as the temple darkened in majesty against the evening sky,—if so, it has been to teach me, as the alphabet of all Art, to love all truth and to hate all falsehood, and to kiss the hand of every Master who has brought down, under whatever circumstance, and in whatever age, one spark of true light from the Beauty and the subtle Law, which stamps the meanest work of the Ever living, Ever-working Artist.”—“The Oxford Museum,” pp. 56-7.[125]See “The Oxford Museum,” pp. 17-23. The following is a portion of the passage alluded to: “Without the Geologist on one side, and the Anatomist and Physiologist on the other, Zoology is not worthy of its name. The student of life, bearing in mind the more general laws which in the several departments above named he will have sought to appreciate, will find in the collections of Zoology, combined with the Geological specimens and the dissections of the Anatomist, a boundless field of interest and of inquiry, to which almost every other science lends its aid: from each science he borrows a special light to guide him through the ranges of extinct and existing animal forms, from the lowest up to the highest types, which, last and most perfect, but preshadowed in previous ages, is seen in Man. By the aid of physiological illustrations he begins to understand how hard to unravel are the complex mechanisms and prescient intentions of the Maker of all; and he slowly learns to appreciate what exquisite care is needed for discovering the real action of even an apparently comprehended machine. And so at last, almost bewildered, but not cast down, he attempts to scrutinize in the rooms devoted to Medicine, the various injuries which man is doomed to undergo in his progress towards death; he begins to revere the beneficent contrivances which shine forth in the midst of suffering and disease, and to veil his face before the mysterious alterations of structure, to which there seem attached pain, with scarce relief, and a steady advance, without a check, to death. He will look, and as he looks, will cherish hope, not unmixed with prayer, that the great Art of Healing may by all these things advance, and that by the progress of profounder science, by the spread among the people of the resultant practical knowledge, by stricter obedience to physiological laws, by a consequent more self-denying spirit, some disorders may at a future day be cured, which cannot be prevented, and some, perhaps, prevented, which never can be cured.”[126]Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, the naturalist and author of many works, of which those on infusoria may be especially noted here. He was born in 1795, and in 1842 was elected Principal Secretary to the Berlin Academy of Science, which post he held till his death in 1876. The late Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, Bart., will also be remembered in connection with the study of natural science, as well as for his efforts in philanthropy. He died in March, 1879. I have been unable to find any further information as to the prize mentioned by Mr. Ruskin, or as to the essay which obtained it.[127]Mr. Brodie, who succeeded his father as Sir Benjamin Brodie in 1867, was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Oxford in 1855.[128]Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s book “On Color and the Diffusion of Taste” was published in 1858.[129]See note to p. 142.[130]“The monks of Melrose made good kailOn Friday, when they fasted.”The kail leaf is the one principally employed in the decorations of the abbey. (Original note to “The Oxford Museum,” p. 83.)[131]This engraving, which formed the frontispiece of “The Oxford Museum,” will be found facing the title page of the present volume, the original plate having proved in excellent condition. O’Shea was, together with others of his name and family, amongst the principal workmen on the building. The capital represents the following ferns: the common hart’s-tongue (scolopendrium vulgare), the northern hard-fern (blechnum boreale), and the male fern (filix mas).[132]A new armory was to be added to the Castle.[133]TheLiterary Gazetteof September 26, 1857, after quoting a great part of the previous letter, stated that the new armory was not to be built without all due regard to the preservation of the rock, and that there was therefore no real cause for alarm.[134]“Poems of the Fancy,” xiv. (1803). The quotation omits two lines after the fourth:“Who loved the little rock, and setUpon its head this coronet?”The second stanza then begins: “Was it the humor of a child?” etc.[135]The article on taverns occurred in theDaily Telegraphof the 8th December, and commented on a recent meeting of the Licensed Victuallers’ Protection Society. There was also a short article upon drunkenness as a cause of crime in theDaily Telegraphof December 9—referred to by Mr. Ruskin in a letter which will be found in the second volume of this book. The article on castles concluded with an appeal for public subscriptions towards the restoration of Warwick Castle, then recently destroyed by fire.[136]The passage alluded to is partly as follows. “It happened also, which was the real cause of my bias in after-life, that my father had a real love of pictures.... Accordingly, wherever there was a gallery to be seen, we stopped at the nearest town for the night; and in reverentest manner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen’s houses in England; not indeed myself at that age caring for the pictures, but much for castles and ruins, feeling more and more, as I grew older, the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, and perceiving, as soon as I could perceive any political truth at all, that it was probably much happier to live in a small house and have Warwick Castle to be astonished at, than to live in Warwick Castle, and have nothing to be astonished at; and that, at all events, it would not make Brunswick Square in the least more pleasantly habitable to pull Warwick Castle down. And, at this day, though I have kind invitations enough to visit America, I could not, even for a couple of months, live in a country so miserable as to possess no castles.”[137]In a second article upon the same subject theDaily Telegraphhad expressed surprise at Mr. Ruskin’s former letter. “Who does not remember,” it wrote, “his proposal to buy Verona, so as to secure from decay the glorious monuments in it?”[138]This letter, it will be noticed, was written during the bombardment and a few days before the capitulation of Paris in 1871.[139]On Friday, March 8, 1872, entitled “Turner and Mulready—On the Effect of certain Faults of Vision on Painting, with especial reference to their Works.” The argument of the lecturer, and distinguished oculist, was that the change of style in the pictures of Turner was due to a change in hiseyeswhich developed itself during the last twenty years of his life. (See “Proceedings of the Royal Institution,” 1872, vol. vi., p. 450.)[140]“A History of the Gothic Revival.” By Charles L. Eastlake, F.R.I.B.A. London, Longman and Co., 1872.—In this work Mr. Eastlake had estimated very highly Mr. Ruskin’s influence, on modern architecture, whilst his reviewer was “disposed to say that Mr. Ruskin’s direct and immediate influences had almost always been in the wrong; and his more indirect influences as often in the right.” It is upon these words that Mr. Ruskin comments here, and to this comment the critic replied in a letter which appeared in thePall Mall Gazetteof the 20th inst. The main portion of his reply was as follows: “The direct influences, then, which I had principally in my mind were those which had resulted in a preference for Venetian over English Gothic, in the underrating of expressional character in architecture, and the overrating of sculptured ornament, especially of a naturalistic and imitative character, and more generally in an exclusiveness which limited the due influence of some, as I think, noble styles of architecture. By the indirect influences I meant the habit of looking at questions of architectural art in the light of imaginative ideas; the recognition of the vital importance of such questions even in their least important details; and generally an enthusiasm and activity which could have resulted from no less a force than Mr. Ruskin’s wondrously suggestive genius.” To this explanation Mr. Ruskin replied in his second letter on the subject.

[76]Shenstone: Elegy xxvi. The subject of the poem is that of the picture described here. The girl speaks—

“If through the garden’s flowery tribes I stray,Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure,Hope not,” etc.

The prize of the Liverpool Academy was awarded in 1858 to Millais’s “Blind Girl.” Popular feeling, however, favored another picture, the “Waiting for the Verdict” of A. Solomon, and a good deal of discussion arose as to whether the prize had been rightly awarded. As one of the judges, and as a member of the Academy, Mr. Alfred Hunt addressed a letter on the matter to Mr. Ruskin, the main portion of whose reply was sent by him to theLiverpool Albionand is now reprinted here. Mr. Solomon’s picture had been exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1857 (No. 562), and is mentioned in Mr. Ruskin’s Notes to the pictures of that year (p. 32).

[77]The defence was made in a second notice (March 6, 1858) of the Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy, then open to the public. The picture of Mr. Waller Paton (now R.S.A.) alluded to here was entitled “Wild Water, Inveruglass” (161); he also exhibited one of “Arrochar Road, Tarbet” (314). The platitudes of theScotsmanagainst the pre-Raphaelites were contained in its second notice of the Exhibition (February 20, 1858).

[78]There must be some error here, as it is thetruedreams that come through the horn gate, while the fruitless ones pass through the gate ofivory. The allusion is to Homer (Odyssey, xix. 562).

[79]In illustration of the old Scottish ballad of “Burd Helen,” who, fearing her lover’s desertion, followed him, dressed as a foot-page, through flood, if not through fire—“Lord John he rode, Burd Helen ran,The live-lang sumer’s day,Until they cam’ to Clyde’s Water,Was filled frae bank to brae.“ ‘See’st thou yon water, Helen,’ quoth he,‘That flows frae bank to brim?’‘I trust to God, Lord John,’ she said,‘You ne’er will see me swim.’ ”This picture (No. 141 in the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1858) was first exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1856. In the postscript to his Academy Notes of that year, Mr. Ruskin, after commenting on the “crying error of putting it nearly out of sight,” so that he had at first hardly noticed it, estimates this picture as second only to the “Autumn Leaves” of Mr. Millais in that exhibition. The following is a portion of his comment on it: “I see just enough of the figures to make me sure that the work is thoughtful and intense in the highest degree. The pressure of the girl’s hand on her side; her wild, firm, desolate look at the stream—she not raising her eyes as she makes her appeal, for fear of the greater mercilessness in the human look than in the glaze of the gliding water—the just choice of the type of the rider’s cruel face, and of the scene itself—so terrible in haggardness of rattling stones and ragged heath,—are all marks of the action of the very grandest imaginative power, shortened only of hold upon our feelings, because dealing with a subject too fearful to be for a moment believed true.”The picture was originally purchased by Mr. John Miller, of Liverpool; at the sale of whose collection by Christie and Manson, two years later, in 1858, it fetched the price of two hundred guineas. At the same sale the “Blind Girl,” alluded to in the previous letter, was sold for three hundred.For the poem illustrated by the picture, see Aytoun’s “Ballads of Scotland,” i. 219, where a slightly different version of it is given: it may also be found in “Percy’s Reliques” (vol. iii. p. 59), under the title of “Child Waters.” Other versions of this ballad, and other ballads of the same name, and probably origin, may be found in Jameson’s collection, vol. i. p. 117, vol. ii. p. 376, in Buchan’s “Ancient Ballads of the North,” ii. 29 (1879 ed.) and in “Four Books of Scottish Ballads,” Edin., 1868, Bk. ii. p. 21, where it is well noted that “Burd Helen” corresponds to the “Proud Elise” of northern minstrels, “La Prude Dame Elise” of the French, and the “Gentle Lady Elise” of the English—(Burd, Prud, Preux). It is also possible that it is a corruption of Burdalayn, or Burdalane, meaning an only child, a maiden, etc.

[79]In illustration of the old Scottish ballad of “Burd Helen,” who, fearing her lover’s desertion, followed him, dressed as a foot-page, through flood, if not through fire—

“Lord John he rode, Burd Helen ran,The live-lang sumer’s day,Until they cam’ to Clyde’s Water,Was filled frae bank to brae.“ ‘See’st thou yon water, Helen,’ quoth he,‘That flows frae bank to brim?’‘I trust to God, Lord John,’ she said,‘You ne’er will see me swim.’ ”

This picture (No. 141 in the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1858) was first exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1856. In the postscript to his Academy Notes of that year, Mr. Ruskin, after commenting on the “crying error of putting it nearly out of sight,” so that he had at first hardly noticed it, estimates this picture as second only to the “Autumn Leaves” of Mr. Millais in that exhibition. The following is a portion of his comment on it: “I see just enough of the figures to make me sure that the work is thoughtful and intense in the highest degree. The pressure of the girl’s hand on her side; her wild, firm, desolate look at the stream—she not raising her eyes as she makes her appeal, for fear of the greater mercilessness in the human look than in the glaze of the gliding water—the just choice of the type of the rider’s cruel face, and of the scene itself—so terrible in haggardness of rattling stones and ragged heath,—are all marks of the action of the very grandest imaginative power, shortened only of hold upon our feelings, because dealing with a subject too fearful to be for a moment believed true.”

The picture was originally purchased by Mr. John Miller, of Liverpool; at the sale of whose collection by Christie and Manson, two years later, in 1858, it fetched the price of two hundred guineas. At the same sale the “Blind Girl,” alluded to in the previous letter, was sold for three hundred.

For the poem illustrated by the picture, see Aytoun’s “Ballads of Scotland,” i. 219, where a slightly different version of it is given: it may also be found in “Percy’s Reliques” (vol. iii. p. 59), under the title of “Child Waters.” Other versions of this ballad, and other ballads of the same name, and probably origin, may be found in Jameson’s collection, vol. i. p. 117, vol. ii. p. 376, in Buchan’s “Ancient Ballads of the North,” ii. 29 (1879 ed.) and in “Four Books of Scottish Ballads,” Edin., 1868, Bk. ii. p. 21, where it is well noted that “Burd Helen” corresponds to the “Proud Elise” of northern minstrels, “La Prude Dame Elise” of the French, and the “Gentle Lady Elise” of the English—(Burd, Prud, Preux). It is also possible that it is a corruption of Burdalayn, or Burdalane, meaning an only child, a maiden, etc.

[80]TheWitnesshad objected to the “astonishing fondness” of the pre-Raphaelite school for “conceits,” instancing as typically far-fetched that in the picture of “Burd Helen,” where Lord John was represented “pulling to pieces a heart’s-ease,” as he crosses the stream.

[81]The first exhibition of Turner’s pictures after his death was opened at Marlborough House early in November, 1856, seven months subsequent to the final decision as to the proper distribution of the property, which was the subject of Turner’s will.

[82]See Rogers’ “Italy,” p. 29.

[83]William Hookham Carpenter, for many years Keeper of the prints and drawings at the British Museum. He died in 1866.

[84]Mr. Ruskin’s offer was accepted, and he eventually arranged the drawings, and, in particular, the four hundred now exhibited in one of the lower rooms of the National Gallery, and contained in the kind of cases above proposed, presented by Mr. Ruskin to the Gallery. Mr. Ruskin also printed, as promised, a descriptive and explanatory catalogue of a hundred of these four hundred drawings. (Catalogue of the Turner Sketches in the National Gallery. For private circulation. Part 1.1857.—Only one hundred copies printed, and no further parts issued.)Writing (1858) to Mr. Norton of his whole work in arranging the Turner drawings, Mr. Ruskin said: “To show you a little what my work has been, I have facsimiled for you, as nearly as I could, one of the nineteen thousand sketches (comprised in the Turner bequest). It, like most of them, is not a sketch, but a group of sketches, made on both sides of the leaf of the note-book. The note-books vary in contents from sixty to ninety leaves: there are about two hundred books of the kind—three hundred and odd note-books in all; and each leaf has on an average this quantity of work, a great many leaves being slighter, some blank, but a great many also elaborate in the highest degree, some containing ten exquisite compositions on each side of the leaf, thus (see facsimile), each no bigger than this—and with about that quantity of work in each, but every touch of it inestimable, done with his whole soul in it. Generally the slighter sketches are written over it everywhere, as in the example inclosed, every incident being noted that was going on at the moment of the sketch.”—“List of Turner’s Drawings shown in connection with Mr. Norton’s Lectures.” Boston: 1874. p. 11. The facsimile alluded to by Mr. Norton is reproduced here.

Writing (1858) to Mr. Norton of his whole work in arranging the Turner drawings, Mr. Ruskin said: “To show you a little what my work has been, I have facsimiled for you, as nearly as I could, one of the nineteen thousand sketches (comprised in the Turner bequest). It, like most of them, is not a sketch, but a group of sketches, made on both sides of the leaf of the note-book. The note-books vary in contents from sixty to ninety leaves: there are about two hundred books of the kind—three hundred and odd note-books in all; and each leaf has on an average this quantity of work, a great many leaves being slighter, some blank, but a great many also elaborate in the highest degree, some containing ten exquisite compositions on each side of the leaf, thus (see facsimile), each no bigger than this—and with about that quantity of work in each, but every touch of it inestimable, done with his whole soul in it. Generally the slighter sketches are written over it everywhere, as in the example inclosed, every incident being noted that was going on at the moment of the sketch.”—“List of Turner’s Drawings shown in connection with Mr. Norton’s Lectures.” Boston: 1874. p. 11. The facsimile alluded to by Mr. Norton is reproduced here.

[85]July 3, 1857, upon the vote of £23,165 for the National Gallery.

[86]The late Mr. Ralph Nicholson Wornum, who succeeded Mr. Uwins as Keeper of the National Gallery in 1855, and retained that office till his death in 1878.

[87]“The family of Darius at the feet of Alexander after the Battle of Issus,” purchased at Venice from the Pisani collection in 1857. Lord Elcho had complained in the course of the debate that the price, £13,650, paid for this picture, had been excessive; and in reply allusion was made to the still higher price (£23,000) paid for the “Immaculate Conception” of Murillo, purchased for the Louvre by Napoleon III., in 1852, from the collection of Marshal Soult.—Of the great Veronese, Mr. Ruskin also wrote thus: “It at once, to my mind, raises our National Gallery from a second-rate to a first-rate collection. I have always loved the master, and given much time to the study of his works, but this is the best I have ever seen.” (Turner Notes, 1857, ed. v., p. 89, note.) So again before the National Gallery Commission, earlier in the same year, he had said, “I am rejoiced to hear (of its rumored purchase). If it is confirmed, nothing will have given me such pleasure for a long time. I think it is the most precious Paul Veronese in the world, as far as the completeness of the picture goes, and quite a priceless picture.”

[88]The present letter was written in reply to a criticism, contained in theLiterary Gazetteof November 6, 1858, on Mr. Ruskin’s “Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings exhibited at Marlborough House 1857-8.” The subjects of complaint made by theGazettesufficiently appear from this letter. They were, briefly, first, the mode of exhibition of the Turner Drawings proposed by Mr. Ruskin in his official report already alluded to, pp. 78 and 80, note; and, secondly, two alleged hyperboles and one omission in the Catalogue itself.

[89]The cloud-forms which have disappeared from the drawings may be seen in the engravings.

[90]“Notes on theoilpictures,” to be distinguished from the later catalogue of the Turner sketches and drawings with which this letter directly deals. See ante, p. 88, note.

[91]By the way, you really ought to have given me some credit for the swivel frames in the desks of Marlborough House, which enable the public, however rough-handed, to see the drawings on both sides of the same leaf.[94]

[92]The rest of this letter may, with the exception of its two last paragraphs, and the slight alterations noted, be also found in “The Two Paths,” Appendix iv., “Subtlety of Hand” (pp. 226-9 of the new, and pp. 263-6 of the original edition), where the words bracketed [sic] in this reprint of it are, it will be seen, omitted.

[93]From a vignette design by Stothard of a single figure, to illustrate the poem “On a Tear.” (Rogers’ Poems, London, 1834 ed.)

[94]The identical frames, each containing examples of the sketches in pencil outline to which the letter alludes, may be seen in the windows of the lower rooms of the National Gallery, now devoted to the exhibition of the Turner drawings.

[95]Doubly emphasized in “The Two Paths,” where the words are printed thus: “I still look with awe at the combined delicacy and precision of his hand;IT BEATS OPTICAL WORK OUT OF SIGHT.”

[96]“The Two paths” reprint has “put in italics.”

[97]The following note is here added to the reprint in “The Two Paths:” “A sketch, observe—not a printed drawing. Sketches are only proper subjects of comparison with each other when they contain about the same quantity of work: the test of their merit is the quantity of truth told with a given number of touches. The assertion in the Catalogue which this letter was written to defend was made respecting the sketch of Rome, No. 101.”

[98]No. 45 was a “Study of a Cutter.” Mr. Ruskin’s note to it in the Catalogue is partly as follows: “I have never seen any chalk sketch which for a moment could be compared with this for soul and power.... I should think that the power of it would be felt by most people; but if not, let those who do not feel its strength, try to copy it.” See the Catalogue under No. 45, as also under No. 71, referred to above.

[99]In a letter to Mr. Norton written in the same year as this one to theLiterary Gazette, Mr. Ruskin thus speaks of the value of these plates: “Even those who know most of art may at first look be disappointed with the Liber Studiorum. For the nobleness of these designs is not more in what is done than in whatis notdone in them. Every touch in these plates is related to every other, and has no permission of withdrawn, monastic virtue, but is only good in its connection with the rest, and in that connection infinitely and inimitably good. The showing how each of these designs is connected by all manner of strange intellectual chords and nerves with the pathos and history of this old English country of ours, and with the history of European mind from earliest mythology down to modern rationalism and irrationalism—all this was what I meant to try and show in my closing work; but long before that closing I felt it to be impossible.”—Extract from a letter of Mr. Ruskin, 1858, quoted in the “List of Turner Drawings, etc.,” already mentioned, p. 5.

[100]TheLiterary Gazetteof November 20, 1858, contains a reply to this letter, but as it did not provoke a further letter from Mr. Ruskin, it is not noticed in detail here.

[101]There was at the date of this and the following letter an exhibition of Turner drawings at the South Kensington Museum. These pictures have, however, been since removed to the National Gallery, and the only works of Turner now at Kensington, are some half dozen oil paintings belonging to the Sheepshanks collection, and about the same number of water-color drawings, which form part of the historical series of British water-color paintings.

[102]This refers to a letter signed “E. A. F.” which appeared inThe Timesof October 19, 1859, advising the adoption of Mr. Gilbert Scott’s Gothic design for the Foreign Office in preference to any Classic design. The writer entered at some length into the principles of Gothic and Classic architecture, which he briefly summed up in the last sentence of his letter: “Gothic, then, is national; it is constructively real; it is equally adapted to all sorts of buildings; it is convenient; it is cheap. In none of these does Italian surpass it; in most of them it is very inferior to it.” See the letters on the Oxford Museum as to the adaptability of Gothic—included in Section vi. of these Letters on Art. With regard to the cheapness of Gothic, the correspondent ofThe Timeshad pointed out that while it may be cheap and yet thoroughly good so far as it goes, Italianmustalways be costly.

[103]Hardly a debate. Lord Francis Hervey had recently (June 30, 1876) put a question in the House of Commons to Lord Henry Lennox (First Commissioner of Works) as to whether it was the fact that many of Turner’s drawings were at that time stowed in the cellars of the National Gallery, and had never been exhibited.The Daily Telegraphin a short article on the matter (July 1, 1876) appealed to Mr. Ruskin for his opinion on the exhibition of these drawings.

[104]Now I trust, under Mr. Poynter and Mr. Sparkes, undergoing thorough reform.{*}{*} Mr. Poynter, R.A., was then, as now, Director, and Mr. Sparkes Head Master, of the Art School at the South Kensington Museum.

[104]Now I trust, under Mr. Poynter and Mr. Sparkes, undergoing thorough reform.{*}

{*} Mr. Poynter, R.A., was then, as now, Director, and Mr. Sparkes Head Master, of the Art School at the South Kensington Museum.

[105]For notes of these drawings see the Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings already mentioned—(a) The Battle of Fort Bard, Val d’Aosta, p. 32; (b) the Edinburgh, p. 30; and (c) the Ivy Bridge, Devon, p. 32.

[106]I have omitted to add to my note (p. 84) on Mr. Ruskin’s arrangement of the Turner drawings a reference to his own account of the labor which that arrangement involved, and of the condition in which he found the vast mass of the sketches. See “Modern Painters,” vol. v., Preface, p. vi.

[107]The Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, being the year in which the lectures contained in the “Political Economy of Art” were delivered. (See “A Joy for Ever”—Ruskin’s Works, vol. xi. p. 80.)

[108]“The Plains of Troy;”—see for a note of this drawing Mr. Ruskin’s Notes on his own “Turners,” 1878, p. 45, where he describes it as “one of the most elaborate of the Byron vignettes, and full of beauty,” adding that “the meaning of the sunset contending with the storm is the contest of the powers of Apollo and Athene;” and for the engraving of it, see Murray’s edition of Byron’s Life and Works (1832, seventeen volumes), where it forms the vignette title-page of vol. vii. For the Richmond and the Egglestone Abbey, also in the possession of Mr. Ruskin, see the above mentioned Notes, p. 29 (Nos. 26 and 27). The Langharne Castle was formerly in the possession of Mr. W. M. Bigg, at the sale of whose collection in 1868 it was sold for £451.

[109]A misprint for “wares;” see next letter, p. 104.

[110]Addressed to Mr. Ruskin by Mr. Collingwood Smith, and requesting Mr. Ruskin to state in a second letter that the remarks as to the effect of light on the water colors of Turner did not extend to water color drawings in general; but that the evanescence of the colors in Turner’s drawings was due partly to the peculiar vehicles with which he painted, and partly to the gray paper (saturated with indigo) on which he frequently worked. Mr. Ruskin complied with this request by thus forwarding for publication Mr. Collingwood Smith’s letter.

[111]The references toThe Timesallude to an article on the “Copies of Turner Drawings,” by Mr. William Ward, of 2 Church Terrace, Richmond, Surrey, which were then, as now, exhibited for sale in the rooms of the Fine Art Society.Of these copies of Turner, Mr. Ruskin says: “They are executed with extreme care under my own eye by the draughtsman trained by me for the purpose, Mr. Ward. Everything that can be learned from the smaller works of Turner may be as securely learned from these drawings. I have been more than once in doubt, seeing original and copy together, which was which; and I think them about the best works that can now be obtained for a moderate price, representing the authoritative forms of art in landscape.”—Extract from letter of Mr. Ruskin, written in 1867. List of Turner Drawings, etc., shown in connection with Mr. Norton’s lectures. Boston, 1874, p. 9. (See also “Ariadne Florentina,” p. 221, note.)The following comment of Mr. Ruskin on one of Mr. Ward’s most recent copies is also interesting as evidence that the opinions expressed in this letter are still retained by its writer: “London, 20th March, 1880.—The copy of Turner’s drawing of ‘Fluelen,’ which has been just completed by Mr. Ward, and shown to me to-day, is beyond my best hopes in every desirable quality of execution; and is certainly as good as it is possible for care and skill to make it. I am so entirely satisfied with it that, for my own personalpleasure—irrespective of pride, I should feel scarcely any loss in taking it home with me instead of the original; and for all uses of artistic example or instruction, it is absolutely as good as the original.—John Ruskin.”—The copy in question is from a drawing in the possession of Mr. Ruskin (see the Turner Notes, 1878, No. 70), and was executed for its present proprietor, Mr. T. S. Kennedy, of Meanwoods, Leeds.

Of these copies of Turner, Mr. Ruskin says: “They are executed with extreme care under my own eye by the draughtsman trained by me for the purpose, Mr. Ward. Everything that can be learned from the smaller works of Turner may be as securely learned from these drawings. I have been more than once in doubt, seeing original and copy together, which was which; and I think them about the best works that can now be obtained for a moderate price, representing the authoritative forms of art in landscape.”—Extract from letter of Mr. Ruskin, written in 1867. List of Turner Drawings, etc., shown in connection with Mr. Norton’s lectures. Boston, 1874, p. 9. (See also “Ariadne Florentina,” p. 221, note.)

The following comment of Mr. Ruskin on one of Mr. Ward’s most recent copies is also interesting as evidence that the opinions expressed in this letter are still retained by its writer: “London, 20th March, 1880.—The copy of Turner’s drawing of ‘Fluelen,’ which has been just completed by Mr. Ward, and shown to me to-day, is beyond my best hopes in every desirable quality of execution; and is certainly as good as it is possible for care and skill to make it. I am so entirely satisfied with it that, for my own personalpleasure—irrespective of pride, I should feel scarcely any loss in taking it home with me instead of the original; and for all uses of artistic example or instruction, it is absolutely as good as the original.—John Ruskin.”—The copy in question is from a drawing in the possession of Mr. Ruskin (see the Turner Notes, 1878, No. 70), and was executed for its present proprietor, Mr. T. S. Kennedy, of Meanwoods, Leeds.

[112]“Italy,” a reputed Turner, lent by the late Mr. Wynn Ellis. No. 235 was “A Landscape,” with Cattle, in the possession of Lord Leconfield.

[113]See also “Modern Painters,” vol. v. pp. 345-347, and “Lectures on Architecture and Painting,” pp. 181-188, where the character of Turner is further explained, and various anecdotes given in special illustration of his truth, generosity, and kindness of heart.

[114]The book was also referred to in “Modern Painters,” vol. v. p. 344, where Mr. Ruskin speaks of this “Life of Turner,” then still unpublished, as being written “by a biographer, who will, I believe, spare no pains in collecting the few scattered records which exist of a career so uneventful and secluded.”

[115]Nearly eight years after Leech’s death on October 29, 1864.

[116]The number of theArchitectin which this letter was printed contained two sketches from Mr. George’s “Etchings on the Mosel”—those, viz., of the Elector’s Palace, Coblentz, and of the interior of Metz Cathedral. The intention of theArchitectto reproduce these etchings had apparently been previously communicated to Mr. Ruskin, who wrote the present letter for the issue in which the etchings were to be given. Mr. George has since published other works of the same kind—e.g., “Etchings in Belgium,” “Etchings on the Loire” (see Mr. Ruskin’s advice to him at the end of this letter, p. 116).

[117]The reference must, I think, be to “Ariadne Florentina: Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving given before the University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term, 1872,” and afterwards published, 1873-6. The lectures given in the year 1873 were upon Tuscan Art, now published in “Val d’Arno.”

[118]The value of Rembrandt’s etchings is always in the inverse ratio of the labor bestowed on them after his first thoughts have been decisively expressed; and even the best of his chiaroscuros (the spotted shell, for instance) are mere child’s play compared to the disciplined light and shade of Italian masters.

[119]This letter was written to Mr. H. Stacy Marks, A.R.A., in answer to a request that Mr. Ruskin would in some way record his impression of the Frederick Walker Exhibition, then open to the public. Frederick Walker died in June, 1875, at the early age of thirty-five, only four years after having been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.

[120]The “Hornby Castle” was executed, together with the rest of the “great Yorkshire series,” for Whitaker’s “History of Richmondshire” (Longman, 1823).—The picture of John Lewis here alluded to is described in Mr. Ruskin’s “Academy Notes,” 1856, No. II., p. 37.

1. “The Almshouse”—No. 52—called “The House of Refuge.” Oil on canvas. A garden and terrace in quadrangle of almshouses; on left an old woman and girl; on right a mower cutting grass. Exhibited R. A. 1872.

2. “The Old Gate”—No. 48—oil on canvas. Lady in black and servant with basket coming through the gate of old mansion; four children at play at foot of steps; two villagers and dog in foreground. Exhibited R. A. 1869.

3. “The Cottage Gardens”—No. 71, “The Spring of Life.” Water-color. Lady in a garden with two children and a lamb; a cherry-tree in blossom. Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Winter 1866-7. See also Nos. 14 and 21.

4. “Ladies and Lilies”—No. 37, “A Lady in a Garden, Perthshire.” Water-color. A lady seated on a knoll on which is a sun-dial; greyhound on left; background, old manor-house. No. 67, “Lilies.” Water-color. Lady in a garden watering flowers, chiefly lilies. Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Winter 1869-70 and 1868-9 respectively.

5. “The Chaplain’s Daughter”—No. 20, subject from Miss Thackeray’s “Jack the Giant-killer.” Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Summer 1868.

6. “Daughter of Heth,” by W. Black. No. 87. “Do ye no ken this is the Sabbath?” Young lady at piano; servant enters hurriedly. (Study in black and white, executed in 1872.)—[See vol. i. p. 41. “ ‘Preserve us a’, lassie, do ye ken what ye’re doing? Do ye no ken that this is the Sabbath, and that you’re in a respectable house?’ The girl turned round with more wonder than alarm in her face: ‘Is it not right to play music on Sunday?’ ”—(No. 131. Three more studies for the same novel.)

7. “The Old Farm Garden”—No. 33—Water-color. A girl, with cat on lawn, knitting: garden path bordered by tulips; farm buildings in background. Painted in 1871.

8. “Salmon-fishers”—No. 47—“Fisherman and Boy”—Water-color. Keeper and boy on bank of river. Glen Spean. Salmon in foreground. Exhibited at the Water-Color Society, Summer 1867.

9. Mushrooms and Fungi—No. 41—Water-color. Painted in 1873.

10. “Fishmonger’s Stalls”—Nos. 9 and 62 (not 952)—viz., No. 9, “A Fishmonger’s Shop.” Water-color. Painted in 1873; and No. 62, also “A Fishmonger’s Shop.” Water-color. Fishmongers selling fish; lady and boy in costumes of about 1800. Exhibited at Water-Color Society, Winter 1872-3. (The “Tobias” of Perugino has been already alluded to, p. 44, note.)

11. No. 68. “The Ferry.” Water-color. Sight size, 11 ¾ X 18 in. A ferry boat, in which are two figures, a boatman and a lady, approaching a landing-place; on the bank figures of villagers, and children feeding swans. Exhibited at Water-Color Society, Winter 1870-71.]

[122]In 1858 the Oxford Museum was in course of building, its architects being Sir Thomas Deane and Mr. Woodward, and its style modern Gothic, whilst amongst those chiefly interested in it were Dr. Acland (the Regius Professor of Medicine) and Mr. Ruskin. The present letter, written in June, 1858, was read by Dr. Acland at a lecture given by him in that summer “to the members of the Architectural Societies that met in Oxford” at that time. I am permitted to reprint the following passage from Dr. Acland’s preface to the printed lecture, as well as one or two passages from the lecture itself (see below, pp. 130 and 132): “Many have yet to learn the apparently simple truth, that to an Artist his Art is his means of probation in this life; and that, whatever it may have of frivolity to us, to him it is as the two or the five talents, to be accounted for hereafter. I might say much on this point, for the full scope of the word Art seems by some to be even now unrecognized. Before the period of printing, Art was the largest mode of permanently recording human thought; it was spoken in every epoch, in all countries, and delivered in almost every material. In buildings, on medals and coins, in porcelain and earthenware, on wood, ivory, parchment, paper and canvas, the graver or the pencil has recorded the ideas of every form of society, of every variety of race and of every character. What wonder that the Artist is jealous of his craft, and proud of his brotherhood?”—See “The Oxford Museum,” p. 4. The reader is also referred to “Sesame and Lilies,” 1871 ed. §§ 103-4.

[123]See next letter, pp. 131seqq.

[124]After reading this letter to his audience Dr. Acland thus continued: “The principles thus clearly enumerated by Mr. Ruskin are, on the main, those that animate the earnest student of Gothic. It is not for me especially to advocate Gothic Art, but only to urge, that if called into life, it should be in conformity to its own proper laws of vitality. If week after week, in my youth, with fresh senses and a docile spirit, I have drank in each golden glow that is poured by a Mediterranean sun from over the blue Ægæan upon the Athenian Parthenon,—if, day by day, sitting on Mars’ Hill, I have watched each purple shadow, as the temple darkened in majesty against the evening sky,—if so, it has been to teach me, as the alphabet of all Art, to love all truth and to hate all falsehood, and to kiss the hand of every Master who has brought down, under whatever circumstance, and in whatever age, one spark of true light from the Beauty and the subtle Law, which stamps the meanest work of the Ever living, Ever-working Artist.”—“The Oxford Museum,” pp. 56-7.

[125]See “The Oxford Museum,” pp. 17-23. The following is a portion of the passage alluded to: “Without the Geologist on one side, and the Anatomist and Physiologist on the other, Zoology is not worthy of its name. The student of life, bearing in mind the more general laws which in the several departments above named he will have sought to appreciate, will find in the collections of Zoology, combined with the Geological specimens and the dissections of the Anatomist, a boundless field of interest and of inquiry, to which almost every other science lends its aid: from each science he borrows a special light to guide him through the ranges of extinct and existing animal forms, from the lowest up to the highest types, which, last and most perfect, but preshadowed in previous ages, is seen in Man. By the aid of physiological illustrations he begins to understand how hard to unravel are the complex mechanisms and prescient intentions of the Maker of all; and he slowly learns to appreciate what exquisite care is needed for discovering the real action of even an apparently comprehended machine. And so at last, almost bewildered, but not cast down, he attempts to scrutinize in the rooms devoted to Medicine, the various injuries which man is doomed to undergo in his progress towards death; he begins to revere the beneficent contrivances which shine forth in the midst of suffering and disease, and to veil his face before the mysterious alterations of structure, to which there seem attached pain, with scarce relief, and a steady advance, without a check, to death. He will look, and as he looks, will cherish hope, not unmixed with prayer, that the great Art of Healing may by all these things advance, and that by the progress of profounder science, by the spread among the people of the resultant practical knowledge, by stricter obedience to physiological laws, by a consequent more self-denying spirit, some disorders may at a future day be cured, which cannot be prevented, and some, perhaps, prevented, which never can be cured.”

[126]Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, the naturalist and author of many works, of which those on infusoria may be especially noted here. He was born in 1795, and in 1842 was elected Principal Secretary to the Berlin Academy of Science, which post he held till his death in 1876. The late Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, Bart., will also be remembered in connection with the study of natural science, as well as for his efforts in philanthropy. He died in March, 1879. I have been unable to find any further information as to the prize mentioned by Mr. Ruskin, or as to the essay which obtained it.

[127]Mr. Brodie, who succeeded his father as Sir Benjamin Brodie in 1867, was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Oxford in 1855.

[128]Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s book “On Color and the Diffusion of Taste” was published in 1858.

[129]See note to p. 142.

[130]“The monks of Melrose made good kailOn Friday, when they fasted.”The kail leaf is the one principally employed in the decorations of the abbey. (Original note to “The Oxford Museum,” p. 83.)

[130]

“The monks of Melrose made good kailOn Friday, when they fasted.”

The kail leaf is the one principally employed in the decorations of the abbey. (Original note to “The Oxford Museum,” p. 83.)

[131]This engraving, which formed the frontispiece of “The Oxford Museum,” will be found facing the title page of the present volume, the original plate having proved in excellent condition. O’Shea was, together with others of his name and family, amongst the principal workmen on the building. The capital represents the following ferns: the common hart’s-tongue (scolopendrium vulgare), the northern hard-fern (blechnum boreale), and the male fern (filix mas).

[132]A new armory was to be added to the Castle.

[133]TheLiterary Gazetteof September 26, 1857, after quoting a great part of the previous letter, stated that the new armory was not to be built without all due regard to the preservation of the rock, and that there was therefore no real cause for alarm.

[134]“Poems of the Fancy,” xiv. (1803). The quotation omits two lines after the fourth:“Who loved the little rock, and setUpon its head this coronet?”The second stanza then begins: “Was it the humor of a child?” etc.

[134]“Poems of the Fancy,” xiv. (1803). The quotation omits two lines after the fourth:

“Who loved the little rock, and setUpon its head this coronet?”

The second stanza then begins: “Was it the humor of a child?” etc.

[135]The article on taverns occurred in theDaily Telegraphof the 8th December, and commented on a recent meeting of the Licensed Victuallers’ Protection Society. There was also a short article upon drunkenness as a cause of crime in theDaily Telegraphof December 9—referred to by Mr. Ruskin in a letter which will be found in the second volume of this book. The article on castles concluded with an appeal for public subscriptions towards the restoration of Warwick Castle, then recently destroyed by fire.

[136]The passage alluded to is partly as follows. “It happened also, which was the real cause of my bias in after-life, that my father had a real love of pictures.... Accordingly, wherever there was a gallery to be seen, we stopped at the nearest town for the night; and in reverentest manner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen’s houses in England; not indeed myself at that age caring for the pictures, but much for castles and ruins, feeling more and more, as I grew older, the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, and perceiving, as soon as I could perceive any political truth at all, that it was probably much happier to live in a small house and have Warwick Castle to be astonished at, than to live in Warwick Castle, and have nothing to be astonished at; and that, at all events, it would not make Brunswick Square in the least more pleasantly habitable to pull Warwick Castle down. And, at this day, though I have kind invitations enough to visit America, I could not, even for a couple of months, live in a country so miserable as to possess no castles.”

[137]In a second article upon the same subject theDaily Telegraphhad expressed surprise at Mr. Ruskin’s former letter. “Who does not remember,” it wrote, “his proposal to buy Verona, so as to secure from decay the glorious monuments in it?”

[138]This letter, it will be noticed, was written during the bombardment and a few days before the capitulation of Paris in 1871.

[139]On Friday, March 8, 1872, entitled “Turner and Mulready—On the Effect of certain Faults of Vision on Painting, with especial reference to their Works.” The argument of the lecturer, and distinguished oculist, was that the change of style in the pictures of Turner was due to a change in hiseyeswhich developed itself during the last twenty years of his life. (See “Proceedings of the Royal Institution,” 1872, vol. vi., p. 450.)

[140]“A History of the Gothic Revival.” By Charles L. Eastlake, F.R.I.B.A. London, Longman and Co., 1872.—In this work Mr. Eastlake had estimated very highly Mr. Ruskin’s influence, on modern architecture, whilst his reviewer was “disposed to say that Mr. Ruskin’s direct and immediate influences had almost always been in the wrong; and his more indirect influences as often in the right.” It is upon these words that Mr. Ruskin comments here, and to this comment the critic replied in a letter which appeared in thePall Mall Gazetteof the 20th inst. The main portion of his reply was as follows: “The direct influences, then, which I had principally in my mind were those which had resulted in a preference for Venetian over English Gothic, in the underrating of expressional character in architecture, and the overrating of sculptured ornament, especially of a naturalistic and imitative character, and more generally in an exclusiveness which limited the due influence of some, as I think, noble styles of architecture. By the indirect influences I meant the habit of looking at questions of architectural art in the light of imaginative ideas; the recognition of the vital importance of such questions even in their least important details; and generally an enthusiasm and activity which could have resulted from no less a force than Mr. Ruskin’s wondrously suggestive genius.” To this explanation Mr. Ruskin replied in his second letter on the subject.

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