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Title: On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Author: John Ruskin

Release date: April 30, 2007 [eBook #21263]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE OLD
ROAD, VOL. 2 (OF 2) ***

THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF

JOHN RUSKIN

ON THE OLD ROAD
A COLLECTION OF
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND ARTICLES
ON ART AND LITERATURE.

Volumes I-II

Vol. II.
NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK—CHICAGO

Published 1834-1885.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
PICTURE GALLERIES.
Parliamentary Evidence:—
National Gallery Site Commission. 1857 3
Select Committee on Public Institutions. 1860 25
The Royal Academy Commission 50
A Museum or Picture Gallery 71

MINOR WRITINGS UPON ART.
The Cavalli Monuments, Verona. 1872 89
Verona and its Rivers (with Catalogue). 1870 99
Christian Art and Symbolism. 1872 118
Art Schools of Mediæval Christendom. 1876 121
The Extension of Railways. 1876 125
The Study of Beauty. 1883 132

NOTES ON NATURAL SCIENCE.
The Color of the Rhine. 1834 141
The Strata of Mont Blanc. 1834 143
The Induration of Sandstone. 1836 145
The Temperature of Spring and River Water. 1836. 148
Meteorology. 1839 153
Tree Twigs. 1861 158
Stratified Alps of Savoy. 1863 162
Intellectual Conception and Animated Life. 1871 168

LITERATURE.
Fiction—fair and Foul. 1880-81 175
Fairy Stories. 1868 290

ECONOMY.

Home, and Its Economies. 1873 299
Usury. A Reply and a Rejoinder. 1880 314
Usury. A Preface. 1885 340

THEOLOGY.
Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds. 1851 347
The Lord's Prayer and the Church. 1879-81. (Letters
382
and Epilogue.)
The Nature and Authority of Miracle. 1873 418

AN OXFORD LECTURE. 1878 429

PICTURE GALLERIES:
THEIR FUNCTIONS AND FORMATION.

A. PARLIAMENTARY EVIDENCE.

NATIONAL GALLERY SITE COMMISSION 1857.
SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 1860.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY COMMISSION 1863.

B. LETTERS ON A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY.

(Art Journal, June and August, 1880.)

PICTURE GALLERIES—THEIR FUNCTIONS
AND FORMATION.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY SITE COMMISSION.[1]

Evidence of John Ruskin, Monday, April 6, 1857.

114. Chairman. Has your attention been turned to the desirableness of
uniting sculpture with painting under the same roof?—Yes.
What is your opinion on the subject?—I think it almost essential that they
should be united, if a National Gallery is to be of service in teaching the
course of art.
Sculpture of all kinds, or only ancient sculpture?—Of all kinds.
Do you think that the sculpture in the British Museum should be in the
same building with the pictures in the National Gallery, that is to say,
making an application of your principle to that particular case?—Yes,
certainly; I think so for several reasons—chiefly because I think the taste of
the nation can only be rightly directed by having always sculpture and
painting visible together. Many of the highest and best points of painting, I
think, can only be discerned after some discipline of the eye by sculpture.
That is one very essential reason. I think that after looking at sculpture one
feels the grace of composition infinitely more, and one also feels how that
grace of composition was reached by the painter.
Do you consider that if works of sculpture and works of painting were
placed in the same gallery, the same light would be useful for both of them?
—I understood your question only to refer to their collection under the
same roof. I should be sorry to see them in the same room.

You would not mix them up in the way in which they are mixed up in the
Florentine Gallery, for instance?—Not at all. I think, on the contrary, that
the one diverts the mind from the other, and that, although the one is an
admirable discipline, you should take some time for the examination of
sculpture, and pass afterwards into the painting room, and so on. You
should not be disturbed while looking at paintings by the whiteness of the
sculpture.
You do not then approve, for example, of the way in which the famous
room, the Tribune, at Florence, is arranged?—No; I think it is merely
arranged for show—for showing how many rich things can be got together.
115. Mr. Cockerell. Then you do not regard sculpture as a proper decorative
portion of the National Gallery of Pictures—you do not admit the term
decoration?—No; I should not use that term of the sculpture which it was
the object of the gallery to exhibit. It might be added, of course, supposing
it became a part of the architecture, but not as independent—not as a thing
to be contemplated separately in the room, and not as a part of the room. As
a part of the room, of course, modern sculpture might be added; but I have
never thought that it would be necessary.
You do not consider that sculpture would be a repose after contemplating
painting for some time?—I should not feel it so myself.
116. Dean of St. Paul's. When you speak of removing the sculpture of the
British Museum, and of uniting it with the pictures of the National Gallery,
do you comprehend the whole range of the sculpture in the British Museum,
commencing with the Egyptian, and going down through its regular series
of gradation to the decline of the art?—Yes, because my great hope
respecting the National Gallery is, that it may become a perfectly
consecutive chronological arrangement, and it seems to me that it is one of
the chief characteristics of a National Gallery that it should be so.
Then you consider that one great excellence of the collection at the British
Museum is, that it does present that sort of history of the art of sculpture?—
I consider it rather its weakness that it does not.
Then you would go down further?—I would.

You are perhaps acquainted with the ivories which have been recently
purchased there?—I am not.
Supposing there were a fine collection of Byzantine ivories, you would
consider that they were an important link in the general history?—Certainly.
Would you unite the whole of that Pagan sculpture with what you call the
later Christian art of Painting?—I should be glad to see it done—that is to
say, I should be glad to see the galleries of painting and sculpture
collaterally placed, and the gallery of sculpture beginning with the Pagan
art, and proceeding to the Christian art, but not necessarily associating the
painting with the sculpture of each epoch; because the painting is so
deficient in many of the periods where the sculpture is rich, that you could
not carry them on collaterally—you must have your painting gallery and
your sculpture gallery.
You would be sorry to take any portion of the sculpture from the collection
in the British Museum, and to associate it with any collection of painting?
—Yes, I should think it highly inexpedient. My whole object would be that
it might be associated with a larger collection, a collection from other
periods, and not be subdivided. And it seems to be one of the chief reasons
advanced in order to justify removing that collection, that it cannot be much
more enlarged—that you cannot at present put other sculpture with it.
Supposing that the collection of ancient Pagan art could not be united with
the National Gallery of pictures, with which would you associate the
mediæval sculpture, supposing we were to retain any considerable amount
of sculpture?—With the painting.
The mediæval art you would associate with the painting, supposing you
could not put the whole together?—Yes.
117. Chairman. Do you approve of protecting pictures by glass?—Yes, in
every case. I do not know of what size a pane of glass can be manufactured,
but I have never seen a picture so large but that I should be glad to see it
under glass. Even supposing it were possible, which I suppose it is not, the
great Paul Veronese, in the gallery of the Louvre, I think would be more
beautiful under glass.

Independently of the preservation?—Independently of the preservation, I
think it would be more beautiful. It gives an especial delicacy to light
colors, and does little harm to dark colors—that is, it benefits delicate
pictures most, and its injury is only to very dark pictures.
Have you ever considered the propriety of covering the sculpture with
glass?—I have never considered it. I did not know until a very few days ago
that sculpture was injured by exposure to our climate and our smoke.
Professor Faraday. But you would cover the pictures, independently of the
preservation, you would cover them absolutely for the artistic effect, the
improvement of the picture?—Not necessarily so, because to some persons
there might be an objectionable character in having to avoid the reflection
more scrupulously than otherwise. I should not press for it on that head
only. The advantage gained is not a great one; it is only felt by very delicate
eyes. As far as I know, many persons would not perceive that there was a
difference, and that is caused by the very slight color in the glass, which,
perhaps, some persons might think it expedient to avoid altogether.
Do you put it down to the absolute tint in the glass like a glazing, or do you
put it down to a sort of reflection? Is the effect referable to the color in the
glass, or to some kind of optic action, which the most transparent glass
might produce?—I do not know; but I suppose it to be referable to the very
slight tint in the glass.
118. Dean of St. Paul's. Is it not the case when ladies with very brilliant
dresses look at pictures through glass, that the reflection of the color of their
dresses is so strong as greatly to disturb the enjoyment and the appreciation
of the pictures?—Certainly; but I should ask the ladies to stand a little
aside, and look at the pictures one by one. There is that disadvantage.
I am supposing a crowded room—of course the object of a National Gallery
is that it should be crowded—that as large a number of the public should
have access to it as possible—there would of course be certain limited
hours, and the gallery would be liable to get filled with the public in great
numbers?—It would be disadvantageous certainly, but not so
disadvantageous as to balance the much greater advantage of preservation. I
imagine that, in fact, glass is essential; it is not merely an expedient thing,
but an essential thing to the safety of the pictures for twenty or thirty years.

Do you consider it essential as regards the atmosphere of London, or of this
country generally?—I speak of London only. I have no experience of other
parts. But I have this experience in my own collection. I kept my pictures
for some time without glass, and I found the deterioration definite within a
very short period—a period of a couple of years.
You mean at Denmark Hill?—Yes; that deterioration on pictures of the class
I refer to is not to be afterwards remedied—the thing suffers forever—you
cannot get into the interstices.
Professor Faraday. You consider that the picture is permanently injured by
the dirt?—Yes.
That no cleaning can restore it to what it was?—Nothing can restore it to
what it was, I think, because the operation of cleaning must scrape away
some of the grains of paint.
Therefore, if you have two pictures, one in a dirtier place, and one in a
cleaner place, no attention will put the one in the dirtier place on a level
with that in the cleaner place?—I think nevermore.
119. Chairman. I see that in your "Notes on the Turner Collection," you
recommended that the large upright pictures would have great advantage in
having a room to themselves. Do you mean each of the large pictures or a
whole collection of large pictures?—Supposing very beautiful pictures of a
large size (it would depend entirely on the value and size of the picture),
supposing we ever acquired such large pictures as Titian's Assumption, or
Raphael's Transfiguration, those pictures ought to have a room to
themselves, and to have a gallery round them.
Do you mean that each of them should have a room?—Yes.
Dean of St. Paul's. Have you been recently at Dresden?—No, I have never
been at Dresden.
Then you do not know the position of the Great Holbein and of the
Madonna de S. Sisto there, which have separate rooms?—No.
Mr. Cockerell. Are you acquainted with the Munich Gallery—No.
Do you know the plans of it?—No.

Then you have not seen, perhaps, the most recent arrangements adopted by
that learned people, the Germans, with regard to the exhibition of pictures?
—I have not been into Germany for twenty years.
120. That subject has been handled by them in an original manner, and they
have constructed galleries at Munich, at Dresden, and I believe at St.
Petersburg upon a new principle, and a very judicious principle. You have
not had opportunities of considering that?—No, I have never considered
that; because I always supposed that there was no difficulty in producing a
beautiful gallery, or an efficient one. I never thought that there could be any
question about the form which such a gallery should take, or that it was a
matter of consideration. The only difficulty with me was this—the
persuading, or hoping to persuade, a nation that if it had pictures at all, it
should have those pictures on the line of the eye; that it was not well to
have a noble picture many feet above the eye, merely for the glory of the
room. Then I think that as soon as you decide that a picture is to be seen, it
is easy to find out the way of showing it; to say that it should have such and
such a room, with such and such a light; not a raking light, as I heard Sir
Charles Eastlake express it the other day, but rather an oblique and soft
light, and not so near the picture as to catch the eye painfully. That may be
easily obtained, and I think that all other questions after that are
subordinate.
Dean of St. Paul's. Your proposition would require a great extent of wall?—
An immense extent of wall.
121. Chairman. I see you state in the pamphlet to which I have before
alluded, that it is of the highest importance that the works of each master
should be kept together. Would not such an arrangement increase very much
the size of the National Gallery?—I think not, because I have only supposed
in my plan that, at the utmost, two lines of pictures should be admitted on
the walls of the room; that being so, you would be always able to put all the
works of any master together without any inconvenience or difficulty in
fitting them to the size of the room. Supposing that you put the large
pictures high on the walls, then it might be a question, of course, whether
such and such a room or compartment of the Gallery would hold the works
of a particular master; but supposing the pictures were all on a continuous
line, you would only stop with A and begin with B.

Then you would only have them on one level and one line?—In general;
that seems to me the common-sense principle.
Mr. Richmond. Then you disapprove of the whole of the European hanging
of pictures in galleries?—I think it very beautiful sometimes, but not to be
imitated. It produces most noble rooms. No one can but be impressed with
the first room at the Louvre, where you have the most noble Venetian
pictures one mass of fire on the four walls; but then none of the details of
those pictures can be seen.
Dean of St. Paul's. There you have a very fine general effect, but you lose
the effect of the beauties of each individual picture?—You lose all the
beauties, all the higher merits; you get merely your general idea. It is a
perfectly splendid room, of which a great part of the impression depends
upon the consciousness of the spectator that it is so costly.
122. Would you have those galleries in themselves richly decorated?—Not
richly, but pleasantly.
Brilliantly, but not too brightly?—Not too brightly. I have not gone into that
question, it being out of my way; but I think, generally, that great care
should be taken to give a certain splendor—a certain gorgeous effect—so
that the spectator may feel himself among splendid things; so that there
shall be no discomfort or meagerness, or want of respect for the things
which are being shown.
123. Mr. Richmond. Then do you think that Art would be more worthily
treated, and the public taste and artists better served, by having even a
smaller collection of works so arranged, than by a much larger one merely
housed and hung four or five deep, as in an auction room?—Yes. But you
put a difficult choice before me, because I do think it a very important thing
that we should have many pictures. Totally new results might be obtained
from a large gallery in which the chronological arrangement was perfect,
and whose curators prepared for that chronological arrangement, by leaving
gaps to be filled by future acquisition; taking the greatest pains in the
selection of the examples, that they should be thoroughly characteristic;
giving a greater price for a picture which was thoroughly characteristic and
expressive of the habits of a nation; because it appears to me that one of the
main uses of Art at present is not so much as Art, but as teaching us the

feelings of nations. History only tells us what they did; Art tells us their
feelings, and why they did it: whether they were energetic and fiery, or
whether they were, as in the case of the Dutch, imitating minor things, quiet
and cold. All those expressions of feeling cannot come out of History. Even
the contemporary historian does not feel them; he does not feel what his
nation is; but get the works of the same master together, the works of the
same nation together, and the works of the same century together, and see
how the thing will force itself upon everyone's observation.
124. Then you would not exclude the genuine work of inferior masters?—
Not by any means.
You would have the whole as far as you could obtain it?—Yes, as far as it
was characteristic; but I think you can hardly call an inferior master one
who does in the best possible way the thing he undertakes to do; and I
would not take any master who did not in some way excel. For instance, I
would not take a mere imitator of Cuyp among the Dutch; but Cuyp himself
has done insuperable things in certain expressions of sunlight and repose.
Vander Heyden and others may also be mentioned as first-rate in inferior
lines.
Taking from the rise of art to the time of Raphael, would you in the
National Gallery include examples of all those masters whose names have
come down to the most learned of us?—No.
Where would you draw the line, and where would you begin to leave out?
—I would only draw the line when I was purchasing a picture. I think that a
person might always spend his money better by making an effort to get one
noble picture than five or six second or third-rate pictures, provided only,
that you had examples of the best kind of work produced at that time. I
would not have second-rate pictures. Multitudes of masters among the
disciples of Giotto might be named; you might have one or two pictures of
Giotto, and one or two pictures of the disciples of Giotto.
Then you would rather depend upon the beauty of the work itself; if the
work were beautiful, you would admit it?—Certainly.
But if it were only historically interesting, would you then reject it?—Not in
the least. I want it historically interesting, but I want as good an example as

I can have of that particular manner.
Would it not be historically interesting if it were the only picture known of
that particular master, who was a follower of Giotto? For instance,
supposing a work of Cennino Cennini were brought to light, and had no real
merit in it as a work of art, would it not be the duty of the authorities of a
National Gallery to seize upon that picture, and pay perhaps rather a large
price for it?—Certainly; all documentary art I should include.
Then what would you exclude?—Merely that which is inferior, and not
documentary; merely another example of the same kind of thing.
Then you would not multiply examples of the same masters if inferior men,
but you would have one of each. There is no man, I suppose, whose
memory has come down to us after three or four centuries, but has
something worth preserving in his work—something peculiar to himself,
which perhaps no other person has ever done, and you would retain one
example of such, would you not?—I would, if it was in my power, but I
would rather with given funds make an effort to get perfect examples.
Then you think that the artistic element should govern the archæological in
the selection?—Yes, and the archæological in the arrangement.
125. Dean of St. Paul's. When you speak of arranging the works of one
master consecutively, would you pay any regard or not to the subjects? You
must be well aware that many painters, for instance, Correggio, and others,
painted very incongruous subjects; would you rather keep them together
than disperse the works of those painters to a certain degree according to
their subjects?—I would most certainly keep them together. I think it an
important feature of the master that he did paint incongruously, and very
possibly the character of each picture would be better understood by seeing
them together; the relations of each are sometimes essential to be seen.
Mr. Richmond. Do you think that the preservation of these works is one of
the first and most important things to be provided for?—It would be so with
me in purchasing a picture. I would pay double the price for it if I thought it
was likely to be destroyed where it was.
In a note you wrote to me the other day, I find this passage: "The Art of a
nation I think one of the most important points of its history, and a part

which, if once destroyed, no history will ever supply the place of—and the
first idea of a National Gallery is, that it should be a Library of Art, in
which the rudest efforts are, in some cases, hardly less important than the
noblest." Is that your opinion?—Perfectly. That seems somewhat
inconsistent with what I have been saying, but I mean there, the noblest
efforts of the time at which they are produced. I would take the greatest
pains to get an example of eleventh century work, though the painting is
perfectly barbarous at that time.
126. You have much to do with the education of the working classes in Art.
As far as you are able to tell us, what is your experience with regard to their
liking and disliking in Art—do comparatively uneducated persons prefer the
Art up to the time of Raphael, or down from the time of Raphael?—we will
take the Bolognese School, or the early Florentine School—which do you
think a working man would feel the greatest interest in looking at?—I
cannot tell you, because my working men would not be allowed to look at a
Bolognese picture; I teach them so much love of detail, that the moment
they see a detail carefully drawn, they are caught by it. The main thing
which has surprised me in dealing with these men is the exceeding
refinement of their minds—so that in a moment I can get carpenters, and
smiths, and ordinary workmen, and various classes to give me a refinement
which I cannot get a young lady to give me when I give her a lesson for the
first time. Whether it is the habit of work which makes them go at it more
intensely, or whether it is (as I rather think) that, as the feminine mind looks
for strength, the masculine mind looks for delicacy, and when you take it
simply, and give it its choice, it will go to the most refined thing, I do not
know.
Dean of St. Paul's. Can you see any perceptible improvement in the state of
the public mind and taste in that respect since these measures have been
adopted?—There has not been time to judge of that.
127. Do these persons who are taking an interest in Art come from different
parts of London?—Yes.
Of course the distance which they would have to come would be of very
great importance?—Yes.

Therefore one of the great recommendations of a Gallery, if you wish it to
have an effect upon the public mind in that respect, would be its
accessibility, both with regard to the time consumed in going there, and to
the cheapness, as I may call it, of access?—Most certainly.
You would therefore consider that the more central the situation, putting all
other points out of consideration, the greater advantage it would be to the
public?—Yes; there is this, however, to be said, that a central situation
involves the crowding of the room with parties wholly uninterested in the
matter—a situation more retired will generally be serviceable enough for
the real student.
Would not that very much depend upon its being in a thoroughfare? There
might be a central situation which would not be so complete a thoroughfare
as to tempt persons to go in who were not likely to derive advantage from
it?—I think that if this gallery were made so large and so beautiful as we
are proposing, it would be rather a resort, rather a lounge every day, and all
day long, provided it were accessible.
128. Would not that a good deal depend upon its being in a public
thoroughfare? If it were in a thoroughfare, a great many persons might pass
in who would be driven in by accident, or driven in by caprice, if they
passed it; but if it were at a little distance from a thoroughfare, it would be
less crowded with those persons who are not likely to derive much
advantage from it?—Quite so; but there would always be an advantage in
attracting a crowd; it would always extend its educational ability in its
being crowded. But it would seem to me that all that is necessary for a
noble Museum of the best art should be more or less removed, and that a
collection, solely for the purpose of education, and for the purpose of
interesting people who do not care much about art, should be provided in
the very heart of the population, if possible, that pictures not of great value,
but of sufficient value to interest the public, and of merit enough to form the
basis of early education, and to give examples of all art, should be collected
in the popular Gallery, but that all the precious things should be removed
and put into the great Gallery, where they would be safest, irrespectively
altogether of accessibility.

Chairman. Then you would, in fact, have not one but two Galleries?—Two
only.
129. Professor Faraday. And you would seem to desire purposely the
removal of the true and head Gallery to some distance, so as to prevent the
great access of persons?—Yes.
Thinking that all those who could make a real use of a Gallery would go to
that one?—Yes. My opinion in that respect has been altered within these
few days from the fact having been brought to my knowledge of sculpture
being much deteriorated by the atmosphere and the total impossibility of
protecting sculpture. Pictures I do not care about, for I can protect them, but
not sculpture.
Dean of St. Paul's. Whence did you derive that knowledge?—I forget who
told me; it was some authority I thought conclusive, and therefore took no
special note of.
130. Chairman. Do you not consider that it is rather prejudicial to art that
there should be a Gallery notoriously containing no first-rate works of art,
but second-rate or third-rate works?—No; I think it rather valuable as an
expression of the means of education, that there should be early lessons in
art—that there should be this sort of art selected especially for first studies,
and also that there should be a recognition of the exceeding preciousness of
some other art. I think that portions of it should be set aside as interesting,
but not unreplaceable; but that other portions should be set aside as being
things as to which the function of the nation was, chiefly, to take care of
those things, not for itself merely, but for all its descendants, and setting the
example of taking care of them for ever.
You do not think, then, that there would be any danger in the studying or the
copying of works which notoriously were not the best works?—On the
contrary, I think it would be better that works not altogether the best should
be first submitted. I never should think of giving the best work myself to a
student to copy—it is hopeless; he would not feel its beauties—he would
merely blunder over it. I am perfectly certain that that cannot be serviceable
in the particular branch of art which I profess, namely, landscape-painting; I
know that I must give more or less of bad examples.

Mr. Richmond. But you would admit nothing into this second gallery which
was not good or true of its kind?—Nothing which was not good or true of
its kind, but only inferior in value to the others.
And if there were any other works which might be deposited there with
perfect safety, say precious drawings, which might be protected by glass,
you would not object to exhibit those to the unselected multitude?—Not in
the least; I should be very glad to do so, provided I could spare them from
the grand chronological arrangement.
Do you think that a very interesting supplementary exhibition might be got
up, say at Trafalgar Square, and retained there?—Yes, and all the more
useful because you would put few works, and you could make it complete
in series—and because, on a small scale, you would have the entire series.
By selecting a few works, you would have an epitome of the Grand Gallery,
the divisions of the chronology being all within the compartment of a wall,
which in the great Gallery would be in a separate division of the building.
131. Mr. Cockerell. Do you contemplate the possibility of excellent copies
being exhibited of the most excellent works both of sculpture and of
painting?—I have not contemplated that possibility. I have a great horror of
copies of any kind, except only of sculpture. I have great fear of copies of
painting; I think people generally catch the worst parts of the painting and
leave the best.
But you would select the artist who should make the copy. There are
persons whose whole talent is concentrated in the power of imitation of a
given picture, and a great talent it is.—I have never in my life seen a good
copy of a good picture.
Chairman. Have you not seen any of the German copies of some of the
great Italian masters, which are generally esteemed very admirable works?
—I have not much studied the works of the copyists; I have not observed
them much, never having yet found an exception to that rule which I have
mentioned. When I came across a copyist in the Gallery of the Vatican, or in
the Gallery at Florence, I had a horror of the mischief, and the scandal and
the libel upon the master, from the supposition that such a thing as that in
any way resembled his work, and the harm that it would do to the populace
among whom it was shown.

Mr. Richmond. You look upon it as you would upon coining bad money and
circulating it, doing mischief?—Yes, it is mischievous.
Mr. Cockerell. But you admit engravings—you admit photographs of these
works, which are imitations in another language?—Yes; in abstract terms,
they are rather descriptions of the paintings than copies—they are rather
measures and definitions of them—they are hints and tables of the pictures,
rather than copies of them; they do not pretend to the same excellence in
any way.
You speak as a connoisseur; how would the common eye of the public agree
with you in that opinion?—I think it would not agree with me.
Nevertheless, if I were taking some of my workmen into the National
Gallery, I should soon have some hope of making them understand in what
excellence consisted, if I could point to a genuine work; but I should have
no such hope if I had only copies of these pictures.
132. Do you hold much to the archæological, chronological, and historical
series and teaching of pictures?—Yes.
Are you of opinion that that is essential to the creative teaching, with
reference to our future schools?—No. I should think not essential at all. The
teaching of the future artist, I should think, might be accomplished by very
few pictures of the class which that particular artist wished to study. I think
that the chronological arrangement is in no-wise connected with the general
efficiency of the gallery as a matter of study for the artist, but very much so
as a means of study, not for persons interested in painting merely, but for
those who wish to examine the general history of nations; and I think that
painting should be considered by that class of persons as containing
precious evidence. It would be part of the philosopher's work to examine
the art of a nation as well as its poetry.
You consider that art speaks a language and tells a tale which no written
document can effect?—Yes, and far more precious; the whole soul of a
nation generally goes with its art. It may be urged by an ambitious king to
become a warrior nation. It may be trained by a single leader to become a
great warrior nation, and its character at that time may materially depend
upon that one man, but in its art all the mind of the nation is more or less
expressed: it can be said, that was what the peasant sought to when he went

into the city to the cathedral in the morning—that was the sort of book the
poor person read or learned in—the sort of picture he prayed to. All which
involves infinitely more important considerations than common history.
133. Dean of St. Paul's. When you speak of your objections to copies of
pictures, do you carry that objection to casts of sculpture?—Not at all.
Supposing there could be no complete union of the great works of sculpture
in a country with the great works of painting in that country, would you
consider that a good selection of casts comprising the great remains of
sculpture of all ages would be an important addition to a public gallery?—I
should be very glad to see it.
If you could not have it of originals, you would wish very much to have a
complete collection of casts, of course selected from all the finest sculptures
in the world?—Certainly.
Mr. Richmond. Would you do the same with architecture—would you
collect the remains of architecture, as far as they are to be collected, and
unite them with sculpture and painting?—I should think that architecture
consisted, as far as it was portable, very much in sculpture. In saying that, I
mean, that in the different branches of sculpture architecture is involved—
that is to say, you would have the statues belonging to such and such a
division of a building. Then if you had casts of those statues, you would
necessarily have those casts placed exactly in the same position as the
original statues—it involves the buildings surrounding them and the
elevation—it involves the whole architecture.
In addition to that, would you have original drawings of architecture, and
models of great buildings, and photographs, if they could be made
permanent, of the great buildings as well as the moldings and casts of the
moldings, and the members as far as you could obtain them?—Quite so.
Would you also include, in the National Gallery, what may be called the
handicraft of a nation—works for domestic use or ornament? For instance,
we know that there were some salt-cellars designed for one of the Popes;
would you have those if they came to us?—Everything, pots and pans, and
salt-cellars, and knives.
You would have everything that had an interesting art element in it?—Yes.

Dean of St. Paul's. In short, a modern Pompeian Gallery?—Yes; I know
how much greater extent that involves, but I think that you should include
all the iron work, and china, and pottery, and so on. I think that all works in
metal, all works in clay, all works in carved wood, should be included. Of
course, that involves much. It involves all the coins—it involves an
immense extent.
134. Supposing it were impossible to concenter in one great museum the
whole of these things, where should you prefer to draw the line? Would you
draw the line between what I may call the ancient Pagan world and the
modern Christian world, and so leave, to what may be called the ancient
world, all the ancient sculpture, and any fragments of ancient painting
which there might be—all the vases, all the ancient bronzes, and, in short,
everything which comes down to a certain period? Do you think that that
would be the best division, or should you prefer any division which takes
special arts, and keeps those arts together?—I should like the Pagan and
Christian division. I think it very essential that wherever the sculpture of a
nation was, there its iron work should be—that wherever its iron work was,
there its pottery should be, and so on.
And you would keep the mediæval works together, in whatever form those
mediæval works existed?—Yes; I should not at all feel injured by having to
take a cab-drive from one century to another century.
Or from the ancient to the modern world?—No.
Mr. Richmond. If it were found convenient to keep separate the Pagan and
the Christian art, with which would you associate the mediæval?—By
"Christian and Pagan Art" I mean, before Christ and after Christ.
Then the mediæval would come with the paintings?—Yes; and also the
Mahomedan, and all the Pagan art which was after Christ, I should
associate as part, and a most essential part, because it seems to me that the
history of Christianity is complicated perpetually with that which
Christianity was effecting. Therefore, it is a matter of date, not of
Christianity. Everything before Christ I should be glad to see separated, or
you may take any other date that you like.

But the inspiration of the two schools—the Pagan and the Christian—seems
so different, that there would be no great violence done to the true theory of
a National Gallery in dividing these two, would there, if each were made
complete in itself?—That is to say, taking the spirit of the world after
Christianity was in it, and the spirit of the world before Christianity was in
it.
Dean of St. Paul's. The birth of Christ, you say, is the commencement of
Christian art?—Yes.
Then Christian influence began, and, of course, that would leave a small
debatable ground, particularly among the ivories for instance, which we
must settle according to circumstances?—Wide of any debatable ground, all
the art of a nation which had never heard of Christianity, the Hindoo art and
so on, would, I suppose, if of the Christian era, go into the Christian gallery.
I was speaking rather of the transition period, which, of course, there must
be?—Yes.
Mr. Cockerell. There must be a distinction between the terms "museum" and
"gallery." What are the distinctions which you would draw in the present
case?—I should think "museum" was the right name of the whole building.
A "gallery" is, I think, merely a room in a museum adapted for the
exhibition of works in a series, whose effect depends upon their collateral
showing forth.
135. There are certainly persons who would derive their chief advantage
from the historical and chronological arrangement which you propose, but
there are others who look alone for the beautiful, and who say, "I have
nothing to do with your pedantry. I desire to have the beautiful before me.
Show me those complete and perfect works which are received and known
as the works of Phidias and the great Greek masters as far as we possess
them, and the works of the great Italian painters. I have not time, nor does
my genius permit that I should trouble myself with those details." There is a
large class who are guided by those feelings?—And I hope who always will
be guided by them; but I should consult their feelings enough in the setting
before them of the most beautiful works of art. All that I should beg of them
to yield to me would be that they should look at Titian only, or at Raphael
only, and not wish to have Titian and Raphael side by side; and I think I

should be able to teach them, as a matter of beauty, that they did enjoy
Titian and Raphael alone better than mingled. Then I would provide them
beautiful galleries full of the most-noble sculpture. Whenever we come as a
country and a nation to provide beautiful sculpture, it seems to me that the
greatest pains should be taken to set it off beautifully. You should have
beautiful sculpture in the middle of the room, with dark walls round it to
throw out its profile, and you should have all the arrangements made there
so as to harmonize with it, and to set forth every line of it. So the painting
gallery, I think, might be made a glorious thing, if the pictures were level,
and the architecture above produced unity of impression from the beauty
and glow of color and the purity of form.
Mr. Richmond. And you would not exclude a Crevelli because it was quaint,
or an early master of any school—you would have the infancy, the youth,
and the age, of each school, would you not?—Certainly.
Dean of St. Paul's. Of the German as well as the Italian?—Yes.
Mr. Richmond. Spanish, and all the schools?—Certainly.
136. Mr. Cockerell. You are quite aware of the great liberality of the
Government, as we learn from the papers, in a recent instance, namely, the
purchase of a great Paul Veronese?—I am rejoiced to hear it. 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 completion
of the picture goes, and quite a priceless picture.
Can you conceive a Government, or a people, who would countenance so
expensive a purchase, condescending to take up with the occupation of the
upper story of some public building, or with an expedient which should not
be entirely worthy of such a noble Gallery of Pictures?—I do not think that
they ought to do so; but I do not know how far they will be consistent. I
certainly think they ought not to put up with any such expedient. I am not
prepared to say what limits there are to consistency or inconsistency.
Mr. Richmond. I understand you to have given in evidence that you think a
National Collection should be illustrative of the whole art in all its
branches?—Certainly.

Not a cabinet of paintings, not a collection of sculptured works, but
illustrative of the whole art?—Yes.
137. Have you any further remark to offer to the Commissioners?—I wish
to say one word respecting the question of the restoration of statuary. It
seems to me a very simple question. Much harm is being at present done in
Europe by restoration, more harm than was ever done, as far as I know, by
revolutions or by wars. The French are now doing great harm to their
cathedrals, under the idea that they are doing good, destroying more than all
the good they are doing. And all this proceeds from the one great mistake of
supposing that sculpture can be restored when it is injured. I am very much
interested by the question which one of the Commissioners asked me in that
respect; and I would suggest whether it does not seem easy to avoid all
questions of that kind. If the statue is injured, leave it so, but provide a
perfect copy of the statue in its restored form; offer, if you like, prizes to
sculptors for conjectural restorations, and choose the most beautiful, but do
not touch the original work.
138. Professor Faraday. You said some time ago that in your own attempts
to instruct the public there had not been time yet to see whether the course
taken had produced improvement or not. You see no signs at all which lead
you to suppose that it will not produce the improvement which you desire?
—Far from it—I understood the Dean of St. Paul's to ask me whether any
general effect had been produced upon the minds of the public. I have only
been teaching a class of about forty workmen for a couple of years, after
their work—they not always attending—and that forty being composed of
people passing away and coming again; and I do not know what they are
now doing; I only see a gradual succession of men in my own class. I rather
take them in an elementary class, and pass them to a master in a higher
class. But I have the greatest delight in the progress which these men have
made, so far as I have seen it; and I have not the least doubt that great
things will be done with respect to them.
Chairman. Will you state precisely what position you hold?—I am master
of the Elementary and Landscape School of Drawing at the Working Men's
College in Great Ormond Street. My efforts are directed not to making a
carpenter an artist, but to making him happier as a carpenter.

Note.—The following analysis of the above evidence was given
in the Index to the Report (p. 184).—Ed.
114-5-6. Sculpture and painting should be combined under same
roof, not in same room.—Sculpture disciplines the eye to
appreciate painting.—But, if in same room, disturbs the mind.—
Tribune at Florence arranged too much for show—Sculpture not
to be regarded as decorative of a room.—National Gallery
should include works of all kinds of art of all ages, arranged
chronologically (cf. 132). Mediæval sculpture should go with
painting, if it is found impossible to combine art of all ages.
117-8. Pictures should be protected by glass in every case. It
makes them more beautiful, independently of the preservation,
—Glass is not merely expedient, but essential.—Pictures are
permanently injured by dirt.
119-20-21. First-rate large pictures should have a room to
themselves, and a gallery round them.—Pictures must be hung
on a line with the eye.—In one, or at most two, lines.—In the
Salon Carre at the Louvre the effect is magnificent, but details
of pictures cannot be seen.
122. Galleries should be decorated not splendidly, but
pleasantly.
123. Great importance of chronological arrangement. Art the
truest history (cf. 125 and 132).
124. Best works of inferior artists to be secured.
125. All the works of a painter, however incongruous their
subjects, to be exhibited in juxtaposition.
126. Love of detail in pictures among workmen.—Great
refinement of their perceptions.
127. Accessibility of new National Gallery.
128. There should be two galleries—one containing gems,
placed in as safe a position as possible; the other containing

works good, but inferior to the highest, and located solely with a
view to accessibility.
129. Impossible to protect sculpture from London atmosphere.
130. Inferior gallery would be useful as an instructor.—In this
respect superior to the great gallery.
131-32. Copies of paintings much to be deprecated.
133. Good collection of casts a valuable addition to a national
gallery.—Also architectural fragments and illustrations.—And
everything which involves art.
134. If it is impossible to combine works of art of all ages, the
Pagan and Christian division is the best.—"Christian" art
including all art subsequent to the birth of Christ.
135. Great importance of arranging and setting off sculpture.
136. Recent purchase by Government of the great Paul
Veronese.
137. "Restoring" abroad.
138. Witness is Master of the Elementary and Landscape School
of Drawing at the Working Men's College in Great Ormond
Street.—Progress made by students highly satisfactory.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] This evidence, given by Mr. Ruskin as stated above, is reprinted from the
Report of the National Gallery Site Commission. London: Harrison and Sons.
1857. Pp. 92-7. Questions 2392-2504. The Commission consisted of Lord
Broughton (chairman), Dean Milman, Professor Faraday, Mr. Cockerell, R.A.,
and Mr. George Richmond, all of whom were present on the occasion of Mr.
Ruskin giving his evidence.—Ed.

PICTURE GALLERIES—THEIR FUNCTIONS
AND FORMATION.

SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.[2]

Evidence of John Ruskin, Tuesday, March 20, 1860.

139. Chairman. I believe you have a general acquaintance with the leading
museums, picture galleries, and institutions in this metropolis?—Yes, I
know them well.
And especially the pictures?—Yes.
I believe you have also taken much interest in the Working Men's College?
—Yes, much interest. I have been occupied there as a master for about five
years.
I believe you conduct a class on two days in the week?—On one day of the
week only.
You have given a great deal of gratuitous instruction to the working classes?
—Not so much to the working classes as to the class which especially
attends the lectures on drawing, but which of course is connected with the
working classes, and through which I know something about them.
140. You are probably able to speak with reference to the hours at which it
would be most convenient that these institutions should be opened to the
working classes, so that they might enjoy them?—At all events, I can form
some opinion about it.
What are the hours which you think would be the most suitable to the
working classes, or those to whom you have imparted instruction?—They
would, of course, have in general no hours but in the evening.

Do you think the hours which are now found suitable for mechanics'
institutes would be suitable for them, that is, from eight till ten, or from
seven till ten at night?—The earlier the better, I should think; that being
dependent closely upon the other much more important question, how you
can prepare the workmen for taking advantage of these institutions. The
question before us, as a nation, is not, I think, what opportunities we shall
give to the workmen of instruction, unless we enable them to receive it; and
all this is connected closely, in my mind, with the early closing question,
and with the more difficult question, issuing out of that, how far you can get
the hours of labor regulated, and how far you can get the labor during those
hours made not competitive, and not oppressive to the workmen.
141. Have you found that the instruction which you have been enabled to
give to the working classes has produced very good results upon them
already? I ought perhaps hardly to speak of my own particular modes of
instruction, because their tendency is rather to lead the workman out of his
class, and I am privately obliged to impress upon my men who come to the
Working Men's College, not to learn in the hope of being anything but
working men, but to learn what may be either advantageous for them in
their work, or make them happy after their work. In my class, they are
especially tempted to think of rising above their own rank, and becoming
artists,—becoming something better than workmen, and that effect I
particularly dread. I want all efforts for bettering the workmen to be
especially directed in this way: supposing that they are to remain in this
position forever, that they have not capacity to rise above it, and that they
are to work as coal miners, or as iron forgers, staying as they are; how then
you may make them happier and wiser?
I should suppose you would admit that the desire to rise out of a class is
almost inseparable from the amount of self-improvement that you would
wish to give them?—I should think not; I think that the moment a man
desires to rise out of his own class, he does his work badly in it; he ought to
desire to rise in his own class, and not out of it.
The instruction which you would impart one would suppose would be
beneficial to the laborer in the class which he is in?—Yes.

142. And that agrees, does it not, with what has been alleged by many
working men, that they have found in their competition with foreigners that
a knowledge of art has been most beneficial to them?—Quite so.
I believe many foreigners are now in competition with working men in the
metropolis, in matters in which art is involved?—I believe there are many,
and that they are likely still more to increase as the relations between the
nations become closer.
Is it your opinion that the individual workman who now executes works of
art in this country is less intellectually fit for his occupation than in former
days?—Very much so indeed.
Have you not some proofs of that which you can adduce for the benefit of
the Committee?—I can only make an assertion; I cannot prove it; but I
assert it with confidence, that no workman, whose mind I have examined,
is, at present, capable of design in the arts, only of imitation, and of
exquisite manual execution, such as is unsurpassable by the work of any
time or any country; manual execution, which, however, being wholly
mechanical, is always profitless to the man himself, and profitless
ultimately to those who possess the work.
143. With regard to those institutions in which pictures are exhibited, are
you satisfied that the utmost facilities are afforded to the public compatibly
with the expense which is now incurred?—I cannot tell how far it would be
compatible with the expense, but I think that a very little increase of
expense might certainly bring about a great increase of convenience.
Various plans have been suggested, by different persons, as to an
improvement in the National Gallery, with regard to the area, and a better
distribution of the pictures?—Yes.
Are you of opinion that at a very small cost it would be possible to increase
the area considerably in the case of the National Gallery?—I have not
examined the question with respect to the area of the National Gallery. It
depends of course upon questions of rent, and respecting the mode in which
the building is now constructed, which I have not examined; but in general
this is true of large buildings, that expense wisely directed to giving
facilities for seeing the pictures, and not to the mere show of the building,

would always be productive of far more good to the nation, and especially
to the lower orders of the nation, than expense in any other way directed,
with reference to these institutions.
144. Some persons have been disposed to doubt whether, if the institutions
were open at night, gas would be found injurious to the pictures; would that
be your impression?—I have no doubt that it would be injurious to the
pictures, if it came in contact with them. It would be a matter of great regret
to me that valuable pictures should be so exhibited. I have hoped that
pictures might be placed in a gallery for the working classes which would
interest them much more than the chefs-d'œuvre of the great masters, and
which at the same time would not be a great loss to the nation if destroyed.
145. Have you had any experience of the working of the evening openings
of the South Kensington Museum?—No direct experience, but my
impression is that the workmen at present being compelled to think always
of getting as much work done in a day as they can, are generally led in these
institutions to look to the machinery, or to anything which bears upon their
trade; it therefore is no rest to them; it may be sometimes, when they are
allowed to take their families, as they do on certain evenings, to the
Kensington Museum, that is a great step; but the great evil is that the
pressure of the work on a man's mind is not removed, and that he has not
rest enough, thorough rest given him by proper explanations of the things
he sees; he is not led by a large printed explanation beneath the very thing
to take a happy and unpainful interest in every subject brought before him;
he wanders about listlessly, and exerts himself to find out things which are
not sufficiently explained, and gradually he tires of it, and he goes back to
his home, or to his alehouse, unless he is a very intelligent man.
Would you recommend that some person should follow him through the
building to explain the details?—No; but I would especially recommend
that our institutions should be calculated for the help of persons whose
minds are languid with labor. I find that with ordinary constitutions, the
labor of a day in England oppresses a man, and breaks him down, and it is
not refreshment to him to use his mind after that, but it would be
refreshment to him to have anything read to him, or any amusing thing told
him, or to have perfect rest; he likes to lie back in his chair at his own
fireside, and smoke his pipe, rather than enter into a political debate, and

what we want is an extension of our art institutions, with interesting things,
teaching a man and amusing him at the same time; above all, large printed
explanations under every print and every picture; and the subjects of the
pictures such as they can enjoy.
146. Have you any other suggestion to offer calculated to enlighten the
Committee on the subject intrusted to them for consideration?—I can only
say what my own feelings have been as to my men. I have found
particularly that natural history was delightful to them; I think that that has
an especial tendency to take their minds off their work, which is what I
always try to do, not ambitiously, but reposingly. I should like to add to
what I said about the danger of injury to chefs-d'œuvre, that such danger
exists, not only as to gas, but also the breath, the variation of temperature,
the extension of the canvases in a different temperature, the extension of the
paint upon them, and various chemical operations of the human breath, the
chance of an accidental escape of gas, the circulation of variously damp air
through the ventilators; all these ought not to be allowed to affect the great
and unreplaceable works of the best masters; and those works, I believe, are
wholly valueless to the working classes; their merits are wholly
imperceptible except to persons who have given many years of study to
endeavor to qualify themselves to discover them; but what is wanting for
the working man is historical painting of events noble, and bearing upon his
own country; the history of his own country well represented to him; the
natural history of foreign countries well represented to him; and domestic
pathos brought before him. Nothing assists him so much as having the
moral disposition developed rather than the intellectual after his work;
anything that touches his feelings is good, and puts new life into him;
therefore I want modern pictures, if possible, of that class which would
ennoble and refine by their subjects. I should like prints of all times,
engravings of all times; those would interest him with their variety of
means and subject; and natural history of three kinds, namely, shells, birds,
and plants; not minerals, because a workman cannot study mineralogy at
home; but whatever town he may be in, he may take some interest in the
birds and in the plants, or in the sea shells of his own country and coast. I
should like the commonest of all our plants first, and most fully illustrated;
the commonest of all our birds, and of our shells, and men would be led to
take an interest in those things wholly for their beauty, and for their separate

charm, irrespective of any use that might be made of them in the arts. There
also ought to be, for the more intelligent workman, who really wants to
advance himself in his business, specimens of the manufactures of all
countries, as far as the compass of such institutions would allow.
147. You have traveled, I believe, a good deal abroad?—Yes.
And you have seen in many foreign countries that far more interest is taken
in the improvement of the people in this matter than is taken in this
country?—Far more.
Do you think that you can trace the good effects which result from that
mode of treatment?—The circumstances are so different that I do not feel
able to give evidence of any definite effect from such efforts; only, it stands
to reason, that it must be so. There are so many circumstances at present
against us, in England, that we must not be sanguine as to too speedy an
effect. I believe that one great reason of the superiority of foreign countries
in manufactures is, that they have more beautiful things about them
continually, and it is not possible for a man who is educated in the streets of
our manufacturing towns ever to attain that refinement of eye or sense; he
cannot do it; and he is accustomed in his home to endure that which not the
less blunts his senses.
The Committee has been informed that with regard to some of our
museums, particularly the British Museum, they are very much overcharged
with objects, and I apprehend that the same remark would be true as to
some of our picture galleries. Are you of opinion that it would be conducive
to the general elevation of the people in this country if our works of art, and
objects of interest, were circulated more expeditiously, and more
conveniently, than at present, throughout the various manufacturing
districts?—I think that all precious works of art ought to be treated with a
quite different view, and that they ought to be kept together where men
whose work is chiefly concerned with art, and where the artistically higher
classes can take full advantage of them. They ought, therefore, to be all
together, as in the Louvre at Paris, and as in the Uffizii at Florence,
everything being illustrative of other things, but kept separate from the
collections intended for the working classes, which may be as valuable as
you choose, but they should be usable, and above all things so situated that

the working classes could get at them easily, without keepers to watch what
they are about, and have their wives and children with them, and be able to
get at them freely, so that they might look at a thing as their own, not
merely as the nation's, but as a gift from the nation to them as the working
class.
You would cultivate a taste at the impressionable age?—Especially in the
education of children, that being just the first question, I suppose, which lies
at the root of all you can do for the workman.
148. With regard to the circulation of pictures and such loans of pictures as
have heretofore been made in Manchester and elsewhere, are you of
opinion that, in certain cases, during a part of the year, some of our best
pictures might be lent for particular periods, to particular towns, to be
restored in the same condition, so as to give those towns an opportunity of
forming an opinion upon them, which otherwise they would not have?—I
would rather keep them all in the metropolis, and move them as little as
possible when valuable.
Mr. Slaney. That would not apply to loans by independent gentlemen who
were willing to lend their pictures?—I should be very glad if it were
possible to lend pictures, and send them about. I think it is one of the
greatest movements in the nation, showing the increasing kindness of the
upper classes towards the lower, that that has been done; but I think nothing
can justify the risking of noble pictures by railway, for instance; that, of
course, is an artist's view of the matter; but I do not see that the advantage
to be gained would at all correspond with the danger of loss which is
involved.
149. Mr. Hanbury. You mentioned that you thought it was very desirable
that there should be lectures given to the working classes?—Yes.
Do you think that the duplicate specimens at the British Museum could be
made available for lectures on natural history, if a part of that institution
could be arranged for the purpose?—I should think so; but it is a question
that I have no right to have an opinion upon. Only the officers of the
institution can say what number of their duplicate specimens they could
spare.

I put the question to you because I have observed in the British Museum
that the people took a great interest in the natural history department, and,
upon one occasion, a friend of mine stopped, and explained some of the
objects, and at once a very numerous crowd was attracted round him, and
the officials had to interfere, and told him to move on.—So much more
depends upon the explanation than on the thing explained, that I believe,
with very simple collections of very small value, but well chosen, and
exhibited by a thoroughly intelligent lecturer, you might interest the lower
classes, and teach them to any extent.
Would it be difficult to find such lecturers as you speak of?—Not in time;
perhaps at present it would be, because we have got so much in the habit of
thinking that science consists in language, and in fine words, and not in
ascertaining the nature of the thing. The workman cannot be deceived by
fine words; he always wants to know something about the thing, and its
properties. Many of our lecturers would, I have no doubt, be puzzled if they
were asked to explain the habits of a common bird.
150. Is there an increasing desire for information and improvement among
the working classes?—A thirsty desire for it in every direction, increasing
day by day, and likely to increase; it would grow by what it feeds upon.
To what do you attribute this improvement?—Partly to the healthy and
proper efforts which have been made to elevate the working classes; partly,
I am sorry to say, to an ambitious desire throughout the nation always to get
on to a point which it has not yet reached, and which makes one man
struggle with another in every way. I think that the idea that knowledge is
power is at the root of the movement among the working classes, much
more so than in any other.
Do you consider that the distance of our public institutions is a great
hindrance to the working classes?—Very great indeed.
You would, therefore, probably consider it a boon if another institution such
as the British Museum could be established in the eastern end of the
metropolis?—I should be most thankful to see it, especially there.
151. Mr. Slaney. I think you stated that you considered, that for the working
classes it is a great thing to have relaxation of mind after the close

occupation of the day; that they would embrace an opportunity of attending
popular lectures on branches of natural history which they could
comprehend, if they were given to them in plain and simple language?—
Yes.
For instance, if you were to give a popular lecture upon British birds, giving
them an explanation of the habits of the various birds, assisted by tolerably
good plates, or figures describing the different habits of migration of those
that come to us in spring, remain during the summer, and depart in the
autumn to distant countries; of those which come in the autumn, remain
during the winter, and then leave us; of those which charm us with their
song, and benefit us in various ways; do you think that such a lecture would
be acceptable to the working classes?—It would be just what they would
enjoy the most, and what would do them the most good.
Do you not think that such lectures might be given without any very great
cost, by finding persons who would endeavor to make the subjects plain and
pleasant, not requiring a very expensive apparatus, either of figures or of
birds, but which might be pointed out to them, and explained to them from
time to time?—No; I think that no such lectures would be of use, unless a
permanent means of quiet study were given to the men between times. As
far as I know, lectures are always entirely useless, except as a matter of
amusement, unless some opportunity be afforded of accurate intermediate
study, and although I should deprecate the idea, on the one side, of giving
the chefs-d'œuvre of the highest masters to the workman for his daily
experiments, so I should deprecate, on the other, the idea of any economy if
I saw a definite plan of helping a man in his own times of quiet study.
152. There are some popular works on British birds which the men might be
referred to, containing accounts of the birds and their habits, which might
be referred to subsequently?—Yes.
There are several works relating to British birds which are very beautifully
illustrated, and to those they might be referred; do you not think that
something might also be done with regard to popular lectures upon British
plants, and particularly those which are perhaps the most common, and only
neglected because of their being common; that you might point out to them
the different soils in which they grow, so that they might be able to make

excursions to see them in their wild state?—My wish is, that in every large
manufacturing town there should be a perfect collection, at all events of the
principal genera of British plants and birds, thoroughly well arranged, and a
library associated with it, containing the best illustrative works on the
subject, and that from time to time lectures should be given by the leading
scientific men, which I am sure they would be willing to give if such
collections were opened to them.
I dare say you know that there is one book upon British birds, which was
compiled by a gentleman who was in trade, and lived at the corner of St.
James's Street for many years, which is prized by all who are devoted to
that study, and which would be easily obtained for the working men. Do
you not think that this would relax their minds and be beneficial to them in
many ways, especially if they were able to follow up the study?—Yes, in
every way.
As to plants, might not they interest their wives as well?—I quite believe
so.
If such things could be done by subscription in the vicinity of large towns,
such as Manchester, would they not be very much responded to by the
grateful feelings of the humbler people, who themselves would subscribe
probably some trifle?—I think they would be grateful, however it were
done. But I should like it to be done as an expression of the sense of the
nation, as doing its duty towards the workmen, rather than it should be done
as a kind of charity by private subscription.
153. Sir Robert Peel. You have been five years connected with the Working
Men's College?—Yes; I think about that time.
Is the attendance good there?—There is a fair attendance, I believe.
Of the working classes?—Yes; in the other lecture-rooms; not much in
mine.
Do they go there as they please without going beforehand for tickets?—
They pass through an introductory examination, which is not severe in any
way, but merely shows that they are able to take advantage of the classes
there; of course they pay a certain sum, which is not at all, at present, I

believe, supporting to the college, for every class, just to insure their paying
attention to it.
You stated that you did not think lectures would be of any use unless there
was what you called active intermediate study?—I think not.
What did you mean by active intermediate study? if a man is working every
day of the week until Saturday afternoon, how could that take place?—I
think that you could not at all provide lectures once or twice a week at the
institutions throughout the kingdom. By intermediate study, I mean merely
that a man should have about him, when he came into the room, things that
shall tempt him to look at them, and get interested in, say in one bird, or in
one plant.
While the lecture was going on?—No, that might be given once a fortnight,
or once a month, but that this intermediate attention should be just that
which a man is delighted to give to a single plant which he cultivates in his
own garden, or a single bird which he may happen to have obtained; the
best of all modes of study.
154. You are in favor of the Early Closing Association?—I will not say that
I am, because I have not examined their principles. I want to have our labor
regulated, so that it shall be impossible for men to be so entirely crushed in
mind and in body as they are by the system of competition.
You stated that you would wish the hours during which they would be able
to enjoy the institutions to be as early as possible?—Yes, certainly.
But it would be impossible to have them earlier than they are now, on
account of the organization of labor in the country.—I do not know what is
possible. I do not know what the number of hours necessary for labor will
ultimately be found to be.
Still you are of opinion that, if there was a half-holiday on the Saturday, it
would be an advantage to the working classes, and enable them to visit and
enjoy these institutions?—Certainly.
155. You observed, I think, that there was a thirsty desire on the part of the
working classes for improvement?—Certainly.

And you also stated that there was a desire on their part to rise in that class,
but not out of it?—I did not say that they wanted to rise in that class; they
wish to emerge from it; they wish to become something better than
workmen, and I want to keep them in that class; I want to teach every man
to rest contented in his station, and I want all people, in all stations, to better
and help each other as much as they can.
But you never saw a man, did you, who was contented?—Yes, I have seen
several; nearly all the very good workmen are contented; I find that it is
only the second-rate workmen who are discontented.
156. Surely competition with foreigners is a great advantage to the working
classes of this country?—No.
It has been stated that competition is an immense advantage in the
extension of artistic knowledge among the people of this country, who are
rapidly stepping on the heels of foreigners?—An acquaintance with what
foreign nations have accomplished may be very useful to our workmen, but
a spirit of competition with foreign nations is useful to no one.
Will you be good enough to state why?—Every nation has the power of
producing a certain number of objects of art, or of manufacturing
productions which are peculiar to it, and which it can produce thoroughly
well; and, when that is rightly understood, every nation will strive to do its
own work as well as it can be done, and will desire to be supplied, by other
nations, with that which they can produce; for example, if we tried here in
England to produce silk, we might possibly grow unhealthy mulberry trees
and bring up unhealthy silkworms, but not produce good silk. It may be a
question how far we should compete with foreigners in matters of taste. I
think it doubtful, even in that view, that we should ever compete with them
thoroughly. I find evidence in past art, that the French have always had a
gift of color, which the English never had.
157. You stated that you thought that at very little expense the advantages to
be derived from our national institutions might be greatly increased; will
you state why you think very little expense would be necessary, and how it
should be done?—By extending the space primarily, and by adding very
cheap but completely illustrative works; by making all that such institutions
contain thoroughly accessible; and giving, as I think I have said before,

explanations, especially in a visible form, beside the thing to be illustrated,
not in a separate form.
But that only would apply to daytime?—To nighttime as well.
But would you not have to introduce a system of lighting?—Yes; a system
of lighting I should only regret as applied to the great works of art; I should
think that the brightest system of lighting should be applied, especially of
an evening, so that such places should be made delightful to the workman,
and withdraw him from the alehouse and all other evil temptation; but I
want them rather to be occupied by simple, and more or less cheap
collections, than by the valuable ones, for fear of fire.
If, at the British Museum, they had printed information upon natural
history, that, you think, would do great good?—Yes.
158. You stated that you thought there was far more interest taken in foreign
countries in the intellectual development of the working classes than in
England?—I answered that question rather rashly. I hardly ever see
anything of society in foreign countries, and I was thinking, at the time, of
the great efforts now being made in France, and of the general comfort of
the institutions that are open.
Not political?—No.
Still you think that there is more interest taken in the intellectual
development of the working classes in foreign countries than in England?—
I think so, but I do not trust my own opinion.
I have lived abroad, and I have remarked that there is a natural facility in
the French people, for instance, in acquiring a knowledge of art, and of
combination of colors, but I never saw more, but far less desire or interest
taken in the working classes than in England.—As far as relates to their
intellectual development, I say yes; but I think there is a greater disposition
to make them happy, and allow them to enjoy their happiness, in ordinary
associations, at fêtes, and everything of that kind, that is amusing or
recreative to them.
But that is only on Sundays?—No; on all fête days, and throughout, I think
you see the working man, with his wife, happier in the gardens or in the

suburbs of a town, and on the whole in a happier state; there is less desire to
get as much out of him for the money as they can; less of that desire to
oppress him and to use him as a machine than there is in England. But,
observe, I do not lean upon that point; and I do not quite see how that bears
upon the question, because, whatever interest there may be in foreign
countries, or in ours, it is not as much as it should be in either.
But you were throwing a slur upon the character of the upper classes in this
country, by insinuating that abroad a great deal more interest was taken in
the working classes than in England. Now I assert, that quite the contrary is
the fact.—I should be very sorry to express all the feelings that I have
respecting the relations between the upper classes and the working classes
in this country; it is a subject which cannot at present be discussed, and one
upon which I would decline any further examination.
159. You stated that the working men were not so happy in this country as
they were abroad, pursuing the same occupations?—I should think certainly
not.
You have been in Switzerland?—Yes.
And at Zurich?—Not lately.
That is the seat of a great linen manufacture?—I have never examined the
manufactures there, nor have I looked at Switzerland as a manufacturing
country.
But you stated that there was much more interest taken in the intellectual
developments of the working classes in foreign countries than in England?
—Yes; but I was not thinking of Switzerland or of Zurich. I was thinking of
France, and I was thinking of the working classes generally, not specially
the manufacturing working classes. I used the words "working classes"
generally.
Then do you withdraw the expression that you made use of, that in foreign
countries the upper classes take more interest in the condition of the
working classes, than they do in England?—I do not withdraw it; I only
said that it was my impression.
But you cannot establish it?—No.

Therefore it is merely a matter of individual impression?—Entirely so.
You said, I think, that abroad the people enjoy their public institutions
better, because inspectors do not follow them about?—I did not say so. I
was asked the question whether I thought teaching should be given by
persons accompanying the workman about, and I said certainly not. I would
rather leave him to himself, with such information as could be given to him
by printed documents.
160. Mr. Sclater Booth. With regard to the National Gallery, are you aware
that there is great pressure and want of space there now, both with regard to
the room for hanging pictures, and also with reference to the crowds of
persons who frequent the National Gallery?—I am quite sure that if there is
not great pressure, there will be soon, owing to the number of pictures
which are being bought continually.
Do you not think that an extension of the space in the National Gallery is a
primary consideration, which ought to take precedence of any improvement
that might be made in the rooms as they are, with a view to opening them of
an evening?—Most certainly.
That is the first thing, you think, that ought to be done?—Most certainly.
When you give your lectures at the Working Men's College, is it your habit
to refer to special pictures in the National Gallery, or to special works of art
in the British Museum?—Never; I try to keep whatever instruction I give
bearing upon what is easily accessible to the workman, or what he can see
at the moment. I do not count upon his having time to go to these
institutions; I like to put the thing in his hand, and have it about.
Has it never been a stumbling-block in your path that you have found a
workman unable to compare your lectures with any illustrations that you
may have referred him to?—I have never prepared my lectures with a view
to illustrate them by the works of the great masters.
161. You spoke, and very justly, of the importance of fixing on works of art
printed explanations; are you not aware that that has been done to some
extent at the Kensington Museum?—Yes.

Do you not think that a great part of the popularity of that institution is
owing to that circumstance?—I think so, certainly.
On the whole, I gather from your evidence that you are not very sanguine as
to the beneficial results that would arise from the opening of the British
Museum and the National Gallery of an evening, as those institutions are at
present constituted, from a want of space and the crowding of the objects
there?—Whatever the results might be, from opening them, as at present
constituted, I think better results might be attained by preparing institutions
for the workman himself alone.
Do you think that museums of birds and plants, established in various parts
of the metropolis, illustrated and furnished with pictures of domestic
interest, and possibly with specimens of manufactures, would be more
desirable, considering the mode in which the large institutions are now
seen?—I think in these great institutions attention ought specially to be paid
to giving perfect security to all the works and objects of art which they
possess; and to giving convenience to the thorough student, whose business
lies with those museums; and that collections for the amusement and
improvement of the working classes ought to be entirely separate.
If such institutions as I have described were to be established, you would of
course desire that they should be opened of an evening, and be specially
arranged, with a view to evening exhibition?—Certainly.
It has been stated that the taxpayer has a right to have these exhibitions
opened at hours when the workpeople can go to them, they being taxpayers;
do not you think that the real interest of the taxpayer is, first, to have the
pictures as carefully preserved as possible, and secondly, that they should
be accessible to those whose special occupation in life is concerned in their
study?—Most certainly.
Is not the interest of the taxpayer reached in this way, rather than by any
special opportunity being given of visiting at particular hours?—Most
certainly.
162. Mr. Kinnaird. Have you ever turned your attention to any peculiar
localities, where museums of paintings and shells, and of birds and plants,

might be opened for the purpose referred to?—Never; I have never
examined the subject.
Has it ever occurred to you that the Vestry Halls, which have recently been
erected, and which are lighted, might be so appropriated?—No; I have
never considered the subject at all.
Supposing that suitable premises could be found, do you not think that
many people would contribute modern paintings, and engravings, and
various other objects of interest?—I think it is most probable; in fact, I
should say certain.
You would view such an attempt with great favor?—Yes; with great delight
indeed.
You rather look upon it as the duty of the Government to provide such
institutions for the people?—I feel that very strongly indeed.
Do you not think that the plan which has been adopted at Versailles, of
having modern history illustrated by paintings, would prove of great interest
to the people?—I should think it would be an admirable plan in every way.
And a very legitimate step to be taken by the Government, for the purpose
of encouraging art in that way?—Most truly.
Would it have, do you think, an effect in encouraging art in this country?—I
should think so, certainly.
Whose duty would you consider it to be to superintend the formation of
such collections? are there any Government officers who are at present
capable of organizing a staff for employment in local museums that you are
aware of?—I do not know; I have not examined that subject at all.
163. Chairman. The Committee would like to understand you more
definitely upon the point that has been referred to, as to foreigners and
Englishmen. I presume that what you wished the Committee to understand
was, that upon the whole, so far as you have observed, more facilities are in
point of fact afforded to the working classes, in some way or other, abroad
than in this country for seeing pictures and visiting public institutions?—
My answer referred especially to the aspect of the working classes as I have

watched them in their times of recreation; I see them associated with the
upper classes, more happily for themselves; I see them walking through the
Louvre, and walking through the gardens of all the great cities of Europe,
and apparently less ashamed of themselves, and more happily combined
with all the upper classes of society, than they are here. Here our workmen,
somehow, are always miserably dressed, and they always keep out of the
way, both at such institutions and at church. The temper abroad seems to be,
while there is a sterner separation and a more aristocratic feeling between
the upper and the lower classes, yet just on that account the workman
confesses himself for a workman, and is treated with affection. I do not say
workmen merely, but the lower classes generally, are treated with affection,
and familiarity, and sympathy by the master or employer, which has to me
often been very touching in separate eases; and that impression being on my
mind, I answered, not considering that the question was of any importance,
hastily; and I am not at present prepared to say how far I could, by thinking,
justify that impression.
164. Mr. Kinnaird. In your experience, in the last few years, have you not
seen a very marked improvement in the working classes in this country in
every respect to which you have alluded; take the last twenty years, or since
you have turned your attention that way?—I have no evidence before me in
England of that improvement, because I think that the struggle for existence
becomes every day more severe, and that, while greater efforts are made to
help the workman, the principles on which our commerce is conducted are
every day oppressing him, and sinking him deeper.
Have you ever visited the manufacturing districts of Lancashire and
Yorkshire, with a view of ascertaining the state of the people there?—Not
with a definite view. My own work has nothing to do with those subjects;
and it is only incidentally, because I gratuitously give such instruction as I
am able to give at the Working Men's College, that I am able to give you
any facts on this subject. All the rest that I can give is, as Sir Robert Peel
accurately expressed it, nothing but personal impression.
You admit that the Working Men's College is, after all, a very limited
sphere?—A very limited sphere.

165. Sir Robert Peel. You have stated that, in the Louvre, a working man
looks at the pictures with a greater degree of self-respect than the same
classes do in the National Gallery here?—I think so.
You surely never saw a man of the upper class, in England, scorn at a
working man because he appeared in his working dress in the National
Gallery in London?—I have certainly seen working men apprehensive of
such scorn.
Chairman. Is it not the fact, that the upper and lower classes scarcely ever
meet on the same occasions?—I think, if possible, they do not.
Is it not the fact that the laboring classes almost invariably cease labor at
such hours as would prevent them from going to see pictures at the time
when the upper classes do go?—I meant, before, to signify assent to your
question, that they do not meet if it can be avoided.
Sir Robert Peel. Take the Crystal Palace as an example; do not working
men and all classes meet there together, and did you ever see a working
man gêné in the examination of works of art?—I am sure that a working
man very often would not go where he would like to go.
But you think he would abroad?—I think they would go abroad; I only say
that I believe such is the fact.
Mr. Slaney. Do not you think that the light-hearted temperament of our
southern neighbors, and the fineness of the climate, which permits them to
enjoy themselves more in the open air, has something to do with it?—I hope
that the old name of Merry England may be recovered one of these days. I
do not think that it is in the disposition of the inhabitants to be in the least
duller than other people.
Sir Robert Peel. When was that designation lost?—I am afraid ever since
our manufactures have prospered.
Chairman. Referring to the Crystal Palace, do you think that that was an
appropriate instance to put, considering the working man pays for his own,
and is not ashamed to enjoy his own for his own money?—I have never
examined the causes of the feeling; it did not appear to me to be a matter of
great importance what was the state of feeling in foreign countries. I felt

that it depended upon so many circumstances, that I thought it would be a
waste of time to trace it.
166. Sir Robert Peel. You stated that abroad the working classes were much
better dressed?—Yes.
Do you think so?—Yes.
Surely they cannot be better dressed than they are in England, for you
hardly know a working man here from an aristocrat?—It is precisely
because I do know working men on a Sunday and every other day of the
week from an aristocrat that I like their dress better in France; it is the
ordinary dress belonging to their position, and it expresses momentarily
what they are; it is the blue blouse which hangs freely over their frames,
keeping them sufficiently protected from cold and dust; but here it is a shirt
open at the collar, very dirty, very much torn, with ragged hair, and a ragged
coat, and altogether a dress of misery.
You think that they are better dressed abroad because they wear a blouse?—
Because they wear a costume appropriate to their work.
Are you aware that they make it an invariable custom to leave off the blouse
on Sundays and on holidays, and that after they have finished their work
they take off their blouse?—I am not familiar, nor do I profess to be
familiar, with the customs of the Continent; I am only stating my
impressions; but I like especially their habit of wearing a national costume.
I believe the national costume of work in Switzerland to be at the root of
what prosperity Switzerland yet is retaining. I think, for instance, although
it may sound rather singular to say so, that the pride which the women take
in their clean chemise sleeves, is one of the healthiest things in Switzerland,
and that it is operative in every way on the health of the mind and the body,
their keeping their costume pure, fresh, and beautiful.
You stated that the working classes were better dressed abroad than in
England?—As far as I know, that is certainly the fact.
Still their better dress consists of a blouse, which they take off when they
have finished their work?—I bow to your better knowledge of the matter.

Chairman. Are you aware that a considerable number of the working
classes are in bed on the Sunday?—Perhaps it is the best place for them.
167. Mr. Kinnaird. You trace the deterioration in the condition of the
working classes to the increase of trade and manufactures in this country?—
To the increase of competitive trades and manufactures.
It is your conviction that we may look upon this vast extension of trade, and
commerce, and competition, altogether as an evil?—Not on the vast
extension of trade, but on the vast extension of the struggle of man with
man, instead of the principle of help of man by man.
Chairman. I understood you to say, that you did not object to trade, but that
you wished each country to produce that which it was best fitted to produce,
with a view to an interchange of its commodities with those of other
countries?—Yes.
You did not intend to cast a slur upon the idea of competition?—Yes, very
distinctly; I intended not only to cast a slur, but to express my excessive
horror of the principle of competition, in every way; for instance, we ought
not to try to grow claret here, nor to produce silk; we ought to produce coal
and iron, and the French should give us wine and silk.
You say that, with a view to an interchange of such commodities?—Yes.
Each country producing that which it is best fitted to produce?—Yes, as
well as it can; not striving to imitate or compete with the productions of
other countries. Finally, I believe that the way of ascertaining what ought to
be done for the workman in any position, is for any one of us to suppose
that he was our own son, and that he was left without any parents, and
without any help; that there was no chance of his ever emerging out of the
state in which he was, and then, that what we should each of us like to be
done for our son, so left, we should strive to do for the workman.
The following analysis of the above evidence was mainly given
in the Index to the Report (p. 153).—Ed.
139. Is well acquainted with the museums, picture galleries, etc.,
in the metropolis.—Conducts a drawing class at the Working
Men's College.

140. Desirableness of the public institutions being open in the
evening (cp. 154, 161).
141. Remarks relative to the system of teaching expedient for
the working classes; system pursued by witness at the Working
Men's College.—Workmen to aim at rising in their class, not out
of it (cp. 155).
142. Backward state, intellectually, of the working man of the
present time; superiority of the foreigner.
143. Improvement of the National Gallery suggested (cp. 157,
160).
144. Inexpediency of submitting valuable ancient pictures to the
risk of injury from gas, etc. (cp. 146, 157).
145. Statement as to the minds of the working classes after their
day's labor being too much oppressed to enable them to enjoy or
appreciate the public institutions, if merely opened in the
evening.
146. Suggested collection of pictures and prints of a particular
character for the inspection of the working classes.—
Suggestions with a view to special collections of shells, birds,
and plants being prepared for the use of the working classes;
system of lectures, of illustration, and of intermediate study
necessary in connection with such collections (cp. 151-52).
147. Statement as to greater interest being taken in France and
other foreign countries than in England in the intellectual
development of the working classes; examination on this point,
and on the effect produced thereby upon the character and
demeanor of the working people (cp. 158, 163-64).
148. Objection to circulating valuable or rare works of art
throughout the country, on account of the risk of injury—
Disapproval of inspectors, etc., going about with the visitors (cp.
159).—Advantage in the upper classes lending pictures, etc., for
public exhibition.

149. Lectures to working men. Advantage if large printed
explanations were placed under every picture (cp. 157, 161).
150. Great desire among the working classes to acquire
knowledge; grounds of such desire (cp. 155).—Great boon if a
museum were formed at the east end of London.
151. Lectures on natural history for working men.
152. Books available on British birds.
153. Intermediate study essential to use of Lectures.—Good
attendance at Working Men's College.—Terms and conditions of
admission to it.
154. Approval of Saturday half-holiday movement (cp. 140,
161).
155. See above, s. 142.
156. Competition in trade and labor regarded by witness as a
great evil.
157. See above, s. 143, 149.
158-59. Happier condition of lower classes abroad than at home.
Their dress also better abroad. 163-64, 166, and see above, s.
142.
160. See above, s. 143, 149, 157.
161. See above, s. 149, 154.
162. Use of existing public buildings for art collections.
163-64. See above, s. 158-59.
165. Surely England may one day be Merry England again.—
When it ceased to be so.
166. See above, s. 158-59.

167. Increase of trade and deteriorated condition of working-
classes.—Our duty to them.

FOOTNOTES:
[2] Reprinted from "The Report of the Select Committee on Public Institutions.
Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 27 March 1860," pp. 113-123.
The following members of the Committee were present on the occasion of the
above evidence being given: -Sir John Trelawny (Chairman), Mr. Sclater Booth,
Mr. Du Pre, Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. Hanbury, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Slaney, and Mr.
John Tollemache.—Ed.

PICTURE GALLERIES—THEIR FUNCTIONS
AND FORMATION.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY COMMISSION.[3]

Evidence of John Ruskin, Monday, June 8th, 1863.

168. Chairman. You have, no doubt, frequently considered the position of
the Royal Academy in this country?—Yes.
Is it in all points satisfactory to you?—No, certainly not.
Do you approve, for example, of the plan by which, on a vacancy occurring,
the Royal Academicians supply that vacancy, or would you wish to see that
election confided to any other hands?—I should wish to see the election
confided to other hands. I think that all elections are liable to mistake, or
mischance, when the electing body elect the candidate into them. I rather
think that elections are only successful where the candidate is elected into a
body other than the body of electors; but I have not considered the
principles of election fully enough to be able to give any positive statement
of opinion upon that matter. I only feel that at present the thing is liable to
many errors and mischances.
Does it not seem, however, that there are some precedents, such, for
example, as the Institute of France, in which the body electing to the
vacancies that occur within it keeps up a very high character, and enjoys a
great reputation?—There are many such precedents; and, as every such
body for its own honor must sometimes call upon the most intellectual men
of the country to join it, I should think that every such body must retain a
high character where the country itself has a proper sense of the worth of its
best men; but the system of election may be wrong, though the sense of the
country may be right; and I think, in appealing to a precedent to justify a
system, we should estimate properly what has been brought about by the
feeling of the country. We are all, I fancy, too much in the habit of looking

to forms as the cause of what really is caused by the temper of the nation at
the particular time, working, through the forms, for good or evil.
If, however, the election of Academicians were to be confided to artists who
were not already Academicians themselves, would it be easy to meet this
objection, that they would have in many cases a personal interest in the
question; that each might be striving for his own admission to that
distinction; whereas, when the election takes place among those who have
already attained that distinction, direct personal interest at all events is
absent?—I should think personal interest would act in a certain sense in
either case; it would branch into too many subtleties of interest to say in
what way it would act. I should think that it would be more important to the
inferior body to decide rightly upon those who were to govern them, than to
the superior body to decide upon those who were to govern other people;
and that the superior body would therefore generally choose those who
were likely to be pleasant to themselves;—pleasant, either as companions,
or in carrying out a system which they chose for their own convenience to
adopt; while the inferior body would choose men likely to carry out the
system that would tend most to the general progress of art.
169. As I understand you, though you have a decided opinion that it would
be better for some other constituent body to elect the members of the Royal
Academy, you have not a decided opinion as to how that constituent body
would best be composed?—By no means.
I presume you would wish that constituent body to consist of artists, though
you are not prepared to say precisely how they should be selected?—I
should like the constituent body to consist both of artists and of the public. I
feel great difficulties in offering any suggestion as to the manner in which
the electors should elect: but I should like the public as well as artists to
have a voice, so that we might have the public feeling brought to bear upon
painting as we have now upon music; and that the election of those who
were to attract the public eye, or direct the public mind, should indicate also
the will of the public in some respects; not that I think that "will" always
wise, but I think you would then have pointed out in what way those who
are teaching the public should best regulate the teaching; and also it would
give the public itself an interest in art, and a sense of responsibility, which
in the present state of things they never can have.

Will you explain more fully the precedent of music to which you have just
adverted?—The fame of any great singer or any great musician depends
upon the public enthusiasm and feeling respecting him. No Royal Academy
can draw a large audience to the opera by stating that such and such a piece
of music is good, or that such and such a voice is clear; if the public do not
feel the voice to be delicious, and if they do not like the music, they will not
go to hear it. The fame of the musician, whether singer, instrumentalist, or
composer, is founded mainly upon his having produced a strong effect upon
the public intellect and imagination. I should like that same effect to be
produced by painters, and to be expressed by the public enthusiasm and
approbation; not merely by expressions of approbation in conversation, but
by the actual voice which in the theater is given by the shout and by the
clapping of the hands. You cannot clap a picture, nor clap a painter at his
work, but I should like the public in some way to bring their voice to bear
upon the painter's work.
170. Have you formed any opinion upon the position of the Associates in
the Royal Academy?—I have thought of it a little, but the present system of
the Academy is to me so entirely nugatory, it produces so little effect in any
way (what little effect it does produce being in my opinion mischievous),
that it has never interested me; and I have felt the difficulty so greatly, that I
never, till your lordship's letter reached me, paid much attention to it. I
always thought it would be a waste of time to give much time to thinking
how it might be altered; so that as to the position of Associates I can say
little, except that I think, in any case, there ought to be some period of
probation, and some advanced scale of dignity, indicative of the highest
attainments in art, which should be only given to the oldest and most
practiced painters.
From the great knowledge which you possess of British art, looking to the
most eminent painters, sculptors, and architects at this time, should you say
that the number of the Royal Academy is sufficient fully to represent them,
or would you recommend an increase in the present number of
Academicians?—I have not considered in what proportion the
Academicianships at present exist. That is rather a question bearing upon
the degree of dignity which one would be glad to confer. I should like the
highest dignity to be limited, but I should like the inferior dignity
corresponding to the Associateship to be given, as the degrees are given in

the universities, without any limitation of number, to those possessing
positive attainments and skill. I should think a very limited number of
Academicianships would always meet all the requirements of the highest
intellect of the country.
171. Have you formed any opinion upon the expediency of intrusting
laymen with some share in the management of the affairs of the Academy?
—No, I have formed no opinion upon that matter. I do not know what there
is at present to be managed in the Academy. I should think if the Academy
is to become an available school, laymen cannot be joined in the
management of that particular department. In matters of revenue, and in
matters concerning the general interests and dignity of the Academy, they
might be.
Should you think that non-professional persons would be fitly associated
with artists in such questions as the selection and hanging of the pictures
sent in for exhibition?—No, I think not.
Some persons have suggested that the president of the Academy should not
always nor of necessity be himself an artist; should you approve of any
system by which a gentleman of high social position, not an artist, was
placed at the head of such a body as the Academy?—"Of such a body as the
Academy," if I may be permitted to repeat your words, must of course have
reference to the constitution to be given to it. As at present constituted, I do
not know what advantage might or might not be derived from such a
gentleman being appointed president. As I should like to see it constituted, I
think he ought to be an artist only.
172. Have you had any reason to observe or to make yourself acquainted
with the working of the schools of the Royal Academy?—Yes, I have
observed it. I have not made myself acquainted with the actual methods of
teaching at present in use, but I know the general effect upon the art of the
country.
What should you say was that effect?—Nearly nugatory: exceedingly
painful in this respect, that the teaching of the Academy separates, as the
whole idea of the country separates, the notion of art-education from other
education, and when you have made that one fundamental mistake, all
others follow. You teach a young man to manage his chalk and his brush—

not always that—but having done that, you suppose you have made a
painter of him; whereas to educate a painter is the same thing as to educate
a clergyman or a physician—you must give him a liberal education
primarily, and that must be connected with the kind of learning peculiarly
fit for his profession. That error is partly owing to our excessively vulgar
and excessively shallow English idea that the artist's profession is not, and
cannot be, a liberal one. We respect a physician, and call him a gentleman,
because he can give us a purge and clean out our stomachs; but we do not
call an artist a gentleman, whom we expect to invent for us the face of
Christ. When we have made that primary mistake, all other mistakes in
education are trivial in comparison. The very notion of an art academy
should be, a body of teachers of the youth who are to be the guides of the
nation through its senses; and that is a very important means of guiding it.
We have done a good deal through dinners, but we may some day do a good
deal more through pictures.
You would have a more comprehensive system of teaching?—Much more
comprehensive.
173. Do I rightly understand you that you would wish it to embrace
branches of liberal education in general, and not be merely confined to
specific artistic studies?—Certainly. I would have the Academy education
corresponding wholly to the university education. The schools of the
country ought to teach the boy the first conditions of manipulation. He
should come up, I say not at what age, but probably at about fourteen or
fifteen, to the central university of art, wherever that was established; and
then, while he was taught to paint and to carve and to work in metal—just
as in old times he would have been taught to manage the sword and lance,
they being the principal business of his life,—during the years from fifteen
to twenty, the chief attention of his governors should be to make a
gentleman of him in the highest sense; and to give him an exceedingly
broad and liberal education, which should enable him not only to work
nobly, but to conceive nobly.
174. As to the point, however, of artistic manipulation, is not it the fact that
many great painters have differed, and do differ, from each other, and would
it therefore be easy for the Academy to adopt any authoritative system of
teaching, excluding one mode and acknowledging another?—Not easy, but

very necessary. There have been many methods; but there has never been a
case of a great school which did not fix upon its method: and there has been
no case of a thoroughly great school which did not fix upon the right
method, as far as circumstances enabled it to do so. The meaning of a
successful school is, that it has adopted a method which it teaches to its
young painters, so that right working becomes a habit with them; so that
with no thought, and no effort, and no torment, and no talk about it, they
have the habit of doing what their school teaches them.
You do not think a system is equally good which leaves to each eminent
professor, according to the bent of his genius or the result of his experience,
to instruct young men, the instruction varying with the character of each
professor?—Great benefit would arise if each professor founded his own
school, and were interested in his own pupils; but, as has been sufficiently
illustrated in the schools of Domenichino and Guido, there is apt to arise
rivalry between the masters, with no correlative advantages, unless the
masters are all of one mind. And the only successful idea of an academy has
been where the practice was consistent, and where there was no
contradiction. Considering the knowledge we now have, and the means we
now have of comparing all the works of the greatest painters, though, as
you suggest by your question, it is not easy to adopt an authoritative system,
yet it is perfectly possible. Let us get at the best method and let us teach
that. There is unquestionably a best way if we can find it; and we have now
in England the means of finding it out.
The teaching in the Academy is now, under all circumstances, gratuitous;
would you wish that system to continue, or should you prefer to see a
system of payment?—I am not prepared to answer that question. It would
depend upon the sort of system that was adopted and on the kind of persons
you received into your schools.
175. I presume you would say that in artistic teaching there are some points
on which there would be common ground, and others upon which there
must be specific teaching; for instance, in sculpture and painting there is a
point up to which the proportions of the human figure have to be studied,
but afterwards there is a divergence between the two arts of chiseling
marble and laying colors on the canvas?—Certainly. I should think all that
might be arranged in an Academy system very simply. You would have first

your teaching of drawing with the soft point; and associated with that,
chiaroscuro: you would then have the teaching of drawing with the hard or
black point, involving the teaching of the best system of engraving, and all
that was necessary to form your school of engravers: you would then
proceed to metal work; and on working in metal you would found your
school of sculpture, and on that your school of architecture: and finally, and
above all, you would have your school of painting, including oil painting
and fresco painting, and all painting in permanent material; (not comprising
painting in any material that was not permanent:) and with that you would
associate your school of chemistry, which should teach what was permanent
and what was not; which school of chemistry should declare authoritatively,
with the Academy's seal, what colors would stand and what process would
secure their standing: and should have a sort of Apothecaries' Hall where
anybody who required them could procure colors in the purest state; all
these things being organized in one great system, and only possibly right by
their connection and in their connection.
176. Do you approve of the encouragement which of late years has been
given to fresco painting, and do you look forward to much extension of that
branch of art in England?—I found when I was examining the term "fresco
painting," that it was a wide one, that none of us seemed to know quite the
limitation or extent of it; and after giving a good deal more time to the
question I am still less able to answer distinctly on an understanding of the
term "fresco painting:" but using the term "decorative painting, applicable
to walls in permanent materials," I think it essential that every great school
should include as one of its main objects the teaching of wall painting in
permanent materials, and on a large scale.
You think it should form a branch of the system of teaching in the
Academy?—I think it should form a branch of the teaching in the Academy,
possibly the principal branch.
Does it so far as you know form a separate branch of teaching in any of the
foreign academies?—I do not know.
177. Looking generally, and of course without mentioning any names, have
you in the course of the last few years been generally satisfied with the
selection of artists into the Royal Academy?—No, certainly not.

Do you think that some artists of merit have been excluded, or that artists
whom you think not deserving of that honor have been elected?—More;
that artists not deserving of the honor have been elected. I think it does no
harm to any promising artist to be left out of the Academy, but it does harm
to the public sometimes that an unpromising artist should be let into it.
You think there have been cases within the last few years in which persons,
in your judgment, not entitled to that distinction have nevertheless been
elected?—Certainly.
178. With respect to the selection of pictures for the exhibition, are you
satisfied in general with that selection, or have you in particular instances
seen ground to think that it has been injudiciously exercised?—In some
cases it has been injudiciously exercised, but it is a matter of small
importance; it causes heartburning probably, but little more. If a rejected
picture is good, the public will see it some day or other, and find out that it
is a good picture. I care little about what pictures are let in or not, but I do
care about seeing the pictures that are let in. The main point, which
everyone would desire to see determined, is how the pictures that are
admitted are to be best seen. No picture deserving of being seen at all
should be so hung as to give you any pain or fatigue in seeing it. If you let a
picture into the room at all, it should not be hung so high as that either the
feelings of the artist or the neck of the public should be hurt.
179. Viscount Hardinge. I gather from your evidence that you would wish
to see the Royal Academy a sort of central university to which young men
from other institutions should be sent. Assuming that there were difficulties
in the way of carrying that out, do you think, under the present system, you
could exact from young men who are candidates for admission into the
Royal Academy, some educational test?—Certainly; I think much depends
upon that. If the system of education which I have been endeavoring to
point out were adopted, you would have in every one of those professions
very practiced workmen. You could not have any of this education carried
out, unless you had thoroughly practiced workmen; and you should fix your
pass as you fix your university pass, and you should pass a man in
architecture, sculpture, and painting, because he knows his business, and
knows as much of any other science as is necessary for his profession. You
require a piece of work from him, and you examine him, and then you pass

him,—call him whatever you like;—but you say to the public, Here is a
workman in this branch who will do your work well.
You do not think there would in such a system be any risk of excluding men
who might hereafter be great men who under such a system might not be
able to pass?—There are risks in every system, but I think every man worth
anything would pass. A great many who would be good for nothing would
pass, but your really great man would assuredly pass.
180. Has it ever struck you that it would be advantageous to art if there
were at the universities professors of art who might give lectures and give
instruction to young men who might desire to avail themselves of it, as you
have lectures on botany and geology?—Yes, assuredly. The want of interest
on the part of the upper classes in art has been very much at the bottom of
the abuses which have crept into all systems of education connected with it.
If the upper classes could only be interested in it by being led into it when
young, a great improvement might be looked for; therefore I feel the
expediency of such an addition to the education of our universities.
181. Is not that want of refinement which may be observed in many of the
pictures from time to time exhibited in the Royal Academy to be attributed
in a great measure to the want of education amongst artists?—It is to be
attributed to that, and to the necessity which artists are under of addressing
a low class of spectators: an artist to live must catch the public eye. Our
upper classes supply a very small amount of patronage to artists at present,
their main patronage being from the manufacturing districts and from the
public interested in engravings;—an exceedingly wide sphere, but a low
sphere,—and you catch the eye of that class much more by pictures having
reference to their amusements than by any noble subject better treated, and
the better treated it was the less it would interest that class.
Is it not often the case that pictures exhibiting such a want of refinement, at
the same time fetch large prices amongst what I may call the mercantile
patrons of art?—Certainly; and, the larger the price, the more harm done of
course to the school, for that is a form of education you cannot resist. Plato
said long ago, when you have your demagogue against you no human form
of education can resist that.

182. Sir E. Head. What is your opinion of the present mode of teaching in
the life school and the painting school, namely, by visitors constantly
changing?—I should think it mischievous. The unfortunate youths, I should
imagine, would just get what they could pick up; it would be throwing them
crumbs very much as you throw bones to the animals in the Zoological
Gardens.
Do you conceive that anything which can be properly called a school, is
likely to be formed where the teaching is conducted in that way?—
Assuredly not.
183. You stated that in the event of the introduction of lay members into the
Academy, you would not think it desirable that they should take part in the
selection or hanging of pictures for exhibition. Is not there a great
distinction between the selection of the pictures and the hanging of the
pictures, and might not they take part in the one without taking part in the
other?—I should think hardly. My notion of hanging a picture is to put it
low enough to be seen. If small it should be placed near the eye. Anybody
can hang a picture, but the question should be, is there good painting
enough in this picture to make it acceptable to the public, or to make it just
to the artist to show it? And none but artists can quite judge of the
workmanship which should entitle it to enter the Academy.
Do you think it depends solely upon the workmanship?—Not by any means
solely, but I think that is the first point that should be looked to. An ill-
worked picture ought not to be admitted; let it be exhibited elsewhere if you
will, but your Academy has no business to let bad work pass. If a man
cannot carve or paint, though his work may be well conceived, do not let
his work pass. Unless you require good work in your Academy exhibition,
you can form no school.
Mr. Reeve. Applying the rule you have just laid down, would the effect be to
exclude a considerable proportion of the works now exhibited in the
Academy?—Yes; more of the Academicians' than of others.
Sir E. Head. Selection now being made by technical artists?—No.
Professional?—Yes.

Lord Elcho. Do you think that none but professional artists are capable of
judging of the actual merit or demerit of a painting?—Non-professional
persons may offer a very strong opinion upon the subject, which may
happen to be right,—or which may be wrong.
Your opinion is that the main thing with respect to the exhibition is, that the
pictures should be seen; that they should not be hung too high or too low.
That question has been already raised before the Commission, and it has
been suggested that two feet from the ground should be the minimum
height for the base of the picture, and some witnesses have said that six feet
and others eight feet should be the maximum height for the base of the
picture; what limit would you fix?—I should say that the horizontal line in
the perspective of the picture ought always to be opposite the spectator's
eye, no matter what the height may be from the floor. If the horizontal line
is so placed that it must be above the spectator's eye, in consequence of the
size of the picture, it cannot be helped, but I would always get the
horizontal line opposite the eye if possible.
184. Chairman. Should you concur in the suggestion which a witness has
made before this Commission, that it would be an improvement, if the
space admitted of it, that works of sculpture should be intermixed in the
same apartment with works of painting, instead of being kept as at present
in separate apartments?—I should think it would be very delightful to have
some works of sculpture mixed with works of painting; that it would make
the exhibition more pleasing, and that the eye would be rested sometimes
by turning from the colors to the marble, and would see the colors of the
paintings better in return. Sir Joshua Reynolds mentions the power which
some of the Flemish pictures seemed to derive, in his opinion, by looking at
them after having consulted his note-book. Statuary placed among the
pictures would have the same effect. I would not have the sculpture that was
sent in for the exhibition of the year exhibited with the paintings, but I
would have works of sculpture placed permanently in the painting rooms.
Lord Elcho. Supposing there were no works of sculpture available for being
placed in the rooms permanently, and supposing among the works sent in
for annual exhibition there were works of a character fit to be placed among
the paintings, should you see any objection to their being so placed?—That
would cause an immense amount of useless trouble, and perpetual quarrels

among the sculptors, as to whose works were entitled to be placed in the
painting rooms or not.
Are you aware that in the exhibition in Paris in 1855, that was the system
adopted?—No. If the French adopted it, it was likely to be useful, and
doubtless they would carry it out very cleverly; but we have not the knack
of putting the right things in the right places by any means.
Did you see our own International Exhibition last year?—No.
Are you aware that a similar system was resorted to in the exhibition of
pictures there?—I should think in our exhibitions we must put anything
where it would go, in the sort of way that we manage them.
185. At the present moment there are on the books of the Academy five
honorary members, who hold certain titular offices, Earl Stanhope being
antiquary to the Academy, Mr. Grote being professor of ancient history,
Dean Milman being professor of ancient literature, the Bishop of Oxford
being chaplain, and Sir Henry Holland being secretary for foreign
correspondence; these professors never deliver any lectures and have no
voice whatever in the management, but have mere honorary titular
distinctions; should you think it desirable that gentlemen of their position
and character should have a voice in the management of the affairs of the
Academy?—It would be much more desirable that they should give lectures
upon the subjects with which they are acquainted. I should think Earl
Stanhope and all the gentlemen you have mentioned, would be much
happier in feeling that they were of use in their positions; and that if you
gave them something to do they would very nobly do it. If you give them
nothing to do I think they ought not to remain in the institution.
186. It has been suggested that the Academy now consisting of forty-two
might be increased advantageously to fifty professional members,
architecture, sculpture, and painting being fairly represented, and that in
addition to those fifty there might be elected or nominated somehow or
other ten non-professional persons, that is, men taking an interest in art,
who had a certain position and standing in the country, and who might take
an active part in the management of the affairs of the institution, so tending
to bring the Royal Academy and the public together?—I do not know
enough of society to be able to form an opinion upon the subject.

Irrespective of society, as a question of art, you know enough of non-
professional persons interested in art to judge as to whether the infusion of
such an element into the Academy might be of advantage to the Academy
and to art generally?—I think if you educate our upper classes to take more
interest in art, which implies, of course, to know something about it, they
might be most efficient members of the Academy; but if you leave them, as
you leave them now, to the education which they get at Oxford and
Cambridge, and give them the sort of scorn which all the teaching there
tends to give, for art and artists, the less they have to do with an academy of
art the better.
Assuming that, at present, you have not a very great number of those
persons in the country, do you not think that the mere fact of the adoption of
such a principle in any reform in the constitution of the Academy might
have the effect of turning attention more to this matter at the Universities,
and leading to the very thing which you think so desirable?—No, I should
think not. It would only at present give the impression that the whole
system was somewhat artificial, and that it was to remain ineffective.
Notwithstanding the neglect of this matter at the Universities, do you think,
at the present moment, you could not find ten non-professional persons, of
the character you would think desirable, to add to the Academy?—If I may
be so impertinent, I may say that you as one of the upper classes, and I as a
layman in the lower classes, are tolerably fair examples of the kind of
persons who take an interest in art, and I think both of us would do a great
deal of mischief if we had much to do with the Academy.
187. Assuming those two persons to be appointed lay members, will you
state in what way you think they would do mischief in the councils of the
Academy?—We should be disturbing elements, whereas what I should try
to secure, if I had anything to do with its arrangements, would be entire
tranquillity, a regular system of tuition in which there should be little
excitement, and little operation of popular, aristocratic, or any other
disturbing influence; none of criticism, and therefore none of tiresome
people like myself;—none of money patronage, or even of aristocratic
patronage. The whole aim of the teachers should be to produce work which
could be demonstrably shown to be good and useful, and worthy of being
bought, or used in any way; and after that the whole question of patronage

and interest should be settled. The school should teach its art-grammar
thoroughly in everything, and in every material, and should teach it
carefully; and that could be done if a perfect system were adopted, and
above all, if a few thoroughly good examples were put before the students.
That is a point which I think of very great importance. I think it very
desirable that grants should be made by the Government to obtain for the
pupils of the Academy beautiful examples of every kind, the very loveliest
and best; not too many; and that their minds should not be confused by
having placed before them examples of all schools and times; they are
confused enough by what they see in the shops, and in the annual
exhibitions. Let engraving be taught by Marc Antonio and Albert Dürer,—
painting by Giorgione, Paul Veronese, Titian and Velasquez,—and sculpture
by good Greek and selected Roman examples, and let there be no question
of other schools or their merits. Let those things be shown as good and
right, and let the student be trained in those principles:—if afterwards he
strikes out an original path, let him; but do not let him torment himself and
other people with his originalities, till he knows what is right, so far as is
known at present.
You are opposed, on the whole, to the introduction of the lay element?—
Yes; but I am not opposed strongly or distinctly to it, because I have not
knowledge enough of society to know how it would work.
Your not being in favor of it results from your belief that the lay element
that would be useful to the Academy does not at present exist in this
country; but you think, if it did exist, and if it could be made to grow out of
our schools and universities by art teaching, it might, with advantage to the
Academy and to artists, be introduced into the Academy?—Yes.
188. Supposing the class of Royal Academicians to be retained, and that
you had fifty Royal Academicians, should you think it desirable that their
works should be exhibited by themselves, so that the public might see
together the works of those considered to be the first artists of this country?
—Certainly, I should like all pictures to be well seen, but I should like one
department of the exhibition to be given to the Associates or Graduates. I
use that term because I suppose those Associates to have a degree given
them for a certain amount of excellence, and any person who had attained
that degree should be allowed to send in so many pictures. Then the pictures

sent in by persons who had attained the higher honor of Royal Academician
should be separately exhibited.
That would act as a stimulus to them to keep up their position and show
themselves worthy of the honor?—Yes. I do not think they ought to be
mixed at all as they are now.
189. What is your opinion with reference to the present system of traveling
studentships?—I think it might be made very useful indeed.
On the one hand it has been suggested that there should be, as is the system
adopted by the French Academy, a permanent professor at Rome to look
after the students; on the other hand it has been said that it is not desirable,
if you have those traveling studentships, that the students should go to
Rome, that it is better for them to travel, and to go to Venice or Lombardy,
and to have no fixed school in connection with the Academy at Rome. To
which of those two systems do you give the preference?—I should prefer
the latter; if a man goes to travel, he ought to travel, and not be plagued
with schools.
It has been suggested that fellowships might be given to rising artists,
pecuniary assistance being attached to those fellowships, the artist being
required annually to send in some specimen of his work to show what he
was doing, but it being left optional with him to go abroad or to work at
home; should you think that would be desirable, or as has been suggested in
a letter by Mr. Armitage, supposing those fellowships to be established for
four years, that two of those years should be spent abroad and two at home?
—Without entering into any detail as to whether two years should be spent
abroad and two years at home, I feel very strongly that one of the most
dangerous and retarding influences you have operating upon art is the
enormous power of money, and the chances of entirely winning or entirely
losing, that is, of making your fortune in a year by a large taking picture, or
else starving for ten years by very good small ones. The whole life of an
artist is a lottery, and a very wild lottery, and the best artist is liable to be
warped away from what he knows is right by the chance of at once making
a vast fortune by catching the public eye, the public eye being only to be
caught by bright colors and certain conditions of art not always desirable.
If, therefore, connected with the Academy schools there could be the means

of giving a fixed amount of income to certain men, who would as a
consideration for that income furnish a certain number of works that might
be agreed upon, or undertake any national work that might be agreed upon,
that I believe would be the healthiest way in which a good painter could be
paid. To give him his bread and cheese, and so much a day, and say, Here
are such and such things we want you to do, is, I believe, the healthiest,
simplest, and happiest way in which great work can be produced. But
whether it is compatible with our present system I cannot say, nor whether
every man would not run away as soon as he found he could get two or
three thousand pounds by painting a catching picture. I think your best men
would not.
You would be in favor of those fellowships?—Yes.
190. I gather that you are in favor of the encouragement of mural
decoration, fresco painting, and so forth. The system that prevails abroad, in
France, for instance, is for painters to employ pupils to work under them. It
was in that way that Delaroche painted his hemicycle at the Académie des
Beaux-Arts, employing four pupils, who worked for him, and who from his
small sketch drew the full-sized picture on the walls, which was
subsequently corrected by him. They then colored it up to his sketch, after
which he shut himself up again, and completed it. On the other hand, if you
go to the Victoria Gallery in the House of Lords, you find Mr. Maclise at
work on a space of wall forty-eight feet long, painting the Death of Nelson
on the deck of the "Victory," every figure being life size, the deck of the
ship and the ropes and everything being the actual size, and you see him
painting with his own hand each little bit of rope and the minutest detail.
Which of the two systems do you think is the soundest and most calculated
to produce great and noble work?—The first is the best for the pupils, the
other is the best for the public. But unquestionably not only can a great
work be executed as Mr. Maclise is executing his, but no really great work
was executed otherwise, for in all mighty work, whether in fresco or oil,
every touch and hue of color to the last corner has been put on lovingly by
the painter's own hand, not leaving to a pupil to paint so much as a pebble
under a horse's foot.
191. Do you believe that most of the works of the great masters in Italy
were so executed?—No; because the pupils were nearly as mighty as the

masters. Great men took such an interest in their work, and they were so
modest and simple that they were repeatedly sacrificing themselves to the
interests of their religion or of the society they were working for; and when
a thing was to be done in a certain time it could only be done by bringing in
aid; but whenever precious work was to be done, then the great man said,
"Lock me up here by myself, give me a little wine and cheese, and come in
a month, and I will show you what I have done."
Do you think it desirable that the pupils should be so trained as to be
capable of assisting great masters in such works?—Assuredly.

Note.—The following analysis of the above evidence was given
in the Index to the Report (pp. 139, 140).—Ed.
168-69. The Academy not in all points satisfactory. Would wish
to see the Academicians not self-elected.—But by a
constituency consisting both of artists and the public.—Public
influence to be the same in painting as in music.
170. As to the Associates: is in favor of some period of
probation.—Their class to be unlimited, with a very limited
number of Academicians.
171. Has formed no opinion on the question of introducing
laymen into the Academy; in matters of revenue they might be
joined with artists, but not in the selection and hanging of
pictures: opposed on the whole to their introduction, considering
the present state of art education.—As he would like to see the
Academy constituted, thinks the president ought to be an artist.
172. General effect of the Academy's teaching upon the art of
the country merely nugatory.—Would have a much more
comprehensive system of teaching.
173. The Academy education to correspond wholly to the
University education.
174. Not easy but very necessary for the Academy to adopt an
authoritative system of teaching.
175. His idea of what the Academy teaching should be; would
have a school of chemistry.
176. The teaching of wall-painting in permanent materials
should be a branch, possibly the principal branch.
177. Not satisfied with the selection of artists to be members of
the Academy.
178. In some cases the selection of pictures has been
injudicious, but this a matter of small importance; the main

point is how the pictures that are admitted are to be best seen.
179. In favor of an educational test for candidates for admission
into the Academy.
180. And of professors of art at the Universities.
181. Causes of the want of refinement observable in many
modern pictures; the large prices they fetch harmful.
182. Teaching by visitors constantly changing mischievous.
183. How a picture should be hung.—An ill-worked picture
ought not to be admitted by the Academy.—Bearing of this last
opinion upon the present Exhibition.
184. Would have works of sculpture placed permanently in the
painting-room, but not any of those sent in for the Exhibition of
the year.
185. In favor of the present honorary members being made of
use in their positions.
186. Introduction of laymen into the Academy deprecated under
present circumstances, and why.—Present feeling towards art
and artists at the Universities.
187. Desirable that Government grants should be made to obtain
for the pupils of the Academy beautiful examples of every kind
of art.
188. In favor of separate exhibitions of the works of Associates
(or Graduates) and Academicians.
189. In favor of art-fellowships, but not of a fixed school in
connection with the Academy at Rome.
190. Comparison of the French, and English systems (as regards
assistance from pupils) in the production of great public
paintings.

191. How the works of the Italian masters were executed.—
Desirable that pupils should be trained to assist great masters in
public works.

FOOTNOTES:
[3] Reprinted from "The Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into
the Present Position of the Royal Academy in Relation to the Fine Arts."
London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1863 (pp. 546-55. Questions 5079-5142). The
Commission consisted of Earl Stanhope (Chairman), Viscount Hardinge, Lord
Elcho, Sir E. W. Head, Mr. William Stirling, Mr. H. D. Seymour, and Mr. Henry
Reeve, all of whom, except Mr. Seymour, were present at the above sitting.—
Ed.

A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY:

ITS FUNCTIONS AND ITS FORMATION.[4]

March 20th, 1880.
My dear ——,
192. If I put off writing the paper you asked me for, till I can do it
conveniently, it may hang fire till this time next year. If you will accept a
note on the subject now and then, keeping them till there are enough to be
worth printing, all practical ends may be enough answered, and much more
quickly.
The first function of a Museum—(for a little while I shall speak of Art and
Natural History as alike cared for in an ideal one)—is to give example of
perfect order and perfect elegance, in the true sense of that test word, to the
disorderly and rude populace. Everything in its own place, everything
looking its best because it is there, nothing crowded, nothing unnecessary,
nothing puzzling. Therefore, after a room has been once arranged, there
must be no change in it. For new possessions there must be new rooms, and
after twenty years' absence—coming back to the room in which one learned
one's bird or beast alphabet, we should be able to show our children the old
bird on the old perch in the accustomed corner. But—first of all, let the
room be beautifully complete, i.e. complete enough for its proper business.
193. In the British Museum, at the top of the stairs, we encounter in a
terrific alliance a giraffe, a hippopotamus, and a basking shark. The public
—young and old—pass with a start and a stare, and remain as wise as they
were before about all the three creatures. The day before yesterday I was
standing by the big fish—a father came up to it with his little boy. "That's a
shark," says he; "it turns on its side when it wants to eat you," and so went
on—literally as wise as he was before; for he had read in a book that sharks
turn on their side to bite, and he never looked at the ticket, which told him
this particular shark only ate small fish. Now he never looked at the ticket,

because he didn't expect to find anything on it except that this was the
Sharkogobalus Smith-Jonesianius. But if, round the walls of the room, there
had been all the well-known kinds of shark, going down, in graduated sizes,
from that basking one to our waggling dog-fish, and if every one of these
had had a plain English ticket, with ten words of common sense on it,
saying where and how the beast lived, and a number (unchangeable)
referring to a properly arranged manual of the shark tribe (sold by the
Museum publisher, who ought to have his little shop close by the porter's
lodge), both father and son must have been much below the level of average
English man and boy in mother wit if they did not go out of the room by the
door in front of them very distinctly, and—to themselves—amazingly, wiser
than they had come in by the door behind them.
194. If I venture to give instances of fault from the British Museum, it is
because, on the whole, it is the best-ordered and pleasantest institution in all
England, and the grandest concentration of the means of human knowledge
in the world. And I am heartily sorry for the break-up of it, and augur no
good from any changes of arrangement likely to take place in concurrence
with Kensington, where, the same day that I had been meditating by the old
shark, I lost myself in a Cretan labyrinth of military ironmongery,
advertisements of spring blinds, model fish-farming, and plaster bathing
nymphs with a year's smut on all the noses of them; and had to put myself
in charge of a policeman to get out again. Ever affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.

March 29th, 1880.
My dear ——,
195. The only chance of my getting these letters themselves into fairly
consistent and Museum-like order is by writing a word or two always the
first thing in the morning till I get them done; so, I shall at least remember
what I was talking of the day before; but for the rest—I must speak of one
thing or another as it may come into my head, for there are too many to
classify without pedantry and loss of time.

My requirement of "elegance" in that last letter contemplates chiefly
architecture and fittings. These should not only be perfect in stateliness,
durability, and comfort, but beautiful to the utmost point consistent with due
subordination to the objects displayed. To enter a room in the Louvre is an
education in itself; but two steps on the filthy floor and under the iron forks,
half scaffold, half gallows, of the big Norwood glass bazaar, debase mind
and eye at once below possibility of looking at anything with profit all the
day afterwards. I have just heard that a French picture dealer is to have
charge of the picture gallery there, and that the whole interior is to become
virtually a large café, when—it is hoped—the glass monster may at last
"pay." Concerning which beautiful consummation of Mr. Dickens's
"Fairyland" (see my pamphlet[5] on the opening of the so-called "palace"),
be it here at once noted, that all idea of any "payment," in that sense, must
be utterly and scornfully abjured on the foundation stone of every National
or Civic Museum. There must be neither companies to fill their own
pockets out of it, nor trustees who can cramp the management, or interfere
with the officering, or shorten the supplies of it. Put one man of reputation
and sense at its head; give him what staff he asks for, and a fixed annual
sum for expenditure—specific accounts to be printed annually for all the
world's seeing—and let him alone. The original expenditure for building
and fitting must be magnificent, and the current expenditure for cleaning
and refitting magnanimous; but a certain proportion of this current cost
should be covered by small entrance fees, exacted, not for any miserly
helping out of the floor-sweepers' salaries, but for the sake of the visitors
themselves, that the rooms may not be incumbered by the idle, or disgraced
by the disreputable. You must not make your Museum a refuge against
either rain or ennui, nor let into perfectly well-furnished, and even, in the
true sense, palatial, rooms, the utterly squalid and ill-bred portion of the
people. There should, indeed, be refuges for the poor from rain and cold,
and decent rooms accessible to indecent persons, if they like to go there; but
neither of these charities should be part of the function of a Civic Museum.
196. Make the entrance fee a silver penny (a silver groat, typically
representing the father, mother, eldest son, and eldest daughter, passing
always the total number of any one family), and every person admitted,
however young, being requested to sign their name, or make their mark.

That the entrance money should be always of silver is one of the beginnings
of education in the place—one of the conditions of its "elegance" on the
very threshold.
And the institution of silver for bronze in the lower coinage is a part of the
system of National education which I have been teaching these last ten
years—a very much deeper and wider one than any that can be given in
museums—and without which all museums will ultimately be vain.—Ever
affectionately yours,
J. R.
P.S.—There should be a well-served coffee-room attached to the building;
but this part of the establishment without any luxury in furniture or
decoration, and without any cooking apparatus for carnivora.

Easter Monday, 1880.
Dear ——,
197. The day is auspicious for the beginning of reflection on the right
manner of manifestation of all divine things to those who desire to see
them. For every house of the Muses, where, indeed, they live, is an
Interpreter's by the wayside, or rather, a place of oracle and interpretation in
one. And the right function of every museum, to simple persons, is the
manifestation to them of what is lovely in the life of Nature, and heroic in
the life of Men.
There are already, you see, some quaint restrictions in that last sentence,
whereat sundry of our friends will start, and others stop. I must stop also,
myself, therefore, for a minute or two, to insist on them.
198. A Museum, primarily, is to be for simple persons. Children, that is to
say, and peasants. For your student, your antiquary, or your scientific
gentleman, there must be separate accommodation, or they must be sent
elsewhere. The Town Museum is to be for the Town's People, the Village
Museum for the Villagers. Keep that first principle clear to start with. If you

want to found an academy of painting in Littleborough, or of literature in
Squattlesea Mere, you must get your advice from somebody else, not me.
199. Secondly. The museum is to manifest to these simple persons the
beauty and life of all things and creatures in their perfectness. Not their
modes of corruption, disease, or death. Not even, always, their genesis, in
the more or less blundering beginnings of it; not even their modes of
nourishment, if destructive; you must not stuff a blackbird pulling up a
worm, nor exhibit in a glass case a crocodile crunching a baby.
Neither must you ever show bones or guts, or any other charnel-house stuff.
Teach your children to know the lark's note from the nightingale's; the
length of their larynxes is their own business, and God's.
I cannot enough insist upon this point, nor too solemnly. If you wish your
children to be surgeons, send them to Surgeons' College; if jugglers or
necromancers, to Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke; and if butchers, to the
shambles: but if you want them to lead the calm life of country gentlemen
and gentlewomen, manservants and maidservants, let them seek none of
Death's secrets till they die. Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
J. R.

Easter Tuesday, 1880.
Dear ——,
200. I must enter to-day somewhat further on the practical, no less than
emotional, reason for the refusal of anatomical illustrations to the general
public.
It is difficult enough to get one clear idea into anybody, of any single thing.
But next to impossible to get two clear ideas into them, of the same thing.
We have had lions' heads for door-knockers these hundred and fifty years,
without ever learning so much as what a lion's head is like. But with good
modern stuffing and fetching, I can manage now to make a child really
understand something about the beast's look, and his mane, and his sullen
eyes and brindled lips. But if I'm bothered at the same time with a big bony
box, that has neither mane, lips, nor eyes, and have to explain to the poor

wretch of a parish schoolboy how somehow this fits on to that, I will be
bound that, at a year's end, draw one as big as the other, and he won't know
a lion's head from a tiger's—nor a lion's skull from a rabbit's. Nor is it the
parish boy only who suffers. The scientific people themselves miss half
their points from the habit of hacking at things, instead of looking at them.
When I gave my lecture on the Swallow[6] at Oxford, I challenged every
anatomist there to tell me the use of his tail (I believe half of them didn't
know he had one). Not a soul of them could tell me, which I knew
beforehand; but I did not know, till I had looked well through their books,
how they were quarreling about his wings! Actually at this moment (Easter
Tuesday, 1880), I don't believe you can find in any scientific book in
Europe a true account of the way a bird flies—or how a snake serpentines.
My Swallow lecture was the first bit of clear statement on the one point,
and when I get my Snake lecture published, you will have the first extant bit
of clear statement on the other; and that is simply because the anatomists
can't, for their life, look at a thing till they have skinned it.
201. And matters get worse and worse every hour. Yesterday, after writing
the first leaf of this note, I went into the British Museum, and found a nasty
skeleton of a lizard, with its under jaw dropped off, on the top of a table of
butterflies—temporarily of course—but then everything has been temporary
or temporizing at the British Museum for the last half-century; making it
always a mere waste and weariness to the general public, because, forsooth,
it had always to be kept up to the last meeting of the Zoological Society,
and last edition of the Times. As if there had not been beasts enough before
the Ark to tell our children the manners of, on a Sunday afternoon!
202. I had gone into the Museum that day to see the exact form of a duck's
wing, the examination of a lively young drake's here at Coniston having
closed in his giving me such a cut on the wrist with it, that I could scarcely
write all the morning afterwards. Now in the whole bird gallery there are
only two ducks' wings expanded, and those in different positions. Fancy the
difference to the mob, and me, if the shells and monkey skeletons were
taken away from the mid-gallery, and instead, three gradated series of birds
put down the length of it (or half the length—or a quarter would do it—with
judgment), showing the transition, in length of beak, from bunting to
woodcock—in length of leg, from swift to stilted plover—and in length of
wing, from auk to frigate-bird; the wings, all opened, in one specimen of

each bird to their full sweep, and in another, shown at the limit of the down
back stroke. For what on earth—or in air—is the use to me of seeing their
boiled sternums and scalped sinciputs, when I'm never shown either how
they bear their breasts—or where they carry their heads?
Enough of natural history, you will say! I will come to art in my next letter
—finishing the ugly subject of this one with a single sentence from section
ix. of the "Tale of a Tub," commending the context of it to my friends of the
Royal Academy.
"Last week, I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it
altered her person for the worse."—Ever, my dear ——, affectionately
yours,
J. R.

7th April, 1880.
My Dear ——,
203. I suppose that proper respect for the great first principles of the British
Constitution, that every man should do as he pleases, think what he likes,
and see everything that can be seen for money, will make most of your
readers recoil from my first principle of Museum arrangement,—that
nothing should be let inside the doors that isn't good of its sort,—as from an
attempt to restore the Papacy, revive the Inquisition, and away with
everybody to the lowest dungeon of the castle moat. They must at their
pleasure charge me with these sinister views; they will find that there is no
dexter view to be had of the business, which does not consist primarily in
knowing Bad from Good, and Right from Wrong. Nor, if they will
condescend to begin simply enough, and at the bottom of the said business,
and let the cobbler judge of the crepida, and the potter of the pot, will they
find it so supremely difficult to establish authorities that shall be
trustworthy, and judgments that shall be sure.
204. Suppose, for instance, at Leicester, whence came first to us the inquiry
on such points, one began by setting apart a Hunter's Room, in which a
series of portraits of their Master's favorites, for the last fifty years or so,
should be arranged, with certificate from each Squire of his satisfaction, to

such and such a point, with the portrait of Lightfoot, or Lucifer, or Will o'
the Wisp; and due notification, for perhaps a recreant and degenerate future,
of the virtues and perfections at this time sought and secured in the English
horse. Would not such a chamber of chivalry have, in its kind, a quite
indisputable authority and historical value, not to be shaken by any future
impudence or infidelity?
Or again in Staffordshire, would it not be easily answered to an honest
question of what is good and not, in clay or ware, "This will work, and that
will stand"? and might not a series of the mugs which have been matured
with discrimination, and of the pots which have been popular in use, be so
ordered as to display their qualities in a convincing and harmonious manner
against all gainsayers?
205. Nor is there any mystery of taste, or marvel of skill, concerning which
you may not get quite easy initiation and safe pilotage for the common
people, provided you once make them clearly understand that there is
indeed something to be learned, and something to be admired, in the arts,
which will need their attention for a time; and cannot be explained with a
word, nor seen with a wink. And provided also, and with still greater
decision, you set over them masters, in each branch of the arts, who know
their own minds in that matter, and are not afraid to speak them, nor to say,
"We know," when they know, and "We don't know," when they don't.
To which end, the said several branches must be held well apart, and dealt
with one at a time. Every considerable town ought to have its exemplary
collections of woodwork, iron-work, and jewelry, attached to the schools of
their several trades, leaving to be illustrated in its public museum, as in an
hexagonal bee's cell, the six queenly and muse-taught arts of needlework,
writing, pottery, sculpture, architecture, and painting.
206. For each of these, there should be a separate Tribune or Chamber of
absolute tribunal, which need not be large—that, so called, of Florence, not
the size of a railway waiting-room, has actually for the last century
determined the taste of the European public in two arts!—in which the
absolute best in each art, so far as attainable by the communal pocket,
should be authoritatively exhibited, with simple statement that it is good,
and reason why it is good, and notification in what particulars it is

unsurpassable, together with some not too complex illustrations of the steps
by which it has attained to that perfection, where these can be traced far
back in history.
207. These six Tribunes, or Temples, of Fame, being first set with their
fixed criteria, there should follow a series of historical galleries, showing
the rise and fall (if fallen) of the arts in their beautiful associations, as
practiced in the great cities and by the great nations of the world. The
history of Egypt, of Persia, of Greece, of Italy, of France, and of England,
should be given in their arts,—dynasty by dynasty and age by age; and for a
seventh, a Sunday Room, for the history of Christianity in its art, including
the farthest range and feeblest efforts of it; reserving for this room, also,
what power could be reached in delineation of the great monasteries and
cathedrals which were once the glory of all Christian lands.
208. In such a scheme, every form of noble art would take harmonious and
instructive place, and often very little and disregarded things be found to
possess unthought-of interest and hidden relative beauty; but its efficiency
—and in this chiefly let it be commended to the patience of your practical
readers—would depend, not on its extent, but on its strict and precise
limitation. The methods of which, if you care to have my notions of them, I
might perhaps enter into, next month, with some illustrative detail.—Ever
most truly yours,
J. R.

10th June, 1880.[7]
My Dear ——,
209. I can't give you any talk on detail, yet; but, not to drop a stitch in my
story, I want to say why I've attached so much importance to needlework,
and put it in the opening court of the six. You see they are progressive, so
that I don't quite put needlework on a level with painting. But a nation that
would learn to "touch" must primarily know how to "stitch." I am always
busy, for a good part of the day, in my wood, and wear out my leathern
gloves fast, after once I can wear them at all: but that's the precise difficulty
of the matter. I get them from the shop looking as stout and trim as you

please, and half an hour after I've got to work they split up the fingers and
thumbs like ripe horse-chestnut shells, and I find myself with five dangling
rags round my wrist, and a rotten white thread draggling after me through
the wood, or tickling my nose, as if Ariadne and Arachne had lost their wits
together. I go home, invoking the universe against sewing-machines; and
beg the charity of a sound stitch or two from any of the maids who know
their woman's art; and thenceforward the life of the glove proper begins.
Wow, it is not possible for any people that put up with this sort of thing, to
learn to paint, or do anything else with their fingers decently:—only, for the
most part they don't think their museums are meant to show them how to do
anything decently, but rather how to be idle, indecently. Which extremely
popular and extremely erroneous persuasion, if you please, we must get out
of our way before going further.
210. I owe some apology, by the way, to Mr. Frith, for the way I spoke of
his picture[8] in my letter to the Leicester committee, not intended for
publication, though I never write what I would not allow to be published,
and was glad that they asked leave to print it. It was not I who instanced the
picture, it had been named in the meeting of the committee as the kind of
thing that people best like, and I was obliged to say why people best liked it:
—namely, not for the painting, which is good, and worthy their liking, but
for the sight of the racecourse and its humors. And the reason that such a
picture ought not to be in a museum, is precisely because in a museum
people ought not to fancy themselves on a racecourse. If they want to see
races, let them go to races; and if rogues, to Bridewells. They come to
museums to see something different from rogues and races.
211. But, to put the matter at once more broadly, and more accurately, be it
remembered, for sum of all, that a museum is not a theater. Both are means
of noble education—but you must not mix up the two. Dramatic interest is
one thing; aesthetic charm another; a pantomime must not depend on its
fine color, nor a picture on its fine pantomime.
Take a special instance. It is long since I have been so pleased in the Royal
Academy as I was by Mr. Britton Rivière's "Sympathy." The dog in
uncaricatured doggedness, divine as Anubis, or the Dog-star; the child
entirely childish and lovely, the carpet might have been laid by Veronese. A
most precious picture in itself, yet not one for a museum. Everybody would

think only of the story in it; everybody be wondering what the little girl had
done, and how she would be forgiven, and if she wasn't, how soon she
would stop crying, and give the doggie a kiss, and comfort his heart. All
which they might study at home among their own children and dogs just as
well; and should not come to the museum to plague the real students there,
since there is not anything of especial notableness or unrivaled quality in
the actual painting.
212. On the other hand, one of the four pictures I chose for permanent
teaching in Fors was one of a child and a dog. The child is doing nothing;
neither is the dog. But the dog is absolutely and beyond comparison the best
painted dog in the world—ancient or modern—on this side of it, or at the
Antipodes, (so far as I've seen the contents of said world). And the child is
painted so that child cannot be better done. That is a picture for a museum.
Not that dramatic, still less didactic, intention should disqualify a work of
art for museum purposes. But—broadly—dramatic and didactic art should
be universally national, the luster of our streets, the treasure of our palaces,
the pleasure of our homes. Much art that is weak, transitory, and rude may
thus become helpful to us. But the museum is only for what is eternally
right, and well done, according to divine law and human skill. The least
things are to be there—and the greatest—but all good with the goodness
that makes a child cheerful and an old man calm; the simple should go there
to learn, and the wise to remember.
213. And now to return to what I meant to be the subject of this letter—the
arrangement of our first ideal room in such a museum. As I think of it, I
would fain expand the single room, first asked for, into one like Prince
Houssain's,—no, Prince Houssain had the flying tapestry, and I forget
which prince had the elastic palace. But, indeed, it must be a lordly
chamber which shall be large enough to exhibit the true nature of thread and
needle—omened in "Thread-needle Street!"
The structure, first of wool and cotton, of fur, and hair, and down, of hemp,
flax, and silk:—microscope permissible if any cause can be shown why
wool is soft, and fur fine, and cotton downy, and down downier; and how a
flax fiber differs from a dandelion stalk, and how the substance of a

mulberry leaf can become velvet for Queen Victoria's crown, and clothing
of purple for the housewife of Solomon.
Then the phase of its dyeing. What azures, and emeralds, and Tyrians
scarlets can be got into fibers of thread.
214. Then the phase of its spinning. The mystery of that divine spiral, from
finest to firmest, which renders lace possible at Valenciennes—anchorage
possible, after Trafalgar—if Hardy had but done as he was bid.
Then the mystery of weaving. The eternal harmony of warp and woof, of all
manner of knotting, knitting, and reticulation, the art which makes garment
possible, woven from the top throughout, draughts of fishes possible,
miraculous enough in any pilchard or herring shoal, gathered into
companionable catchableness;—which makes, in fine, so many Nations
possible, and Saxon and Norman beyond the rest.
215. And finally, the accomplished phase of needlework, the Acu Tetigisti of
all time, which does, indeed, practically exhibit what mediæval theologists
vainly tried to conclude inductively—How many angels can stand on a
needle-point. To show the essential nature of a stitch—drawing the separate
into the inseparable, from the lowly work of duly restricted sutor, and
modestly installed cobbler, to the needle-Scripture of Matilda, the Queen.
All the acicular Art of Nations, savage and civilized, from Lapland boot,
letting in no snow-water—to Turkey cushion bossed with pearl—to valance
of Venice gold in needlework -to the counterpanes and samplers of our own
lovely ancestresses, imitable, perhaps, once more, with good help from
Whiteland's College—and Girton.
216. It was but yesterday, my own womankind were in much wholesome
and sweet excitement delightful to behold, in the practice of some new
device of remedy for rents (to think how much of evil there is in the two
senses of that four-lettered word! as in the two methods of intonation of its
synonym tear!) whereby they might be daintily effaced, and with a newness
which would never make them worse. The process began beautifully, even
to my uninformed eyes, in the likeness of herring-bone masonry, crimson
on white, but it seemed to me marvelous that anything should yet be
discoverable in needle process, and that of so utilitarian character.

All that is reasonable, I say of such work is to be in our first museum room.
All that Athena and Penelope would approve. Nothing that vanity has
invented for change, or folly loved for costliness; but all that can bring
honest pride into homely life, and give security to health—and honor to
beauty.
J. Ruskin.

FOOTNOTES:
[4] These letters are reprinted from the Art Journal of June and August 1880,
where they were prefaced with the following note by the editor in explanation of
their origin:—"We are enabled, through Mr. Ruskin's kindness, to publish this
month a series of letters to a friend upon the functions and formation of a model
Museum or Picture Gallery. As stated in our last issue the question arose thus:—
At the distribution of the prizes to the School of Art at Leicester by Mr. J. D.
Linton and Mr. James Orrock, members of the Institute of Painters in Water
Colors, the latter, after stating the vital importance of study from nothing but the
finest models, and expressing his regret that the present price of works of Art of
the first class rendered their attainment by schools almost prohibitory, offered
drawings by William Hunt and David Cox as a nucleus for a collection. He
urged others to follow this example, and with so much success that a few days
saw a large sum and many works of Art promised in aid of a students' gallery.
The attention of the Leicester Corporation was thereupon drawn to the
movement, and they at once endeavored to annex the scheme to their Museum.
Failing in this, they in friendly rivalry subscribed a large sum of money, and the
question at once arose how best to dispose of it, each naturally thinking his own
ideas the best. At this juncture Mr. Ruskin's aid was invoked by one section of
the subscribers, and he replied in a letter which, owing to its having been
circulated without its context, has been open to some misconstruction. As he was
only asked, so he only advised, what should not be done. However, the letter
bore its fruits, for both parties have had the attention of the country drawn to
their proposals, and so are now more diffident how to set about carrying them
into effect than they were before. Under these circumstances Mr. Ruskin has
been induced to set out the mode in which he considers an Art Museum should
be formed."
The letter which was "open to some misconstruction" may be found in Arrows of
the Chace.
[5] Reprinted in vol. i., §§ 253-273.—Ed.
[6] In 1873. See the second lecture of Love's Meinie.—Ed..
[7] Art Journal, August, 1880.
[8] The "Derby Day." See Arrows of the Chase.

MINOR WRITINGS UPON ART.
THE CAVALLI MONUMENTS, VERONA. 1872.
VERONA AND ITS RIVERS (WITH CATALOGUE). 1870.
CHRISTIAN ART AND SYMBOLISM. 1872.
ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIÆVAL CHRISTENDOM. 1876.
THE EXTENSION OF RAILWAYS. 1876.
THE STUDY OF BEAUTY. 1883.

THE CAVALLI MONUMENTS IN THE
CHURCH OF ST. ANASTASIA, VERONA.[9]
217. The tomb of Federigo and Nicola Cavalli is in the southernmost chapel
of the five which form the east end of the church of St. Anastasia at Verona.
The traveler in Italy is so often called upon to admire what he cannot enjoy,
that it must relieve the mind of any reader intending to visit Verona to be
assured that this church deserves nothing but extraordinary praise; it has,
however, some characters which a quarter of an hour's attention will make
both interesting and instructive, and which I will note briefly before giving
an account of the Cavalli chapel. This church "would, if the font were
finished, probably be the most perfect specimen in existence of the style to
which it belongs," says a critic quoted in "Murray's Guide." The conjecture
is a bold one, for the font is not only unfinished, and for the most part a
black mass of ragged brickwork, but the portion pretending to completion is
in three styles; approaches excellence only in one of them; and in that the
success is limited to the sides of the single entrance door. The flanks and
vaults of this porch, indeed, deserve our almost unqualified admiration for
their beautiful polychrome masonry. They are built of large masses of green
serpentine alternating with red and white marble, and the joints are so
delicate and firm that a casual spectator might pass the gate with contempt,
thinking the stone was painted.
218. The capitals on these two sides, the carved central shaft, and the
horizontal lintel of this door are also excellent examples of Veronese
thirteenth century sculpture, and have merits of a high order, but of which
the general observer cannot be cognizant. I do not mean, in saying this, to
extol them greatly; the best art is pleasing to all, and its virtue, or a portion
of its virtue, instantly manifest. But there are some good qualities in every
earnest work which can only be ascertained by attention; and in saying that
a casual observer cannot see the good qualities in early Veronese sculpture,
I mean that it possesses none but these, nor of these many.

219. Yet it is worth a minute's delay to observe how much the sculpture has
counted on attention. In later work, figures of the size of life, or
multitudinous small ones, please, if they do not interest, the spectator who
can spare them a momentary glance. But all the figures on this door are
diminutive, and project so slightly from the stone as scarcely to catch the
eye; there are none in the sides and none in the vault of the gate, and it is
only by deliberate examination that we find the faith which is to be
preached in the church, and the honor of its preacher, conclusively engraved
on the lintel and door-post. The spiral flutings of the central shaft are
uninterrupted, so as to form a slight recess for the figure of St. Dominic,
with, I believe, St. Peter Martyr and St. Thomas Aquinas, one on each side
with the symbols of the sun and moon. At the end of the lintel, on the left, is
St. Anastasia; on the right, St. Catherine (of Siena); in the center, on the
projecting capital, the Madonna; and on the lintel, the story of Christ, in the
four passages of the Annunciation, Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.
220. This is the only part of the front of the church which is certainly part of
the first structure in 1260. The two statues of St. Anastasia and St. Catherine
are so roughly joined to the lateral capitals as to induce a suspicion that
even these latter and the beautiful polychrome vault are of later work, not,
however, later than 1300. The two pointed arches which divide the
tympanum are assuredly subsequent, and the fresco which occupies it is a
bad work of the end of the fourteenth century; and the marble frieze and
foundations of the front are at least not earlier than 1426.
Of this portion of the building the foundation is noble, and its color
beautifully disposed, but the sculpture of the paneling is poor, and of no
interest or value.
221. On entering the church, and turning immediately to the left, there will
be seen on the inner side of the external wall a tomb under a boldly trefoiled
canopy. It is a sarcophagus with a recumbent figure on it, which is the only
work of art in the church deserving serious attention. It is the tomb of
Gerard Bolderius "sui temporis physicorum principi," says his epitaph,[10]
not, as far as I can discover, untruly. On the front of the sarcophagus is the
semi-figure of Christ rising from the tomb, used generally at the period for
the type of resurrection, between the Virgin and St. John; and two shields,
bearing, one the fleur-de-lys, the other an eagle. The recumbent figure is

entirely simple and right in treatment, sculptured without ostentation of skill
or exaggeration of sentiment, by a true artist, who endeavors only to give
the dead due honor, and his own art subordinate and modest scope.
This monument, being the best in St. Anastasia, is, by the usual spite of
fortune, placed where it is quite invisible except on bright days. On the
opposite side of the church, the first monument on the right, well lighted by
the tall western window, should be looked at next to the physician's; for as
that is the best, this is essentially the worst, piece of sculptured art in the
building; a series of academy studies in marble, well executed, but without
either taste or invention, and necessarily without meaning, the monument
having been erected to a person whose only claim to one was his having
stolen money enough to pay for it before he died. It is one of the first pieces
extant of entirely mechanical art workmanship, done for money; and the
perfection of its details may justify me in directing special attention to it.
222. There are no other monuments, still less pictures, in the body of the
church deserving notice. The general effect of the interior is impressive,
owing partly to the boldness and simplicity of the pillars which sustain the
roof; partly to the darkness which involves them: these Dominican churches
being, in fact, little more than vast halls for preaching in, and depending
little on decoration, and not at all on light. But the sublimity of shadow
soon fails when it has nothing interesting to shade; and the chapel or
monuments which, opposite each interval between the pillars, fill the sides
of the aisles, possess no interest except in their arabesques of cinque-cento
sculpture, of which far better examples may be seen elsewhere; while the
differences in their ages, styles, and purposes hinder them from attaining
any unity of decorative effect, and break the unity of the church almost as
fatally, though not as ignobly, as the incoherent fillings of the aisles at
Westminster. The Cavalli chapel itself, though well deserving the
illustration which the Arundel Society has bestowed upon it, is filled with a
medley of tombs and frescoes of different dates, partly superseding, none
illustrating, each other, and instructive mainly as showing the unfortunate
results of freedom and "private enterprise" in matters of art, as compared
with the submission to the design of one ruling mind which is the glory of
all the chapels in Italy where the art is entirely noble.

223. Instructive, thus, at least, even if seen hastily; much better teaching
may be had even from the unharmonious work, if we give time and thought
to it. The upper fresco on the north wall, representing the Baptism of Christ,
has no beauty, and little merit as art; yet the manner of its demerit is
interesting. St. John kneels to baptize. This variation from the received
treatment, in which he stands above the Christ, is enough in itself to show
that the poor Veronese painter had some intelligence of his subject; and the
quaint and haggard figure, grim-featured, with its black hair rising in
separate locks like a crown of thorns, is a curious intermediate type between
the grotesque conception which we find in earlier art (or, for instance, on
the coins of Florence) and the beautiful, yet always melancholy and severe
figures of St. John painted by Cima da Conegliano at Venice. With this stern
figure, in raiment of camel's hair, compare the Magdalen in the frescoes at
the side of the altar, who is veiled from head to foot with her own, and
sustained by six angels, being the type of repentance from the passions, as
St. John of resistance to them. Both symbols are, to us, to say the very least,
without charm, and to very few without offense; yet consider how much
nobler the temper of the people must have been who could take pleasure in
art so gloomy and unadorned, than that of the populace of to-day, which
must be caught with bright colors and excited by popular sentiment.
224. Both these frescoes, with the others on the north wall of the chapel,
and Madonna between four saints on the south side, by the Cavalli tomb,
are evidently of fourteenth century work, none of it good, but characteristic;
and the last-named work (seen in the plate) is so graceful as to be quite
worth some separate illustration. But the one above it is earlier, and of
considerable historical interest. It was discovered with the other paintings
surrounding the tomb, about the year 1838, when Persico published his
work, "Verona, e la sua Provincia," in which he says (p. 13), "levatane
l'antica incrostatura, tornarono a vita novella."
It would have been more serviceable to us if we could have known the date
of the rough cast, than of its removal; the period of entire contempt for
ancient art being a subject of much interest in the ecclesiastical history of
Italy. But the tomb itself was an incrustation, having been raised with much
rudeness and carelessness amidst the earlier art which recorded the first rise
of the Cavalli family.

225. It will be seen by reference to the plate that the frescoes round the
tomb have no symmetrical relation to it. They are all of earlier date, and by
better artists. The tomb itself is roughly carved, and coarsely painted, by
men who were not trying to do their best, and could not have done anything
very well, even if they had tried: it is an entirely commonplace and dull
work, though of a good school, and has been raised against the highest
fresco with a strange disregard of the merit of the work itself, and of its
historical value to the family. This fresco is attributable by Persico to
Giotto, but is, I believe, nothing more than an interesting example of the
earnest work of his time, and has no quality on which I care to enlarge; nor
is it ascertainable who the three knights are whom it commemorates, unless
some evidence be found of the date of the painting, and there is, yet, none
but that of its manner. But they are all three Cavallis, and I believe them to
represent the three first founders of the family, Giovanni, "che fioriva
intorno al 1274," his son Nicola (1297), and grandson Federigo, who was
Podesta of Vicenza under the Scaligers in 1331, and by whom I suppose the
fresco to have been commanded. The Cavallis came first from Germany
into the service of the Visconti of Milan, as condottieri, thence passing into
the service of the Scaligers. Whether I am right in this conjecture or not, we
have, at all events, record in this chapel of seven knights of the family, of
whom two are named on the sarcophagus, of which the inscription (on the
projecting ledge under the recumbent figure) is:—
S. (Sepulchrum) nobilis et egregii viri Federici et egregii et
strenui viri domini Nicolai de Cavalis suorunique heredum, qui
spiritum redidit astris Ano Dni MCCCLXXXX.
Of which, I think, the force may be best given thus in modern terms:—
"The tomb of the noble and distinguished Herr Frederic, and of the
distinguished and energetic Herr the Lord Nicholas of the house of the
Horse, and of their heirs, who gave back his soul to the stars in the year of
our Lord 1390."
226. This Frederic and Nicolas Cavalli were the brothers of the Jacopo
Cavalli who is buried at Venice, and who, by a singular fatality, was
enrolled among the Venetian nobles of the senate in the year in which his
brother died at Verona (for I assume the "spiritum redidit" to be said of the

first-named brother). Jacopo married Constance della Scala, of Verona, and
had five sons, of whom one, Giorgio, Conte di Schio, plotted, after the fall
of the Scaligers, for their restoration to power in Verona, and was exiled, by
decree of the Council of Ten, to Candia, where he died. From another son,
Conrad, are descended the Cavallis of Venice, whose palace has been the
principal material from which recent searchers for the picturesque in Venice
compose pictures of the Grand Canal. It forms the square mass of
architecture on the left, in the continually repeated view of the Church of
the Salute seen from the steps of the Academy.
The genealogy of the family, from the thirteenth century, when they first
appeared in Italy, to the founder of this Venetian lordship, had better be set
before the reader in one view.[11]

Giovanni,
Condottiere in service of the Visconti, 1274.
|
Nicola,
Condottiere, 1297.
|
Federico,
Podesta of Vicenza under the Scaligers, 1331.
|
Conrado,
Condottiere, 1350.
| | |
Federigo, Jacopo, Nicola,
| | | | |
Federigo, Giovanni, Conrado, Federigo,Giorgio.

Founds Venetian family.

227. Now, as above stated, I believe that the fresco of the three knights was
commanded by the Podesta of Vicenza, on his receiving that authority from
the Scaligers in 1331, and that it represents Giovanni, Nicola, and himself;
while the tomb of Federigo and Nicola would be ordered by the Venetian

Cavallis, and completed without much care for the record of the rise of the
family at Verona.
Whether my identification of the figures seen kneeling in the fresco be
correct or not, the representation of these three Cavalli knights to the
Madonna, each interceded for by his patron saint, will be found to receive a
peculiar significance if the reader care to review the circumstances
influencing the relation of the German chivalry to the power of the Church
in the very year when Giovanni Cavalli entered the ranks of the Visconti.
228. For the three preceding centuries, Milan, the oldest archbishopric of
Lombardy, had been the central point at which the collision between the
secular and ecclesiastical power took place in Europe. The Guelph and
Ghibelline naturally met and warred throughout the plain of Lombardy; but
the intense civic stubbornness and courage of the Milanese population
formed a kind of rock in their tide-way, where the quarrel of burgher with
noble confused itself with, embittered, and brought again and again to trial
by battle, that of pope with emperor. In 1035 their warrior archbishop,
heading their revolt against Conrad of Franconia, organized the first
disciplined resistance of foot-soldiers to cavalry by his invention and
decoration of the Carroccio; and the contest was only closed, after the
rebuilding of the walls of ruined Milan, by the wandering of Barbarossa, his
army scattered, through the maize fields, which the traveler now listlessly
crosses at speed in the train between Milan and Arona, little noting the
name of the small station, "Legnano," where the fortune of the Lombard
republic finally prevailed. But it was only by the death of Frederick II. that
the supremacy of the Church was secured; and when Innocent IV., who had
written, on hearing of that death, to his Sicilian clergy, in words of
blasphemous exultation, entered Milan, on his journey from Lyons to
Perugia, the road, for ten miles before he reached the gates, was lined by the
entire population of the city, drawn forth in enthusiastic welcome; as they
had invented a sacred car for the advance of their standard in battle, they
invented some similar honor for the head of their Church as the harbinger of
peace: under a canopy of silk, borne by the first gentlemen of Milan, the
Pope received the hosannas of a people who had driven into shameful flight
their Caesar-king; and it is not uninteresting for the English traveler to
remember, as he walks through the vast arcades of shops, in the form of a
cross, by which the Milanese of to-day express their triumph in liberation

from Teutonic rule, that the "Baldacchino" of all mediæval religious
ceremony owed its origin to the taste of the milliners of Milan, as the safety
of the best knights in European battle rested on the faithful craftsmanship of
her armorers.
229. But at the date when the Cavalli entered the service of the great
Milanese family, the state of parties within the walls had singularly
changed. Three years previously (1271) Charles of Anjou had drawn
together the remnants of the army of his dead brother, had confiscated to his
own use the goods of the crusading knights whose vessels had been
wrecked on the coast of Sicily, and called the pontifical court to Viterbo, to
elect a pope who might confirm his dominion over the kingdoms of Sicily
and Jerusalem.
On the deliberations of the Cardinals at Viterbo depended the fates of Italy
and the Northern Empire. They chose Tebaldo Visconti, then a monk in
pilgrimage at Jerusalem. But, before that election was accomplished, one of
the candidates for the Northern Empire had involuntarily withdrawn his
claim; Guy de Montfort had murdered, at the altar foot, the English Count
of Cornwall, to avenge his father, Simon de Montfort, killed at Evesham.
The death of the English king of the Romans left the throne of Germany
vacant. Tebaldo had returned from Jerusalem with no personal ambition, but
having at heart only the restoration of Greece to Europe, and the preaching
of a new crusade in Syria. A general council was convoked by him at
Lyons, with this object; but before anything could be accomplished in the
conclave, it was necessary to balance the overwhelming power of Charles
of Anjou, and the Visconti (Gregory X.) ratified, in 1273, the election of
Rudolph of Hapsburg.
230. But Charles of Anjou owed his throne, in reality, to the assistance of
the Milanese. Their popular leader, Napoleone della Torre, had facilitated
his passage through Lombardy, which otherwise must have been arrested by
the Ghibelline states; and in the year in which the Visconti pope had
appointed the council at Lyons, the Visconti archbishop of Milan was
heading the exiled nobles in vain attempts to recover their supremacy over
the popular party. The new Emperor Rudolph not only sent a representative
to the council, but a German contingent to aid the exiled archbishop. The
popular leader was defeated, and confined in an iron cage, in the year 1274,

and the first entrance of the Cavalli into the Italian armies is thus
contemporary with the conclusive triumph of the northern monarchic over
the republican power, or, more literally, of the wandering rider, Eques, or
Ritter, living by pillage, over the sedentary burgher, living by art, and hale
peasant, living by labor. The essential nature of the struggle is curiously
indicated in relation to this monument by the two facts that the revolt of the
Milanese burghers, headed by their archbishop, began by a gentleman's
killing an importunate creditor, and that, at Venice, the principal
circumstance recorded of Jacopo Cavalli (see my notice of his tomb in the
"Stones of Venice," Vol. III. ch. ii. § 69) is his refusal to assault Feltre,
because the senate would not grant him the pillage of the town. The reader
may follow out, according to his disposition, what thoughts the fresco of the
three kneeling knights, each with his helmet-crest, in the shape of a horse's
head, thrown back from his shoulders, may suggest to him on review of
these passages of history: one thought only I must guard him against,
strictly; namely, that a condottiere's religion must necessarily have been
false or hypocritical. The folly of nations is in nothing more manifest than
in their placid reconciliation of noble creeds with base practices. But the
reconciliation, in the fourteenth as in the nineteenth century, was usually
foolish only, not insincere.

FOOTNOTES:
[9] Published by the Arundel Society (1872), together with a chromo-lithograph
after a drawing by Herr Gnauth.—Ed.
[10]
D.M.
Gerardo Bolderio
sui temporis
Physicorum Principi
Franciscus et
Matthaeus Nepotes
P.P.
[11] I am indebted for this genealogy to the research and to the courtesy of Mr. J.
Stefani. The help given me by other Venetian friends, especially Mr. Rawdon
Brown, dates from many years back in matters of this kind.

VERONA AND ITS RIVERS.[12]
231. The discourse began with a description of the scenery of the eastern
approach to Verona, with special remarks upon its magnificent
fortifications, consisting of a steep ditch, some thirty feet deep by sixty or
eighty wide, cut out of the solid rock, and the precipice-like wall above,
with towers crested with forked battlements set along it at due intervals.
The rock is a soft and crumbling limestone, containing "fossil creatures still
so like the creatures they were once, that there it first occurred to the human
brain to imagine that the buried shapes were not mockeries of life, but had
indeed once lived; and, under those white banks by the roadside, was born,
like a poor Italian gypsy, the modern science of geology." ... "The wall was
chiefly built, the moat entirely excavated, by Can Grande della Scala; and it
represents typically the form, of defense which rendered it possible for the
life and the arts of citizens to be preserved and practiced in an age of
habitual war. Not only so, but it is the wall of the actual city which headed
the great Lombard league, which was the beginner of personal and
independent power in the Italian nation, and the first banner-bearer,
therefore, of all that has been vitally independent in religion and in art
throughout the entire Christian world to this day." At the upper angle of the
wall, looking down the northern descent, is seen a great round tower at the
foot of it, not forked in battlements, but with embrasures for guns. "The
battlemented wall was the cradle of civic life. That low circular tower is the
cradle of modern war and of all its desolation. It is the first European tower
for artillery; the beginning of fortification against gunpowder—the
beginning, that is to say, of the end of all fortification."
232. After noticing the beautiful vegetation of the district, Mr. Ruskin
described the view from the promontory or spur, about ten miles long, of
which the last rock dies into the plain at the eastern gate of Verona. "This
promontory," he said, "is one of the sides of the great gate out of Germany
into Italy, through which the Goths always entered, cloven up to Innspruck
by the Inn, and down to Verona by the Adige. And by this gate not only the
Gothic armies came, but after the Italian nation is formed, the current of

northern life enters still into its heart through the mountain artery, as
constantly and strongly as the cold waves of the Adige itself." ... "The rock
of this promontory hardens as we trace it back to the Alps, first into a
limestone having knots of splendid brown jasper in it as our chalk has flints,
and in a few miles more into true marble, colored by iron into a glowing
orange or pale warm red—the peach-blossom marble, of which Verona is
chiefly built—and then as you advance farther into the hills into variegated
marbles very rich and grotesque in their veinings."
233. After dilating on the magnificent landscape viewed from the top of this
promontory, embracing the blue plain of Lombardy and its cities" Mr.
Ruskin said:—
"I do not think that there is any other rock in all the world from which the
places and monuments of so complex and deep a fragment of the history of
its ages can be visible as from this piece of crag with its blue and prickly
weeds. For you have thus beneath you at once the birthplaces of Virgil and
of Livy—the homes of Dante and Petrarch, and the source of the most
sweet and pathetic inspiration to your own Shakespeare—the spot where
the civilization of the Gothic kingdoms was founded on the throne of
Theodoric; and there whatever was strongest in the Italian race redeemed
itself into life by its league against Barbarossa; the beginning of the revival
of natural science and medicine in the schools of Padua; the center of Italian
chivalry, in the power of the Scaligers; of Italian cruelty, in that of Ezzelin;
and, lastly, the birthplace of the highest art; for among those hills, or by this
very Adige bank, were born Mantegna, Titian, Correggio, and Veronese."
234. Mr. Ruskin then referred to a series of drawings and photographs taken
at Verona by himself and his assistants, Mr. Burgess and Mr. Bunney, which
he had divided into three series, and of which he had furnished a number of
printed catalogues illustrated with notes.[13]
I. "Lombard, extending to the end of the twelfth century, being the
expression of the introduction of Christianity into barbaric minds;
Christianization.
II. "The Gothic period. Dante's time, from 1200 to 1400 (Dante beginning
his poem exactly in the midst of it, in 1300); the period of vital Christianity,

and of the development of the laws of chivalry and forms of imagination
which are founded on Christianity.
III. "The first period of the revival, in which the arts of Greece and some of
its religion return and join themselves to Christianity; not taking away its
sincerity or earnestness, but making it poetical instead of practical. In the
following period even this poetical Christianity expired; the arts became
devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, and in that they persist except where they
are saved by a healthy naturalism or domesticity.
235. I. "The Lombardic period is one of savage but noble life gradually
subjected to law. It is the forming of men, not out of clay but wild beasts.
And art of this period in all countries, including our own Norman
especially, is, in the inner heart of it, the subjection of savage or terrible, or
foolish and erring life, to a dominant law. It is government and conquest of
fearful dreams. There is in it as yet no germ of true hope—only the
conquest of evil, and the waking from darkness and terror. The literature of
it is, as in Greece, far in advance of art, and is already full of the most
tender and impassioned beauty, while the art is still grotesque and dreadful;
but, however wild, it is supreme above all others by its expression of
governing law, and here at Verona is the very center and utmost reach of
that expression.
"I know nothing in architecture at once so exquisite and so wild and so
strange in the expression of self-conquest achieved almost in a dream. For
observe, these barbaric races, educated in violence—chiefly in war and in
hunting—cannot feel or see clearly as they are gradually civilized whether
this element in which they have been brought up is evil or not. They must
be good soldiers and hunters—that is their life; yet they know that killing is
evil, and they do not expect to find wild beasts in heaven. They have been
trained by pain, by violence, by hunger and cold. They know there is a good
in these things as well as evil: they are perpetually hesitating between the
one and the other thought of them. But one thing they see clearly, that
killing and hunting, and every form of misery, pleasure, and of passion,
must somehow at last be subdued by law, which shall bring good out of it
all, and which they feel more and more constraining them every hour. Now,
if with this sympathy you look at their dragon and wild beast decoration,
you will find that it now tells you about these Lombards far more than they

could know of themselves.... All the actions, and much more the arts, of
men tell to others, not only what the worker does not know, but what he can
never know of himself, which you can only recognize by being in an
element more advanced and wider than his.... In deliberate symbolism, the
question is always, not what a symbol meant first or meant elsewhere, but
what it means now and means here. Now, this dragon symbol of the
Lombard is used of course all over the world; it means good here, and evil
there; sometimes means nothing; sometimes everything. You have always to
ask what the man who here uses it means by it. Whatever is in his mind,
that he is sure partly to express by it; nothing else than that can he express
by it."
236. II. In the second period Mr. Ruskin said was to be found "the highest
development of Italian character and chivalry, with an entirely believed
Christian religion; you get, therefore, joy and courtesy, and hope, and a
lovely peace in death. And with these you have two fearful elements of evil.
You have first such confidence in the virtue of the creed that men hate and
persecute all who do not accept it. And worse still, you find such confidence
in the power of the creed that men not only can do anything that is wrong,
and be themselves for a word of faith pardoned, but are even sure that after
the wrong is done God is sure to put it all right again for them, or even
make things better than they were before. Now, I need not point out to you
how the spirit of persecution, as well as of vain hope founded on creed only,
is mingled in every line with the lovely moral teaching of the 'Divina
Conmedia,' nor need I point out to you how, between the persecution of
other people's creeds and the absolution of one's own crimes, all Christian
error is concluded."
In relation to this Mr. Ruskin referred to the history of the founder of the
power of the Scalas, Mastino, a simple citizen, chosen first to be podesta
and then captain of Verona, for his justice and sagacity, who, although wise
and peaceful in his policy, employed the civil power in the persecution of
heresy, burning above two hundred persons; and he also related how Can
Signorio della Scala on his death-bed, after giving a pious charge to his
children, ordered the murder of his brother—examples of the boundless
possibility of self-deception. One of these children killed the other, and was
himself driven from the throne, so ending the dynasty of the Scalas.
Referring to his illustrations, Mr. Ruskin pointed out the expressions of

hope, in the conquest of death, and the rewards of faith, apparent in the art
of the time. The Lombard architecture expresses the triumph of law over
passion, the Christian, that of hope over sorrow.
Mr. Ruskin concluded his remarks on this period by commenting on the
history and the tomb of Can Grande della Scala, a good knight and true, as
busy and bright a life as is found in the annals of chivalry.
237. III. "The period when classical literature and art were again known in
Italy, and the painters and sculptors, who had been gaining steadily in
power for two hundred years—power not of practice merely, but of race
also—with every circumstance in their favor around them, received their
finally perfect instruction, both in geometrical science, in that of materials,
and in the anatomy and action of the human body. Also the people about
them—the models of their work—had been perfected in personal beauty by
a chivalric war; in imagination by a transcendental philosophy; in practical
intellect by stern struggle for civic law; and in commerce, not in falsely
made or vile or unclean things, but in lovely things, beautifully and
honestly made. And now, therefore, you get out of all the world's long
history since it was peopled by men till now—you get just fifty years of
perfect work. Perfect. It is a strong word; it is also a true one. The doing of
these fifty years is unaccusably Right, as art; what its sentiment may be—
whether too great or too little, whether superficial or sincere—is another
question, but as artists' work it admits no conception of anything better.
"It is true that in the following age, founded on the absolutely stern
rectitude of this, there came a phase of gigantic power and of exquisite ease
and felicity which possess an awe and a charm of their own. They are more
inimitable than the work of the perfect school. But they are not perfect." ...
238. This period Mr. Ruskin named "the 'Time of the Masters,' Fifty Years,
including Luini, Leonardo, John Bellini, Vitto Carpaccio, Andrea
Mantegna, Andrea Verrocchio, Cima da Conegliano, Perugino, and in date,
though only in his earlier life, belonging to the school, Raphael.... The great
fifty years was the prime of life of three men: John Bellini, born 1430, died
at 90, in 1516; Mantegna, born 1430, died at 76, in 1506; and Vittor
Carpaccio, who died in 1522."

"The object of these masters is wholly different from that of the former
school. The central Gothic men always want chiefly to impress you with the
facts of their subject; but the masters of this finished time desire only to
make everything dainty and delightful. We have not many pictures of the
class in England, but several have been of late added to the National
Gallery, and the Perugino there, especially the compartment with Raphael
and Tobit, and the little St. Jerome by John Bellini, will perfectly show you
this main character—pictorial perfectness and deliciousness—sought before
everything else. You will find, if you look into that St. Jerome, that
everything in it is exquisite, complete, and pure; there is not a particle of
dust in the cupboards, nor a cloud in the air; the wooden shutters are dainty,
the candlesticks are dainty, the saint's scarlet hat is dainty, and its violet
tassel, and its ribbon, and his blue cloak and his spare pair of shoes, and his
little brown partridge—it is all a perfect quintessence of innocent luxury—
absolute delight, without one drawback in it, nor taint of the Devil
anywhere." ...
239. After dilating on several other pictures of this class, giving evidence of
the entire devotion of the artists of the period to their art and work, Mr.
Ruskin adverted to the second part of his discourse, the rivers of Verona.
"There is but one river at Verona, nevertheless Dante connects its name with
that of the Po when he says of the whole of Lombardy,—
'In sul paese, ch' Adice e Po riga,
Solea valore e cortesia trovarsi
Prima che Federigo avesse briga.'
I want to speak for a minute or two about those great rivers, because in the
efforts that are now being made to restore some of its commerce to Venice
precisely the same questions are in course of debate which again and again,
ever since Venice was a city, have put her senate at pause—namely, how to
hold in check the continually advancing morass formed by the silt brought
down by the Alpine rivers. Is it not strange that for at least six hundred
years the Venetians have been contending with those rivers at their mouths
—that is to say, where their strength has become wholly irresistible—and
never once thought of contending with them at their sources, where their
infinitely separated streamlets might be, and are meant by Heaven to be,
ruled as easily as children? And observe how sternly, how constantly the

place where they are to be governed is marked by the mischief done by
their liberty. Consider what the advance of the delta of the Po in the Adriatic
signifies among the Alps. The evil of the delta itself, however great, is as
nothing in comparison of that which is in its origin.
240. "The gradual destruction of the harborage of Venice, the endless cost
of delaying it, the malaria of the whole coast down to Ravenna, nay, the
raising of the bed of the Po, to the imperiling of all Lombardy, are but
secondary evils. Every acre of that increasing delta means the devastation
of part of an Alpine valley, and the loss of so much fruitful soil and
ministering rain. Some of you now present must have passed this year
through the valleys of the Toccia and Ticino. You know therefore the
devastation that was caused there, as well as in the valley of the Rhone, by
the great floods of 1868, and that ten years of labor, even if the peasantry
had still the heart for labor, cannot redeem those districts into fertility. What
you have there seen on a vast scale takes place to a certain extent during
every summer thunderstorm, and from the ruin of some portion of fruitful
land the dust descends to increase the marshes of the Po. But observe
further—whether fed by sudden melting of snow or by storm—every
destructive rise of the Italian rivers signifies the loss of so much power of
irrigation on the south side of the Alps. You must all well know the look of
their chain—seen from Milan or Turin late in summer—how little snow is
left, except on Monte Rosa, how vast a territory of brown mountain-side
heated and barren, without rocks, yet without forest. There is in that brown-
purple zone, and along the flanks of every valley that divides it, another
Lombardy of cultivable land; and every drift of rain that swells the
mountain torrents if it were caught where it falls is literally rain of gold. We
seek gold beneath the rocks; and we will not so much as make a trench
along the hillside to catch it where it falls from heaven, and where, if not so
caught, it changes into a frantic monster, first ravaging hamlet, hill, and
plain, then sinking along the shores of Venice into poisoned sleep. Think
what that belt of the Alps might be—up to four thousand feet above the
plain—if the system of terraced irrigation which even half-savage nations
discovered and practiced long ago in China and in Borneo, and by which
our own engineers have subdued vast districts of farthest India, were but in
part also practiced here—here, in the oldest and proudest center of
European arts, where Leonardo da Vinci—master among masters—first

discerned the laws of the coiling clouds and wandering streams, so that to
this day his engineering remains unbettered by modern science; and yet in
this center of all human achievements of genius no thought has been taken
to receive with sacred art these great gifts of quiet snow and flying rain.
Think, I repeat, what that south slope of the Alps might be: one paradise of
lovely pasture and avenued forest of chestnut and blossomed trees, with
cascades docile and innocent as infants, laughing all summer long from
crag to crag and pool to pool, and the Adige and the Po, the Dora and the
Ticino, no more defiled, no more alternating between fierce flood and
venomous languor, but in calm clear currents bearing ships to every city and
health to every field of all that azure plain of Lombard Italy....
241. "It has now become a most grave object with me to get some of the
great pictures of the Italian schools into England; and that, I think, at this
time—with good help—might be contrived. Further, without in the least
urging my plans impatiently on anyone else, I know thoroughly that this,
which I have said should be done, can be done, for the Italian rivers, and
that no method of employment of our idle able-bodied laborers would be in
the end more remunerative, or in the beginnings of it more healthful and
every way beneficial than, with the concurrence of the Italian and Swiss
governments, setting them to redeem the valleys of the Ticino and the
Rhone. And I pray you to think of this; for I tell you truly—you who care
for Italy—that both her passions and her mountain streams are noble; but
that her happiness depends not on the liberty, but the right government of
both."[14]

FOOTNOTES:
[12] Report (with extracts) of a paper entitled "A Talk respecting Verona and its
Rivers," read by Mr. Ruskin at the Weekly Evening Meeting of the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, Feb. 4th, 1870. See Proceedings of the Royal
Institution, vol. vi., p. 55.—Ed.
[13] This catalogue (London: Queen Street Printing-Office, 1870) is printed
below, p. 109, § 242 seqq.—Ed.
[14] See Arrows of the Chace.

CATALOGUE.
(See ante, p. 101.—Ed.)
Drawings and Photographs, illustrative of the Architecture of Verona,
shown at the Royal Institution, Feb. 4th, 1870.

SECTION I. Nos. 1 to 7. LOMBARD.

242. (1.) Porch of the Church of St. Zeno. (Photograph.)
Of the 12th century.
(2.) Porch of the South Entrance of the Duomo.
Probably of the 10th or 11th century, and highly remarkable for
the wildness of its grotesque or monstrous sculpture, which has
been most carefully rendered by the draughts-man, Mr. Bunney.
It will save space to note that the sketches by my two most
skillful and patient helpers, Mr. A. Burgess and Mr. Bunney, will
be respectively marked (A) and (B), and my own (R).
(3.) Porch of the Western Entrance of the Duomo. (Photograph.)
Later in date—but still of 12th or very early 13th century.
Details of it are given in the next drawings.
243. (4.) Griffin (I keep the intelligible old English spelling), sustaining the
Pillar on the North Side of the Porch seen in No. 3. (R.)
Painted last summer.
I engraved his head and breast, seen from the other side, in the
plate of "True and False Griffins," in "Modern Painters." Only
the back of the head and neck of the small dragon he holds in his
fore-claws can be seen from this side.

(5.) Capital of the Pillar sustained by the Griffin, of which the base is seen
in No. 4. (A.)
First-rate sculpture of the time, and admirably drawn.
(6.) Portion of decorative Lombardic molding from the South Side of the
Duomo. (A.)
Showing the peculiar writhing of the branched tracery with a
serpentine flexure—altogether different from the springing lines
of Gothic ornament. It would be almost impossible to draw this
better; it is much more like the real thing than a cast would be.
(7.) Lion, with Dragon in its claws, of Lombardic sculpture (now built into
a wall at Venice); above it, head of one of the Dogs which support the Tomb
of Can Grande, at Verona. (R.)
The lion—in its emaciated strength, and the serpent with its vital
writhe and deadly reverted bite, are both characteristic of the
finest Lombard work. The dog's head is 14th century Gothic—a
masterpiece of broad, subtle, easy sculpture, getting expression
with every touch, and never losing the least undulation of
surface, while it utterly disdains the mere imitation of hair, or
attainment of effect by deep cutting.

SECTION II. Nos. 8 to 38. GOTHIC.

244. (8.) North Porch of the Church of St. Fermo. 13th century. (B.)
Mr. Bunney's drawing is so faithful and careful as almost to
enable the spectator to imagine himself on the spot. The details
of this porch are among the most interesting in the Gothic of
Italy, but I was obliged, last year, to be content with this general
view, taken in terror of the whole being "restored"; and with the
two following drawings.
(9.) Base of the Central Pillar. North Porch, St. Fermo. (B.)
In facsimile, as nearly as possible, and of the real size, to show
the perpetual variety in the touch; and in the disposition and size

of the masses.
(10.) Shaft-Capitals of the Interior Arch of the North Porch, St. Fermo. (B.)
Contrived so that, while appearing symmetrical, and even
monotonous, not one lobe of any of the leaves shall be like
another.
Quite superb in the original, but grievously difficult to draw, and
losing, in this sketch, much of their grace.
245. (11.) Western Door of the Church of St. Anastasia, with the Tomb of the
Count of Castelbarco on the left, over the arch. (Photograph.)
In the door, its central pillar, carved lintels and encompassing
large pointed arch, with its deep moldings and flanking shafts,
are of the finest Veronese 13th century work. The two minor
pointed arches are of the 14th century. The flanking pilasters,
with double panels and garlands above, are the beginning of a
façade intended to have been erected in the 15th century.
The Count of Castelbarco, the Chancellor of Can Grande della
Scala, died about the year 1330, and his tomb cannot be much
later in date.
The details of this group of buildings are illustrated under the
numbers next in series.
(12.) Pillars and Lintels of the Western Door of St. Anastasia. (Photograph.)
The sculpture of the lintel is first notable for its concise and
intense story of the Life of Christ.
1. The Annunciation. (Both Virgin and Angel kneeling.)

2. The Nativity.

3. The Epiphany. (Chosen as a sign of life giver to the
Gentiles.)

4. Christ bearing His Cross. (Chosen as a sign of His

personal life in its entirety.)

5. The Crucifixion.

6. The Resurrection.
Secondly. As sculpture, this lintel shows all the principal
features of the characteristic 13th century design of Verona.
Diminutive and stunted figures; the heads ugly in features, stern
in expression; but the drapery exquisitely disposed in minute but
not deep-cut folds.
(13.) The Angels on the left hand of the subject of the Resurrection in No.
12. (A.)
Drawn of its actual size, excellently.
The appearance of fusion and softness in the contours is not
caused by time, but is intentional, and reached by great skill in
the sculptor, faithfully rendered in the drawing.
(14.) Sketch of the Capital of the Central Pillar in No. 12. (R.)
(With slight notes of a 16th century bracket of a street balcony
on each side.)
Drawn to show the fine curvatures and softness of treatment in
Veronese sculpture of widely separated periods.
246. (15.) Unfinished Sketch of the Castelbarco Tomb, seen from one of the
windows of the Hotel of the "Two Towers." (R.)
That inn was itself one of the palaces of the Scaligers; and the
traveler should endeavor always to imagine the effect of the
little Square of Sta. Anastasia when the range of its buildings
was complete; the Castelbarco Tomb on one side, this Gothic
palace on the other, and the great door of the church between.
The masonry of the canopy of this tomb was so locked and
dove-tailed that it stood balanced almost without cement; but of
late, owing to the permission given to heavily loaded carts to

pass continually under the archway, the stones were so loosened
by the vibration that the old roof became unsafe, and was
removed, and a fine smooth one of trimly cut white stone
substituted, while I was painting the rest of the tomb, against
time. Hence the unfinished condition of my sketch the last that
can ever be taken of the tomb as it was built.
(16.) The Castelbarco Tomb, seen laterally. (B.)
A most careful drawing, leaving little to be desired in realization
of the subject. It is taken so near the tomb as to make the
perspective awkward, but I liked this quaint view better than
more distant ones.
The drawing of the archway, and of the dark gray and red
masonry of the tomb is very beautiful.
247. (17.) Lion with Hind in its Claws. (A.)
The support of the sarcophagus, under the feet of the recumbent
figure in the Castelbarco Tomb.
(18.) Lion with Dragon in its claws. (A.)
The support of the sarcophagus at the head of the figure.
(19.) St. Luke. (A.)
Sculpture of one of the four small panels at the angles of the
sarcophagus in the Castelbarco Tomb. I engraved the St. Mark
for the illustration of noble grotesque in the "Stones of Venice."
But this drawing more perfectly renders the stern touch of the
old sculptor.
(20.) Two of the Spurs of the bases of the Nave Pillars in the Church of St.
Anastasia. (A.)
Of the real size. Not generally seen in the darkness of the
Church, and very fine in their rough way.
248. (21.) Tomb of Can Grande, general view. (R.)

Put together some time since, from Photograph and Sketches
taken in the year 1852; and inaccurate, but useful in giving a
general idea.
(22.) Tomb of Can Grande. (R.)
Sketch made carefully on the spot last year. The sarcophagus
unfinished; the details of it would not go into so small a space.
(23.) The Sarcophagus and recumbent Statue of Can Grande, drawn
separately. (R.)
Sketched on the spot last year. Almost a faultless type of
powerful and solemn Gothic sculpture. (Can Grande died in
1329.)
(24.) The Two Dogs. (R.)
The kneeling Madonna and sculpture of right hand upper panel
of the Sarcophagus of Can Grande.
The drawing of the panel is of real size, representing the Knight
at the Battle of Vicenza.
(25.) The Cornice of the Sarcophagus of Can Grande. (A.)
Of its real size, admirably drawn, and quite showing the softness
and Correggio-like touch of its leafage, and its symmetrical
formality of design, while the flow of every leaf is changeful.
249. (26.) Study of the Sarcophagus of the Tomb of Mastino II., Verona. (R.)
Sketched in 1852.
(27.) Head of the recumbent Statue of Mastino II. (A.)
Beautifully drawn by Mr. Burgess.
Can Mastino II. had three daughters:—Madonna Beatrice
(called afterwards "the Queen," for having "tutte le grazie che i
cieli ponno concedere a femina," and always simply called by
historians Lady "Reina" della Scala), Madonna Alta-luna, and

Madonna Verde. Lady Reina married Bernabó Visconti, Duke of
Milan; Lady Alta-luna, Louis of Brandebourg; and Lady Verde,
Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. Their father died of "Sovereign
melancholy" in 1350, being forty-three years old.
(28.) Part of Cornice of the Sarcophagus of Mastino II. (A.)
One of the most beautiful Gothic cornices in Italy; its effect
being obtained with extreme simplicity of execution out of two
ridges of marble, each cut first into one united sharp edge all
along, and then drilled through, and modeled into leaf and
flower.
(29.) Sketch, real size, of the pattern incised and painted on the drapery of
the Tomb of Can Mastino II. (R.)
It is worth notice for the variety of its pattern; observe, the floral
fillings of spaces resemble each other, but are never the same.
There is no end, when one begins drawing detail of this kind
carefully. Slight as it is, the sketch gives some idea of the easy
flow of the stone drapery, and of the care taken by the sculptor
to paint his pattern as if it were bent at the apparent fold.
250. (30.) Tomb of Can Signorio della Scala.
Samuel Prout's sketch on the spot; (afterwards lithographed by
him in his "Sketches in France and Italy";) quite admirable in
feeling, composition, and concise abstraction of essential
character.
The family palace of the Scaligers, in which Dante was
received, is seen behind it.
(31.) A single niche and part of the iron-work of the Tomb of Can Signorio.
(R.)
As seen from the palace of the Scaligers; the remains of another
house of the same family are seen in the little street beyond.
(32.) Study of details of the top of the Tomb of Can Signorio. (R.)

Needing more work than I had time for, and quite spoiled by
hurry; but interesting in pieces here and there; look, for instance,
at the varied size and design of the crockets; and beauty of the
cornices.
(33.) Bracket under Sarcophagus of Giovanni della Scala. (A.)
Characteristic of the finest later treatment of flowing foliage.
251. (34.) Part of the front of the Ducal Palace, Venice. (R.)
Sketched, in 1852, by measurement, with extreme care; and
showing the sharp window traceries, which are rarely seen in
Photographs.
(35.) Angle of the Ducal Palace, looking Seaward from the Piazzetta. (R.)
Sketched last year, (restorations being threatened) merely to
show the way in which the light is let through the edges of the
angle by penetration of the upper capital, and of the foliage in
the sculpture below; so that the mass may not come unbroken
against the sky.
(36.) Photograph of the Angle Capital of Upper Arcade seen in No. 34.
Showing the pierced portions, and their treatment.
(37-38.) Capitals of the Upper Arcade.
Showing the grandest treatment of architectural foliage attained
by the 14th century masters; massive for all purposes of support;
exquisitely soft and refined in contour, and faultlessly
composed.

SECTION III. Time of "THE MASTERS."

252. (39.) Study of the top of the Pilaster next the Castelbarco Tomb. (R.)
The wild fig leaves are unfinished; for my assistant having
unfortunately shown his solicitude for their preservation too
energetically to some street boys who were throwing stones at

them, they got a ladder, and rooted them up the same night. The
purple and fine-grained white marbles of the pilaster are entirely
uninjured in surface by three hundred years' exposure. The
coarse white marble above has moldered, and is gray with
lichens.
(40.) Study of the base of the same Pilaster, and connected Facade. (R.)
Showing the effect of differently colored marbles arranged in
carefully inequal masses.
253. (41.) Interior Court of the Ducal Palace of Venice, with Giant's Stair.
(R.)
Sketched in 1841, and perhaps giving some characters which
more finished drawing would lose.
(42.) The Piazza d' Erbe, Verona. (R.)
Sketched in 1841, showing general effect and pretty grouping of
the later Veronese buildings.
(43.) Piazza de' Signori, Verona.
Sketched last year. Note the bill advertising Victor Hugo's
"Homme qui rit," pasted on the wall of the palace.
The great tower is of the Gothic time. Note its noble sweep of
delicately ascending curves sloped inwards.
(44.) Gate of Ruined School of St. John, Venice. (Photograph.)
Exquisite in floral sculpture, and finish of style.
(45.) Hawthorn Leaves, from the base of Pilaster, in the Church of St. Maria
dé Miracoli, Venice. (R.)
In the finest style of floral sculpture. It cannot be surpassed for
perfectness of treatment; especially for the obtaining of life and
softness, by broad surfaces and fine grouping.
(46.) Basrelief from one of the Inner Doors of the Ducal Palace.

Very noble, and typical of the pure style.
(47.) St. John Baptist and other Saints. (Cima da Conegliano.)
Consummate work; but the photograph, though well taken,
darkens it terribly.
(48.) Meeting of Joachim and Anna. (Vettor Carpaccio.) (Photograph.)
(49.) Madonna and Saints. (John Bellini.) Portrait. (Mantegna.)
(Photographs.)
(50.) Madonna. (John Bellini.)
With Raphael's "Della Seggiola." Showing the first transition
from the style of the "Masters" to that of modern times.
The Photographs in the above series are all from the Pictures
themselves.

CHRISTIAN ART AND SYMBOLISM.[15]
A PREFACE.

254. The writer of this book has long been my friend, and in the early days
of friendship was my disciple.
But, of late, I have been his; for he has devoted himself earnestly to the
study of forms of Christian Art which I had little opportunity of examining,
and has been animated in that study by a brightness of enthusiasm which
has been long impossible to me. Knowing this, and that he was able
perfectly to fill what must otherwise have been a rudely bridged chasm in
my teaching at Oxford, I begged him to give these lectures, and to arrange
them for press. And this he has done to please me; and now that he has done
it, I am, in one sense, anything but pleased: for I like his writing better than
my own, and am more jealous of it than I thought it was in me to be of any
good work—how much less of my friend's! I console myself by reflecting,
or at least repeating to myself and endeavoring to think, that he could not
have found out all this if I had not shown him the way. But most deeply and
seriously I am thankful for such help, in a work far too great for my present
strength; help all the more precious because my friend can bring to the
investigation of early Christian Art, and its influence, the integrity and
calmness of the faith in which it was wrought, happier than I in having been
a personal comforter and helper of men, fulfilling his life in daily and
unquestionable duty; while I have been, perhaps wrongly, always
hesitatingly, persuading myself that it was my duty to do the things which
pleased me.
255. Also, it has been necessary to much of my analytical work that I
should regard the art of every nation as much as possible from their own
natural point of view; and I have striven so earnestly to realize belief which
I supposed to be false, and sentiment which was foreign to my temper, that
at last I scarcely know how far I think with other people's minds, and see
with anyone's eyes but my own. Even the effort to recover my temporarily

waived conviction occasionally fails; and what was once secured to me
becomes theoretical like the rest.
But my old scholar has been protected by his definitely directed life from
the temptations of this speculative equity; and I believe his writings to
contain the truest expression yet given in England of the feelings with
which a Christian gentleman of sense and learning should regard the art
produced in ancient days, by the dawn of the faiths which still guide his
conduct and secure his peace.
256. On all the general principles of Art, Mr. Tyrwhitt and I are absolutely
at one; but he has often the better of me in his acute personal knowledge of
men and their ways. When we differ in our thoughts of things, it is because
we know them on contrary sides; and often his side is that most naturally
seen, and which it is most desirable to see. There is one important matter,
for instance, on which we are thus apparently at issue, and yet are not so in
reality. These lectures show, throughout, the most beautiful and just
reverence for Michael Angelo, and are of especial value in their account of
him; while the last lecture on Sculpture,[16] which I gave at Oxford, is
entirely devoted to examining the modes in which his genius failed, and
perverted that of other men. But Michael Angelo is great enough to make
praise and blame alike necessary, and alike inadequate, in any true record of
him. My friend sees him as a traveler sees from a distance some noble
mountain range, obscure in golden clouds and purple shade; and I see him
as a sullen miner would the same mountains, wandering among their
precipices through chill of storm and snow, and discerning that their
strength was perilous and their substance sterile. Both of us see truly, both
partially; the complete truth is the witness of both.
257. The notices of Holbein, and the English whom he painted (see
especially the sketch of Sir Thomas Wyatt in the sixth lecture), are to my
mind of singular value, and the tenor of the book throughout, as far as I can
judge—for, as I said, much of it treats of subjects with which I am
unfamiliar—so sound, and the feeling in it so warm and true, and true in the
warmth of it, that it refreshes me like the sight of the things themselves it
speaks of. New and vivid sight of them it will give to many readers; and to
all who will regard my commendation I commend it; asking those who have
hitherto credited my teaching to read these lectures as they would my own;

and trusting that others, who have doubted me, will see reason to put faith
in my friend.
Pisa, 30th April, 1872.

FOOTNOTES:
[15] Preface to the above-named book, by the Rev. St. John Tyrwhitt. London:
Smith, Elder, & Co., 1872.—Ed.
[16] See Mr. Ruskin's pamphlet on "The Relation of Michael Angelo to
Tintoret," being (although separately printed) the seventh lecture of the course
(1872) published as Aratra Pentelici—Ed.

ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIÆVAL
CHRISTENDOM.[17]
A PREFACE.

258. The number of British and American travelers who take unaffected
interest in the early art of Europe is already large, and is daily increasing;
daily also, as I thankfully perceive, feeling themselves more and more in
need of a guidebook containing as much trustworthy indication as they can
use of what they may most rationally spend their time in examining. The
books of reference published by Mr. Murray, though of extreme value to
travelers, who make it their object to see (in his, and their, sense of the
word) whatever is to be seen, are of none whatever, or may perhaps be
considered, justly, as even of quite the reverse of value, to travelers who
wish to see only what they may in simplicity understand, and with pleasure
remember; while the histories of art, and biographies of artists, to which the
more earnest student in his novitiate must have recourse, are at once so
voluminous, so vague, and so contradictory, that I cannot myself conceive
his deriving any other benefit from their study than a deep conviction of the
difficulty of the subject, and of the incertitude of human opinions.
259. It seemed to me, on reading the essays collected in this volume, as they
appeared in the periodical[18] for which they were written, that the author
not only possessed herself a very true discernment of the qualities in
mediæval art which were justly deserving of praise, but had unusually clear
understanding of the degree in which she might expect to cultivate such
discernment in the general mind of polite travelers; nor have I less admired
her aptitude in collation of essentially illustrative facts, so as to bring the
history of a very widely contemplative range of art into tenable compass
and very graceful and serviceable form. Her reading, indeed, has been, with
respect to many very interesting periods of religious workmanship, much
more extensive than my own; and when I consented to edit the volume of
collected papers, it was not without the assurance of considerable advantage
to myself during the labor of revising them.

260. The revision, however, I am sorry to say, has been interrupted and
imperfect, very necessarily the last from the ignorance I have just confessed
of more than one segment of the great illuminated field of early religious
art, to which the writer most wisely has directed equal and symmetrical
attention, and interrupted partly under extreme pressure of other occupation,
and partly in very fear of being tempted to oppress the serenity of the
general prospect, which I think these essays are eminently calculated to
open before an ingenious reader, with the stormy chiaroscuro of my own
preference and reprobation. I leave the work, therefore, absolutely Miss
Owen's, with occasional note of remonstrance, but without retouch, though
it must be distinctly understood that when I allow my name to stand as the
editor of a book, it is in no mere compliment (if my editorship could indeed
be held as such) to the genius or merit of the author; but it means that I hold
myself entirely responsible, in main points, for the accuracy of the views
advanced, and that I wish the work to be received, by those who have
confidence in my former teaching, as an extension and application of the
parts of it which I have felt to be incomplete.
Oxford, November 27, 1875.
Note.—The "notes of remonstrance" or approbation scattered
through the volume are not numerous. They are given below,
preceded in each case by the (italicized) statement or
expression: giving rise to them:—
(1) P. 73. "The peculiar characteristic of the Byzantine churches
is the dome." "Form derived first from the Catacombs. See Lord
Lindsay."
(2) P. 89. "The octagon baptistry at Florence, ascribed to
Lombard kings...." "No; it is Etruscan work of pure descent."
(3) Id. "S. Michele, of Pavia, pure Lombard of seventh century,
rebuilt in tenth." "Churches were often rebuilt with their original
sculptures. I believe many in this church to be Lombard. See
next page."
(4) P. 95. "The revolution begun by Rafaelle has ended in the
vulgar painting, the sentimental prints, and the colored

statuettes, which have made the religious art of the nineteenth
century a by-word for its feebleness on the one side, its
superstition on the other." "Excellent; but my good scholar has
not distinguished vulgar from non-vulgar naturalism. Perhaps
she will as I read on."
[Compare the last note in the book, pp. 487-8, where Miss
Owen's statement that "the cause of Rafaelle's popularity ... has
been that predominance of exaggerated dramatic
representation, which in his pictures is visible above all moral
and spiritual qualities," is noted to be "Intensely and accurately
true."]
(5) P. 108. "It may be ... it is scarcely credible." "What does it
matter what may be or what is scarcely credible? I hope the
reader will consider what a waste of time the thinking of things
is when we can never rightly know them."
(6) P. 109. On the statement that "no vital school of art has ever
existed save as the expression of the vital and unquestioned faith
of a people," followed by some remarks on external helps to
devotion, there is a note at the word "people." "Down to this line
this page is unquestionably and entirely true. I do not answer for
the rest of the clause, but do not dispute it."
(7) P. 113. S. Michele at Lucca. "The church is now only a
modern architect's copy."
(8) P. 129. "There is a good model of this pulpit" (Niccola's in
the Pisan Baptistry) "in the Kensington Museum, through which
we may learn much of the rise of Gothic sculpture." "You cannot
do anything of the kind. Pisan sculpture can only be studied in
the original marble; half its virtue is in the chiseling."
(9) P. 136. "S. Donato's shrine" (by Giovanni Picano) "in Arezzo
Cathedral is one of the finest monuments of the Pisan school."
"No. He tried to be too fine, and overdid it. The work is merely
accumulated commonplace."

(10) P. 170. On Giotto drawing without compasses a circle with
a crayon, "not a brush, with which, as Professor Ruskin
explained, the feat would have been impossible. See 'Giotto and
his Works in Padua.'" "Don't; but practice with a camel's-hair
brush till you can do it. I knew nothing of brush-work proper
when I wrote that essay on Padua."
(11) P. 179. In the first of the bas-reliefs of Giotto's tower at
Florence, "Noah lies asleep, or, as Professor Ruskin maintains,
drunk." "I don't 'maintain' anything of the sort; I know it. He is
as drunk as a man can be, and the expression of drunkenness
given with deliberate and intense skill, as on the angle of the
Ducal Palace at Venice."
(12) P. 179. On Giotto's "astronomy, figured by an old man" on
the same tower. "Above which are seen, by the astronomy of his
heart, the heavenly host represented above the stars."
(13) P. 190. "The Loggia dei Langi" (at Florence) ... "the round
arches, new to those times ... See Vasari." "Vasari is an ass with
precious things in his panniers; but you must not ask his opinion
on any matter. The round arches new to those times had been the
universal structure form in all Italy, Roman or Lombard, feebly
and reluctantly pointed in the thirteenth century, and
occasionally, as in the Campo Santo of Pisa, and Orcagna's own
Or San Michele, standing within three hundred yards of the
Loggia arches 'new to those times,' filled with tracery, itself
composed of intersecting round arches. Now, it does not matter
two soldi to the history of art who built, but who designed and
carved the Loggia. It is out and out the grandest in Italy, and its
archaic virtues themselves are impracticable and inconceivable.
I don't vouch for its being Orcagna's, nor do I vouch for the
Campo Santo frescoes being his. I have never specially studied
him; nor do I know what men of might there were to work with
or after him. But I know the Loggia to be mighty architecture of
Orcagna's style and time, and the Last Judgment and Triumph of
Death in the Campo Santo to be the sternest lessons written on
the walls of Tuscany, and worth more study alone than English

travelers usually give to Pisa, Lucca, Pistoja, and Florence
altogether."
(14) P. 468. "The Gothic style for churches never took root in
Venice." "Not quite correct. The Ducal Palace traceries are
shown in the 'Stones of Venice' (vol. ii.) to have been founded
on those of the Frari."
(15) P. 471. Mantegna. "No feeling had he for vital beauty of
human face, or the lower creatures of the earth." To this Miss
Owen adds in a note, "Professor Ruskin reminds me to notice
here, in qualification, Mantegna's power of painting inanimate
forms, as, e. g., in the trees and leaves of his Madonna of the
National Gallery. 'He is,' says Professor Ruskin, 'the most
wonderful leaf-painter of Lombardy.'"

FOOTNOTES:
[17] Preface to the above-named book by Miss A. C. Owen, edited by Mr.
Ruskin. London: Mozley & Smith, 1876.—Ed.
[18] The Monthly Packet.—Ed.

THE EXTENSION OF RAILWAYS IN THE
LAKE DISTRICT.[19]
A PROTEST.

261. The evidence collected in the following pages, in support of their
pleading, is so complete, and the summary of his cause given with so
temperate mastery by Mr. Somervell, that I find nothing to add in
circumstance, and little to re-enforce in argument. And I have less heart to
the writing even of what brief preface so good work might by its author's
courtesy be permitted to receive from me, occupied as I so long have been
in efforts tending in the same direction, because, on that very account, I am
far less interested than my friend in this local and limited resistance to the
elsewhere fatally victorious current of modern folly, cruelty, and ruin. When
the frenzy of avarice is daily drowning our sailors, suffocating our miners,
poisoning our children, and blasting the cultivable surface of England into a
treeless waste of ashes,[20] what does it really matter whether a flock of
sheep, more or less, be driven from the slopes of Helvellyn, or the little pool
of Thirlmere filled with shale, or a few wild blossoms of St. John's vale lost
to the coronal of English spring? Little to anyone; and—let me say this, at
least, in the outset of all saying—nothing to me. No one need charge me
with selfishness in any word or action for defense of these mossy hills. I do
not move, with such small activity as I have yet shown in the business,
because I live at Coniston (where no sound of the iron wheels by Dunmail
Raise can reach me), nor because I can find no other place to remember
Wordsworth by, than the daffodil margin of his little Rydal marsh. What
thoughts and work are yet before me, such as he taught, must be
independent of any narrow associations. All my own dear mountain grounds
and treasure-cities, Chamouni, Interlachen, Lucerne, Geneva, Venice, are
long ago destroyed by the European populace; and now, for my own part, I
don't care what more they do; they may drain Loch Katrine, drink Loch
Lomond, and blow all Wales and Cumberland into a heap of slate shingle;
the world is wide enough yet to find me some refuge during the days

appointed for me to stay in it. But it is no less my duty, in the cause of those
to whom the sweet landscapes of England are yet precious, and to whom
they may yet teach what they taught me, in early boyhood, and would still if
I had it now to learn,—it is my duty to plead with what earnestness I may,
that these sacred sibylline books may be redeemed from perishing.
262. But again, I am checked, because I don't know how to speak to the
persons who need to be spoken to in this matter.
Suppose I were sitting, where still, in much-changed Oxford, I am happy to
find myself, in one of the little latticed cells of the Bodleian Library, and
my kind and much-loved friend, Mr. Coxe, were to come to me with news
that it was proposed to send nine hundred excursionists through the library
every day, in three parties of three hundred each; that it was intended they
should elevate their minds by reading all the books they could lay hold of
while they stayed;—and that practically scientific persons accompanying
them were to look out for and burn all the manuscripts that had any gold in
their illuminations, that the said gold might be made of practical service;
but that he, Mr. Coxe, could not, for his part, sympathize with the
movement, and hoped I would write something in deprecation of it! As I
should then feel, I feel now, at Mr. Somervell's request that I would write
him a preface in defense of Helvellyn. What could I say for Mr. Coxe? Of
course, that nine hundred people should see the library daily, instead of one,
is only fair to the nine hundred, and if there is gold in the books, is it not
public property? If there is copper or slate in Helvellyn, shall not the public
burn or hammer it out—and they say they will, of course—in spite of us?
What does it signify to them how we poor old quiet readers in this mountain
library feel? True, we know well enough,—what the nine hundred
excursionist scholars don't—that the library can't be read quite through in a
quarter of an hour; also, that there is a pleasure in real reading, quite
different from that of turning pages; and that gold in a missal, or slate in a
crag, may be more precious than in a bank or a chimney-pot. But how are
these practical people to credit us,—these, who cannot read, nor ever will;
and who have been taught that nothing is virtuous but care for their bellies,
and nothing useful but what goes into them?
263. Whether to be credited or not, the real facts of the matter, made clear
as they are in the following pages, can be briefly stated for the

consideration of any candid person.
The arguments in favor of the new railway are in the main four, and may be
thus answered.
1. "There are mineral treasures in the district capable of development."
Answer. It is a wicked fiction, got up by whosoever has got it up, simply to
cheat shareholders. Every lead and copper vein in Cumberland has been
known for centuries; the copper of Coniston does not pay; and there is none
so rich in Helvellyn. And the main central volcanic rocks, through which
the track lies, produce neither slate nor hematite, while there is enough of
them at Llanberis and Dalton to roof and iron-grate all England into one
vast Bedlam, if it honestly perceives itself in need of that accommodation.
2. "The scenery must be made accessible to the public."
Answer. It is more than accessible already; the public are pitched into it
head-foremost, and necessarily miss two-thirds of it. The Lake scenery
really begins, on the south, at Lancaster, where the Cumberland hills are
seen over Morecambe Bay; on the north, at Carlisle, where the moors of
Skiddaw are seen over the rich plains between them and the Solway. No
one who loves mountains would lose a step of the approach, from these
distances, on either side. But the stupid herds of modern tourists let
themselves be emptied, like coals from a sack, at Windermere and Keswick.
Having got there, what the new railway has to do is to shovel those who
have come to Keswick to Windermere, and to shovel those who have come
to Windermere to Keswick. And what then?
3. "But cheap and swift transit is necessary for the working population, who
otherwise could not see the scenery at all."
Answer. After all your shrieking about what the operatives spend in drink,
can't you teach them to save enough out of their year's wages to pay for a
chaise and pony for a day, to drive Missis and the Baby that pleasant twenty
miles, stopping when they like, to unpack the basket on a mossy bank? If
they can't enjoy the scenery that way, they can't any way; and all that your
railroad company can do for them is only to open taverns and skittle
grounds round Grasmere, which will soon, then, be nothing but a pool of
drainage, with a beach of broken gingerbeer bottles; and their minds will be

no more improved by contemplating the scenery of such a lake than of
Blackpool.
4. What else is to be said? I protest I can find nothing, unless that engineers
and contractors must live. Let them live, but in a more useful and honorable
way than by keeping Old Bartholomew Fair under Helvellyn, and making a
steam merry-go-round of the lake country.
There are roads to be mended, where the parish will not mend them, harbors
of refuge needed, where our deck-loaded ships are in helpless danger; get
your commissions and dividends where you know that work is needed, not
where the best you can do is to persuade pleasure-seekers into giddier
idleness.
264. The arguments brought forward by the promoters of the railway may
thus be summarily answered. Of those urged in the following pamphlet in
defense of the country as it is, I care only myself to direct the reader's
attention to one (see pp. 27, 28), the certainty, namely, of the deterioration
of moral character in the inhabitants of every district penetrated by a
railway. Where there is little moral character to be lost, this argument has
small weight. But the Border peasantry of Scotland and England, painted
with absolute fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth (for leading types out of this
exhaustless portraiture, I may name Dandie Dinmont and Michael), are
hitherto a scarcely injured race, whose strength and virtue yet survive to
represent the body and soul of England before her days of mechanical
decrepitude and commercial dishonor. There are men working in my own
fields who might have fought with Henry the Fifth at Agincourt without
being discerned from among his knights; I can take my tradesmen's word
for a thousand pounds; my garden gate opens on the latch to the public
road, by day and night, without fear of any foot entering but my own, and
my girl-guests may wander by road, or moorland, or through every bosky
dell of this wild wood, free as the heather bees or squirrels.
What effect, on the character of such a population, will be produced by the
influx of that of the suburbs of our manufacturing towns, there is evidence
enough, if the reader cares to ascertain the facts, in every newspaper on his
morning table.

265. And now one final word concerning the proposed beneficial effect on
the minds of those whom you send to corrupt us.
I have said I take no selfish interest in this resistance to the railroad. But I
do take an unselfish one. It is precisely because I passionately wish to
improve the minds of the populace, and because I am spending my own
mind, strength, and fortune, wholly on that object, that I don't want to let
them see Helvellyn while they are drunk. I suppose few men now living
have so earnestly felt—none certainly have so earnestly declared—that the
beauty of nature is the blessedest and most necessary of lessons for men;
and that all other efforts in education are futile till you have taught your
people to love fields, birds, and flowers. Come then, my benevolent friends,
join with me in that teaching. I have been at it all my life, and without pride,
do solemnly assure you that I know how it is to be managed. I cannot
indeed tell you, in this short preface, how, completely, to fulfill so glorious
a task. But I can tell you clearly, instantly, and emphatically, in what temper
you must set about it. Here are you, a Christian, a gentleman, and a trained
scholar; there is your subject of education—a Godless clown, in helpless
ignorance. You can present no more blessed offering to God than that
human creature, raised into faith, gentleness, and the knowledge of the
works of his Lord. But observe this—you must not hope to make so noble
an offering to God of that which doth cost you nothing! You must be
resolved to labor, and to lose, yourself, before you can rescue this
overlabored lost sheep, and offer it alive to its Master. If then, my
benevolent friend, you are prepared to take out your two pence, and to give
them to the hosts here in Cumberland, saying—"Take care of him, and
whatsoever thou spendest more, I will repay thee when I come to
Cumberland myself," on these terms—oh my benevolent friends, I am with
you, hand and glove, in every effort you wish to make for the enlightenment
of poor men's eyes. But if your motive is, on the contrary, to put two pence
into your own purse, stolen between the Jerusalem and Jericho of Keswick
and Ambleside, out of the poor drunken traveler's pocket;—if your real
object, in your charitable offering, is, not even to lend unto the Lord by
giving to the poor, but to lend unto the Lord by making a dividend out of
the poor;—then, my pious friends, enthusiastic Ananias, pitiful Judas, and
sanctified Korah, I will do my best in God's name, to stay your hands, and
stop your tongues.

Brantwood, 22nd June, 1876.

FOOTNOTES:
[19] Preface to a pamphlet (1876) entitled "A Protest against the Extension of
Railways in the Lake District," compiled by Robert Somervell (Windermere, J.
Garnett; London, Simpkin, Marshall & Co.). The pamphlet also contained a
printed announcement as follows:—"The author of 'Modern Painters' earnestly
requests all persons who may have taken interest in his writings, or who have
any personal regard for him, to assist him now in the circulation of the inclosed
paper, drawn up by his friend Mr. Somervell, for the defense of the Lake District
of England, and to press the appeal, so justly and temperately made in it, on the
attention of their personal friends."—Ed.
[20] See—the illustration being coincidently given as I correct this page for
press—the description of the horrible service, and history of the fatal explosion
of dynamite, on the once lovely estates of the Duke of Hamilton, in the Hamilton
Advertiser of 10th and 17th June.

THE STUDY OF BEAUTY AND ART IN LARGE
TOWNS.[21]
266. I have been asked by Mr. Horsfall to write a few words of introduction
to the following papers. The trust is a frank one, for our friendship has been
long and intimate enough to assure their author that my feelings and even
practical convictions in many respects differ from his, and in some, relating
especially to the subjects here treated of, are even opposed to his; so that
my private letters (which, to speak truth, he never attends to a word of) are
little more than a series of exhortations to him to sing—once for all—the
beautiful Cavalier ditty of "Farewell, Manchester," and pour the dew of his
artistic benevolence on less recusant ground. Nevertheless, as assuredly he
knows much more of his own town than I do, and as his mind is evidently
made up to do the best he can for it, the only thing left for me to do is to
help him all I can in the hard task he has set himself, or, if I can't help, at
least to bear witness to the goodness of the seed he has set himself to sow
among thorns. For, indeed, the principles on which he is working are
altogether true and sound; and the definitions and defense of them, in this
pamphlet, are among the most important pieces of Art teaching which I
have ever met with in recent English literature; in past Art-literature there
cannot of course be anything parallel to them, since the difficulties to be
met and mischiefs to be dealt with are wholly of to-day. And in all the
practical suggestions and recommendations given in the following pages I
not only concur, but am myself much aided as I read them in the giving
form to my own plans for the museum at Sheffield; nor do I doubt that they
will at once commend themselves to every intelligent and candid reader.
But, to my own mind, the statements of principle on which these
recommendations are based are far the more valuable part of the writings,
for these are true and serviceable for all time, and in all places; while in
simplicity and lucidity they are far beyond any usually to be found in essays
on Art, and the political significance of the laws thus defined is really, I
believe, here for the first time rightly grasped and illustrated.

267. Of these, however, the one whose root is deepest and range widest will
be denied by many readers, and doubted by others, so that it may be well to
say a word or two farther in its interpretation and defense—the saying,
namely, that "faith cannot dwell in hideous towns," and that "familiarity
with beauty is a most powerful aid to belief." This is a curious saying, in
front of the fact that the primary force of infidelity in the Renaissance times
was its pursuit of carnal beauty, and that nowadays (at least, so far as my
own experience reaches) more faith may be found in the back streets of
most cities than in the fine ones. Nevertheless the saying is wholly true,
first, because carnal beauty is not true beauty; secondly, because, rightly
judged, the fine streets of most modern towns are more hideous than the
back ones; lastly—and this is the point on which I must enlarge—because
universally the first condition to the believing there is Order in Heaven is
the Sight of Order upon Earth; Order, that is to say, not the result of
physical law, but of some spiritual power prevailing over it, as, to take
instances from my own old and favorite subject, the ordering of the clouds
in a beautiful sunset, which corresponds to a painter's invention of them, or
the ordering of the colors on a bird's wing, or of the radiations of a crystal
of hoarfrost or of sapphire, concerning any of which matters men, so called
of science, are necessarily and forever silent, because the distribution of
colors in spectra and the relation of planes in crystals are final and causeless
facts, orders, that is to say, not laws. And more than this, the infidel temper
which is incapable of perceiving this spiritual beauty has an instant and
constant tendency to delight in the reverse of it, so that practically its
investigation is always, by preference, of forms of death or disease and
every state of disorder and dissolution, the affectionate analysis of vice in
modern novels being a part of the same science. And, to keep to my own
special field of study—the order of clouds,—there is a grotesquely notable
example of the connection between infidelity and the sense of ugliness in a
paper in the last Contemporary Review, in which an able writer, who signs
Vernon Lee, but whose personal view or purpose remains to the close of the
essay inscrutable, has rendered with considerable acuteness and animation
the course of a dialogue between one of the common modern men about
town who are the parasites of their own cigars and two more or less weak
and foolish friends of hesitatingly adverse instincts: the three of them,
however, practically assuming their own wisdom to be the highest yet
attained by the human race; and their own diversion on the mountainous

heights of it being by the aspect of a so-called "preposterous" sunset,
described in the following terms:—

A brilliant light, which seemed to sink out of the landscape all its reds and
yellows, and with them all life; bleaching the yellowing cornfields and
brown heath; but burnishing into demoniac[22] energy of color the pastures
and oak woods, brilliant against the dark sky, as if filled with green fire.
Along the roadside the poppies, which an ordinary sunset makes flame,
were quite extinguished, like burnt-out embers; the yellow hearts of the
daisies were quite lost, merged into their shining white petals. And, striking
against the windows of the old black and white checkered farm (a ghastly
skeleton in this light), it made them not flare, nay, not redden in the faintest
degree, but reflect a brilliant speck of white light. Everything was
unsubstantial, yet not as in a mist, nay, rather substantial, but flat, as if cut
out of paper and pasted on the black branches and green leaves, the livid,
glaring houses, with roofs of dead, scarce perceptible rod (as when an iron
turning white-hot from red-hot in the stithy grows also dull and dim).
"It looks like the eve of the coming of Antichrist, as described in mediæval
hymns," remarked Vere: "the sun, before setting nevermore to rise, sucking
all life out of the earth, leaving it but a mound of livid cinders, barren and
crumbling, through which the buried nations will easily break their way
when they rise."

As I have above said, I do not discern the purpose of the writer of this
paper; but it would be impossible to illustrate more clearly this chronic
insanity of infidel thought which makes all nature spectral; while, with
exactly correspondent and reflective power, whatever is dreadful or
disordered in external things reproduces itself in disease of the human mind
affected by them.

268. The correspondent relations of beauty to morality are illustrated in the
following pages in a way which leaves little to be desired, and scarcely any
room for dissent; but I have marked for my own future reference the
following passages, of which I think it will further the usefulness of the
book that the reader should initially observe the contents and connection.[23]
1 (p. 15, line 6—10). Our idea of beauty in all things depends on what we
believe they ought to be and do.
2 (p. 17, line 8—17). Pleasure is most to be found in safe and pure ways,
and the greatest happiness of life is to have a great many little happinesses.
3 (p. 24, line 10—30). The wonder and sorrow that in a country possessing
an Established Church, no book exists which can be put into the hands of
youth to show them the best things that can be done in life, and prevent
their wasting it.
4 (p. 28, line 21—36). There is every reason to believe that susceptibility to
beauty can be gained through proper training in childhood by almost
everyone.
5 (p. 29, line 33—35). But if we are to attain to either a higher morality or a
strong love of beauty, such attainment must be the result of a strenuous
effort and a strong will.
6 (p. 41, line 16—22). Rightness of form and aspect must first be shown to
the people in things which interest them, and about the rightness of
appearance in which it is possible for them to care a great deal.
7 (p. 42, line 1—10). And, therefore, rightness of appearance of the bodies,
and the houses, and the actions of the people of these large towns, is of
more importance than rightness of appearance in what is usually called art,
and pictures of noble action and passion and of beautiful scenery are of far
greater value than art in things which cannot deeply affect human thought
and feeling.
The practical suggestions which, deduced from these principles, occupy the
greater part of Mr. Horsfall's second paper, exhibit an untried group of

resources in education; and it will be to myself the best encouragement in
whatever it has been my hope to institute of Art School at Oxford if the
central influence of the University may be found capable of extension by
such means, in methods promoting the general happiness of the people of
England.
Brantwood, 28th June, 1883.

FOOTNOTES:
[21] Introduction by Mr. Ruskin to a pamphlet entitled "The Study of Beauty and
Art in Large Towns, two papers by T. C. Horsfall" (London, Macmillan & Co.,
1883). The first of the two papers was originally read at the Congress at
Nottingham of the Social Science Association, and the second at the Manchester
Field Naturalists' Society.—Ed.
[22] See "Art of England."
[23] The passages referred to are as follows:—
1. "Our idea of what beauty is in human being's, in pictures, in houses, in chairs,
in animals, in cities, in everything, in short, which we know to have a use, in the
main depends on what we believe that human beings, pictures, and the rest ought
to be and do.
2. "Every bank in every country lane, every bush, every tree, the sky by day and
by night, every aspect of nature, is full of beautiful form or color, or of both, for
those whose eyes and hearts and brains have been opened to perceive beauty.
Richter has somewhere said that man's greatest defect is that he has such a lot of
small ones. With equal truth it may be said that the greatest happiness man can
have is to have a great many little happinesses, and therefore a strong love of
beauty, which enables almost every square inch of unspoiled country to give us
pleasant sensations, is one of the best possessions we can have.
3. "It must be evident to everyone who watches life carefully that hardly anyone
reaches the objects which all should live for who does not strive to reach them,
and that at present not one person in a hundred so much as knows what are the
objects which should be sought in life. It is astounding, therefore, that in a
country which possesses an Established Church, richly endowed universities,
and even several professors of education, no book exists which can be put into
the hands of every intelligent youth, and of every intelligent father and mother,
showing what our wisest and best men believe are the best things which can be
done in life, and what is the kind of training which makes the doing of these
things most easy. It is often said that each of us can profit only by his own
experience, but no one believes that. No one can see how many well-meaning
persons mistake means for ends and drift into error and sin, simply because
neither they nor their parents have known what course should be steered, and
what equipment is needed, in the voyage of life,—no one can see this and doubt
that a 'guidebook to life,' containing the results of the comparison of the
experiences of even half-a-dozen able and sincere men, would save countless
people from wasting their lives as most lives are now wasted.
4. "That which is true with regard to music is true with regard to beauty of form
and color. Because a great many grown-up people, in spite of great efforts, find
it impossible to sing correctly or even to perceive any pleasantness in music, it
used to be commonly supposed that a great many people are born without the
power of gaining love of, and skill in, music. Now it is known that it is a
question of early training, that in every thousand children there are very few,—

not, I believe, on an average, more than two or three,—who cannot gain the
power of singing correctly and of enjoying music, if they are taught well in
childhood while their nervous system can still easily form habits and has not yet
formed the habit of being insensible to differences of sound.
"There is every reason to believe that susceptibility to beauty of form and color
can also be gained through proper training in childhood by almost everyone.
5. "In such circumstances as ours there is no such thing as 'a wise passiveness.' If
we are to attain to a high morality or to strong love of beauty, attainment must be
the result of strenuous effort, of strong will.
6. "The principle I refer to is, that, as art is the giving of right or beautiful form,
or of beautiful or right appearance, if we desire to make people take keen interest
in art, if we desire to make them love good art, we must show it them when
applied to things which themselves are very interesting to them, and about the
rightness of appearance of which it is therefore possible for them to care a great
deal.
7. "Success in bringing the influence of art to bear on the masses of the
population in large towns, or on any set of people who have to earn their bread
and have not time to acquire an unhealthy appetite for nonsense verses or
nonsense pictures, will certainly only be attained by persons who know that art
is important just in proportion to the importance of that which it clothes, and
who themselves feel that rightness of appearance of the bodies, and the houses,
and the actions, in short of the whole life, of the population of those large towns
which are now, or threaten soon to be, 'England,' is of far greater importance
than rightness of appearance in all that which is usually called 'art,' and who feel,
to speak of only the fine arts, that rightness of appearance in pictures of noble
action and passion, and of beautiful scenery, love of which is almost a necessary
of mental health, is of far greater importance than art can be in things which
cannot deeply affect human thought and feeling."—Ed.

NOTES ON NATURAL SCIENCE.
THE COLOR OF THE RHINE. 1834.
THE STRATA OF MONT BLANC. 1834.
THE INDURATION OF SANDSTONE. 1836.
THE TEMPERATURE OF SPRING AND RIVER WATER. 1836.
METEOROLOGY. 1839.

TREE TWIGS. 1861.
STRATIFIED ALPS OF SAVOY. 1863.

INQUIRIES ON THE CAUSES OF THE COLOR
OF THE WATER OF THE RHINE.[24]
269. I do not think the causes of the color of transparent water have been
sufficiently ascertained. I do not mean that effect of color which is simply
optical, as the color of the sea, which is regulated by the sky above or the
state of the atmosphere, but I mean the settled color of transparent water,
which has, when analyzed, been found pure. Now, copper will tinge water
green, and that very strongly; but water thus impregnated will not be
transparent, and will deposit the copper it holds in solution upon any piece
of iron which may be thrown into it. There is a lake in a defile on the
northwest flank of Snowdon, which is supplied by a stream which
previously passes over several veins of copper; this lake is, of course, of a
bright verdigris green, but it is not transparent. Now the coloring effect, of
which I speak, is well seen in the water of the Rhone and Rhine. The former
of these rivers, when it enters the Lake of Geneva, after having received the
torrents descending from the mountains of the Valais, is fouled with mud, or
white with the calcareous matter which it holds in solution. Having
deposited this in the Lake Leman[25] (thereby gradually forming an
immense delta), it issues from the lake perfectly pure, and flows through the
streets of Geneva so transparent, that the bottom can be seen twenty feet
below the surface, jet so blue, that you might imagine it to be a solution of
indigo. In like manner, the Rhine, after purifying itself in the Lake of
Constance, flows forth, colored of a clear green, and this under all
circumstances and in all weathers. It is sometimes said that this arises from
the torrents which supply these rivers generally flowing from the glaciers,
the green and blue color of which may have given rise to this opinion; but
the color of the ice is purely optical, as the fragments detached from the
mass appear white. Perhaps some correspondent can afford me information
on the subject.

J. R.[26]
March, 1834.

FOOTNOTES:
[24] From London's Magazine of Natural History (London, Longmans & Co.,
1834), vol. vii., No. 41, pp. 438-9, being its author's earliest contribution to
literature.—Ed.
[25] This lake, however, if the poet have spoken truly, is not very feculent:—
"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,
The mirror where the stars and mountains view
The stillness of their aspect in each trace
Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue."

Byron.
[26] In the number of the magazine in which this note appeared was an article by
"E. L." on the perforation of a leaden pipe by rats, upon which, in a subsequent
number (Vol. vii., p. 592), J. R. notes as follows: "E. S. has been, surely, too
inattentive to proportions: there is an inconsistency in the dimensions of a leaden
pipe about 1¼ in. in external diameter, with a bore of about ¾ in. in diameter;
thus leaving a solid circumference of metal varying from ½ in. to ¾ in. in
thickness.—J. R., Sept. 1834."—Ed.

FACTS AND CONSIDERATIONS ON THE
STRATA OF MONT BLANC, AND ON SOME
INSTANCES OF TWISTED STRATA
OBSERVABLE IN SWITZERLAND.[27]
270. The granite ranges of Mont Blanc are as interesting to the geologist as
they are to the painter. The granite is dark red, often inclosing veins of
quartz, crystallized and compact, and likewise well-formed crystals of
schorl. The average elevation of its range of peaks, which extends from
Mont Blanc to the Tète Noire, is about 12,000 English feet above the level
of the sea. [The highest culminating point is 15,744 feet.] The Aiguille de
Servoz, and that of Dru, are excellent examples of the pyramidal and
spiratory formation which these granite ranges in general assume. They rise
out of immense fields of snow, but, being themselves too steep for snow to
rest upon, form red, bare, and inaccessible peaks, which even the chamois
scarcely dares to climb. Their bases appear sometimes abutted (if I may so
speak) by mica slate, which forms the southeast side of the Valley of
Chamonix, whose flanks, if intersected, might appear as (in fig. 72), a,
granite, forming on the one side (B) the Mont Blanc, on the other (C) the
Mont Breven; b, mica slate resting on the base of Mont Blanc, and which
contains amianthus and quartz, in which capillary crystals of titanium
occur; c, calcareous rock; d, alluvium, forming the Valley of Chamonix. I
should have mentioned that the granite appears to contain a small quantity
of gold, as that metal is found among the granite débris and siliceous sand
of the river Arve [Bakewell, i. 375]; and I have two or three specimens in
which chlorite (both compact and in minute crystals) occupies the place of
mica.
J. R.
March, 1834.

With this paper were printed some observations on it by the Rev. W. B.
Clarke, after which (p. 648) appears the following note by J. R.

271. "Twisted Strata.—The contortions of the limestone at the fall of the
Nant d'Arpenaz, on the road from Geneva to Chamonix, are somewhat
remarkable. The rock is a hard dark brown limestone, forming part of a
range of secondary cliffs, which rise from 500 feet to 1000 feet above the
defile which they border. The base itself is about 800 feet high. The strata
bend very regularly except at e and f,[28] where they appear to have been
fractured.

To what Properties in Nature is it owing that the Stones in Buildings,
formed originally of the frailest Materials, gradually become indurated by
Exposure to the Atmosphere and by Age, and stand the Wear and Tear of
Time and Weather every bit as well, in some instances much better, than the
hardest and most compact Limestones and Granite?[29]
272. In addition to the fact mentioned by Mr. Hunter[30] relative to the
induration of soft sandstone, I would adduce an excellent example of the
same effect in the cathedral of Basle, in Switzerland. The cathedral is
wholly built of a soft coarse-grained sandstone, of so deep a red as to
resemble long-burned brick. The numerous and delicate ornaments and fine
tracery on the exterior are in a state of excellent preservation, and present
none of the moldering appearance so common in old cathedrals that are
built of stone which, when quarried, was much harder than this sandstone.
The pavement in the interior is composed of the same material; and, as
almost every slab is a tomb, it is charged with the arms, names, and often
statues in low relief, of those who lie below, delicately sculptured in the soft
material. Yet, though these sculptures have been worn for ages by the feet
of multitudes, they are very little injured; they still stand out in bold and
distinct relief: not an illegible letter, not an untraceable ornament is to be
found; and it is said, and I believe with truth, that they have now grown so
hard as not to be in the least degree farther worn by the continual tread of

thousands; and that the longer the stone is exposed to the air, the harder it
becomes. The cathedral was built in 1019.
273. The causes of the different effects of air on stone must be numerous,
and the investigation of them excessively difficult. With regard, first, to
rocks en masse, if their structure be crystalline, or their composition
argillaceous, the effect of the air will, I think, ordinarily, be found injurious.
Thus, in granite, which has a kind of parallelogrammatic cleavage, water
introduces itself into the fissures, and the result, in a sharp frost, will be a
disintegration of the rocks en masse; and, if the felspar be predominant in
the composition of the granite, it will be subject to a rapid decomposition.
The morvine of some of the Chamouni and Allée Blanche glaciers is
composed of a white granite, being chiefly composed of quartz and felspar,
with a little chlorite. The sand and gravel at the edge of these glaciers
appears far more the result of decomposition than attrition. All finely
foliated rocks, slates, etc., are liable to injury from frost or wet weather. The
road of the Simplon, on the Italian side, is in some parts dangerous in, or
after, wet weather, on account of the rocks of slate continually falling from
the overhanging mountains above; this, however, is mere disintegration, not
decomposition. Not so with the breccias of Central Switzerland. The rock of
Righi is composed of pebbles of different kinds, joined by a red
argillaceous gluten. When this rock has not been exposed to the air, it is
very hard: you may almost as easily break the pebbles as detach them from
their matrix; but, when exposed for a few years to wind and weather, the
matrix becomes soft, and the pebbles may be easily detached. I was struck
with the difference between this rock and a breccia at Epinal, in France,
where the matrix was a red sandstone, like that of the cathedral at Basle.
Here, though the rock had every appearance of having been long exposed to
the air, it was as hard as iron; and it was utterly impossible to detach any of
the pebbles from the bed: it was difficult even to break the rock at all. I
cannot positively state that the gluten in these sandstones is calcareous, but
I suppose it to have been so. Compact calcareous rock, as far as I remember,
appears to be subject to no injury from the weather. Many churches in Italy,
and almost the whole cities of Venice and Genoa, are built of very fine
marble; and the perfection of the delicate carvings, however aged, is most
remarkable. I remember a church, near Pavia, coated with the finest and
most expensive marbles; a range of beautifully sculptured medallions

running round its base, though old, were as distinct and fine in their
execution as if they had just come out of the sculptor's studio. If, therefore,
the gluten of the sandstone be either calcareous or siliceous, it will naturally
produce the effect above alluded to, though it is certainly singular that the
stone should be soft when first quarried. Sandstone is a rock in which you
seldom see many cracks or fissures in the strata: they are generally
continuous and solid. Now, there may be a certain degree of density in the
mass, which could not be increased without producing, as in granite,
fissures running through it: the particles may be supposed to be held in a
certain degree of tension, and there may be a tendency to what the French
call assaissement (I do not know the English term), which is, nevertheless,
resisted by the stone en masse; and a quantity of water may likewise be
held, not in a state of chemical combination, but in one of close mixture
with the rock. On being broken or quarried, the assaissement may take
place, the particles of stone may draw closer together, the attraction become
stronger; and, on the exposure to the air, the water, however intimately
combined, will, in a process of years, be driven off, occasioning the
consolidation of the calcareous, and the near approach of the siliceous,
particles, and a consequent gradual induration of the whole body of the
stone. I offer this supposition with all diffidence; there may be many other
causes, which cannot be developed until proper experiments have been
made. It would be interesting to ascertain the relative hardness of different
specimens of sandstone, taken from different depths in a bed, the surface of
which was exposed to the air, as of specimens exposed to the air for
different lengths of time.
J. R.
Herne Hill, July 25, 1836.

FOOTNOTES:
[27] London's Magazine of Natural History, Vol. vii., pp. 644-5. The note was
illustrated by engravings from two sketches by the author of the Aiguille de
Servoz and of the Aiguille Dru, and by a diagram explanatory of its last sentence
but one.—Ed.
[28] "A small neat copy of a sketch carefully taken on the spot," which,
according to the editor of the magazine, accompanied this communication, was

not, however, published. See the magazine.—Ed.
[29] Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, Vol. ix., No. 65, pp. 488-90.—Ed.
[30] The question here discussed was originally asked in the magazine (Vol. ix.,
pp. 379-80) by Mr. W. Perceval Hunter with reference to the condition of
Bodiam Castle, in Sussex.—Ed.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAUSES WHICH
OCCASION THE VARIATION OF
TEMPERATURE BETWEEN SPRING AND
RIVER WATER.—By J. R.[31]
274. The difference in temperature between river and spring water, which
gives rise to the query of your correspondent Indigena (p. 491),[32] may be
the result of many causes, the principal of which is, however, without
doubt, the interior heat of the earth. It is a well known fact, that this heat
increases in a considerable ratio as we descend, making a difference of
several degrees between the temperature of the earth at its surface and at
depths of 500 or 600 feet; raising, of course, the temperature of all springs
which have their source at even moderate depths, and entirely securing
them from the effects of frost, which, it is well known, cannot penetrate the
earth to a greater depth than 3 or 4 ft.
275. Many instances might be given of the strong effect of this interior heat.
The glaciers of the Alps, for instance, frequently cover an extent of three or
four square leagues, with a mass of ice 400, 500, or even 600 feet deep, thus
entirely preventing the access of exterior heat to the soil; yet the radiation of
heat from the ground itself is so powerful as to dissolve the ice very rapidly,
and to occasion streams of no inconsiderable size beneath the ice, whose
temperature, in summer, is, I believe, as far as can be ascertained, not many
degrees below that of streams exposed to the air; and the radiation of heat
from the water of these streams forms vaults under the ice, which are
frequently 40 ft. or 50 ft. above the water; and which are formed, as a
glance will show, not by the force of the stream, which would only tear
itself a broken cave sufficient for its passage, but by the heat which radiates
from it, and gives the arch its immense height, and beautifully regular form.
These streams continue to flow in winter as well as in summer, although in
less quantity; and it is this process which chiefly prevents the glacier from
increasing in size; for the melting at the surface is, in comparison, very

inconsiderable, even in summer, the wind being cold, the sun having little
power, and slight frosts being frequent during the night. It is also this
melting beneath the ice (subglacial, suppose we call it) which loosens the
ice from the ground, and occasions, or rather permits, the perpetual
downward movement, with which
"The glacier's cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day."
276. But more forcible and striking evidence is afforded by experiments
made in mines of great depth. Between 60 ft. and 80 ft. down, the
temperature of the earth is, I believe, the same at all times and in all places;
and below this depth it gradually increases. Near Bex, in the Valais, there is
a perpendicular shaft 677 ft. deep, or about 732 ft. English, with water at
the bottom, the temperature of which was ascertained by Saussure. He does
not tell us whether he used Réaumur's or the centesimal thermometer; but
the result of his experiment was this:—In a lateral gallery, connected with
the main shaft, but deserted, and, therefore, unaffected by breath or the heat
of lamps, at 321 ft. 10 in. below the surface, the temperature of the water
and the air was exactly the same, 11½°; or, if the centesimal thermometer
was used, 52⅘ Fahr.; if Réaumur's, 57⅞ Fahr.
277. In another gallery, 564 feet below the surface, the water and air had
likewise the same temperature, 12½°, either 54⅘ or 6O¼ Fahr. The water at
the bottom, 677 feet, was 14°, 57½ or 63¼ Fahr. The ratio in which the heat
increases, therefore, increased as we descend, since a difference of 113 feet
between the depth of the bottom of the shaft and the lowest gallery makes a
greater difference in temperature than the difference of 243 feet between the
lowest and upper gallery. This heat is the more striking when it is
considered that the water is impregnated with salt; indeed, Saussure appears
inclined to consider it accidental, perhaps occasioned by the combustion of
pyrites, or other causes in the interior of the mountain ("Voyages dans les
Alpes," tom. iv., c. 50). All experiments of this kind, indeed, are liable to
error, from the frequent occurrence of warm springs, and other accidental
causes of increase in temperature. The water at the bottom of deep lakes is
always found several degrees colder than the atmosphere, even when the
water at the surface is warmer: but that may be accounted for by the
difference in the specific gravity of water at different temperatures; and, as

the heat of the sun and atmosphere in summer is greater than the mean heat
of the earth at moderate depths, the water at the bottom, even if it becomes
of the same heat with the earth, must be colder than that at the surface,
which, from its exposure to the sun, becomes frequently warmer than the
air. The same causes affect the temperature of the sea; and the greater
saturation of the water below with salt renders it yet more susceptible of
cold. Under-currents from the poles, and the sinking of the water of low
temperature, which results from the melting of the icebergs which float into
warmer latitudes, contribute still farther to lower the temperature of the
deep sea. If, then, the temperature of the sea at great depths is found not
many degrees lower than that at the surface, it would be a striking proof of
the effect produced by the heat of the earth; but I am not aware of the
results of the experiments which have been made on this subject.
278. We must, then, rest satisfied with the well-ascertained fact, that the
temperature of the earth, even at depths of a few feet, never descends, in
temperate latitudes, to the freezing point; and that at the depth of 60 feet it
is always the same, in winter much higher, in summer considerably lower,
than that of the atmosphere. Spring water, then, which has its source at a
considerable depth, will, when it first rises, be of this mean temperature;
while, after it has flowed for some distance, it becomes of the temperature
of the atmosphere, or, in summer, even warmer, owing to the action of the
sun, both directly and reflected or radiated from its bottom. Besides this
equable temperature in the water itself, spring or well water is usually
covered; and, even if exposed, if the well is very deep, the water will not
freeze, or at least very slightly; for frost does not act with its full power,
except where there is a free circulation of air. In open ponds, wherever
bushes hang over the water, the ice is weak. Indigena's supposition, that
there are earthy particles in river water, which render it more susceptible of
cold than spring water, cannot be true; for then the relative temperatures
would be the same in winter and in summer, which is not the case; and,
besides, there are frequently more earthy particles in mineral springs, or
even common land springs, than in clear river water, provided it has not
been fouled by extraneous matter; for it has a tendency to deposit the earthy
particles which it holds in suspension.
279. It is evident, also, that the supposition of Mr. Carr (Vol. v., p. 395)
relative to anchor frosts, that the stones at the bottom acquire a greater

degree of cold, or, to speak more correctly, lose more heat, than the water, is
erroneous. J. G. has given the reasons at p. 770; and the glaciers of
Switzerland afford us an example. When a stone is deposited on a glacier of
any considerable size, but not larger than 1 foot or 18 inches in diameter, it
becomes penetrated with the heat of the sun, melts the ice below it, and
sinks into the glacier. But this effect does not cease, as might be supposed,
when the stone sinks beneath the water which it has formed; on the
contrary, it continues to absorb heat from the rays of the sun, to keep the
water above it liquid by its radiation, and to sink deeper into the body of the
glacier, until it gets down beyond the reach of the sun's rays, when the water
of the well which it has formed is no longer kept liquid, and the stone is
buried in the ice. In summer, however, the water is kept liquid; and circular
wells, formed in this manner, are of frequent occurrence on the glaciers,
sometimes, in the morning, covered by a thin crust of ice.
Thus, the stones at the bottom of streams must tend to raise, rather than
lower, this temperature. Is it possible that, in the agitation of a stream at its
bottom, if violent, momentary and minute vacua may be formed, tending to
increase the intensity of the cold?
Herne Hill, Sept. 2, 1836.

FOOTNOTES:
[31] London's Magazine of Natural History, vol. ix., pp. 533-536.—Ed.
[32] The query was as follows:—
An Inquiry for the Cause of the Difference in Temperature of River Water and
Spring Water, both in Summer and Winter.—In the summer time the river water
is much warmer than that from a spring; during the severe frosts of winter it is
colder; and when the stream is covered over with ice, the spring, that is, well or
pump water is unaffected by frost. Does this difference proceed from the
exposure of the surface of the river water, in summer, to the sun's direct
influence, and, in winter, to that of frost; while the well water, being covered, is
protected from their power? Or is there in river water, from the earthy particles it
contains, a greater susceptibility of heat and cold?—Indigena. April 19, 1836.—
Ed.

METEOROLOGY.[33]
280. The comparison and estimation of the relative advantages of separate
departments of science is a task which is always partially executed, because
it is never entered upon with an unbiased mind; for, since it is only the
accurate knowledge of a science which can enable us to present its beauty,
or estimate its utility, the branches of knowledge with which we are most
familiar will always appear the most important. The endeavor, therefore, to
judge of the relative beauty or interest of the sciences is utterly hopeless.
Let the astronomer boast of the magnificence of his speculations, the
mathematician of the immutability of his facts, the chemist of the infinity of
his combinations, and we will admit that they all have equal ground for
their enthusiasm. But the highest standard of estimation is that of utility.
The far greater proportion of mankind, the uninformed, who are unable to
perceive the beauty of the sciences whose benefits they experience, are the
true, the just, the only judges of their relative importance. It is they who feel
what impartial men of learning know, that the mass of general knowledge is
a perfect and beautiful body, among whose members there should be no
schism, and whose prosperity must always be greatest when none are
partially pursued, and none unduly rejected. We do not, therefore, advance
any proud and unjustifiable claims to the superiority of that branch of
science for the furtherance of which this society has been formed over all
others; but we zealously come forward to deprecate the apathy with which
it has long been regarded, to dissipate the prejudices which that apathy
alone could have engendered, and to vindicate its claims to an honorable
and equal position among the proud thrones of its sister sciences. We do not
bring meteorology forward as a pursuit adapted for the occupation of
tedious leisure, or the amusement of a careless hour. Such qualifications are
no inducements to its pursuit by men of science and learning, and to these
alone do we now address ourselves. Neither do we advance it on the ground
of its interest or beauty, though it is a science possessing both in no ordinary
degree. As to its beauty, it may be remarked that it is not calculated to
harden the mind it strengthens, and bind it down to the measurement of
magnitudes and estimation of quantities, destroying all higher feelings, all

finer sensibilities: it is not to be learned among the gaseous exhalations of
the deathful laboratory; it has no dwelling in the cold caves of the dark
earth; it is not to be followed up among the charnel houses of creation. But
it is a science of the pure air, and of the bright heaven; its thoughts are
amidst the loveliness of creation; it leads the mind, as well as the eye, to the
morning mist, and the noonday glory, and the twilight-cloud, to the purple
peace of the mountain heaven, to the cloudy repose of the green valley; now
expatiating in the silence of stormless ether, now on the rushing of the
wings of the wind. It is indeed a knowledge which must be felt to be, in its
very essence, full of the soul of the beautiful. For its interest, it is universal,
unabated in every place, and in all time. He, whose kingdom is the heaven,
can never meet with an uninteresting space, can never exhaust the
phenomena of an hour; he is in a realm of perpetual change, of eternal
motion, of infinite mystery. Light and darkness, and cold and heat, are to
him as friends of familiar countenance, but of infinite variety of
conversation; and while the geologist yearns for the mountain, the botanist
for the field, and the mathematician for the study, the meteorologist, like a
spirit of a higher order than any, rejoices in the kingdoms of the air.
281. But, as we before said, it is neither for its interest, nor for its beauty,
that we recommend the study of meteorology. It involves questions of the
highest practical importance, and the solution of which will be productive
of most substantial benefit to those classes who can least comprehend the
speculations from which these advantages are derived. Times and seasons
and climates, calms and tempests, clouds and winds, whose alternations
appear to the inexperienced mind the confused consequences of irregular,
indefinite, and accidental causes, arrange themselves before the
meteorologist in beautiful succession of undisturbed order, in direct
derivation from definite causes; it is for him to trace the path of the tempest
round the globe, to point out the place whence it arose, to foretell the time
of its decline, to follow the hours around the earth, as she "spins beneath her
pyramid of night," to feel the pulses of ocean, to pursue the course of its
currents and its changes, to measure the power, direction, and duration of
mysterious and invisible influences, and to assign constant and regular
periods to the seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day
and night, which we know shall not cease, till the universe be no more. It
may be thought we are exaggerating the effects of a science which is yet in

its infancy. But it must be remembered that we are not speaking of its
attained, but of its attainable power: it is the young Hercules for the
fostering of whose strength the Meteorological Society has been formed.
282. There is one point, it must now be observed, in which the science of
meteorology differs from all others. A Galileo, or a Newton, by the
unassisted workings of his solitary mind, may discover the secrets of the
heavens, and form a new system of astronomy. A Davy in his lonely
meditations on the crags of Cornwall, or in his solitary laboratory, might
discover the most sublime mysteries of nature, and trace out the most
intricate combinations of her elements. But the meteorologist is impotent if
alone; his observations are useless; for they are made upon a point, while
the speculations to be derived from them must be on space. It is of no avail
that he changes his position, ignorant of what is passing behind him and
before; he desires to estimate the movements of space, and can only observe
the dancing of atoms; he would calculate the currents of the atmosphere of
the world, while he only knows the direction of a breeze. It is perhaps for
this reason that the cause of meteorology has hitherto been so slightly
supported; no progress can be made by the most gigantic efforts of a
solitary intellect, and the co-operation demanded was difficult to obtain,
because it was necessary that the individuals should think, observe, and act
simultaneously, though separated from each other by distances on the
greatness of which depended the utility of the observations.
283. The Meteorological Society, therefore, has been formed, not for a city,
nor for a kingdom, but for the world. It wishes to be the central point, the
moving power of a vast machine, and it feels that unless it can be this, it
must be powerless; if it cannot do all, it can do nothing. It desires to have at
its command, at stated periods, perfect systems of methodical and
simultaneous observations,—it wishes its influence and its power to be
omnipotent over the globe, so that it may be able to know, at any given
instant, the state of the atmosphere at every point on its surface. Let it not
be supposed that this is a chimerical imagination, the vain dream of a few
philosophical enthusiasts. It is co-operation which we now come forward to
request, in full confidence, that if our efforts are met with a zeal worthy of
the cause, our associates will be astonished, individually, by the result of
their labors in a body. Let none be discouraged because they are alone, or
far distant from their associates. What was formerly weakness will now

have become strength. Let the pastor of the Alps observe the variations of
his mountain winds; let the voyagers send us notes of the changes on the
surface of the sea; let the solitary dweller in the American prairie observe
the passages of the storms, and the variations of the climate; and each, who
alone would have been powerless, will find himself a part of one mighty
mind, a ray of light entering into one vast eye, a member of a multitudinous
power, contributing to the knowledge, and aiding the efforts, which will be
capable of solving the most deeply hidden problems of nature, penetrating
into the most occult causes, and reducing to principle and order the vast
multitude of beautiful and wonderful phenomena by which the wisdom and
benevolence of the Supreme Deity regulates the course of the times and the
seasons, robes the globe with verdure and fruitfulness, and adapts it to
minister to the wants, and contribute to the felicity, of the innumerable
tribes of animated existence.
Oxford University.

FOOTNOTES:
[33] From the "Transactions of the Meteorological Society," Vol. i., pp. 56-9
(London, 1839). The full title of the paper was "Remarks on the Present State of
Meteorological Science." The Society was instituted in 1823, but appears to have
published no previous transactions.—Ed.

ON TREE TWIGS.[34]
284. The speaker's purpose was to exhibit the development of the common
forms of branch, in dicotyledonous trees, from the fixed type of the annual
shoot. Three principal modes of increase and growth might be distinguished
in all accumulative change, namely:—
1. Simple aggregation, having no periodical or otherwise defined limit, and
subject only to laws of cohesion and crystallization, as in inorganic matter.
2. Addition of similar parts to each other, under some law fixing their limits
and securing their unity.
3. Enlargement, or systematic change in arrangement, of a typical form, as
in the growth of the members of an animal.
285. The growth of trees came under the second of these heads. A tree did
not increase in stem or boughs as the wrist and hand of a child increased to
the wrist and hand of a man; but it was built up by additions of similar
parts, as a city is increased by the building of new rows of houses.
Any annual shoot was most conveniently to be considered as a single rod,
which would always grow vertically if possible.
Every such rod or pillar was, in common timber trees, typically either
polygonal in section, or rectangular.
If polygonal, the leaves were arranged on it in a spiral order, as in the elm
or oak.
If rectangular, the leaves were arranged on it in pairs, set alternately at right
angles to each other.
Intermediate forms connected each of these types with those of
monocotyledonous trees. The structure of the arbor vitæ might be
considered as typically representing the link between the rectangular

structure and that of monocotyledons; and that of the pine between the
polygonal structure and that of monocotyledons.
Every leaf during its vitality secreting carbon from the atmosphere, with the
elements of water, formed a certain quantity of woody tissue, which
extended down the outside of the tree to the ground, and farther to the
extremities of the roots. The mode in which this descending masonry was
added appeared to depend on the peculiar functions of cambium, and (the
speaker believed) was as yet unexplained by botanists.
286. Every leaf, besides forming this masonry all down the tree, protected a
bud at the base of its own stalk. From this bud, unless rendered abortive, a
new shoot would spring next year. Now, supposing that out of the leaf-buds
on each shoot of a pentagonal tree, only five at its extremity or on its side
were permitted to develop themselves, even under this limitation the
number of shoots developed from a single one in the seventh year would be
78,125. The external form of a healthily grown tree at any period of its
development was therefore composed of a mass of sprays, whose vitality
was approximately distributed over the surface of the tree to an equal depth.
The branches beneath at once supported, and were fed by, this orbicular
field, or animated external garment of vegetation, from every several leaf of
which, as from an innumerable multitude of small green fountains, the
streams of woody fiber descended, met, and united as rivers do, and
gathered their full flood into the strength of the stem.
287. The principal errors which had been committed by artists in drawing
trees had arisen from their regarding the bough as ramifying irregularly, and
somewhat losing in energy towards the extremity; whereas the real boughs
threw their whole energy, and multiplied their substance, towards the
extremities, ranking themselves in more or less cup-shaped tiers round the
trunk, and forming a compact united surface at the exterior of the tree.
288. In the course of arrival at this form, the bough, throughout its whole
length, showed itself to be influenced by a force like that of an animal's
instinct. Its minor curves and angles were all subjected to one strong ruling
tendency and law of advance, dependent partly on the aim of every shoot to
raise itself upright, partly on the necessity which each was under to yield
due place to the neighboring leaves, and obtain for itself as much light and

air as possible. It had indeed been ascertained that vegetable tissue was
liable to contractions and expansion (under fixed mechanical conditions) by
light, heat, moisture, etc. But vegetable tissue in the living branch did not
contract nor expand under external influence alone. The principle of life
manifested itself either by contention with, or felicitous recognition of,
external force. It accepted with a visible, active, and apparently joyful
concurrence, the influences which led the bough towards its due place in the
economy of the tree; and it obeyed reluctantly, partially, and with distorted
curvatures, those which forced it to violate the typical organic form. The
attention of painters of foliage had seldom been drawn with sufficient
accuracy to the lines either of branch curvature, or leaf contour, as
expressing these subtle laws of incipient volition; but the relative merit of
the great schools of figure design might, in absence of all other evidence, be
determined, almost without error, by observing the precision of their
treatment of leaf curvature. The leaf-painting round the head of Ariosto by
Titian, in the National Gallery, might be instanced.
289. The leaf thus differed from the flower in forming and protecting
behind it, not only the bud in which was the form of a new shoot like itself,
but a piece of permanent work, and produced substance, by which every
following shoot could be placed under different circumstances from its
predecessor. Every leaf labored to solidify this substance during its own
life; but the seed left by the flower matured only as the flower perished.
This difference in the action and endurance of the flower and leaf had been
applied by nearly all great nations as a type of the variously active and
productive states of life among individuals or commonwealths. Chaucer's
poem of the "Flower and Leaf" is the most definite expression of the
mediæval feeling in this respect, while the fables of the rape of Proserpine
and of Apollo and Daphne embody that of the Greeks. There is no Greek
goddess corresponding to the Flora of the Romans. Their Flora is
Persephone, "the bringer of death." She plays for a little while in the
Sicilian fields, gathering flowers, then snatched away by Pluto, receives her
chief power as she vanishes from our sight, and is crowned in the grave.
Daphne, on the other hand, is the daughter of one of the great Arcadian
river gods, and of the earth; she is the type of the river mist filling the rocky
vales of Arcadia; the sun, pursuing this mist from dell to dell, is Apollo
pursuing Daphne; where the mist is protected from his rays by the rock

shadows, the laurel and other richest vegetation spring by the river-sides, so
that the laurel-leaf becomes the type, in the Greek mind, of the beneficent
ministry and vitality of the rivers and the earth, under the beams of
sunshine; and therefore it is chosen to form the signet-crown of highest
honor for gods or men, honor for work born of the strength and dew of the
earth and informed by the central light of heaven; work living, perennial,
and beneficent.
J. R.

FOOTNOTES:
[34] Read by Mr. Ruskin at the weekly evening meeting of the Royal Institution
(see Proceedings, vol. iii., pp. 358-60), April 19, 1861.—Ed.

ON THE FORMS OF THE STRATIFIED ALPS
OF SAVOY.[35]
290. The purpose of the discourse was to trace some of the influences which
have produced the present external forms of the stratified mountains of
Savoy, and the probable extent and results of the future operation of such
influences.
The subject was arranged under three heads:—
I. The Materials of the Savoy Alps.
II. The Mode of their Formation.
III. The Mode of their subsequent Sculpture.
291. I. Their Materials.—The investigation was limited to those Alps which
consist, in whole or in part, either of Jura limestone, of Neocomian beds, or
of the Hippurite limestone, and include no important masses of other
formations. All these rocks are marine deposits; and the first question to be
considered with respect to the development of mountains out of them is the
kind of change they must undergo in being dried. Whether prolonged
through vast periods of time, or hastened by heat and pressure, the drying
and solidification of such rocks involved their contraction, and usually, in
consequence, their being traversed throughout by minute fissures. Under
certain conditions of pressure, these fissures take the aspect of slaty
cleavage; under others, they become irregular cracks, dividing all the
substance of the stone. If these are not filled, the rock would become a mere
heap of débris, and be incapable of establishing itself in any bold form. This
is provided against by a metamorphic action, which either arranges the
particles of the rock, throughout, in new and more crystalline conditions, or
else causes some of them to separate from the rest, to traverse the body of
the rock, and arrange themselves in its fissures; thus forming a cement,
usually of finer and purer substance than the rest of the stone. In either case
the action tends continually to the purification and segregation of the
elements of the stone. The energy of such action depends on accidental
circumstances: first, on the attractions of the component elements among

themselves; secondly, on every change of external temperature and relation.
So that mountains are at different periods in different stages of health (so to
call it) or disease. We have mountains of a languid temperament, mountains
with checked circulations, mountains in nervous fevers, mountains in
atrophy and decline.
292. This change in the structure of existing rocks is traceable through
continuous gradations, so that a black mud or calcareous slime is
imperceptibly modified into a magnificently hard and crystalline substance,
inclosing nests of beryl, topaz, and sapphire, and veined with gold. But it
cannot be determined how far, or in what localities, these changes are yet
arrested; in the plurality of instances they are evidently yet in progress. It
appears rational to suppose that as each rock approaches to its perfect type
the change becomes slower; its perfection being continually neared, but
never reached; its change being liable also to interruption or reversal by
new geological phenomena. In the process of this change, rocks expand or
contract; and, in portions, their multitudinous fissures give them a ductility
or viscosity like that of glacier-ice on a larger scale. So that many
formations are best to be conceived as glaciers, or frozen fields of crag,
whose depth is to be measured in miles instead of fathoms, whose crevasses
are filled with solvent flame, with vapor, with gelatinous flint, or with
crystallizing elements of mingled natures; the whole mass changing its
dimensions and flowing into new channels, though by gradations which
cannot be measured, and in periods of time of which human life forms no
appreciable unit.
293. II. Formation.—Mountains are to be arranged, with respect to their
structure, under two great classes—those which are cut out of the beds of
which they are composed, and those which are formed by the convolution
or contortion of the beds themselves. The Savoy mountains are chiefly of
this latter class. When stratified formations are contorted, it is usually either
by pressure from below, which raises one part of the formation above the
rest, or by lateral pressure, which reduces the whole formation into a series
of waves. The ascending pressure may be limited in its sphere of operation;
the lateral one necessarily affects extensive tracts of country, and the
eminences it produces vanish only by degrees, like the waves left in the
wake of a ship. The Savoy mountains have undergone both these kinds of
violence in very complex modes and at different periods, so that it becomes

almost impossible to trace separately and completely the operation of any
given force at a given point.
294. The speaker's intention was to have analyzed, as far as possible, the
action of the forming forces in one wave of simple elevation, the Mont
Salève, and in another of lateral compression, the Mont Brezon: but the
investigation of the Mont Salève had presented unexpected difficulty. Its
façade had been always considered to be formed by vertical beds, raised
into that position during the tertiary periods; the speaker's investigations
had, on the contrary, led him to conclude that the appearance of vertical
beds was owing to a peculiarly sharp and distinct cleavage, at right angles
with the beds, but nearly parallel to their strike, elsewhere similarly
manifested in the Jurassic series of Savoy, and showing itself on the fronts
of most of the precipices formed of that rock. The attention of geologists
was invited to the determination of this question.
The compressed wave of the Brezon, more complex in arrangement, was
more clearly defined. A section of it was given, showing the reversed
position of the Hippurite limestone in the summit and lower precipices. This
limestone wave was shown to be one of a great series, running parallel with
the Alps, and constituting an undulatory district, chiefly composed of chalk
beds, separated from the higher limestone district of the Jura and Lias by a
long trench or moat, filled with members of the tertiary series—chiefly
nummulite limestones and flysch. This trench might be followed from
Faverges, at the head of the lake of Annecy, across Savoy. It separated Mont
Vergi from the Mont Dorons, and the Dent d'Oche from the Dent du Midi;
then entered Switzerland, separating the Moleson from the Diablerets;
passed on through the districts of Thun and Brientz, and, dividing itself into
two, caused the zigzagged form of the lake of Lucerne. The principal
branch then passed between the high Sentis and the Glarnisch, and broke
into confusion in the Tyrol. On the north side of this trench the chalk beds
were often vertical, or cast into repeated folds, of which the escarpments
were mostly turned away from the Alps; but on the south side of the trench,
the Jurassic, Triassic, and Carboniferous beds, though much distorted,
showed a prevailing tendency to lean towards the Alps, and turn their
escarpments to the central chain.

295. Both these systems of mountains are intersected by transverse valleys,
owing their origin, in the first instance, to a series of transverse curvilinear
fractures, which affect the forms even of every minor ridge, and produce its
principal ravines and boldest rocks, even where no distinctly excavated
valleys exist. Thus, the Mont Vergi and the Aiguilles of Salouvre are only
fragmentary remains of a range of horizontal beds, once continuous, but
broken by this transverse system of curvilinear cleavage, and worn or
weathered into separate summits.
The means of this ultimate sculpture or weathering were lastly to be
considered.

296. III. Sculpture.—The final reductions of mountainform are owing either
to disintegration, or to the action of water, in the condition of rain, rivers, or
ice, aided by frost and other circumstances of temperature and atmosphere.
All important existing forms are owing to disintegration, or the action of
water. That of ice had been curiously over-rated. As an instrument of
sculpture, ice is much less powerful than water; the apparently energetic
effects of it being merely the exponents of disintegration. A glacier did not
produce its moraine, but sustained and exposed the fragments which fell on
its surface, pulverizing these by keeping them in motion, but producing
very unimportant effects on the rock below; the roundings and striation
produced by ice were superficial; while a torrent penetrated into every angle
and cranny, undermining and wearing continually, and carrying stones, at
the lowest estimate, six hundred thousand times as fast as the glacier. Had
the quantity of rain which has fallen on Mont Blanc in the form of snow
(and descended in the ravines as ice) fallen as rain, and descended in
torrents, the ravines would have been much deeper than they are now, and
the glacier may so far be considered as exercising a protective influence.
But its power of carriage is unlimited, and when masses of earth or rock are
once loosened, the glacier carries them away, and exposes fresh surfaces.
Generally, the work of water and ice is in mountain surgery like that of
lancet and sponge—one for incision, the other for ablution. No excavation
by ice was possible on a large scale, any more than by a stream of honey;

and its various actions, with their limitations, were only to be understood by
keeping always clearly in view the great law of its motion as a viscous
substance, determined by Professor James Forbes.
297. The existing forms of the Alps are, therefore, traceable chiefly to
denudation as they rose from the sea, followed by more or less violent
aqueous action, partly arrested during the glacial periods, while the
produced diluvium was carried away into the valley of the Rhine or into the
North Sea. One very important result of denudation had not yet been
sufficiently regarded; namely, that when portions of a thick bed (as the
Rudisten-kalk) had been entirely removed, the weight of the remaining
masses, pressing unequally on the inferior beds, would, when these were
soft (as the Neocomian marls), press them up into arched conditions, like
those of the floors of coal-mines in what the miners called "creeps." Many
anomalous positions of the beds of Spatangenkalk in the district of the Lake
of Annecy were in all probability owing to this cause: they might be studied
advantageously in the sloping base of the great Rochers de Lanfon, which,
disintegrating in curved, nearly vertical flakes, each a thousand feet in
height, were nevertheless a mere outlying remnant of the great horizontal
formation of the Parmelan, and formed, like it, of very thin horizontal beds
of Rudisten-kalk, imposed on shaly masses of Neocomian, modified by
their pressure. More complex forms of harder rock were wrought by the
streams and rains into fantastic outlines; and the transverse gorges were cut
deep where they had been first traced by fault or distortion. The analysis of
this aqueous action would alone require a series of discourses; but the sum
of the facts was that the best and most interesting portions of the mountains
were just those which were finally left, the centers and joints, as it were, of
the Alpine anatomy. Immeasurable periods of time would be required to
wear these away; and to all appearances, during the process of their
destruction, others were rising to take their place, and forms of perhaps far
more nobly organized mountain would witness the collateral progress of
humanity.
J. R.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Read by Mr. Ruskin at the weekly evening meeting of the Royal Institution
(see Proceedings, vol. iv., pp. 142-46), June 5, 1863.—Ed.

THE RANGE OF INTELLECTUAL
CONCEPTION PROPORTIONED TO THE
RANK IN ANIMATED LIFE.[36]
A THEOREM.

298. I suppose this theorem to be a truism; but I venture to state it, because
it is surely desirable that it should be recognized as an axiom by
metaphysicians, and practically does not seem to me yet to have been so. I
say "animated life" because the word "life" by itself might have been taken
to include that of vegetables; and I say "animated" instead of "spiritual" life
because the Latin "anima," and pretty Italian corruption of it, "alma,"
involving the new idea of nourishment of the body as by the Aliment or
Alms of God, seems to me to convey a better idea of the existence of
conscious creatures than any derivative of "spiritus," "pneuma," or
"psyche."
I attach, however, a somewhat lower sense to the word "conception" than is,
I believe, usual with metaphysicians, for, as a painter, I belong to a lower
rank of animated being than theirs, and can only mean by conception what I
know of it. A painter never conceives anything absolutely, and is indeed
incapable of conceiving anything at all, except as a phenomenon or
sensation, or as the mode or locus of a phenomenon or sensation. That
which is not an appearance, or a feeling, or a mode of one or the other, is to
him nothing.
299. For instance, he would deny the definition of the phenomenon which
he is himself first concerned in producing—a line—as "length without
breadth." He would say, "That which has no breadth is nothing, and nothing
cannot be long." He would define a line as a narrow and long phenomenon,
and a mathematician's idea of it as an idea of the direction of such a
phenomenon.

The act of conception or imagination with him, therefore, is merely the
memory, simple or combined, of things that he has seen or felt. He has no
ray, no incipience of faculty beyond this. No quantity of the sternest
training in the school of Hegel, would ever enable him to think the
Absolute. He would persist in an obstinate refusal to use the word "think" at
all in a transitive sense. He would never, for instance, say, "I think the
table," but "I think the table is turning," or is not, as the case might be. And
if he were to be taught in any school whatever to conceive a table, his first
demand would be that he should be shown one, or referred to other things
that had the qualities of one in illustrative degree.
300. And even respecting the constant methods or laws of phenomena, he
cannot raise the statement of them into an act of conception. The statement
that two right lines can never inclose a space merely appears to him another
form of verbal definition, or, at the grandest, a definition in prophetic
extent, saying in other words that a line which incloses, or ever may
inclose, a space, is not, and never will be, a right one. He would admit that
what he now conceives as two things, doubled, would always be what he
now conceives as four things. But assuming the existence of a world in
which, whenever two things were actually set in juxtaposition with other
two things, they became actually three times, or actually five, he supposes
that the practice of arithmetic, and laws of it, would change in relation to
this new condition in matter; and he accepts, therefore, the statement that
twice two are four only as an accident of the existing phenomena of matter.
301. A painter therefore may, I think, be looked upon as only representing a
high order of sensational creatures, incapable of any but physical ideas and
impressions; and I continue my paper, therefore, only in the name of the
docile, and therefore improvable, part of the Brute Creation.
And in their name I would suggest that we should be much more docile
than we are if we were never occupied in efforts to conceive things above
our natures. To take an instance, in a creature somewhat lower than myself.
I came by surprise the other day on a cuttle-fish in a pool at low tide. On
being touched with the point of my umbrella, he first filled the pool with
ink, and then finding himself still touched in the darkness, lost his temper,
and attacked the umbrella with much psyche or anima, hugging it tightly
with all his eight arms, and making efforts, like an impetuous baby with a

coral, to get it into his mouth. On my offering him a finger instead, he
sucked that with two or three of his arms with an apparently malignant
satisfaction, and on being shaken off, retired with an air of frantic
misanthropy into the cloud of his ink.
302. Now, it seems to me not a little instructive to reflect how entirely
useless such a manifestation of a superior being was to his cuttle-fish mind,
and how fortunate it was for his fellow-octopods that he had no command
of pens as well as ink, nor any disposition to write on the nature of
umbrellas or of men.
It may be observed, further, that whatever ideas he was able to form
respecting either were positively false—so contrary to truth as to be worse
than none, and simply dangerous to himself, so far as he might be induced
to act upon them—that, namely, an umbrella was an eatable thing, or a man
a conquerable one, that the individual man who looked at him was hostile to
him or that his purposes could be interfered with by ejection of ink. Every
effort made by the fish under these convictions was harmful to himself; his
only wisdom would have been to lie quietly and unreflectively in his pool.
And with us painters also, the only result of any efforts we make to acquaint
ourselves with the subjects of metaphysical inquiry has been an increased
sense of the prudence of lying placidly and unreflectively in our pools, or at
least limiting ourselves to such gentle efforts of imagination as may be
consistent with the as yet imperfectly developed powers, I do not say even
of cephalopodic, but of Ascidian nervous centers.
303. But it may be easily imagined how pleasantly, to persons thus subdued
in self-estimation, the hope presents itself which is involved in the
Darwinian theory, that their pools themselves may be capable of indefinite
extension, and their natures of indefinite development—the hope that our
descendants may one day be ashamed of us, and debate the question of their
parentage with astonishment and disgust.
And it seems to me that the aim of elementary metaphysical study might
henceforth become more practical than that of any other science. For in
hitherto taking little cognizance of the limitation of thought by the structure
of the body, we have surely also lost sight of the power of certain modes of
thought over the processes of that structure. Taking, for instance, the

emotion of anger, of which the cephalopoda are indeed as capable as we
are, but inferior to us in being unable to decide whether they do well to be
angry or not, I do not think the chemical effect of that emotion on the
particles of the blood, in decomposing and otherwise paralyzing or
debilitating them, has been sufficiently examined, nor the actual quantity of
nervous energy which a fit of anger of given violence withdraws from the
body and restores to space, neither the correlative power of volition in
restraining the passion, or in directing the choice of salutary thought, as of
salutary herbs on streams. And even we painters, who dare not call
ourselves capable of thought, are capable of choice in more or less salutary
vision. In the degree in which we lose such power of choice in vision, so
that the spectral phenomena which are the materials of our industry present
themselves under forms beyond our control, we become insane; and
although for all our best work a certain degree of this insanity is necessary,
and the first occurring conceptions are uncommanded, as in dreams, we
have, when in health, always instantaneous power of accepting some,
refusing others, perfecting the outlines and colors of those we wish to keep,
and arranging them in such relations as we choose.
304. And unquestionably the forms of the body which painters instinctively
recognize as best, and call "beautiful," are so far under the command of the
plastic force of voluntary thought, that the original and future authority of
such a plastic force over the whole of creation cannot but seem to painters a
direct, though not a certain influence; and they would at once give their
adherence to the statement made many years since in his opening lectures in
Oxford by the present Regius Professor of Medicine (as far as I can
recollect approximately, in these terms)—that "it is quite as logical, and far
more easy, to conceive of original anima as adapting itself to forms of
substance, than of original substance as adapting to itself modes of mind."
305. It is surely, therefore, not too much to expect of future schools of
metaphysicians that they will direct mankind into methods of thought which
will be at once happy, unerring, and medicinal, and therefore entirely wise;
that they will mark the limits beyond which uniformity must be dangerous,
and speculation vain; and that they will at no distant period terminate the
acrimony of theologians, and the insolences, as well as the sorrows, of
groundless faith, by showing that it is appointed for us, in common with the
rest of the animal creation, to live in the midst of an universe the nature of

which is as much better than we can believe, as it is greater than we can
understand.

FOOTNOTES:
[36] Contemporary Review, June, 1871.—Ed.

LITERATURE.
FICTION—FAIR AND FOUL.

(Nineteenth Century, June, August, Sept., Nov. 1880, and Oct. 1881.)

FAIRY STORIES.

(Preface to "German Popular Stories," 1868.)

FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL.
1.[37]
1. On the first mild—or, at least, the first bright—day of March, in this year,
I walked through what was once a country lane, between the hostelry of the
Half-moon at the bottom of Herne Hill, and the secluded College of
Dulwich.
In my young days, Croxsted Lane was a green byroad traversable for some
distance by carts; but rarely so traversed, and, for the most part, little else
than a narrow strip of untilled field, separated by blackberry hedges from
the better-cared-for meadows on each side of it: growing more weeds,
therefore, than they, and perhaps in spring a primrose or two—white
archangel—daisies plenty, and purple thistles in autumn. A slender rivulet,
boasting little of its brightness, for there are no springs at Dulwich, yet fed
purely enough by the rain and morning dew, here trickled—there loitered—
through the long grass beneath the hedges, and expanded itself, where it
might, into moderately clear and deep pools, in which, under their veils of
duckweed, a fresh-water shell or two, sundry curious little skipping
shrimps, any quantity of tadpoles in their time, and even sometimes a
tittlebat, offered themselves to my boyhood's pleased, and not inaccurate,
observation. There, my mother and I used to gather the first buds of the
hawthorn; and there, in after years, I used to walk in the summer shadows,
as in a place wilder and sweeter than our garden, to think over any passage I
wanted to make better than usual in Modern Painters.
So, as aforesaid, on the first kindly day of this year, being thoughtful more
than usual of those old times, I went to look again at the place.
2. Often, both in those days, and since, I have put myself hard to it, vainly,
to find words wherewith to tell of beautiful things; but beauty has been in
the world since the world was made, and human language can make a shift,
somehow, to give account of it, whereas the peculiar forces of devastation
induced by modern city life have only entered the world lately; and no
existing terms of language known to me are enough to describe the forms of

filth, and modes of ruin, that varied themselves along the course of
Croxsted Lane. The fields on each side of it are now mostly dug up for
building, or cut through into gaunt corners and nooks of blind ground by the
wild crossings and concurrencies of three railroads. Half a dozen handfuls
of new cottages, with Doric doors, are dropped about here and there among
the gashed ground: the lane itself, now entirely grassless, is a deep-rutted,
heavy-hillocked cart-road, diverging gatelessly into various brickfields or
pieces of waste; and bordered on each side by heaps of—Hades only knows
what!—mixed dust of every unclean thing that can crumble in drought, and
mildew of every unclean thing that can rot or rust in damp: ashes and rags,
beer-bottles and old shoes, battered pans, smashed crockery, shreds of
nameless clothes, door-sweepings, floor-sweepings, kitchen garbage, back-
garden sewage, old iron, rotten timber jagged with out-torn nails, cigar-
ends, pipe-bowls, cinders, bones, and ordure, indescribable; and, variously
kneaded into, sticking to, or fluttering foully here and there over all these,—
remnants broadcast, of every manner of newspaper, advertisement or big-
lettered bill, festering and flaunting out their last publicity in the pits of
stinking dust and mortal slime.
3. The lane ends now where its prettiest windings once began; being cut off
by a cross-road leading out of Dulwich to a minor railway station: and on
the other side of this road, what was of old the daintiest intricacy of its
solitude is changed into a straight, and evenly macadamized carriage drive
between new houses of extreme respectability, with good attached gardens
and offices—most of these tenements being larger—all more pretentious,
and many, I imagine, held at greatly higher rent than my father's, tenanted
for twenty years at Herne Hill. And it became matter of curious meditation
to me what must here become of children resembling my poor little dreamy
quondam self in temper, and thus brought up at the same distance from
London, and in the same or better circumstances of worldly fortune; but
with only Croxsted Lane in its present condition for their country walk. The
trimly kept road before their doors, such as one used to see in the
fashionable suburbs of Cheltenham or Leamington, presents nothing to their
study but gravel, and gas-lamp posts; the modern addition of a vermilion
letter-pillar contributing indeed to the splendor, but scarcely to the interest
of the scene; and a child of any sense or fancy would hastily contrive
escape from such a barren desert of politeness, and betake itself to

investigation, such as might be feasible, of the natural history of Croxsted
Lane.
4. But, for its sense or fancy, what food, or stimulus, can it find, in that foul
causeway of its youthful pilgrimage? What would have happened to myself,
so directed, I cannot clearly imagine. Possibly, I might have got interested
in the old iron and wood-shavings; and become an engineer or a carpenter:
but for the children of to-day, accustomed, from the instant they are out of
their cradles, to the sight of this infinite nastiness, prevailing as a fixed
condition of the universe, over the face of nature, and accompanying all the
operations of industrious man, what is to be the scholastic issue? unless,
indeed, the thrill of scientific vanity in the primary analysis of some
unheard-of process of corruption—or the reward of microscopic research in
the sight of worms with more legs, and acari of more curious generation
than ever vivified the more simply smelling plasma of antiquity.
One result of such elementary education is, however, already certain;
namely, that the pleasure which we may conceive taken by the children of
the coming time, in the analysis of physical corruption, guides, into fields
more dangerous and desolate, the expatiation of an imaginative literature:
and that the reactions of moral disease upon itself, and the conditions of
languidly monstrous character developed in an atmosphere of low vitality,
have become the most valued material of modern fiction, and the most
eagerly discussed texts of modern philosophy.
5. The many concurrent reasons for this mischief may, I believe, be massed
under a few general heads.[38]
I. There is first the hot fermentation and unwholesome secrecy of the
population crowded into large cities, each mote in the misery lighter, as an
individual soul, than a dead leaf, but becoming oppressive and infectious
each to his neighbor, in the smoking mass of decay. The resulting modes of
mental ruin and distress are continually new; and in a certain sense, worth
study in their monstrosity: they have accordingly developed a
corresponding science of fiction, concerned mainly with the description of
such forms of disease, like the botany of leaf-lichens.
In De Balzac's story of Father Goriot, a grocer makes a large fortune, of
which he spends on himself as much as may keep him alive; and on his two

daughters, all that can promote their pleasures or their pride. He marries
them to men of rank, supplies their secret expenses, and provides for his
favorite a separate and clandestine establishment with her lover. On his
death-bed, he sends for this favorite daughter, who wishes to come, and
hesitates for a quarter of an hour between doing so, and going to a ball at
which it has been for the last month her chief ambition to be seen. She
finally goes to the ball.
The story is, of course, one of which the violent contrasts and spectral
catastrophe could only take place, or be conceived, in a large city. A village
grocer cannot make a large fortune, cannot marry his daughters to titled
squires, and cannot die without having his children brought to him, if in the
neighborhood, by fear of village gossip, if for no better cause.
6. II. But a much more profound feeling than this mere curiosity of science
in morbid phenomena is concerned in the production of the carefulest forms
of modern fiction. The disgrace and grief resulting from the mere trampling
pressure and electric friction of town life, become to the sufferers peculiarly
mysterious in their undeservedness, and frightful in their inevitableness.
The power of all surroundings over them for evil; the incapacity of their
own minds to refuse the pollution, and of their own wills to oppose the
weight, of the staggering mass that chokes and crushes them into perdition,
brings every law of healthy existence into question with them, and every
alleged method of help and hope into doubt. Indignation, without any
calming faith in justice, and self-contempt, without any curative self-
reproach, dull the intelligence, and degrade the conscience, into sullen
incredulity of all sunshine outside the dunghill, or breeze beyond the
wafting of its impurity; and at last a philosophy develops itself, partly
satiric, partly consolatory, concerned only with the regenerative vigor of
manure, and the necessary obscurities of fimetic Providence; showing how
everybody's fault is somebody else's, how infection has no law, digestion no
will, and profitable dirt no dishonor.
And thus an elaborate and ingenious scholasticism, in what may be called
the Divinity of Decomposition, has established itself in connection with the
more recent forms of romance, giving them at once a complacent tone of
clerical dignity, and an agreeable dash of heretical impudence; while the

inculcated doctrine has the double advantage of needing no laborious
scholarship for its foundation, and no painful self-denial for its practice.
7. III. The monotony of life in the central streets of any great modern city,
but especially in those of London, where every emotion intended to be
derived by men from the sight of nature, or the sense of art, is forbidden
forever, leaves the craving of the heart for a sincere, yet changeful, interest,
to be fed from one source only. Under natural conditions the degree of
mental excitement necessary to bodily health is provided by the course of
the seasons, and the various skill and fortune of agriculture. In the country
every morning of the year brings with it a new aspect of springing or fading
nature; a new duty to be fulfilled upon earth, and a new promise or warning
in heaven. No day is without its innocent hope, its special prudence, its
kindly gift, and its sublime danger; and in every process of wise husbandry,
and every effort of contending or remedial courage, the wholesome
passions, pride, and bodily power of the laborer are excited and exerted in
happiest unison. The companionship of domestic, the care of serviceable,
animals, soften and enlarge his life with lowly charities, and discipline him
in familiar wisdoms and unboastful fortitudes; while the divine laws of
seedtime which cannot be recalled, harvest which cannot be hastened, and
winter in which no man can work, compel the impatiences and coveting of
his heart into labor too submissive to be anxious, and rest too sweet to be
wanton. What thought can enough comprehend the contrast between such
life, and that in streets where summer and winter are only alternations of
heat and cold; where snow never fell white, nor sunshine clear; where the
ground is only a pavement, and the sky no more than the glass roof of an
arcade; where the utmost power of a storm is to choke the gutters, and the
finest magic of spring, to change mud into dust: where—chief and most
fatal difference in state—there is no interest of occupation for any of the
inhabitants but the routine of counter or desk within doors, and the effort to
pass each other without collision outside; so that from morning to evening
the only possible variation of the monotony of the hours, and lightening of
the penalty of existence, must be some kind of mischief, limited, unless by
more than ordinary godsend of fatality, to the fall of a horse, or the slitting
of a pocket?
8. I said that under these laws of inanition, the craving of the human heart
for some kind of excitement could be supplied from one source only. It

might have been thought by any other than a sternly tentative philosopher,
that the denial of their natural food to human feelings would have provoked
a reactionary desire for it; and that the dreariness of the street would have
been gilded by dreams of pastoral felicity. Experience has shown the fact to
be otherwise; the thoroughly trained Londoner can enjoy no other
excitement than that to which he has been accustomed, but asks for that in
continually more ardent or more virulent concentration; and the ultimate
power of fiction to entertain him is by varying to his fancy the modes, and
defining for his dullness the horrors, of Death. In the single novel of "Bleak
House" there are nine deaths (or left for death's, in the drop scene) carefully
wrought out or led up to, either by way of pleasing surprise, as the baby's at
the brick-maker's, or finished in their threatenings and sufferings, with as
much enjoyment as can be contrived in the anticipation, and as much
pathology as can be concentrated in the description. Under the following
varieties of method:—

One by assassination Mr. Tulkinghorn.
One by starvation, with
Joe.
phthisis
One by chagrin Richard.
One by spontaneous
Mr. Krook.
combustion
Lady Dedlock's
One by sorrow
lover.
One by remorse Lady Dedlock.
One by insanity Miss Flite.
One by paralysis Sir Leicester.

Besides the baby, by fever, and a lively young Frenchwoman left to be
hanged.
And all this, observe, not in a tragic, adventurous, or military story, but
merely as the further enlivenment of a narrative intended to be amusing;
and as a properly representative average of the statistics of civilian
mortality in the center of London.
9. Observe further, and chiefly. It is not the mere number of deaths (which,
if we count the odd troopers in the last scene, is exceeded in "Old

Mortality," and reached, within one or two, both in "Waverley" and "Guy
Mannering") that marks the peculiar tone of the modern novel. It is the fact
that all these deaths, but one, are of inoffensive, or at least in the world's
estimate, respectable persons; and that they are all grotesquely either violent
or miserable, purporting thus to illustrate the modern theology that the
appointed destiny of a large average of our population is to die like rats in a
drain, either by trap or poison. Not, indeed, that a lawyer in full practice can
be usually supposed as faultless in the eye of Heaven as a dove or a
woodcock; but it is not, in former divinities, thought the will of Providence
that he should be dropped by a shot from a client behind his fire-screen, and
retrieved in the morning by his housemaid under the chandelier. Neither is
Lady Dedlock less reprehensible in her conduct than many women of
fashion have been and will be: but it would not therefore have been thought
poetically just, in old-fashioned morality, that she should be found by her
daughter lying dead, with her face in the mud of a St. Giles's churchyard.
10. In the work of the great masters death is always either heroic, deserved,
or quiet and natural (unless their purpose be totally and deeply tragic, when
collateral meaner death is permitted, like that of Polonius or Roderigo). In
"Old Mortality," four of the deaths, Bothwell's, Ensign Grahame's,
Macbriar's, and Evandale's, are magnificently heroic; Burley's and
Oliphant's long deserved, and swift; the troopers', met in the discharge of
their military duty, and the old miser's as gentle as the passing of a cloud,
and almost beautiful in its last words of—now unselfish—care.

"Ailie" (he aye ca'd me Ailie, we were auld acquaintance), "Ailie, take ye
care and hand the gear weel thegither; for the name of Morton of
Milnwood's gane out like the last sough of an auld sang." And sae he fell
out o' ae dwam into another, and ne'er spak a word mair, unless it something
we you'dna mak out, about a dipped candle being gude eneugh to see to dee
wi'. He cou'd ne'er bide to see a molded ane, and there was ane, by ill luck,
on the table.

In "Guy Mannering," the murder, though unpremeditated, of a single
person, (himself not entirely innocent, but at least by heartlessness in a
cruel function earning his fate,) is avenged to the uttermost on all the men
conscious of the crime; Mr. Bertram's death, like that of his wife, brief in
pain, and each told in the space of half a dozen lines; and that of the heroine
of the tale, self-devoted, heroic in the highest, and happy.
Nor is it ever to be forgotten, in the comparison of Scott's with inferior
work, that his own splendid powers were, even in early life, tainted, and in
his latter years destroyed, by modern conditions of commercial excitement,
then first, but rapidly, developing themselves. There are parts even in his
best novels colored to meet tastes which he despised; and many pages
written in his later ones to lengthen his article for the indiscriminate market.
11. But there was one weakness of which his healthy mind remained
incapable to the last. In modern stories prepared for more refined or
fastidious audiences than those of Dickens, the funereal excitement is
obtained, for the most part, not by the infliction of violent or disgusting
death; but in the suspense, the pathos, and the more or less by all felt, and
recognized, mortal phenomena of the sick-room. The temptation, to weak
writers, of this order of subject is especially great, because the study of it
from the living—or dying—model is so easy, and to many has been the
most impressive part of their own personal experience; while, if the
description be given even with mediocre accuracy, a very large section of
readers will admire its truth, and cherish its melancholy. Few authors of
second or third rate genius can either record or invent a probable
conversation in ordinary life; but few, on the other hand, are so destitute of
observant faculty as to be unable to chronicle the broken syllables and
languid movements of an invalid. The easily rendered, and too surely
recognized, image of familiar suffering is felt at once to be real where all
else had been false; and the historian of the gestures of fever and words of
delirium can count on the applause of a gratified audience as surely as the
dramatist who introduces on the stage of his flagging action a carriage that
can be driven or a fountain that will flow. But the masters of strong
imagination disdain such work, and those of deep sensibility shrink from it.
[39]
Only under conditions of personal weakness, presently to be noted,
would Scott comply with the cravings of his lower audience in scenes of
terror like the death of Front-de-Bœuf. But he never once withdrew the

sacred curtain of the sick-chamber, nor permitted the disgrace of wanton
tears round the humiliation of strength, or the wreck of beauty.
12. IV. No exception to this law of reverence will be found in the scenes in
Cœur de Lion's illness introductory to the principal incident in the
"Talisman." An inferior writer would have made the king charge in
imagination at the head of his chivalry, or wander in dreams by the brooks
of Aquitaine; but Scott allows us to learn no more startling symptoms of the
king's malady than that he was restless and impatient, and could not wear
his armor. Nor is any bodily weakness, or crisis of danger, permitted to
disturb for an instant the royalty of intelligence and heart in which he
examines, trusts and obeys the physician whom his attendants fear.
Yet the choice of the main subject in this story and its companion—the trial,
to a point of utter torture, of knightly faith, and several passages in the
conduct of both, more especially the exaggerated scenes in the House of
Baldringham, and hermitage of Engedi, are signs of the gradual decline in
force of intellect and soul which those who love Scott best have done him
the worst injustice in their endeavors to disguise or deny. The mean
anxieties, moral humiliations, and mercilessly demanded brain-toil, which
killed him, show their sepulchral grasp for many and many a year before
their final victory; and the states of more or less dulled, distorted, and
polluted imagination which culminate in "Castle Dangerous" cast a Stygian
hue over "St. Ronan's Well," "The Fair Maid of Perth," and "Anne of
Geierstein," which lowers them, the first altogether, the other two at
frequent intervals, into fellowship with the normal disease which festers
throughout the whole body of our lower fictitious literature.
13. Fictitious! I use the ambiguous word deliberately; for it is impossible to
distinguish in these tales of the prison-house how far their vice and gloom
are thrown into their manufacture only to meet a vile demand, and how far
they are an integral condition of thought in the minds of men trained from
their youth up in the knowledge of Londinian and Parisian misery. The
speciality of the plague is a delight in the exposition of the relations
between guilt and decrepitude; and I call the results of it literature "of the
prison-house," because the thwarted habits of body and mind, which are the
punishment of reckless crowding in cities, become, in the issue of that
punishment, frightful subjects of exclusive interest to themselves; and the

art of fiction in which they finally delight is only the more studied
arrangement and illustration, by colored fire-lights, of the daily bulletins of
their own wretchedness, in the prison calendar, the police news, and the
hospital report.
14. The reader will perhaps be surprised at my separating the greatest work
of Dickens, "Oliver Twist," with honor, from the loathsome mass to which
it typically belongs. That book is an earnest and uncaricatured record of
states of criminal life, written with didactic purpose, full of the gravest
instruction, nor destitute of pathetic studies of noble passion. Even the
"Mysteries of Paris" and Gaboriau's "Crime d'Orcival" are raised, by their
definiteness of historical intention and forewarning anxiety, far above the
level of their order, and may be accepted as photographic evidence of an
otherwise incredible civilization, corrupted in the infernal fact of it, down to
the genesis of such figures as the Vicomte d'Orcival, the Stabber,[40] the
Skeleton, and the She-wolf. But the effectual head of the whole cretinous
school is the renowned novel in which the hunchbacked lover watches the
execution of his mistress from the tower of Notre-Dame; and its strength
passes gradually away into the anatomical preparations, for the general
market, of novels like "Poor Miss Finch," in which the heroine is blind, the
hero epileptic, and the obnoxious brother is found dead with his hands
dropped off, in the Arctic regions.[41]
15. This literature of the Prison-house, understanding by the word not only
the cell of Newgate, but also and even more definitely the cell of the Hôtel-
Dieu, the Hôpital des Fous, and the grated corridor with the dripping slabs
of the Morgue, having its central root thus in the Ile de Paris—or
historically and pre-eminently the "Cité de Paris"—is, when understood
deeply, the precise counter-corruption of the religion of the Sainte Chapelle,
just as the worst forms of bodily and mental ruin are the corruption of love.
I have therefore called it "Fiction mécroyante," with literal accuracy and
precision: according to the explanation of the word, which the reader may
find in any good French dictionary,[42] and round its Arctic pole in the
Morgue, he may gather into one Caina of gelid putrescence the entire
product of modern infidel imagination, amusing itself with destruction of
the body, and busying itself with aberration of the mind.

16. Aberration, palsy, or plague, observe, as distinguished from normal evil,
just as the venom of rabies or cholera differs from that of a wasp or a viper.
The life of the insect and serpent deserves, or at least permits, our thoughts;
not so the stages of agony in the fury-driven hound. There is some excuse,
indeed, for the pathologic labor of the modern novelist in the fact that he
cannot easily, in a city population, find a healthy mind to vivisect: but the
greater part of such amateur surgery is the struggle, in an epoch of wild
literary competition, to obtain novelty of material. The varieties of aspect
and color in healthy fruit, be it sweet or sour, may be within certain limits
described exhaustively. Not so the blotches of its conceivable blight: and
while the symmetries of integral human character can only be traced by
harmonious and tender skill, like the branches of a living tree, the faults and
gaps of one gnawed away by corroding accident can be shuffled into
senseless change like the wards of a Chubb lock.
17. V. It is needless to insist on the vast field for this dice-cast or card-dealt
calamity which opens itself in the ignorance, money-interest, and mean
passion, of city marriage. Peasants know each other as children—meet, as
they grow up in testing labor; and if a stout farmer's son marries a handless
girl, it is his own fault. Also in the patrician families of the field, the young
people know what they are doing, and marry a neighboring estate, or a
covetable title, with some conception of the responsibilities they undertake.
But even among these, their season in the confused metropolis creates
licentious and fortuitous temptation before unknown; and in the lower
middle orders, an entirely new kingdom of discomfort and disgrace has
been preached to them in the doctrines of unbridled pleasure which are
merely an apology for their peculiar forms of ill-breeding. It is quite curious
how often the catastrophe, or the leading interest, of a modern novel, turns
upon the want, both in maid and bachelor, of the common self-command
which was taught to their grandmothers and grandfathers as the first
element of ordinarily decent behavior. Rashly inquiring the other day the
plot of a modern story[43] from a female friend, I elicited, after some
hesitation, that it hinged mainly on the young people's "forgetting
themselves in a boat;" and I perceive it to be accepted as nearly an axiom in
the code of modern civic chivalry that the strength of amiable sentiment is
proved by our incapacity on proper occasions to express, and on improper
ones to control it. The pride of a gentleman of the old school used to be in

his power of saying what he meant, and being silent when he ought (not to
speak of the higher nobleness which bestowed love where it was honorable,
and reverence where it was due); but the automatic amours and involuntary
proposals of recent romance acknowledge little further law of morality than
the instinct of an insect, or the effervescence of a chemical mixture.
18. There is a pretty little story of Alfred de Musset's—"La Mouche,"
which, if the reader cares to glance at it, will save me further trouble in
explaining the disciplinarian authority of mere old-fashioned politeness, as
in some sort protective of higher things. It describes, with much grace and
precision, a state of society by no means pre-eminently virtuous, or
enthusiastically heroic; in which many people do extremely wrong, and
none sublimely right. But as there are heights of which the achievement is
unattempted, there are abysses to which fall is barred; neither accident nor
temptation will make any of the principal personages swerve from an
adopted resolution, or violate an accepted principle of honor; people are
expected as a matter of course to speak with propriety on occasion, and to
wait with patience when they are bid: those who do wrong, admit it; those
who do right don't boast of it; everybody knows his own mind, and
everybody has good manners.
19. Nor must it be forgotten that in the worst days of the self-indulgence
which destroyed the aristocracies of Europe, their vices, however licentious,
were never, in the fatal modern sense, "unprincipled." The vainest believed
in virtue; the vilest respected it. "Chaque chose avait son nom,"[44] and the
severest of English moralists recognizes the accurate wit, the lofty intellect,
and the unfretted benevolence, which redeemed from vitiated surroundings
the circle of d'Alembert and Marmontel.[45]
I have said, with too slight praise, that the vainest, in those days, "believed"
in virtue. Beautiful and heroic examples of it were always before them; nor
was it without the secret significance attaching to what may seem the least
accidents in the work of a master, that Scott gave to both his heroines of the
age of revolution in England the name of the queen of the highest order of
English chivalry.[46]
20. It is to say little for the types of youth and maid which alone Scott felt it
a joy to imagine, or thought it honorable to portray, that they act and feel in

a sphere where they are never for an instant liable to any of the weaknesses
which disturb the calm, or shake the resolution, of chastity and courage in a
modern novel. Scott lived in a country and time, when, from highest to
lowest, but chiefly in that dignified and nobly severe[47] middle class to
which he himself belonged, a habit of serene and stainless thought was as
natural to the people as their mountain air. Women like Rose Bradwardine
and Ailie Dinmont were the grace and guard of almost every household
(God be praised that the race of them is not yet extinct, for all that Mall or
Boulevard can do), and it has perhaps escaped the notice of even attentive
readers that the comparatively uninteresting character of Sir Walter's heroes
had always been studied among a class of youths who were simply
incapable of doing anything seriously wrong; and could only be
embarrassed by the consequences of their levity or imprudence.
21. But there is another difference in the woof of a Waverley novel from the
cobweb of a modern one, which depends on Scott's larger view of human
life. Marriage is by no means, in his conception of man and woman, the
most important business of their existence;[48] nor love the only reward to
be proposed to their virtue or exertion. It is not in his reading of the laws of
Providence a necessity that virtue should, either by love or any other
external blessing, be rewarded at all;[49] and marriage is in all cases thought
of as a constituent of the happiness of life, but not as its only interest, still
less its only aim. And upon analyzing with some care the motives of his
principal stories, we shall often find that the love in them is merely a light
by which the sterner features of character are to be irradiated, and that the
marriage of the hero is as subordinate to the main bent of the story as Henry
the Fifth's courtship of Katherine is to the battle of Agincourt. Nay, the
fortunes of the person who is nominally the subject of the tale are often
little more than a background on which grander figures are to be drawn, and
deeper fates forthshadowed. The judgments between the faith and chivalry
of Scotland at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge owe little of their interest in
the mind of a sensible reader to the fact that the captain of the Popinjay is
carried a prisoner to one battle, and returns a prisoner from the other: and
Scott himself, while he watches the white sail that bears Queen Mary for
the last time from her native land, very nearly forgets to finish his novel, or
to tell us—and with small sense of any consolation to be had out of that

minor circumstance,—that "Roland and Catherine were united, spite of
their differing faiths."
22. Neither let it be thought for an instant that the slight, and sometimes
scornful, glance with which Scott passes over scenes which a novelist of
our own day would have analyzed with the airs of a philosopher, and
painted with the curiosity of a gossip, indicates any absence in his heart of
sympathy with the great and sacred elements of personal happiness. An era
like ours, which has with diligence and ostentation swept its heart clear of
all the passions once known as loyalty, patriotism, and piety, necessarily
magnifies the apparent force of the one remaining sentiment which sighs
through the barren chambers, or clings inextricably round the chasms of
ruin; nor can it but regard with awe the unconquerable spirit which still
tempts or betrays the sagacities of selfishness into error or frenzy which is
believed to be love.
That Scott was never himself, in the sense of the phrase as employed by
lovers of the Parisian school, "ivre d'amour," may be admitted without
prejudice to his sensibility,[50] and that he never knew "l'amor che move 'l
sol e l'altre stelle," was the chief, though unrecognized, calamity of his
deeply checkered life. But the reader of honor and feeling will not therefore
suppose that the love which Miss Vernon sacrifices, stooping for an instant
from her horse, is of less noble stamp, or less enduring faith, than that
which troubles and degrades the whole existence of Consuelo; or that the
affection of Jeanie Deans for the companion of her childhood, drawn like a
field of soft blue heaven beyond the cloudy wrack of her sorrow, is less
fully in possession of her soul than the hesitating and self-reproachful
impulses under which a modern heroine forgets herself in a boat, or
compromises herself in the cool of the evening.
23. I do not wish to return over the waste ground we have traversed,
comparing, point by point, Scott's manner with those of Bermondsey and
the Faubourgs; but it may be, perhaps, interesting at this moment to
examine, with illustration from those Waverley novels which have so lately
retracted the attention of a fair and gentle public,[51] the universal
conditions of "style," rightly so called, which are in all ages, and above all
local currents or wavering tides of temporary manners, pillars of what is
forever strong, and models of what is forever fair.

But I must first define, and that within strict horizon, the works of Scott, in
which his perfect mind may be known, and his chosen ways understood.
His great works of prose fiction, excepting only the first half-volume of
"Waverley," were all written in twelve years, 1814-26 (of his own age forty-
three to fifty-five), the actual time employed in their composition being not
more than a couple of months out of each year; and during that time only
the morning hours and spare minutes during the professional day. "Though
the first volume of 'Waverley' was begun long ago, and actually lost for a
time, yet the other two were begun and finished between the 4th of June and
the 1st of July, during all which I attended my duty in court, and proceeded
without loss of time or hindrance of business."[52]
Few of the maxims for the enforcement of which, in "Modern Painters,"
long ago, I got the general character of a lover of paradox, are more
singular, or more sure, than the statement, apparently so encouraging to the
idle, that if a great thing can be done at all, it can be done easily. But it is
that kind of ease with which a tree blossoms after long years of gathered
strength, and all Scott's great writings were the recreations of a mind
confirmed in dutiful labor, and rich with organic gathering of boundless
resource.
Omitting from our count the two minor and ill-finished sketches of the
"Black Dwarf" and "Legend of Montrose," and, for a reason presently to be
noticed, the unhappy "St. Ronan's," the memorable romances of Scott are
eighteen, falling into three distinct groups, containing six each.
24. The first group is distinguished from the other two by characters of
strength and felicity which never more appeared after Scott was struck
down by his terrific illness in 1819. It includes "Waverley," "Guy
Mannering," "The Antiquary," "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," and "The Heart
of Midlothian."
The composition of these occupied the mornings of his happiest days,
between the ages of forty-three and forty-eight. On the 8th of April, 1819
(he was forty-eight on the preceding 15th of August), he began for the first
time to dictate—being unable for the exertion of writing—"The Bride of
Lammermuir," "the affectionate Laidlaw beseeching him to stop dictating
when his audible suffering filled every pause. 'Nay, Willie,' he answered,

'only see that the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the cry as well as all
the wool to ourselves; but as for giving over work, that can only be when I
am in woolen.'"[53] From this time forward the brightness of joy and
sincerity of inevitable humor, which perfected the imagery of the earlier
novels, are wholly absent, except in the two short intervals of health
unaccountably restored, in which he wrote "Redgauntlet" and "Nigel."
It is strange, but only a part of the general simplicity of Scott's genius, that
these revivals of earlier power were unconscious, and that the time of
extreme weakness in which he wrote "St. Ronan's Well," was that in which
he first asserted his own restoration.
25. It is also a deeply interesting characteristic of his noble nature that he
never gains anything by sickness; the whole man breathes or faints as one
creature: the ache that stiffens a limb chills his heart, and every pang of his
stomach paralyzes the brain. It is not so with inferior minds, in the workings
of which it is often impossible to distinguish native from narcotic fancy, and
the throbs of conscience from those of indigestion. Whether in exaltation or
languor, the colors of mind are always morbid which gleam on the sea for
the "Ancient Mariner," and through the casements on "St. Agnes' Eve"; but
Scott is at once blinded and stultified by sickness; never has a fit of the
cramp without spoiling a chapter, and is perhaps the only author of vivid
imagination who never wrote a foolish word but when he was ill.
It remains only to be noticed on this point that any strong natural
excitement, affecting the deeper springs of his heart, would at once restore
his intellectual powers to their fullness, and that, far towards their sunset:
but that the strong will on which he prided himself, though it could trample
upon pain, silence grief, and compel industry, never could warm his
imagination, or clear the judgment in his darker hours.
I believe that this power of the heart over the intellect is common to all
great men: but what the special character of emotion was, that alone could
lift Scott above the power of death, I am about to ask the reader, in a little
while, to observe with joyful care.
26. The first series of romances then, above-named, are all that exhibit the
emphasis of his unharmed faculties. The second group, composed in the

three years subsequent to illness all but mortal, bear every one of them
more or less the seal of it.
They consist of the "Bride of Lammermuir," "Ivanhoe," the "Monastery,"
the "Abbot," "Kenilworth," and the "Pirate."[54] The marks of broken health
on all these are essentially twofold—prevailing melancholy, and fantastic
improbability. Three of the tales are agonizingly tragic, the "Abbot"
scarcely less so in its main event, and "Ivanhoe" deeply wounded through
all its bright panoply; while even in that most powerful of the series the
impossible archeries and ax-strokes, the incredibly opportune appearances
of Locksley, the death of Ulrica, and the resuscitation of Athelstane, are
partly boyish, partly feverish. Caleb in the "Bride," Triptolemus and Halcro
in the "Pirate," are all laborious, and the first incongruous; half a volume of
the "Abbot" is spent in extremely dull detail of Roland's relations with his
fellow-servants and his mistress, which have nothing whatever to do with
the future story; and the lady of Avenel herself disappears after the first
volume, "like a snaw-wreath when it's thaw, Jeanie." The public has for
itself pronounced on the "Monastery," though as much too harshly as it has
foolishly praised the horrors of "Ravenswood" and the nonsense of
"Ivanhoe"; because the modern public finds in the torture and adventure of
these, the kind of excitement which it seeks at an opera, while it has no
sympathy whatever with the pastoral happiness of Glendearg, or with the
lingering simplicities of superstition which give historical likelihood to the
legend of the White Lady.
But both this despised tale and its sequel have Scott's heart in them. The
first was begun to refresh himself in the intervals of artificial labor on
"Ivanhoe." "It was a relief," he said, "to interlay the scenery most familiar to
me[55] with the strange world for which I had to draw so much on
imagination." Through all the closing scenes of the second he is raised to
his own true level by his love for the queen. And within the code of Scott's
work to which I am about to appeal for illustration of his essential powers, I
accept the "Monastery" and "Abbot," and reject from it the remaining four
of this group.
27. The last series contains two quite noble ones, "Redgauntlet" and
"Nigel"; two of very high value, "Durward" and "Woodstock"; the slovenly
and diffuse "Peveril," written for the trade;[56] the sickly "Tales of the

Crusaders," and the entirely broken and diseased "St. Ronan's Well." This
last I throw out of count altogether, and of the rest, accept only the four first
named as sound work; so that the list of the novels in which I propose to
examine his methods and ideal standards, reduces itself to these following
twelve (named in order of production): "Waverley," "Guy Mannering," the
"Antiquary," "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," the "Heart of Midlothian," the
"Monastery," the "Abbot," "Redgauntlet," the "Fortunes of Nigel," "Quentin
Durward," and "Woodstock."[57]
28. It is, however, too late to enter on my subject in this article, which I may
fitly close by pointing out some of the merely verbal characteristics of his
style, illustrative in little ways of the questions we have been examining,
and chiefly of the one which may be most embarrassing to many readers,
the difference, namely, between character and disease.
One quite distinctive charm in the Waverleys is their modified use of the
Scottish dialect; but it has not generally been observed, either by their
imitators, or the authors of different taste who have written for a later
public, that there is a difference between the dialect of a language, and its
corruption.
A dialect is formed in any district where there are persons of intelligence
enough to use the language itself in all its fineness and force, but under the
particular conditions of life, climate, and temper, which introduce words
peculiar to the scenery, forms of word and idioms of sentence peculiar to
the race, and pronunciations indicative of their character and disposition.
Thus "burn" (of a streamlet) is a word possible only in a country where
there are brightly running waters, "lassie," a word possible only where girls
are as free as the rivulets, and "auld," a form of the southern "old," adopted
by a race of finer musical ear than the English.
On the contrary, mere deteriorations, or coarse, stridulent, and, in the
ordinary sense of the phrase, "broad" forms of utterance, are not dialects at
all, having nothing dialectic in them; and all phrases developed in states of
rude employment, and restricted intercourse, are injurious to the tone and
narrowing to the power of the language they affect. Mere breadth of accent
does not spoil a dialect as long as the speakers are men of varied idea and
good intelligence; but the moment the life is contracted by mining,

millwork, or any oppressive and monotonous labor, the accents and phrases
become debased. It is part of the popular folly of the day to find pleasure in
trying to write and spell these abortive, crippled, and more or less brutal
forms of human speech.
29. Abortive, crippled, or brutal, are however not necessarily "corrupted"
dialects. Corrupt language is that gathered by ignorance, invented by vice,
misused by insensibility, or minced and mouthed by affectation, especially
in the attempt to deal with words of which only half the meaning is
understood or half the sound heard. Mrs. Gamp's "aperiently so"—and the
"underminded" with primal sense of undermine, of—I forget which gossip,
in the "Mill on the Floss," are master-and mistress-pieces in this latter kind.
Mrs. Malaprop's "allegories on the banks of the Nile" are in somewhat
higher order of mistake: Mrs. Tabitha Bramble's ignorance is vulgarized by
her selfishness, and Winifred Jenkins' by her conceit. The "wot" of Noah
Claypole, and the other degradations of cockneyism (Sam Weller and his
father are in nothing more admirable than in the power of heart and sense
that can purify even these); the "trewth" of Mr. Chadband, and "natur" of
Mr. Squeers, are examples of the corruption of words by insensibility: the
use of the word "bloody" in modern low English is a deeper corruption, not
altering the form of the word, but defiling the thought in it.
Thus much being understood, I shall proceed to examine thoroughly a
fragment of Scott's Lowland Scottish dialect; not choosing it of the most
beautiful kind; on the contrary, it shall be a piece reaching as low down as
he ever allows Scotch to go—it is perhaps the only unfair patriotism in him,
that if ever he wants a word or two of really villainous slang, he gives it in
English or Dutch—not Scotch.
I had intended in the close of this paper to analyze and compare the
characters of Andrew Fairservice and Richie Moniplies, for examples, the
former of innate evil, unaffected by external influences, and undiseased, but
distinct from natural goodness as a nettle is distinct from balm or lavender;
and the latter of innate goodness, contracted and pinched by circumstance,
but still undiseased, as an oak-leaf crisped by frost, not by the worm. This,
with much else in my mind, I must put off; but the careful study of one
sentence of Andrew's will give us a good deal to think of.

30. I take his account of the rescue of Glasgow Cathedral at the time of the
Reformation.
Ah! it's a brave kirk—nane o' yere whigmaleeries an
curliewurlies and opensteek hems about it—a' solid, weel-
jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep
hands and gunpowther aff it. It had amaist a douncome lang
syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun the kirks of St.
Andrews and Perth, and thereawa', to cleanse them o' Papery,
and idolatry, and image-worship, and surplices, and sic-like rags
o' the muckle hure that sitteth on seven hills, as if ane wasna
braid eneugh for her auld hinder end. Sae the commons o'
Renfrew, and o' the Barony, and the Gorbals, and a' about, they
behoved to come into Glasgow ae fair morning, to try their hand
on purging the High Kirk o' Popish nicknackets. But the
townsmen o' Glasgow, they were feared their auld edifice might
slip the girths in gaun through siccan rough physic, sae they
rang the common bell, and assembled the train-bands wi' took o'
drum. By good luck, the worthy James Rabat was Dean o' Guild
that year—(and a gude mason he was himsell, made him the
keener to keep up the auld bigging), and the trades assembled,
and offered downright battle to the commons, rather than their
kirk should coup the crans, as others had done elsewhere. It
wasna for luve o' Paperie—na, na!—nane could ever say that o'
the trades o' Glasgow—Sae they sune came to an agreement to
take a' the idolatrous statues of sants (sorrow be on them!) out o'
their neuks—And sae the bits o' stane idols were broken in
pieces by Scripture warrant, and flung into the Molendinar burn,
and the auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the flaes are
kaimed aff her, and a'body was alike pleased. And I hae heard
wise folk say, that if the same had been done in ilka kirk in
Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e'en now,
and we wad hae mair Christianlike kirks; for I hae been sae lang
in England, that naething will drived out o' my head, that the
dog-kennel at Osbaldistone-Hall is better than mony a house o'
God in Scotland.

31. Now this sentence is in the first place a piece of Scottish history of quite
inestimable and concentrated value. Andrew's temperament is the type of a
vast class of Scottish—shall we call it "sow-thistlian"—mind, which
necessarily takes the view of either Pope or saint that the thistle in Lebanon
took of the cedar or lilies in Lebanon; and the entire force of the passions
which, in the Scottish revolution, foretold and forearmed the French one, is
told in this one paragraph; the coarseness of it, observe, being admitted, not
for the sake of the laugh, any more than an onion in broth merely for its
flavor, but for the meat of it; the inherent constancy of that coarseness being
a fact in this order of mind, and an essential part of the history to be told.
Secondly, observe that this speech, in the religious passion of it, such as
there may be, is entirely sincere. Andrew is a thief, a liar, a coward, and, in
the Fair service from which he takes his name, a hypocrite; but in the form
of prejudice, which is all that his mind is capable of in the place of religion,
he is entirely sincere. He does not in the least pretend detestation of image
worship to please his master, or anyone else; he honestly scorns the "carnal
morality[58] as dowd and fusionless as rue-leaves at Yule" of the sermon in
the upper cathedral; and when wrapt in critical attention to the "real savor o'
doctrine" in the crypt, so completely forgets the hypocrisy of his fair service
as to return his master's attempt to disturb him with hard punches of the
elbow.
Thirdly. He is a man of no mean sagacity, quite up to the average standard
of Scottish common sense, not a low one; and, though incapable of
understanding any manner of lofty thought or passion, is a shrewd measurer
of weaknesses, and not without a spark or two of kindly feeling. See first
his sketch of his master's character to Mr. Hammorgaw, beginning: "He's no
a'thegither sae void o' sense, neither"; and then the close of the dialogue:
"But the lad's no a bad lad after a', and he needs some careful body to look
after him."
Fourthly. He is a good workman; knows his own business well, and can
judge of other craft, if sound, or otherwise.
All these four qualities of him must be known before we can understand
this single speech. Keeping them in mind, I take it up, word by word.

32. You observe, in the outset, Scott makes no attempt whatever to indicate
accents or modes of pronunciation by changed spelling, unless the word
becomes a quite definitely new, and securely writable one. The Scottish
way of pronouncing "James," for instance, is entirely peculiar, and
extremely pleasant to the ear. But it is so, just because it does not change
the word into Jeems, nor into Jims, nor into Jawms. A modern writer of
dialects would think it amusing to use one or other of these ugly spellings.
But Scott writes the name in pure English, knowing that a Scots reader will
speak it rightly, and an English one be wise in letting it alone. On the other
hand he writes "weel" for "well," because that word is complete in its
change, and may be very closely expressed by the double e. The ambiguous
u's in "gude" and "sune" are admitted, because far liker the sound than the
double o would be, and that in "hure," for grace' sake, to soften the word; so
also "flaes" for "fleas." "Mony" for "many" is again positively right in
sound, and "neuk" differs from our "nook" in sense, and is not the same
word at all, as we shall presently see.
Secondly, observe, not a word is corrupted in any indecent haste, slowness,
slovenliness, or incapacity of pronunciation. There is no lisping, drawling,
slobbering, or snuffling: the speech is as clear as a bell and as keen as an
arrow: and its elisions and contractions are either melodious, ("na," for
"not,"—"pu'd," for "pulled,") or as normal as in a Latin verse. The long
words are delivered without the slightest bungling; and "bigging" finished
to its last g.
33. I take the important words now in their places.
Brave. The old English sense of the word in "to go brave," retained,
expressing Andrew's sincere and respectful admiration. Had he meant to
insinuate a hint of the church's being too fine, he would have said "braw."
Kirk. This is of course just as pure and unprovincial a word as "Kirche," or
"église."
Whigmaleerie. I cannot get at the root of this word, but it is one showing
that the speaker is not bound by classic rules, but will use any syllables that
will enrich his meaning. "Nipperty-tipperty" (of his master's "poetry-
nonsense") is another word of the same class. "Curliewurlie" is of course

just as pure as Shakespeare's "Hurlyburly." But see first suggestion of the
idea to Scott at Blair-Adam (L. vi. 264).
Opensteek hems. More description, or better, of the later Gothic cannot be
put into four syllables. "Steek," melodious for stitch, has a combined sense
of closing or fastening. And note that the later Gothic being precisely what
Scott knew best (in Melrose) and liked best, it is, here as elsewhere, quite as
much himself[59] as Frank, that he is laughing at, when he laughs with
Andrew, whose "opensteek hems" are only a ruder metaphor for his own
"willow-wreaths changed to stone."
Gunpowther. "-Ther" is a lingering vestige of the French "-dre."
Syne. One of the melodious and mysterious Scottish words which have
partly the sound of wind and stream in them, and partly the range of
softened idea which is like a distance of blue hills over border land ("far in
the distant Cheviot's blue"). Perhaps even the least sympathetic "Englisher"
might recognize this, if he heard "Old Long Since" vocally substituted for
the Scottish words to the air. I do not know the root; but the word's proper
meaning is not "since," but before or after an interval of some duration, "as
weel sune as syne." "But first on Sawnie gies a ca', Syne, bauldly in she
enters."
Behoved (to come). A rich word, with peculiar idiom, always used more or
less ironically of anything done under a partly mistaken and partly
pretended notion of duty.
Siccan. Far prettier, and fuller in meaning than "such." It contains an added
sense of wonder; and means properly "so great" or "so unusual."
Took (o' drum). Classical "tuck" from Italian "toccata," the preluding
"touch" or flourish, on any instrument (but see Johnson under word
"tucket," quoting "Othello"). The deeper Scottish vowels are used here to
mark the deeper sound of the bass drum, as in more solemn warning.
Bigging. The only word in all the sentence of which the Scottish form is
less melodious than the English, "and what for no," seeing that Scottish
architecture is mostly little beyond Bessie Bell's and Mary Gray's? "They
biggit a bow're by yon burnside, and theekit it ow're wi' rashes." But it is

pure Anglo-Saxon in roots; see glossary to Fairbairn's edition of the
Douglas "Virgil," 1710.
Coup. Another of the much-embracing words; short for "upset," but with a
sense of awkwardness as the inherent cause of fall; compare Richie
Moniplies (also for sense of "behoved"): "Ae auld hirplin deevil of a potter
behoved just to step in my way, and offer me a pig (earthen pot—etym.
dub.), as he said 'just to put my Scotch ointment in'; and I gave him a push,
as but natural, and the tottering deevil coupit owre amang his own pigs, and
damaged a score of them." So also Dandie Dinmont in the postchaise: "'Od!
I hope they'll no coup us."
The Crans. Idiomatic; root unknown to me, but it means in this use, fall
total, and without recovery.[60]
Molendinar. From "molendinum," the grinding-place. I do not know if
actually the local name,[61] or Scott's invention. Compare Sir Piercie's
"Molinaras." But at all events used here with by-sense of degradation of the
formerly idle saints to grind at the mill.
Crouse. Courageous, softened with a sense of comfort.
Ilka. Again a word with azure distance, including the whole sense of "each"
and "every." The reader must carefully and reverently distinguish these
comprehensive words, which gather two or more perfectly understood
meanings into one chord of meaning, and are harmonies more than words,
from the above-noted blunders between two half-hit meanings, struck as a
bad piano-player strikes the edge of another note. In English we have fewer
of these combined thoughts; so that Shakespeare rather plays with the
distinct lights of his words, than melts them into one. So again Bishop
Douglas spells, and doubtless spoke, the word "rose," differently, according
to his purpose; if as the chief or governing ruler of flowers, "rois," but if
only in her own beauty, rose.
Christianlike. The sense of the decency and order proper to Christianity is
stronger in Scotland than in any other country, and the word "Christian"
more distinctly opposed to "beast." Hence the back-handed cut at the
English for their over-pious care of dogs.

34. I am a little surprised myself at the length to which this examination of
one small piece of Sir Walter's first-rate work has carried us, but here I must
end for this time, trusting, if the Editor of the Nineteenth Century permit
me, yet to trespass, perhaps more than once, on his readers' patience; but, at
all events, to examine in a following paper the technical characteristics of
Scott's own style, both in prose and verse, together with Byron's, as
opposed to our fashionably recent dialects and rhythms; the essential virtues
of language, in both the masters of the old school, hinging ultimately, little
as it might be thought, on certain unalterable views of theirs concerning the
code called "of the Ten Commandments," wholly at variance with the
dogmas of automatic morality which, summed again by the witches' line,
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair," hover through the fog and filthy air of our
prosperous England.

FOOTNOTES:
[37] Nineteenth Century, June, 1880.
[38] See Time and Tide, § 72.—Ed.
[39] Nell, in the "Old Curiosity Shop," was simply killed for the market, as a
butcher kills a lamb (see Forster's "Life,") and Paul was written under the same
conditions of illness which affected Scott—a part of the ominous palsies,
grasping alike author and subject both in "Dombey" and "Little Dorrit."
[40] "Chourineur" not striking with dagger-point, but ripping with knife-edge.
Yet I do him, and La Louve, injustice in classing them with the two others; they
are put together only as parts in the same phantasm. Compare with La Louve,
the strength of wild virtue in the "Louvécienne" (Lucienne) of Gaboriau—she,
province-born and bred; and opposed to Parisian civilization in the character of
her seamstress friend. "De ce Paris, où elle était née, elle savait tout—elle
connaissait tout. Rien ne l'étonnait, nul ne l'intimidait. Sa science des détails
matériels de l'existence était inconcevable. Impossible de la duper!—Eh bien!
cette fille si laborieuse et si économe n'avait même pas la plus vague notion des
sentiments qui sont l'honneur de la femme. Je n'avais pas idée d'une si complète
absence de sens moral; d'une si inconscience dépravation, d'une impudence si
effrontément naïve."—"L'Argent des autres," vol. i. p. 358.
[41] The reader who cares to seek it may easily find medical evidence of the
physical effects of certain states of brain disease in producing especially images
of truncated and Hermes-like deformity, complicated with grossness. Horace, in
the "Epodes," scoffs at it, but not without horror. Luca Signorelli and Raphael in
their arabesques are deeply struck by it: Dürer, defying and playing with it
alternately, is almost beaten down again and again in the distorted faces, hewing
halberts, and suspended satyrs of his arabesques round the polyglot Lord's

Prayer; it takes entire possession of Balzac in the "Contes Drolatiques"; it struck
Scott in the earliest days of his childish "visions" intensified by the ax-stroke
murder of his grand aunt (L. i. 142, and see close of this note). It chose for him
the subject of the "Heart of Midlothian," and produced afterwards all the
recurrent ideas of executions, tainting "Nigel," almost spoiling "Quentin
Durward"—utterly the "Fair Maid of Perth": and culminating in "Bizarro" (L. x.
149). It suggested all the deaths by falling, or sinking, as in delirious sleep—
Kennedy, Eveline Neville (nearly repeated in Clara Mowbray), Amy Robsart, the
Master of Ravenswood in the quicksand, Morris, and Corporal Grace-be-here—
compare the dream of Gride, in "Nicholas Nickleby," and Dickens's own last
words, on the ground (so also, in my own inflammation of the brain, two years
ago, I dreamed that I fell through the earth and came out on the other side). In its
grotesque and distorting power, it produced all the figures of the Lay Goblin,
Pacolet, Flibbertigibbet, Cockledemoy, Geoffrey Hudson, Fenella, and
Nectabanus; in Dickens it in like manner gives Quilp, Krook, Smike,
Smallweed, Miss Mowcher, and the dwarfs and wax-work of Nell's caravan; and
runs entirely wild in "Barnaby Budge," where, with a corps de drame composed
of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman-fool who is also a villain, a shop-boy
fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, a shriveled virago, and a doll in
ribbons—carrying this company through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman,
one of the madmen, his mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman-fool through in
a bloody duel, and burns and crushes the shop-boy fool into shapelessness, he
cannot yet be content without shooting the spare lover's leg off, and marrying
him to the doll in a wooden one; the shapeless shop-boy being finally also
married in two wooden ones. It is this mutilation, observe, which is the very sign
manual of the plague; joined, in the artistic forms of it, with a love of thorniness
—(in their mystic root, the truncation of the limbless serpent and the spines of
the dragon's wing. Compare "Modern Painters," vol. iv., "Chapter on the
Mountain Gloom," s. 19); and in all forms of it, with petrifaction or loss of
power by cold in the blood, whence the last Darwinian process of the witches'
charm—"cool it with a baboon's blood, then the charm is firm and good." The
two frescoes in the colossal handbills which have lately decorated the streets of
London (the baboon with the mirror, and the Maskelyne and Cooke decapitation)
are the final English forms of Raphael's arabesque under this influence; and it is
well worth while to get the number for the week ending April 3, 1880, of "Young
Folks—a magazine of instructive and entertaining literature for boys and girls of
all ages," containing "A Sequel to Desdichado" (the modern development of
Ivanhoe), in which a quite monumental example of the kind of art in question
will be found as a leading illustration of this characteristic sentence, "See, good
Cerberus," said Sir Rupert, "my hand has been struck off. You must make me a
hand of iron, one with springs in it, so that I can make it grasp a dagger." The
text is also, as it professes to be, instructive; being the ultimate degeneration of
what I have above called the "folly" of "Ivanhoe"; for the folly begets folly
down, and down; and whatever Scott and Turner did wrong has thousands of
imitators—their wisdom none will so much as hear, how much less follow!
In both of the Masters, it is always to be remembered that the evil and good are
alike conditions of literal vision: and therefore also, inseparably connected with
the state of the health. I believe the first elements of all Scott's errors were in the
milk of his consumptive nurse, which all but killed him as an infant (L. i. 19)—
and was without doubt the cause of the teething fever that ended in his lameness

(L. i. 20). Then came (if the reader cares to know what I mean by "Fors," let him
read the page carefully) the fearful accidents to his only sister, and her death (L.
i. 17); then the madness of his nurse, who planned his own murder (21), then the
stories continually told him of the executions at Carlisle (24), his aunt's husband
having seen them; issuing, he himself scarcely knows how, in the unaccountable
terror that came upon him at the sight of statuary (31)—especially Jacob's
ladder; then the murder of Mrs. Swinton, and finally the nearly fatal bursting of
the blood vessel at Kelso, with the succeeding nervous illness (65-67)—solaced,
while he was being "bled and blistered till he had scarcely a pulse left," by that
history of the Knights of Malta—fondly dwelt on and realized by actual
modeling of their fortress, which returned to his mind for the theme of its last
effort in passing away.
[42] "Se dit par dénigrement, d'un chrétien qui ne croit pas les dogmes de sa
religion."—Fleming, vol. ii. p. 659.
[43] The novel alluded to is "The Mill on the Floss." See below, p. 272, § 108.—
Ed .
[44] "A son nom," properly. The sentence is one of Victor Cherbuliez's, in
"Prosper Randoce," which is full of other valuable ones. See the old nurse's "ici
bas les choses vont de travers, comme un chien qui va à vêpres," p. 93; and
compare Prosper's treasures, "la petite Vénus, et le petit Christ d'ivoire," p. 121;
also Madame Brehanne's request for the divertissement of "quelque belle
batterie à coups de couteau" with Didier's answer. "Hélas! madame, vous jouez
de malheur, ici dans la Drôme, l'on se massacre aussi peu que possible," p. 33.
[45] Edgeworth's "Tales," (Hunter, 1827), "Harrington and Ormond," vol. iii. p.
260.
[46] Alice of Salisbury, Alice Lee, Alice Bridgnorth.
[47] Scott's father was habitually ascetic. "I have heard his son tell that it was
common with him, if any one observed that the soup was good, to taste it again,
and say, 'Yes—it is too good, bairns,' and dash a tumbler of cold water into his
plate."—Lockhart's "Life" (Black, Edinburgh, 1869), vol. i. p. 312. In other
places I refer to this book in the simple form of "L."
[48] A young lady sang to me, just before I copied out this page for press, a Miss
Somebody's "great song," "Live, and Love, and Die." Had it been written for
nothing better than silkworms, it should at least have added—Spin.
[49] See passage of introduction to "Ivanhoe," wisely quoted in L. vi. 106.
[50] See below, note, p. 199, on the conclusion of "Woodstock."
[51] The reference is to a series of "Waverley Tableaux" given in London shortly
before the publication of this paper.—Ed.
[52] L. iv. 177.
[53] L. vi. 67.
[54] "One other such novel, and there's an end; but who can last forever? who
ever lasted so long?"—Sydney Smith (of the Pirate) to Jeffrey, December 30,

1821. (Letters, vol. ii. p. 223.)
[55] L. vi. p. 188. Compare the description of Fairy Dean, vii. 192.
[56] All, alas! were now in a great measure so written. "Ivanhoe," "The
Monastery," "The Abbot," and "Kenilworth" were all published between
December 1819 and January 1821, Constable & Co. giving five thousand
guineas for the remaining copyright of them, Scott clearing ten thousand before
the bargain was completed; and before the "Fortunes of Nigel" issued from the
press Scott had exchanged instruments and received his bookseller's bills for no
less than four "works of fiction," not one of them otherwise described in the
deeds of agreement, to be produced in unbroken succession, each of them to fill
up at least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to increase of copy
money in case any of them should run to four; and within two years all this
anticipation had been wiped off by "Peveril of the Peak," "Quentin Durward,"
"St. Ronan's Well," and "Redgauntlet."
[57] "Woodstock" was finished 26th March, 1826. He knew then of his ruin; and
wrote in bitterness, but not in weakness. The closing pages are the most beautiful
of the book. But a month afterwards Lady Scott died; and he never wrote glad
word more.
[58] Compare Mr. Spurgeon's not unfrequent orations on the same subject.
[59] There are three definite and intentional portraits of himself, in the novels,
each giving a separate part of himself: Mr. Oldbuck, Frank Osbaldistone, and
Alan Fairford.
[60] See note, p. 224.—Ed.
[61] Andrew knows Latin, and might have coined the word in his conceit; but,
writing to a kind friend in Glasgow, I find the brook was called "Molyndona"
even before the building of the Subdean Mill in 1446. See also account of the
locality in Mr. George's admirable volume, "Old Glasgow," pp. 129, 149, etc.
The Protestantism of Glasgow, since throwing that powder of saints into her
brook Kidron, has presented it with other pious offerings; and my friend goes on
to say that the brook, once famed for the purity of its waters (much used for
bleaching), "has for nearly a hundred years been a crawling stream of
loathsomeness. It is now bricked over, and a carriage-way made on the top of it;
underneath the foul mess still passes through the heart of the city, till it falls into
the Clyde close to the harbor."

FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL.[62]
II.

35. "He hated greetings in the market-place, and there were generally
loiterers in the streets to persecute him either about the events of the day, or
about some petty pieces of business."
These lines, which the reader will find near the beginning of the sixteenth
chapter of the first volume of the "Antiquary," contain two indications of
the old man's character, which, receiving the ideal of him as a portrait of
Scott himself, are of extreme interest to me. They mean essentially that
neither Monkbarns nor Scott had any mind to be called of men, Rabbi, in
mere hearing of the mob; and especially that they hated to be drawn back
out of their far-away thoughts, or forward out of their long-ago thoughts, by
any manner of "daily" news, whether printed or gabbled. Of which two vital
characteristics, deeper in both men, (for I must always speak of Scott's
creations as if they were as real as himself,) than any of their superficial
vanities, or passing enthusiasms, I have to speak more at another time. I
quote the passage just now, because there was one piece of the daily news
of the year 1815 which did extremely interest Scott, and materially direct
the labor of the latter part of his life; nor is there any piece of history in this
whole nineteenth century quite so pregnant with various instruction as the
study of the reasons which influenced Scott and Byron in their opposite
views of the glories of the battle of Waterloo.
36. But I quote it for another reason also. The principal greeting which Mr.
Oldbuck on this occasion receives in the market-place, being compared
with the speech of Andrew Fairservice, examined in my first paper, will
furnish me with the text of what I have mainly to say in the present one.

"'Mr. Oldbuck,' said the town-clerk (a more important person,
who came in front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), 'the
provost, understanding you were in town, begs on no account
that you'll quit it without seeing him; he wants to speak to ye
about bringing the water frae the Fairwell spring through a part
o' your lands.'
"'What the deuce!—have they nobody's land but mine to cut and
carve on?—I won't consent, tell them.'
"'And the provost,' said the clerk, going on, without noticing the
rebuff, 'and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae
the auld stanes at Donagild's Chapel, that ye was wussing to
hae.'
"'Eh?—what?—Oho! that's another story—Well, well, I'll call
upon the provost, and we'll talk about it.'
"'But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye
want the stanes; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved
through-stanes might be put with advantage on the front of the
new council house—that is, the twa cross-legged figures that the
callants used to ca' Robbin and Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek;
and the other stane, that they ca'd Ailie Dailie, abune the door. It
will be very tastefu', the Deacon says, and just in the style of
modern Gothic.'
"'Good Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!' exclaimed
the Antiquary,—'a monument of a knight-templar on each side
of a Grecian porch, and a Madonna on the top of it!—O crimini!
—Well, tell the provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not
differ about the water-course.—It's lucky I happened to come
this way to-day.'
"They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most
reason to exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole
proposal of an exchange between the monuments (which the
council had determined to remove as a nuisance, because they
encroached three feet upon the public road) and the privilege of

conveying the water to the burgh, through the estate of
Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon
the pressure of the moment."
37. In this single page of Scott, will the reader please note the kind of
prophetic instinct with which the great men of every age mark and forecast
its destinies? The water from the Fairwell is the future Thirlmere carried to
Manchester; the "auld stanes"[63] at Donagild's Chapel, removed as a
nuisance, foretell the necessary view taken by modern cockneyism,
Liberalism, and progress, of all things that remind them of the noble dead,
of their fathers' fame, or of their own duty; and the public road becomes
their idol, instead of the saint's shrine. Finally, the roguery of the entire
transaction—the mean man seeing the weakness of the honorable, and
"besting" him—in modern slang, in the manner and at the pace of modern
trade—"on the pressure of the moment."
But neither are these things what I have at present quoted the passage for.
I quote it, that we may consider how much wonderful and various history is
gathered in the fact recorded for us in this piece of entirely fair fiction, that
in the Scottish borough of Fairport (Montrose, really), in the year 17—of
Christ, the knowledge given by the pastors and teachers provided for its
children by enlightened Scottish Protestantism, of their fathers' history, and
the origin of their religion, had resulted in this substance and sum;—that the
statues of two crusading knights had become, to their children, Bobbin and
Bobbin; and the statue of the Madonna, Ailie Dailie.
A marvelous piece of history, truly: and far too comprehensive for general
comment here. Only one small piece of it I must carry forward the readers'
thoughts upon.
38. The pastors and teachers aforesaid, (represented typically in another part
of this errorless book by Mr. Blattergowl,) are not, whatever else they may
have to answer for, answerable for these names. The names are of the
children's own choosing and bestowing, but not of the children's own
inventing. "Robin" is a classically endearing cognomen, recording the
errant heroism of old days—the name of the Bruce and of Rob Roy.
"Bobbin" is a poetical and symmetrical fulfillment and adornment of the
original phrase. "Ailie" is the last echo of "Ave," changed into the softest

Scottish Christian name familiar to the children, itself the beautiful
feminine form of royal "Louis"; the "Dailie" again symmetrically added for
kinder and more musical endearment. The last vestiges, you see, of honor
for the heroism and religion of their ancestors, lingering on the lips of babes
and sucklings.
But what is the meaning of this necessity the children find themselves under
of completing the nomenclature rhythmically and rhymingly? Note first the
difference carefully, and the attainment of both qualities by the couplets in
question. Rhythm is the syllabic and quantitative measure of the words, in
which Robin both in weight and time, balances Bobbin; and Dailie holds
level scale with Ailie. But rhyme is the added correspondence of sound;
unknown and undesired, so far as we can learn, by the Greek Orpheus, but
absolutely essential to, and, as special virtue, becoming titular of, the
Scottish Thomas.

39. The "Ryme,"[64] you may at first fancy, is the especially childish part of
the work. Not so. It is the especially chivalric and Christian part of it. It
characterizes the Christian chant or canticle, as a higher thing than a Greek
ode, melos, or hymnos, or than a Latin carmen.
Think of it; for this again is wonderful! That these children of Montrose
should have an element of music in their souls which Homer had not,—
which a melos of David the Prophet and King had not,—which Orpheus
and Amphion had not,—which Apollo's unrymed oracles became mute at
the sound of.
A strange new equity this,—melodious justice and judgment, as it were,—in
all words spoken solemnly and ritualistically by Christian human creatures;
—Robin and Bobbin—by the Crusader's tomb, up to "Dies iræ, dies illa," at
judgment of the crusading soul.
You have to understand this most deeply of all Christian minstrels, from
first to last; that they are more musical, because more joyful, than any
others on earth: ethereal minstrels, pilgrims of the sky, true to the kindred
points of heaven and home; their joy essentially the sky-lark's, in light, in
purity; but, with their human eyes, looking for the glorious appearing of
something in the sky, which the bird cannot.

This it is that changes Etruscan murmur into Terza rima—Horatian Latin
into Provençal troubadour's melody; not, because less artful, less wise.
40. Here is a little bit, for instance, of French ryming just before Chaucer's
time—near enough to our own French to be intelligible to us yet.
"O quant très-glorieuse vie,
Quant cil qui tout peut et maistrie,
Veult esprouver pour nécessaire,
Ne pour quant il ne blasma mie
La vie de Marthe sa mie:
Mais il lui donna exemplaire
D'autrement vivre, et de bien plaire
A Dieu; et plut de bien à faire:
Pour se conclut-il que Marie
Qui estoit à ses piedz sans braire,
Et pensoit d'entendre et de taire,
Estleut la plus saine partie.

La meilleur partie esleut-elle
Et la plus saine et la plus belle,
Qui jà ne luy sera ostée
Car par vérité se fut celle
Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle,
D'aymer Dieu et d'en estre aymée;
Car jusqu'au cueur fut entamée,
Et si ardamment enflamée,
Que tousjours ardoit I'estincelle;
Par quoi elle fut visitée
Et de Dieu premier confortée;
Car charité est trop ysnelle."
41. The only law of meter, observed in this song, is that each line shall be
octosyllabic:

Qui fut | tousjours | fresche et | nouvelle,
D'autre | ment vi | vret de | bien (ben) plaire

Et pen | soit den | tendret | de taire.

But the reader must note that words which were two-syllabled in Latin
mostly remain yet so in the French.

La vi | e de | Marthe | sa mie,

although mie, which is pet language, loving abbreviation of amica through
amie, remains monosyllabic. But vie elides its e before a vowel:

Car Mar- | the me | nait vie | active
Et Ma- | ri-e | contemp | lative;

and custom endures many exceptions. Thus Marie may be three-syllabled,
as above, or answer to mie as a dissyllable; but vierge is always, I think,
dissyllabic, vier-ge, with even stronger accent on the -ge, for the Latin -go.
Then, secondly, of quantity, there is scarcely any fixed law. The meters may
be timed as the minstrel chooses—fast or slow—and the iambic current
checked in reverted eddy, as the words chance to come.
But, thirdly, there is to be rich ryming and chiming, no matter how simply
got, so only that the words jingle and tingle together with due art of
interlacing and answering in different parts of the stanza, correspondent to
the involutions of tracery and illumination. The whole twelve-line stanza is
thus constructed with two rymes only, six of each, thus arranged:

AA B | AA B | B B A | B B A |

dividing the verse thus into four measures, reversed in ascent and descent,
or descant more properly; and doubtless with correspondent phases in the
voice-given, and duly accompanying, or following, music; Thomas the
Rymer's own precept, that "tong is chefe in mynstrelsye," being always kept
faithfully in mind.[65]
42. Here then you have a sufficient example of the pure chant of the
Christian ages; which is always at heart joyful, and divides itself into the
four great forms; Song of Praise, Song of Prayer, Song of Love, and Song
of Battle; praise, however, being the keynote of passion through all the four
forms; according to the first law which I have already given in the "Laws of
Fésole"; "all great Art is Praise," of which the contrary is also true, all foul
or miscreant Art is accusation, διαβολἱ: "She gave me of the tree and I did
eat" being an entirely museless expression on Adam's part, the briefly
essential contrary of Love-song.
With these four perfect forms of Christian chant, of which we may take for
pure examples the "Te Deum," the "Te Lucis Ante," the "Amor che nella
mente,"[66] and the "Chant de Roland," are mingled songs of mourning, of
Pagan origin (whether Greek or Danish), holding grasp still of the races that
have once learned them, in times of suffering and sorrow; and songs of
Christian humiliation or grief, regarding chiefly the sufferings of Christ, or
the conditions of our own sin: while through the entire system of these
musical complaints are interwoven moralities, instructions, and related
histories, in illustration of both, passing into Epic and Romantic verse,
which gradually, as the forms and learnings of society increase, becomes
less joyful, and more didactic, or satiric, until the last echoes of Christian
joy and melody vanish in the "Vanity of human wishes."
43. And here I must pause for a minute or two to separate the different
branches of our inquiry clearly from one another. For one thing, the reader
must please put for the present out of his head all thought of the progress of
"civilization"—that is to say, broadly, of the substitution of wigs for hair,
gas for candles, and steam for legs. This is an entirely distinct matter from
the phases of policy and religion. It has nothing to do with the British
Constitution, or the French Revolution, or the unification of Italy. There are,
indeed, certain subtle relations between the state of mind, for instance, in
Venice, which makes her prefer a steamer to a gondola, and that which

makes her prefer a gazetteer to a duke; but these relations are not at all to be
dealt with until we solemnly understand that whether men shall be
Christians and poets, or infidels and dunces, does not depend on the way
they cut their hair, tie their breeches, or light their fires. Dr. Johnson might
have worn his wig in fullness conforming to his dignity, without therefore
coming to the conclusion that human wishes were vain; nor is Queen
Antoinette's civilized hair-powder, as opposed to Queen Bertha's savagely
loose hair, the cause of Antoinette's laying her head at last in scaffold dust,
but Bertha in a pilgrim-haunted tomb.
44. Again, I have just now used the words "poet" and "dunce," meaning the
degree of each quality possible to average human nature. Men are eternally
divided into the two classes of poet (believer, maker, and praiser) and dunce
(or unbeliever, unmaker, and dispraiser). And in process of ages they have
the power of making faithful and formative creatures of themselves, or
unfaithful and de-formative. And this distinction between the creatures who,
blessing, are blessed, and evermore benedicti, and the creatures who,
cursing, are cursed, and evermore maledicti, is one going through all
humanity; antediluvian in Cain and Abel, diluvian in Ham and Shem. And
the question for the public of any given period is not whether they are a
constitutional or unconstitutional vulgus, but whether they are a benignant
or malignant vulgus. So also, whether it is indeed the gods who have given
any gentleman the grace to despise the rabble, depends wholly on whether it
is indeed the rabble, or he, who are the malignant persons.
45. But yet again. This difference between the persons to whom Heaven,
according to Orpheus, has granted "the hour of delight,"[67] and those whom
it has condemned to the hour of detestableness, being, as I have just said, of
all times and nations,—it is an interior and more delicate difference which
we are examining in the gift of Christian as distinguished from unchristian,
song. Orpheus, Pindar, and Horace are indeed distinct from the prosaic
rabble, as the bird from the snake; but between Orpheus and Palestrina,
Horace and Sidney, there is another division, and a new power of music and
song given to the humanity which has hope of the Resurrection.
This is the root of all life and all rightness in Christian harmony, whether of
word or instrument; and so literally, that in precise manner as this hope
disappears, the power of song is taken away, and taken away utterly. "When

the Christian falls back out of the bright hope of the Resurrection, even the
Orpheus song is forbidden him. Not to have known the hope is blameless:
one may sing, unknowing, as the swan, or Philomela. But to have known
and fall away from it, and to declare that the human wishes, which are
summed in that one—"Thy kingdom come"—are vain! The Fates ordain
there shall be no singing after that denial.
46. For observe this, and earnestly. The old Orphic song, with its dim hope
of yet once more Eurydice,—the Philomela song—granted after the cruel
silence,—the Halcyon song—with its fifteen days of peace, were all sad, or
joyful only in some vague vision of conquest over death. But the
Johnsonian vanity of wishes is on the whole satisfactory to Johnson—
accepted with gentlemanly resignation by Pope—triumphantly and with
bray of penny trumpets and blowing of steam-whistles, proclaimed for the
glorious discovery of the civilized ages, by Mrs. Barbauld, Miss
Edgeworth, Adam Smith, and Co. There is no God, but have we not
invented gunpowder?—who wants a God, with that in his pocket?[68] There
is no Resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but have we not paper and pens,
and cannot every blockhead print his opinions, and the Day of Judgment
become Republican, with everybody for a judge, and the flat of the universe
for the throne? There is no law, but only gravitation and congelation, and
we are stuck together in an everlasting hail, and melted together in
everlasting mud, and great was the day in which our worships were born.
And there is no gospel, but only, whatever we've got, to get more, and,
wherever we are, to go somewhere else. And are not these discoveries, to be
sung of, and drummed of, and fiddled of, and generally made melodiously
indubitable in the eighteenth century song of praise?
47. The Fates will not have it so. No word of song is possible, in that
century, to mortal lips. Only polished versification, sententious pentameter
and hexameter, until, having turned out its toes long enough without
dancing, and pattered with its lips long enough without piping, suddenly
Astræa returns to the earth, and a Day of Judgment of a sort, and there
bursts out a song at last again, a most curtly melodious triplet of
Amphisbænic ryme, "Ça ira."
Amphisbænic, fanged in each ryme with fire, and obeying Ercildoune's
precept, "Tong is chefe of mynstrelsye," to the syllable.—Don Giovanni's

hitherto fondly chanted "Andiam, andiam," become suddenly impersonal
and prophetic: It shall go, and you also. A cry—before it is a song, then
song and accompaniment together—perfectly done; and the march "towards
the field of Mars. The two hundred and fifty thousand—they to the sound of
stringed music—preceded by young girls with tricolor streamers, they have
shouldered soldierwise their shovels and picks, and with one throat are
singing Ça ira."[69]
Through all the springtime of 1790, from Brittany to Burgundy, on most
plains of France, under most city walls, there march and constitutionally
wheel to the Ça-iraing mood of fife and drum—our clear glancing
phalanxes;—the song of the two hundred and fifty thousand, virgin-led, is
in the long light of July. Nevertheless, another song is yet needed, for
phalanx, and for maid. For, two springs and summers having gone—
amphisbænic,—on the 28th of August, 1792, "Dumouriez rode from the
camp of Maulde, eastwards to Sedan."[70]
48. "And Longwi has fallen basely, and Brunswick and the Prussian king
will beleaguer Verdun, and Clairfait and the Austrians press deeper in over
the northern marches, Cimmerian Europe behind. And on that same night
Dumouriez assembles council of war at his lodgings in Sedan. Prussians
here, Austrians there, triumphant both. With broad highway to Paris and
little hindrance—we scattered, helpless here and there—what to advise?"
The generals advise retreating, and retreating till Paris be sacked at the
latest day possible. Dumouriez, silent, dismisses them,—keeps only, with a
sign, Thouvenot. Silent thus, when needful, yet having voice, it appears, of
what musicians call tenor quality, of a rare kind. Rubini-esque, even, but
scarcely producible to the fastidious ears at opera. The seizure of the forest
of Argonne follows—the cannonade of Valmy. The Prussians do not march
on Paris this time, the autumnal hours of fate pass on—ça ira—and on the
6th of November, Dumouriez meets the Austrians also. "Dumouriez wide-
winged, they wide-winged—at and around Jemappes, its green heights
fringed and maned with red fire. And Dumouriez is swept back on this wing
and swept back on that, and is like to be swept back utterly, when he rushes
up in person, speaks a prompt word or two, and then, with clear tenor-pipe,
uplifts the hymn of the Marseillaise, ten thousand tenor or bass pipes
joining, or say some forty thousand in all, for every heart leaps up at the
sound; and so, with rhythmic march melody, they rally, they advance, they

rush death-defying, and like the fire whirlwind sweep all manner of
Austrians from the scene of action." Thus, through the lips of Dumouriez,
sings Tyrtæus, Rouget de Lisle.[71] "Aux armes—marchons." Iambic
measure with a witness! in what wide strophe here beginning—in what
unthought-of antistrophe returning to that council chamber in Sedan!
49. While these two great songs were thus being composed, and sung, and
danced to in cometary cycle, by the French nation, here in our less giddy
island there rose, amidst hours of business in Scotland and of idleness in
England, three troubadours of quite different temper. Different also
themselves, but not opponent; forming a perfect chord, and adverse all the
three of them alike to the French musicians, in this main point—that while
the Ca ira and Marseillaise were essentially songs of blame and wrath, the
British bards wrote, virtually, always songs of praise, though by no means
psalmody in the ancient keys. On the contrary, all the three are alike moved
by a singular antipathy to the priests, and are pointed at with fear and
indignation by the pietists, of their day;—not without latent cause. For they
are all of them, with the most loving service, servants of that world which
the Puritan and monk alike despised; and, in the triple chord of their song,
could not but appear to the religious persons around them as respectively
and specifically the praisers—Scott of the world, Burns of the flesh, and
Byron of the devil.
To contend with this carnal orchestra, the religious world, having long ago
rejected its Catholic Psalms as antiquated and unscientific, and finding its
Puritan melodies sunk into faint jar and twangle from their native trumpet-
tone, had nothing to oppose but the innocent, rather than religious, verses of
the school recognized as that of the English Lakes; very creditable to them;
domestic at once and refined; observing the errors of the world outside of
the Lakes with a pitying and tender indignation, and arriving in lacustrine
seclusion at many valuable principles of philosophy, as pure as the tarns of
their mountains, and of corresponding depth.[72]
50. I have lately seen, and with extreme pleasure, Mr. Matthew Arnold's
arrangement of Wordsworth's poems; and read with sincere interest his high
estimate of them. But a great poet's work never needs arrangement by other
hands; and though it is very proper that Silver How should clearly

understand and brightly praise its fraternal Rydal Mount, we must not forget
that, over yonder, are the Andes, all the while.
Wordsworth's rank and scale among poets were determined by himself, in a
single exclamation:
"What was the great Parnassus' self to thee,
Mount Skiddaw?"
Answer his question faithfully, and you have the relation between the great
masters of the Muse's teaching and the pleasant fingerer of his pastoral flute
among the reeds of Rydal.
Wordsworth is simply a Westmoreland peasant, with considerably less
shrewdness than most border Englishmen or Scotsmen inherit; and no sense
of humor: but gifted (in this singularly) with vivid sense of natural beauty,
and a pretty turn for reflections, not always acute, but, as far as they reach,
medicinal to the fever of the restless and corrupted life around him. Water
to parched lips may be better than Samian wine, but do not let us therefore
confuse the qualities of wine and water. I much doubt there being many
inglorious Miltons in our country churchyards; but I am very sure there are
many Wordsworths resting there, who were inferior to the renowned one
only in caring less to hear themselves talk.
With an honest and kindly heart, a stimulating egoism, a wholesome
contentment in modest circumstances, and such sufficient ease, in that
accepted state, as permitted the passing of a good deal of time in wishing
that daisies could see the beauty of their own shadows, and other such
profitable mental exercises, Wordsworth has left us a series of studies of the
graceful and happy shepherd life of our lake country, which to me
personally, for one, are entirely sweet and precious; but they are only so as
the mirror of an existent reality in many ways more beautiful than its
picture.
51. But the other day I went for an afternoon's rest into the cottage of one of
our country people of old statesman class; cottage lying nearly midway
between two village churches, but more conveniently for downhill walk
towards one than the other. I found, as the good housewife made tea for me,
that nevertheless she went up the hill to church. "Why do not you go to the

nearer church?" I asked. "Don't you like the clergyman?" "Oh no, sir," she
answered, "it isn't that; but you know I couldn't leave my mother." "Your
mother! she is buried at H—— then?" "Yes, sir; and you know I couldn't go
to church anywhere else."
That feelings such as these existed among the peasants, not of Cumberland
only, but of all the tender earth that gives forth her fruit for the living, and
receives her dead to peace, might perhaps have been, to our great and
endless comfort, discovered before now, if Wordsworth had been content to
tell us what he knew of his own villages and people, not as the leader of a
new and only correct school of poetry, but simply as a country gentleman of
sense and feeling, fond of primroses, kind to the parish children, and
reverent of the spade with which Wilkinson had tilled his lands: and I am by
no means sure that his influence on the stronger minds of his time was
anywise hastened or extended by the spirit of tunefulness under whose
guidance he discovered that heaven rymed to seven, and Foy to boy.
52. Tuneful nevertheless at heart, and of the heavenly choir, I gladly and
frankly acknowledge him; and our English literature enriched with a new
and a singular virtue in the aërial purity and healthful rightness of his quiet
song;—but aërial only,—not ethereal; and lowly in its privacy of light.
A measured mind, and calm; innocent, unrepentant; helpful to sinless
creatures and scathless, such of the flock as do not stray. Hopeful at least, if
not faithful; content with intimations of immortality such as may be in
skipping of lambs, and laughter of children—incurious to see in the hands
the print of the Nails.
A gracious and constant mind; as the herbage of its native hills, fragrant and
pure;—yet, to the sweep and the shadow, the stress and distress, of the
greater souls of men, as the tufted thyme to the laurel wilderness of Tempe,
—as the gleaming euphrasy to the dark branches of Dodona.
[I am obliged to defer the main body of this paper to next
month,—revises penetrating all too late into my lacustrine
seclusion; as chanced also unluckily with the preceding paper, in
which the reader will perhaps kindly correct the consequent
misprints [now corrected, Ed.], p. 203, l. 23, of "scarcely" to
"securely," and p. 206, l. 6, "full," with comma to "fall," without

one; noticing besides that "Redgauntlet" has been omitted in the
list, pp. 198, 199; and that the reference to note should not be at
the word "imagination," p. 198, l. 6, but at the word "trade," l.
15. My dear old friend, Dr. John Brown, sends me, from
Jamieson's Dictionary, the following satisfactory end to one of
my difficulties:—"Coup the crans." The language is borrowed
from the "cran," or trivet on which small pots are placed in
cookery, which is sometimes turned with its feet uppermost by
an awkward assistant. Thus it signifies to be completely upset.]

"Abbotsford: April 21, 1817.
"Dear Sir,—Nothing can be more obliging than your attention
to the old stones. You have been as true as the sundial itself."
[The sundial had just been erected.] "Of the two I would prefer
the larger one, as it is to be in front of a parapet quite in the old
taste. But in case of accidents it will be safest in your custody
till I come to town again on the 12th of May. Your former favors
(which were weighty as acceptable) have come safely out here,
and will be disposed of with great effect."

"Abbotsford: July 30th.
"I fancy the Tolbooth still keeps its feet, but, as it must soon
descend, I hope you will remember me. I have an important use
for the niche above the door; and though many a man has got a
niche in the Tolbooth by building, I believe I am the first that
ever got a niche out of it on such an occasion. For which I have
to thank your kindness, and to remain very much your obliged
humble servant,

"Walter Scott."
"August 16.

"My Dear Sir,—I trouble you with this [sic] few lines to thank
you for the very accurate drawings and measurements of the
Tolbooth door, and for your kind promise to attend to my
interest and that of Abbotsford in the matter of the Thistle and
Fleur de Lis. Most of our scutcheons are now mounted, and look
very well, as the house is something after the model of an old
hall (not a castle), where such things are well in character."
[Alas—Sir Walter, Sir Walter!] "I intend the old lion to
predominate over a well which the children have christened the
Fountain of the Lions. His present den, however, continues to be
the hall at Castle Street."

"September 5.
"Dear Sir,—I am greatly obliged to you for securing the stone. I
am not sure that I will put up the gate quite in the old form, but I
would like to secure the means of doing so. The ornamental
stones are now put up, and have a very happy effect. If you will
have the kindness to let me know when the Tolbooth door comes
down, I will send in my carts for the stones; I have an admirable
situation for it. I suppose the door itself" [he means the wooden
one] "will be kept for the new jail; if not, and not otherwise
wanted, I would esteem it curious to possess it. Certainly I hope
so many sore hearts will not pass through the celebrated door
when in my possession as heretofore."

"September 8.
"I should esteem it very fortunate if I could have the door also,
though I suppose it is modern, having been burned down at the
time of Porteous-mob.
"I am very much obliged to the gentlemen who thought these
remains of the Heart of Midlothian are not ill bestowed on their
intended possessor."

FOOTNOTES:
[62] August, 1880.
[63] The following fragments out of the letters in my own possession, written by
Scott to the builder of Abbotsford, as the outer decorations of the house were in
process of completion, will show how accurately Scott had pictured himself in
Monkbarns.
[64] Henceforward, not in affectation, but for the reader's better convenience, I
shall continue to spell "Ryme" without our wrongly added h.
[65] L. ii. 278.
[66] "Che nella mente mia ragiona." Love—you observe, the highest
Reasonableness, instead of French ivresse, or even Shakespearian "mere folly";
and Beatrice as the Goddess of Wisdom in this third song of the Convito, to be
compared with the Revolutionary Goddess of Reason; remembering of the
whole poem chiefly the line:—
"Costei penso chi che mosso l'universo."
(See Lyell's "Canzoniere," p. 104.)
[67] ὡραν της τἑρπσιος—Plato, "Laws," ii., Steph. 669. "Hour" having here
nearly the power of "Fate" with added sense of being a daughter of Themis.
[68] "Gunpowder is one of the greatest inventions of modern times, and what
has given such a superiority to civilized nations over barbarous"! ("Evenings at
Home"—fifth evening.) No man can owe more than I both to Mrs. Barbauld and
Miss Edgeworth; and I only wish that in the substance of what they wisely said,
they had been more listened to. Nevertheless, the germs of all modern conceit
and error respecting manufacture and industry, as rivals to Art and to Genius, are
concentrated in "Evenings at Home" and "Harry and Lucy"—being all the while
themselves works of real genius, and prophetic of things that have yet to be
learned and fulfilled. See for instance the paper, "Things by their Right Names,"
following the one from which I have just quoted ("The Ship"), and closing the
first volume of the old edition of the "Evenings."
[69] Carlyle, "French Revolution" (Chapman, 1869), vol. ii. p. 70; conf. p. 25,
and the Ça ira at Arras, vol. iii. p. 276.
[70] Ibid. iii. 26.
[71] Carlyle, "French Revolution," iii. 106, the last sentence altered in a word or
two.
[72] I have been greatly disappointed, in taking soundings of our most majestic
mountain pools, to find them, in no case, verge on the unfathomable.

FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL.

III.[73]

[Byron]

"Parching summer hath no warrant
To consume this crystal well;
Rains, that make each brook a torrent,
Neither sully it, nor swell."
53. So was it year by year, among the unthought-of hills. Little Duddon and
child Rotha ran clear and glad; and laughed from ledge to pool, and opened
from pool to mere, translucent, through endless days of peace.
But eastward, between her orchard plains, Loire locked her embracing dead
in silent sands; dark with blood rolled Iser; glacial-pale, Beresina-Lethe, by
whose shore the weary hearts forgot their people, and their father's house.
Nor unsullied, Tiber; nor unswoln, Arno and Aufidus; and Euroclydon high
on Helle's wave; meantime, let our happy piety glorify the garden rocks
with snowdrop circlet, and breathe the spirit of Paradise, where life is wise
and innocent.
Maps many have we, nowadays clear in display of earth constituent, air
current, and ocean tide. Shall we ever engrave the map of meaner research,
whose shadings shall content themselves in the task of showing the depth,
or drought,—the calm, or trouble, of Human Compassion?
54. For this is indeed all that is noble in the life of Man, and the source of
all that is noble in the speech of Man. Had it narrowed itself then, in those
days, out of all the world, into this peninsula between Cockermouth and
Shap?
Not altogether so; but indeed the Vocal piety seemed conclusively to have
retired (or excursed?) into that mossy hermitage, above Little Langdale. The

Unvocal piety, with the uncomplaining sorrow, of Man, may have a
somewhat wider range, for aught we know: but history disregards those
items; and of firmly proclaimed and sweetly canorous religion, there really
seemed at that juncture none to be reckoned upon, east of Ingleborough, or
north of Criffel. Only under Furness Fells, or by Bolton Priory, it seems we
can still write Ecclesiastical Sonnets, stanzas on the force of Prayer, Odes to
Duty, and complimentary addresses to the Deity upon His endurance for
adoration. Far otherwise, over yonder, by Spezzia Bay, and Ravenna Pineta,
and in ravines of Hartz. There, the softest voices speak the wildest words;
and Keats discourses of Endymion, Shelley of Demogorgon, Goethe of
Lucifer, and Burger of the Resurrection of Death unto Death—while even
Puritan Scotland and Episcopal Anglia produce for us only these three
minstrels of doubtful tone, who show but small respect for the "unco guid,"
put but limited faith in gifted Gilfillan, and translate with unflinching
frankness the Morgante Maggiore.[74]
55. Dismal the aspect of the spiritual world, or at least the sound of it, might
well seem to the eyes and ears of Saints (such as we had) of the period—
dismal in angels' eyes also assuredly! Yet is it possible that the dismalness
in angelic sight may be otherwise quartered, as it were, from the way of
mortal heraldry; and that seen, and heard, of angels,—again I say—
hesitatingly—is it possible that the goodness of the Unco Guid, and the gift
of Gilfillan, and the word of Mr. Blattergowl, may severally not have been
the goodness of God, the gift of God, nor the word of God: but that in the
much blotted and broken efforts at goodness, and in the careless gift which
they themselves despised,[75] and in the sweet ryme and murmur of their
unpurposed words, the Spirit of the Lord had, indeed, wandering, as in
chaos days on lightless waters, gone forth in the hearts and from the lips of
those other three strange prophets, even though they ate forbidden bread by
the altar of the poured-out ashes, and even though the wild beast of the
desert found them, and slew.
This, at least, I know, that it had been well for England, though all her other
prophets, of the Press, the Parliament, the Doctor's chair, and the Bishop's
throne, had fallen silent; so only that she had been able to understand with
her heart here and there the simplest line of these, her despised.
56. I take one at mere chance:

"Who thinks of self, when gazing on the sky?"[76]
Well, I don't know; Mr. Wordsworth certainly did, and observed, with truth,
that its clouds took a sober coloring in consequence of his experiences. It is
much if, indeed, this sadness be unselfish, and our eyes have kept loving
watch o'er Man's Mortality. I have found it difficult to make anyone
nowadays believe that such sobriety can be; and that Turner saw deeper
crimson than others in the clouds of Goldau. But that any should yet think
the clouds brightened by Man's Immortality instead of dulled by his death,
—and, gazing on the sky, look for the day when every eye must gaze also—
for behold, He cometh with clouds—this it is no more possible for Christian
England to apprehend, however exhorted by her gifted and guid.
57. "But Byron was not thinking of such things!"—He, the reprobate! how
should such as he think of Christ?
Perhaps not wholly as you or I think of Him. Take, at chance, another line
or two, to try:
"Carnage (so Wordsworth tells you) is God's daughter;[77]
If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and
Just now, behaved as in the Holy Land."
Blasphemy, cry you, good reader? Are you sure you understand it? The first
line I gave you was easy Byron—almost shallow Byron—these are of the
man in his depth, and you will not fathom them, like a tarn—nor in a hurry.
"Just now behaved as in the Holy Land." How did Carnage behave in the
Holy Land then? You have all been greatly questioning, of late, whether the
sun, which you find to be now going out, ever stood still. Did you in any
lagging minute, on those scientific occasions, chance to reflect what he was
bid stand still for? or if not—will you please look—and what also, going
forth again as a strong man to run his course, he saw, rejoicing?
"Then Joshua passed from Makkedah unto Libnah—and fought against
Libnah. And the Lord delivered it and the king thereof into the hand of
Israel, and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that
were therein." And from Lachish to Eglon, and from Eglon to Kirjath-Arba,
and Sarah's grave in the Amorites' land, "and Joshua smote all the country

of the hills and of the south—and of the vale and of the springs, and all their
kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed—as the
Lord God of Israel commanded."
58. Thus, "it is written": though you perhaps do not so often hear these texts
preached from, as certain others about taking away the sins of the world. I
wonder how the world would like to part with them! hitherto it has always
preferred parting first with its life—and God has taken it at its word. But
Death is not His Begotten Son, for all that; nor is the death of the innocent
in battle carnage His "instrument for working out a pure intent" as Mr.
Wordsworth puts it; but Man's instrument for working out an impure one, as
Byron would have you to know. Theology perhaps less orthodox, but
certainly more reverent;—neither is the Woolwich Infant a Child of God;
neither does the iron-clad "Thunderer" utter thunders of God—which facts
if you had had the grace or sense to learn from Byron, instead of accusing
him of blasphemy, it had been better at this day for you, and for many a
savage soul also, by Euxine shore, and in Zulu and Afghan lands.
59. It was neither, however, for the theology, nor the use, of these lines that
I quoted them; but to note this main point of Byron's own character. He was
the first great Englishman who felt the cruelty of war, and, in its cruelty, the
shame. Its guilt had been known to George Fox—its folly shown practically
by Penn. But the compassion of the pious world had still for the most part
been shown only in keeping its stock of Barabbases unhanged if possible:
and, till Byron came, neither Kunersdorf, Eylau, nor Waterloo, had taught
the pity and the pride of men that
"The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore."[78]
Such pacific verse would not indeed have been acceptable to the Edinburgh
volunteers on Portobello sands. But Byron can write a battle song too, when
it is his cue to fight. If you look at the introduction to the "Isles of Greece,"
namely the 85th and 86th stanzas of the 3rd canto of "Don Juan,"—you will
find—what will you not find, if only you understand them! "He" in the first
line, remember, means the typical modern poet.
"Thus usually, when he was asked to sing,
He gave the different nations something national.

'Twas all the same to him—'God save the King'
Or 'Ca ira' according to the fashion all;
His muse made increment of anything
From the high lyric down to the low rational:
If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?

In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;
In England a six-canto quarto tale;
In Spain, he'd make a ballad or romance on
The last war—much the same in Portugal;
In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on
Would be old Goethe's—(see what says de Staël)
In Italy, he'd ape the 'Trecentisti';
In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t'ye."
60. Note first here, as we did in Scott, the concentrating and foretelling
power. The "God Save the Queen" in England, fallen hollow now, as the
"Ca ira" in France—not a man in France knowing where either France or
"that" (whatever "that" may be) is going to; nor the Queen of England
daring, for her life, to ask the tiniest Englishman to do a single thing he
doesn't like;—nor any salvation, either of Queen or Realm, being any more
possible to God, unless under the direction of the Royal Society: then, note
the estimate of height and depth in poetry, swept in an instant, "high lyric to
low rational." Pindar to Pope (knowing Pope's height, too, all the while, no
man better); then, the poetic power of France—resumed in a word—
Béranger; then the cut at Marmion, entirely deserved, as we shall see, yet
kindly given, for everything he names in these two stanzas is the best of its
kind; then 'Romance in Spain on—the last war, (present war not being to
Spanish poetical taste,) then, Goethe the real heart of all Germany, and last,
the aping of the Trecentisti which has since consummated itself in Pre-
Raphaelitism! that also being the best thing Italy has done through England,
whether in Rossetti's "blessed damozels" or Burne Jones's "days of
creation." Lastly comes the mock at himself—the modern English Greek—
(followed up by the "degenerate into hands like mine" in the song itself);
and then—to amazement, forth he thunders in his Achilles-voice. We have

had one line of him in his clearness—five of him in his depth—sixteen of
him in his play. Hear now but these, out of his whole heart:—
"What,—silent yet? and silent all?
Ah no, the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
And answer, 'Let one living head,
But one, arise—we come—we come:'
—'Tis but the living who are dumb."
Resurrection, this, you see like Bürger's; but not of death unto death.
61. "Sound like a distant torrent's fall." I said the whole heart of Byron was
in this passage. First its compassion, then its indignation, and the third
element, not yet examined, that love of the beauty of this world in which
the three—unholy—children, of its Fiery Furnace were like to each other;
but Byron the widest-hearted. Scott and Burns love Scotland more than
Nature itself: for Burns the moon must rise over Cumnock Hills,—for Scott,
the Rymer's glen divide the Eildons; but, for Byron, Loch-na-Gar with Ida,
looks o'er Troy, and the soft murmurs of the Dee and the Bruar change into
voices of the dead on distant Marathon.
Yet take the parallel from Scott, by a field of homelier rest:—
"And silence aids—though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills;
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid our Lady's Chapel low,
Yet still beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid
Where erst his simple fathers prayed."

And last take the same note of sorrow—with Burns's finger on the fall of it:
"Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens,
Ye hazly shaws and briery dens,
Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens
Wi' toddlin' din,
Or foamin' strang wi' hasty stens
Frae lin to lin."
62. As you read, one after another, these fragments of chant by the great
masters, does not a sense come upon you of some element in their passion,
no less than in their sound, different, specifically, from that of "Parching
summer hath no warrant"? Is it more profane, think you—or more tender—
nay, perhaps, in the core of it, more true?
For instance, when we are told that
"Wharfe, as he moved along,
To matins joined a mournful voice,"
is this disposition of the river's mind to pensive psalmody quite logically
accounted for by the previous statement, (itself by no means rythmically
dulcet,) that
"The boy is in the arms of Wharfe,
And strangled by a merciless force"?
Or, when we are led into the improving reflection,
"How sweet were leisure, could it yield no more
Than 'mid this wave-washed churchyard to recline,
From pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine!"
—is the divinity of the extract assured to us by its being made at leisure,
and in a reclining attitude—as compared with the meditations of otherwise
active men, in an erect one? Or are we perchance, many of us, still erring
somewhat in our notions alike of Divinity and Humanity,—poetical
extraction, and moral position?
63. On the chance of its being so, might I ask hearing for just a few words
more of the school of Belial?

Their occasion, it must be confessed, is a quite unjustifiable one. Some very
wicked people—mutineers, in fact—have retired, misanthropically, into an
unfrequented part of the country, and there find themselves safe indeed, but
extremely thirsty. Whereupon Byron thus gives them to drink:
"A little stream came tumbling from the height
And straggling into ocean as it might.
Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray
And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray,
Close on the wild wide ocean,—yet as pure
And fresh as Innocence; and more secure.
Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep,
While, far below, the vast and sullen swell
Of ocean's Alpine azure rose and fell."[79]
Now, I beg, with such authority as an old workman may take concerning his
trade, having also looked at a waterfall or two in my time, and not
unfrequently at a wave, to assure the reader that here is entirely first-rate
literary work. Though Lucifer himself had written it, the thing is itself good,
and not only so, but unsurpassedly good, the closing line being probably the
best concerning the sea yet written by the race of the sea-kings.
64. But Lucifer himself could not have written it; neither any servant of
Lucifer. I do not doubt but that most readers were surprised at my saying, in
the close of my first paper, that Byron's "style" depended in any wise on his
views respecting the Ten Commandments. That so all-important a thing as
"style" should depend in the least upon so ridiculous a thing as moral sense:
or that Allegra's father, watching her drive by in Count G.'s coach and six,
had any remnant of so ridiculous a thing to guide,—or check,—his poetical
passion, may alike seem more than questionable to the liberal and chaste
philosophy of the existing British public. But, first of all, putting the
question of who writes or speaks aside, do you, good reader, know good
"style" when you get it? Can you say, of half a dozen given lines taken
anywhere out of a novel, or poem, or play, That is good, essentially, in style,
or bad, essentially? and can you say why such half-dozen lines are good, or
bad?

65. I imagine that in most cases, the reply would be given with hesitation,
yet if you will give me a little patience, and take some accurate pains, I can
show you the main tests of style in the space of a couple of pages.
I take two examples of absolutely perfect, and in manner highest, i. e.,
kingly, and heroic, style: the first example in expression of anger, the
second of love.
(1)

"We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us,
His present, and your pains, we thank you for.
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard."

(2)

"My gracious Silence, hail!
Would'st thou have laughed, had I come coffin'd home
That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear
And mothers that lack sons."
66. Let us note, point by point, the conditions of greatness common to both
these passages, so opposite in temper.
A. Absolute command over all passion, however intense; this the first-of-
first conditions, (see the King's own sentence just before, "We are no tyrant,
but a Christian King, Unto whose grace our passion is as subject As are our
wretches fettered in our prisons"); and with this self-command, the
supremely surveying grasp of every thought that is to be uttered, before its
utterance; so that each may come in its exact place, time, and connection.
The slightest hurry, the misplacing of a word, or the unnecessary accent on
a syllable, would destroy the "style" in an instant.
B. Choice of the fewest and simplest words that can be found in the
compass of the language, to express the thing meant: these few words being
also arranged in the most straightforward and intelligible way; allowing

inversion only when the subject can be made primary without obscurity:
(thus, "his present, and your pains, we thank you for" is better than "we
thank you for his present and your pains," because the Dauphin's gift is by
courtesy put before the Ambassador's pains; but "when to these balls our
rackets we have matched" would have spoiled the style in a moment,
because—I was going to have said, ball and racket are of equal rank, and
therefore only the natural order proper; but also here the natural order is the
desired one, the English racket to have precedence of the French ball). In
the fourth line the "in France" comes first, as announcing the most
important resolution of action; the "by God's grace" next, as the only
condition rendering resolution possible; the detail of issue follows with the
strictest limit in the final word. The King does not say "danger," far less
"dishonor," but "hazard" only; of that he is, humanly speaking, sure.
67. C. Perfectly emphatic and clear utterance of the chosen words; slowly in
the degree of their importance, with omission however of every word not
absolutely required; and natural use of the familiar contractions of final
dissyllable. Thus "play a set shall strike" is better than "play a set that shall
strike," and "match'd" is kingly short—no necessity of meter could have
excused "matched" instead. On the contrary, the three first words, "We are
glad," would have been spoken by the king more slowly and fully than any
other syllables in the whole passage, first pronouncing the kingly "we" at its
proudest, and then the "are" as a continuous state, and then the "glad," as
the exact contrary of what the ambassadors expected him to be.[80]
D. Absolute spontaneity in doing all this, easily and necessarily as the heart
beats. The king cannot speak otherwise than he does—nor the hero. The
words not merely come to them, but are compelled to them. Even lisping
numbers "come," but mighty numbers are ordained, and inspired.
E. Melody in the words, changeable with their passion, fitted to it exactly,
and the utmost of which the language is capable—the melody in prose
being Eolian and variable—in verse, nobler by submitting itself to stricter
law. I will enlarge upon this point presently.
F. Utmost spiritual contents in the words; so that each carries not only its
instant meaning, but a cloudy companionship of higher or darker meaning
according to the passion—nearly always indicated by metaphor: "play a

set"—sometimes by abstraction—(thus in the second passage "silence" for
silent one) sometimes by description instead of direct epithet ("coffined" for
dead) but always indicative of there being more in the speaker's mind than
he has said, or than he can say, full though his saying be. On the quantity of
this attendant fullness depends the majesty of style; that is to say, virtually,
on the quantity of contained thought in briefest words, such thought being
primarily loving and true: and this the sum of all—that nothing can be well
said, but with truth, nor beautifully, but by love.
68. These are the essential conditions of noble speech in prose and verse
alike, but the adoption of the form of verse, and especially rymed verse,
means the addition to all these qualities of one more; of music, that is to
say, not Eolian merely, but Apolline; a construction or architecture of words
fitted and befitting, under external laws of time and harmony.

When Byron says "rhyme is of the rude,"[81] he means that Burns needs it,
—while Henry the Fifth does not, nor Plato, nor Isaiah—yet in this need of
it by the simple, it becomes all the more religious: and thus the loveliest
pieces of Christian language are all in ryme—the best of Dante, Chaucer,
Douglas, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Sidney.
69. I am not now able to keep abreast with the tide of modern scholarship;
(nor, to say the truth, do I make the effort, the first edge of its waves being
mostly muddy, and apt to make a shallow sweep of the shore refuse:) so that
I have no better book of reference by me than the confused essay on the
antiquity of ryme at the end of Turner's "Anglo-Saxons." I cannot however
conceive a more interesting piece of work, if not yet done, than the
collection of sifted earliest fragments known of rymed song in European
languages. Of Eastern I know nothing; but, this side Hellespont, the
substance of the matter is all given in King Canute's impromptu
"Gaily" (or is it sweetly?—I forget which, and it's no matter)
"sang the monks of Ely,
As Knut the king came sailing by;"
much to be noted by any who make their religion lugubrious, and their
Sunday the eclipse of the week. And observe further, that if Milton does not
ryme, it is because his faculty of Song was concerning Loss, chiefly; and he
has little more than faculty of Croak, concerning Gain; while Dante, though

modern readers never go further with him than into the Pit, is stayed only
by Casella in the ascent to the Rose of Heaven. So, Gibbon can write in his
manner the Fall of Rome; but Virgil, in his manner, the rise of it; and finally
Douglas, in his manner, bursts into such rymed passion of praise both of
Rome and Virgil, as befits a Christian Bishop, and a good subject of the
Holy See.
"Master of Masters—sweet source, and springing well,
Wide where over all rings thy heavenly bell;

Why should I then with dull forehead and vain,
With rude ingene, and barane, emptive brain,
With bad harsh speech, and lewit barbare tongue
Presume to write, where thy sweet bell is rung,
Or counterfeit thy precious wordis dear?
Na, na—not so; but kneel when I them hear.
But farther more—and lower to descend
Forgive me, Virgil, if I thee offend
Pardon thy scolar, suffer him to ryme
Since thou wast but ane mortal man sometime."
"Before honor is humility." Does not clearer light come for you on that law
after reading these nobly pious words? And note you whose humility? How
is it that the sound of the bell comes so instinctively into his chiming verse?
This gentle singer is the son of—Archibald Bell-the-Cat!
70. And now perhaps you can read with right sympathy the scene in
"Marmion" between his father and King James.
"His hand the monarch sudden took—
'Now, by the Bruce's soul,
Angus, my hasty speech forgive,
For sure as doth his spirit live
As he said of the Douglas old
I well may say of you,—
That never king did subject hold,
In speech more free, in war more bold,
More tender and more true:'

And while the king his hand did strain
The old man's tears fell down like rain."
I believe the most infidel of scholastic readers can scarcely but perceive the
relation between the sweetness, simplicity, and melody of expression in
these passages, and the gentleness of the passions they express, while men
who are not scholastic, and yet are true scholars, will recognize further in
them that the simplicity of the educated is lovelier than the simplicity of the
rude. Hear next a piece of Spenser's teaching how rudeness itself may
become more beautiful even by its mistakes, if the mistakes are made
lovingly.
"Ye shepherds' daughters that dwell on the green,
Hye you there apace;
Let none come there but that virgins been
To adorn her grace:
And when you come, whereas she in place,
See that your rudeness do not you disgrace;
Bind your fillets fast,
And gird in your waste,
For more fineness, with a taudry lace.

Bring hither the pink and purple cullumbine
With gylliflowers;
Bring coronatiöns, and sops in wine,
Worn of paramours;
Strow me the ground with daffadowndillies
And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies;
The pretty paunce
And the chevisaunce
Shall match with the fair flowre-delice."[82]
71. Two short pieces more only of master song, and we have enough to test
all by.
(1)

"No more, no more, since thou art dead,

Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed,
No more, at yearly festivals,
We cowslip balls
Or chains of columbines shall make,
For this or that occasion's sake.
No, no! our maiden pleasures be
Wrapt in thy winding-sheet with thee."[83]

(2)

"Death is now the phoenix nest,
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest.
Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she:
Truth and beauty buried be."[84]
72. If now, with the echo of these perfect verses in your mind, you turn to
Byron, and glance over, or recall to memory, enough of him to give means
of exact comparison, you will, or should, recognize these following kinds of
mischief in him. First, if anyone offends him—as for instance Mr. Southey,
or Lord Elgin—"his manners have not that repose that marks the caste," etc.
This defect in his Lordship's style, being myself scrupulously and even
painfully reserved in the use of vituperative language, I need not say how
deeply I deplore.[85]
Secondly. In the best and most violet-bedded bits of his work there is yet, as
compared with Elizabethan and earlier verse, a strange taint; an indefinable
—evening flavor of Covent Garden, as it were;—not to say, escape of gas in
the Strand. That is simply what it proclaims itself—London air. If he had
lived all his life in Green-head Ghyll, things would of course have been
different. But it was his fate to come to town—modern town—like
Michael's son; and modern London (and Venice) are answerable for the
state of their drains, not Byron.
Thirdly. His melancholy is without any relief whatsoever; his jest sadder
than his earnest; while, in Elizabethan work, all lament is full of hope, and
all pain of balsam.

Of this evil he has himself told you the cause in a single line prophetic of all
things since and now. "Where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space."[86]
So that, for instance, while Mr. Wordsworth, on a visit to town, being an
exemplary early riser, could walk, felicitous, on Westminster Bridge,
remarking how the city now did like a garment wear the beauty of the
morning; Byron, rising somewhat later, contemplated only the garment
which the beauty of the morning had by that time received for wear from
the city: and again, while Mr. Wordsworth, in irrepressible religious rapture,
calls God to witness that the houses seem asleep, Byron, lame demon as he
was, flying smoke-drifted, unroofs the houses at a glance, and sees what the
mighty cockney heart of them contains in the still lying of it, and will stir
up to purpose in the waking business of it,
"The sordor of civilization, mixed
With all the passions which Man's fall hath fixed."[87]
73. Fourthly, with this steadiness of bitter melancholy, there is joined a
sense of the material beauty, both of inanimate nature, the lower animals,
and human beings, which in the iridescence, color-depth, and morbid (I use
the word deliberately) mystery and softness of it,—with other qualities
indescribable by any single words, and only to be analyzed by extreme care,
—is found, to the full, only in five men that I know of in modern times;
namely, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Turner, and myself,—differing totally
and throughout the entire group of us, from the delight in clear-struck
beauty of Angelico and the Trecentisti; and separated, much more
singularly, from the cheerful joys of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Scott, by its
unaccountable affection for "Rokkes blak" and other forms of terror and
power, such as those of the ice-oceans, which to Shakespeare were only
Alpine rheum; and the Via Malas and Diabolic Bridges which Dante would
have condemned none but lost souls to climb, or cross;—all this love of
impending mountains, coiled thunder-clouds, and dangerous sea, being
joined in us with a sulky, almost ferine, love of retreat in valleys of
Charmettes, gulfs of Spezzia, ravines of Olympus, low lodgings in Chelsea,
and close brushwood at Coniston.
74. And, lastly, also in the whole group of us, glows volcanic instinct of
Astræan justice returning not to, but up out of, the earth, which will not at

all suffer us to rest any more in Pope's serene "whatever is, is right"; but
holds, on the contrary, profound conviction that about ninety-nine
hundredths of whatever at present is, is wrong: conviction making four of
us, according to our several manners, leaders of revolution for the poor, and
declarers of political doctrine monstrous to the ears of mercenary mankind;
and driving the fifth, less sanguine, into mere painted-melody of lament
over the fallacy of Hope and the implacableness of Fate.
In Byron the indignation, the sorrow, and the effort are joined to the death:
and they are the parts of his nature (as of mine also in its feebler terms),
which the selfishly comfortable public have, literally, no conception of
whatever; and from which the piously sentimental public, offering up daily
the pure oblation of divine tranquillity, shrink with anathema not
unembittered by alarm.
75. Concerning which matters I hope to speak further and with more precise
illustration in my next paper; but, seeing that this present one has been
hitherto somewhat somber, and perhaps, to gentle readers, not a little
discomposing, I will conclude it with a piece of light biographic study,
necessary to my plan, and as conveniently admissible in this place as
afterwards;—namely, the account of the manner in which Scott—whom we
shall always find, as aforesaid, to be in salient and palpable elements of
character, of the World, worldly, as Burns is of the Flesh, fleshly, and Byron
of the Deuce, damnable,—spent his Sunday.
76. As usual, from Lockhart's farrago we cannot find out the first thing we
want to know,—whether Scott worked after his week-day custom, on the
Sunday morning. But, I gather, not; at all events his household and his cattle
rested (L. iii. 108). I imagine he walked out into his woods, or read quietly
in his study. Immediately after breakfast, whoever was in the house, "Ladies
and gentlemen, I shall read prayers at eleven, when I expect you all to
attend" (vii. 306). Question of college and other externally unanimous
prayer settled for us very briefly: "if you have no faith, have at least
manners." He read the Church of England service, lessons and all, the latter,
if interesting, eloquently (ibid.). After the service, one of Jeremy Taylor's
sermons (vi. 188). After sermon, if the weather was fine, walk with his
family, dogs included and guests, to cold picnic (iii. 109), followed by short
extempore biblical novelettes; for he had his Bible, the Old Testament

especially, by heart, it having been his mother's last gift to him (vi. 174).
These lessons to his children in Bible history were always given, whether
there was picnic or not. For the rest of the afternoon he took his pleasure in
the woods with Tom Purdie, who also always appeared at his master's
elbow on Sunday after dinner was over, and drank long life to the laird and
his lady and all the good company, in a quaigh of whisky or a tumbler of
wine, according to his fancy (vi. 195). Whatever might happen on the other
evenings of the week, Scott always dined at home on Sunday; and with old
friends: never, unless inevitably, receiving any person with whom he stood
on ceremony (v. 335). He came into the room rubbing his hands like a boy
arriving at home for the holidays, his Peppers and Mustards gamboling
about him, "and even the stately Maida grinning and wagging his tail with
sympathy." For the usquebaugh of the less honored week-days, at the
Sunday board he circulated the champagne briskly during dinner, and
considered a pint of claret each man's fair share afterwards (v. 339). In the
evening, music being to the Scottish worldly mind indecorous, he read
aloud some favorite author, for the amusement or edification of his little
circle. Shakespeare it might be, or Dryden,—Johnson, or Joanna Baillie,—
Crabbe, or Wordsworth. But in those days "Byron was pouring out his spirit
fresh and full, and if a new piece from his hand had appeared, it was sure to
be read by Scott the Sunday evening afterwards; and that with such
delighted emphasis as showed how completely the elder bard had kept up
his enthusiasm for poetry at pitch of youth, and all his admiration of genius,
free, pure, and unstained by the least drop of literary jealousy" (v. 341).
77. With such necessary and easily imaginable varieties as chanced in
having Dandie Dinmont or Captain Brown for guests at Abbotsford, or
Colonel Mannering, Counselor Pleydell, and Dr. Robertson in Castle Street,
such was Scott's habitual Sabbath: a day, we perceive, of eating the fat,
(dinner, presumably not cold, being a work of necessity and mercy—thou
also, even thou, Saint Thomas of Turnbull, hast thine!) and drinking the
sweet, abundant in the manner of Mr. Southey's cataract of Lodore,—"Here
it comes, sparkling." A day bestrewn with coronatiöns and sops in wine;
deep in libations to good hope and fond memory; a day of rest to beast, and
mirth to man, (as also to sympathetic beasts that can be merry,) and
concluding itself in an Orphic hour of delight, signifying peace on

Tweedside, and goodwill to men, there or far away;—always excepting the
French, and Boney.
"Yes, and see what it all came to in the end."
Not so, dark-virulent Minos-Mucklewrath; the end came of quite other
things; of these, came such length of days and peace as Scott had in his
Fatherland, and such immortality as he has in all lands.
78. Nathless, firm, though deeply courteous, rebuke, for his sometimes
overmuch lightmindedness, was administered to him by the more grave and
thoughtful Byron. For the Lord Abbot of Newstead knew his Bible by heart
as well as Scott, though it had never been given him by his mother as her
dearest possession. Knew it, and what was more, had thought of it, and
sought in it what Scott had never cared to think, nor been fain to seek.
And loving Scott well, and always doing him every possible pleasure in the
way he sees to be most agreeable to him—as, for instance, remembering
with precision, and writing down the very next morning, every blessed
word that the Prince Regent had been pleased to say of him before courtly
audience,—he yet conceived that such cheap ryming as his own "Bride of
Abydos," for instance, which he had written from beginning to end in four
days, or even the traveling reflections of Harold and Juan on men and
women, were scarcely steady enough Sunday afternoon's reading for a
patriarch-Merlin like Scott. So he dedicates to him a work of a truly
religious tendency, on which for his own part he has done his best,—the
drama of "Cain." Of which dedication the virtual significance to Sir Walter
might be translated thus. Dearest and last of Border soothsayers, thou hast
indeed told us of Black Dwarfs, and of White Maidens, also of Gray Friars,
and Green Fairies; also of sacred hollies by the well, and haunted crooks in
the glen. But of the bushes that the black dogs rend in the woods of
Phlegethon; and of the crooks in the glen, and the bickerings of the burnie
where ghosts meet the mightiest of us; and of the black misanthrope, who is
by no means yet a dwarfed one, and concerning whom wiser creatures than
Hobbie Elliot may tremblingly ask "Gude guide us, what's yon?" hast thou
yet known, seeing that thou hast yet told, nothing.
Scott may perhaps have his answer. We shall in good time hear.

FOOTNOTES:
[73] September, 1880.
[74] "It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse; and
you will see what was permitted in a Catholic country and a bigoted age to
Churchmen, on the score of Religion—and so tell those buffoons who accuse me
of attacking the Liturgy.
"I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and I must go and
buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with the Countess G. in
Count G.'s coach and six. Our old Cardinal is dead, and the new one not
appointed yet—but the masquing goes on the same." (Letter to Murray, 355th in
Moore, dated Ravenna, Feb. 7, 1820.) "A dreadfully moral place, for you must
not look at anybody's wife, except your neighbor's."
[75] See quoted infra the mock, by Byron, of himself and all other modern
poets, "Juan," canto iii. stanza 80, and compare canto xiv. stanza 8. In reference
of future quotations the first numeral will stand always for canto; the second for
stanza; the third, if necessary, for line.
[76] "Island," ii. 16, where see context.
[77] "Juan," viii. 5; but, by your Lordship's quotation, Wordsworth says
"instrument,"—not "daughter." Your Lordship had better have said "Infant" and
taken the Woolwich authorities to witness: only Infant would not have rymed.
[78] "Juan," viii. 3; compare 14, and 63, with all its lovely context 61-68: then
82, and afterwards slowly and with thorough attention, the Devil's speech,
beginning, "Yes, Sir, you forget" in scene 2 of "The Deformed Transformed":
then Sardanapalus's, act i. scene 2, beginning, "he is gone, and on his finger
bears my signet," and finally the "Vision of Judgment," stanzas 3 to 5.
[79] "Island," iii. 3, and compare, of shore surf, the "slings its high flakes,
shivered into sleet" of stanza 7.
[80] A modern editor—of whom I will not use the expressions which occur to
me—finding the "we" a redundant syllable in the iambic line, prints, "we're." It
is a little thing—but I do not recollect, in the forty years of my literary
experience, any piece of editor's retouch quite so base. But I don't read the new
editions much: that must be allowed for.
[81] "Island," ii. 5. I was going to say, "Look to the context," but am fain to give
it here; for the stanza, learned by heart, ought to be our school-introduction to
the literature of the world.
"Such was this ditty of Tradition's days,
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys
In song, where fame as yet hath left no sign
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine;
Which leaves no record to the skeptic eye,

But yields young history all to harmony;
A boy Achilles, with the centaur's lyre
In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.
For one long-cherish'd ballad's simple stave,
Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,
Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,
Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear;
Invites, when hieroglyphics are a theme
For sages' labors or the student's dream;
Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil—
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil,
Such was this rude rhyme—rhyme is of the rude,
But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,
Who came and conquer'd; such, wherever rise
Lands which no foes destroy or civilize,
Exist; and what can our accomplish'd art
Of verse do more than reach the awaken'd heart?"
[82] "Shepherd's Calendar." "Coronatiön," loyal-pastoral for Carnation; "sops in
wine," jolly-pastoral for double pink; "paunce," thoughtless pastoral for pansy;
"chevisaunce," I don't know (not in Gerarde); "flowre-delice"—pronounce
dellice—half made up of "delicate" and "delicious."
[83] Herrick, "Dirge for Jephthah's Daughter."
[84] "Passionate Pilgrim."
[85] In this point compare the "Curse of Minerva" with the "Tears of the Muses."
[86] "He,"—Lucifer; ("Vision of Judgment," 24). It is precisely because Byron
was not his servant, that he could see the gloom. To the Devil's true servants,
their Master's presence brings both cheerfulness and prosperity; with a delightful
sense of their own wisdom and virtue; and of the "progress" of things in general:
—in smooth sea and fair weather,—and with no need either of helm touch, or
oar toil: as when once one is well within the edge of Maelstrom.
[87] "Island," ii. 4; perfectly orthodox theology, you observe; no denial of the
fall,—nor substitution of Bacterian birth for it. Nay, nearly Evangelical theology,
in contempt for the human heart; but with deeper than Evangelical humility,
acknowledging also what is sordid in its civilization.

FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL.

IV.[88]

79. I fear the editor of the Nineteenth Century will get little thanks from his
readers for allowing so much space in closely successive numbers to my
talk of old-fashioned men and things. I have nevertheless asked his
indulgence, this time, for a note or two concerning yet older fashions, in
order to bring into sharper clearness the leading outlines of literary fact,
which I ventured only in my last paper to secure in silhouette, obscurely
asserting itself against the limelight of recent moral creed, and fiction
manufacture.
The Bishop of Manchester, on the occasion of the great Wordsworthian
movement in that city for the enlargement, adornment, and sale of
Thirlmere, observed, in his advocacy of these operations, that very few
people, he supposed, had ever seen Tairlmere. His Lordship might have
supposed, with greater felicity, that very few people had ever read
Wordsworth. My own experience in that matter is that the amiable persons
who call themselves "Wordsworthian" have read—usually a long time ago
—"Lucy Gray," "The April Mornings," a picked sonnet or two, and the
"Ode on the Intimations," which last they seem generally to be under the
impression that nobody else has ever met with: and my further experience
of these sentimental students is, that they are seldom inclined to put in
practice a single syllable of the advice tendered them by their model poet.
Now, as I happen myself to have used Wordsworth as a daily text-book
from youth to age, and have lived, moreover, in all essential points
according to the tenor of his teaching, it was matter of some mortification to
me, when, at Oxford, I tried to get the memory of Mr. Wilkinson's spade
honored by some practical spadework at Ferry Hincksey, to find that no
other tutor in Oxford could see the slightest good or meaning in what I was
about; and that although my friend Professor Rolleston occasionally sought
the shades of our Rydalian laurels with expressions of admiration, his
professorial manner of "from pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine"

was to fill the Oxford Museum with the scabbed skulls of plague-struck
cretins.
80. I therefore respectfully venture to intimate to my bucolic friends, that I
know, more vitally by far than they, what is in Wordsworth, and what is not.
Any man who chooses to live by his precepts will thankfully find in them a
beauty and rightness, (exquisite rightness I called it, in "Sesame and
Lilies,") which will preserve him alike from mean pleasure, vain hope, and
guilty deed: so that he will neither mourn at the gate of the fields which
with covetous spirit he sold, nor drink of the waters which with yet more
covetous spirit he stole, nor devour the bread of the poor in secret, nor set
on his guest-table the poor man's lamb:—in all these homely virtues and
assured justices let him be Wordsworth's true disciple; and he will then be
able with equanimity to hear it said, when there is need to say so, that his
excellent master often wrote verses that were not musical, and sometimes
expressed opinions that were not profound.
And the need to say so becomes imperative when the unfinished verse, and
uncorrected fancy, are advanced by the affection of his disciples into places
of authority where they give countenance to the popular national prejudices
from the infection of which, in most cases, they themselves sprang.
81. Take, for example, the following three and a half lines of the 38th
Ecclesiastical Sonnet:—
"Amazement strikes the crowd; while many turn
Their eyes away in sorrow, others burn
With scorn, invoking a vindictive ban
From outraged Nature."
The first quite evident character of these lines is that they are extremely bad
iambics,—as ill-constructed as they are unmelodious; the turning and
burning being at the wrong ends of them, and the ends themselves put just
when the sentence is in its middle.
But a graver fault of these three and a half lines is that the amazement, the
turning, the burning, and the banning, are all alike fictitious; and foul-
fictitious, calumniously conceived no less than falsely. Not one of the
spectators of the scene referred to was in reality amazed—not one

contemptuous, not one maledictory. It is only our gentle minstrel of the
meres who sits in the seat of the scornful—only the hermit of Rydal Mount
who invokes the malison of Nature.
What the scene verily was, and how witnessed, it will not take long to tell;
nor will the tale be useless: but I must first refer the reader to a period
preceding, by nearly a century, the great symbolic action under the porch of
St. Mark's.
82. The Protestant ecclesiastic, and infidel historian, who delight to prop
their pride, or edge their malice, in unveiling the corruption through which
Christianity has passed, should study in every fragment of authentic record
which the fury of their age has left, the lives of the three queens of the
Priesthood, Theodora, Marozia, and Matilda, and the foundation of the
merciless power of the Popes, by the monk Hildebrand. And if there be any
of us who would satisfy with nobler food than the catastrophes of the stage,
the awe at what is marvelous in human sorrow which makes sacred the
fountain of tears in authentic tragedy, let them follow, pace by pace, and
pang by pang, the humiliation of the fourth Henry at Canossa, and his death
in the church he had built to the Virgin at Spire.
His antagonist, Hildebrand, died twenty years before him; captive to the
Normans in Salerno, having seen the Rome in which he had proclaimed his
princedom over all the earth, laid in her last ruin; and forever. Rome herself,
since her desolation by Guiscard, has been only a grave and a wilderness[89]
—what we call Rome, is a mere colony of the stranger in her "Field of
Mars." This destruction of Rome by the Normans is accurately and utterly
the end of her Capitoline and wolf-suckled power; and from that day her
Leonine or Christian power takes its throne in the Leonine city, sanctified in
tradition by its prayer of safety for the Saxon Borgo, in which the childhood
of our own Alfred had been trained.
And from this date forward, (recollected broadly as 1090, the year of the
birth of St. Bernard,) no longer oppressed by the remnants of Roman death,
—Christian faith, chivalry, and art possess the world, and recreate it,
through the space of four hundred years—the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth,
and fifteenth centuries.

And, necessarily, in the first of these centuries comes the main debate
between the powers of Monk and Knight which was reconciled in this scene
under the porch of St. Mark's.
83. That debate was brought to its crisis and issue by the birth of the new
third elemental force of the State—the Citizen. Sismondi's republican
enthusiasm does not permit him to recognize the essential character of this
power. He speaks always of the Republics and the liberties of Italy, as if a
craftsman differed from a knight only in political privileges, and as if his
special virtue consisted in rendering obedience to no master. But the
strength of the great cities of Italy was no more republican than that of her
monasteries, or fortresses. The Craftsman of Milan, Sailor of Pisa, and
Merchant of Venice are all of them essentially different persons from the
soldier and the anchorite:—but the city, under the banner of its caroccio,
and the command of its podesta, was disciplined far more strictly than any
wandering military squadron by its leader, or any lower order of monks
under their abbot. In the founding of civic constitutions, the Lord of the city
is usually its Bishop:—and it is curious to hear the republican historian—
who, however in judgment blind, is never in heart uncandid, prepare to
close his record of the ten years' war of Como with Milan, with this
summary of distress to the heroic mountaineers—that "they had lost their
Bishop Guido, who was their soul."
84. I perceive for quite one of the most hopeless of the many difficulties
which Modernism finds, and will find, insuperable either by steam or
dynamite, that of either wedging or welding into its own cast-iron head, any
conception of a king, monk, or townsman of the twelfth and two succeeding
centuries. And yet no syllable of the utterance, no fragment of the arts of the
middle ages, far less any motive of their deeds, can be read even in the
letter—how much less judged in spirit—unless, first of all, we can
somewhat imagine all these three Living souls.
First, a king who was the best knight in his kingdom, and on whose own
swordstrokes hung the fate of Christendom. A king such as Henry the
Fowler, the first and third Edwards of England, the Bruce of Scotland, and
this Frederic the First of Germany.

Secondly, a monk who had been trained from youth in greater hardship than
any soldier, and had learned at last to desire no other life than one of
hardship;—a man believing in his own and his fellows' immortality, in the
aiding powers of angels, and the eternal presence of God; versed in all the
science, graceful in all the literature, cognizant of all the policy of his age;
and fearless of any created thing, on the earth or under it.
And, lastly, a craftsman absolutely master of his craft, and taking such pride
in the exercise of it as all healthy souls take in putting forth their personal
powers: proud also of his city and his people; enriching, year by year, their
streets with loftier buildings, their treasuries with rarer possession; and
bequeathing his hereditary art to a line of successive masters, by whose tact
of race, and honor of effort, the essential skills of metal-work in gold and
steel, of pottery, glass-painting, woodwork, and weaving, were carried to a
perfectness never to be surpassed; and of which our utmost modern hope is
to produce a not instantly detected imitation.
These three kinds of persons, I repeat, we have to conceive before we can
understand any single event of the Middle Ages. For all that is enduring in
them was done by men such as these. History, indeed, records twenty
undoings for one deed, twenty desolations for one redemption; and thinks
the fool and villain potent as the wise and true. But Nature and her laws
recognize only the noble: generations of the cruel pass like the darkness of
locust plagues; while one loving and brave heart establishes a nation.
85. I give the character of Barbarossa in the words of Sismondi, a man
sparing in the praise of emperors:—
"The death of Frederic was mourned even by the cities which so long had
been the objects of his hostility, and the victims of his vengeance. All the
Lombards—even the Milanese—acknowledged his rare courage, his
constancy in misfortune—his generosity in conquest.
"An intimate conviction of the justice of his cause had often rendered him
cruel, even to ferocity, against those who still resisted; but after victory he
took vengeance only on senseless walls; and irritated as he had been by the
people of Milan, Crema, and Tortona, and whatever blood he had shed
during battle, he never sullied his triumph by odious punishments. In spite
of the treason which he on one occasion used against Alessandria, his

promises were in general respected; and when, after the peace of Constance,
the towns which had been most inveterately hostile to him received him
within their walls, they had no need to guard against any attempt on his part
to suppress the privileges he had once recognized."
My own estimate of Frederic's character would be scarcely so favorable; it
is the only point of history on which I have doubted the authority even of
my own master, Carlyle. But I am concerned here only with the actualities
of his wars in Italy, with the people of her cities, and the head of her
religion.
86. Frederic of Suabia, direct heir of the Ghibelline rights, while nearly
related by blood to the Guelph houses of Bavaria and Saxony, was elected
emperor almost in the exact middle of the twelfth century (1152). He was
called into Italy by the voices of Italians. The then Pope, Eugenius III.,
invoked his aid against the Roman people under Arnold of Brescia. The
people of Lodi prayed his protection against the tyrannies of Milan.
Frederic entered the plain of Verona in 1154, by the valley of the Adige,—
ravaged the territory of Milan,—pillaged and burned Tortona, Asti, and
Chieri,—kept his Christmas at Novara; marched on Rome,—delivered up
Arnold to the Pope[90] (who, instantly killing him, ended for that time
Protestant reforms in Italy)—destroyed Spoleto; and returned by Verona,
having scorched his path through Italy like a level thunderbolt along the
ground.
Three years afterwards, Adrian died; and, chiefly, by the love and will of the
Roman people, Roland of Siena was raised to the Papal throne, under the
name of Alexander III. The conclave of cardinals chose another Pope,
Victor III.; Frederic on his second invasion of Italy (1158) summoned both
elected heads of the Church to receive judgment of their claims before him.
The Cardinals' Pope, Victor, obeyed. The people's Alexander, refused;
answering that the successor of St. Peter submitted himself to the judgment
neither of emperors nor councils.
The spirit of modern prelacy may perhaps have rendered it impossible for
an English churchman to conceive this answer as other than that of
insolence and hypocrisy. But a faithful Pope, and worthy of his throne,

could answer no otherwise. Frederic of course at once confirmed the claims
of his rival; the German bishops and Italian cardinals in council at Pavia
joined their powers to the Emperor's and Alexander, driven from Rome,
wandered—unsubdued in soul—from city to city, taking refuge at last in
France.
87. Meantime, in 1159, Frederic took and destroyed Crema, having first
bound its hostages to his machines of war. In 1161, Milan submitted to his
mercy, and he decreed that her name should perish. Only a few pillars of a
Roman temple, and the church of St. Ambrose, remain to us of the ancient
city. Warned by her destruction, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, and
Venice, joined in the vow—called of the Lombard League—to reduce the
Emperor's power within its just limits. And, in 1164, Alexander, under the
protection of Louis VII. of France and Henry II. of England, returned to
Rome, and was received at Ostia by its senate, clergy, and people.
Three years afterwards, Frederic again swept down on the Campagna;
attacked the Leonine city, where the basilica of the Vatican, changed into a
fortress, and held by the Pope's guard, resisted his assault until, by the
Emperor's order, fire was set to the Church of St. Mary of Pity.
The Leonine city was taken; the Pope retired to the Coliseum, whence,
uttering once again his fixed defiance of the Emperor, but fearing treachery,
he fled in disguise down the Tiber to the sea, and sought asylum at
Benevento.
The German army encamped round Rome in August of 1166, with the sign
before their eyes of the ruins of the church of Our Lady of Pity. The marsh-
fever struck them—killed the Emperor's cousin, Frederic of Rothenburg, the
Duke of Bavaria, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Bishops of Liége, Spire,
Ratisbonne, and Verden, and two thousand knights; the common dead were
uncounted. The Emperor gathered the wreck of his army together, retreated
on Lombardy, quartered his soldiery at Pavia, and escaped in secret over the
Mont Cenis with thirty knights.
88. No places of strength remained to him south of the Alps but Pavia and
Montferrat; and to hold these in check, and command the plains of
Piedmont, the Lombard League built the fortress city, which, from the Pope

who had maintained through all adversity the authority of his throne and the
cause of the Italian people, they named "Alessandria."
Against this bulwark the Emperor, still indomitable, dashed with his utmost
regathered strength after eight years of pause, and in the temper in which
men set their souls on a single stake. All had been lost in his last war, except
his honor—in this, he lost his honor also. Whatever may be the just estimate
of the other elements of his character, he is unquestionably, among the
knights of his time, notable in impiety. In the battle of Cassano, he broke
through the Milanese vanguard to their caroccio, and struck down with his
own hand its golden crucifix;—two years afterwards its cross and standard
were bowed before him—and in vain.[91] He fearlessly claims for himself
right of decision between contending popes, and camps against the rightful
one on the ashes of the Church of the Virgin.
Foiled in his first assault on Alessandria, detained before it through the
inundations of the winter, and threatened by the army of the League in the
spring, he announced a truce to the besieged, that they might keep Good
Friday. Then violating alike the day's sanctity and his own oath, he attacked
the trusting city through a secretly completed mine. And, for a second time,
the verdict of God went forth against him. Every man who had obtained
entrance within the city was slain or cast from its ramparts;—the
Alessandrines threw all their gates open—fell, with the broken fugitives, on
the investing troops, scattered them in disorder, and burned their towers of
attack. The Emperor gathered their remains into Pavia on Easter Sunday,—
spared in his defeat by the army of the League.
89. And yet, once more, he brought his cause to combat-trial. Temporizing
at Lodi with the Pope's legates, he assembled, under the Archbishops of
Magdebourg and Cologne, and the chief prelates and princes of Germany, a
seventh army; brought it down to Como across the Splügen, put himself
there at its head, and in the early spring of 1176, the fifteenth year since he
had decreed the effacing of the name of Milan, was met at Legnano by the
specter of Milan.
Risen from her grave, she led the Lombard League in this final battle. Three
hundred of her nobles guarded her caroccio; nine hundred of her knights

bound themselves—under the name of the Cohort of Death—to win for her,
or to die.
The field of battle is in the midst of the plain, now covered with maize and
mulberry trees, from which the traveler, entering Italy by the Lago
Maggiore, sees first the unbroken snows of the Rosa behind him and the
white pinnacles of Milan Cathedral in the south. The Emperor, as was his
wont, himself led his charging chivalry. The Milanese knelt as it came;—
prayed aloud to God, St. Peter, and St. Ambrose—then advanced round
their caroccio on foot. The Emperor's charge broke through their ranks
nearly up to their standard—then the Cohort of Death rode against him.
90. And all his battle changed before them into flight. For the first time in
stricken field, the imperial standard fell, and was taken. The Milanese
followed the broken host until their swords were weary; and the Emperor,
struck fighting from his horse, was left, lost among the dead. The Empress,
whose mercy to Milan he had forbidden, already wore mourning for him in
Pavia, when her husband came, solitary and suppliant, to its gate.
The lesson at last sufficed; and Barbarossa sent his heretic bishops to ask
forgiveness of the Pope, and peace from the Lombards.
Pardon and peace were granted—without conditions. "Cæsar's successor"
had been the blight of Italy for a quarter of a century; he had ravaged her
harvests, burnt her cities, decimated her children with famine, her young
men with the sword; and, seven times over, in renewed invasion, sought to
establish dominion over her, from the Alps to the rock of Scylla.
She asked of him no restitution;—coveted no province—demanded no
fortress, of his land. Neither coward nor robber, she disdained alike guard
and gain upon her frontiers: she counted no compensation for her sorrow;
and set no price upon the souls of her dead. She stood in the porch of her
brightest temple—between the blue plains of her earth and sea, and, in the
person of her spiritual father, gave her enemy pardon.
"Black demons hovering o'er his mitered head," think you, gentle sonneteer
of the daffodil-marsh? And have Barbarossa's race been taught of better
angels how to bear themselves to a conquered emperor,—or England, by
braver and more generous impulses, how to protect his exiled son?

The fall of Venice, since that day, was measured by Byron in a single line:
"An Emperor tramples where an emperor knelt."
But what words shall measure the darker humiliation of the German
pillaging his helpless enemy and England leaving her ally under the
savage's spear?
91. With the clews now given, and an hour or two's additional reading of
any standard historian he pleases, the reader may judge on secure grounds
whether the truce of Venice and peace of Constance were of the Devil's
making: whereof whatever he may ultimately feel or affirm, this at least he
will please note for positive, that Mr. Wordsworth, having no shadow of
doubt of the complete wisdom of every idea that comes into his own head,
writes down in dogmatic sonnet his first impression of black instrumentality
in the business; so that his innocent readers, taking him for their sole
master, far from caring to inquire into the thing more deeply, may remain
even unconscious that it is disputable, and forever incapable of conceiving
either a Catholic's feeling, or a careful historian's hesitation, touching the
centrally momentous crisis of power in all the Middle Ages! Whereas
Byron, knowing the history thoroughly, and judging of Catholicism with an
honest and open heart, ventures to assert nothing that admits of debate,
either concerning human motives or angelic presences; but binds into one
line of massive melody the unerringly counted sum of Venetian majesty and
shame.
92. In a future paper, I propose examining his method of dealing with the
debate, itself on a higher issue: and will therefore close the present one by
trampling a few of the briers and thorns of popular offense out of our way.
The common counts against Byron are in the main, three.
I. That he confessed—in some sort, even proclaimed defiantly (which is a
proud man's natural manner of confession)[92]—the naughtiness of his life.

The hypocrisy[93] even of Pall Mall and Petit Trianon does not, I assume,
and dares not, go so far as to condemn the naughtiness itself? And that he
did confess it, is precisely the reason for reading him by his own motto
"Trust Byron." You always may; and the common smooth-countenanced

man of the world is guiltier in the precise measure of your higher esteem for
him.
II. That he wrote about pretty things which ought never to be heard of.
In the presence of the exact proprieties of modern Fiction, Art, and Drama, I
am shy of touching on the question of what should be mentioned, and seen
—and should not. All that I care to say, here, is that Byron tells you of
realities, and that their being pretty ones is, to my mind,—at the first
(literally) blush, of the matter, rather in his favor. If however you have
imagined that he means you to think Dudu as pretty as Myrrha,[94] or even
Haidee, whether in full dress or none, as pretty as Marina, it is your fault,
not his.
93. III. That he blasphemed God and the King.
Before replying to this count, I must ask the reader's patience in a piece of
very serious work, the ascertainment of the real and full meaning of the
word Blasphemy. It signifies simply "Harmful speaking"—Male-diction—
or shortly "Blame"; and may be committed as much against a child or a
dog, if you desire to hurt them, as against the Deity. And it is, in its original
use, accurately opposed to another Greek word, "Euphemy," which means a
reverent and loving manner of benediction—fallen entirely into disuse in
modern sentiment and language.
Now the compass and character of essential Male-diction, so-called in
Latin, or Blasphemy, so-called in Greek, may, I think, be best explained to
the general reader by an instance in a very little thing, first translating the
short pieces of Plato which best show the meaning of the word in codes of
Greek morality.
"These are the things then" (the true order of the Sun, Moon,
and Planets), "oh my friends, of which I desire that all our
citizens and youths should learn at least so much concerning the
Gods of Heaven, as not to blaspheme concerning them, but to
eupheme reverently, both in sacrificing, and in every prayer they
pray."—Laws, VII. Steph. 821.