 Library Edition

 THE COMPLETE WORKS

 OF

 JOHN RUSKIN

 ON THE OLD ROAD VOLUMES I-II

 NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NEW YORK CHICAGO

 ON THE OLD ROAD. 

 _A COLLECTION OF MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND ARTICLES ON ART AND LITERATURE. _

 PUBLISHED 1834-1885. 

 VOL. II. 

 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 

 PAGE

 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 MEDIĆVAL 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 and Epilogue. ) 382 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 ofuniting sculpture with painting under the same roof?--Yes. 

What is your opinion on the subject?--I think it almost essential thatthey should be united, if a National Gallery is to be of service inteaching 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 thesame 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 thetaste of the nation can only be rightly directed by having alwayssculpture and painting visible together. Many of the highest and bestpoints of painting, I think, can only be discerned after some disciplineof the eye by sculpture. That is one very essential reason. I think thatafter looking at sculpture one feels the grace of composition infinitelymore, and one also feels how that grace of composition was reached bythe painter. 

Do you consider that if works of sculpture and works of painting wereplaced in the same gallery, the same light would be useful for both ofthem?--I understood your question only to refer to their collectionunder 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 theFlorentine Gallery, for instance?--Not at all. I think, on the contrary, that the one diverts the mind from the other, and that, although the oneis an admirable discipline, you should take some time for theexamination of sculpture, and pass afterwards into the painting room, and so on. You should not be disturbed while looking at paintings by thewhiteness of the sculpture. 

You do not then approve, for example, of the way in which the famousroom, the Tribune, at Florence, is arranged?--No; I think it is merelyarranged for show--for showing how many rich things can be got together. 

115. _Mr. Cockerell. _ Then you do not regard sculpture as a properdecorative portion of the National Gallery of Pictures--you do not admitthe term decoration?--No; I should not use that term of the sculpturewhich it was the object of the gallery to exhibit. It might be added, ofcourse, supposing it became a part of the architecture, but not asindependent--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, modernsculpture might be added; but I have never thought that it would benecessary. 

You do not consider that sculpture would be a repose after contemplatingpainting for some time?--I should not feel it so myself. 

116. _Dean of St. Paul's. _ When you speak of removing the sculpture ofthe British Museum, and of uniting it with the pictures of the NationalGallery, do you comprehend the whole range of the sculpture in theBritish Museum, commencing with the Egyptian, and going down through itsregular series of gradation to the decline of the art?--Yes, because mygreat hope respecting the National Gallery is, that it may become aperfectly consecutive chronological arrangement, and it seems to me thatit is one of the chief characteristics of a National Gallery that itshould be so. 

Then you consider that one great excellence of the collection at theBritish Museum is, that it does present that sort of history of the artof 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 recentlypurchased there?--I am not. 

Supposing there were a fine collection of Byzantine ivories, you wouldconsider that they were an important link in the generalhistory?--Certainly. 

Would you unite the whole of that Pagan sculpture with what you call thelater Christian art of Painting?--I should be glad to see it done--thatis to say, I should be glad to see the galleries of painting andsculpture collaterally placed, and the gallery of sculpture beginningwith the Pagan art, and proceeding to the Christian art, but notnecessarily associating the painting with the sculpture of each epoch;because the painting is so deficient in many of the periods where thesculpture is rich, that you could not carry them on collaterally--youmust have your painting gallery and your sculpture gallery. 

You would be sorry to take any portion of the sculpture from thecollection in the British Museum, and to associate it with anycollection of painting?--Yes, I should think it highly inexpedient. Mywhole object would be that it might be associated with a largercollection, a collection from other periods, and not be subdivided. Andit seems to be one of the chief reasons advanced in order to justifyremoving that collection, that it cannot be much more enlarged--that youcannot at present put other sculpture with it. 

Supposing that the collection of ancient Pagan art could not be unitedwith the National Gallery of pictures, with which would you associatethe medićval sculpture, supposing we were to retain any considerableamount of sculpture?--With the painting. 

The medićval art you would associate with the painting, supposing youcould 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 bemanufactured, but I have never seen a picture so large but that I shouldbe glad to see it under glass. Even supposing it were possible, which Isuppose it is not, the great Paul Veronese, in the gallery of theLouvre, I think would be more beautiful under glass. 

Independently of the preservation?--Independently of the preservation, Ithink it would be more beautiful. It gives an especial delicacy to lightcolors, and does little harm to dark colors--that is, it benefitsdelicate pictures most, and its injury is only to very dark pictures. 

Have you ever considered the propriety of covering the sculpture withglass?--I have never considered it. I did not know until a very few daysago that sculpture was injured by exposure to our climate and our smoke. 

_Professor Faraday. _ But you would cover the pictures, independently ofthe preservation, you would cover them absolutely for the artisticeffect, the improvement of the picture?--Not necessarily so, because tosome persons there might be an objectionable character in having toavoid the reflection more scrupulously than otherwise. I should notpress 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 personswould not perceive that there was a difference, and that is caused bythe very slight color in the glass, which, perhaps, some persons mightthink it expedient to avoid altogether. 

Do you put it down to the absolute tint in the glass like a glazing, ordo you put it down to a sort of reflection? Is the effect referable tothe color in the glass, or to some kind of optic action, which the mosttransparent glass might produce?--I do not know; but I suppose it tobe referable to the very slight tint in the glass. 

118. _Dean of St. Paul's. _ Is it not the case when ladies with verybrilliant dresses look at pictures through glass, that the reflection ofthe color of their dresses is so strong as greatly to disturb theenjoyment and the appreciation of the pictures?--Certainly; but I shouldask the ladies to stand a little aside, and look at the pictures one byone. There is that disadvantage. 

I am supposing a crowded room--of course the object of a NationalGallery is that it should be crowded--that as large a number of thepublic should have access to it as possible--there would of course becertain limited hours, and the gallery would be liable to get filledwith the public in great numbers?--It would be disadvantageouscertainly, but not so disadvantageous as to balance the much greateradvantage of preservation. I imagine that, in fact, glass is essential;it is not merely an expedient thing, but an essential thing to thesafety of the pictures for twenty or thirty years. 

Do you consider it essential as regards the atmosphere of London, or ofthis country generally?--I speak of London only. I have no experience ofother parts. But I have this experience in my own collection. I kept mypictures for some time without glass, and I found the deteriorationdefinite within a very short period--a period of a couple of years. 

You mean at Denmark Hill?--Yes; that deterioration on pictures of theclass I refer to is not to be afterwards remedied--the thing suffersforever--you cannot get into the interstices. 

_Professor Faraday. _ You consider that the picture is permanentlyinjured by the dirt?--Yes. 

That no cleaning can restore it to what it was?--Nothing can restore itto what it was, I think, because the operation of cleaning must scrapeaway some of the grains of paint. 

Therefore, if you have two pictures, one in a dirtier place, and one ina cleaner place, no attention will put the one in the dirtier place ona 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 greatadvantage in having a room to themselves. Do you mean each of the largepictures or a whole collection of large pictures?--Supposing verybeautiful pictures of a large size (it would depend entirely on thevalue and size of the picture), supposing we ever acquired such largepictures as Titian's Assumption, or Raphael's Transfiguration, thosepictures ought to have a room to themselves, and to have a gallery roundthem. 

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 havenever been at Dresden. 

Then you do not know the position of the Great Holbein and of theMadonna 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 bythat learned people, the Germans, with regard to the exhibition ofpictures?--I have not been into Germany for twenty years. 

120. That subject has been handled by them in an original manner, andthey have constructed galleries at Munich, at Dresden, and I believe atSt. Petersburg upon a new principle, and a very judicious principle. Youhave not had opportunities of considering that?--No, I have neverconsidered that; because I always supposed that there was no difficultyin producing a beautiful gallery, or an efficient one. I never thoughtthat there could be any question about the form which such a galleryshould take, or that it was a matter of consideration. The onlydifficulty with me was this--the persuading, or hoping to persuade, anation that if it had pictures at all, it should have those pictures onthe line of the eye; that it was not well to have a noble picture manyfeet above the eye, merely for the glory of the room. Then I think thatas soon as you decide that a picture is to be seen, it is easy to findout the way of showing it; to say that it should have such and such aroom, with such and such a light; not a raking light, as I heard SirCharles Eastlake express it the other day, but rather an oblique andsoft 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 afterthat are subordinate. 

_Dean of St. Paul's. _ Your proposition would require a great extent ofwall?--An immense extent of wall. 

121. _Chairman. _ I see you state in the pamphlet to which I have beforealluded, that it is of the highest importance that the works of eachmaster should be kept together. Would not such an arrangement increasevery much the size of the National Gallery?--I think not, because I haveonly supposed in my plan that, at the utmost, two lines of picturesshould be admitted on the walls of the room; that being so, you would bealways able to put all the works of any master together without anyinconvenience or difficulty in fitting them to the size of the room. Supposing that you put the large pictures high on the walls, then itmight be a question, of course, whether such and such a room orcompartment of the Gallery would hold the works of a particular master;but supposing the pictures were all on a continuous line, you would onlystop 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 hangingof pictures in galleries?--I think it very beautiful sometimes, but notto be imitated. It produces most noble rooms. No one can but beimpressed with the first room at the Louvre, where you have the mostnoble Venetian pictures one mass of fire on the four walls; but thennone of the details of those pictures can be seen. 

_Dean of St. Paul's. _ There you have a very fine general effect, but youlose the effect of the beauties of each individual picture?--You loseall the beauties, all the higher merits; you get merely your generalidea. It is a perfectly splendid room, of which a great part of theimpression depends upon the consciousness of the spectator that it is socostly. 

122. Would you have those galleries in themselves richly decorated?--Notrichly, but pleasantly. 

Brilliantly, but not too brightly?--Not too brightly. I have not goneinto that question, it being out of my way; but I think, generally, thatgreat care should be taken to give a certain splendor--a certaingorgeous effect--so that the spectator may feel himself among splendidthings; so that there shall be no discomfort or meagerness, or want ofrespect for the things which are being shown. 

123. _Mr. Richmond. _ Then do you think that Art would be more worthilytreated, and the public taste and artists better served, by having evena smaller collection of works so arranged, than by a much larger onemerely 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 veryimportant thing that we should have many pictures. Totally new resultsmight be obtained from a large gallery in which the chronologicalarrangement was perfect, and whose curators prepared for thatchronological arrangement, by leaving gaps to be filled by futureacquisition; taking the greatest pains in the selection of the examples, that they should be thoroughly characteristic; giving a greater pricefor a picture which was thoroughly characteristic and expressive of thehabits of a nation; because it appears to me that one of the main usesof Art at present is not so much as Art, but as teaching us the feelingsof nations. History only tells us what they did; Art tells us theirfeelings, and why they did it: whether they were energetic and fiery, orwhether they were, as in the case of the Dutch, imitating minor things, quiet and cold. All those expressions of feeling cannot come out ofHistory. Even the contemporary historian does not feel them; he does notfeel 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 samecentury together, and see how the thing will force itself uponeveryone's observation. 

124. Then you would not exclude the genuine work of inferiormasters?--Not by any means. 

You would have the whole as far as you could obtain it?--Yes, as far asit was characteristic; but I think you can hardly call an inferiormaster one who does in the best possible way the thing he undertakes todo; and I would not take any master who did not in some way excel. Forinstance, I would not take a mere imitator of Cuyp among the Dutch; butCuyp himself has done insuperable things in certain expressions ofsunlight and repose. Vander Heyden and others may also be mentioned asfirst-rate in inferior lines. 

Taking from the rise of art to the time of Raphael, would you in theNational Gallery include examples of all those masters whose names havecome down to the most learned of us?--No. 

Where would you draw the line, and where would you begin to leaveout?--I would only draw the line when I was purchasing a picture. Ithink that a person might always spend his money better by making aneffort to get one noble picture than five or six second or third-ratepictures, provided only, that you had examples of the best kind of workproduced at that time. I would not have second-rate pictures. Multitudesof masters among the disciples of Giotto might be named; you might haveone or two pictures of Giotto, and one or two pictures of the disciplesof Giotto. 

Then you would rather depend upon the beauty of the work itself; if thework were beautiful, you would admit it?--Certainly. 

But if it were only historically interesting, would you then rejectit?--Not in the least. I want it historically interesting, but I want asgood an example as I can have of that particular manner. 

Would it not be historically interesting if it were the only pictureknown of that particular master, who was a follower of Giotto? Forinstance, 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 dutyof the authorities of a National Gallery to seize upon that picture, andpay perhaps rather a large price for it?--Certainly; all documentary artI should include. 

Then what would you exclude?--Merely that which is inferior, and notdocumentary; merely another example of the same kind of thing. 

Then you would not multiply examples of the same masters if inferiormen, but you would have one of each. There is no man, I suppose, whosememory has come down to us after three or four centuries, but hassomething worth preserving in his work--something peculiar to himself, which perhaps no other person has ever done, and you would retain oneexample of such, would you not?--I would, if it was in my power, but Iwould rather with given funds make an effort to get perfect examples. 

Then you think that the artistic element should govern the archćologicalin the selection?--Yes, and the archćological in the arrangement. 

125. _Dean of St. Paul's. _ When you speak of arranging the works of onemaster consecutively, would you pay any regard or not to the subjects?You must be well aware that many painters, for instance, Correggio, andothers, painted very incongruous subjects; would you rather keep themtogether than disperse the works of those painters to a certain degreeaccording to their subjects?--I would most certainly keep them together. I think it an important feature of the master that he did paintincongruously, and very possibly the character of each picture would bebetter understood by seeing them together; the relations of each aresometimes essential to be seen. 

_Mr. Richmond. _ Do you think that the preservation of these works is oneof the first and most important things to be provided for?--It would beso with me in purchasing a picture. I would pay double the price for itif 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 Artof a nation I think one of the most important points of its history, anda part which, if once destroyed, no history will ever supply the placeof--and the first idea of a National Gallery is, that it should be aLibrary of Art, in which the rudest efforts are, in some cases, hardlyless important than the noblest. " Is that your opinion?--Perfectly. Thatseems somewhat inconsistent with what I have been saying, but I meanthere, the noblest efforts of the time at which they are produced. Iwould take the greatest pains to get an example of eleventh centurywork, though the painting is perfectly barbarous at that time. 

126. You have much to do with the education of the working classes inArt. As far as you are able to tell us, what is your experience withregard to their liking and disliking in Art--do comparatively uneducatedpersons prefer the Art up to the time of Raphael, or down from the timeof Raphael?--we will take the Bolognese School, or the early FlorentineSchool--which do you think a working man would feel the greatestinterest in looking at?--I cannot tell you, because my working men wouldnot be allowed to look at a Bolognese picture; I teach them so much loveof detail, that the moment they see a detail carefully drawn, they arecaught by it. The main thing which has surprised me in dealing withthese men is the exceeding refinement of their minds--so that in amoment I can get carpenters, and smiths, and ordinary workmen, andvarious classes to give me a refinement which I cannot get a young ladyto give me when I give her a lesson for the first time. Whether it isthe habit of work which makes them go at it more intensely, or whetherit 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, andgive 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 thestate of the public mind and taste in that respect since these measureshave been adopted?--There has not been time to judge of that. 

127. Do these persons who are taking an interest in Art come fromdifferent parts of London?--Yes. 

Of course the distance which they would have to come would be of verygreat importance?--Yes. 

Therefore one of the great recommendations of a Gallery, if you wish itto have an effect upon the public mind in that respect, would be itsaccessibility, both with regard to the time consumed in going there, andto 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 itwould be to the public?--Yes; there is this, however, to be said, that acentral situation involves the crowding of the room with parties whollyuninterested in the matter--a situation more retired will generally beserviceable enough for the real student. 

Would not that very much depend upon its being in a thoroughfare? Theremight be a central situation which would not be so complete athoroughfare as to tempt persons to go in who were not likely to deriveadvantage from it?--I think that if this gallery were made so large andso beautiful as we are proposing, it would be rather a resort, rather alounge every day, and all day long, provided it were accessible. 

128. Would not that a good deal depend upon its being in a publicthoroughfare? If it were in a thoroughfare, a great many persons mightpass in who would be driven in by accident, or driven in by caprice, ifthey 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 derivemuch advantage from it?--Quite so; but there would always be anadvantage in attracting a crowd; it would always extend its educationalability in its being crowded. But it would seem to me that all that isnecessary for a noble Museum of the best art should be more or lessremoved, and that a collection, solely for the purpose of education, andfor 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 interestthe public, and of merit enough to form the basis of early education, and to give examples of all art, should be collected in the popularGallery, but that all the precious things should be removed and put intothe great Gallery, where they would be safest, irrespectively altogetherof accessibility. 

_Chairman. _ Then you would, in fact, have not one but twoGalleries?--Two only. 

129. _Professor Faraday. _ And you would seem to desire purposely theremoval of the true and head Gallery to some distance, so as to preventthe great access of persons?--Yes. 

Thinking that all those who could make a real use of a Gallery would goto that one?--Yes. My opinion in that respect has been altered withinthese few days from the fact having been brought to my knowledge ofsculpture being much deteriorated by the atmosphere and the totalimpossibility of protecting sculpture. Pictures I do not care about, forI can protect them, but not sculpture. 

_Dean of St. Paul's. _ Whence did you derive that knowledge?--I forgetwho told me; it was some authority I thought conclusive, and thereforetook no special note of. 

130. _Chairman. _ Do you not consider that it is rather prejudicial toart that there should be a Gallery notoriously containing no first-rateworks of art, but second-rate or third-rate works?--No; I think itrather valuable as an expression of the means of education, that thereshould be early lessons in art--that there should be this sort of artselected especially for first studies, and also that there should be arecognition of the exceeding preciousness of some other art. I thinkthat portions of it should be set aside as interesting, but notunreplaceable; but that other portions should be set aside as beingthings as to which the function of the nation was, chiefly, to take careof those things, not for itself merely, but for all its descendants, andsetting the example of taking care of them for ever. 

You do not think, then, that there would be any danger in the studyingor the copying of works which notoriously were not the best works?--Onthe contrary, I think it would be better that works not altogether thebest should be first submitted. I never should think of giving the bestwork myself to a student to copy--it is hopeless; he would not feel itsbeauties--he would merely blunder over it. I am perfectly certain thatthat cannot be serviceable in the particular branch of art which Iprofess, namely, landscape-painting; I know that I must give more orless of bad examples. 

_Mr. Richmond. _ But you would admit nothing into this second gallerywhich was not good or true of its kind?--Nothing which was not good ortrue of its kind, but only inferior in value to the others. 

And if there were any other works which might be deposited there withperfect safety, say precious drawings, which might be protected byglass, you would not object to exhibit those to the unselectedmultitude?--Not in the least; I should be very glad to do so, provided Icould spare them from the grand chronological arrangement. 

Do you think that a very interesting supplementary exhibition might begot up, say at Trafalgar Square, and retained there?--Yes, and all themore useful because you would put few works, and you could make itcomplete in series--and because, on a small scale, you would have theentire series. By selecting a few works, you would have an epitome ofthe Grand Gallery, the divisions of the chronology being all within thecompartment of a wall, which in the great Gallery would be in a separatedivision of the building. 

131. _Mr. Cockerell. _ Do you contemplate the possibility of excellentcopies being exhibited of the most excellent works both of sculpture andof painting?--I have not contemplated that possibility. I have a greathorror of copies of any kind, except only of sculpture. I have greatfear of copies of painting; I think people generally catch the worstparts of the painting and leave the best. 

But you would select the artist who should make the copy. There arepersons whose whole talent is concentrated in the power of imitation ofa given picture, and a great talent it is. --I have never in my lifeseen a good copy of a good picture. 

_Chairman. _ Have you not seen any of the German copies of some of thegreat Italian masters, which are generally esteemed very admirableworks?--I have not much studied the works of the copyists; I have notobserved them much, never having yet found an exception to that rulewhich I have mentioned. When I came across a copyist in the Gallery ofthe Vatican, or in the Gallery at Florence, I had a horror of themischief, and the scandal and the libel upon the master, from thesupposition that such a thing as that in any way resembled his work, andthe 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 andcirculating it, doing mischief?--Yes, it is mischievous. 

_Mr. Cockerell. _ But you admit engravings--you admit photographs ofthese works, which are imitations in another language?--Yes; in abstractterms, they are rather descriptions of the paintings than copies--theyare rather measures and definitions of them--they are hints and tablesof the pictures, rather than copies of them; they do not pretend to thesame excellence in any way. 

You speak as a connoisseur; how would the common eye of the public agreewith you in that opinion?--I think it would not agree with me. Nevertheless, if I were taking some of my workmen into the NationalGallery, I should soon have some hope of making them understand in whatexcellence consisted, if I could point to a genuine work; but I shouldhave no such hope if I had only copies of these pictures. 

132. Do you hold much to the archćological, chronological, andhistorical series and teaching of pictures?--Yes. 

Are you of opinion that that is essential to the creative teaching, withreference to our future schools?--No. I should think not essential atall. The teaching of the future artist, I should think, might beaccomplished by very few pictures of the class which that particularartist wished to study. I think that the chronological arrangement isin no-wise connected with the general efficiency of the gallery as amatter 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 toexamine the general history of nations; and I think that painting shouldbe considered by that class of persons as containing precious evidence. It would be part of the philosopher's work to examine the art of anation as well as its poetry. 

You consider that art speaks a language and tells a tale which nowritten document can effect?--Yes, and far more precious; the whole soulof a nation generally goes with its art. It may be urged by an ambitiousking to become a warrior nation. It may be trained by a single leader tobecome a _great_ warrior nation, and its character at that time maymaterially depend upon that one man, but in its art all the mind of thenation is more or less expressed: it can be said, that was what thepeasant sought to when he went into the city to the cathedral in themorning--that was the sort of book the poor person read or learnedin--the sort of picture he prayed to. All which involves infinitely moreimportant considerations than common history. 

133. _Dean of St. Paul's. _ When you speak of your objections to copiesof pictures, do you carry that objection to casts of sculpture?--Not atall. 

Supposing there could be no complete union of the great works ofsculpture in a country with the great works of painting in that country, would you consider that a good selection of casts comprising the greatremains of sculpture of all ages would be an important addition to apublic gallery?--I should be very glad to see it. 

If you could not have it of originals, you would wish very much to havea complete collection of casts, of course selected from all the finestsculptures in the world?--Certainly. 

_Mr. Richmond. _ Would you do the same with architecture--would youcollect the remains of architecture, as far as they are to be collected, and unite them with sculpture and painting?--I should think thatarchitecture consisted, as far as it was portable, very much insculpture. In saying that, I mean, that in the different branches ofsculpture architecture is involved--that is to say, you would have thestatues belonging to such and such a division of a building. Then if youhad casts of those statues, you would necessarily have those castsplaced exactly in the same position as the original statues--it involvesthe buildings surrounding them and the elevation--it involves the wholearchitecture. 

In addition to that, would you have original drawings of architecture, and models of great buildings, and photographs, if they could be madepermanent, of the great buildings as well as the moldings and casts ofthe moldings, and the members as far as you could obtain them?--Quiteso. 

Would you also include, in the National Gallery, what may be called thehandicraft of a nation--works for domestic use or ornament? Forinstance, we know that there were some salt-cellars designed for one ofthe Popes; would you have those if they came to us?--Everything, potsand pans, and salt-cellars, and knives. 

You would have everything that had an interesting art element init?--Yes. 

_Dean of St. Paul's. _ In short, a modern Pompeian Gallery?--Yes; I knowhow much greater extent that involves, but I think that you shouldinclude all the iron work, and china, and pottery, and so on. I thinkthat all works in metal, all works in clay, all works in carved wood, should be included. Of course, that involves much. It involves all thecoins--it involves an immense extent. 

134. Supposing it were impossible to concenter in one great museum thewhole of these things, where should you prefer to draw the line? Wouldyou draw the line between what I may call the ancient Pagan world andthe modern Christian world, and so leave, to what may be called theancient world, all the ancient sculpture, and any fragments of ancientpainting which there might be--all the vases, all the ancient bronzes, and, in short, everything which comes down to a certain period? Do youthink that that would be the best division, or should you prefer anydivision which takes special arts, and keeps those arts together?--Ishould like the Pagan and Christian division. I think it very essentialthat wherever the sculpture of a nation was, there its iron work shouldbe--that wherever its iron work was, there its pottery should be, and soon. 

And you would keep the medićval works together, in whatever form thosemedićval works existed?--Yes; I should not at all feel injured by havingto 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 Paganand the Christian art, with which would you associate the medićval?--By"Christian and Pagan Art" I mean, before Christ and after Christ. 

Then the medićval would come with the paintings?--Yes; and also theMahomedan, and all the Pagan art which was after Christ, I shouldassociate as part, and a most essential part, because it seems to methat the history of Christianity is complicated perpetually with thatwhich Christianity was effecting. Therefore, it is a matter of date, notof Christianity. Everything before Christ I should be glad to seeseparated, or you may take any other date that you like. 

But the inspiration of the two schools--the Pagan and theChristian--seems so different, that there would be no great violencedone 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 thespirit of the world before Christianity was in it. 

_Dean of St. Paul's. _ The birth of Christ, you say, is the commencementof Christian art?--Yes. 

Then Christian influence began, and, of course, that would leave a smalldebatable ground, particularly among the ivories for instance, which wemust settle according to circumstances?--Wide of any debatable ground, all the art of a nation which had never heard of Christianity, theHindoo art and so on, would, I suppose, if of the Christian era, go intothe Christian gallery. 

I was speaking rather of the transition period, which, of course, theremust be?--Yes. 

_Mr. Cockerell. _ There must be a distinction between the terms "museum"and "gallery. " What are the distinctions which you would draw in thepresent case?--I should think "museum" was the right name of the wholebuilding. A "gallery" is, I think, merely a room in a museum adapted forthe exhibition of works in a series, whose effect depends upon theircollateral showing forth. 

135. There are certainly persons who would derive their chief advantagefrom the historical and chronological arrangement which you propose, butthere are others who look alone for the beautiful, and who say, "I havenothing to do with your pedantry. I desire to have the beautiful beforeme. Show me those complete and perfect works which are received andknown as the works of Phidias and the great Greek masters as far as wepossess them, and the works of the great Italian painters. I have nottime, nor does my genius permit that I should trouble myself with thosedetails. " There is a large class who are guided by those feelings?--AndI hope who always will be guided by them; but I should consult theirfeelings enough in the setting before them of the most beautiful worksof art. All that I should beg of them to yield to me would be that theyshould look at Titian only, or at Raphael only, and not wish to haveTitian and Raphael side by side; and I think I should be able to teachthem, as a matter of beauty, that they did enjoy Titian and Raphaelalone better than mingled. Then I would provide them beautiful galleriesfull of the most-noble sculpture. Whenever we come as a country and anation to provide beautiful sculpture, it seems to me that the greatestpains should be taken to set it off beautifully. You should havebeautiful sculpture in the middle of the room, with dark walls round itto throw out its profile, and you should have all the arrangements madethere so as to harmonize with it, and to set forth every line of it. Sothe painting gallery, I think, might be made a glorious thing, if thepictures were level, and the architecture above produced unity ofimpression from the beauty and glow of color and the purity of form. 

_Mr. Richmond. _ And you would not exclude a Crevelli because it wasquaint, 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 theGovernment, 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 itis 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 asthe completion of the picture goes, and quite a priceless picture. 

Can you conceive a Government, or a people, who would countenance soexpensive a purchase, condescending to take up with the occupation ofthe upper story of some public building, or with an expedient whichshould not be entirely worthy of such a noble Gallery of Pictures?--I donot think that they ought to do so; but I do not know how far they willbe consistent. I certainly think they ought not to put up with any suchexpedient. I am not prepared to say what limits there are to consistencyor inconsistency. 

_Mr. Richmond. _ I understand you to have given in evidence that youthink a National Collection should be illustrative of the whole art inall its branches?--Certainly. 

Not a cabinet of paintings, not a collection of sculptured works, butillustrative of the whole art?--Yes. 

137. Have you any further remark to offer to the Commissioners?--I wishto say one word respecting the question of the restoration of statuary. It seems to me a very simple question. Much harm is being at presentdone in Europe by restoration, more harm than was ever done, as far asI know, by revolutions or by wars. The French are now doing great harmto their cathedrals, under the idea that they are doing good, destroyingmore than all the good they are doing. And all this proceeds from theone great mistake of supposing that sculpture can be restored when it isinjured. I am very much interested by the question which one of theCommissioners asked me in that respect; and I would suggest whether itdoes not seem easy to avoid all questions of that kind. If the statue isinjured, leave it so, but provide a perfect copy of the statue in itsrestored form; offer, if you like, prizes to sculptors for conjecturalrestorations, and choose the most beautiful, but do not touch theoriginal work. 

138. _Professor Faraday. _ You said some time ago that in your ownattempts to instruct the public there had not been time yet to seewhether the course taken had produced improvement or not. You see nosigns at all which lead you to suppose that it will not produce theimprovement 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 theminds of the public. I have only been teaching a class of about fortyworkmen for a couple of years, after their work--they not alwaysattending--and that forty being composed of people passing away andcoming again; and I do not know what they are now doing; I only see agradual succession of men in my own class. I rather take them in anelementary class, and pass them to a master in a higher class. But Ihave the greatest delight in the progress which these men have made, sofar as I have seen it; and I have not the least doubt that great thingswill be done with respect to them. 

_Chairman. _ Will you state precisely what position you hold?--I ammaster of the Elementary and Landscape School of Drawing at the WorkingMen's College in Great Ormond Street. My efforts are directed not tomaking 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). Medićval 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:

[Footnote 1: This evidence, given by Mr. Ruskin as stated above, isreprinted from the Report of the National Gallery Site Commission. London: Harrison and Sons. 1857. Pp. 92-7. Questions 2392-2504. TheCommission consisted of Lord Broughton (chairman), Dean Milman, Professor Faraday, Mr. Cockerell, R. A. , and Mr. George Richmond, all ofwhom were present on the occasion of Mr. Ruskin giving hisevidence. --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 withthe leading museums, picture galleries, and institutions in thismetropolis?--Yes, I know them well. 

And especially the pictures?--Yes. 

I believe you have also taken much interest in the Working Men'sCollege?--Yes, much interest. I have been occupied there as a master forabout five years. 

I believe you conduct a class on two days in the week?--On one day ofthe week only. 

You have given a great deal of gratuitous instruction to the workingclasses?--Not so much to the working classes as to the class whichespecially attends the lectures on drawing, but which of course isconnected with the working classes, and through which I know somethingabout them. 

140. You are probably able to speak with reference to the hours at whichit would be most convenient that these institutions should be opened tothe working classes, so that they might enjoy them?--At all events, Ican form some opinion about it. 

What are the hours which you think would be the most suitable to theworking classes, or those to whom you have imparted instruction?--Theywould, 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, orfrom seven till ten at night?--The earlier the better, I should think;that being dependent closely upon the other much more importantquestion, how you can prepare the workmen for taking advantage of theseinstitutions. The question before us, as a nation, is not, I think, whatopportunities we shall give to the workmen of instruction, unless weenable them to receive it; and all this is connected closely, in mymind, with the early closing question, and with the more difficultquestion, issuing out of that, how far you can get the hours of laborregulated, and how far you can get the labor during those hours made notcompetitive, and not oppressive to the workmen. 

141. Have you found that the instruction which you have been enabled togive to the working classes has produced very good results upon themalready? I ought perhaps hardly to speak of my own particular modes ofinstruction, because their tendency is rather to lead the workman out ofhis class, and I am privately obliged to impress upon my men who come tothe Working Men's College, not to learn in the hope of being anythingbut working men, but to learn what may be either advantageous for themin their work, or make them happy after their work. In my class, theyare especially tempted to think of rising above their own rank, andbecoming artists, --becoming something better than workmen, and thateffect I particularly dread. I want all efforts for bettering theworkmen to be especially directed in this way: supposing that they areto remain in this position forever, that they have not capacity to riseabove 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 classis almost inseparable from the amount of self-improvement that youwould wish to give them?--I should think not; I think that the moment aman 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 bebeneficial to the laborer in the class which he is in?--Yes. 

142. And that agrees, does it not, with what has been alleged by manyworking men, that they have found in their competition with foreignersthat a knowledge of art has been most beneficial to them?--Quite so. 

I believe many foreigners are now in competition with working men in themetropolis, in matters in which art is involved?--I believe there aremany, and that they are likely still more to increase as the relationsbetween the nations become closer. 

Is it your opinion that the individual workman who now executes works ofart in this country is less intellectually fit for his occupation thanin former days?--Very much so indeed. 

Have you not some proofs of that which you can adduce for the benefit ofthe Committee?--I can only make an assertion; I cannot prove it; but Iassert it with confidence, that no workman, whose mind I have examined, is, at present, capable of design in the arts, only of imitation, and ofexquisite manual execution, such as is unsurpassable by the work of anytime or any country; manual execution, which, however, being whollymechanical, is always profitless to the man himself, and profitlessultimately 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 publiccompatibly with the expense which is now incurred?--I cannot tell howfar it would be compatible with the expense, but I think that a verylittle increase of expense might certainly bring about a great increaseof convenience. 

Various plans have been suggested, by different persons, as to animprovement in the National Gallery, with regard to the area, and abetter distribution of the pictures?--Yes. 

Are you of opinion that at a very small cost it would be possible toincrease the area considerably in the case of the National Gallery?--Ihave not examined the question with respect to the area of the NationalGallery. It depends of course upon questions of rent, and respecting themode in which the building is now constructed, which I have notexamined; but in general this is true of large buildings, that expensewisely directed to giving facilities for seeing the pictures, and not tothe mere show of the building, would always be productive of far moregood to the nation, and especially to the lower orders of the nation, than expense in any other way directed, with reference to theseinstitutions. 

144. Some persons have been disposed to doubt whether, if theinstitutions were open at night, gas would be found injurious to thepictures; would that be your impression?--I have no doubt that it wouldbe injurious to the pictures, if it came in contact with them. It wouldbe a matter of great regret to me that valuable pictures should be soexhibited. I have hoped that pictures might be placed in a gallery forthe working classes which would interest them much more than the_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the great masters, and which at the same timewould not be a great loss to the nation if destroyed. 

145. Have you had any experience of the working of the evening openingsof the South Kensington Museum?--No direct experience, but my impressionis that the workmen at present being compelled to think always ofgetting as much work done in a day as they can, are generally led inthese institutions to look to the machinery, or to anything which bearsupon 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 certainevenings, to the Kensington Museum, that is a great step; but the greatevil 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 properexplanations of the things he sees; he is not led by a large printedexplanation beneath the very thing to take a happy and unpainfulinterest in every subject brought before him; he wanders aboutlistlessly, and exerts himself to find out things which are notsufficiently explained, and gradually he tires of it, and he goes backto his home, or to his alehouse, unless he is a very intelligent man. 

Would you recommend that some person should follow him through thebuilding to explain the details?--No; but I would especially recommendthat our institutions should be calculated for the help of persons whoseminds are languid with labor. I find that with ordinary constitutions, the labor of a day in England oppresses a man, and breaks him down, andit is not refreshment to him to use his mind after that, but it would berefreshment to him to have anything read to him, or any amusing thingtold him, or to have perfect rest; he likes to lie back in his chair athis own fireside, and smoke his pipe, rather than enter into a politicaldebate, and what we want is an extension of our art institutions, withinteresting things, teaching a man and amusing him at the same time;above all, large printed explanations under every print and everypicture; and the subjects of the pictures such as they can enjoy. 

146. Have you any other suggestion to offer calculated to enlighten theCommittee on the subject intrusted to them for consideration?--I canonly say what my own feelings have been as to my men. I have foundparticularly that natural history was delightful to them; I think thatthat has an especial tendency to take their minds off their work, whichis what I always try to do, not ambitiously, but reposingly. I shouldlike to add to what I said about the danger of injury to_chefs-d'oeuvre_, that such danger exists, not only as to gas, butalso the breath, the variation of temperature, the extension of thecanvases in a different temperature, the extension of the paint uponthem, and various chemical operations of the human breath, the chance ofan accidental escape of gas, the circulation of variously damp airthrough the ventilators; all these ought not to be allowed to affectthe great and unreplaceable works of the best masters; and those works, I believe, are wholly valueless to the working classes; their merits arewholly imperceptible except to persons who have given many years ofstudy to endeavor to qualify themselves to discover them; but what iswanting for the working man is historical painting of events noble, andbearing upon his own country; the history of his own country wellrepresented to him; the natural history of foreign countries wellrepresented to him; and domestic pathos brought before him. Nothingassists him so much as having the moral disposition developed ratherthan the intellectual after his work; anything that touches his feelingsis good, and puts new life into him; therefore I want modern pictures, if possible, of that class which would ennoble and refine by theirsubjects. I should like prints of all times, engravings of all times;those would interest him with their variety of means and subject; andnatural history of three kinds, namely, shells, birds, and plants; notminerals, because a workman cannot study mineralogy at home; butwhatever town he may be in, he may take some interest in the birds andin the plants, or in the sea shells of his own country and coast. Ishould like the commonest of all our plants first, and most fullyillustrated; the commonest of all our birds, and of our shells, and menwould be led to take an interest in those things wholly for theirbeauty, and for their separate charm, irrespective of any use that mightbe made of them in the arts. There also ought to be, for the moreintelligent workman, who really wants to advance himself in hisbusiness, specimens of the manufactures of all countries, as far as thecompass 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 istaken in the improvement of the people in this matter than is taken inthis country?--Far more. 

Do you think that you can trace the good effects which result from thatmode of treatment?--The circumstances are so different that I do notfeel able to give evidence of any definite effect from such efforts;only, it stands to reason, that it must be so. There are so manycircumstances at present against us, in England, that we must not besanguine as to too speedy an effect. I believe that one great reason ofthe superiority of foreign countries in manufactures is, that they havemore beautiful things about them continually, and it is not possible fora man who is educated in the streets of our manufacturing towns ever toattain that refinement of eye or sense; he cannot do it; and he isaccustomed in his home to endure that which not the less blunts hissenses. 

The Committee has been informed that with regard to some of our museums, particularly the British Museum, they are very much overcharged withobjects, and I apprehend that the same remark would be true as to someof our picture galleries. Are you of opinion that it would be conduciveto the general elevation of the people in this country if our works ofart, and objects of interest, were circulated more expeditiously, andmore conveniently, than at present, throughout the various manufacturingdistricts?--I think that all precious works of art ought to be treatedwith a quite different view, and that they ought to be kept togetherwhere men whose work is chiefly concerned with art, and where theartistically higher classes can take full advantage of them. They ought, therefore, to be all together, as in the Louvre at Paris, and as in theUffizii at Florence, everything being illustrative of other things, butkept separate from the collections intended for the working classes, which may be as valuable as you choose, but they should be usable, andabove all things so situated that the working classes could get at themeasily, without keepers to watch what they are about, and have theirwives and children with them, and be able to get at them freely, so thatthey might look at a thing as their own, not merely as the nation's, butas a gift from the nation to them as the working class. 

You would cultivate a taste at the impressionable age?--Especially inthe education of children, that being just the first question, Isuppose, which lies at the root of all you can do for the workman. 

148. With regard to the circulation of pictures and such loans ofpictures as have heretofore been made in Manchester and elsewhere, areyou of opinion that, in certain cases, during a part of the year, someof our best pictures might be lent for particular periods, to particulartowns, to be restored in the same condition, so as to give those townsan opportunity of forming an opinion upon them, which otherwise theywould not have?--I would rather keep them all in the metropolis, andmove them as little as possible when valuable. 

_Mr. Slaney. _ That would not apply to loans by independent gentlemen whowere willing to lend their pictures?--I should be very glad if it werepossible to lend pictures, and send them about. I think it is one of thegreatest movements in the nation, showing the increasing kindness of theupper classes towards the lower, that that has been done; but I thinknothing can justify the risking of noble pictures by railway, forinstance; that, of course, is an artist's view of the matter; but I donot see that the advantage to be gained would at all correspond with thedanger of loss which is involved. 

149. _Mr. Hanbury. _ You mentioned that you thought it was very desirablethat there should be lectures given to the working classes?--Yes. 

Do you think that the duplicate specimens at the British Museum could bemade available for lectures on natural history, if a part of thatinstitution could be arranged for the purpose?--I should think so; butit is a question that I have no right to have an opinion upon. Only theofficers of the institution can say what number of their duplicatespecimens they could spare. 

I put the question to you because I have observed in the British Museumthat the people took a great interest in the natural history department, and, upon one occasion, a friend of mine stopped, and explained some ofthe 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 muchmore depends upon the explanation than on the thing explained, that Ibelieve, with very simple collections of very small value, but wellchosen, and exhibited by a thoroughly intelligent lecturer, you mightinterest the lower classes, and teach them to any extent. 

Would it be difficult to find such lecturers as you speak of?--Not intime; perhaps at present it would be, because we have got so much in thehabit of thinking that science consists in language, and in fine words, and not in ascertaining the nature of the thing. The workman cannot bedeceived by fine words; he always wants to know something about thething, 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 amongthe working classes?--A thirsty desire for it in every direction, increasing day by day, and likely to increase; it would grow by what itfeeds upon. 

To what do you attribute this improvement?--Partly to the healthy andproper efforts which have been made to elevate the working classes;partly, I am sorry to say, to an ambitious desire throughout the nationalways to get on to a point which it has not yet reached, and whichmakes one man struggle with another in every way. I think that the ideathat knowledge is power is at the root of the movement among the workingclasses, much more so than in any other. 

Do you consider that the distance of our public institutions is a greathindrance to the working classes?--Very great indeed. 

You would, therefore, probably consider it a boon if another institutionsuch as the British Museum could be established in the eastern end ofthe metropolis?--I should be most thankful to see it, especially there. 

151. _Mr. Slaney. _ I think you stated that you considered, that for theworking classes it is a great thing to have relaxation of mind after theclose occupation of the day; that they would embrace an opportunity ofattending popular lectures on branches of natural history which theycould comprehend, if they were given to them in plain and simplelanguage?--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, assistedby tolerably good plates, or figures describing the different habits ofmigration of those that come to us in spring, remain during the summer, and depart in the autumn to distant countries; of those which come inthe autumn, remain during the winter, and then leave us; of those whichcharm us with their song, and benefit us in various ways; do you thinkthat such a lecture would be acceptable to the working classes?--Itwould be just what they would enjoy the most, and what would do them themost good. 

Do you not think that such lectures might be given without any verygreat cost, by finding persons who would endeavor to make the subjectsplain and pleasant, not requiring a very expensive apparatus, either offigures or of birds, but which might be pointed out to them, andexplained to them from time to time?--No; I think that no such lectureswould be of use, unless a permanent means of quiet study were given tothe men between times. As far as I know, lectures are always entirelyuseless, except as a matter of amusement, unless some opportunity beafforded of accurate intermediate study, and although I should deprecatethe idea, on the one side, of giving the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of thehighest masters to the workman for his daily experiments, so I shoulddeprecate, on the other, the idea of any economy if I saw a definiteplan of helping a man in his own times of quiet study. 

152. There are some popular works on British birds which the men mightbe referred to, containing accounts of the birds and their habits, whichmight be referred to subsequently?--Yes. 

There are several works relating to British birds which are verybeautifully illustrated, and to those they might be referred; do you notthink that something might also be done with regard to popular lecturesupon British plants, and particularly those which are perhaps the mostcommon, and only neglected because of their being common; that you mightpoint out to them the different soils in which they grow, so that theymight be able to make excursions to see them in their wild state?--Mywish is, that in every large manufacturing town there should be aperfect collection, at all events of the principal genera of Britishplants and birds, thoroughly well arranged, and a library associatedwith it, containing the best illustrative works on the subject, and thatfrom time to time lectures should be given by the leading scientificmen, which I am sure they would be willing to give if such collectionswere opened to them. 

I dare say you know that there is one book upon British birds, which wascompiled 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 tothat study, and which would be easily obtained for the working men. Doyou not think that this would relax their minds and be beneficial tothem in many ways, especially if they were able to follow up thestudy?--Yes, in every way. 

As to plants, might not they interest their wives as well?--I quitebelieve so. 

If such things could be done by subscription in the vicinity of largetowns, such as Manchester, would they not be very much responded to bythe grateful feelings of the humbler people, who themselves wouldsubscribe probably some trifle?--I think they would be grateful, howeverit were done. But I should like it to be done as an expression of thesense of the nation, as doing its duty towards the workmen, rather thanit should be done as a kind of charity by private subscription. 

153. _Sir Robert Peel. _ You have been five years connected with theWorking 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 inmine. 

Do they go there as they please without going beforehand fortickets?--They pass through an introductory examination, which is notsevere in any way, but merely shows that they are able to take advantageof the classes there; of course they pay a certain sum, which is not atall, 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 unlessthere was what you called active intermediate study?--I think not. 

What did you mean by active intermediate study? if a man is workingevery day of the week until Saturday afternoon, how could that takeplace?--I think that you could not at all provide lectures once or twicea week at the institutions throughout the kingdom. By intermediatestudy, I mean merely that a man should have about him, when he came intothe room, things that shall tempt him to look at them, and getinterested in, say in one bird, or in one plant. 

While the lecture was going on?--No, that might be given once afortnight, or once a month, but that this intermediate attention shouldbe just that which a man is delighted to give to a single plant which hecultivates in his own garden, or a single bird which he may happen tohave obtained; the best of all modes of study. 

154. You are in favor of the Early Closing Association?--I will not saythat I am, because I have not examined their principles. I want to haveour labor regulated, so that it shall be impossible for men to be soentirely crushed in mind and in body as they are by the system ofcompetition. 

You stated that you would wish the hours during which they would be ableto enjoy the institutions to be as early as possible?--Yes, certainly. 

But it would be impossible to have them earlier than they are now, onaccount of the organization of labor in the country. --I do not know whatis possible. I do not know what the number of hours necessary for laborwill ultimately be found to be. 

Still you are of opinion that, if there was a half-holiday on theSaturday, it would be an advantage to the working classes, and enablethem to visit and enjoy these institutions?--Certainly. 

155. You observed, I think, that there was a thirsty desire on the partof the working classes for improvement?--Certainly. 

And you also stated that there was a desire on their part to rise inthat class, but not out of it?--I did not say that they wanted to risein that class; they wish to emerge from it; they wish to becomesomething better than workmen, and I want to keep them in that class; Iwant to teach every man to rest contented in his station, and I want allpeople, in all stations, to better and help each other as much as theycan. 

But you never saw a man, did you, who was contented?--Yes, I have seenseveral; nearly all the very good workmen are contented; I find that itis only the second-rate workmen who are discontented. 

156. Surely competition with foreigners is a great advantage to theworking classes of this country?--No. 

It has been stated that competition is an immense advantage in theextension of artistic knowledge among the people of this country, whoare rapidly stepping on the heels of foreigners?--An acquaintance withwhat foreign nations have accomplished may be very useful to ourworkmen, but a spirit of competition with foreign nations is useful tono one. 

Will you be good enough to state why?--Every nation has the power ofproducing a certain number of objects of art, or of manufacturingproductions which are peculiar to it, and which it can producethoroughly well; and, when that is rightly understood, every nation willstrive to do its own work as well as it can be done, and will desire tobe supplied, by other nations, with that which they can produce; forexample, if we tried here in England to produce silk, we might possiblygrow unhealthy mulberry trees and bring up unhealthy silkworms, but notproduce good silk. It may be a question how far we should compete withforeigners in matters of taste. I think it doubtful, even in that view, that we should ever compete with them thoroughly. I find evidence inpast art, that the French have always had a gift of color, which theEnglish never had. 

157. You stated that you thought that at very little expense theadvantages to be derived from our national institutions might be greatlyincreased; will you state why you think very little expense would benecessary, and how it should be done?--By extending the space primarily, and by adding very cheap but completely illustrative works; by makingall that such institutions contain thoroughly accessible; and giving, asI 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 systemof lighting I should only regret as applied to the great works of art; Ishould think that the brightest system of lighting should be applied, especially of an evening, so that such places should be made delightfulto the workman, and withdraw him from the alehouse and all other eviltemptation; but I want them rather to be occupied by simple, and more orless cheap collections, than by the valuable ones, for fear of fire. 

If, at the British Museum, they had printed information upon naturalhistory, that, you think, would do great good?--Yes. 

158. You stated that you thought there was far more interest taken inforeign countries in the intellectual development of the working classesthan in England?--I answered that question rather rashly. I hardly eversee anything of society in foreign countries, and I was thinking, at thetime, of the great efforts now being made in France, and of the generalcomfort of the institutions that are open. 

Not political?--No. 

Still you think that there is more interest taken in the intellectualdevelopment of the working classes in foreign countries than inEngland?--I think so, but I do not trust my own opinion. 

I have lived abroad, and I have remarked that there is a naturalfacility in the French people, for instance, in acquiring a knowledge ofart, and of combination of colors, but I never saw more, but far lessdesire or interest taken in the working classes than in England. --As faras relates to their intellectual development, I say yes; but I thinkthere is a greater disposition to make them happy, and allow them toenjoy their happiness, in ordinary associations, at _fętes_, andeverything of that kind, that is amusing or recreative to them. 

But that is only on Sundays?--No; on all _fęte_ days, and throughout, Ithink you see the working man, with his wife, happier in the gardens orin the suburbs of a town, and on the whole in a happier state; there isless desire to get as much out of him for the money as they can; less ofthat desire to oppress him and to use him as a machine than there is inEngland. But, observe, I do not lean upon that point; and I do not quitesee how that bears upon the question, because, whatever interest theremay be in foreign countries, or in ours, it is not as much as it shouldbe in either. 

But you were throwing a slur upon the character of the upper classes inthis country, by insinuating that abroad a great deal more interest wastaken in the working classes than in England. Now I assert, that quitethe contrary is the fact. --I should be very sorry to express all thefeelings that I have respecting the relations between the upper classesand the working classes in this country; it is a subject which cannot atpresent be discussed, and one upon which I would decline any furtherexamination. 

159. You stated that the working men were not so happy in this countryas they were abroad, pursuing the same occupations?--I should thinkcertainly not. 

You have been in Switzerland?--Yes. 

And at Zurich?--Not lately. 

That is the seat of a great linen manufacture?--I have never examinedthe manufactures there, nor have I looked at Switzerland as amanufacturing country. 

But you stated that there was much more interest taken in theintellectual developments of the working classes in foreign countriesthan in England?--Yes; but I was not thinking of Switzerland or ofZurich. I was thinking of France, and I was thinking of the workingclasses generally, not specially the manufacturing working classes. Iused the words "working classes" generally. 

Then do you withdraw the expression that you made use of, that inforeign countries the upper classes take more interest in the conditionof 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 publicinstitutions better, because inspectors do not follow them about?--I didnot say so. I was asked the question whether I thought teaching shouldbe given by persons accompanying the workman about, and I said certainlynot. I would rather leave him to himself, with such information ascould be given to him by printed documents. 

160. _Mr. Sclater Booth. _ With regard to the National Gallery, are youaware that there is great pressure and want of space there now, bothwith regard to the room for hanging pictures, and also with reference tothe crowds of persons who frequent the National Gallery?--I am quitesure that if there is not great pressure, there will be soon, owing tothe number of pictures which are being bought continually. 

Do you not think that an extension of the space in the National Galleryis a primary consideration, which ought to take precedence of anyimprovement that might be made in the rooms as they are, with a view toopening them of an evening?--Most certainly. 

That is the first thing, you think, that ought to be done?--Mostcertainly. 

When you give your lectures at the Working Men's College, is it yourhabit to refer to special pictures in the National Gallery, or tospecial works of art in the British Museum?--Never; I try to keepwhatever instruction I give bearing upon what is easily accessible tothe workman, or what he can see at the moment. I do not count upon hishaving time to go to these institutions; I like to put the thing in hishand, and have it about. 

Has it never been a stumbling-block in your path that you have found aworkman unable to compare your lectures with any illustrations that youmay have referred him to?--I have never prepared my lectures with a viewto illustrate them by the works of the great masters. 

161. You spoke, and very justly, of the importance of fixing on works ofart printed explanations; are you not aware that that has been done tosome extent at the Kensington Museum?--Yes. 

Do you not think that a great part of the popularity of that institutionis owing to that circumstance?--I think so, certainly. 

On the whole, I gather from your evidence that you are not very sanguineas to the beneficial results that would arise from the opening of theBritish Museum and the National Gallery of an evening, as thoseinstitutions are at present constituted, from a want of space and thecrowding of the objects there?--Whatever the results might be, fromopening them, as at present constituted, I think better results might beattained by preparing institutions for the workman himself alone. 

Do you think that museums of birds and plants, established in variousparts of the metropolis, illustrated and furnished with pictures ofdomestic interest, and possibly with specimens of manufactures, would bemore desirable, considering the mode in which the large institutions arenow seen?--I think in these great institutions attention oughtspecially to be paid to giving perfect security to all the works andobjects of art which they possess; and to giving convenience to thethorough student, whose business lies with those museums; and thatcollections for the amusement and improvement of the working classesought to be entirely separate. 

If such institutions as I have described were to be established, youwould of course desire that they should be opened of an evening, and bespecially arranged, with a view to evening exhibition?--Certainly. 

It has been stated that the taxpayer has a right to have theseexhibitions opened at hours when the workpeople can go to them, theybeing taxpayers; do not you think that the real interest of the taxpayeris, first, to have the pictures as carefully preserved as possible, andsecondly, that they should be accessible to those whose specialoccupation in life is concerned in their study?--Most certainly. 

Is not the interest of the taxpayer reached in this way, rather than byany special opportunity being given of visiting at particularhours?--Most certainly. 

162. _Mr. Kinnaird. _ Have you ever turned your attention to any peculiarlocalities, where museums of paintings and shells, and of birds andplants, might be opened for the purpose referred to?--Never; I havenever examined the subject. 

Has it ever occurred to you that the Vestry Halls, which have recentlybeen erected, and which are lighted, might be so appropriated?--No; Ihave never considered the subject at all. 

Supposing that suitable premises could be found, do you not think thatmany people would contribute modern paintings, and engravings, andvarious other objects of interest?--I think it is most probable; infact, I should say certain. 

You would view such an attempt with great favor?--Yes; with greatdelight indeed. 

You rather look upon it as the duty of the Government to provide suchinstitutions for the people?--I feel that very strongly indeed. 

Do you not think that the plan which has been adopted at Versailles, ofhaving modern history illustrated by paintings, would prove of greatinterest to the people?--I should think it would be an admirable plan inevery way. 

And a very legitimate step to be taken by the Government, for thepurpose of encouraging art in that way?--Most truly. 

Would it have, do you think, an effect in encouraging art in thiscountry?--I should think so, certainly. 

Whose duty would you consider it to be to superintend the formation ofsuch collections? are there any Government officers who are at presentcapable of organizing a staff for employment in local museums that youare aware of?--I do not know; I have not examined that subject at all. 

163. _Chairman. _ The Committee would like to understand you moredefinitely upon the point that has been referred to, as to foreignersand Englishmen. I presume that what you wished the Committee tounderstand was, that upon the whole, so far as you have observed, morefacilities are in point of fact afforded to the working classes, in someway or other, abroad than in this country for seeing pictures andvisiting public institutions?--My answer referred especially to theaspect of the working classes as I have watched them in their times ofrecreation; I see them associated with the upper classes, more happilyfor themselves; I see them walking through the Louvre, and walkingthrough the gardens of all the great cities of Europe, and apparentlyless ashamed of themselves, and more happily combined with all the upperclasses of society, than they are here. Here our workmen, somehow, arealways miserably dressed, and they always keep out of the way, both atsuch institutions and at church. The temper abroad seems to be, whilethere is a sterner separation and a more aristocratic feeling betweenthe upper and the lower classes, yet just on that account the workmanconfesses himself for a workman, and is treated with affection. I do notsay workmen merely, but the lower classes generally, are treated withaffection, and familiarity, and sympathy by the master or employer, which has to me often been very touching in separate eases; and thatimpression being on my mind, I answered, not considering that thequestion was of any importance, hastily; and I am not at presentprepared to say how far I could, by thinking, justify that impression. 

164. _Mr. Kinnaird. _ In your experience, in the last few years, have younot seen a very marked improvement in the working classes in thiscountry in every respect to which you have alluded; take the last twentyyears, or since you have turned your attention that way?--I have noevidence before me in England of that improvement, because I think thatthe struggle for existence becomes every day more severe, and that, while greater efforts are made to help the workman, the principles onwhich our commerce is conducted are every day oppressing him, andsinking him deeper. 

Have you ever visited the manufacturing districts of Lancashire andYorkshire, with a view of ascertaining the state of the peoplethere?--Not with a definite view. My own work has nothing to do withthose subjects; and it is only incidentally, because I gratuitously givesuch instruction as I am able to give at the Working Men's College, thatI am able to give you any facts on this subject. All the rest that I cangive is, as Sir Robert Peel accurately expressed it, nothing butpersonal impression. 

You admit that the Working Men's College is, after all, a very limitedsphere?--A very limited sphere. 

165. _Sir Robert Peel. _ You have stated that, in the Louvre, a workingman looks at the pictures with a greater degree of self-respect than thesame classes do in the National Gallery here?--I think so. 

You surely never saw a man of the upper class, in England, scorn at aworking man because he appeared in his working dress in the NationalGallery in London?--I have certainly seen working men apprehensive ofsuch scorn. 

_Chairman. _ Is it not the fact, that the upper and lower classesscarcely ever meet on the same occasions?--I think, if possible, they donot. 

Is it not the fact that the laboring classes almost invariably ceaselabor at such hours as would prevent them from going to see pictures atthe time when the upper classes do go?--I meant, before, to signifyassent 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 workingmen and all classes meet there together, and did you ever see a workingman _gęné_ in the examination of works of art?--I am sure that a workingman 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 saythat I believe such is the fact. 

_Mr. Slaney. _ Do not you think that the light-hearted temperament of oursouthern neighbors, and the fineness of the climate, which permits themto enjoy themselves more in the open air, has something to do withit?--I hope that the old name of Merry England may be recovered one ofthese days. I do not think that it is in the disposition of theinhabitants to be in the least duller than other people. 

_Sir Robert Peel. _ When was that designation lost?--I am afraid eversince our manufactures have prospered. 

_Chairman. _ Referring to the Crystal Palace, do you think that that wasan appropriate instance to put, considering the working man pays for hisown, and is not ashamed to enjoy his own for his own money?--I havenever examined the causes of the feeling; it did not appear to me to bea matter of great importance what was the state of feeling in foreigncountries. I felt that it depended upon so many circumstances, that Ithought it would be a waste of time to trace it. 

166. _Sir Robert Peel. _ You stated that abroad the working classes weremuch better dressed?--Yes. 

Do you think so?--Yes. 

Surely they cannot be better dressed than they are in England, for youhardly know a working man here from an aristocrat?--It is preciselybecause I do know working men on a Sunday and every other day of theweek from an aristocrat that I like their dress better in France; it isthe ordinary dress belonging to their position, and it expressesmomentarily what they are; it is the blue blouse which hangs freelyover their frames, keeping them sufficiently protected from cold anddust; but here it is a shirt open at the collar, very dirty, very muchtorn, with ragged hair, and a ragged coat, and altogether a dress ofmisery. 

You think that they are better dressed abroad because they wear ablouse?--Because they wear a costume appropriate to their work. 

Are you aware that they make it an invariable custom to leave off theblouse on Sundays and on holidays, and that after they have finishedtheir work they take off their blouse?--I am not familiar, nor do Iprofess to be familiar, with the customs of the Continent; I am onlystating my impressions; but I like especially their habit of wearing anational costume. I believe the national costume of work in Switzerlandto be at the root of what prosperity Switzerland yet is retaining. Ithink, for instance, although it may sound rather singular to say so, that the pride which the women take in their clean chemise sleeves, isone of the healthiest things in Switzerland, and that it is operative inevery way on the health of the mind and the body, their keeping theircostume pure, fresh, and beautiful. 

You stated that the working classes were better dressed abroad than inEngland?--As far as I know, that is certainly the fact. 

Still their better dress consists of a blouse, which they take off whenthey have finished their work?--I bow to your better knowledge of thematter. 

_Chairman. _ Are you aware that a considerable number of the workingclasses are in bed on the Sunday?--Perhaps it is the best place forthem. 

167. _Mr. Kinnaird. _ You trace the deterioration in the condition of theworking classes to the increase of trade and manufactures in thiscountry?--To the increase of competitive trades and manufactures. 

It is your conviction that we may look upon this vast extension oftrade, and commerce, and competition, altogether as an evil?--Not onthe vast extension of trade, but on the vast extension of the struggleof 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 bestfitted to produce, with a view to an interchange of its commodities withthose 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 myexcessive horror of the principle of competition, in every way; forinstance, 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 wineand 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, aswell as it can; not striving to imitate or compete with the productionsof other countries. Finally, I believe that the way of ascertaining whatought to be done for the workman in any position, is for any one of usto suppose that he was our own son, and that he was left without anyparents, and without any help; that there was no chance of his everemerging out of the state in which he was, and then, that what we shouldeach of us like to be done for our son, so left, we should strive to dofor 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:

[Footnote 2: Reprinted from "The Report of the Select Committee onPublic Institutions. _Ordered by_ the House of Commons _to be printed_, 27 March 1860, " pp. 113-123. The following members of the Committee werepresent on the occasion of the above evidence being given: -Sir JohnTrelawny (_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 positionof 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 vacancyoccurring, the Royal Academicians supply that vacancy, or would you wishto see that election confided to any other hands?--I should wish to seethe election confided to other hands. I think that all elections areliable to mistake, or mischance, when the electing body elect thecandidate into them. I rather think that elections are only successfulwhere the candidate is elected into a body other than the body ofelectors; but I have not considered the principles of election fullyenough to be able to give any positive statement of opinion upon thatmatter. I only feel that at present the thing is liable to many errorsand mischances. 

Does it not seem, however, that there are some precedents, such, forexample, as the Institute of France, in which the body electing to thevacancies that occur within it keeps up a very high character, andenjoys a great reputation?--There are many such precedents; and, asevery such body for its own honor must sometimes call upon the mostintellectual men of the country to join it, I should think that everysuch body must retain a high character where the country itself has aproper sense of the worth of its best men; but the system of electionmay 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 estimateproperly what has been brought about by the feeling of the country. Weare all, I fancy, too much in the habit of looking to forms as the causeof what really is caused by the temper of the nation at the particulartime, working, through the forms, for good or evil. 

If, however, the election of Academicians were to be confided to artistswho were not already Academicians themselves, would it be easy to meetthis objection, that they would have in many cases a personal interestin the question; that each might be striving for his own admission tothat distinction; whereas, when the election takes place among those whohave already attained that distinction, direct personal interest at allevents is absent?--I should think personal interest would act in acertain sense in either case; it would branch into too many subtletiesof interest to say in what way it would act. I should think that itwould be more important to the inferior body to decide rightly uponthose who were to govern them, than to the superior body to decide uponthose who were to govern other people; and that the superior body wouldtherefore generally choose those who were likely to be pleasant tothemselves;--pleasant, either as companions, or in carrying out a systemwhich they chose for their own convenience to adopt; while the inferiorbody would choose men likely to carry out the system that would tendmost to the general progress of art. 

169. As I understand you, though you have a decided opinion that itwould be better for some other constituent body to elect the members ofthe Royal Academy, you have not a decided opinion as to how thatconstituent 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 beselected?--I should like the constituent body to consist both of artistsand of the public. I feel great difficulties in offering any suggestionas to the manner in which the electors should elect: but I should likethe public as well as artists to have a voice, so that we might have thepublic 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, ordirect the public mind, should indicate also the will of the public insome respects; not that I think that "will" always wise, but I think youwould then have pointed out in what way those who are teaching thepublic should best regulate the teaching; and also it would give thepublic itself an interest in art, and a sense of responsibility, whichin the present state of things they never can have. 

Will you explain more fully the precedent of music to which you havejust adverted?--The fame of any great singer or any great musiciandepends upon the public enthusiasm and feeling respecting him. No RoyalAcademy can draw a large audience to the opera by stating that such andsuch 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 notlike the music, they will not go to hear it. The fame of the musician, whether singer, instrumentalist, or composer, is founded mainly upon hishaving produced a strong effect upon the public intellect andimagination. I should like that same effect to be produced by painters, and to be expressed by the public enthusiasm and approbation; not merelyby expressions of approbation in conversation, but by the actual voicewhich in the theater is given by the shout and by the clapping of thehands. You cannot clap a picture, nor clap a painter at his work, but Ishould like the public in some way to bring their voice to bear upon thepainter's work. 

170. Have you formed any opinion upon the position of the Associates inthe Royal Academy?--I have thought of it a little, but the presentsystem of the Academy is to me so entirely nugatory, it produces solittle effect in any way (what little effect it does produce being in myopinion mischievous), that it has never interested me; and I have feltthe difficulty so greatly, that I never, till your lordship's letterreached me, paid much attention to it. I always thought it would be awaste of time to give much time to thinking how it might be altered; sothat as to the position of Associates I can say little, except that Ithink, in any case, there ought to be some period of probation, and someadvanced 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 tothe most eminent painters, sculptors, and architects at this time, should you say that the number of the Royal Academy is sufficient fullyto represent them, or would you recommend an increase in the presentnumber of Academicians?--I have not considered in what proportion theAcademicianships at present exist. That is rather a question bearingupon the degree of dignity which one would be glad to confer. I shouldlike the highest dignity to be limited, but I should like the inferiordignity corresponding to the Associateship to be given, as the degreesare given in the universities, without any limitation of number, tothose possessing positive attainments and skill. I should think a verylimited number of Academicianships would always meet all therequirements of the highest intellect of the country. 

171. Have you formed any opinion upon the expediency of intrustinglaymen with some share in the management of the affairs of theAcademy?--No, I have formed no opinion upon that matter. I do not knowwhat there is at present to be managed in the Academy. I should think ifthe Academy is to become an available school, laymen cannot be joined inthe management of that particular department. In matters of revenue, andin matters concerning the general interests and dignity of the Academy, they might be. 

Should you think that non-professional persons would be fitly associatedwith artists in such questions as the selection and hanging of thepictures sent in for exhibition?--No, I think not. 

Some persons have suggested that the president of the Academy should notalways nor of necessity be himself an artist; should you approve of anysystem by which a gentleman of high social position, not an artist, wasplaced at the head of such a body as the Academy?--"Of such a body asthe Academy, " if I may be permitted to repeat your words, must of coursehave reference to the constitution to be given to it. As at presentconstituted, I do not know what advantage might or might not be derivedfrom such a gentleman being appointed president. As I should like to seeit constituted, I think he ought to be an artist only. 

172. Have you had any reason to observe or to make yourself acquaintedwith the working of the schools of the Royal Academy?--Yes, I haveobserved it. I have not made myself acquainted with the actual methodsof teaching at present in use, but I know the general effect upon theart of the country. 

What should you say was that effect?--Nearly nugatory: exceedinglypainful in this respect, that the teaching of the Academy separates, asthe whole idea of the country separates, the notion of art-educationfrom other education, and when you have made that one fundamentalmistake, all others follow. You teach a young man to manage his chalkand his brush--not always that--but having done that, you suppose youhave made a painter of him; whereas to educate a painter is the samething as to educate a clergyman or a physician--you must give him aliberal education primarily, and that must be connected with the kind oflearning peculiarly fit for his profession. That error is partly owingto our excessively vulgar and excessively shallow English idea that theartist's profession is not, and cannot be, a liberal one. We respect aphysician, and call him a gentleman, because he can give us a purge andclean out our stomachs; but we do not call an artist a gentleman, whomwe expect to invent for us the face of Christ. When we have made thatprimary mistake, all other mistakes in education are trivial incomparison. The very notion of an art academy should be, a body ofteachers of the youth who are to be the guides of the nation through itssenses; and that is a very important means of guiding it. We have done agood deal through dinners, but we may some day do a good deal morethrough pictures. 

You would have a more comprehensive system of teaching?--Much morecomprehensive. 

173. Do I rightly understand you that you would wish it to embracebranches of liberal education in general, and not be merely confined tospecific artistic studies?--Certainly. I would have the Academyeducation corresponding wholly to the university education. The schoolsof the country ought to teach the boy the first conditions ofmanipulation. He should come up, I say not at what age, but probably atabout fourteen or fifteen, to the central university of art, whereverthat was established; and then, while he was taught to paint and tocarve and to work in metal--just as in old times he would have beentaught to manage the sword and lance, they being the principal businessof his life, --during the years from fifteen to twenty, the chiefattention of his governors should be to make a gentleman of him in thehighest sense; and to give him an exceedingly broad and liberaleducation, which should enable him not only to work nobly, but toconceive nobly. 

174. As to the point, however, of artistic manipulation, is not it thefact that many great painters have differed, and do differ, from eachother, and would it therefore be easy for the Academy to adopt anyauthoritative system of teaching, excluding one mode and acknowledginganother?--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 uponits method: and there has been no case of a thoroughly great schoolwhich did not fix upon the right method, as far as circumstances enabledit to do so. The meaning of a successful school is, that it has adopteda method which it teaches to its young painters, so that right workingbecomes a habit with them; so that with no thought, and no effort, andno torment, and no talk about it, they have the habit of doing whattheir school teaches them. 

You do not think a system is equally good which leaves to each eminentprofessor, according to the bent of his genius or the result of hisexperience, to instruct young men, the instruction varying with thecharacter of each professor?--Great benefit would arise if eachprofessor founded his own school, and were interested in his own pupils;but, as has been sufficiently illustrated in the schools of Domenichinoand Guido, there is apt to arise rivalry between the masters, with nocorrelative advantages, unless the masters are all of one mind. And theonly successful idea of an academy has been where the practice wasconsistent, and where there was no contradiction. Considering theknowledge we now have, and the means we now have of comparing all theworks of the greatest painters, though, as you suggest by your question, it is not easy to adopt an authoritative system, yet it is perfectlypossible. Let us get at the best method and let us teach that. There isunquestionably a best way if we can find it; and we have now in Englandthe 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 asystem of payment?--I am not prepared to answer that question. It woulddepend upon the sort of system that was adopted and on the kind ofpersons you received into your schools. 

175. I presume you would say that in artistic teaching there are somepoints on which there would be common ground, and others upon whichthere must be specific teaching; for instance, in sculpture and paintingthere is a point up to which the proportions of the human figure have tobe studied, but afterwards there is a divergence between the two arts ofchiseling marble and laying colors on the canvas?--Certainly. I shouldthink all that might be arranged in an Academy system very simply. Youwould have first your teaching of drawing with the soft point; andassociated with that, chiaroscuro: you would then have the teaching ofdrawing with the hard or black point, involving the teaching of the bestsystem of engraving, and all that was necessary to form your school ofengravers: you would then proceed to metal work; and on working in metalyou would found your school of sculpture, and on that your school ofarchitecture: and finally, and above all, you would have your school ofpainting, including oil painting and fresco painting, and all paintingin permanent material; (not comprising painting in any material that wasnot permanent:) and with that you would associate your school ofchemistry, which should teach what was permanent and what was not; whichschool of chemistry should declare authoritatively, with the Academy'sseal, what colors would stand and what process would secure theirstanding: and should have a sort of Apothecaries' Hall where anybody whorequired them could procure colors in the purest state; all these thingsbeing organized in one great system, and only possibly right by theirconnection and in their connection. 

176. Do you approve of the encouragement which of late years has beengiven to fresco painting, and do you look forward to much extension ofthat 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 toknow quite the limitation or extent of it; and after giving a good dealmore time to the question I am still less able to answer distinctly onan understanding of the term "fresco painting:" but using the term"decorative painting, applicable to walls in permanent materials, " Ithink it essential that every great school should include as one of itsmain objects the teaching of wall painting in permanent materials, andon a large scale. 

You think it should form a branch of the system of teaching in theAcademy?--I think it should form a branch of the teaching in theAcademy, possibly the principal branch. 

Does it so far as you know form a separate branch of teaching in any ofthe foreign academies?--I do not know. 

177. Looking generally, and of course without mentioning any names, haveyou in the course of the last few years been generally satisfied withthe selection of artists into the Royal Academy?--No, certainly not. 

Do you think that some artists of merit have been excluded, or thatartists whom you think not deserving of that honor have beenelected?--More; that artists not deserving of the honor have beenelected. I think it does no harm to any promising artist to be left outof the Academy, but it does harm to the public sometimes that anunpromising artist should be let into it. 

You think there have been cases within the last few years in whichpersons, in your judgment, not entitled to that distinction havenevertheless been elected?--Certainly. 

178. With respect to the selection of pictures for the exhibition, areyou satisfied in general with that selection, or have you in particularinstances seen ground to think that it has been injudiciouslyexercised?--In some cases it has been injudiciously exercised, but it isa matter of small importance; it causes heartburning probably, butlittle more. If a rejected picture is good, the public will see it someday or other, and find out that it is a good picture. I care littleabout what pictures are let in or not, but I do care about seeing thepictures that are let in. The main point, which everyone would desire tosee determined, is how the pictures that are admitted are to be bestseen. No picture deserving of being seen at all should be so hung as togive you any pain or fatigue in seeing it. If you let a picture into theroom at all, it should not be hung so high as that either the feelingsof the artist or the neck of the public should be hurt. 

179. _Viscount Hardinge. _ I gather from your evidence that you wouldwish to see the Royal Academy a sort of central university to whichyoung men from other institutions should be sent. Assuming that therewere difficulties in the way of carrying that out, do you think, underthe present system, you could exact from young men who are candidatesfor admission into the Royal Academy, some educational test?--Certainly;I think much depends upon that. If the system of education which I havebeen endeavoring to point out were adopted, you would have in every oneof those professions very practiced workmen. You could not have any ofthis education carried out, unless you had thoroughly practiced workmen;and you should fix your pass as you fix your university pass, and youshould pass a man in architecture, sculpture, and painting, because heknows his business, and knows as much of any other science as isnecessary for his profession. You require a piece of work from him, andyou examine him, and then you pass him, --call him whatever youlike;--but you say to the public, Here is a workman in this branch whowill do your work well. 

You do not think there would in such a system be any risk of excludingmen who might hereafter be great men who under such a system might notbe able to pass?--There are risks in every system, but I think every manworth anything would pass. A great many who would be good for nothingwould pass, but your really great man would assuredly pass. 

180. Has it ever struck you that it would be advantageous to art ifthere were at the universities professors of art who might give lecturesand give instruction to young men who might desire to avail themselvesof it, as you have lectures on botany and geology?--Yes, assuredly. Thewant of interest on the part of the upper classes in art has been verymuch at the bottom of the abuses which have crept into all systems ofeducation connected with it. If the upper classes could only beinterested in it by being led into it when young, a great improvementmight be looked for; therefore I feel the expediency of such an additionto the education of our universities. 

181. Is not that want of refinement which may be observed in many of thepictures from time to time exhibited in the Royal Academy to beattributed in a great measure to the want of education amongstartists?--It is to be attributed to that, and to the necessity whichartists are under of addressing a low class of spectators: an artist tolive must catch the public eye. Our upper classes supply a very smallamount of patronage to artists at present, their main patronage beingfrom the manufacturing districts and from the public interested inengravings;--an exceedingly wide sphere, but a low sphere, --and youcatch the eye of that class much more by pictures having reference totheir amusements than by any noble subject better treated, and thebetter treated it was the less it would interest that class. 

Is it not often the case that pictures exhibiting such a want ofrefinement, at the same time fetch large prices amongst what I may callthe mercantile patrons of art?--Certainly; and, the larger the price, the more harm done of course to the school, for that is a form ofeducation you cannot resist. Plato said long ago, when you have yourdemagogue against you no human form of education can resist that. 

182. _Sir E. Head. _ What is your opinion of the present mode of teachingin the life school and the painting school, namely, by visitorsconstantly changing?--I should think it mischievous. The unfortunateyouths, I should imagine, would just get what they could pick up; itwould be throwing them crumbs very much as you throw bones to theanimals in the Zoological Gardens. 

Do you conceive that anything which can be properly called a school, islikely to be formed where the teaching is conducted in thatway?--Assuredly not. 

183. You stated that in the event of the introduction of lay membersinto the Academy, you would not think it desirable that they should takepart in the selection or hanging of pictures for exhibition. Is notthere a great distinction between the selection of the pictures and thehanging of the pictures, and might not they take part in the one withouttaking part in the other?--I should think hardly. My notion of hanging apicture is to put it low enough to be seen. If small it should be placednear the eye. Anybody can hang a picture, but the question should be, isthere good painting enough in this picture to make it acceptable to thepublic, or to make it just to the artist to show it? And none butartists can quite judge of the workmanship which should entitle it toenter the Academy. 

Do you think it depends solely upon the workmanship?--Not by any meanssolely, but I think that is the first point that should be looked to. Anill-worked picture ought not to be admitted; let it be exhibitedelsewhere if you will, but your Academy has no business to let bad workpass. If a man cannot carve or paint, though his work may be wellconceived, do not let his work pass. Unless you require good work inyour Academy exhibition, you can form no school. 

_Mr. Reeve. _ Applying the rule you have just laid down, would the effectbe to exclude a considerable proportion of the works now exhibited inthe 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 artistsare capable of judging of the actual merit or demerit of apainting?--Non-professional persons may offer a very strong opinion uponthe 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 highor too low. That question has been already raised before the Commission, and it has been suggested that two feet from the ground should be theminimum height for the base of the picture, and some witnesses have saidthat six feet and others eight feet should be the maximum height for thebase of the picture; what limit would you fix?--I should say that thehorizontal line in the perspective of the picture ought always to beopposite the spectator's eye, no matter what the height may be from thefloor. If the horizontal line is so placed that it must be above thespectator's eye, in consequence of the size of the picture, it cannotbe helped, but I would always get the horizontal line opposite the eyeif possible. 

184. _Chairman. _ Should you concur in the suggestion which a witness hasmade before this Commission, that it would be an improvement, if thespace admitted of it, that works of sculpture should be intermixed inthe same apartment with works of painting, instead of being kept as atpresent in separate apartments?--I should think it would be verydelightful to have some works of sculpture mixed with works of painting;that it would make the exhibition more pleasing, and that the eye wouldbe rested sometimes by turning from the colors to the marble, and wouldsee the colors of the paintings better in return. Sir Joshua Reynoldsmentions 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 wouldnot have the sculpture that was sent in for the exhibition of the yearexhibited with the paintings, but I would have works of sculpture placedpermanently in the painting rooms. 

_Lord Elcho. _ Supposing there were no works of sculpture available forbeing placed in the rooms permanently, and supposing among the workssent in for annual exhibition there were works of a character fit to beplaced among the paintings, should you see any objection to their beingso placed?--That would cause an immense amount of useless trouble, andperpetual quarrels among the sculptors, as to whose works were entitledto be placed in the painting rooms or not. 

Are you aware that in the exhibition in Paris in 1855, that was thesystem adopted?--No. If the French adopted it, it was likely to beuseful, and doubtless they would carry it out very cleverly; but we havenot the knack of putting the right things in the right places by anymeans. 

Did you see our own International Exhibition last year?--No. 

Are you aware that a similar system was resorted to in the exhibition ofpictures there?--I should think in our exhibitions we must put anythingwhere 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 fivehonorary members, who hold certain titular offices, Earl Stanhope beingantiquary to the Academy, Mr. Grote being professor of ancient history, Dean Milman being professor of ancient literature, the Bishop of Oxfordbeing chaplain, and Sir Henry Holland being secretary for foreigncorrespondence; these professors never deliver any lectures and have novoice whatever in the management, but have mere honorary titulardistinctions; should you think it desirable that gentlemen of theirposition and character should have a voice in the management of theaffairs of the Academy?--It would be much more desirable that theyshould give lectures upon the subjects with which they are acquainted. Ishould think Earl Stanhope and all the gentlemen you have mentioned, would be much happier in feeling that they were of use in theirpositions; and that if you gave them something to do they would verynobly do it. If you give them nothing to do I think they ought not toremain in the institution. 

186. It has been suggested that the Academy now consisting of forty-twomight be increased advantageously to fifty professional members, architecture, sculpture, and painting being fairly represented, and thatin addition to those fifty there might be elected or nominated somehowor other ten non-professional persons, that is, men taking an interestin art, who had a certain position and standing in the country, and whomight take an active part in the management of the affairs of theinstitution, so tending to bring the Royal Academy and the publictogether?--I do not know enough of society to be able to form an opinionupon the subject. 

Irrespective of society, as a question of art, you know enough ofnon-professional persons interested in art to judge as to whether theinfusion of such an element into the Academy might be of advantage tothe Academy and to art generally?--I think if you educate our upperclasses to take more interest in art, which implies, of course, to knowsomething about it, they might be most efficient members of theAcademy; but if you leave them, as you leave them now, to the educationwhich they get at Oxford and Cambridge, and give them the sort of scornwhich all the teaching there tends to give, for art and artists, theless they have to do with an academy of art the better. 

Assuming that, at present, you have not a very great number of thosepersons in the country, do you not think that the mere fact of theadoption of such a principle in any reform in the constitution of theAcademy might have the effect of turning attention more to this matterat the Universities, and leading to the very thing which you think sodesirable?--No, I should think not. It would only at present give theimpression that the whole system was somewhat artificial, and that itwas to remain ineffective. 

Notwithstanding the neglect of this matter at the Universities, do youthink, at the present moment, you could not find ten non-professionalpersons, of the character you would think desirable, to add to theAcademy?--If I may be so impertinent, I may say that you as one of theupper classes, and I as a layman in the lower classes, are tolerablyfair examples of the kind of persons who take an interest in art, and Ithink both of us would do a great deal of mischief if we had much to dowith the Academy. 

187. Assuming those two persons to be appointed lay members, will youstate in what way you think they would do mischief in the councils ofthe Academy?--We should be disturbing elements, whereas what I shouldtry to secure, if I had anything to do with its arrangements, would beentire tranquillity, a regular system of tuition in which there shouldbe little excitement, and little operation of popular, aristocratic, orany other disturbing influence; none of criticism, and therefore none oftiresome people like myself;--none of money patronage, or even ofaristocratic patronage. The whole aim of the teachers should be toproduce work which could be demonstrably shown to be good and useful, and worthy of being bought, or used in any way; and after that thewhole question of patronage and interest should be settled. The schoolshould teach its art-grammar thoroughly in everything, and in everymaterial, and should teach it carefully; and that could be done if aperfect system were adopted, and above all, if a few thoroughly goodexamples were put before the students. That is a point which I think ofvery great importance. I think it very desirable that grants should bemade by the Government to obtain for the pupils of the Academy beautifulexamples of every kind, the very loveliest and best; not too many; andthat their minds should not be confused by having placed before themexamples of all schools and times; they are confused enough by what theysee in the shops, and in the annual exhibitions. Let engraving be taughtby Marc Antonio and Albert Dürer, --painting by Giorgione, Paul Veronese, Titian and Velasquez, --and sculpture by good Greek and selected Romanexamples, 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 betrained in those principles:--if afterwards he strikes out an originalpath, let him; but do not let him torment himself and other people withhis originalities, till he knows what is right, so far as is known atpresent. 

You are opposed, on the whole, to the introduction of the layelement?--Yes; but I am not opposed strongly or distinctly to it, because I have not knowledge enough of society to know how it wouldwork. 

Your not being in favor of it results from your belief that the layelement that would be useful to the Academy does not at present exist inthis country; but you think, if it did exist, and if it could be made togrow out of our schools and universities by art teaching, it might, withadvantage to the Academy and to artists, be introduced into theAcademy?--Yes. 

188. Supposing the class of Royal Academicians to be retained, and thatyou had fifty Royal Academicians, should you think it desirable thattheir works should be exhibited by themselves, so that the public mightsee together the works of those considered to be the first artists ofthis country?--Certainly, I should like all pictures to be well seen, but I should like one department of the exhibition to be given to theAssociates or Graduates. I use that term because I suppose thoseAssociates to have a degree given them for a certain amount ofexcellence, and any person who had attained that degree should beallowed to send in so many pictures. Then the pictures sent in bypersons who had attained the higher honor of Royal Academician should beseparately exhibited. 

That would act as a stimulus to them to keep up their position and showthemselves worthy of the honor?--Yes. I do not think they ought to bemixed at all as they are now. 

189. What is your opinion with reference to the present system oftraveling studentships?--I think it might be made very useful indeed. 

On the one hand it has been suggested that there should be, as is thesystem adopted by the French Academy, a permanent professor at Rome tolook after the students; on the other hand it has been said that it isnot desirable, if you have those traveling studentships, that thestudents should go to Rome, that it is better for them to travel, and togo to Venice or Lombardy, and to have no fixed school in connection withthe Academy at Rome. To which of those two systems do you give thepreference?--I should prefer the latter; if a man goes to travel, heought 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 artistbeing required annually to send in some specimen of his work to showwhat he was doing, but it being left optional with him to go abroad orto work at home; should you think that would be desirable, or as hasbeen suggested in a letter by Mr. Armitage, supposing those fellowshipsto be established for four years, that two of those years should bespent abroad and two at home?--Without entering into any detail as towhether two years should be spent abroad and two years at home, I feelvery strongly that one of the most dangerous and retarding influencesyou have operating upon art is the enormous power of money, and thechances of entirely winning or entirely losing, that is, of making yourfortune in a year by a large taking picture, or else starving for tenyears 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 awayfrom what he knows is right by the chance of at once making a vastfortune by catching the public eye, the public eye being only to becaught by bright colors and certain conditions of art not alwaysdesirable. If, therefore, connected with the Academy schools there couldbe the means of giving a fixed amount of income to certain men, whowould as a consideration for that income furnish a certain number ofworks that might be agreed upon, or undertake any national work thatmight be agreed upon, that I believe would be the healthiest way inwhich 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 todo, is, I believe, the healthiest, simplest, and happiest way in whichgreat work can be produced. But whether it is compatible with ourpresent system I cannot say, nor whether every man would not run away assoon as he found he could get two or three thousand pounds by painting acatching 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 muraldecoration, fresco painting, and so forth. The system that prevailsabroad, in France, for instance, is for painters to employ pupils towork under them. It was in that way that Delaroche painted his hemicycleat the Académie des Beaux-Arts, employing four pupils, who worked forhim, and who from his small sketch drew the full-sized picture on thewalls, which was subsequently corrected by him. They then colored it upto 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 ofLords, you find Mr. Maclise at work on a space of wall forty-eight feetlong, painting the Death of Nelson on the deck of the "Victory, " everyfigure being life size, the deck of the ship and the ropes andeverything being the actual size, and you see him painting with his ownhand each little bit of rope and the minutest detail. Which of the twosystems do you think is the soundest and most calculated to producegreat and noble work?--The first is the best for the pupils, the otheris the best for the public. But unquestionably not only can a great workbe executed as Mr. Maclise is executing his, but no really great workwas executed otherwise, for in all mighty work, whether in fresco oroil, every touch and hue of color to the last corner has been put onlovingly by the painter's own hand, not leaving to a pupil to paint somuch as a pebble under a horse's foot. 

191. Do you believe that most of the works of the great masters in Italywere so executed?--No; because the pupils were nearly as mighty as themasters. Great men took such an interest in their work, and they were somodest and simple that they were repeatedly sacrificing themselves tothe 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 doneby bringing in aid; but whenever precious work was to be done, then thegreat man said, "Lock me up here by myself, give me a little wine andcheese, 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 becapable 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:

[Footnote 3: Reprinted from "The Report of the Commissioners appointedto inquire into the Present Position of the Royal Academy in Relation tothe 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. WilliamStirling, Mr. H. D. Seymour, and Mr. Henry Reeve, all of whom, exceptMr. 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 itconveniently, it may hang fire till this time next year. If you willaccept a note on the subject now and then, keeping them till there areenough 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 Artand Natural History as alike cared for in an ideal one)--is to giveexample of perfect order and perfect elegance, in the true sense of thattest 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 beenonce arranged, there must be no change in it. For new possessions theremust be new rooms, and after twenty years' absence--coming back to theroom in which one learned one's bird or beast alphabet, we should beable to show our children the old bird on the old perch in theaccustomed corner. But--first of all, let the room be beautifullycomplete, _i. E. _ complete enough for its proper business. 

193. In the British Museum, at the top of the stairs, we encounter in aterrific alliance a giraffe, a hippopotamus, and a basking shark. Thepublic--young and old--pass with a start and a stare, and remain as wiseas they were before about all the three creatures. The day beforeyesterday I was standing by the big fish--a father came up to it withhis little boy. "That's a shark, " says he; "it turns on its side when itwants 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 henever looked at the ticket, which told him this particular shark onlyate small fish. Now he never looked at the ticket, because he didn'texpect to find anything on it except that this was the SharkogobalusSmith-Jonesianius. But if, round the walls of the room, there had beenall the _well-known_ kinds of shark, going down, in graduated sizes, from that basking one to our waggling dog-fish, and if every one ofthese had had a plain English ticket, with ten words of common sense onit, saying where and how the beast lived, and a number (unchangeable)referring to a properly arranged manual of the shark tribe (sold by theMuseum publisher, who ought to have his little shop close by theporter's lodge), both father and son must have been much below the levelof average English man and boy in mother wit if they did not go out ofthe room by the door in front of them very distinctly, and--tothemselves--amazingly, wiser than they had come in by the door behindthem. 

194. If I venture to give instances of fault from the British Museum, itis because, on the whole, it is the best-ordered and pleasantestinstitution in all England, and the grandest concentration of the meansof human knowledge in the world. And I am heartily sorry for thebreak-up of it, and augur no good from any changes of arrangement likelyto take place in concurrence with Kensington, where, the same day that Ihad been meditating by the old shark, I lost myself in a Cretanlabyrinth of military ironmongery, advertisements of spring blinds, model fish-farming, and plaster bathing nymphs with a year's smut on allthe noses of them; and had to put myself in charge of a policeman to getout again. Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. 

 _March 29th, 1880. _

 MY DEAR ----, 195. The only chance of my getting these letters themselves into fairlyconsistent and Museum-like order is by writing a word or two always thefirst thing in the morning till I get them done; so, I shall at leastremember what I was talking of the day before; but for the rest--I mustspeak of one thing or another as it may come into my head, for there aretoo many to classify without pedantry and loss of time. 

My requirement of "elegance" in that last letter contemplates chieflyarchitecture and fittings. These should not only be perfect instateliness, durability, and comfort, but beautiful to the utmost pointconsistent with due subordination to the objects displayed. To enter aroom in the Louvre is an education in itself; but two steps on thefilthy floor and under the iron forks, half scaffold, half gallows, ofthe big Norwood glass bazaar, debase mind and eye at once belowpossibility of looking at anything with profit all the day afterwards. Ihave just heard that a French picture dealer is to have charge of thepicture gallery there, and that the whole interior is to becomevirtually 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, " inthat sense, must be utterly and scornfully abjured on the foundationstone of every National or Civic Museum. There must be neither companiesto fill their own pockets out of it, nor trustees who can cramp themanagement, or interfere with the officering, or shorten the supplies ofit. Put one man of reputation and sense at its head; give him what staffhe asks for, and a fixed annual sum for expenditure--specific accountsto 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; buta certain proportion of this current cost should be covered by smallentrance fees, exacted, not for any miserly helping out of thefloor-sweepers' salaries, but for the sake of the visitors themselves, that the rooms may not be incumbered by the idle, or disgraced by thedisreputable. You must not make your Museum a refuge against either rainor ennui, nor let into perfectly well-furnished, and even, in the truesense, palatial, rooms, the utterly squalid and ill-bred portion of thepeople. There should, indeed, be refuges for the poor from rain andcold, and decent rooms accessible to indecent persons, if they like togo there; but neither of these charities should be part of the functionof a Civic Museum. 

196. Make the entrance fee a silver penny (a silver groat, typicallyrepresenting the father, mother, eldest son, and eldest daughter, passing always the total number of any one family), and every personadmitted, however young, being requested to sign their name, or maketheir mark. 

That the entrance money should be always of silver is one of thebeginnings 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 partof the system of National education which I have been teaching theselast ten years--a very much deeper and wider one than any that can begiven in museums--and without which all museums will ultimately bevain. --Ever affectionately yours, J. R. 

P. S. --There should be a well-served coffee-room attached to thebuilding; but this part of the establishment without any luxury infurniture or decoration, and without any cooking apparatus forcarnivora. 

 _Easter Monday, 1880. _

 DEAR ----, 197. The day is auspicious for the beginning of reflection on the rightmanner of manifestation of all divine things to those who desire to seethem. For every house of the Muses, where, indeed, they live, is anInterpreter's by the wayside, or rather, a place of oracle andinterpretation in one. And the right function of every museum, to simplepersons, is the manifestation to them of what is lovely in the life ofNature, and heroic in the life of Men. 

There are already, you see, some quaint restrictions in that lastsentence, whereat sundry of our friends will start, and others stop. Imust stop also, myself, therefore, for a minute or two, to insist onthem. 

198. A Museum, primarily, is to be for _simple_ persons. Children, thatis to say, and peasants. For your student, your antiquary, or yourscientific gentleman, there must be separate accommodation, or they mustbe sent elsewhere. The Town Museum is to be for the Town's People, theVillage Museum for the Villagers. Keep that first principle clear tostart with. If you want to found an academy of painting inLittleborough, or of literature in Squattlesea Mere, you must get youradvice from somebody else, not me. 

199. Secondly. The museum is to manifest to these simple persons thebeauty and life of all things and creatures in their perfectness. Nottheir modes of corruption, disease, or death. Not even, always, theirgenesis, in the more or less blundering beginnings of it; not even theirmodes of nourishment, if destructive; you must not stuff a blackbirdpulling up a worm, nor exhibit in a glass case a crocodile crunching ababy. 

Neither must you ever show bones or guts, or any other charnel-housestuff. Teach your children to know the lark's note from thenightingale's; the length of their larynxes is their own business, andGod's. 

I cannot enough insist upon this point, nor too solemnly. If you wishyour children to be surgeons, send them to Surgeons' College; ifjugglers or necromancers, to Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke; and ifbutchers, to the shambles: but if you want them to lead the calm life ofcountry gentlemen and gentlewomen, manservants and maidservants, letthem seek none of Death's secrets till they die. Ever faithfully andaffectionately yours, J. R. 

 _Easter Tuesday, 1880. _

 DEAR ----, 200. I must enter to-day somewhat further on the practical, no less thanemotional, reason for the refusal of anatomical illustrations to thegeneral public. 

It is difficult enough to get one clear idea into anybody, of any singlething. But next to impossible to get _two_ clear ideas into them, of thesame thing. We have had lions' heads for door-knockers these hundred andfifty years, without ever learning so much as what a lion's head islike. But with good modern stuffing and fetching, I can manage now tomake a child really understand something about the beast's look, and hismane, and his sullen eyes and brindled lips. But if I'm bothered at thesame 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 somehowthis fits on to that, I will be bound that, at a year's end, draw one asbig as the other, and he won't know a lion's head from a tiger's--nor alion'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 habitof hacking at things, instead of looking at them. When I gave my lectureon the Swallow[6] at Oxford, I challenged every anatomist there to tellme 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 notknow, till I had looked well through their books, how they werequarreling about his wings! Actually at this moment (Easter Tuesday, 1880), I don't believe you can find in any scientific book in Europe atrue account of the way a bird flies--or how a snake serpentines. MySwallow lecture was the first bit of clear statement on the one point, and when I get my Snake lecture published, you will have the firstextant bit of clear statement on the other; and that is simply becausethe anatomists can't, for their life, look at a thing till they haveskinned it. 

201. And matters get worse and worse every hour. Yesterday, afterwriting the first leaf of this note, I went into the British Museum, andfound a nasty skeleton of a lizard, with its under jaw dropped off, onthe top of a table of butterflies--temporarily of course--but theneverything has been temporary or temporizing at the British Museum forthe last half-century; making it always a mere waste and weariness tothe general public, because, forsooth, it had always to be kept up tothe last meeting of the Zoological Society, and last edition of the_Times_. As if there had not been beasts enough before the Ark to tellour children the manners of, on a Sunday afternoon!

202. I had gone into the Museum that day to see the exact form of aduck's wing, the examination of a lively young drake's here at Conistonhaving closed in his giving me such a cut on the wrist with it, that Icould scarcely write all the morning afterwards. Now in the whole birdgallery there are only two ducks' wings expanded, and those in differentpositions. Fancy the difference to the mob, and me, if the shells andmonkey skeletons were taken away from the mid-gallery, and instead, three gradated series of birds put down the length of it (or half thelength--or a quarter would do it--with judgment), showing thetransition, in length of beak, from bunting to woodcock--in length ofleg, from swift to stilted plover--and in length of wing, from auk tofrigate-bird; the wings, all opened, in one specimen of each bird totheir full sweep, and in another, shown at the limit of the down backstroke. For what on earth--or in air--is the use to me of seeing theirboiled sternums and scalped sinciputs, when I'm never shown either howthey bear their breasts--or where they carry their heads?

Enough of natural history, you will say! I will come to art in my nextletter--finishing the ugly subject of this one with a single sentencefrom section ix. Of the "Tale of a Tub, " commending the context of it tomy friends of the Royal Academy. 

"Last week, I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how muchit altered her person for the worse. "--Ever, my dear ----, affectionatelyyours, J. R. 

 _7th April, 1880. _

 MY DEAR ----, 203. I suppose that proper respect for the great first principles of theBritish Constitution, that every man should do as he pleases, think whathe likes, and see everything that can be seen for money, will make mostof your readers recoil from my first principle of Museumarrangement, --that nothing should be let inside the doors that isn'tgood of its sort, --as from an attempt to restore the Papacy, revive theInquisition, and away with everybody to the lowest dungeon of thecastle moat. They must at their pleasure charge me with these sinisterviews; they will find that there is no dexter view to be had of thebusiness, which does not consist primarily in knowing Bad from Good, andRight 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 thecrepida, and the potter of the pot, will they find it so supremelydifficult to establish authorities that shall be trustworthy, andjudgments that shall be sure. 

204. Suppose, for instance, at Leicester, whence came first to us theinquiry on such points, one began by setting apart a Hunter's Room, inwhich a series of portraits of their Master's favorites, for the lastfifty years or so, should be arranged, with certificate from each Squireof his satisfaction, to such and such a point, with the portrait ofLightfoot, or Lucifer, or Will o' the Wisp; and due notification, forperhaps a recreant and degenerate future, of the virtues and perfectionsat this time sought and secured in the English horse. Would not such achamber of chivalry have, in its kind, a quite indisputable authorityand historical value, not to be shaken by any future impudence orinfidelity?

Or again in Staffordshire, would it not be easily answered to an honestquestion of what is good and not, in clay or ware, "This will work, andthat will stand"? and might not a series of the mugs which have beenmatured with discrimination, and of the pots which have been popular inuse, be so ordered as to display their qualities in a convincing andharmonious manner against all gainsayers?

205. Nor is there any mystery of taste, or marvel of skill, concerningwhich you may not get quite easy initiation and safe pilotage for thecommon people, provided you once make them clearly understand that thereis indeed something to be learned, and something to be admired, in thearts, which will need their attention for a time; and cannot beexplained with a word, nor seen with a wink. And provided also, and withstill greater decision, you set over them masters, in each branch ofthe arts, who know their own minds in that matter, and are not afraid tospeak 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, anddealt with one at a time. Every considerable town ought to have itsexemplary collections of woodwork, iron-work, and jewelry, attached tothe schools of their several trades, leaving to be illustrated in itspublic museum, as in an hexagonal bee's cell, the six queenly andmuse-taught arts of needlework, writing, pottery, sculpture, architecture, and painting. 

206. For each of these, there should be a separate Tribune or Chamber ofabsolute tribunal, which need not be large--that, so called, ofFlorence, not the size of a railway waiting-room, has actually for thelast century determined the taste of the European public in twoarts!--in which the absolute best in each art, so far as attainable bythe communal pocket, should be authoritatively exhibited, with simplestatement that it is good, and reason why it is good, and notificationin what particulars it is unsurpassable, together with some not toocomplex illustrations of the steps by which it has attained to thatperfection, where these can be traced far back in history. 

207. These six Tribunes, or Temples, of Fame, being first set with theirfixed criteria, there should follow a series of historical galleries, showing the rise and fall (if fallen) of the arts in their beautifulassociations, as practiced in the great cities and by the great nationsof the world. The history of Egypt, of Persia, of Greece, of Italy, ofFrance, and of England, should be given in their arts, --dynasty bydynasty and age by age; and for a seventh, a Sunday Room, for thehistory of Christianity in its art, including the farthest range andfeeblest efforts of it; reserving for this room, also, what power couldbe reached in delineation of the great monasteries and cathedrals whichwere once the glory of all Christian lands. 

208. In such a scheme, every form of noble art would take harmoniousand instructive place, and often very little and disregarded things befound to possess unthought-of interest and hidden relative beauty; butits efficiency--and in this chiefly let it be commended to the patienceof your practical readers--would depend, not on its extent, but on itsstrict and precise limitation. The methods of which, if you care to havemy notions of them, I might perhaps enter into, next month, with someillustrative 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 stitchin my story, I want to say why I've attached so much importance toneedlework, and put it in the opening court of the six. You see they areprogressive, so that I don't quite put needlework on a _level_ withpainting. But a nation that would learn to "touch" _must_ primarily knowhow to "stitch. " I am always busy, for a good part of the day, in mywood, and wear out my leathern gloves fast, after once I can wear themat all: but that's the precise difficulty of the matter. I get them fromthe shop looking as stout and trim as you please, and half an hour afterI've got to work they split up the fingers and thumbs like ripehorse-chestnut shells, and I find myself with five dangling rags roundmy wrist, and a rotten white thread draggling after me through the wood, or tickling my nose, as if Ariadne and Arachne had lost their witstogether. I go home, invoking the universe against sewing-machines; andbeg the charity of a sound stitch or two from any of the maids who knowtheir woman's art; and thenceforward the life of the glove properbegins. Wow, it is not possible for any people that put up with thissort of thing, to learn to paint, or do anything else with their fingersdecently:--only, for the most part they don't think their museums aremeant to show them how to do anything decently, but rather how to beidle, indecently. Which extremely popular and extremely erroneouspersuasion, if you please, we must get out of our way before goingfurther. 

210. I owe some apology, by the way, to Mr. Frith, for the way I spokeof his picture[8] in my letter to the Leicester committee, not intendedfor publication, though I never write what I would not allow to bepublished, and was glad that they asked leave to print it. It was not Iwho instanced the picture, it had been named in the meeting of thecommittee as the kind of thing that people best like, and I was obligedto say _why_ people best liked it:--namely, not for the painting, whichis good, and worthy their liking, but for the sight of the racecourseand its humors. And the reason that such a picture ought not to be in amuseum, is precisely because in a museum people ought not to fancythemselves on a racecourse. If they want to see races, let them go toraces; and if rogues, to Bridewells. They come to museums to seesomething 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. Bothare means of noble education--but you must not mix up the two. Dramaticinterest is one thing; aesthetic charm another; a pantomime must notdepend 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 theRoyal Academy as I was by Mr. Britton Rivičre's "Sympathy. " The dog inuncaricatured doggedness, divine as Anubis, or the Dog-star; the childentirely childish and lovely, the carpet might have been laid byVeronese. A most precious picture in itself, yet not one for a museum. Everybody would think only of the story in it; everybody be wonderingwhat the little girl had done, and how she would be forgiven, and if shewasn't, how soon she would stop crying, and give the doggie a kiss, andcomfort his heart. All which they might study at home among their ownchildren and dogs just as well; and should not come to the museum toplague the real students there, since there is not anything of especialnotableness or unrivaled quality in the actual painting. 

212. On the other hand, one of the four pictures I chose for permanentteaching in Fors was one of a child and a dog. The child is doingnothing; neither is the dog. But the dog is absolutely and beyondcomparison the best painted dog in the world--ancient or modern--on thisside of it, or at the Antipodes, (so far as I've seen the contents ofsaid world). And the child is painted so that child _cannot_ be betterdone. _That_ is a picture for a museum. 

Not that dramatic, still less didactic, intention should disqualify awork of art for museum purposes. But--broadly--dramatic and didactic artshould be universally national, the luster of our streets, the treasureof our palaces, the pleasure of our homes. Much art that is weak, transitory, and rude may thus become helpful to us. But the museum isonly for what is eternally right, and well done, according to divine lawand human skill. The least things are to be there--and the greatest--butall _good_ with the goodness that makes a child cheerful and an old mancalm; 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 thisletter--the arrangement of our first ideal room in such a museum. As Ithink of it, I would fain expand the single room, first asked for, intoone like Prince Houssain's, --no, Prince Houssain had the flyingtapestry, and I forget which prince had the elastic palace. But, indeed, it must be a lordly chamber which shall be large enough to exhibit thetrue nature of thread and needle--omened in "Thread-needle Street!"

The structure, first of wool and cotton, of fur, and hair, and down, ofhemp, 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 thesubstance of a mulberry leaf can become velvet for Queen Victoria'scrown, and clothing of purple for the housewife of Solomon. 

Then the phase of its dyeing. What azures, and emeralds, and Tyriansscarlets can be got into fibers of thread. 

214. Then the phase of its spinning. The mystery of that divinespiral, from finest to firmest, which renders lace possible atValenciennes--anchorage possible, after Trafalgar--if Hardy had but doneas he was bid. 

Then the mystery of weaving. The eternal harmony of warp and woof, ofall manner of knotting, knitting, and reticulation, the art which makesgarment possible, woven from the top throughout, draughts of fishespossible, miraculous enough in any pilchard or herring shoal, gatheredinto companionable catchableness;--which makes, in fine, so many Nationspossible, and Saxon and Norman beyond the rest. 

215. And finally, the accomplished phase of needlework, the _AcuTetigisti_ of all time, which does, indeed, practically exhibit whatmedićval theologists vainly tried to conclude inductively--How manyangels can stand on a needle-point. To show the essential nature of astitch--drawing the separate into the inseparable, from the lowly workof duly restricted sutor, and modestly installed cobbler, to theneedle-Scripture of Matilda, the Queen. 

All the acicular Art of Nations, savage and civilized, from Laplandboot, letting in no snow-water--to Turkey cushion bossed with pearl--tovalance of Venice gold in needlework -to the counterpanes and samplersof our own lovely ancestresses, imitable, perhaps, once more, with goodhelp from Whiteland's College--and Girton. 

216. It was but yesterday, my own womankind were in much wholesome andsweet excitement delightful to behold, in the practice of some newdevice of remedy for rents (to think how much of evil there is in thetwo senses of that four-lettered word! as in the two methods ofintonation of its synonym tear!) whereby they might be daintily effaced, and with a newness which would never make them worse. The process beganbeautifully, even to my uninformed eyes, in the likeness of herring-bonemasonry, crimson on white, but it seemed to me marvelous that anythingshould yet be discoverable in needle process, and that of so utilitariancharacter. 

All that is reasonable, I say of such work is to be in our first museumroom. All that Athena and Penelope would approve. Nothing that vanityhas invented for change, or folly loved for costliness; but all that canbring honest pride into homely life, and give security to health--andhonor to beauty. 

 J. RUSKIN. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: These letters are reprinted from the _Art Journal_ of Juneand August 1880, where they were prefaced with the following note by theeditor in explanation of their origin:--"We are enabled, through Mr. Ruskin's kindness, to publish this month a series of letters to a friendupon the functions and formation of a model Museum or Picture Gallery. As stated in our last issue the question arose thus:--At thedistribution 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 inWater Colors, the latter, after stating the vital importance of studyfrom nothing but the finest models, and expressing his regret that thepresent price of works of Art of the first class rendered theirattainment by schools almost prohibitory, offered drawings by WilliamHunt and David Cox as a nucleus for a collection. He urged others tofollow this example, and with so much success that a few days saw alarge sum and many works of Art promised in aid of a students' gallery. The attention of the Leicester Corporation was thereupon drawn to themovement, and they at once endeavored to annex the scheme to theirMuseum. Failing in this, they in friendly rivalry subscribed a large sumof money, and the question at once arose how best to dispose of it, eachnaturally thinking his own ideas the best. At this juncture Mr. Ruskin'said was invoked by one section of the subscribers, and he replied in aletter which, owing to its having been circulated without its context, has been open to some misconstruction. As he was only asked, so he onlyadvised, what should _not_ be done. However, the letter bore its fruits, for both parties have had the attention of the country drawn to theirproposals, and so are now more diffident how to set about carrying theminto effect than they were before. Under these circumstances Mr. Ruskinhas been induced to set out the mode in which he considers an Art Museumshould be formed. "

The letter which was "open to some misconstruction" may be found in_Arrows of the Chace_. ]

[Footnote 5: Reprinted in vol. I. , §§ 253-273. --ED. ]

[Footnote 6: In 1873. See the second lecture of _Love'sMeinie_. --ED.. ]

[Footnote 7: _Art Journal_, August, 1880. ]

[Footnote 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 MEDIĆVAL 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 southernmostchapel 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 cannotenjoy, that it must relieve the mind of any reader intending to visitVerona to be assured that this church deserves nothing but extraordinarypraise; it has, however, some characters which a quarter of an hour'sattention will make both interesting and instructive, and which I willnote briefly before giving an account of the Cavalli chapel. This church"would, if the font were finished, probably be the most perfect specimenin 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 onlyunfinished, and for the most part a black mass of ragged brickwork, butthe portion pretending to completion is in three styles; approachesexcellence only in one of them; and in that the success is limited tothe sides of the single entrance door. The flanks and vaults of thisporch, indeed, deserve our almost unqualified admiration for theirbeautiful polychrome masonry. They are built of large masses of greenserpentine alternating with red and white marble, and the joints are sodelicate and firm that a casual spectator might pass the gate withcontempt, thinking the stone was painted. 

218. The capitals on these two sides, the carved central shaft, and thehorizontal lintel of this door are also excellent examples of Veronesethirteenth century sculpture, and have merits of a high order, but ofwhich the general observer cannot be cognizant. I do not mean, insaying this, to extol them greatly; the best art is pleasing to all, andits virtue, or a portion of its virtue, instantly manifest. But thereare some good qualities in every earnest work which can only beascertained by attention; and in saying that a casual observer cannotsee the good qualities in early Veronese sculpture, I mean that itpossesses none but these, nor of these many. 

219. Yet it is worth a minute's delay to observe how much the sculpturehas counted on attention. In later work, figures of the size of life, ormultitudinous small ones, please, if they do not interest, the spectatorwho can spare them a momentary glance. But all the figures on this doorare diminutive, and project so slightly from the stone as scarcely tocatch the eye; there are none in the sides and none in the vault of thegate, and it is only by deliberate examination that we find the faithwhich is to be preached in the church, and the honor of its preacher, conclusively engraved on the lintel and door-post. The spiral flutingsof the central shaft are uninterrupted, so as to form a slight recessfor 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, theMadonna; and on the lintel, the story of Christ, in the four passages ofthe Annunciation, Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. 

220. This is the only part of the front of the church which is certainlypart of the first structure in 1260. The two statues of St. Anastasiaand St. Catherine are so roughly joined to the lateral capitals as toinduce a suspicion that even these latter and the beautiful polychromevault are of later work, not, however, later than 1300. The two pointedarches which divide the tympanum are assuredly subsequent, and thefresco which occupies it is a bad work of the end of the fourteenthcentury; and the marble frieze and foundations of the front are at leastnot earlier than 1426. 

Of this portion of the building the foundation is noble, and its colorbeautifully disposed, but the sculpture of the paneling is poor, and ofno interest or value. 

221. On entering the church, and turning immediately to the left, therewill be seen on the inner side of the external wall a tomb under aboldly trefoiled canopy. It is a sarcophagus with a recumbent figure onit, which is the only work of art in the church deserving seriousattention. It is the tomb of Gerard Bolderius "sui temporis physicorumprincipi, " 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 fromthe tomb, used generally at the period for the type of resurrection, between the Virgin and St. John; and two shields, bearing, one thefleur-de-lys, the other an eagle. The recumbent figure is entirelysimple and right in treatment, sculptured without ostentation of skillor exaggeration of sentiment, by a true artist, who endeavors only togive the dead due honor, and his own art subordinate and modest scope. 

This monument, being the best in St. Anastasia, is, by the usual spiteof fortune, placed where it is quite invisible except on bright days. Onthe opposite side of the church, the first monument on the right, welllighted by the tall western window, should be looked at next to thephysician's; for as that is the best, this is essentially the worst, piece of sculptured art in the building; a series of academy studies inmarble, well executed, but without either taste or invention, andnecessarily without meaning, the monument having been erected to aperson whose only claim to one was his having stolen money enough to payfor it before he died. It is one of the first pieces extant of entirelymechanical art workmanship, done for money; and the perfection of itsdetails may justify me in directing special attention to it. 

222. There are no other monuments, still less pictures, in the body ofthe church deserving notice. The general effect of the interior isimpressive, owing partly to the boldness and simplicity of the pillarswhich sustain the roof; partly to the darkness which involves them:these Dominican churches being, in fact, little more than vast halls forpreaching in, and depending little on decoration, and not at all onlight. But the sublimity of shadow soon fails when it has nothinginteresting to shade; and the chapel or monuments which, opposite eachinterval between the pillars, fill the sides of the aisles, possess nointerest except in their arabesques of cinque-cento sculpture, of whichfar better examples may be seen elsewhere; while the differences intheir ages, styles, and purposes hinder them from attaining any unity ofdecorative effect, and break the unity of the church almost as fatally, though not as ignobly, as the incoherent fillings of the aisles atWestminster. The Cavalli chapel itself, though well deserving theillustration which the Arundel Society has bestowed upon it, is filledwith a medley of tombs and frescoes of different dates, partlysuperseding, none illustrating, each other, and instructive mainly asshowing the unfortunate results of freedom and "private enterprise" inmatters of art, as compared with the submission to the design of oneruling mind which is the glory of all the chapels in Italy where the artis entirely noble. 

223. Instructive, thus, at least, even if seen hastily; much betterteaching may be had even from the unharmonious work, if we give time andthought to it. The upper fresco on the north wall, representing theBaptism of Christ, has no beauty, and little merit as art; yet themanner of its demerit is interesting. St. John kneels to baptize. Thisvariation from the received treatment, in which he stands above theChrist, is enough in itself to show that the poor Veronese painter hadsome intelligence of his subject; and the quaint and haggard figure, grim-featured, with its black hair rising in separate locks like a crownof thorns, is a curious intermediate type between the grotesqueconception which we find in earlier art (or, for instance, on the coinsof Florence) and the beautiful, yet always melancholy and severe figuresof St. John painted by Cima da Conegliano at Venice. With this sternfigure, in raiment of camel's hair, compare the Magdalen in the frescoesat 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 thepassions, as St. John of resistance to them. Both symbols are, to us, tosay the very least, without charm, and to very few without offense; yetconsider how much nobler the temper of the people must have been whocould take pleasure in art so gloomy and unadorned, than that of thepopulace of to-day, which must be caught with bright colors and excitedby popular sentiment. 

224. Both these frescoes, with the others on the north wall of thechapel, and Madonna between four saints on the south side, by theCavalli tomb, are evidently of fourteenth century work, none of it good, but characteristic; and the last-named work (seen in the plate) is sograceful as to be quite worth some separate illustration. But the oneabove it is earlier, and of considerable historical interest. It wasdiscovered with the other paintings surrounding the tomb, about the year1838, when Persico published his work, "Verona, e la sua Provincia, " inwhich he says (p. 13), "levatane l'antica incrostatura, tornarono a vitanovella. "

It would have been more serviceable to us if we could have known thedate of the rough cast, than of its removal; the period of entirecontempt for ancient art being a subject of much interest in theecclesiastical history of Italy. But the tomb itself was anincrustation, having been raised with much rudeness and carelessnessamidst the earlier art which recorded the first rise of the Cavallifamily. 

225. It will be seen by reference to the plate that the frescoes roundthe tomb have no symmetrical relation to it. They are all of earlierdate, and by better artists. The tomb itself is roughly carved, andcoarsely painted, by men who were not trying to do their best, and couldnot have done anything very well, even if they had tried: it is anentirely commonplace and dull work, though of a good school, and hasbeen raised against the highest fresco with a strange disregard of themerit 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 histime, and has no quality on which I care to enlarge; nor is itascertainable who the three knights are whom it commemorates, unlesssome 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 Ibelieve them to represent the three first founders of the family, Giovanni, "che fioriva intorno al 1274, " his son Nicola (1297), andgrandson Federigo, who was Podesta of Vicenza under the Scaligers in1331, and by whom I suppose the fresco to have been commanded. TheCavallis came first from Germany into the service of the Visconti ofMilan, 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 arenamed on the sarcophagus, of which the inscription (on the projectingledge 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 thedistinguished and energetic Herr the Lord Nicholas of the house of theHorse, and of their heirs, who gave back his soul to the stars in theyear of our Lord 1390. "

226. This Frederic and Nicolas Cavalli were the brothers of the JacopoCavalli who is buried at Venice, and who, by a singular fatality, wasenrolled among the Venetian nobles of the senate in the year in whichhis brother died at Verona (for I assume the "spiritum redidit" to besaid 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 powerin Verona, and was exiled, by decree of the Council of Ten, to Candia, where he died. From another son, Conrad, are descended the Cavallis ofVenice, whose palace has been the principal material from which recentsearchers for the picturesque in Venice compose pictures of the GrandCanal. It forms the square mass of architecture on the left, in thecontinually repeated view of the Church of the Salute seen from thesteps of the Academy. 

The genealogy of the family, from the thirteenth century, when theyfirst appeared in Italy, to the founder of this Venetian lordship, hadbetter 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, | |---------+----------+----------+----------| NICOLA, GIOVANNI, CONRADO, FEDERIGO, GIORGIO. Founds Venetian family. 

227. Now, as above stated, I believe that the fresco of the threeknights was commanded by the Podesta of Vicenza, on his receiving thatauthority from the Scaligers in 1331, and that it represents Giovanni, Nicola, and himself; while the tomb of Federigo and Nicola would beordered by the Venetian Cavallis, and completed without much care forthe record of the rise of the family at Verona. 

Whether my identification of the figures seen kneeling in the fresco becorrect or not, the representation of these three Cavalli knights to theMadonna, each interceded for by his patron saint, will be found toreceive a peculiar significance if the reader care to review thecircumstances influencing the relation of the German chivalry to thepower of the Church in the very year when Giovanni Cavalli entered theranks of the Visconti. 

228. For the three preceding centuries, Milan, the oldest archbishopricof Lombardy, had been the central point at which the collision betweenthe secular and ecclesiastical power took place in Europe. The Guelphand Ghibelline naturally met and warred throughout the plain ofLombardy; but the intense civic stubbornness and courage of the Milanesepopulation formed a kind of rock in their tide-way, where the quarrel ofburgher with noble confused itself with, embittered, and brought againand again to trial by battle, that of pope with emperor. In 1035 theirwarrior archbishop, heading their revolt against Conrad of Franconia, organized the first disciplined resistance of foot-soldiers to cavalryby his invention and decoration of the Carroccio; and the contest wasonly closed, after the rebuilding of the walls of ruined Milan, by thewandering of Barbarossa, his army scattered, through the maize fields, which the traveler now listlessly crosses at speed in the train betweenMilan and Arona, little noting the name of the small station, "Legnano, "where the fortune of the Lombard republic finally prevailed. But it wasonly by the death of Frederick II. That the supremacy of the Church wassecured; and when Innocent IV. , who had written, on hearing of thatdeath, to his Sicilian clergy, in words of blasphemous exultation, entered Milan, on his journey from Lyons to Perugia, the road, for tenmiles before he reached the gates, was lined by the entire population ofthe city, drawn forth in enthusiastic welcome; as they had invented asacred car for the advance of their standard in battle, they inventedsome similar honor for the head of their Church as the harbinger ofpeace: under a canopy of silk, borne by the first gentlemen of Milan, the Pope received the hosannas of a people who had driven into shamefulflight their Caesar-king; and it is not uninteresting for the Englishtraveler to remember, as he walks through the vast arcades of shops, inthe form of a cross, by which the Milanese of to-day express theirtriumph in liberation from Teutonic rule, that the "Baldacchino" of allmedićval religious ceremony owed its origin to the taste of themilliners of Milan, as the safety of the best knights in European battlerested on the faithful craftsmanship of her armorers. 

229. But at the date when the Cavalli entered the service of the greatMilanese family, the state of parties within the walls had singularlychanged. Three years previously (1271) Charles of Anjou had drawntogether the remnants of the army of his dead brother, had confiscatedto his own use the goods of the crusading knights whose vessels had beenwrecked on the coast of Sicily, and called the pontifical court toViterbo, to elect a pope who might confirm his dominion over thekingdoms of Sicily and Jerusalem. 

On the deliberations of the Cardinals at Viterbo depended the fates ofItaly and the Northern Empire. They chose Tebaldo Visconti, then a monkin pilgrimage at Jerusalem. But, before that election was accomplished, one of the candidates for the Northern Empire had involuntarilywithdrawn 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 thethrone of Germany vacant. Tebaldo had returned from Jerusalem with nopersonal ambition, but having at heart only the restoration of Greece toEurope, and the preaching of a new crusade in Syria. A general councilwas convoked by him at Lyons, with this object; but before anythingcould be accomplished in the conclave, it was necessary to balance theoverwhelming 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 assistanceof the Milanese. Their popular leader, Napoleone della Torre, hadfacilitated his passage through Lombardy, which otherwise must have beenarrested by the Ghibelline states; and in the year in which the Viscontipope had appointed the council at Lyons, the Visconti archbishop ofMilan was heading the exiled nobles in vain attempts to recover theirsupremacy over the popular party. The new Emperor Rudolph not only senta representative to the council, but a German contingent to aid theexiled archbishop. The popular leader was defeated, and confined in aniron cage, in the year 1274, and the first entrance of the Cavalli intothe Italian armies is thus contemporary with the conclusive triumph ofthe northern monarchic over the republican power, or, more literally, ofthe wandering rider, Eques, or Ritter, living by pillage, over thesedentary burgher, living by art, and hale peasant, living by labor. Theessential nature of the struggle is curiously indicated in relation tothis monument by the two facts that the revolt of the Milanese burghers, headed by their archbishop, began by a gentleman's killing animportunate creditor, and that, at Venice, the principal circumstancerecorded of Jacopo Cavalli (see my notice of his tomb in the "Stones ofVenice, " Vol. III. Ch. Ii. § 69) is his refusal to assault Feltre, because the senate would not grant him the pillage of the town. Thereader may follow out, according to his disposition, what thoughts thefresco of the three kneeling knights, each with his helmet-crest, in theshape of a horse's head, thrown back from his shoulders, may suggest tohim on review of these passages of history: one thought only I mustguard him against, strictly; namely, that a condottiere's religion mustnecessarily have been false or hypocritical. The folly of nations is innothing more manifest than in their placid reconciliation of noblecreeds with base practices. But the reconciliation, in the fourteenth asin the nineteenth century, was usually foolish only, not insincere. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Published by the Arundel Society (1872), together with achromo-lithograph after a drawing by Herr Gnauth. --ED. ]

[Footnote 10:

 D. M. Gerardo Bolderio sui temporis Physicorum Principi Franciscus et Matthaeus Nepotes P. P. ]

[Footnote 11: I am indebted for this genealogy to the research and tothe courtesy of Mr. J. Stefani. The help given me by other Venetianfriends, especially Mr. Rawdon Brown, dates from many years back inmatters of this kind. ]

VERONA AND ITS RIVERS. [12]

231. The discourse began with a description of the scenery of theeastern approach to Verona, with special remarks upon its magnificentfortifications, consisting of a steep ditch, some thirty feet deep bysixty or eighty wide, cut out of the solid rock, and the precipice-likewall above, with towers crested with forked battlements set along it atdue intervals. The rock is a soft and crumbling limestone, containing"fossil creatures still so like the creatures they were once, that thereit first occurred to the human brain to imagine that the buried shapeswere not mockeries of life, but had indeed once lived; and, under thosewhite banks by the roadside, was born, like a poor Italian gypsy, themodern science of geology. " ... "The wall was chiefly built, the moatentirely excavated, by Can Grande della Scala; and it representstypically the form, of defense which rendered it possible for the lifeand the arts of citizens to be preserved and practiced in an age ofhabitual war. Not only so, but it is the wall of the actual city whichheaded the great Lombard league, which was the beginner of personal andindependent power in the Italian nation, and the first banner-bearer, therefore, of all that has been vitally independent in religion and inart throughout the entire Christian world to this day. " At the upperangle of the wall, looking down the northern descent, is seen a greatround tower at the foot of it, not forked in battlements, but withembrasures for guns. "The battlemented wall was the cradle of civiclife. That low circular tower is the cradle of modern war and of all itsdesolation. It is the first European tower for artillery; the beginningof fortification against gunpowder--the beginning, that is to say, ofthe end of _all_ fortification. "

232. After noticing the beautiful vegetation of the district, Mr. Ruskindescribed the view from the promontory or spur, about ten miles long, ofwhich 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 outof Germany into Italy, through which the Goths always entered, cloven upto Innspruck by the Inn, and down to Verona by the Adige. And by thisgate not only the Gothic armies came, but after the Italian nation isformed, the current of northern life enters still into its heart throughthe mountain artery, as constantly and strongly as the cold waves of theAdige itself. " ... "The rock of this promontory hardens as we trace itback to the Alps, first into a limestone having knots of splendid brownjasper in it as our chalk has flints, and in a few miles more into truemarble, colored by iron into a glowing orange or pale warm red--thepeach-blossom marble, of which Verona is chiefly built--and then as youadvance farther into the hills into variegated marbles very rich andgrotesque in their veinings. "

233. After dilating on the magnificent landscape viewed from the top ofthis 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 whichthe places and monuments of so complex and deep a fragment of thehistory of its ages can be visible as from this piece of crag with itsblue and prickly weeds. For you have thus beneath you at once thebirthplaces of Virgil and of Livy--the homes of Dante and Petrarch, andthe source of the most sweet and pathetic inspiration to your ownShakespeare--the spot where the civilization of the Gothic kingdoms wasfounded on the throne of Theodoric; and there whatever was strongest inthe Italian race redeemed itself into life by its league againstBarbarossa; the beginning of the revival of natural science and medicinein the schools of Padua; the center of Italian chivalry, in the powerof the Scaligers; of Italian cruelty, in that of Ezzelin; and, lastly, the birthplace of the highest art; for among those hills, or by thisvery Adige bank, were born Mantegna, Titian, Correggio, and Veronese. "

234. Mr. Ruskin then referred to a series of drawings and photographstaken at Verona by himself and his assistants, Mr. Burgess and Mr. Bunney, which he had divided into three series, and of which he hadfurnished a number of printed catalogues illustrated with notes. [13]

I. "Lombard, extending to the end of the twelfth century, being theexpression of the introduction of Christianity into barbaric minds;Christianization. 

II. "The Gothic period. Dante's time, from 1200 to 1400 (Dante beginninghis poem exactly in the midst of it, in 1300); the period of vitalChristianity, and of the development of the laws of chivalry and formsof imagination which are founded on Christianity. 

III. "The first period of the revival, in which the arts of Greece andsome of its religion return and join themselves to Christianity; nottaking away its sincerity or earnestness, but making it poetical insteadof practical. In the following period even this poetical Christianityexpired; the arts became devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, and in thatthey persist except where they are saved by a healthy naturalism ordomesticity. 

235. I. "The Lombardic period is one of savage but noble life graduallysubjected to law. It is the forming of men, not out of clay but wildbeasts. And art of this period in all countries, including our ownNorman especially, is, in the inner heart of it, the subjection ofsavage or terrible, or foolish and erring life, to a dominant law. It isgovernment and conquest of fearful dreams. There is in it as yet nogerm of true hope--only the conquest of evil, and the waking fromdarkness and terror. The literature of it is, as in Greece, far inadvance of art, and is already full of the most tender and impassionedbeauty, while the art is still grotesque and dreadful; but, howeverwild, it is supreme above all others by its expression of governing law, and here at Verona is the very center and utmost reach of thatexpression. 

"I know nothing in architecture at once so exquisite and so wild and sostrange in the expression of self-conquest achieved almost in a dream. For observe, these barbaric races, educated in violence--chiefly in warand in hunting--cannot feel or see clearly as they are graduallycivilized whether this element in which they have been brought up isevil or not. They _must_ be good soldiers and hunters--that is theirlife; yet they know that killing is evil, and they do not expect to findwild beasts in heaven. They have been trained by pain, by violence, byhunger and cold. They know there is a good in these things as well asevil: they are perpetually hesitating between the one and the otherthought of them. But one thing they see clearly, that killing andhunting, and every form of misery, pleasure, and of passion, mustsomehow 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, ifwith this sympathy you look at their dragon and wild beast decoration, you will find that it now tells you about these Lombards far more thanthey could know of themselves.... All the actions, and much more thearts, of men tell to others, not only what the worker does not know, butwhat he can never know of himself, which you can only recognize by beingin an element more advanced and wider than his.... In deliberatesymbolism, the question is always, not what a symbol meant first ormeant elsewhere, but what it means now and means here. Now, this dragonsymbol of the Lombard is used of course all over the world; it meansgood here, and evil there; sometimes means nothing; sometimeseverything. You have always to ask what the man who here uses it meansby it. Whatever is in his mind, that he is sure partly to express byit; nothing else than that can he express by it. "

236. II. In the second period Mr. Ruskin said was to be found "thehighest development of Italian character and chivalry, with an entirelybelieved Christian religion; you get, therefore, joy and courtesy, andhope, and a lovely peace in death. And with these you have two fearfulelements of evil. You have first such confidence in the virtue of thecreed that men hate and persecute all who do not accept it. And worsestill, you find such confidence in the power of the creed that men notonly can do anything that is wrong, and be themselves for a word offaith pardoned, but are even sure that after the wrong is done God issure to put it all right again for them, or even make things better thanthey were before. Now, I need not point out to you how the spirit ofpersecution, as well as of vain hope founded on creed only, is mingledin every line with the lovely moral teaching of the 'Divina Conmedia, 'nor need I point out to you how, between the persecution of otherpeople's creeds and the absolution of one's own crimes, all Christianerror is concluded. "

In relation to this Mr. Ruskin referred to the history of the founder ofthe power of the Scalas, Mastino, a simple citizen, chosen first to bepodesta and then captain of Verona, for his justice and sagacity, who, although wise and peaceful in his policy, employed the civil power inthe persecution of heresy, burning above two hundred persons; and healso related how Can Signorio della Scala on his death-bed, after givinga pious charge to his children, ordered the murder of hisbrother--examples of the boundless possibility of self-deception. One ofthese 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 Lombardarchitecture 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 thehistory 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 knownin Italy, and the painters and sculptors, who had been gaining steadilyin power for two hundred years--power not of practice merely, but ofrace also--with every circumstance in their favor around them, receivedtheir finally perfect instruction, both in geometrical science, in thatof materials, and in the anatomy and action of the human body. Also thepeople about them--the models of their work--had been perfected inpersonal beauty by a chivalric war; in imagination by a transcendentalphilosophy; in practical intellect by stern struggle for civic law; andin commerce, not in falsely made or vile or unclean things, but inlovely things, beautifully and honestly made. And now, therefore, youget out of all the world's long history since it was peopled by men tillnow--you get just fifty years of perfect work. Perfect. It is a strongword; it is also a _true_ one. The doing of these fifty years isunaccusably Right, as art; what its sentiment may be--whether too greator too little, whether superficial or sincere--is another question, butas artists' work it admits no conception of anything better. 

"It is true that in the following age, founded on the absolutely sternrectitude of this, there came a phase of gigantic power and of exquisiteease and felicity which possess an awe and a charm of their own. Theyare more inimitable than the work of the perfect school. But they arenot _perfect_. " ... 

238. This period Mr. Ruskin named "the 'Time of the Masters, ' FiftyYears, including Luini, Leonardo, John Bellini, Vitto Carpaccio, AndreaMantegna, 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, in1506; and Vittor Carpaccio, who died in 1522. "

"The object of these masters is wholly different from that of the formerschool. The central Gothic men always want chiefly to impress you withthe facts of their subject; but the masters of this finished time desireonly to make everything dainty and delightful. We have not many picturesof the class in England, but several have been of late added to theNational Gallery, and the Perugino there, especially the compartmentwith Raphael and Tobit, and the little St. Jerome by John Bellini, willperfectly show you this main character--pictorial perfectness anddeliciousness--sought before everything else. You will find, if you lookinto that St. Jerome, that everything in it is exquisite, complete, andpure; there is not a particle of dust in the cupboards, nor a cloud inthe air; the wooden shutters are dainty, the candlesticks are dainty, the saint's scarlet hat is dainty, and its violet tassel, and itsribbon, and his blue cloak and his spare pair of shoes, and his littlebrown partridge--it is all a perfect quintessence of innocentluxury--absolute delight, without one drawback in it, nor taint of theDevil anywhere. " ... 

239. After dilating on several other pictures of this class, givingevidence of the entire devotion of the artists of the period to theirart and work, Mr. Ruskin adverted to the second part of his discourse, the rivers of Verona. "There is but one river at Verona, neverthelessDante connects its name with that of the Po when he says of the whole ofLombardy, --

 '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 inthe efforts that are now being made to restore some of its commerce toVenice precisely the same questions are in course of debate which againand again, ever since Venice was a city, have put her senate atpause--namely, how to hold in check the continually advancing morassformed by the silt brought down by the Alpine rivers. Is it not strangethat for at least six hundred years the Venetians have been contendingwith those rivers at their _mouths_--that is to say, where theirstrength has become wholly irresistible--and never once thought ofcontending with them at their sources, where their infinitely separatedstreamlets might be, and are meant by Heaven to be, ruled as easily aschildren? And observe how sternly, how constantly the place where theyare to be governed is marked by the mischief done by their liberty. Consider what the advance of the delta of the Po in the Adriaticsignifies 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 endlesscost 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 allLombardy, are but secondary evils. Every acre of that increasing deltameans _the devastation of part of an Alpine valley, and the loss of somuch fruitful soil and ministering rain_. Some of you now present musthave passed this year through the valleys of the Toccia and Ticino. Youknow therefore the devastation that was caused there, as well as in thevalley of the Rhone, by the great floods of 1868, and that ten years oflabor, even if the peasantry had still the heart for labor, cannotredeem those districts into fertility. What you have there seen on avast scale takes place to a certain extent during every summerthunderstorm, and from the ruin of some portion of fruitful land thedust descends to increase the marshes of the Po. But observefurther--whether fed by sudden melting of snow or by storm--everydestructive rise of the Italian rivers signifies the loss of so muchpower of irrigation on the south side of the Alps. You must all wellknow the look of their chain--seen from Milan or Turin late insummer--how little snow is left, except on Monte Rosa, how vast aterritory of brown mountain-side heated and barren, without rocks, yetwithout forest. There is in that brown-purple zone, and along theflanks of every valley that divides it, another Lombardy of cultivableland; and every drift of rain that swells the mountain torrents if itwere caught where it falls is literally rain of gold. We seek goldbeneath the rocks; and we will not so much as make a trench along thehillside to catch it where it falls from heaven, and where, if not socaught, 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 feetabove the plain--if the system of terraced irrigation which evenhalf-savage nations discovered and practiced long ago in China and inBorneo, and by which our own engineers have subdued vast districts offarthest India, were but in part also practiced here--here, in theoldest and proudest center of European arts, where Leonardo daVinci--master among masters--first discerned the laws of the coilingclouds and wandering streams, so that to this day his engineeringremains unbettered by modern science; and yet in this center of allhuman achievements of genius no thought has been taken to receive withsacred art these great gifts of quiet snow and flying rain. Think, Irepeat, what that south slope of the Alps might be: one paradise oflovely pasture and avenued forest of chestnut and blossomed trees, withcascades docile and innocent as infants, laughing all summer long fromcrag to crag and pool to pool, and the Adige and the Po, the Dora andthe Ticino, no more defiled, no more alternating between fierce floodand venomous languor, but in calm clear currents bearing ships to everycity and health to every field of all that azure plain of LombardItaly.... 

241. "It has now become a most grave object with me to get some of thegreat pictures of the Italian schools into England; and that, I think, at this time--with good help--might be contrived. Further, without inthe least urging my plans impatiently on anyone else, I know thoroughlythat this, which I have said _should_ be done, _can_ be done, for theItalian rivers, and that no method of employment of our idleable-bodied laborers would be in the end more remunerative, or in thebeginnings of it more healthful and every way beneficial than, with theconcurrence of the Italian and Swiss governments, setting them to redeemthe valleys of the Ticino and the Rhone. And I pray you to think ofthis; for I tell you truly--you who care for Italy--that both herpassions and her mountain streams are noble; but that her happinessdepends not on the liberty, but the right government of both. "[14]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 12: Report (with extracts) of a paper entitled "A Talkrespecting Verona and its Rivers, " read by Mr. Ruskin at the WeeklyEvening Meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Feb. 4th, 1870. See _Proceedings_ of the Royal Institution, vol. Vi. , p. 55. --ED. ]

[Footnote 13: This catalogue (London: Queen Street Printing-Office, 1870) is printed below, p. 109, § 242 _seqq. _--ED. ]

[Footnote 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 earlydays of friendship was my disciple. 

But, of late, I have been his; for he has devoted himself earnestly tothe study of forms of Christian Art which I had little opportunity ofexamining, and has been animated in that study by a brightness ofenthusiasm which has been long impossible to me. Knowing this, and thathe was able perfectly to fill what must otherwise have been a rudelybridged chasm in my teaching at Oxford, I begged him to give theselectures, and to arrange them for press. And this he has done to pleaseme; and now that he has done it, I am, in one sense, anything butpleased: for I like his writing better than my own, and am more jealousof it than I thought it was in me to be of any good work--how much lessof my friend's! I console myself by reflecting, or at least repeating tomyself and endeavoring to think, that he could not have found out allthis if I had not shown him the way. But most deeply and seriously I amthankful for such help, in a work far too great for my present strength;help all the more precious because my friend can bring to theinvestigation of early Christian Art, and its influence, the integrityand calmness of the faith in which it was wrought, happier than I inhaving been a personal comforter and helper of men, fulfilling his lifein daily and unquestionable duty; while I have been, perhaps wrongly, always hesitatingly, persuading myself that it was my duty to do thethings which pleased me. 

255. Also, it has been necessary to much of my analytical work that Ishould regard the art of every nation as much as possible from their ownnatural point of view; and I have striven so earnestly to realize beliefwhich I supposed to be false, and sentiment which was foreign to mytemper, that at last I scarcely know how far I think with other people'sminds, and see with anyone's eyes but my own. Even the effort to recovermy temporarily waived conviction occasionally fails; and what was oncesecured to me becomes theoretical like the rest. 

But my old scholar has been protected by his definitely directed lifefrom the temptations of this speculative equity; and I believe hiswritings to contain the truest expression yet given in England of thefeelings with which a Christian gentleman of sense and learning shouldregard the art produced in ancient days, by the dawn of the faiths whichstill guide his conduct and secure his peace. 

256. On all the general principles of Art, Mr. Tyrwhitt and I areabsolutely at one; but he has often the better of me in his acutepersonal knowledge of men and their ways. When we differ in our thoughtsof things, it is because we know them on contrary sides; and often hisside is that most naturally seen, and which it is most desirable to see. There is one important matter, for instance, on which we are thusapparently 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 lastlecture on Sculpture, [16] which I gave at Oxford, is entirely devoted toexamining the modes in which his genius failed, and perverted that ofother men. But Michael Angelo is great enough to make praise and blamealike necessary, and alike inadequate, in any true record of him. Myfriend sees him as a traveler sees from a distance some noble mountainrange, obscure in golden clouds and purple shade; and I see him as asullen miner would the same mountains, wandering among their precipicesthrough chill of storm and snow, and discerning that their strength wasperilous and their substance sterile. Both of us see truly, bothpartially; the complete truth is the witness of both. 

257. The notices of Holbein, and the English whom he painted (seeespecially the sketch of Sir Thomas Wyatt in the sixth lecture), are tomy mind of singular value, and the tenor of the book throughout, as faras I can judge--for, as I said, much of it treats of subjects with whichI am unfamiliar--so sound, and the feeling in it so warm and true, andtrue in the warmth of it, that it refreshes me like the sight of thethings themselves it speaks of. New and vivid sight of them it will giveto many readers; and to all who will regard my commendation I commendit; asking those who have hitherto credited my teaching to read theselectures as they would my own; and trusting that others, who havedoubted me, will see reason to put faith in my friend. 

 PISA, _30th April, 1872. _

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: Preface to the above-named book, by the Rev. St. JohnTyrwhitt. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. , 1872. --ED. ]

[Footnote 16: See Mr. Ruskin's pamphlet on "The Relation of MichaelAngelo to Tintoret, " being (although separately printed) the seventhlecture of the course (1872) published as _Aratra Pentelici_--ED. ]

ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIĆVAL CHRISTENDOM. [17]

A PREFACE. 

258. The number of British and American travelers who take unaffectedinterest in the early art of Europe is already large, and is dailyincreasing; daily also, as I thankfully perceive, feeling themselvesmore and more in need of a guidebook containing as much trustworthyindication as they can use of what they may most rationally spend theirtime 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 ofnone whatever, or may perhaps be considered, justly, as even of quitethe reverse of value, to travelers who wish to see only what they may insimplicity understand, and with pleasure remember; while the historiesof art, and biographies of artists, to which the more earnest student inhis novitiate must have recourse, are at once so voluminous, so vague, and so contradictory, that I cannot myself conceive his deriving anyother benefit from their study than a deep conviction of the difficultyof the subject, and of the incertitude of human opinions. 

259. It seemed to me, on reading the essays collected in this volume, asthey appeared in the periodical[18] for which they were written, thatthe author not only possessed herself a very true discernment of thequalities in medićval art which were justly deserving of praise, but hadunusually clear understanding of the degree in which she might expect tocultivate such discernment in the general mind of polite travelers; norhave I less admired her aptitude in collation of essentiallyillustrative facts, so as to bring the history of a very widelycontemplative range of art into tenable compass and very graceful andserviceable form. Her reading, indeed, has been, with respect to manyvery interesting periods of religious workmanship, much more extensivethan my own; and when I consented to edit the volume of collectedpapers, it was not without the assurance of considerable advantage tomyself during the labor of revising them. 

260. The revision, however, I am sorry to say, has been interrupted andimperfect, very necessarily the last from the ignorance I have justconfessed of more than one segment of the great illuminated field ofearly religious art, to which the writer most wisely has directed equaland symmetrical attention, and interrupted partly under extreme pressureof other occupation, and partly in very fear of being tempted to oppressthe serenity of the general prospect, which I think these essays areeminently calculated to open before an ingenious reader, with the stormychiaroscuro 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 Iallow my name to stand as the editor of a book, it is in no merecompliment (if my editorship could indeed be held as such) to the geniusor merit of the author; but it means that I hold myself entirelyresponsible, in main points, for the accuracy of the views advanced, andthat I wish the work to be received, by those who have confidence in myformer teaching, as an extension and application of the parts of itwhich 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:

[Footnote 17: Preface to the above-named book by Miss A. C. Owen, editedby Mr. Ruskin. London: Mozley & Smith, 1876. --ED. ]

[Footnote 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 theirpleading, is so complete, and the summary of his cause given with sotemperate mastery by Mr. Somervell, that I find nothing to add incircumstance, and little to re-enforce in argument. And I have lessheart to the writing even of what brief preface so good work might byits author's courtesy be permitted to receive from me, occupied as I solong have been in efforts tending in the same direction, because, onthat very account, I am far less interested than my friend in this localand limited resistance to the elsewhere fatally victorious current ofmodern folly, cruelty, and ruin. When the frenzy of avarice is dailydrowning our sailors, suffocating our miners, poisoning our children, and blasting the cultivable surface of England into a treeless waste ofashes, [20] what does it really matter whether a flock of sheep, more orless, be driven from the slopes of Helvellyn, or the little pool ofThirlmere filled with shale, or a few wild blossoms of St. John's valelost to the coronal of English spring? Little to anyone; and--let me saythis, at least, in the outset of all saying--_nothing_ to _me_. No oneneed charge me with selfishness in any word or action for defense ofthese mossy hills. I do not move, with such small activity as I have yetshown in the business, because I live at Coniston (where no sound of theiron wheels by Dunmail Raise can reach me), nor because I can find noother place to remember Wordsworth by, than the daffodil margin of hislittle Rydal marsh. What thoughts and work are yet before me, such as hetaught, must be independent of any narrow associations. All my own dearmountain grounds and treasure-cities, Chamouni, Interlachen, Lucerne, Geneva, Venice, are long ago destroyed by the European populace; andnow, for my own part, I don't care what more they do; they may drainLoch Katrine, drink Loch Lomond, and blow all Wales and Cumberland intoa heap of slate shingle; the world is wide enough yet to find me somerefuge during the days appointed for me to stay in it. But it is no lessmy duty, in the cause of those to whom the sweet landscapes of Englandare yet precious, and to whom they may yet teach what they taught me, inearly boyhood, and would still if I had it now to learn, --it is my dutyto plead with what earnestness I may, that these sacred sibylline booksmay be redeemed from perishing. 

262. But again, I am checked, because I don't know how to speak to thepersons who _need_ to be spoken to in this matter. 

Suppose I were sitting, where still, in much-changed Oxford, I am happyto find myself, in one of the little latticed cells of the BodleianLibrary, and my kind and much-loved friend, Mr. Coxe, were to come to mewith news that it was proposed to send nine hundred excursioniststhrough the library every day, in three parties of three hundred each;that it was intended they should elevate their minds by reading all thebooks they could lay hold of while they stayed;--and that practicallyscientific persons accompanying them were to look out for and burn allthe manuscripts that had any gold in their illuminations, that the saidgold might be made of practical service; but that he, Mr. Coxe, couldnot, for his part, sympathize with the movement, and hoped I would writesomething in deprecation of it! As I should then feel, I feel now, atMr. Somervell's request that I would write him a preface in defense ofHelvellyn. What could I say for Mr. Coxe? Of course, that nine hundredpeople should see the library daily, instead of one, is only fair to thenine hundred, and if there is gold in the books, is it not publicproperty? If there is copper or slate in Helvellyn, shall not the publicburn or hammer it out--and they say they will, of course--in spite ofus? What does it signify to _them_ how we poor old quiet readers in thismountain library feel? True, we know well enough, --what the nine hundredexcursionist scholars don't--that the library can't be read quitethrough in a quarter of an hour; also, that there is a pleasure in realreading, quite different from that of turning pages; and that gold in amissal, or slate in a crag, may be more precious than in a bank or achimney-pot. But how are these practical people to credit us, --these, who cannot read, nor ever will; and who have been taught that nothing isvirtuous but care for their bellies, and nothing useful but what goesinto them?

263. Whether to be credited or not, the real facts of the matter, madeclear as they are in the following pages, can be briefly stated for theconsideration of any candid person. 

The arguments in favor of the new railway are in the main four, and maybe 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 Cumberlandhas been known for centuries; the copper of Coniston does not pay; andthere is none so rich in Helvellyn. And the main central volcanic rocks, through which the track lies, produce neither slate nor hematite, whilethere is enough of them at Llanberis and Dalton to roof and iron-grateall England into one vast Bedlam, if it honestly perceives itself inneed of that accommodation. 

2. "The scenery must be made accessible to the public. "

_Answer. _ It is more than accessible already; the public are pitchedinto it head-foremost, and necessarily miss two-thirds of it. The Lakescenery really begins, on the south, at Lancaster, where the Cumberlandhills are seen over Morecambe Bay; on the north, at Carlisle, where themoors of Skiddaw are seen over the rich plains between them and theSolway. No one who loves mountains would lose a step of the approach, from these distances, on either side. But the stupid herds of moderntourists let themselves be emptied, like coals from a sack, atWindermere and Keswick. Having got there, what the new railway has to dois to shovel those who have come to Keswick to Windermere, and to shovelthose 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 indrink, can't you teach them to save enough out of their year's wages topay for a chaise and pony for a day, to drive Missis and the Baby thatpleasant twenty miles, stopping when they like, to unpack the basket ona mossy bank? If they can't enjoy the scenery that way, they can't anyway; and all that your railroad company can do for them is only to opentaverns and skittle grounds round Grasmere, which will soon, then, benothing but a pool of drainage, with a beach of broken gingerbeerbottles; and their minds will be no more improved by contemplating thescenery of such a lake than of Blackpool. 

4. What else is to be said? I protest I can find nothing, unless thatengineers and contractors must live. Let them live, but in a more usefuland 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 helplessdanger; get your commissions and dividends where you know that work isneeded, not where the best you can do is to persuade pleasure-seekersinto giddier idleness. 

264. The arguments brought forward by the promoters of the railway maythus be summarily answered. Of those urged in the following pamphlet indefense of the country as it is, I care only myself to direct thereader's attention to one (see pp. 27, 28), the certainty, namely, ofthe deterioration of moral character in the inhabitants of everydistrict penetrated by a railway. Where there is little moral characterto be lost, this argument has small weight. But the Border peasantry ofScotland and England, painted with absolute fidelity by Scott andWordsworth (for leading types out of this exhaustless portraiture, I mayname Dandie Dinmont and Michael), are hitherto a scarcely injured race, whose strength and virtue yet survive to represent the body and soul ofEngland before her days of mechanical decrepitude and commercialdishonor. There are men working in my own fields who might have foughtwith Henry the Fifth at Agincourt without being discerned from among hisknights; I can take my tradesmen's word for a thousand pounds; my gardengate opens on the latch to the public road, by day and night, withoutfear of any foot entering but my own, and my girl-guests may wander byroad, or moorland, or through every bosky dell of this wild wood, freeas the heather bees or squirrels. 

What effect, on the character of such a population, will be produced bythe influx of that of the suburbs of our manufacturing towns, there isevidence enough, if the reader cares to ascertain the facts, in everynewspaper on his morning table. 

265. And now one final word concerning the proposed beneficial effect onthe minds of those whom you send to corrupt us. 

I have said I take no selfish interest in this resistance to therailroad. But I do take an unselfish one. It is precisely because Ipassionately wish to improve the minds of the populace, and because I amspending my own mind, strength, and fortune, wholly on that object, thatI don't want to let them see Helvellyn while they are drunk. I supposefew men now living have so earnestly felt--none certainly have soearnestly declared--that the beauty of nature is the blessedest and mostnecessary of lessons for men; and that all other efforts in educationare futile till you have taught your people to love fields, birds, andflowers. Come then, my benevolent friends, join with me in thatteaching. I have been at it all my life, and without pride, do solemnlyassure you that I know how it is to be managed. I cannot indeed tellyou, in this short preface, how, completely, to fulfill so glorious atask. But I can tell you clearly, instantly, and emphatically, in whattemper you must set about it. _Here_ are you, a Christian, a gentleman, and a trained scholar; _there_ is your subject of education--a Godlessclown, in helpless ignorance. You can present no more blessed offeringto God than that human creature, raised into faith, gentleness, and theknowledge of the works of his Lord. But observe this--you must not hopeto 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 canrescue this overlabored lost sheep, and offer it alive to its Master. Ifthen, 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 ofhim, and whatsoever thou spendest more, I will repay thee when I come toCumberland myself, " on _these_ terms--oh my benevolent friends, I amwith you, hand and glove, in every effort you wish to make for theenlightenment of poor men's eyes. But if your motive is, on thecontrary, to put two pence into your own purse, stolen between theJerusalem and Jericho of Keswick and Ambleside, out of the poor drunkentraveler'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 lendunto the Lord by making a dividend out of the poor;--then, my piousfriends, enthusiastic Ananias, pitiful Judas, and sanctified Korah, Iwill do my best in God's name, to stay your hands, and stop yourtongues. 

BRANTWOOD, _22nd June, 1876. _

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: Preface to a pamphlet (1876) entitled "A Protest againstthe Extension of Railways in the Lake District, " compiled by RobertSomervell (Windermere, J. Garnett; London, Simpkin, Marshall & Co. ). Thepamphlet also contained a printed announcement as follows:--"The authorof 'Modern Painters' earnestly requests all persons who may have takeninterest in his writings, or who have any personal regard for him, toassist him now in the circulation of the inclosed paper, drawn up by hisfriend Mr. Somervell, for the defense of the Lake District of England, and to press the appeal, so justly and temperately made in it, on theattention of their personal friends. "--ED. ]

[Footnote 20: See--the illustration being coincidently given as Icorrect this page for press--the description of the horrible service, and history of the fatal explosion of dynamite, on the once lovelyestates of the Duke of Hamilton, in the _Hamilton Advertiser_ of 10thand 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 ofintroduction to the following papers. The trust is a frank one, for ourfriendship has been long and intimate enough to assure their author thatmy feelings and even practical convictions in many respects differ fromhis, and in some, relating especially to the subjects here treated of, are even opposed to his; so that my private letters (which, to speaktruth, he never attends to a word of) are little more than a series ofexhortations to him to sing--once for all--the beautiful Cavalier dittyof "Farewell, Manchester, " and pour the dew of his artistic benevolenceon less recusant ground. Nevertheless, as assuredly he knows much moreof his own town than I do, and as his mind is evidently made up to dothe best he can for it, the only thing left for me to do is to help himall I can in the hard task he has set himself, or, if I can't help, atleast to bear witness to the goodness of the seed he has set himself tosow among thorns. For, indeed, the principles on which he is working arealtogether true and sound; and the definitions and defense of them, inthis pamphlet, are among the most important pieces of Art teaching whichI have ever met with in recent English literature; in pastArt-literature there cannot of course be anything parallel to them, since the difficulties to be met and mischiefs to be dealt with arewholly of to-day. And in all the practical suggestions andrecommendations given in the following pages I not only concur, but ammyself much aided as I read them in the giving form to my own plans forthe museum at Sheffield; nor do I doubt that they will at once commendthemselves to every intelligent and candid reader. But, to my own mind, the statements of principle on which these recommendations are based arefar the more valuable part of the writings, for these are true andserviceable for all time, and in all places; while in simplicity andlucidity they are far beyond any usually to be found in essays on Art, and the political significance of the laws thus defined is really, Ibelieve, here for the first time rightly grasped and illustrated. 

267. Of these, however, the one whose root is deepest and range widestwill be denied by many readers, and doubted by others, so that it may bewell to say a word or two farther in its interpretation and defense--thesaying, namely, that "faith cannot dwell in hideous towns, " and that"familiarity with beauty is a most powerful aid to belief. " This is acurious saying, in front of the fact that the primary force ofinfidelity in the Renaissance times was its pursuit of carnal beauty, and that nowadays (at least, so far as my own experience reaches) morefaith may be found in the back streets of most cities than in the fineones. Nevertheless the saying is wholly true, first, because carnalbeauty is not true beauty; secondly, because, rightly judged, the finestreets of most modern towns are more hideous than the back ones;lastly--and this is the point on which I must enlarge--becauseuniversally the first condition to the believing there is Order inHeaven is the Sight of Order upon Earth; Order, that is to say, not theresult of physical law, but of some spiritual power prevailing over it, as, to take instances from my own old and favorite subject, the orderingof the clouds in a beautiful sunset, which corresponds to a painter'sinvention of them, or the ordering of the colors on a bird's wing, or ofthe radiations of a crystal of hoarfrost or of sapphire, concerning anyof which matters men, so called of science, are necessarily and foreversilent, because the distribution of colors in spectra and the relationof planes in crystals are final and causeless facts, _orders_, that isto say, not _laws_. And more than this, the infidel temper which isincapable of perceiving this spiritual beauty has an instant andconstant tendency to delight in the reverse of it, so that practicallyits investigation is always, by preference, of forms of death or diseaseand every state of disorder and dissolution, the affectionate analysisof vice in modern novels being a part of the same science. And, to keepto my own special field of study--the order of clouds, --there is agrotesquely notable example of the connection between infidelity and thesense of ugliness in a paper in the last _Contemporary Review_, in whichan able writer, who signs Vernon Lee, but whose personal view or purposeremains to the close of the essay inscrutable, has rendered withconsiderable acuteness and animation the course of a dialogue betweenone of the common modern men about town who are the parasites of theirown cigars and two more or less weak and foolish friends of hesitatinglyadverse instincts: the three of them, however, practically assumingtheir own wisdom to be the highest yet attained by the human race; andtheir own diversion on the mountainous heights of it being by the aspectof a so-called "preposterous" sunset, described in the followingterms:--

 * * * * *

A brilliant light, which seemed to sink out of the landscape all itsreds and yellows, and with them all life; bleaching the yellowingcornfields and brown heath; but burnishing into demoniac[22] energy ofcolor the pastures and oak woods, brilliant against the dark sky, as iffilled 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 thedaisies 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, notredden in the faintest degree, but reflect a brilliant speck of whitelight. Everything was unsubstantial, yet not as in a mist, nay, rathersubstantial, but flat, as if cut out of paper and pasted on the blackbranches and green leaves, the livid, glaring houses, with roofs ofdead, scarce perceptible rod (as when an iron turning white-hot fromred-hot in the stithy grows also dull and dim). 

"It looks like the eve of the coming of Antichrist, as described inmedićval hymns, " remarked Vere: "the sun, before setting nevermore torise, sucking all life out of the earth, leaving it but a mound of lividcinders, barren and crumbling, through which the buried nations willeasily break their way when they rise. "

 * * * * *

As I have above said, I do not discern the purpose of the writer of thispaper; but it would be impossible to illustrate more clearly thischronic 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 diseaseof the human mind affected by them. 

 * * * * *

268. The correspondent relations of beauty to morality are illustratedin the following pages in a way which leaves little to be desired, andscarcely any room for dissent; but I have marked for my own futurereference the following passages, of which I think it will further theusefulness of the book that the reader should initially observe thecontents and connection. [23]

1 (p. 15, line 6--10). Our idea of beauty in all things depends on whatwe believe they ought to be and do. 

2 (p. 17, line 8--17). Pleasure is most to be found in safe and pureways, 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 countrypossessing an Established Church, no book exists which can be put intothe hands of youth to show them the best things that can be done inlife, and prevent their wasting it. 

4 (p. 28, line 21--36). There is every reason to believe thatsusceptibility to beauty can be gained through proper training inchildhood by almost everyone. 

5 (p. 29, line 33--35). But if we are to attain to either a highermorality or a strong love of beauty, such attainment must be the resultof a strenuous effort and a strong will. 

6 (p. 41, line 16--22). Rightness of form and aspect must first be shownto the people in things which interest them, and about the rightness ofappearance in which it is possible for them to care a great deal. 

7 (p. 42, line 1--10). And, therefore, rightness of appearance of thebodies, and the houses, and the actions of the people of these largetowns, is of more importance than rightness of appearance in what isusually called art, and pictures of noble action and passion and ofbeautiful scenery are of far greater value than art in things whichcannot deeply affect human thought and feeling. 

The practical suggestions which, deduced from these principles, occupythe greater part of Mr. Horsfall's second paper, exhibit an untriedgroup of resources in education; and it will be to myself the bestencouragement in whatever it has been my hope to institute of Art Schoolat Oxford if the central influence of the University may be foundcapable of extension by such means, in methods promoting the generalhappiness of the people of England. 

BRANTWOOD, _28th June, 1883. _

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 21: Introduction by Mr. Ruskin to a pamphlet entitled "TheStudy of Beauty and Art in Large Towns, two papers by T. C. Horsfall"(London, Macmillan & Co. , 1883). The first of the two papers wasoriginally read at the Congress at Nottingham of the Social ScienceAssociation, and the second at the Manchester Field Naturalists'Society. --ED. ]

[Footnote 22: See "Art of England. "]

[Footnote 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 knowto 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 byday and by night, every aspect of nature, is full of beautiful form orcolor, or of both, for those whose eyes and hearts and brains have beenopened to perceive beauty. Richter has somewhere said that man's_greatest_ defect is that he has such a lot of _small_ ones. With equaltruth it may be said that the greatest happiness man can have is to havea great many little happinesses, and therefore a strong love of beauty, which enables almost every square inch of unspoiled country to give uspleasant sensations, is one of the best possessions we can have. 

3. "It must be evident to everyone who watches life carefully thathardly anyone reaches the objects which all should live for who does notstrive to reach them, and that at present not one person in a hundred somuch as knows what are the objects which should be sought in life. It isastounding, therefore, that in a country which possesses an EstablishedChurch, richly endowed universities, and even several professors ofeducation, no book exists which can be put into the hands of everyintelligent youth, and of every intelligent father and mother, showingwhat our wisest and best men believe are the best things which can bedone in life, and what is the kind of training which makes the doing ofthese things most easy. It is often said that each of us can profit onlyby his own experience, but no one believes that. No one can see how manywell-meaning persons mistake means for ends and drift into error andsin, simply because neither they nor their parents have known whatcourse should be steered, and what equipment is needed, in the voyage oflife, --no one can see this and doubt that a 'guidebook to life, 'containing the results of the comparison of the experiences of evenhalf-a-dozen able and sincere men, would save countless people fromwasting their lives as most lives are now wasted. 

4. "That which is true with regard to music is true with regard tobeauty of form and color. Because a great many grown-up people, in spiteof great efforts, find it impossible to sing correctly or even toperceive any pleasantness in music, it used to be commonly supposed thata great many people are born without the power of gaining love of, andskill in, music. Now it is known that it is a question of earlytraining, that in every thousand children there are very few, --not, Ibelieve, on an average, more than two or three, --who cannot gain thepower of singing correctly and of enjoying music, if they are taughtwell in childhood while their nervous system can still easily formhabits and has not yet formed the habit of being insensible todifferences of sound. 

"There is every reason to believe that susceptibility to beauty of formand color can also be gained through proper training in childhood byalmost 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 loveof beauty, attainment must be the result of strenuous effort, of strongwill. 

6. "The principle I refer to is, that, as art is the giving of right orbeautiful form, or of beautiful or right appearance, if we desire tomake people take keen interest in art, if we desire to make them lovegood art, we must show it them when applied to things which themselvesare very interesting to them, and about the rightness of appearance ofwhich it is therefore possible for them to care a great deal. 

7. "Success in bringing the influence of art to bear on the masses ofthe population in large towns, or on any set of people who have to earntheir bread and have not time to acquire an unhealthy appetite fornonsense verses or nonsense pictures, will certainly only be attained bypersons who know that art is important just in proportion to theimportance of that which it clothes, and who themselves feel thatrightness of appearance of the bodies, and the houses, and the actions, in short of the whole life, of the population of those large towns whichare now, or threaten soon to be, 'England, ' is of far greater importancethan rightness of appearance in all that which is usually called 'art, 'and who feel, to speak of only the fine arts, that rightness ofappearance in pictures of noble action and passion, and of beautifulscenery, love of which is almost a necessary of mental health, is of fargreater importance than art can be in things which cannot deeply affecthuman 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. 

INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION AND ANIMATED LIFE. 1871. 

 * * * * *

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 havebeen sufficiently ascertained. I do not mean that effect of color whichis simply optical, as the color of the sea, which is regulated by thesky above or the state of the atmosphere, but I mean the settled colorof transparent water, which has, when analyzed, been found pure. Now, copper will tinge water green, and that very strongly; but water thusimpregnated will not be transparent, and will deposit the copper itholds 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 issupplied by a stream which previously passes over several veins ofcopper; this lake is, of course, of a bright verdigris green, but it isnot transparent. Now the coloring effect, of which I speak, is well seenin the water of the Rhone and Rhine. The former of these rivers, when itenters the Lake of Geneva, after having received the torrents descendingfrom the mountains of the Valais, is fouled with mud, or white with thecalcareous matter which it holds in solution. Having deposited this inthe Lake Leman[25] (thereby gradually forming an immense delta), itissues from the lake perfectly pure, and flows through the streets ofGeneva so transparent, that the bottom can be seen twenty feet below thesurface, jet so blue, that you might imagine it to be a solution ofindigo. In like manner, the Rhine, after purifying itself in the Lake ofConstance, flows forth, colored of a clear green, and this under allcircumstances and in all weathers. It is sometimes said that this arisesfrom the torrents which supply these rivers generally flowing from theglaciers, the green and blue color of which may have given rise to thisopinion; but the color of the ice is purely optical, as the fragmentsdetached from the mass appear white. Perhaps some correspondent canafford me information on the subject. 

 J. R. [26]

_March, 1834. _

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: From London's _Magazine of Natural History_ (London, Longmans & Co. , 1834), vol. Vii. , No. 41, pp. 438-9, being its author'searliest contribution to literature. --ED. ]

[Footnote 25: This lake, however, if the poet have spoken truly, is notvery 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. ]

[Footnote 26: In the number of the magazine in which this note appearedwas 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 asfollows: "E. S. Has been, surely, too inattentive to proportions: thereis an inconsistency in the dimensions of a leaden pipe about 1-1/4 in. Inexternal diameter, with a bore of about 3/4 in. In diameter; thus leavinga solid circumference of metal varying from 1/2 in. To 3/4 in. Inthickness. --_J. R. _, _Sept. 1834. _"--ED. ]

FACTS AND CONSIDERATIONS ON THE STRATA OF MONT BLANC, AND ON SOMEINSTANCES OF TWISTED STRATA OBSERVABLE IN SWITZERLAND. [27]

270. The granite ranges of Mont Blanc are as interesting to thegeologist as they are to the painter. The granite is dark red, ofteninclosing veins of quartz, crystallized and compact, and likewisewell-formed crystals of schorl. The average elevation of its range ofpeaks, which extends from Mont Blanc to the Tčte Noire, is about 12, 000English feet above the level of the sea. [The highest culminating pointis 15, 744 feet. ] The Aiguille de Servoz, and that of Dru, are excellentexamples of the pyramidal and spiratory formation which these graniteranges in general assume. They rise out of immense fields of snow, but, being themselves too steep for snow to rest upon, form red, bare, andinaccessible 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 onthe 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 containsamianthus and quartz, in which capillary crystals of titanium occur;_c_, calcareous rock; _d_, alluvium, forming the Valley of Chamonix. Ishould have mentioned that the granite appears to contain a smallquantity of gold, as that metal is found among the granite débris andsiliceous sand of the river Arve [_Bakewell_, i. 375]; and I have twoor three specimens in which chlorite (both compact and in minutecrystals) 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 thefall of the Nant d'Arpenaz, on the road from Geneva to Chamonix, aresomewhat remarkable. The rock is a hard dark brown limestone, formingpart of a range of secondary cliffs, which rise from 500 feet to 1000feet above the defile which they border. The base itself is about 800feet 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 induratedby Exposure to the Atmosphere and by Age, and stand the Wear and Tear ofTime and Weather every bit as well, in some instances much better, thanthe hardest and most compact Limestones and Granite?_[29]

272. In addition to the fact mentioned by Mr. Hunter[30] relative to theinduration of soft sandstone, I would adduce an excellent example of thesame effect in the cathedral of Basle, in Switzerland. The cathedral iswholly built of a soft coarse-grained sandstone, of so deep a red as toresemble long-burned brick. The numerous and delicate ornaments and finetracery on the exterior are in a state of excellent preservation, andpresent none of the moldering appearance so common in old cathedralsthat are built of stone which, when quarried, was much harder than thissandstone. The pavement in the interior is composed of the samematerial; and, as almost every slab is a tomb, it is charged with thearms, names, and often statues in low relief, of those who lie below, delicately sculptured in the soft material. Yet, though these sculptureshave been worn for ages by the feet of multitudes, they are very littleinjured; they still stand out in bold and distinct relief: not anillegible letter, not an untraceable ornament is to be found; and it issaid, and I believe with truth, that they have now grown so hard as notto be in the least degree farther worn by the continual tread ofthousands; and that the longer the stone is exposed to the air, theharder it becomes. The cathedral was built in 1019. 

273. The causes of the different effects of air on stone must benumerous, and the investigation of them excessively difficult. Withregard, 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 ofparallelogrammatic 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 thegranite, it will be subject to a rapid decomposition. The morvine ofsome of the Chamouni and Allée Blanche glaciers is composed of a whitegranite, being chiefly composed of quartz and felspar, with a littlechlorite. The sand and gravel at the edge of these glaciers appears farmore the result of decomposition than attrition. All finely foliatedrocks, slates, etc. , are liable to injury from frost or wet weather. Theroad of the Simplon, on the Italian side, is in some parts dangerous in, or after, wet weather, on account of the rocks of slate continuallyfalling from the overhanging mountains above; this, however, is meredisintegration, not decomposition. Not so with the breccias of CentralSwitzerland. The rock of Righi is composed of pebbles of differentkinds, joined by a red argillaceous gluten. When this rock has not beenexposed to the air, it is very hard: you may almost as easily break thepebbles as detach them from their matrix; but, when exposed for a fewyears to wind and weather, the matrix becomes soft, and the pebbles maybe easily detached. I was struck with the difference between this rockand a breccia at Epinal, in France, where the matrix was a redsandstone, like that of the cathedral at Basle. Here, though the rockhad every appearance of having been long exposed to the air, it was ashard as iron; and it was utterly impossible to detach any of the pebblesfrom the bed: it was difficult even to break the rock at all. I cannotpositively state that the gluten in these sandstones is calcareous, butI suppose it to have been so. Compact calcareous rock, as far as Iremember, appears to be subject to no injury from the weather. Manychurches in Italy, and almost the whole cities of Venice and Genoa, arebuilt 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 ofbeautifully sculptured medallions running round its base, though old, were as distinct and fine in their execution as if they had just comeout of the sculptor's studio. If, therefore, the gluten of the sandstonebe either calcareous or siliceous, it will naturally produce the effectabove alluded to, though it is certainly singular that the stone shouldbe soft when first quarried. Sandstone is a rock in which you seldom seemany cracks or fissures in the strata: they are generally continuous andsolid. Now, there may be a certain degree of density in the mass, whichcould not be increased without producing, as in granite, fissuresrunning through it: the particles may be supposed to be held in acertain degree of tension, and there may be a tendency to what theFrench call _assaissement_ (I do not know the English term), which is, nevertheless, resisted by the stone _en masse_; and a quantity of watermay likewise be held, not in a state of chemical combination, but in oneof close mixture with the rock. On being broken or quarried, the_assaissement_ may take place, the particles of stone may draw closertogether, the attraction become stronger; and, on the exposure to theair, the water, however intimately combined, will, in a process ofyears, be driven off, occasioning the consolidation of the calcareous, and the near approach of the siliceous, particles, and a consequentgradual induration of the whole body of the stone. I offer thissupposition with all diffidence; there may be many other causes, whichcannot be developed until proper experiments have been made. It would beinteresting to ascertain the relative hardness of different specimens ofsandstone, taken from different depths in a bed, the surface of whichwas exposed to the air, as of specimens exposed to the air for differentlengths of time. 

 J. R. 

HERNE HILL, _July 25, 1836. _

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 27: London's _Magazine of Natural History_, Vol. Vii. , pp. 644-5. The note was illustrated by engravings from two sketches by theauthor of the Aiguille de Servoz and of the Aiguille Dru, and by adiagram explanatory of its last sentence but one. --ED. ]

[Footnote 28: "A small neat copy of a sketch carefully taken on thespot, " which, according to the editor of the magazine, accompanied thiscommunication, was not, however, published. See the magazine. --ED. ]

[Footnote 29: Loudon's _Magazine of Natural History_, Vol. Ix. , No. 65, pp. 488-90. --ED. ]

[Footnote 30: The question here discussed was originally asked in themagazine (Vol. Ix. , pp. 379-80) by Mr. W. Perceval Hunter with referenceto the condition of Bodiam Castle, in Sussex. --ED. ]

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAUSES WHICH OCCASION THE VARIATION OF TEMPERATUREBETWEEN SPRING AND RIVER WATER. --BY J. R. [31]

274. The difference in temperature between river and spring water, whichgives rise to the query of your correspondent Indigena (p. 491), [32] maybe 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 adifference of several degrees between the temperature of the earth atits surface and at depths of 500 or 600 feet; raising, of course, thetemperature of all springs which have their source at even moderatedepths, and entirely securing them from the effects of frost, which, itis well known, cannot penetrate the earth to a greater depth than 3 or 4ft. 

275. Many instances might be given of the strong effect of this interiorheat. The glaciers of the Alps, for instance, frequently cover an extentof three or four square leagues, with a mass of ice 400, 500, or even600 feet deep, thus entirely preventing the access of exterior heat tothe soil; yet the radiation of heat from the ground itself is sopowerful as to dissolve the ice very rapidly, and to occasion streams ofno inconsiderable size beneath the ice, whose temperature, in summer, is, I believe, as far as can be ascertained, not many degrees below thatof streams exposed to the air; and the radiation of heat from the waterof 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 brokencave 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, althoughin less quantity; and it is this process which chiefly prevents theglacier from increasing in size; for the melting at the surface is, incomparison, very inconsiderable, even in summer, the wind being cold, the sun having little power, and slight frosts being frequent during thenight. It is also this melting beneath the ice (subglacial, suppose wecall it) which loosens the ice from the ground, and occasions, or ratherpermits, 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 experimentsmade in mines of great depth. Between 60 ft. And 80 ft. Down, thetemperature of the earth is, I believe, the same at all times and in allplaces; and below this depth it gradually increases. Near Bex, in theValais, there is a perpendicular shaft 677 ft. Deep, or about 732 ft. English, with water at the bottom, the temperature of which wasascertained by Saussure. He does not tell us whether he used Réaumur'sor the centesimal thermometer; but the result of his experiment wasthis:--In a lateral gallery, connected with the main shaft, butdeserted, and, therefore, unaffected by breath or the heat of lamps, at321 ft. 10 in. Below the surface, the temperature of the water and theair was exactly the same, 11-1/2°; or, if the centesimal thermometer wasused, 52-4/5 Fahr. ; if Réaumur's, 57-7/8 Fahr. 

277. In another gallery, 564 feet below the surface, the water and airhad likewise the same temperature, 12-1/2°, either 54-4/5 or 6O-1/4Fahr. The water at the bottom, 677 feet, was 14°, 57-1/2 or 63-1/4 Fahr. The ratio in which the heat increases, therefore, increased as wedescend, since a difference of 113 feet between the depth of the bottomof the shaft and the lowest gallery makes a greater difference intemperature than the difference of 243 feet between the lowest and uppergallery. This heat is the more striking when it is considered that thewater is impregnated with salt; indeed, Saussure appears inclined toconsider it accidental, perhaps occasioned by the combustion of pyrites, or other causes in the interior of the mountain ("Voyages dans lesAlpes, " tom. Iv. , c. 50). All experiments of this kind, indeed, areliable to error, from the frequent occurrence of warm springs, and otheraccidental causes of increase in temperature. The water at the bottom ofdeep lakes is always found several degrees colder than the atmosphere, even when the water at the surface is warmer: but that may be accountedfor by the difference in the specific gravity of water at differenttemperatures; and, as the heat of the sun and atmosphere in summer isgreater than the mean heat of the earth at moderate depths, the water atthe bottom, even if it becomes of the same heat with the earth, must becolder than that at the surface, which, from its exposure to the sun, becomes frequently warmer than the air. The same causes affect thetemperature of the sea; and the greater saturation of the water belowwith salt renders it yet more susceptible of cold. Under-currents fromthe poles, and the sinking of the water of low temperature, whichresults from the melting of the icebergs which float into warmerlatitudes, contribute still farther to lower the temperature of the deepsea. If, then, the temperature of the sea at great depths is found notmany degrees lower than that at the surface, it would be a strikingproof of the effect produced by the heat of the earth; but I am notaware of the results of the experiments which have been made on thissubject. 

278. We must, then, rest satisfied with the well-ascertained fact, thatthe temperature of the earth, even at depths of a few feet, neverdescends, in temperate latitudes, to the freezing point; and that at thedepth of 60 feet it is always the same, in winter much higher, in summerconsiderably 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 somedistance, it becomes of the temperature of the atmosphere, or, insummer, even warmer, owing to the action of the sun, both directly andreflected or radiated from its bottom. Besides this equable temperaturein the water itself, spring or well water is usually covered; and, evenif exposed, if the well is very deep, the water will not freeze, or atleast very slightly; for frost does not act with its full power, exceptwhere there is a free circulation of air. In open ponds, wherever busheshang over the water, the ice is weak. Indigena's supposition, that thereare earthy particles in river water, which render it more susceptible ofcold than spring water, cannot be true; for then the relativetemperatures would be the same in winter and in summer, which is not thecase; and, besides, there are frequently more earthy particles inmineral springs, or even common land springs, than in clear river water, provided it has not been fouled by extraneous matter; for it has atendency 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 agreater 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; andthe glaciers of Switzerland afford us an example. When a stone isdeposited on a glacier of any considerable size, but not larger than 1foot or 18 inches in diameter, it becomes penetrated with the heat ofthe sun, melts the ice below it, and sinks into the glacier. But thiseffect does not cease, as might be supposed, when the stone sinksbeneath the water which it has formed; on the contrary, it continues toabsorb heat from the rays of the sun, to keep the water above it liquidby its radiation, and to sink deeper into the body of the glacier, untilit gets down beyond the reach of the sun's rays, when the water of thewell which it has formed is no longer kept liquid, and the stone isburied in the ice. In summer, however, the water is kept liquid; andcircular wells, formed in this manner, are of frequent occurrence on theglaciers, sometimes, in the morning, covered by a thin crust of ice. 

Thus, the stones at the bottom of streams must tend to raise, ratherthan lower, this temperature. Is it possible that, in the agitation of astream at its bottom, if violent, momentary and minute vacua may beformed, tending to increase the intensity of the cold?

HERNE HILL, _Sept. 2, 1836. _

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: London's _Magazine of Natural History_, vol. Ix. , pp. 533-536. --ED. ]

[Footnote 32: The query was as follows:--

_An Inquiry for the Cause of the Difference in Temperature of RiverWater and Spring Water, both in Summer and Winter. _--In the summer timethe river water is much warmer than that from a spring; during thesevere frosts of winter it is colder; and when the stream is coveredover with ice, the spring, that is, well or pump water is unaffected byfrost. Does this difference proceed from the exposure of the surface ofthe river water, in summer, to the sun's direct influence, and, inwinter, to that of frost; while the well water, being covered, isprotected from their power? Or is there in river water, from the earthyparticles it contains, a greater susceptibility of heat andcold?--_Indigena_. _April 19, 1836. _--ED. ]

METEOROLOGY. [33]

280. The comparison and estimation of the relative advantages ofseparate departments of science is a task which is always partiallyexecuted, because it is never entered upon with an unbiased mind; for, since it is only the accurate knowledge of a science which can enable usto present its beauty, or estimate its utility, the branches ofknowledge with which we are most familiar will always appear the mostimportant. The endeavor, therefore, to judge of the relative _beauty_ or_interest_ of the sciences is utterly hopeless. Let the astronomer boastof the magnificence of his speculations, the mathematician of theimmutability of his facts, the chemist of the infinity of hiscombinations, and we will admit that they all have equal ground fortheir enthusiasm. But the highest standard of estimation is that ofutility. The far greater proportion of mankind, the uninformed, who areunable to perceive the beauty of the sciences whose benefits theyexperience, are the true, the just, the only judges of their relativeimportance. 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 mustalways be greatest when none are partially pursued, and none undulyrejected. We do not, therefore, advance any proud and unjustifiableclaims to the superiority of that branch of science for the furtheranceof which this society has been formed over all others; but we zealouslycome forward to deprecate the apathy with which it has long beenregarded, to dissipate the prejudices which that apathy alone could haveengendered, and to vindicate its claims to an honorable and equalposition among the proud thrones of its sister sciences. We do not bringmeteorology forward as a pursuit adapted for the occupation of tediousleisure, or the amusement of a careless hour. Such qualifications are noinducements to its pursuit by men of science and learning, and to thesealone do we now address ourselves. Neither do we advance it on theground of its interest or beauty, though it is a science possessing bothin no ordinary degree. As to its beauty, it may be remarked that it isnot calculated to harden the mind it strengthens, and bind it down tothe measurement of magnitudes and estimation of quantities, destroyingall higher feelings, all finer sensibilities: it is not to be learnedamong the gaseous exhalations of the deathful laboratory; it has nodwelling in the cold caves of the dark earth; it is not to be followedup among the charnel houses of creation. But it is a science of the pureair, and of the bright heaven; its thoughts are amidst the loveliness ofcreation; 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 ofthe mountain heaven, to the cloudy repose of the green valley; nowexpatiating in the silence of stormless ether, now on the rushing of thewings of the wind. It is indeed a knowledge which must be felt to be, inits very essence, full of the soul of the beautiful. For its interest, it is universal, unabated in every place, and in all time. He, whosekingdom is the heaven, can never meet with an uninteresting space, cannever exhaust the phenomena of an hour; he is in a realm of perpetualchange, of eternal motion, of infinite mystery. Light and darkness, andcold and heat, are to him as friends of familiar countenance, but ofinfinite variety of conversation; and while the geologist yearns for themountain, the botanist for the field, and the mathematician for thestudy, 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 itsbeauty, that we recommend the study of meteorology. It involvesquestions of the highest practical importance, and the solution of whichwill be productive of most substantial benefit to those classes who canleast comprehend the speculations from which these advantages arederived. Times and seasons and climates, calms and tempests, clouds andwinds, whose alternations appear to the inexperienced mind the confusedconsequences of irregular, indefinite, and accidental causes, arrangethemselves before the meteorologist in beautiful succession ofundisturbed order, in direct derivation from definite causes; it is forhim to trace the path of the tempest round the globe, to point out theplace whence it arose, to foretell the time of its decline, to followthe 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 andits changes, to measure the power, direction, and duration of mysteriousand invisible influences, and to assign constant and regular periods tothe seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day andnight, which we know shall not cease, till the universe be no more. Itmay be thought we are exaggerating the effects of a science which is yetin its infancy. But it must be remembered that we are not speaking ofits attained, but of its attainable power: it is the young Hercules forthe fostering of whose strength the Meteorological Society has beenformed. 

282. There is one point, it must now be observed, in which the scienceof meteorology differs from all others. A Galileo, or a Newton, by theunassisted workings of his solitary mind, may discover the secrets ofthe heavens, and form a new system of astronomy. A Davy in his lonelymeditations on the crags of Cornwall, or in his solitary laboratory, might discover the most sublime mysteries of nature, and trace out themost intricate combinations of her elements. But the meteorologist isimpotent if alone; his observations are useless; for they are made upona point, while the speculations to be derived from them must be onspace. It is of no avail that he changes his position, ignorant of whatis passing behind him and before; he desires to estimate the movementsof space, and can only observe the dancing of atoms; he would calculatethe currents of the atmosphere of the world, while he only knows thedirection of a breeze. It is perhaps for this reason that the cause ofmeteorology has hitherto been so slightly supported; no progress can bemade by the most gigantic efforts of a solitary intellect, and theco-operation demanded was difficult to obtain, because it was necessarythat the individuals should think, observe, and act simultaneously, though separated from each other by distances on the greatness of whichdepended the utility of the observations. 

283. The Meteorological Society, therefore, has been formed, not for acity, nor for a kingdom, but for the world. It wishes to be the centralpoint, the moving power of a vast machine, and it feels that unless itcan be this, it must be powerless; if it cannot do all, it can donothing. It desires to have at its command, at stated periods, perfectsystems of methodical and simultaneous observations, --it wishes itsinfluence and its power to be omnipotent over the globe, so that it maybe able to know, at any given instant, the state of the atmosphere atevery point on its surface. Let it not be supposed that this is achimerical imagination, the vain dream of a few philosophicalenthusiasts. It is co-operation which we now come forward to request, infull confidence, that if our efforts are met with a zeal worthy of thecause, our associates will be astonished, _individually_, by the resultof their labors in a body. Let none be discouraged because they arealone, or far distant from their associates. What was formerly weaknesswill now have become strength. Let the pastor of the Alps observe thevariations of his mountain winds; let the voyagers send us notes of thechanges on the surface of the sea; let the solitary dweller in theAmerican prairie observe the passages of the storms, and the variationsof the climate; and each, who alone would have been powerless, will findhimself a part of one mighty mind, a ray of light entering into one vasteye, a member of a multitudinous power, contributing to the knowledge, and aiding the efforts, which will be capable of solving the most deeplyhidden problems of nature, penetrating into the most occult causes, andreducing to principle and order the vast multitude of beautiful andwonderful phenomena by which the wisdom and benevolence of the SupremeDeity regulates the course of the times and the seasons, robes the globewith verdure and fruitfulness, and adapts it to minister to the wants, and contribute to the felicity, of the innumerable tribes of animatedexistence. 

 OXFORD UNIVERSITY. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 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 Societywas instituted in 1823, but appears to have published no previoustransactions. --ED. ]

ON TREE TWIGS. [34]

284. The speaker's purpose was to exhibit the development of the commonforms of branch, in dicotyledonous trees, from the fixed type of theannual shoot. Three principal modes of increase and growth might bedistinguished 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 ininorganic matter. 

2. Addition of similar parts to each other, under some law fixing theirlimits 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 treedid not increase in stem or boughs as the wrist and hand of a childincreased to the wrist and hand of a man; but it was built up byadditions of similar parts, as a city is increased by the building ofnew 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 eitherpolygonal in section, or rectangular. 

If polygonal, the leaves were arranged on it in a spiral order, as inthe elm or oak. 

If rectangular, the leaves were arranged on it in pairs, set alternatelyat right angles to each other. 

Intermediate forms connected each of these types with those ofmonocotyledonous trees. The structure of the _arbor vitć_ might beconsidered as typically representing the link between the rectangularstructure and that of monocotyledons; and that of the pine between thepolygonal 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 fartherto the extremities of the roots. The mode in which this descendingmasonry was added appeared to depend on the peculiar functions ofcambium, 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, unlessrendered abortive, a new shoot would spring next year. Now, supposingthat out of the leaf-buds on each shoot of a pentagonal tree, only fiveat its extremity or on its side were permitted to develop themselves, even under this limitation the number of shoots developed from a singleone in the seventh year would be 78, 125. The external form of ahealthily grown tree at any period of its development was thereforecomposed of a mass of sprays, whose vitality was approximatelydistributed over the _surface_ of the tree to an equal depth. Thebranches beneath at once supported, and were fed by, this orbicularfield, or animated external garment of vegetation, from every severalleaf of which, as from an innumerable multitude of small greenfountains, the streams of woody fiber descended, met, and united asrivers do, and gathered their full flood into the strength of the stem. 

287. The principal errors which had been committed by artists in drawingtrees had arisen from their regarding the bough as ramifyingirregularly, and somewhat losing in energy towards the extremity;whereas the real boughs threw their whole energy, and multiplied theirsubstance, towards the extremities, ranking themselves in more or lesscup-shaped tiers round the trunk, and forming a compact united surfaceat the exterior of the tree. 

288. In the course of arrival at this form, the bough, throughout itswhole length, showed itself to be influenced by a force like that of ananimal's instinct. Its minor curves and angles were all subjected to onestrong ruling tendency and law of advance, dependent partly on the aimof every shoot to raise itself upright, partly on the necessity whicheach was under to yield due place to the neighboring leaves, and obtainfor itself as much light and air as possible. It had indeed beenascertained that vegetable tissue was liable to contractions andexpansion (under fixed mechanical conditions) by light, heat, moisture, etc. But vegetable tissue in the living branch did not contract norexpand under external influence alone. The principle of life manifesteditself either by contention with, or felicitous recognition of, externalforce. It accepted with a visible, active, and apparently joyfulconcurrence, the influences which led the bough towards its due place inthe economy of the tree; and it obeyed reluctantly, partially, and withdistorted curvatures, those which forced it to violate the typicalorganic form. The attention of painters of foliage had seldom been drawnwith sufficient accuracy to the lines either of branch curvature, orleaf contour, as expressing these subtle laws of incipient volition; butthe relative merit of the great schools of figure design might, inabsence of all other evidence, be determined, almost without error, byobserving the precision of their treatment of leaf curvature. Theleaf-painting round the head of Ariosto by Titian, in the NationalGallery, might be instanced. 

289. The leaf thus differed from the flower in forming and protectingbehind it, not only the bud in which was the form of a new shoot likeitself, but a piece of permanent work, and produced substance, by whichevery following shoot could be placed under different circumstances fromits predecessor. Every leaf labored to solidify this substance duringits own life; but the seed left by the flower matured only as the flowerperished. 

This difference in the action and endurance of the flower and leaf hadbeen applied by nearly all great nations as a type of the variouslyactive and productive states of life among individuals or commonwealths. Chaucer's poem of the "Flower and Leaf" is the most definite expressionof the medićval feeling in this respect, while the fables of the rape ofProserpine and of Apollo and Daphne embody that of the Greeks. There isno Greek goddess corresponding to the Flora of the Romans. Their Florais Persephone, "the bringer of death. " She plays for a little while inthe Sicilian fields, gathering flowers, then snatched away by Pluto, receives her chief power as she vanishes from our sight, and is crownedin the grave. Daphne, on the other hand, is the daughter of one of thegreat Arcadian river gods, and of the earth; she is the type of theriver mist filling the rocky vales of Arcadia; the sun, pursuing thismist from dell to dell, is Apollo pursuing Daphne; where the mist isprotected from his rays by the rock shadows, the laurel and otherrichest vegetation spring by the river-sides, so that the laurel-leafbecomes the type, in the Greek mind, of the beneficent ministry andvitality of the rivers and the earth, under the beams of sunshine; andtherefore it is chosen to form the signet-crown of highest honor forgods or men, honor for work born of the strength and dew of the earthand informed by the central light of heaven; work living, perennial, andbeneficent. 

 J. R. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 34: Read by Mr. Ruskin at the weekly evening meeting of theRoyal 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 influenceswhich have produced the present external forms of the stratifiedmountains of Savoy, and the probable extent and results of the futureoperation 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 Alpswhich consist, in whole or in part, either of Jura limestone, ofNeocomian beds, or of the Hippurite limestone, and include no importantmasses of other formations. All these rocks are marine deposits; and thefirst question to be considered with respect to the development ofmountains out of them is the kind of change they must undergo in beingdried. Whether prolonged through vast periods of time, or hastened byheat and pressure, the drying and solidification of such rocks involvedtheir contraction, and usually, in consequence, their being traversedthroughout by minute fissures. Under certain conditions of pressure, these fissures take the aspect of slaty cleavage; under others, theybecome irregular cracks, dividing all the substance of the stone. Ifthese are not filled, the rock would become a mere heap of débris, andbe incapable of establishing itself in any bold form. This is providedagainst by a metamorphic action, which either arranges the particles ofthe rock, throughout, in new and more crystalline conditions, or elsecauses some of them to separate from the rest, to traverse the body ofthe rock, and arrange themselves in its fissures; thus forming a cement, usually of finer and purer substance than the rest of the stone. Ineither case the action tends continually to the purification andsegregation of the elements of the stone. The energy of such actiondepends on accidental circumstances: first, on the attractions of thecomponent elements among themselves; secondly, on every change ofexternal temperature and relation. So that mountains are at differentperiods in different stages of health (so to call it) or disease. Wehave mountains of a languid temperament, mountains with checkedcirculations, mountains in nervous fevers, mountains in atrophy anddecline. 

292. This change in the structure of existing rocks is traceable throughcontinuous gradations, so that a black mud or calcareous slime isimperceptibly modified into a magnificently hard and crystallinesubstance, inclosing nests of beryl, topaz, and sapphire, and veinedwith gold. But it cannot be determined how far, or in what localities, these changes are yet arrested; in the plurality of instances they areevidently yet in progress. It appears rational to suppose that as eachrock approaches to its perfect type the change becomes slower; itsperfection being continually neared, but never reached; its change beingliable also to interruption or reversal by new geological phenomena. Inthe process of this change, rocks expand or contract; and, in portions, their multitudinous fissures give them a ductility or viscosity likethat of glacier-ice on a larger scale. So that many formations are bestto be conceived as glaciers, or frozen fields of crag, whose depth is tobe measured in miles instead of fathoms, whose crevasses are filled withsolvent flame, with vapor, with gelatinous flint, or with crystallizingelements of mingled natures; the whole mass changing its dimensions andflowing into new channels, though by gradations which cannot bemeasured, and in periods of time of which human life forms noappreciable unit. 

293. II. _Formation. _--Mountains are to be arranged, with respect totheir structure, under two great classes--those which are cut out of thebeds of which they are composed, and those which are formed by theconvolution or contortion of the beds themselves. The Savoy mountainsare chiefly of this latter class. When stratified formations arecontorted, it is usually either by pressure from below, which raises onepart of the formation above the rest, or by lateral pressure, whichreduces the whole formation into a series of waves. The ascendingpressure may be limited in its sphere of operation; the lateral onenecessarily affects extensive tracts of country, and the eminences itproduces vanish only by degrees, like the waves left in the wake of aship. The Savoy mountains have undergone both these kinds of violence invery complex modes and at different periods, so that it becomes almostimpossible to trace separately and completely the operation of any givenforce 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, theMont Salčve, and in another of lateral compression, the Mont Brezon: butthe investigation of the Mont Salčve had presented unexpecteddifficulty. Its façade had been always considered to be formed byvertical beds, raised into that position during the tertiary periods;the speaker's investigations had, on the contrary, led him to concludethat the appearance of vertical beds was owing to a peculiarly sharp anddistinct cleavage, at right angles with the beds, but nearly parallel totheir strike, elsewhere similarly manifested in the Jurassic series ofSavoy, and showing itself on the fronts of most of the precipices formedof that rock. The attention of geologists was invited to thedetermination of this question. 

The compressed wave of the Brezon, more complex in arrangement, was moreclearly defined. A section of it was given, showing the reversedposition of the Hippurite limestone in the summit and lower precipices. This limestone wave was shown to be one of a great series, runningparallel with the Alps, and constituting an undulatory district, chiefly composed of chalk beds, separated from the higher limestonedistrict of the Jura and Lias by a long trench or moat, filled withmembers of the tertiary series--chiefly nummulite limestones and flysch. This trench might be followed from Faverges, at the head of the lake ofAnnecy, across Savoy. It separated Mont Vergi from the Mont Dorons, andthe Dent d'Oche from the Dent du Midi; then entered Switzerland, separating the Moleson from the Diablerets; passed on through thedistricts of Thun and Brientz, and, dividing itself into two, caused thezigzagged form of the lake of Lucerne. The principal branch then passedbetween the high Sentis and the Glarnisch, and broke into confusion inthe Tyrol. On the north side of this trench the chalk beds were oftenvertical, or cast into repeated folds, of which the escarpments weremostly 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 theirescarpments to the central chain. 

295. Both these systems of mountains are intersected by transversevalleys, owing their origin, in the first instance, to a series oftransverse curvilinear fractures, which affect the forms even of everyminor ridge, and produce its principal ravines and boldest rocks, evenwhere no distinctly excavated valleys exist. Thus, the Mont Vergi andthe Aiguilles of Salouvre are only fragmentary remains of a range ofhorizontal beds, once continuous, but broken by this transverse systemof curvilinear cleavage, and worn or weathered into separate summits. 

The means of this ultimate sculpture or weathering were lastly to beconsidered. 

 * * * * *

296. III. _Sculpture. _--The final reductions of mountainform are owingeither to disintegration, or to the action of water, in the condition ofrain, rivers, or ice, aided by frost and other circumstances oftemperature and atmosphere. 

All important existing forms are owing to disintegration, or the actionof water. That of ice had been curiously over-rated. As an instrument ofsculpture, ice is much less powerful than water; the apparentlyenergetic effects of it being merely the exponents of disintegration. Aglacier did not produce its moraine, but sustained and exposed thefragments which fell on its surface, pulverizing these by keeping themin motion, but producing very unimportant effects on the rock below; theroundings and striation produced by ice were superficial; while atorrent penetrated into every angle and cranny, undermining and wearingcontinually, and carrying stones, at the lowest estimate, six hundredthousand times as fast as the glacier. Had the quantity of rain whichhas fallen on Mont Blanc in the form of snow (and descended in theravines as ice) fallen as rain, and descended in torrents, the ravineswould have been much deeper than they are now, and the glacier may sofar be considered as exercising a protective influence. But its power ofcarriage is unlimited, and when masses of earth or rock are onceloosened, the glacier carries them away, and exposes fresh surfaces. Generally, the work of water and ice is in mountain surgery like that oflancet and sponge--one for incision, the other for ablution. Noexcavation by ice was possible on a large scale, any more than by astream of honey; and its various actions, with their limitations, wereonly to be understood by keeping always clearly in view the great law ofits motion as a viscous substance, determined by Professor James Forbes. 

297. The existing forms of the Alps are, therefore, traceable chiefly todenudation as they rose from the sea, followed by more or less violentaqueous action, partly arrested during the glacial periods, while theproduced diluvium was carried away into the valley of the Rhine or intothe North Sea. One very important result of denudation had not yet beensufficiently regarded; namely, that when portions of a thick bed (as theRudisten-kalk) had been entirely removed, the weight of the remainingmasses, pressing unequally on the inferior beds, would, when these weresoft (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 thedistrict of the Lake of Annecy were in all probability owing to thiscause: they might be studied advantageously in the sloping base of thegreat Rochers de Lanfon, which, disintegrating in curved, nearlyvertical flakes, each a thousand feet in height, were nevertheless amere 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. Morecomplex forms of harder rock were wrought by the streams and rains intofantastic outlines; and the transverse gorges were cut deep where theyhad been first traced by fault or distortion. The analysis of thisaqueous action would alone require a series of discourses; but the sumof the facts was that the best and most interesting portions of themountains were just those which were finally left, the centers andjoints, as it were, of the Alpine anatomy. Immeasurable periods of timewould be required to wear these away; and to all appearances, during theprocess of their destruction, others were rising to take their place, and forms of perhaps far more nobly organized mountain would witness thecollateral progress of humanity. 

 J. R. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 35: Read by Mr. Ruskin at the weekly evening meeting of theRoyal Institution (see _Proceedings_, vol. Iv. , pp. 142-46), June 5, 1863. --ED. ]

THE RANGE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION PROPORTIONED TO THE RANK INANIMATED 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 axiomby metaphysicians, and practically does not seem to me yet to have beenso. I say "animated life" because the word "life" by itself might havebeen taken to include that of vegetables; and I say "animated" insteadof "spiritual" life because the Latin "anima, " and pretty Italiancorruption of it, "alma, " involving the new idea of nourishment of thebody as by the Aliment or Alms of God, seems to me to convey a betteridea 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" thanis, I believe, usual with metaphysicians, for, as a painter, I belong toa lower rank of animated being than theirs, and can only mean byconception what I know of it. A painter never conceives anythingabsolutely, and is indeed incapable of conceiving anything at all, except as a phenomenon or sensation, or as the mode or locus of aphenomenon 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 whichhe is himself first concerned in producing--a line--as "length withoutbreadth. " He would say, "That which has no breadth is nothing, andnothing cannot be long. " He would define a line as a narrow and longphenomenon, and a mathematician's idea of it as an idea of thedirection of such a phenomenon. 

The act of conception or imagination with him, therefore, is merely thememory, simple or combined, of things that he has seen or felt. He hasno ray, no incipience of faculty beyond this. No quantity of thesternest training in the school of Hegel, would ever enable him to thinkthe 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, asthe case might be. And if he were to be taught in any school whatever toconceive a table, his first demand would be that he should be shown one, or referred to other things that had the qualities of one inillustrative degree. 

300. And even respecting the constant methods or laws of phenomena, hecannot raise the statement of them into an act of conception. Thestatement that two right lines can never inclose a space merely appearsto him another form of verbal definition, or, at the grandest, adefinition in prophetic extent, saying in other words that a line whichincloses, or ever may inclose, a space, is not, and never will be, aright one. He would admit that what he now conceives as two things, doubled, would always be what he now conceives as four things. Butassuming the existence of a world in which, whenever two things wereactually set in juxtaposition with other two things, they becameactually three times, or actually five, he supposes that the practice ofarithmetic, and laws of it, would change in relation to this newcondition in matter; and he accepts, therefore, the statement that twicetwo are four only as an accident of the existing phenomena of matter. 

301. A painter therefore may, I think, be looked upon as onlyrepresenting a high order of sensational creatures, incapable of any butphysical ideas and impressions; and I continue my paper, therefore, onlyin the name of the docile, and therefore improvable, part of the BruteCreation. 

And in their name I would suggest that we should be much more docilethan we are if we were never occupied in efforts to conceive thingsabove our natures. To take an instance, in a creature somewhat lowerthan myself. I came by surprise the other day on a cuttle-fish in a poolat low tide. On being touched with the point of my umbrella, he firstfilled the pool with ink, and then finding himself still touched in thedarkness, lost his temper, and attacked the umbrella with much psyche oranima, 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 myoffering him a finger instead, he sucked that with two or three of hisarms 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 howentirely useless such a manifestation of a superior being was to hiscuttle-fish mind, and how fortunate it was for his fellow-octopods thathe had no command of pens as well as ink, nor any disposition to writeon the nature of umbrellas or of men. 

It may be observed, further, that whatever ideas he was able to formrespecting either were positively false--so contrary to truth as to beworse than none, and simply dangerous to himself, so far as he might beinduced to act upon them--that, namely, an umbrella was an eatablething, or a man a conquerable one, that the individual man who looked athim was hostile to him or that his purposes could be interfered with byejection of ink. Every effort made by the fish under these convictionswas harmful to himself; his only wisdom would have been to lie quietlyand unreflectively in his pool. 

And with us painters also, the only result of any efforts we make toacquaint ourselves with the subjects of metaphysical inquiry has been anincreased sense of the prudence of lying placidly and unreflectively inour pools, or at least limiting ourselves to such gentle efforts ofimagination as may be consistent with the as yet imperfectly developedpowers, I do not say even of cephalopodic, but of Ascidian nervouscenters. 

303. But it may be easily imagined how pleasantly, to persons thussubdued in self-estimation, the hope presents itself which is involvedin the Darwinian theory, that their pools themselves may be capable ofindefinite extension, and their natures of indefinite development--thehope that our descendants may one day be ashamed of us, and debate thequestion of their parentage with astonishment and disgust. 

And it seems to me that the aim of elementary metaphysical study mighthenceforth become more practical than that of any other science. For inhitherto taking little cognizance of the limitation of thought by thestructure of the body, we have surely also lost sight of the power ofcertain modes of thought over the processes of that structure. Taking, for instance, the emotion of anger, of which the cephalopoda are indeedas capable as we are, but inferior to us in being unable to decidewhether they do well to be angry or not, I do not think the chemicaleffect of that emotion on the particles of the blood, in decomposing andotherwise paralyzing or debilitating them, has been sufficientlyexamined, nor the actual quantity of nervous energy which a fit of angerof given violence withdraws from the body and restores to space, neitherthe correlative power of volition in restraining the passion, or indirecting the choice of salutary thought, as of salutary herbs onstreams. And even we painters, who dare not call ourselves capable ofthought, are capable of choice in more or less salutary vision. In thedegree in which we lose such power of choice in vision, so that thespectral phenomena which are the materials of our industry presentthemselves under forms beyond our control, we become insane; andalthough for all our best work a certain degree of this insanity isnecessary, and the first occurring conceptions are uncommanded, as indreams, we have, when in health, always instantaneous power of acceptingsome, refusing others, perfecting the outlines and colors of those wewish to keep, and arranging them in such relations as we choose. 

304. And unquestionably the forms of the body which paintersinstinctively recognize as best, and call "beautiful, " are so far underthe command of the plastic force of voluntary thought, that theoriginal and future authority of such a plastic force over the whole ofcreation cannot but seem to painters a direct, though not a certaininfluence; and they would at once give their adherence to the statementmade many years since in his opening lectures in Oxford by the presentRegius Professor of Medicine (as far as I can recollect approximately, in these terms)--that "it is quite as logical, and far more easy, toconceive 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 schoolsof metaphysicians that they will direct mankind into methods of thoughtwhich will be at once happy, unerring, and medicinal, and thereforeentirely wise; that they will mark the limits beyond which uniformitymust be dangerous, and speculation vain; and that they will at nodistant period terminate the acrimony of theologians, and theinsolences, as well as the sorrows, of groundless faith, by showing thatit 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 muchbetter than we can believe, as it is greater than we can understand. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 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, inthis year, I walked through what was once a country lane, between thehostelry of the Half-moon at the bottom of Herne Hill, and the secludedCollege of Dulwich. 

In my young days, Croxsted Lane was a green byroad traversable for somedistance by carts; but rarely so traversed, and, for the most part, little else than a narrow strip of untilled field, separated byblackberry hedges from the better-cared-for meadows on each side of it:growing more weeds, therefore, than they, and perhaps in spring aprimrose or two--white archangel--daisies plenty, and purple thistles inautumn. A slender rivulet, boasting little of its brightness, for thereare no springs at Dulwich, yet fed purely enough by the rain and morningdew, here trickled--there loitered--through the long grass beneath thehedges, and expanded itself, where it might, into moderately clear anddeep pools, in which, under their veils of duckweed, a fresh-water shellor two, sundry curious little skipping shrimps, any quantity of tadpolesin their time, and even sometimes a tittlebat, offered themselves to myboyhood's pleased, and not inaccurate, observation. There, my mother andI used to gather the first buds of the hawthorn; and there, in afteryears, I used to walk in the summer shadows, as in a place wilder andsweeter than our garden, to think over any passage I wanted to makebetter than usual in _Modern Painters_. 

So, as aforesaid, on the first kindly day of this year, being thoughtfulmore 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 beautyhas been in the world since the world was made, and human language canmake a shift, somehow, to give account of it, whereas the peculiarforces of devastation induced by modern city life have only entered theworld lately; and no existing terms of language known to me are enoughto describe the forms of filth, and modes of ruin, that variedthemselves along the course of Croxsted Lane. The fields on each side ofit are now mostly dug up for building, or cut through into gaunt cornersand nooks of blind ground by the wild crossings and concurrencies ofthree railroads. Half a dozen handfuls of new cottages, with Doricdoors, are dropped about here and there among the gashed ground: thelane itself, now entirely grassless, is a deep-rutted, heavy-hillockedcart-road, diverging gatelessly into various brickfields or pieces ofwaste; and bordered on each side by heaps of--Hades only knowswhat!--mixed dust of every unclean thing that can crumble in drought, and mildew of every unclean thing that can rot or rust in damp: ashesand rags, beer-bottles and old shoes, battered pans, smashed crockery, shreds of nameless clothes, door-sweepings, floor-sweepings, kitchengarbage, back-garden sewage, old iron, rotten timber jagged without-torn nails, cigar-ends, pipe-bowls, cinders, bones, and ordure, indescribable; and, variously kneaded into, sticking to, or flutteringfoully here and there over all these, --remnants broadcast, of everymanner of newspaper, advertisement or big-lettered bill, festering andflaunting out their last publicity in the pits of stinking dust andmortal slime. 

3. The lane ends now where its prettiest windings once began; being cutoff 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 daintiestintricacy of its solitude is changed into a straight, and evenlymacadamized carriage drive between new houses of extreme respectability, with good attached gardens and offices--most of these tenements beinglarger--all more pretentious, and many, I imagine, held at greatlyhigher rent than my father's, tenanted for twenty years at Herne Hill. And it became matter of curious meditation to me what must here becomeof children resembling my poor little dreamy quondam self in temper, andthus brought up at the same distance from London, and in the same orbetter circumstances of worldly fortune; but with only Croxsted Lane inits present condition for their country walk. The trimly kept roadbefore their doors, such as one used to see in the fashionable suburbsof Cheltenham or Leamington, presents nothing to their study but gravel, and gas-lamp posts; the modern addition of a vermilion letter-pillarcontributing indeed to the splendor, but scarcely to the interest of thescene; and a child of any sense or fancy would hastily contrive escapefrom such a barren desert of politeness, and betake itself toinvestigation, such as might be feasible, of the natural history ofCroxsted Lane. 

4. But, for its sense or fancy, what food, or stimulus, can it find, inthat foul causeway of its youthful pilgrimage? What would have happenedto myself, so directed, I cannot clearly imagine. Possibly, I might havegot interested in the old iron and wood-shavings; and become an engineeror a carpenter: but for the children of to-day, accustomed, from theinstant they are out of their cradles, to the sight of this infinitenastiness, prevailing as a fixed condition of the universe, over theface of nature, and accompanying all the operations of industrious man, what is to be the scholastic issue? unless, indeed, the thrill ofscientific vanity in the primary analysis of some unheard-of process ofcorruption--or the reward of microscopic research in the sight of wormswith more legs, and acari of more curious generation than ever vivifiedthe 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 ofthe coming time, in the analysis of physical corruption, guides, intofields more dangerous and desolate, the expatiation of an imaginativeliterature: and that the reactions of moral disease upon itself, andthe conditions of languidly monstrous character developed in anatmosphere of low vitality, have become the most valued material ofmodern fiction, and the most eagerly discussed texts of modernphilosophy. 

5. The many concurrent reasons for this mischief may, I believe, bemassed under a few general heads. [38]

I. There is first the hot fermentation and unwholesome secrecy of thepopulation crowded into large cities, each mote in the misery lighter, as an individual soul, than a dead leaf, but becoming oppressive andinfectious each to his neighbor, in the smoking mass of decay. Theresulting modes of mental ruin and distress are continually new; and ina certain sense, worth study in their monstrosity: they have accordinglydeveloped a corresponding science of fiction, concerned mainly with thedescription 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 histwo daughters, all that can promote their pleasures or their pride. Hemarries them to men of rank, supplies their secret expenses, andprovides for his favorite a separate and clandestine establishment withher lover. On his death-bed, he sends for this favorite daughter, whowishes 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 chiefambition to be seen. She finally goes to the ball. 

The story is, of course, one of which the violent contrasts and spectralcatastrophe could only take place, or be conceived, in a large city. Avillage grocer cannot make a large fortune, cannot marry his daughtersto titled squires, and cannot die without having his children brought tohim, if in the neighborhood, by fear of village gossip, if for no bettercause. 

6. II. But a much more profound feeling than this mere curiosity ofscience in morbid phenomena is concerned in the production of thecarefulest forms of modern fiction. The disgrace and grief resultingfrom 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 surroundingsover them for evil; the incapacity of their own minds to refuse thepollution, and of their own wills to oppose the weight, of thestaggering mass that chokes and crushes them into perdition, bringsevery law of healthy existence into question with them, and everyalleged method of help and hope into doubt. Indignation, without anycalming faith in justice, and self-contempt, without any curativeself-reproach, dull the intelligence, and degrade the conscience, intosullen incredulity of all sunshine outside the dunghill, or breezebeyond the wafting of its impurity; and at last a philosophy developsitself, partly satiric, partly consolatory, concerned only with theregenerative vigor of manure, and the necessary obscurities of fimeticProvidence; showing how everybody's fault is somebody else's, howinfection has no law, digestion no will, and profitable dirt nodishonor. 

And thus an elaborate and ingenious scholasticism, in what may be calledthe Divinity of Decomposition, has established itself in connection withthe more recent forms of romance, giving them at once a complacent toneof clerical dignity, and an agreeable dash of heretical impudence; whilethe inculcated doctrine has the double advantage of needing no laboriousscholarship for its foundation, and no painful self-denial for itspractice. 

7. III. The monotony of life in the central streets of any great moderncity, but especially in those of London, where every emotion intended tobe derived by men from the sight of nature, or the sense of art, isforbidden forever, leaves the craving of the heart for a sincere, yetchangeful, interest, to be fed from one source only. Under naturalconditions the degree of mental excitement necessary to bodily health isprovided by the course of the seasons, and the various skill andfortune of agriculture. In the country every morning of the year bringswith it a new aspect of springing or fading nature; a new duty to befulfilled upon earth, and a new promise or warning in heaven. No day iswithout its innocent hope, its special prudence, its kindly gift, andits sublime danger; and in every process of wise husbandry, and everyeffort of contending or remedial courage, the wholesome passions, pride, and bodily power of the laborer are excited and exerted in happiestunison. The companionship of domestic, the care of serviceable, animals, soften and enlarge his life with lowly charities, and discipline him infamiliar wisdoms and unboastful fortitudes; while the divine laws ofseedtime which cannot be recalled, harvest which cannot be hastened, andwinter in which no man can work, compel the impatiences and coveting ofhis heart into labor too submissive to be anxious, and rest too sweet tobe wanton. What thought can enough comprehend the contrast between suchlife, and that in streets where summer and winter are only alternationsof heat and cold; where snow never fell white, nor sunshine clear; wherethe ground is only a pavement, and the sky no more than the glass roofof 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--chiefand most fatal difference in state--there is no interest of occupationfor any of the inhabitants but the routine of counter or desk withindoors, and the effort to pass each other without collision outside; sothat from morning to evening the only possible variation of the monotonyof the hours, and lightening of the penalty of existence, must be somekind of mischief, limited, unless by more than ordinary godsend offatality, 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 humanheart for some kind of excitement could be supplied from _one_ sourceonly. It might have been thought by any other than a sternly tentativephilosopher, that the denial of their natural food to human feelingswould have provoked a reactionary desire for it; and that thedreariness of the street would have been gilded by dreams of pastoralfelicity. Experience has shown the fact to be otherwise; the thoroughlytrained Londoner can enjoy no other excitement than that to which he hasbeen accustomed, but asks for _that_ in continually more ardent or morevirulent concentration; and the ultimate power of fiction to entertainhim is by varying to his fancy the modes, and defining for his dullnessthe horrors, of Death. In the single novel of "Bleak House" there arenine deaths (or left for death's, in the drop scene) carefully wroughtout or led up to, either by way of pleasing surprise, as the baby's atthe brick-maker's, or finished in their threatenings and sufferings, with as much enjoyment as can be contrived in the anticipation, and asmuch pathology as can be concentrated in the description. Under thefollowing varieties of method:--

 One by assassination Mr. Tulkinghorn. One by starvation, with phthisis Joe. One by chagrin Richard. One by spontaneous combustion Mr. Krook. One by sorrow Lady Dedlock's 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 behanged. 

And all this, observe, not in a tragic, adventurous, or military story, but merely as the further enlivenment of a narrative intended to beamusing; and as a properly representative average of the statistics ofcivilian 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 isthe fact that all these deaths, but one, are of inoffensive, or at leastin the world's estimate, respectable persons; and that they are allgrotesquely either violent or miserable, purporting thus to illustratethe modern theology that the appointed destiny of a large average of ourpopulation 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 asfaultless 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 bedropped by a shot from a client behind his fire-screen, and retrieved inthe morning by his housemaid under the chandelier. Neither is LadyDedlock less reprehensible in her conduct than many women of fashionhave been and will be: but it would not therefore have been thoughtpoetically just, in old-fashioned morality, that she should be found byher daughter lying dead, with her face in the mud of a St. Giles'schurchyard. 

10. In the work of the great masters death is always either heroic, deserved, or quiet and natural (unless their purpose be totally anddeeply tragic, when collateral meaner death is permitted, like that ofPolonius or Roderigo). In "Old Mortality, " four of the deaths, Bothwell's, Ensign Grahame's, Macbriar's, and Evandale's, aremagnificently heroic; Burley's and Oliphant's long deserved, and swift;the troopers', met in the discharge of their military duty, and the oldmiser's as gentle as the passing of a cloud, and almost beautiful in itslast words of--now unselfish--care. 

 * * * * *

"Ailie" (he aye ca'd me Ailie, we were auld acquaintance), "Ailie, takeye care and hand the gear weel thegither; for the name of Morton ofMilnwood's gane out like the last sough of an auld sang. " And sae hefell out o' ae dwam into another, and ne'er spak a word mair, unless itsomething we you'dna mak out, about a dipped candle being gude eneughto see to dee wi'. He cou'd ne'er bide to see a molded ane, and therewas ane, by ill luck, on the table. 

 * * * * *

In "Guy Mannering, " the murder, though unpremeditated, of a singleperson, (himself not entirely innocent, but at least by heartlessness ina cruel function earning his fate, ) is avenged to the uttermost on allthe men conscious of the crime; Mr. Bertram's death, like that of hiswife, 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 thehighest, and happy. 

Nor is it ever to be forgotten, in the comparison of Scott's withinferior work, that his own splendid powers were, even in early life, tainted, and in his latter years destroyed, by modern conditions ofcommercial excitement, then first, but rapidly, developing themselves. There are parts even in his best novels colored to meet tastes which hedespised; and many pages written in his later ones to lengthen hisarticle for the indiscriminate market. 

11. But there was one weakness of which his healthy mind remainedincapable to the last. In modern stories prepared for more refined orfastidious audiences than those of Dickens, the funereal excitement isobtained, for the most part, not by the infliction of violent ordisgusting death; but in the suspense, the pathos, and the more or lessby all felt, and recognized, mortal phenomena of the sick-room. Thetemptation, to weak writers, of this order of subject is especiallygreat, because the study of it from the living--or dying--model is soeasy, and to many has been the most impressive part of their ownpersonal experience; while, if the description be given even withmediocre accuracy, a very large section of readers will admire itstruth, and cherish its melancholy. Few authors of second or third rategenius can either record or invent a probable conversation in ordinarylife; but few, on the other hand, are so destitute of observant facultyas to be unable to chronicle the broken syllables and languid movementsof an invalid. The easily rendered, and too surely recognized, image offamiliar suffering is felt at once to be real where all else had beenfalse; and the historian of the gestures of fever and words of deliriumcan count on the applause of a gratified audience as surely as thedramatist who introduces on the stage of his flagging action a carriagethat can be driven or a fountain that will flow. But the masters ofstrong imagination disdain such work, and those of deep sensibilityshrink from it. [39] Only under conditions of personal weakness, presently to be noted, would Scott comply with the cravings of his loweraudience in scenes of terror like the death of Front-de-Boeuf. But henever once withdrew the sacred curtain of the sick-chamber, norpermitted the disgrace of wanton tears round the humiliation ofstrength, or the wreck of beauty. 

12. IV. No exception to this law of reverence will be found in thescenes in Coeur de Lion's illness introductory to the principalincident in the "Talisman. " An inferior writer would have made the kingcharge in imagination at the head of his chivalry, or wander in dreamsby the brooks of Aquitaine; but Scott allows us to learn no morestartling symptoms of the king's malady than that he was restless andimpatient, and could not wear his armor. Nor is any bodily weakness, orcrisis of danger, permitted to disturb for an instant the royalty ofintelligence and heart in which he examines, trusts and obeys thephysician whom his attendants fear. 

Yet the choice of the main subject in this story and its companion--thetrial, to a point of utter torture, of knightly faith, and severalpassages in the conduct of both, more especially the exaggerated scenesin the House of Baldringham, and hermitage of Engedi, are signs of thegradual decline in force of intellect and soul which those who loveScott best have done him the worst injustice in their endeavors todisguise or deny. The mean anxieties, moral humiliations, andmercilessly demanded brain-toil, which killed him, show their sepulchralgrasp for many and many a year before their final victory; and thestates of more or less dulled, distorted, and polluted imagination whichculminate in "Castle Dangerous" cast a Stygian hue over "St. Ronan'sWell, " "The Fair Maid of Perth, " and "Anne of Geierstein, " which lowersthem, the first altogether, the other two at frequent intervals, intofellowship with the normal disease which festers throughout the wholebody of our lower fictitious literature. 

13. Fictitious! I use the ambiguous word deliberately; for it isimpossible to distinguish in these tales of the prison-house how fartheir vice and gloom are thrown into their manufacture only to meet avile demand, and how far they are an integral condition of thought inthe minds of men trained from their youth up in the knowledge ofLondinian and Parisian misery. The speciality of the plague is a delightin the exposition of the relations between guilt and decrepitude; and Icall the results of it literature "of the prison-house, " because thethwarted habits of body and mind, which are the punishment of recklesscrowding in cities, become, in the issue of that punishment, frightfulsubjects of exclusive interest to themselves; and the art of fiction inwhich they finally delight is only the more studied arrangement andillustration, by colored fire-lights, of the daily bulletins of theirown wretchedness, in the prison calendar, the police news, and thehospital report. 

14. The reader will perhaps be surprised at my separating the greatestwork of Dickens, "Oliver Twist, " with honor, from the loathsome mass towhich it typically belongs. That book is an earnest and uncaricaturedrecord of states of criminal life, written with didactic purpose, fullof the gravest instruction, nor destitute of pathetic studies of noblepassion. Even the "Mysteries of Paris" and Gaboriau's "Crime d'Orcival"are raised, by their definiteness of historical intention andforewarning anxiety, far above the level of their order, and may beaccepted as photographic evidence of an otherwise incrediblecivilization, corrupted in the infernal fact of it, down to the genesisof such figures as the Vicomte d'Orcival, the Stabber, [40] the Skeleton, and the She-wolf. But the effectual head of the whole cretinous schoolis the renowned novel in which the hunchbacked lover watches theexecution of his mistress from the tower of Notre-Dame; and its strengthpasses gradually away into the anatomical preparations, for the generalmarket, of novels like "Poor Miss Finch, " in which the heroine is blind, the hero epileptic, and the obnoxious brother is found dead with hishands dropped off, in the Arctic regions. [41]

15. This literature of the Prison-house, understanding by the word notonly the cell of Newgate, but also and even more definitely the cell ofthe Hôtel-Dieu, the Hôpital des Fous, and the grated corridor with thedripping slabs of the Morgue, having its central root thus in the Ile deParis--or historically and pre-eminently the "Cité de Paris"--is, whenunderstood deeply, the precise counter-corruption of the religion of theSainte Chapelle, just as the worst forms of bodily and mental ruin arethe corruption of love. I have therefore called it "Fiction mécroyante, "with literal accuracy and precision: according to the explanation of theword, which the reader may find in any good French dictionary, [42] andround its Arctic pole in the Morgue, he may gather into one Caina ofgelid putrescence the entire product of modern infidel imagination, amusing itself with destruction of the body, and busying itself withaberration of the mind. 

16. Aberration, palsy, or plague, observe, as distinguished from normalevil, just as the venom of rabies or cholera differs from that of a waspor a viper. The life of the insect and serpent deserves, or at leastpermits, our thoughts; not so the stages of agony in the fury-drivenhound. There is some excuse, indeed, for the pathologic labor of themodern novelist in the fact that he cannot easily, in a city population, find a healthy mind to vivisect: but the greater part of such amateursurgery is the struggle, in an epoch of wild literary competition, toobtain novelty of material. The varieties of aspect and color in healthyfruit, be it sweet or sour, may be within certain limits describedexhaustively. Not so the blotches of its conceivable blight: and whilethe symmetries of integral human character can only be traced byharmonious and tender skill, like the branches of a living tree, thefaults and gaps of one gnawed away by corroding accident can be shuffledinto senseless change like the wards of a Chubb lock. 

17. V. It is needless to insist on the vast field for this dice-cast orcard-dealt calamity which opens itself in the ignorance, money-interest, and mean passion, of city marriage. Peasants know each other aschildren--meet, as they grow up in testing labor; and if a stoutfarmer's son marries a handless girl, it is his own fault. Also in thepatrician families of the field, the young people know what they aredoing, and marry a neighboring estate, or a covetable title, with someconception of the responsibilities they undertake. But even among these, their season in the confused metropolis creates licentious andfortuitous temptation before unknown; and in the lower middle orders, anentirely new kingdom of discomfort and disgrace has been preached tothem in the doctrines of unbridled pleasure which are merely an apologyfor their peculiar forms of ill-breeding. It is quite curious how oftenthe catastrophe, or the leading interest, of a modern novel, turns uponthe want, both in maid and bachelor, of the common self-command whichwas taught to their grandmothers and grandfathers as the first elementof ordinarily decent behavior. Rashly inquiring the other day the plotof a modern story[43] from a female friend, I elicited, after somehesitation, that it hinged mainly on the young people's "forgettingthemselves in a boat;" and I perceive it to be accepted as nearly anaxiom in the code of modern civic chivalry that the strength of amiablesentiment is proved by our incapacity on proper occasions to express, and on improper ones to control it. The pride of a gentleman of the oldschool used to be in his power of saying what he meant, and being silentwhen he ought (not to speak of the higher nobleness which bestowed lovewhere it was honorable, and reverence where it was due); but theautomatic amours and involuntary proposals of recent romance acknowledgelittle further law of morality than the instinct of an insect, or theeffervescence 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 troublein explaining the disciplinarian authority of mere old-fashionedpoliteness, as in some sort protective of higher things. It describes, with much grace and precision, a state of society by no meanspre-eminently virtuous, or enthusiastically heroic; in which many peopledo extremely wrong, and none sublimely right. But as there are heightsof which the achievement is unattempted, there are abysses to which fallis barred; neither accident nor temptation will make any of theprincipal personages swerve from an adopted resolution, or violate anaccepted principle of honor; people are expected as a matter of courseto speak with propriety on occasion, and to wait with patience when theyare bid: those who do wrong, admit it; those who do right don't boast ofit; everybody knows his own mind, and everybody has good manners. 

19. Nor must it be forgotten that in the worst days of theself-indulgence which destroyed the aristocracies of Europe, theirvices, 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 moralistsrecognizes the accurate wit, the lofty intellect, and the unfrettedbenevolence, which redeemed from vitiated surroundings the circle ofd'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 alwaysbefore them; nor was it without the secret significance attaching towhat may seem the least accidents in the work of a master, that Scottgave to both his heroines of the age of revolution in England the nameof the queen of the highest order of English chivalry. [46]

20. It is to say little for the types of youth and maid which aloneScott felt it a joy to imagine, or thought it honorable to portray, thatthey act and feel in a sphere where they are never for an instantliable to any of the weaknesses which disturb the calm, or shake theresolution, of chastity and courage in a modern novel. Scott lived in acountry and time, when, from highest to lowest, but chiefly in thatdignified and nobly severe[47] middle class to which he himselfbelonged, a habit of serene and stainless thought was as natural to thepeople as their mountain air. Women like Rose Bradwardine and AilieDinmont were the grace and guard of almost every household (God bepraised that the race of them is not yet extinct, for all that Mall orBoulevard can do), and it has perhaps escaped the notice of evenattentive readers that the comparatively uninteresting character of SirWalter's heroes had always been studied among a class of youths who weresimply incapable of doing anything seriously wrong; and could only beembarrassed by the consequences of their levity or imprudence. 

21. But there is another difference in the woof of a Waverley novel fromthe cobweb of a modern one, which depends on Scott's larger view ofhuman life. Marriage is by no means, in his conception of man and woman, the most important business of their existence;[48] nor love the onlyreward to be proposed to their virtue or exertion. It is not in hisreading of the laws of Providence a necessity that virtue should, eitherby love or any other external blessing, be rewarded at all;[49] andmarriage is in all cases thought of as a constituent of the happiness oflife, but not as its only interest, still less its only aim. And uponanalyzing with some care the motives of his principal stories, we shalloften find that the love in them is merely a light by which the sternerfeatures of character are to be irradiated, and that the marriage of thehero is as subordinate to the main bent of the story as Henry theFifth's courtship of Katherine is to the battle of Agincourt. Nay, thefortunes of the person who is nominally the subject of the tale areoften little more than a background on which grander figures are to bedrawn, and deeper fates forthshadowed. The judgments between the faithand chivalry of Scotland at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge owe little oftheir interest in the mind of a sensible reader to the fact that thecaptain of the Popinjay is carried a prisoner to one battle, and returnsa prisoner from the other: and Scott himself, while he watches the whitesail that bears Queen Mary for the last time from her native land, verynearly forgets to finish his novel, or to tell us--and with small senseof 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, andsometimes scornful, glance with which Scott passes over scenes which anovelist of our own day would have analyzed with the airs of aphilosopher, and painted with the curiosity of a gossip, indicates anyabsence in his heart of sympathy with the great and sacred elements ofpersonal happiness. An era like ours, which has with diligence andostentation swept its heart clear of all the passions once known asloyalty, patriotism, and piety, necessarily magnifies the apparent forceof the one remaining sentiment which sighs through the barren chambers, or clings inextricably round the chasms of ruin; nor can it but regardwith awe the unconquerable spirit which still tempts or betrays thesagacities of selfishness into error or frenzy which is believed to belove. 

That Scott was never himself, in the sense of the phrase as employed bylovers of the Parisian school, "ivre d'amour, " may be admitted withoutprejudice to his sensibility, [50] and that he never knew "l'amor chemove 'l sol e l'altre stelle, " was the chief, though unrecognized, calamity of his deeply checkered life. But the reader of honor andfeeling will not therefore suppose that the love which Miss Vernonsacrifices, stooping for an instant from her horse, is of less noblestamp, or less enduring faith, than that which troubles and degrades thewhole existence of Consuelo; or that the affection of Jeanie Deans forthe companion of her childhood, drawn like a field of soft blue heavenbeyond the cloudy wrack of her sorrow, is less fully in possession ofher soul than the hesitating and self-reproachful impulses under which amodern heroine forgets herself in a boat, or compromises herself in thecool 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 andthe Faubourgs; but it may be, perhaps, interesting at this moment toexamine, with illustration from those Waverley novels which have solately _re_tracted the attention of a fair and gentle public, [51] theuniversal conditions of "style, " rightly so called, which are in allages, and above all local currents or wavering tides of temporarymanners, pillars of what is forever strong, and models of what isforever fair. 

But I must first define, and that within strict horizon, the works ofScott, in which his perfect mind may be known, and his chosen waysunderstood. 

His great works of prose fiction, excepting only the first half-volumeof "Waverley, " were all written in twelve years, 1814-26 (of his own ageforty-three to fifty-five), the actual time employed in theircomposition being not more than a couple of months out of each year; andduring that time only the morning hours and spare minutes during theprofessional day. "Though the first volume of 'Waverley' was begun longago, and actually lost for a time, yet the other two were begun andfinished between the 4th of June and the 1st of July, during all which Iattended my duty in court, and proceeded without loss of time orhindrance 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 moresingular, or more sure, than the statement, apparently so encouraging tothe idle, that if a great thing can be done at all, it can be doneeasily. But it is that kind of ease with which a tree blossoms afterlong years of gathered strength, and all Scott's great writings were therecreations of a mind confirmed in dutiful labor, and rich with organicgathering 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 tobe noticed, the unhappy "St. Ronan's, " the memorable romances of Scottare eighteen, falling into three distinct groups, containing six each. 

24. The first group is distinguished from the other two by characters ofstrength and felicity which never more appeared after Scott was struckdown by his terrific illness in 1819. It includes "Waverley, " "GuyMannering, " "The Antiquary, " "Rob Roy, " "Old Mortality, " and "The Heartof 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 forthe first time to dictate--being unable for the exertion ofwriting--"The Bride of Lammermuir, " "the affectionate Laidlaw beseechinghim to stop dictating when his audible suffering filled every pause. 'Nay, Willie, ' he answered, 'only see that the doors are fast. I wouldfain keep all the cry as well as all the wool to ourselves; but as forgiving over work, that can only be when I am in woolen. '"[53] From thistime 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, inwhich he wrote "Redgauntlet" and "Nigel. "

It is strange, but only a part of the general simplicity of Scott'sgenius, that these revivals of earlier power were unconscious, and thatthe time of extreme weakness in which he wrote "St. Ronan's Well, " wasthat in which he first asserted his own restoration. 

25. It is also a deeply interesting characteristic of his noble naturethat he never gains anything by sickness; the whole man breathes orfaints 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 withinferior minds, in the workings of which it is often impossible todistinguish native from narcotic fancy, and the throbs of consciencefrom those of indigestion. Whether in exaltation or languor, the colorsof mind are always morbid which gleam on the sea for the "AncientMariner, " and through the casements on "St. Agnes' Eve"; but Scott is atonce blinded and stultified by sickness; never has a fit of the crampwithout spoiling a chapter, and is perhaps the only author of vividimagination who never wrote a foolish word but when he was ill. 

It remains only to be noticed on this point that any strong naturalexcitement, affecting the deeper springs of his heart, would at oncerestore his intellectual powers to their fullness, and that, far towardstheir 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 darkerhours. 

I believe that this power of the heart over the intellect is common toall great men: but what the special character of emotion was, that alonecould lift Scott above the power of death, I am about to ask thereader, in a little while, to observe with joyful care. 

26. The first series of romances then, above-named, are all that exhibitthe emphasis of his unharmed faculties. The second group, composed inthe three years subsequent to illness all but mortal, bear every one ofthem 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 brokenhealth on all these are essentially twofold--prevailing melancholy, andfantastic improbability. Three of the tales are agonizingly tragic, the"Abbot" scarcely less so in its main event, and "Ivanhoe" deeply woundedthrough all its bright panoply; while even in that most powerful of theseries the impossible archeries and ax-strokes, the incredibly opportuneappearances of Locksley, the death of Ulrica, and the resuscitation ofAthelstane, are partly boyish, partly feverish. Caleb in the "Bride, "Triptolemus and Halcro in the "Pirate, " are all laborious, and the firstincongruous; half a volume of the "Abbot" is spent in extremely dulldetail of Roland's relations with his fellow-servants and his mistress, which have nothing whatever to do with the future story; and the lady ofAvenel herself disappears after the first volume, "like a snaw-wreathwhen it's thaw, Jeanie. " The public has for itself pronounced on the"Monastery, " though as much too harshly as it has foolishly praised thehorrors of "Ravenswood" and the nonsense of "Ivanhoe"; because themodern public finds in the torture and adventure of these, the kind ofexcitement which it seeks at an opera, while it has no sympathy whateverwith the pastoral happiness of Glendearg, or with the lingeringsimplicities of superstition which give historical likelihood to thelegend 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 artificiallabor on "Ivanhoe. " "It was a relief, " he said, "to interlay the scenerymost familiar to me[55] with the strange world for which I had to drawso much on imagination. " Through all the closing scenes of the second heis raised to his own true level by his love for the queen. And withinthe code of Scott's work to which I am about to appeal for illustrationof his essential powers, I accept the "Monastery" and "Abbot, " andreject 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 slovenlyand diffuse "Peveril, " written for the trade;[56] the sickly "Tales ofthe Crusaders, " and the entirely broken and diseased "St. Ronan's Well. "This last I throw out of count altogether, and of the rest, accept onlythe four first named as sound work; so that the list of the novels inwhich I propose to examine his methods and ideal standards, reducesitself to these following twelve (named in order of production):"Waverley, " "Guy Mannering, " the "Antiquary, " "Rob Roy, " "OldMortality, " 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 verbalcharacteristics of his style, illustrative in little ways of thequestions we have been examining, and chiefly of the one which may bemost embarrassing to many readers, the difference, namely, betweencharacter and disease. 

One quite distinctive charm in the Waverleys is their modified use ofthe Scottish dialect; but it has not generally been observed, either bytheir imitators, or the authors of different taste who have written fora later public, that there is a difference between the dialect of alanguage, and its corruption. 

A dialect is formed in any district where there are persons ofintelligence enough to use the language itself in all its fineness andforce, but under the particular conditions of life, climate, and temper, which introduce words peculiar to the scenery, forms of word and idiomsof sentence peculiar to the race, and pronunciations indicative of theircharacter and disposition. 

Thus "burn" (of a streamlet) is a word possible only in a country wherethere are brightly running waters, "lassie, " a word possible only wheregirls 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 theordinary sense of the phrase, "broad" forms of utterance, are notdialects at all, having nothing dialectic in them; and all phrasesdeveloped in states of rude employment, and restricted intercourse, areinjurious to the tone and narrowing to the power of the language theyaffect. Mere breadth of accent does not spoil a dialect as long as thespeakers are men of varied idea and good intelligence; but the momentthe life is contracted by mining, millwork, or any oppressive andmonotonous labor, the accents and phrases become debased. It is part ofthe popular folly of the day to find pleasure in trying to write andspell these abortive, crippled, and more or less brutal forms of humanspeech. 

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 byaffectation, especially in the attempt to deal with words of which onlyhalf 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-andmistress-pieces in this latter kind. Mrs. Malaprop's "allegories on thebanks of the Nile" are in somewhat higher order of mistake: Mrs. TabithaBramble's ignorance is vulgarized by her selfishness, and WinifredJenkins' by her conceit. The "wot" of Noah Claypole, and the otherdegradations of cockneyism (Sam Weller and his father are in nothingmore admirable than in the power of heart and sense that can purify eventhese); the "trewth" of Mr. Chadband, and "natur" of Mr. Squeers, areexamples of the corruption of words by insensibility: the use of theword "bloody" in modern low English is a deeper corruption, not alteringthe form of the word, but defiling the thought in it. 

Thus much being understood, I shall proceed to examine thoroughly afragment of Scott's Lowland Scottish dialect; not choosing it of themost beautiful kind; on the contrary, it shall be a piece reaching aslow down as he ever allows Scotch to go--it is perhaps the only unfairpatriotism in him, that if ever he wants a word or two of reallyvillainous slang, he gives it in English or Dutch--not Scotch. 

I had intended in the close of this paper to analyze and compare thecharacters of Andrew Fairservice and Richie Moniplies, for examples, theformer of innate evil, unaffected by external influences, andundiseased, but distinct from natural goodness as a nettle is distinctfrom balm or lavender; and the latter of innate goodness, contracted andpinched by circumstance, but still undiseased, as an oak-leaf crisped byfrost, 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 gooddeal to think of. 

30. I take his account of the rescue of Glasgow Cathedral at the time ofthe 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 Scottishhistory of quite inestimable and concentrated value. Andrew's temperamentis the type of a vast class of Scottish--shall we call it"_sow_-thistlian"--mind, which necessarily takes the view of either Popeor saint that the thistle in Lebanon took of the cedar or lilies inLebanon; and the entire force of the passions which, in the Scottishrevolution, foretold and forearmed the French one, is told in this oneparagraph; the coarseness of it, observe, being admitted, not for thesake of the laugh, any more than an onion in broth merely for itsflavor, but for the meat of it; the inherent constancy of thatcoarseness being a fact in this order of mind, and an essential part ofthe history to be told. 

Secondly, observe that this speech, in the religious passion of it, suchas there may be, is entirely sincere. Andrew is a thief, a liar, acoward, and, in the Fair service from which he takes his name, ahypocrite; but in the form of prejudice, which is all that his mind iscapable of in the place of religion, he is entirely sincere. He does notin the least pretend detestation of image worship to please his master, or anyone else; he honestly scorns the "carnal morality[58] as dowd andfusionless as rue-leaves at Yule" of the sermon in the upper cathedral;and when wrapt in critical attention to the "real savor o' doctrine" inthe crypt, so completely forgets the hypocrisy of his fair service asto return his master's attempt to disturb him with hard punches of theelbow. 

Thirdly. He is a man of no mean sagacity, quite up to the averagestandard of Scottish common sense, not a low one; and, though incapableof understanding any manner of lofty thought or passion, is a shrewdmeasurer of weaknesses, and not without a spark or two of kindlyfeeling. 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 aftera', and he needs some careful body to look after him. "

Fourthly. He is a good workman; knows his own business well, and canjudge of other craft, if sound, or otherwise. 

All these four qualities of him must be known before we can understandthis single speech. Keeping them in mind, I take it up, word by word. 

32. You observe, in the outset, Scott makes no attempt whatever toindicate accents or modes of pronunciation by changed spelling, unlessthe word becomes a quite definitely new, and securely writable one. TheScottish 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. Amodern writer of dialects would think it amusing to use one or other ofthese ugly spellings. But Scott writes the name in pure English, knowingthat a Scots reader will speak it rightly, and an English one be wise inletting it alone. On the other hand he writes "weel" for "well, " becausethat word is complete in its change, and may be very closely expressedby the double _e_. The ambiguous _u_'s in "gude" and "sune" areadmitted, because far liker the sound than the double _o_ would be, andthat 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 atall, as we shall presently see. 

Secondly, observe, not a word is corrupted in any indecent haste, slowness, slovenliness, or incapacity of pronunciation. There is nolisping, drawling, slobbering, or snuffling: the speech is as clear as abell and as keen as an arrow: and its elisions and contractions areeither melodious, ("na, " for "not, "--"pu'd, " for "pulled, ") or as normalas in a Latin verse. The long words are delivered without the slightestbungling; 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 toinsinuate 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 oneshowing that the speaker is not bound by classic rules, but will use anysyllables that will enrich his meaning. "Nipperty-tipperty" (of hismaster'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 Gothiccannot be put into four syllables. "Steek, " melodious for stitch, has acombined sense of closing or fastening. And note that the later Gothicbeing precisely what Scott knew best (in Melrose) and liked best, it is, here as elsewhere, quite as much himself[59] as Frank, that he islaughing at, when he laughs _with_ Andrew, whose "opensteek hems" areonly 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 havepartly the sound of wind and stream in them, and partly the range ofsoftened idea which is like a distance of blue hills over border land("far in the distant Cheviot's blue"). Perhaps even the leastsympathetic "Englisher" might recognize this, if he heard "Old LongSince" vocally substituted for the Scottish words to the air. I do notknow the root; but the word's proper meaning is not "since, " but beforeor after an interval of some duration, "as weel sune as syne. " "Butfirst on Sawnie gies a ca', Syne, bauldly in she enters. "

_Behoved_ (_to come_). A rich word, with peculiar idiom, always usedmore or less ironically of anything done under a partly mistaken andpartly pretended notion of duty. 

_Siccan. _ Far prettier, and fuller in meaning than "such. " It containsan added sense of wonder; and means properly "so great" or "so unusual. "

_Took_ (_o' drum_). Classical "tuck" from Italian "toccata, " thepreluding "touch" or flourish, on any instrument (but see Johnson underword "tucket, " quoting "Othello"). The deeper Scottish vowels are usedhere to mark the deeper sound of the bass drum, as in more solemnwarning. 

_Bigging. _ The only word in all the sentence of which the Scottish formis less melodious than the English, "and what for no, " seeing thatScottish architecture is mostly little beyond Bessie Bell's and MaryGray'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 toFairbairn's edition of the Douglas "Virgil, " 1710. 

_Coup. _ Another of the much-embracing words; short for "upset, " but witha sense of awkwardness as the inherent cause of fall; compare RichieMoniplies (also for sense of "behoved"): "Ae auld hirplin deevil of apotter behoved just to step in my way, and offer me a pig (earthenpot--etym. Dub. ), as he said 'just to put my Scotch ointment in'; and Igave him a push, as but natural, and the tottering deevil coupit owreamang his own pigs, and damaged a score of them. " So also Dandie Dinmontin 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 ifactually the local name, [61] or Scott's invention. Compare Sir Piercie's"Molinaras. " But at all events used here with by-sense of degradation ofthe 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 distinguishthese comprehensive words, which gather two or more perfectly understoodmeanings into one _chord_ of meaning, and are harmonies more than words, from the above-noted blunders between two half-hit meanings, struck as abad piano-player strikes the edge of another note. In English we havefewer of these combined thoughts; so that Shakespeare rather plays withthe distinct lights of his words, than melts them into one. So againBishop Douglas spells, and doubtless spoke, the word "rose, "differently, according to his purpose; if as the chief or governingruler of flowers, "rois, " but if only in her own beauty, rose. 

_Christianlike. _ The sense of the decency and order proper toChristianity is stronger in Scotland than in any other country, and theword "Christian" more distinctly opposed to "beast. " Hence theback-handed cut at the English for their over-pious care of dogs. 

34. I am a little surprised myself at the length to which thisexamination of one small piece of Sir Walter's first-rate work hascarried us, but here I must end for this time, trusting, if the Editorof the _Nineteenth Century_ permit me, yet to trespass, perhaps morethan once, on his readers' patience; but, at all events, to examine in afollowing paper the technical characteristics of Scott's own style, bothin prose and verse, together with Byron's, as opposed to our fashionablyrecent dialects and rhythms; the essential virtues of language, in boththe masters of the old school, hinging ultimately, little as it might bethought, on certain unalterable views of theirs concerning the codecalled "of the Ten Commandments, " wholly at variance with the dogmas ofautomatic morality which, summed again by the witches' line, "Fair isfoul, and foul is fair, " hover through the fog and filthy air of ourprosperous England. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: _Nineteenth Century_, June, 1880. ]

[Footnote 38: See _Time and Tide_, § 72. --ED. ]

[Footnote 39: Nell, in the "Old Curiosity Shop, " was simply killed forthe market, as a butcher kills a lamb (see Forster's "Life, ") and Paulwas written under the same conditions of illness which affected Scott--apart of the ominous palsies, grasping alike author and subject both in"Dombey" and "Little Dorrit. "]

[Footnote 40: "Chourineur" not striking with dagger-point, but rippingwith knife-edge. Yet I do him, and La Louve, injustice in classing themwith the two others; they are put together only as parts in the samephantasm. Compare with La Louve, the strength of wild virtue in the"Louvécienne" (Lucienne) of Gaboriau--she, province-born and bred; andopposed to Parisian civilization in the character of her seamstressfriend. "De ce Paris, oů elle était née, elle savait tout--elleconnaissait tout. Rien ne l'étonnait, nul ne l'intimidait. Sa sciencedes détails matériels de l'existence était inconcevable. Impossible dela duper!--Eh bien! cette fille si laborieuse et si économe n'avait męmepas la plus vague notion des sentiments qui sont l'honneur de la femme. Je n'avais pas idée d'une si complčte absence de sens moral; d'une siinconscience dépravation, d'une impudence si effrontémentnaďve. "--"L'Argent des autres, " vol. I. P. 358. ]

[Footnote 41: The reader who cares to seek it may easily find medicalevidence of the physical effects of certain states of brain disease inproducing especially images of truncated and Hermes-like deformity, complicated with grossness. Horace, in the "Epodes, " scoffs at it, butnot without horror. Luca Signorelli and Raphael in their arabesques aredeeply struck by it: Dürer, defying and playing with it alternately, isalmost beaten down again and again in the distorted faces, hewinghalberts, and suspended satyrs of his arabesques round the polyglotLord's Prayer; it takes entire possession of Balzac in the "ContesDrolatiques"; 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 ideasof executions, tainting "Nigel, " almost spoiling "QuentinDurward"--utterly the "Fair Maid of Perth": and culminating in "Bizarro"(L. X. 149). It suggested all the deaths by falling, or sinking, as indelirious sleep--Kennedy, Eveline Neville (nearly repeated in ClaraMowbray), 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_ (soalso, in my own inflammation of the brain, two years ago, I dreamed thatI fell through the earth and came out on the other side). In itsgrotesque and distorting power, it produced all the figures of the LayGoblin, 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 dramecomposed of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman-fool who is also avillain, a shop-boy fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, ashriveled virago, and a doll in ribbons--carrying this company throughriot 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, andburns and crushes the shop-boy fool into shapelessness, he cannot yet becontent without shooting the spare lover's leg off, and marrying him tothe doll in a wooden one; the shapeless shop-boy being finally alsomarried in _two_ wooden ones. It is this mutilation, observe, which isthe 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 thelimbless serpent and the spines of the dragon's wing. Compare "ModernPainters, " vol. Iv. , "Chapter on the Mountain Gloom, " s. 19); and in_all_ forms of it, with petrifaction or loss of power by cold in theblood, whence the last Darwinian process of the witches' charm--"cool itwith a baboon's _blood, then_ the charm is firm and good. " The twofrescoes in the colossal handbills which have lately decorated thestreets of London (the baboon with the mirror, and the Maskelyne andCooke decapitation) are the final English forms of Raphael's arabesqueunder this influence; and it is well worth while to get the number forthe week ending April 3, 1880, of "Young Folks--a magazine ofinstructive 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 willbe 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 canmake it grasp a dagger_. " The text is also, as it professes to be, instructive; being the ultimate degeneration of what I have above calledthe "folly" of "Ivanhoe"; for the folly begets folly down, and down; andwhatever Scott and Turner did wrong has thousands of imitators--theirwisdom none will so much as hear, how much less follow!

In both of the Masters, it is always to be remembered that the evil andgood are alike conditions of literal _vision_: and therefore also, inseparably connected with the state of the health. I believe the firstelements of all Scott's errors were in the milk of his consumptivenurse, which all but killed him as an infant (L. I. 19)--and was withoutdoubt 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, " lethim 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 hisown murder (21), then the stories continually told him of the executionsat Carlisle (24), his aunt's husband having seen them; issuing, hehimself scarcely knows how, in the unaccountable terror that came uponhim at the sight of statuary (31)--especially Jacob's ladder; then themurder of Mrs. Swinton, and finally the nearly fatal bursting of theblood vessel at Kelso, with the succeeding nervous illness(65-67)--solaced, while he was being "bled and blistered till he hadscarcely a pulse left, " by that history of the Knights of Malta--fondlydwelt on and realized by actual modeling of their fortress, whichreturned to his mind for the theme of its last effort in passing away. ]

[Footnote 42: "Se dit par dénigrement, d'un chrétien qui ne croit pasles dogmes de sa religion. "--Fleming, vol. Ii. P. 659. ]

[Footnote 43: The novel alluded to is "The Mill on the Floss. " Seebelow, p. 272, § 108. --ED. ]

[Footnote 44: "A son nom, " properly. The sentence is one of VictorCherbuliez's, in "Prosper Randoce, " which is full of other valuableones. See the old nurse's "ici bas les choses vont de travers, comme unchien qui va ŕ vępres, " p. 93; and compare Prosper's treasures, "lapetite Vénus, et le petit Christ d'ivoire, " p. 121; also MadameBrehanne's request for the divertissement of "quelque belle batterie ŕcoups de couteau" with Didier's answer. "Hélas! madame, vous jouez demalheur, ici dans la Drôme, l'on se massacre aussi peu que possible, " p. 33. ]

[Footnote 45: Edgeworth's "Tales, " (Hunter, 1827), "Harrington andOrmond, " vol. Iii. P. 260. ]

[Footnote 46: Alice of Salisbury, Alice Lee, Alice Bridgnorth. ]

[Footnote 47: Scott's father was habitually ascetic. "I have heard hisson tell that it was common with him, if any one observed that the soupwas good, to taste it again, and say, 'Yes--it is too good, bairns, ' anddash 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 bookin the simple form of "L. "]

[Footnote 48: A young lady sang to me, just before I copied out thispage for press, a Miss Somebody's "great song, " "Live, and Love, andDie. " Had it been written for nothing better than silkworms, it shouldat least have added--Spin. ]

[Footnote 49: See passage of introduction to "Ivanhoe, " wisely quoted inL. Vi. 106. ]

[Footnote 50: See below, note, p. 199, on the conclusion of"Woodstock. "]

[Footnote 51: The reference is to a series of "Waverley Tableaux" givenin London shortly before the publication of this paper. --ED. ]

[Footnote 52: L. Iv. 177. ]

[Footnote 53: L. Vi. 67. ]

[Footnote 54: "One other such novel, and there's an end; but who canlast forever? who ever lasted so long?"--Sydney Smith (of the _Pirate_)to Jeffrey, December 30, 1821. (_Letters_, vol. Ii. P. 223. )]

[Footnote 55: L. Vi. P. 188. Compare the description of Fairy Dean, vii. 192. ]

[Footnote 56: All, alas! were now in a great measure so written. "Ivanhoe, " "The Monastery, " "The Abbot, " and "Kenilworth" were allpublished between December 1819 and January 1821, Constable & Co. Givingfive thousand guineas for the remaining copyright of them, Scottclearing ten thousand before the bargain was completed; and before the"Fortunes of Nigel" issued from the press Scott had exchangedinstruments and received his bookseller's bills for no less than four"works of fiction, " not one of them otherwise described in the deeds ofagreement, to be produced in unbroken succession, _each of them to fillup at least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to increaseof copy money in case any of them should run to four_; and within twoyears all this anticipation had been wiped off by "Peveril of the Peak, ""Quentin Durward, " "St. Ronan's Well, " and "Redgauntlet. "]

[Footnote 57: "Woodstock" was finished 26th March, 1826. He knew then ofhis ruin; and wrote in bitterness, but not in weakness. The closingpages are the most beautiful of the book. But a month afterwards LadyScott died; and he never wrote glad word more. ]

[Footnote 58: Compare Mr. Spurgeon's not unfrequent orations on the samesubject. ]

[Footnote 59: There are three definite and intentional portraits ofhimself, in the novels, each giving a separate part of himself: Mr. Oldbuck, Frank Osbaldistone, and Alan Fairford. ]

[Footnote 60: See note, p. 224. --ED. ]

[Footnote 61: Andrew knows Latin, and might have coined the word in hisconceit; but, writing to a kind friend in Glasgow, I find the brook wascalled "Molyndona" even before the building of the Subdean Mill in 1446. See also account of the locality in Mr. George's admirable volume, "OldGlasgow, " pp. 129, 149, etc. The Protestantism of Glasgow, sincethrowing that powder of saints into her brook Kidron, has presented itwith 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), "hasfor nearly a hundred years been a crawling stream of loathsomeness. Itis 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 generallyloiterers in the streets to persecute him _either about the events ofthe day_, or about some petty pieces of business. "

These lines, which the reader will find near the beginning of thesixteenth chapter of the first volume of the "Antiquary, " contain twoindications of the old man's character, which, receiving the ideal ofhim as a portrait of Scott himself, are of extreme interest to me. Theymean essentially that neither Monkbarns nor Scott had any mind to becalled of men, Rabbi, in mere hearing of the mob; and especially thatthey hated to be drawn back out of their far-away thoughts, or forwardout of their long-ago thoughts, by any manner of "daily" news, whetherprinted or gabbled. Of which two vital characteristics, deeper in bothmen, (for I must always speak of Scott's creations as if they were asreal as himself, ) than any of their superficial vanities, or passingenthusiasms, I have to speak more at another time. I quote the passagejust now, because there was one piece of the daily news of the year 1815which did extremely interest Scott, and materially direct the labor ofthe latter part of his life; nor is there any piece of history in thiswhole nineteenth century quite so pregnant with various instruction asthe study of the reasons which influenced Scott and Byron in theiropposite views of the glories of the battle of Waterloo. 

36. But I quote it for another reason also. The principal greeting whichMr. Oldbuck on this occasion receives in the market-place, beingcompared with the speech of Andrew Fairservice, examined in my firstpaper, will furnish me with the text of what I have mainly to say in thepresent 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 kindof prophetic instinct with which the great men of every age mark andforecast its destinies? The water from the Fairwell is the futureThirlmere carried to Manchester; the "auld stanes"[63] at Donagild'sChapel, removed as a _nuisance_, foretell the necessary view taken bymodern cockneyism, Liberalism, and progress, of all things that remindthem 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 theweakness of the honorable, and "besting" him--in modern slang, in themanner 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 passagefor. 

I quote it, that we may consider how much wonderful and various historyis gathered in the fact recorded for us in this piece of entirely fairfiction, that in the Scottish borough of Fairport (Montrose, really), inthe year 17--of Christ, the knowledge given by the pastors and teachersprovided for its children by enlightened Scottish Protestantism, oftheir fathers' history, and the origin of their religion, had resultedin this substance and sum;--that the statues of two crusading knightshad become, to their children, Bobbin and Bobbin; and the statue of theMadonna, Ailie Dailie. 

A marvelous piece of history, truly: and far too comprehensive forgeneral comment here. Only one small piece of it I must carry forwardthe readers' thoughts upon. 

38. The pastors and teachers aforesaid, (represented typically inanother 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 ofthe children's own inventing. "Robin" is a classically endearingcognomen, recording the _errant_ heroism of old days--the name of theBruce and of Rob Roy. "Bobbin" is a poetical and symmetrical fulfillmentand adornment of the original phrase. "Ailie" is the last echo of "Ave, "changed into the softest Scottish Christian name familiar to thechildren, itself the beautiful feminine form of royal "Louis"; the"Dailie" again symmetrically added for kinder and more musicalendearment. The last vestiges, you see, of honor for the heroism andreligion of their ancestors, lingering on the lips of babes andsucklings. 

But what is the meaning of this necessity the children find themselvesunder of completing the nomenclature rhythmically and rhymingly? Notefirst the difference carefully, and the attainment of both qualities bythe couplets in question. Rhythm is the syllabic and quantitativemeasure of the words, in which Robin both in weight and time, balancesBobbin; and Dailie holds level scale with Ailie. But rhyme is the addedcorrespondence of sound; unknown and undesired, so far as we can learn, by the Greek Orpheus, but absolutely essential to, and, as specialvirtue, becoming titular of, the Scottish Thomas. 

39. The "Ryme, "[64] you may at first fancy, is the especially childishpart of the work. Not so. It is the especially chivalric and Christianpart of it. It characterizes the Christian chant or canticle, as ahigher thing than a Greek ode, melos, or hymnos, or than a Latin carmen. 

Think of it; for this again is wonderful! That these children ofMontrose should have an element of music in their souls which Homer hadnot, --which a melos of David the Prophet and King had not, --whichOrpheus and Amphion had not, --which Apollo's unrymed oracles became muteat the sound of. 

A strange new equity this, --melodious justice and judgment, as itwere, --in all words spoken solemnly and ritualistically by Christianhuman creatures;--Robin and Bobbin--by the Crusader's tomb, up to "Diesirć, dies illa, " at judgment of the crusading soul. 

You have to understand this most deeply of all Christian minstrels, fromfirst to last; that they are more musical, because more joyful, than anyothers on earth: ethereal minstrels, pilgrims of the sky, true to thekindred points of heaven and home; their joy essentially the sky-lark's, in light, in purity; but, with their human eyes, looking for theglorious appearing of something in the sky, which the bird cannot. 

This it is that changes Etruscan murmur into Terza rima--Horatian Latininto Provençal troubadour's melody; not, because less artful, less wise. 

40. Here is a little bit, for instance, of French ryming just beforeChaucer's time--near enough to our own French to be intelligible to usyet. 

 "O quant trčs-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 ŕ faire: Pour se conclut-il que Marie Qui estoit ŕ 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 jŕ 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 lineshall 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 Latinmostly 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 avowel:

 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, Ithink, 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 metersmay be timed as the minstrel chooses--fast or slow--and the iambiccurrent checked in reverted eddy, as the words chance to come. 

But, thirdly, there is to be rich ryming and chiming, no matter howsimply got, so only that the words jingle and tingle together with dueart of interlacing and answering in different parts of the stanza, correspondent to the involutions of tracery and illumination. The wholetwelve-line stanza is thus constructed with two rymes only, six of each, thus arranged:

 A A B | A A B | B B A | B B A |

dividing the verse thus into four measures, reversed in ascent anddescent, or _descant_ more properly; and doubtless with correspondentphases 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 theChristian ages; which is always at heart joyful, and divides itself intothe four great forms; Song of Praise, Song of Prayer, Song of Love, andSong of Battle; praise, however, being the keynote of passion throughall the four forms; according to the first law which I have alreadygiven in the "Laws of Fésole"; "all great Art is Praise, " of which thecontrary is also true, all foul or miscreant Art is accusation, [Greek:diabolę]: "She gave me of the tree and I did eat" being an entirelymuseless expression on Adam's part, the briefly essential contrary ofLove-song. 

With these four perfect forms of Christian chant, of which we may takefor pure examples the "Te Deum, " the "Te Lucis Ante, " the "Amor chenella mente, "[66] and the "Chant de Roland, " are mingled songs ofmourning, of Pagan origin (whether Greek or Danish), holding grasp stillof the races that have once learned them, in times of suffering andsorrow; and songs of Christian humiliation or grief, regarding chieflythe sufferings of Christ, or the conditions of our own sin: whilethrough the entire system of these musical complaints are interwovenmoralities, instructions, and related histories, in illustration ofboth, passing into Epic and Romantic verse, which gradually, as theforms and learnings of society increase, becomes less joyful, and moredidactic, or satiric, until the last echoes of Christian joy and melodyvanish in the "Vanity of human wishes. "

43. And here I must pause for a minute or two to separate the differentbranches of our inquiry clearly from one another. For one thing, thereader must please put for the present out of his head all thought ofthe progress of "civilization"--that is to say, broadly, of thesubstitution of wigs for hair, gas for candles, and steam for legs. Thisis an entirely distinct matter from the phases of policy and religion. It has nothing to do with the British Constitution, or the FrenchRevolution, or the unification of Italy. There are, indeed, certainsubtle relations between the state of mind, for instance, in Venice, which makes her prefer a steamer to a gondola, and that which makes herprefer a gazetteer to a duke; but these relations are not at all to bedealt with until we solemnly understand that whether men shall beChristians and poets, or infidels and dunces, does not depend on the waythey 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 QueenBertha's savagely loose hair, the cause of Antoinette's laying her headat last in scaffold dust, but Bertha in a pilgrim-haunted tomb. 

44. Again, I have just now used the words "poet" and "dunce, " meaningthe degree of each quality possible to average human nature. Men areeternally divided into the two classes of poet (believer, maker, andpraiser) and dunce (or unbeliever, unmaker, and dispraiser). And inprocess of ages they have the power of making faithful and formativecreatures of themselves, or unfaithful and _de_-formative. And thisdistinction between the creatures who, blessing, are blessed, andevermore _benedicti_, and the creatures who, cursing, are cursed, andevermore maledicti, is one going through all humanity; antediluvian inCain and Abel, diluvian in Ham and Shem. And the question for the publicof any given period is not whether they are a constitutional orunconstitutional vulgus, but whether they are a benignant or malignantvulgus. So also, whether it is indeed the gods who have given anygentleman the grace to despise the rabble, depends wholly on whether itis 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 thosewhom it has condemned to the hour of detestableness, being, as I havejust said, of all times and nations, --it is an interior and moredelicate difference which we are examining in the gift of _Christian_ asdistinguished from unchristian, song. Orpheus, Pindar, and Horace areindeed distinct from the prosaic rabble, as the bird from the snake; butbetween Orpheus and Palestrina, Horace and Sidney, there is anotherdivision, and a new power of music and song given to the humanity whichhas 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 manneras this hope disappears, the power of song is taken away, and taken awayutterly. "When the Christian falls back out of the bright hope of theResurrection, even the Orpheus song is forbidden him. Not to have knownthe hope is blameless: one may sing, unknowing, as the swan, orPhilomela. But to have known and fall away from it, and to declare thatthe human wishes, which are summed in that one--"Thy kingdom come"--arevain! The Fates ordain there shall be no singing after that denial. 

46. For observe this, and earnestly. The old Orphic song, with its dimhope of yet once more Eurydice, --the Philomela song--granted after thecruel silence, --the Halcyon song--with its fifteen days of peace, wereall sad, or joyful only in some vague vision of conquest over death. Butthe Johnsonian vanity of wishes is on the whole satisfactory toJohnson--accepted with gentlemanly resignation by Pope--triumphantly andwith bray of penny trumpets and blowing of steam-whistles, proclaimedfor the glorious discovery of the civilized ages, by Mrs. Barbauld, MissEdgeworth, Adam Smith, and Co. There is no God, but have we not inventedgunpowder?--who wants a God, with that in his pocket?[68] There is noResurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but have we not paper and pens, and cannot every blockhead print his opinions, and the Day of Judgmentbecome Republican, with everybody for a judge, and the flat of theuniverse for the throne? There is no law, but only gravitation andcongelation, and we are stuck together in an everlasting hail, andmelted together in everlasting mud, and great was the day in which ourworships were born. And there is no gospel, but only, whatever we'vegot, to get more, and, wherever we are, to go somewhere else. And arenot these discoveries, to be sung of, and drummed of, and fiddled of, and generally made melodiously indubitable in the eighteenth centurysong of praise?

47. The Fates will not have it so. No word of song is possible, in thatcentury, to mortal lips. Only polished versification, sententiouspentameter and hexameter, until, having turned out its toes long enoughwithout dancing, and pattered with its lips long enough without piping, suddenly Astrća returns to the earth, and a Day of Judgment of a sort, and there bursts out a song at last again, a most curtly melodioustriplet of Amphisbćnic ryme, "_Ça ira_. "

Amphisbćnic, fanged in each ryme with fire, and obeying Ercildoune'sprecept, "Tong is chefe of mynstrelsye, " to the syllable. --DonGiovanni's hitherto fondly chanted "Andiam, andiam, " becomesuddenly impersonal and prophetic: IT shall go, and you also. Acry--before it is a song, then song and accompanimenttogether--perfectly done; and the march "towards the field of Mars. Thetwo hundred and fifty thousand--they to the sound of stringedmusic--preceded by young girls with tricolor streamers, they haveshouldered soldierwise their shovels and picks, and with one throat aresinging _Ça ira_. "[69]

Through all the springtime of 1790, from Brittany to Burgundy, on mostplains of France, under most city walls, there march andconstitutionally wheel to the Ça-iraing mood of fife and drum--our clearglancing phalanxes;--the song of the two hundred and fifty thousand, virgin-led, is in the long light of July. Nevertheless, another song isyet needed, for phalanx, and for maid. For, two springs and summershaving gone--amphisbćnic, --on the 28th of August, 1792, "Dumouriez rodefrom the camp of Maulde, eastwards to _Sedan_. "[70]

48. "And Longwi has fallen basely, and Brunswick and the Prussian kingwill beleaguer Verdun, and Clairfait and the Austrians press deeper inover the northern marches, Cimmerian Europe behind. And on that samenight Dumouriez assembles council of war at his lodgings in Sedan. Prussians here, Austrians there, triumphant both. With broad highway toParis and little hindrance--_we_ scattered, helpless here andthere--what to advise?" The generals advise retreating, and retreatingtill Paris be sacked at the latest day possible. Dumouriez, silent, dismisses _them_, --keeps only, with a sign, Thouvenot. Silent thus, whenneedful, yet having voice, it appears, of what musicians call tenorquality, of a rare kind. Rubini-esque, even, but scarcely producible tothe fastidious ears at opera. The seizure of the forest of Argonnefollows--the cannonade of Valmy. The Prussians do not march on Paris_this_ time, the autumnal hours of fate pass on--_ça ira_--and on the6th of November, Dumouriez meets the Austrians also. "Dumouriezwide-winged, they wide-winged--at and around Jemappes, its green heightsfringed and maned with red fire. And Dumouriez is swept back on thiswing and swept back on that, and is like to be swept back utterly, whenhe rushes up in person, speaks a prompt word or two, and then, withclear tenor-pipe, uplifts the hymn of the Marseillaise, ten thousandtenor or bass pipes joining, or say some forty thousand in all, forevery heart leaps up at the sound; and so, with rhythmic march melody, they rally, they advance, they rush death-defying, and like the firewhirlwind sweep all manner of Austrians from the scene of action. " Thus, through the lips of Dumouriez, sings Tyrtćus, Rouget de Lisle. [71] "Auxarmes--marchons. " Iambic measure with a witness! in what wide strophehere beginning--in what unthought-of antistrophe returning to thatcouncil chamber in Sedan!

49. While these two great songs were thus being composed, and sung, anddanced to in cometary cycle, by the French nation, here in our lessgiddy island there rose, amidst hours of business in Scotland and ofidleness 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 thismain point--that while the _Ca ira_ and Marseillaise were essentiallysongs of blame and wrath, the British bards wrote, virtually, alwayssongs of praise, though by no means psalmody in the ancient keys. On thecontrary, all the three are alike moved by a singular antipathy to thepriests, and are pointed at with fear and indignation by the pietists, of their day;--not without latent cause. For they are all of them, withthe most loving service, servants of that world which the Puritan andmonk alike despised; and, in the triple chord of their song, could notbut appear to the religious persons around them as respectively andspecifically the praisers--Scott of the world, Burns of the flesh, andByron of the devil. 

To contend with this carnal orchestra, the religious world, having longago rejected its Catholic Psalms as antiquated and unscientific, andfinding its Puritan melodies sunk into faint jar and twangle from theirnative trumpet-tone, had nothing to oppose but the innocent, rather thanreligious, verses of the school recognized as that of the English Lakes;very creditable to them; domestic at once and refined; observing theerrors of the world outside of the Lakes with a pitying and tenderindignation, and arriving in lacustrine seclusion at many valuableprinciples of philosophy, as pure as the tarns of their mountains, andof corresponding depth. [72]

50. I have lately seen, and with extreme pleasure, Mr. Matthew Arnold'sarrangement of Wordsworth's poems; and read with sincere interest hishigh estimate of them. But a great poet's work never needs arrangementby other hands; and though it is very proper that Silver How shouldclearly understand and brightly praise its fraternal Rydal Mount, wemust not forget that, over yonder, are the Andes, all the while. 

Wordsworth's rank and scale among poets were determined by himself, in asingle exclamation:

 "What was the great Parnassus' self to thee, Mount Skiddaw?"

Answer his question faithfully, and you have the relation between thegreat masters of the Muse's teaching and the pleasant fingerer of hispastoral flute among the reeds of Rydal. 

Wordsworth is simply a Westmoreland peasant, with considerably lessshrewdness than most border Englishmen or Scotsmen inherit; and no senseof humor: but gifted (in this singularly) with vivid sense of naturalbeauty, and a pretty turn for reflections, not always acute, but, as faras they reach, medicinal to the fever of the restless and corrupted lifearound him. Water to parched lips may be better than Samian wine, but donot let us therefore confuse the qualities of wine and water. I muchdoubt there being many inglorious Miltons in our country churchyards;but I am very sure there are many Wordsworths resting there, who wereinferior to the renowned one only in caring less to hear themselvestalk. 

With an honest and kindly heart, a stimulating egoism, a wholesomecontentment in modest circumstances, and such sufficient ease, in thataccepted state, as permitted the passing of a good deal of time inwishing that daisies could see the beauty of their own shadows, andother such profitable mental exercises, Wordsworth has left us a seriesof studies of the graceful and happy shepherd life of our lake country, which to me personally, for one, are entirely sweet and precious; butthey are only so as the mirror of an existent reality in many ways morebeautiful than its picture. 

51. But the other day I went for an afternoon's rest into the cottage ofone of our country people of old statesman class; cottage lying nearlymidway between two village churches, but more conveniently for downhillwalk towards one than the other. I found, as the good housewife made teafor me, that nevertheless she went up the hill to church. "Why do notyou 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'tleave 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 ofCumberland only, but of all the tender earth that gives forth her fruitfor the living, and receives her dead to peace, might perhaps have been, to our great and endless comfort, discovered before now, if Wordsworthhad 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 simplyas a country gentleman of sense and feeling, fond of primroses, kind tothe parish children, and reverent of the spade with which Wilkinson hadtilled his lands: and I am by no means sure that his influence on thestronger minds of his time was anywise hastened or extended by thespirit of tunefulness under whose guidance he discovered that heavenrymed to seven, and Foy to boy. 

52. Tuneful nevertheless at heart, and of the heavenly choir, I gladlyand frankly acknowledge him; and our English literature enriched with anew and a singular virtue in the aërial purity and healthful rightnessof his quiet song;--but _aërial_ only, --not ethereal; and lowly in itsprivacy of light. 

A measured mind, and calm; innocent, unrepentant; helpful to sinlesscreatures and scathless, such of the flock as do not stray. Hopeful atleast, if not faithful; content with intimations of immortality such asmay be in skipping of lambs, and laughter of children--incurious to seein 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 anddistress, of the greater souls of men, as the tufted thyme to thelaurel wilderness of Tempe, --as the gleaming euphrasy to the darkbranches 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. ]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 62: August, 1880. ]

[Footnote 63: The following fragments out of the letters in my ownpossession, written by Scott to the builder of Abbotsford, as the outerdecorations of the house were in process of completion, will show howaccurately Scott had pictured himself in Monkbarns. 

 "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. "]

[Footnote 64: Henceforward, not in affectation, but for the reader'sbetter convenience, I shall continue to spell "Ryme" without our wronglyadded _h_. ]

[Footnote 65: L. Ii. 278. ]

[Footnote 66: "Che nella mente mia _ragiona_. " Love--you observe, thehighest _Reasonableness_, instead of French _ivresse_, or evenShakespearian "mere folly"; and Beatrice as the Goddess of Wisdom inthis third song of the _Convito_, to be compared with the RevolutionaryGoddess of Reason; remembering of the whole poem chiefly the line:--

 "Costei penso chi che mosso l'universo. "

(See Lyell's "Canzoniere, " p. 104. )]

[Footnote 67: [Greek: hôran tęs térpsios]--Plato, "Laws, " ii. , Steph. 669. "Hour" having here nearly the power of "Fate" with added sense ofbeing a daughter of Themis. ]

[Footnote 68: "Gunpowder is one of the greatest inventions of moderntimes, _and what has given such a superiority to civilized nations overbarbarous_"! ("Evenings at Home"--fifth evening. ) No man can owe morethan I both to Mrs. Barbauld and Miss Edgeworth; and I only wish that inthe substance of what they wisely said, they had been more listened to. Nevertheless, the germs of all modern conceit and error respectingmanufacture and industry, as rivals to Art and to Genius, areconcentrated in "Evenings at Home" and "Harry and Lucy"--being all thewhile themselves works of real genius, and prophetic of things that haveyet to be learned and fulfilled. See for instance the paper, "Things bytheir 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. "]

[Footnote 69: Carlyle, "French Revolution" (Chapman, 1869), vol. Ii. P. 70; conf. P. 25, and the _Ça ira_ at Arras, vol. Iii. P. 276. ]

[Footnote 70: _Ibid. _ iii. 26. ]

[Footnote 71: Carlyle, "French Revolution, " iii. 106, the last sentencealtered in a word or two. ]

[Footnote 72: I have been greatly disappointed, in taking soundings ofour most majestic mountain pools, to find them, in no case, verge on theunfathomable. ]

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 Duddonand child Rotha ran clear and glad; and laughed from ledge to pool, andopened from pool to mere, translucent, through endless days of peace. 

But eastward, between her orchard plains, Loire locked her embracingdead in silent sands; dark with blood rolled Iser; glacial-pale, Beresina-Lethe, by whose shore the weary hearts forgot their people, andtheir father's house. 

Nor unsullied, Tiber; nor unswoln, Arno and Aufidus; and Euroclydon highon Helle's wave; meantime, let our happy piety glorify the garden rockswith snowdrop circlet, and breathe the spirit of Paradise, where life iswise and innocent. 

Maps many have we, nowadays clear in display of earth constituent, aircurrent, and ocean tide. Shall we ever engrave the map of meanerresearch, whose shadings shall content themselves in the task of showingthe 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 thesource of all that is noble in the speech of Man. Had it narrowed itselfthen, in those days, out of all the world, into this peninsula betweenCockermouth and Shap?

Not altogether so; but indeed the _Vocal_ piety seemed conclusively tohave retired (or excursed?) into that mossy hermitage, above LittleLangdale. The _Un_vocal piety, with the uncomplaining sorrow, of Man, may have a somewhat wider range, for aught we know: but historydisregards those items; and of firmly proclaimed and sweetly canorousreligion, there really seemed at that juncture none to be reckoned upon, east of Ingleborough, or north of Criffel. Only under Furness Fells, orby Bolton Priory, it seems we can still write Ecclesiastical Sonnets, stanzas on the force of Prayer, Odes to Duty, and complimentaryaddresses to the Deity upon His endurance for adoration. Far otherwise, over yonder, by Spezzia Bay, and Ravenna Pineta, and in ravines ofHartz. There, the softest voices speak the wildest words; and Keatsdiscourses of Endymion, Shelley of Demogorgon, Goethe of Lucifer, andBurger of the Resurrection of Death unto Death--while even PuritanScotland and Episcopal Anglia produce for us only these three minstrelsof doubtful tone, who show but small respect for the "unco guid, " putbut limited faith in gifted Gilfillan, and translate with unflinchingfrankness the _Morgante Maggiore_. [74]

55. Dismal the aspect of the spiritual world, or at least the sound ofit, might well seem to the eyes and ears of Saints (such as we had) ofthe period--dismal in angels' eyes also assuredly! Yet is it possiblethat the dismalness in angelic sight may be otherwise quartered, as itwere, from the way of mortal heraldry; and that seen, and heard, ofangels, --again I say--hesitatingly--_is_ it possible that the goodnessof the Unco Guid, and the gift of Gilfillan, and the word of Mr. Blattergowl, may severally not have been the goodness of God, the giftof God, nor the word of God: but that in the much blotted and brokenefforts at goodness, and in the careless gift which they themselvesdespised, [75] and in the sweet ryme and murmur of their unpurposedwords, the Spirit of the Lord had, indeed, wandering, as in chaos dayson lightless waters, gone forth in the hearts and from the lips of thoseother three strange prophets, even though they ate forbidden bread bythe altar of the poured-out ashes, and even though the wild beast of thedesert found them, and slew. 

This, at least, I know, that it had been well for England, though allher other prophets, of the Press, the Parliament, the Doctor's chair, and the Bishop's throne, had fallen silent; so only that she had beenable to understand with her heart here and there the simplest line ofthese, 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, withtruth, that its clouds took a sober coloring in consequence of hisexperiences. It is much if, indeed, this sadness be unselfish, and oureyes _have_ kept loving watch o'er Man's Mortality. I have found itdifficult to make anyone nowadays believe that such sobriety can be; andthat Turner saw deeper crimson than others in the clouds of Goldau. Butthat any should yet think the clouds brightened by Man's _Im_mortalityinstead of dulled by his death, --and, gazing on the sky, look for theday when every eye must gaze also--for behold, He cometh withclouds--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! howshould such as he think of Christ?

Perhaps not wholly as you or I think of Him. Take, at chance, anotherline 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? Thefirst line I gave you was easy Byron--almost shallow Byron--these are ofthe man in his depth, and you will not fathom them, like a tarn--nor ina hurry. 

"Just now behaved as in the Holy Land. " How _did_ Carnage behave in theHoly Land then? You have all been greatly questioning, of late, whetherthe sun, which you find to be now going out, ever stood still. Did youin any lagging minute, on those scientific occasions, chance to reflectwhat he was bid stand still _for_? or if not--will you please look--andwhat also, going forth again as a strong man to run his course, he saw, rejoicing?

"Then Joshua passed from Makkedah unto Libnah--and fought againstLibnah. And the Lord delivered it and the king thereof into the hand ofIsrael, and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the soulsthat were therein. " And from Lachish to Eglon, and from Eglon toKirjath-Arba, and Sarah's grave in the Amorites' land, "and Joshua smoteall the country of the hills and of the south--and of the vale and ofthe springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterlydestroyed 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 thesins 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 Godhas taken it at its word. But Death is not _His_ Begotten Son, for allthat; nor is the death of the innocent in battle carnage His "instrumentfor working out a pure intent" as Mr. Wordsworth puts it; but Man'sinstrument for working out an impure one, as Byron would have you toknow. Theology perhaps less orthodox, but certainly morereverent;--neither is the Woolwich Infant a Child of God; neither doesthe iron-clad "Thunderer" utter thunders of God--which facts if you hadhad the grace or sense to learn from Byron, instead of accusing him ofblasphemy, it had been better at this day for _you_, and for many asavage soul also, by Euxine shore, and in Zulu and Afghan lands. 

59. It was neither, however, for the theology, nor the use, of theselines that I quoted them; but to note this main point of Byron's owncharacter. He was the first great Englishman who felt the cruelty ofwar, and, in its cruelty, the shame. Its guilt had been known to GeorgeFox--its folly shown practically by Penn. But the _compassion_ of thepious world had still for the most part been shown only in keeping itsstock of Barabbases unhanged if possible: and, till Byron came, neitherKunersdorf, Eylau, nor Waterloo, had taught the pity and the pride ofmen 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 theEdinburgh volunteers on Portobello sands. But Byron can write a battlesong too, when it is _his_ cue to fight. If you look at the introductionto the "Isles of Greece, " namely the 85th and 86th stanzas of the 3rdcanto of "Don Juan, "--you will find--what will you _not_ find, if onlyyou understand them! "He" in the first line, remember, means the typicalmodern 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 andforetelling power. The "God Save the Queen" in England, fallen hollownow, as the "Ca ira" in France--not a man in France knowing where eitherFrance or "that" (whatever "that" may be) is going to; nor the Queen ofEngland daring, for her life, to ask the tiniest Englishman to do asingle thing he doesn't like;--nor any salvation, either of Queen orRealm, being any more possible to God, unless under the direction of theRoyal 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, thepoetic power of France--resumed in a word--Béranger; then the cut atMarmion, entirely deserved, as we shall see, yet kindly given, foreverything he names in these two stanzas is the best of its kind; then'Romance in Spain on--the _last_ war, (_present_ war not being toSpanish poetical taste, ) then, Goethe the real heart of all Germany, andlast, the aping of the Trecentisti which has since consummated itself inPre-Raphaelitism! that also being the best thing Italy has done throughEngland, whether in Rossetti's "blessed damozels" or Burne Jones's "daysof creation. " Lastly comes the mock at himself--the modern EnglishGreek--(followed up by the "degenerate into hands like mine" in the songitself); and then--to amazement, forth he thunders in hisAchilles-voice. We have had one line of him in his clearness--five ofhim in his depth--sixteen of him in his play. Hear now but these, out ofhis 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 ofByron was in this passage. First its compassion, then its indignation, and the third element, not yet examined, that love of the beauty of thisworld in which the three--unholy--children, of its Fiery Furnace werelike to each other; but Byron the widest-hearted. Scott and Burns loveScotland more than Nature itself: for Burns the moon must rise overCumnock 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 murmursof the Dee and the Bruar change into voices of the dead on distantMarathon. 

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 fallof 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 thegreat masters, does not a sense come upon you of some element in theirpassion, no less than in their sound, different, specifically, from thatof "Parching summer hath no warrant"? Is it more profane, think you--ormore 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 quitelogically accounted for by the previous statement, (itself by no meansrythmically 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 atleisure, and in a reclining attitude--as compared with the meditationsof otherwise active men, in an erect one? Or are we perchance, many ofus, still erring somewhat in our notions alike of Divinity andHumanity, --poetical extraction, and moral position?

63. On the chance of its being so, might I ask hearing for just a fewwords more of the school of Belial?

Their occasion, it must be confessed, is a quite unjustifiable one. Somevery wicked people--mutineers, in fact--have retired, misanthropically, into an unfrequented part of the country, and there find themselves safeindeed, 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 concerninghis trade, having also looked at a waterfall or two in my time, and notunfrequently at a wave, to assure the reader that here is entirelyfirst-rate literary work. Though Lucifer himself had written it, thething is itself good, and not only so, but unsurpassedly good, theclosing line being probably the best concerning the sea yet written bythe race of the sea-kings. 

64. But Lucifer himself _could_ not have written it; neither any servantof Lucifer. I do not doubt but that most readers were surprised at mysaying, in the close of my first paper, that Byron's "style" depended inany wise on his views respecting the Ten Commandments. That soall-important a thing as "style" should depend in the least upon soridiculous a thing as moral sense: or that Allegra's father, watchingher drive by in Count G. 's coach and six, had any remnant of soridiculous a thing to guide, --or check, --his poetical passion, may alikeseem more than questionable to the liberal and chaste philosophy of theexisting British public. But, first of all, putting the question of whowrites or speaks aside, do you, good reader, _know_ good "style" whenyou get it? Can you say, of half a dozen given lines taken anywhere outof a novel, or poem, or play, That is good, essentially, in style, orbad, essentially? and can you say why such half-dozen lines are good, orbad?

65. I imagine that in most cases, the reply would be given withhesitation, yet if you will give me a little patience, and take someaccurate pains, I can show you the main tests of style in the space of acouple of pages. 

I take two examples of absolutely perfect, and in manner highest, _i. E. _, kingly, and heroic, style: the first example in expression ofanger, 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 toboth these passages, so opposite in temper. 

A. Absolute command over all passion, however intense; this thefirst-of-first conditions, (see the King's own sentence just before, "Weare no tyrant, but a Christian King, Unto _whose grace_ our passion isas subject As are our wretches fettered in our prisons"); and with thisself-command, the supremely surveying grasp of every thought that is tobe uttered, before its utterance; so that each may come in its exactplace, time, and connection. The slightest hurry, the misplacing of aword, 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 thecompass of the language, to express the thing meant: these few wordsbeing also arranged in the most straightforward and intelligible way;allowing inversion only when the subject can be made primary withoutobscurity: (thus, "his present, and your pains, we thank you for" isbetter than "we thank you for his present and your pains, " because theDauphin's gift is by courtesy put before the Ambassador's pains; but"when to these balls our rackets we have matched" would have spoiled thestyle in a moment, because--I was going to have said, ball and racketare of equal rank, and therefore only the natural order proper; but alsohere the natural order is the desired one, the English racket to haveprecedence of the French ball). In the fourth line the "in France" comesfirst, as announcing the most important resolution of action; the "byGod'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 everyword not absolutely required; and natural use of the familiarcontractions of final dissyllable. Thus "play a set shall strike" isbetter than "play a set _that_ shall strike, " and "match'd" is kinglyshort--no necessity of meter could have excused "matched" instead. Onthe contrary, the three first words, "We are glad, " would have beenspoken by the king more slowly and fully than any other syllables in thewhole passage, first pronouncing the kingly "we" at its proudest, andthen the "are" as a continuous state, and then the "glad, " as the exactcontrary of what the ambassadors expected him to be. [80]

D. Absolute spontaneity in doing all this, easily and necessarily as theheart beats. The king _cannot_ speak otherwise than he does--nor thehero. The words not merely come to them, but are compelled to them. Evenlisping numbers "come, " but mighty numbers are ordained, and inspired. 

E. Melody in the words, changeable with their passion, fitted to itexactly, and the utmost of which the language is capable--the melody inprose being Eolian and variable--in verse, nobler by submitting itselfto stricter law. I will enlarge upon this point presently. 

F. Utmost spiritual contents in the words; so that each carries not onlyits instant meaning, but a cloudy companionship of higher or darkermeaning 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 directepithet ("coffined" for dead) but always indicative of there being morein the speaker's mind than he has said, or than he can say, full thoughhis saying be. On the quantity of this attendant fullness depends themajesty of style; that is to say, virtually, on the quantity ofcontained thought in briefest words, such thought being primarily lovingand true: and this the sum of all--that nothing can be well said, butwith truth, nor beautifully, but by love. 

68. These are the essential conditions of noble speech in prose andverse alike, but the adoption of the form of verse, and especially rymedverse, means the addition to all these qualities of one more; of music, that is to say, not Eolian merely, but Apolline; a construction orarchitecture of words fitted and befitting, under external laws of timeand harmony. 

When Byron says "rhyme is of the rude, "[81] he means that Burns needsit, --while Henry the Fifth does not, nor Plato, nor Isaiah--yet in thisneed of it by the simple, it becomes all the more religious: and thusthe loveliest pieces of Christian language are all in ryme--the best ofDante, Chaucer, Douglas, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Sidney. 

69. I am not now able to keep abreast with the tide of modernscholarship; (nor, to say the truth, do I make the effort, the firstedge of its waves being mostly muddy, and apt to make a shallow sweep ofthe shore refuse:) so that I have no better book of reference by me thanthe confused essay on the antiquity of ryme at the end of Turner's"Anglo-Saxons. " I cannot however conceive a more interesting piece ofwork, if not yet done, than the collection of sifted earliest fragmentsknown of rymed song in European languages. Of Eastern I know nothing;but, this side Hellespont, the substance of the matter is all given inKing 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 theirSunday the eclipse of the week. And observe further, that if Milton doesnot 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 intothe 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, asbefits 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 thatlaw after reading these nobly pious words? And note you _whose_humility? How is it that the sound of the bell comes so instinctivelyinto his chiming verse? This gentle singer is the son of--ArchibaldBell-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 butperceive the relation between the sweetness, simplicity, and melody ofexpression in these passages, and the gentleness of the passions theyexpress, while men who are not scholastic, and yet are true scholars, will recognize further in them that the simplicity of the educated islovelier than the simplicity of the rude. Hear next a piece of Spenser'steaching how rudeness itself may become more beautiful even by itsmistakes, 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 totest 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 turnto Byron, and glance over, or recall to memory, enough of him to givemeans of exact comparison, you will, or should, recognize thesefollowing kinds of mischief in him. First, if anyone offends him--as forinstance Mr. Southey, or Lord Elgin--"his manners have not that reposethat marks the caste, " etc. _This_ defect in his Lordship's style, beingmyself scrupulously and even painfully reserved in the use ofvituperative language, I need not say how deeply I deplore. [85]

Secondly. In the best and most violet-bedded bits of his work there isyet, as compared with Elizabethan and earlier verse, a strange taint; anindefinable--evening flavor of Covent Garden, as it were;--not to say, escape of gas in the Strand. That is simply what it proclaimsitself--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 cometo 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 jestsadder than his earnest; while, in Elizabethan work, all lament is fullof hope, and all pain of balsam. 

Of this evil he has himself told you the cause in a single lineprophetic of all things since and now. "Where _he_ gazed, a gloompervaded space. "[86]

So that, for instance, while Mr. Wordsworth, on a visit to town, beingan exemplary early riser, could walk, felicitous, on Westminster Bridge, remarking how the city now did like a garment wear the beauty of themorning; Byron, rising somewhat later, contemplated only the garmentwhich the beauty of the morning had by that time received for wear fromthe city: and again, while Mr. Wordsworth, in irrepressible religiousrapture, calls God to witness that the houses seem asleep, Byron, lamedemon as he was, flying smoke-drifted, unroofs the houses at a glance, and sees what the mighty cockney heart of them contains in the stilllying 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 joineda sense of the material beauty, both of inanimate nature, the loweranimals, and human beings, which in the iridescence, color-depth, andmorbid (I use the word deliberately) mystery and softness of it, --withother qualities indescribable by any single words, and only to beanalyzed by extreme care, --is found, to the full, only in five men thatI know of in modern times; namely, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Turner, andmyself, --differing totally and throughout the entire group of us, fromthe delight in clear-struck beauty of Angelico and the Trecentisti; andseparated, 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 andDiabolic Bridges which Dante would have condemned none but lost souls toclimb, or cross;--all this love of impending mountains, coiledthunder-clouds, and dangerous sea, being joined in us with a sulky, almost ferine, love of retreat in valleys of Charmettes, gulfs ofSpezzia, ravines of Olympus, low lodgings in Chelsea, and closebrushwood at Coniston. 

74. And, lastly, also in the whole group of us, glows volcanic instinctof Astrćan justice returning not to, but up out of, the earth, whichwill not at all suffer us to rest any more in Pope's serene "whateveris, is right"; but holds, on the contrary, profound conviction thatabout ninety-nine hundredths of whatever at present is, is wrong:conviction making four of us, according to our several manners, leadersof revolution for the poor, and declarers of political doctrinemonstrous to the ears of mercenary mankind; and driving the fifth, lesssanguine, into mere painted-melody of lament over the fallacy of Hopeand the implacableness of Fate. 

In Byron the indignation, the sorrow, and the effort are joined to thedeath: and they are the parts of his nature (as of mine also in itsfeebler terms), which the selfishly comfortable public have, literally, no conception of whatever; and from which the piously sentimentalpublic, 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 moreprecise illustration in my next paper; but, seeing that this present onehas been hitherto somewhat somber, and perhaps, to gentle readers, not alittle discomposing, I will conclude it with a piece of light biographicstudy, necessary to my plan, and as conveniently admissible in thisplace as afterwards;--namely, the account of the manner in whichScott--whom we shall always find, as aforesaid, to be in salient andpalpable elements of character, of the World, worldly, as Burns is ofthe Flesh, fleshly, and Byron of the Deuce, damnable, --spent his Sunday. 

76. As usual, from Lockhart's farrago we cannot find out the first thingwe want to know, --whether Scott worked after his week-day custom, on theSunday morning. But, I gather, not; at all events his household and hiscattle rested (L. Iii. 108). I imagine he walked out into his woods, orread quietly in his study. Immediately after breakfast, whoever was inthe house, "Ladies and gentlemen, I shall read prayers at eleven, whenI expect you all to attend" (vii. 306). Question of college and otherexternally unanimous prayer settled for us very briefly: "if you have nofaith, have at least manners. " He read the Church of England service, lessons and all, the latter, if interesting, eloquently (_ibid. _). Afterthe service, one of Jeremy Taylor's sermons (vi. 188). After sermon, ifthe weather was fine, walk with his family, dogs included and guests, to_cold_ picnic (iii. 109), followed by short extempore biblicalnovelettes; for he had his Bible, the Old Testament especially, byheart, it having been his mother's last gift to him (vi. 174). Theselessons to his children in Bible history were always given, whetherthere was picnic or not. For the rest of the afternoon he took hispleasure in the woods with Tom Purdie, who also always appeared at hismaster's elbow on Sunday after dinner was over, and drank long life tothe laird and his lady and all the good company, in a quaigh of whiskyor a tumbler of wine, according to his fancy (vi. 195). Whatever mighthappen on the other evenings of the week, Scott always dined at home onSunday; and with old friends: never, unless inevitably, receiving anyperson with whom he stood on ceremony (v. 335). He came into the roomrubbing his hands like a boy arriving at home for the holidays, hisPeppers and Mustards gamboling about him, "and even the stately Maidagrinning and wagging his tail with sympathy. " For the usquebaugh of theless honored week-days, at the Sunday board he circulated the champagnebriskly during dinner, and considered a pint of claret each man's fairshare afterwards (v. 339). In the evening, music being to the Scottishworldly mind indecorous, he read aloud some favorite author, for theamusement or edification of his little circle. Shakespeare it might be, or Dryden, --Johnson, or Joanna Baillie, --Crabbe, or Wordsworth. But inthose days "Byron was pouring out his spirit fresh and full, and if anew piece from _his_ hand had appeared, it was _sure to be read by Scottthe Sunday evening afterwards_; and that with such delighted emphasisas showed how completely the elder bard had kept up his enthusiasm forpoetry 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 inhaving Dandie Dinmont or Captain Brown for guests at Abbotsford, orColonel Mannering, Counselor Pleydell, and Dr. Robertson in CastleStreet, such was Scott's habitual Sabbath: a day, we perceive, of eatingthe fat, (_dinner_, presumably not cold, being a work of necessity andmercy--thou also, even thou, Saint Thomas of Turnbull, hast thine!) anddrinking the sweet, abundant in the manner of Mr. Southey's cataract ofLodore, --"Here it comes, sparkling. " A day bestrewn with coronatiöns andsops in wine; deep in libations to good hope and fond memory; a day ofrest to beast, and mirth to man, (as also to sympathetic beasts that canbe merry, ) and concluding itself in an Orphic hour of delight, signifying peace on Tweedside, and goodwill to men, there or faraway;--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 otherthings; of _these_, came such length of days and peace as Scott had inhis Fatherland, and such immortality as he has in all lands. 

78. Nathless, firm, though deeply courteous, rebuke, for his sometimesovermuch lightmindedness, was administered to him by the more grave andthoughtful Byron. For the Lord Abbot of Newstead knew his Bible by heartas well as Scott, though it had never been given him by his mother asher 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 toseek. 

And loving Scott well, and always doing him every possible pleasure inthe 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 ofhim before courtly audience, --he yet conceived that such cheap ryming ashis own "Bride of Abydos, " for instance, which he had written frombeginning to end in four days, or even the traveling reflections ofHarold and Juan on men and women, were scarcely steady enough Sundayafternoon's reading for a patriarch-Merlin like Scott. So he dedicatesto him a work of a truly religious tendency, on which for his own parthe has done his best, --the drama of "Cain. " Of which dedication thevirtual significance to Sir Walter might be translated thus. Dearest andlast of Border soothsayers, thou hast indeed told us of Black Dwarfs, and of White Maidens, also of Gray Friars, and Green Fairies; also ofsacred hollies by the well, and haunted crooks in the glen. But of thebushes that the black dogs rend in the woods of Phlegethon; and of thecrooks in the glen, and the bickerings of the burnie where ghosts meetthe mightiest of us; and of the black misanthrope, who is by no meansyet a dwarfed one, and concerning whom wiser creatures than HobbieElliot may tremblingly ask "Gude guide us, what's yon?" hast thou yetknown, seeing that thou hast yet told, _nothing_. 

Scott may perhaps have his answer. We shall in good time hear. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 73: September, 1880. ]

[Footnote 74: "It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, andverse for verse; and you will see what was permitted in a Catholiccountry and a bigoted age to Churchmen, on the score of Religion--and sotell those buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy. 

"I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and Imust go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone withthe 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. ) "Adreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife, exceptyour neighbor's. "]

[Footnote 75: See quoted _infra_ the mock, by Byron, of himself and allother modern poets, "Juan, " canto iii. Stanza 80, and compare canto xiv. Stanza 8. In reference of future quotations the first numeral will standalways for canto; the second for stanza; the third, if necessary, forline. ]

[Footnote 76: "Island, " ii. 16, where see context. ]

[Footnote 77: "Juan, " viii. 5; but, by your Lordship's quotation, Wordsworth says "instrument, "--not "daughter. " Your Lordship had betterhave said "Infant" and taken the Woolwich authorities to witness: onlyInfant would not have rymed. ]

[Footnote 78: "Juan, " viii. 3; compare 14, and 63, with all its lovelycontext 61-68: then 82, and afterwards slowly and with thoroughattention, the Devil's speech, beginning, "Yes, Sir, you forget" inscene 2 of "The Deformed Transformed": then Sardanapalus's, act i. Scene2, beginning, "he is gone, and on his finger bears my signet, " andfinally the "Vision of Judgment, " stanzas 3 to 5. ]

[Footnote 79: "Island, " iii. 3, and compare, of shore surf, the "slingsits high flakes, shivered into sleet" of stanza 7. ]

[Footnote 80: A modern editor--of whom I will not use the expressionswhich occur to me--finding the "we" a redundant syllable in the iambicline, prints, "we're. " It is a little thing--but I do not recollect, inthe forty years of my literary experience, any piece of editor's retouchquite so base. But I don't read the new editions much: that must beallowed for. ]

[Footnote 81: "Island, " ii. 5. I was going to say, "Look to thecontext, " 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?"]

[Footnote 82: "Shepherd's Calendar. " "Coronatiön, " loyal-pastoral forCarnation; "sops in wine, " jolly-pastoral for double pink; "paunce, "thoughtless pastoral for pansy; "chevisaunce, " I don't know (not inGerarde); "flowre-delice"--pronounce dellice--half made up of "delicate"and "delicious. "]

[Footnote 83: Herrick, "Dirge for Jephthah's Daughter. "]

[Footnote 84: "Passionate Pilgrim. "]

[Footnote 85: In this point compare the "Curse of Minerva" with the"Tears of the Muses. "]

[Footnote 86: "He, "--Lucifer; ("Vision of Judgment, " 24). It isprecisely because Byron was _not_ his servant, that he could see thegloom. To the Devil's true servants, their Master's presence brings bothcheerfulness and prosperity; with a delightful sense of their own wisdomand virtue; and of the "progress" of things in general:--in smooth seaand fair weather, --and with no need either of helm touch, or oar toil:as when once one is well within the edge of Maelstrom. ]

[Footnote 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 withdeeper than Evangelical humility, acknowledging also what is sordid inits civilization. ]

FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL. 

IV. [88]

79. I fear the editor of the _Nineteenth Century_ will get little thanksfrom his readers for allowing so much space in closely successivenumbers to my talk of old-fashioned men and things. I have neverthelessasked his indulgence, this time, for a note or two concerning yet olderfashions, in order to bring into sharper clearness the leading outlinesof literary fact, which I ventured only in my last paper to secure in_silhouette_, obscurely asserting itself against the limelight of recentmoral creed, and fiction manufacture. 

The Bishop of Manchester, on the occasion of the great Wordsworthianmovement in that city for the enlargement, adornment, and sale ofThirlmere, observed, in his advocacy of these operations, that very fewpeople, he supposed, had ever seen Tairlmere. His Lordship might havesupposed, with greater felicity, that very few people had ever readWordsworth. My own experience in that matter is that the amiable personswho call themselves "Wordsworthian" have read--usually a long timeago--"Lucy Gray, " "The April Mornings, " a picked sonnet or two, and the"Ode on the Intimations, " which last they seem generally to be under theimpression that nobody else has ever met with: and my further experienceof these sentimental students is, that they are seldom inclined to putin practice a single syllable of the advice tendered them by their modelpoet. 

Now, as I happen myself to have used Wordsworth as a daily text-bookfrom youth to age, and have lived, moreover, in all essential pointsaccording to the tenor of his teaching, it was matter of somemortification 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 ormeaning in what I was about; and that although my friend ProfessorRolleston occasionally sought the shades of our Rydalian laurels withexpressions of admiration, his professorial manner of "from pastoralgraves extracting thoughts divine" was to fill the Oxford Museum withthe 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, andwhat is not. Any man who chooses to live by his precepts will thankfullyfind in them a beauty and rightness, (_exquisite_ rightness I called it, in "Sesame and Lilies, ") which will preserve him alike from meanpleasure, vain hope, and guilty deed: so that he will neither mourn atthe gate of the fields which with covetous spirit he sold, nor drink ofthe waters which with yet more covetous spirit he stole, nor devour thebread of the poor in secret, nor set on his guest-table the poor man'slamb:--in all these homely virtues and assured justices let him beWordsworth's true disciple; and he will then be able with equanimity tohear it said, when there is need to say so, that his excellent masteroften wrote verses that were not musical, and sometimes expressedopinions that were not profound. 

And the need to say so becomes imperative when the unfinished verse, anduncorrected fancy, are advanced by the affection of his disciples intoplaces of authority where they give countenance to the popular nationalprejudices from the infection of which, in most cases, they themselvessprang. 

81. Take, for example, the following three and a half lines of the 38thEcclesiastical 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 areextremely bad iambics, --as ill-constructed as they are unmelodious; theturning and burning being at the wrong ends of them, and the endsthemselves put just when the sentence is in its middle. 

But a graver fault of these three and a half lines is that theamazement, the turning, the burning, and the banning, are all alikefictitious; and foul-fictitious, calumniously conceived no less thanfalsely. Not one of the spectators of the scene referred to was inreality amazed--not one contemptuous, not one maledictory. It is onlyour gentle minstrel of the meres who sits in the seat of thescornful--only the hermit of Rydal Mount who invokes the malison ofNature. 

What the scene verily was, and how witnessed, it will not take long totell; nor will the tale be useless: but I must first refer the reader toa period preceding, by nearly a century, the great symbolic action underthe porch of St. Mark's. 

82. The Protestant ecclesiastic, and infidel historian, who delight toprop their pride, or edge their malice, in unveiling the corruptionthrough which Christianity has passed, should study in every fragment ofauthentic record which the fury of their age has left, the lives of thethree queens of the Priesthood, Theodora, Marozia, and Matilda, and thefoundation 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 thecatastrophes of the stage, the awe at what is marvelous in human sorrowwhich makes sacred the fountain of tears in authentic tragedy, let themfollow, pace by pace, and pang by pang, the humiliation of the fourthHenry at Canossa, and his death in the church he had built to the Virginat Spire. 

His antagonist, Hildebrand, died twenty years before him; captive to theNormans in Salerno, having seen the Rome in which he had proclaimed hisprincedom over all the earth, laid in her last ruin; and forever. Romeherself, since her desolation by Guiscard, has been only a grave and awilderness[89]--what _we_ call Rome, is a mere colony of the strangerin her "Field of Mars. " This destruction of Rome by the Normans isaccurately and utterly the end of her Capitoline and wolf-suckled power;and from that day her Leonine or Christian power takes its throne in theLeonine city, sanctified in tradition by its prayer of safety for theSaxon Borgo, in which the childhood of our own Alfred had been trained. 

And from this date forward, (recollected broadly as 1090, the year ofthe birth of St. Bernard, ) no longer oppressed by the remnants of Romandeath, --Christian faith, chivalry, and art possess the world, andrecreate 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 debatebetween the powers of Monk and Knight which was reconciled in this sceneunder the porch of St. Mark's. 

83. That debate was brought to its crisis and issue by the birth of thenew third elemental force of the State--the Citizen. Sismondi'srepublican enthusiasm does not permit him to recognize the essentialcharacter of this power. He speaks always of the Republics and theliberties of Italy, as if a craftsman differed from a knight only inpolitical privileges, and as if his special virtue consisted inrendering obedience to no master. But the strength of the great citiesof Italy was no more republican than that of her monasteries, orfortresses. The Craftsman of Milan, Sailor of Pisa, and Merchant ofVenice are all of them essentially different persons from the soldierand the anchorite:--but the city, under the banner of its _caroccio_, and the command of its _podesta_, was disciplined far more strictly thanany wandering military squadron by its leader, or any lower order ofmonks under their abbot. In the founding of civic constitutions, theLord of the city is usually its Bishop:--and it is curious to hear therepublican historian--who, however in judgment blind, is never in heartuncandid, prepare to close his record of the ten years' war of Como withMilan, 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 manydifficulties which Modernism finds, and will find, insuperable either bysteam or dynamite, that of either wedging or welding into its owncast-iron head, any conception of a king, monk, or townsman of thetwelfth and two succeeding centuries. And yet no syllable of theutterance, no fragment of the arts of the middle ages, far less anymotive of their deeds, can be read even in the letter--how much lessjudged in spirit--unless, first of all, we can somewhat imagine allthese three Living souls. 

First, a king who was the best knight in his kingdom, and on whose ownswordstrokes hung the fate of Christendom. A king such as Henry theFowler, 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 hardshipthan any soldier, and had learned at last to desire no other life thanone of hardship;--a man believing in his own and his fellows'immortality, in the aiding powers of angels, and the eternal presence ofGod; versed in all the science, graceful in all the literature, cognizant of all the policy of his age; and fearless of any createdthing, on the earth or under it. 

And, lastly, a craftsman absolutely master of his craft, and taking suchpride in the exercise of it as all healthy souls take in putting forththeir personal powers: proud also of his city and his people; enriching, year by year, their streets with loftier buildings, their treasurieswith rarer possession; and bequeathing his hereditary art to a line ofsuccessive masters, by whose tact of race, and honor of effort, theessential skills of metal-work in gold and steel, of pottery, glass-painting, woodwork, and weaving, were carried to a perfectnessnever to be surpassed; and of which our utmost modern hope is to producea not instantly detected imitation. 

These three kinds of persons, I repeat, we have to conceive before wecan understand any single event of the Middle Ages. For all that isenduring in them was done by men such as these. History, indeed, recordstwenty undoings for one deed, twenty desolations for one redemption; andthinks the fool and villain potent as the wise and true. But Nature andher laws recognize only the noble: generations of the cruel pass likethe darkness of locust plagues; while one loving and brave heartestablishes a nation. 

85. I give the character of Barbarossa in the words of Sismondi, a mansparing in the praise of emperors:--

"The death of Frederic was mourned even by the cities which so long hadbeen the objects of his hostility, and the victims of his vengeance. Allthe Lombards--even the Milanese--acknowledged his rare courage, hisconstancy in misfortune--his generosity in conquest. 

"An intimate conviction of the justice of his cause had often renderedhim cruel, even to ferocity, against those who still resisted; but aftervictory he took vengeance only on senseless walls; and irritated as hehad been by the people of Milan, Crema, and Tortona, and whatever bloodhe had shed during battle, he never sullied his triumph by odiouspunishments. In spite of the treason which he on one occasion usedagainst Alessandria, his promises were in general respected; and when, after the peace of Constance, the towns which had been most inveteratelyhostile to him received him within their walls, they had no need toguard against any attempt on his part to suppress the privileges he hadonce 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 authorityeven of my own master, Carlyle. But I am concerned here only with theactualities of his wars in Italy, with the people of her cities, and thehead of her religion. 

86. Frederic of Suabia, direct heir of the Ghibelline rights, whilenearly related by blood to the Guelph houses of Bavaria and Saxony, waselected emperor almost in the exact middle of the twelfth century(1152). He was called into Italy by the voices of Italians. The thenPope, Eugenius III. , invoked his aid against the Roman people underArnold of Brescia. The people of Lodi prayed his protection against thetyrannies of Milan. 

Frederic entered the plain of Verona in 1154, by the valley of theAdige, --ravaged the territory of Milan, --pillaged and burned Tortona, Asti, and Chieri, --kept his Christmas at Novara; marched onRome, --delivered up Arnold to the Pope[90] (who, instantly killing him, ended for that time Protestant reforms in Italy)--destroyed Spoleto; andreturned by Verona, having scorched his path through Italy like a levelthunderbolt along the ground. 

Three years afterwards, Adrian died; and, chiefly, by the love and willof the Roman people, Roland of Siena was raised to the Papal throne, under the name of Alexander III. The conclave of cardinals chose anotherPope, Victor III. ; Frederic on his second invasion of Italy (1158)summoned both elected heads of the Church to receive judgment of theirclaims before _him_. 

The Cardinals' Pope, Victor, obeyed. The people's Alexander, refused;answering that the successor of St. Peter submitted himself to thejudgment neither of emperors nor councils. 

The spirit of modern prelacy may perhaps have rendered it impossible foran English churchman to conceive this answer as other than that ofinsolence and hypocrisy. But a faithful Pope, and worthy of his throne, could answer no otherwise. Frederic of course at once confirmed theclaims of his rival; the German bishops and Italian cardinals in councilat Pavia joined their powers to the Emperor's and Alexander, driven fromRome, wandered--unsubdued in soul--from city to city, taking refuge atlast in France. 

87. Meantime, in 1159, Frederic took and destroyed Crema, having firstbound its hostages to his machines of war. In 1161, Milan submitted tohis mercy, and he decreed that her name should perish. Only a fewpillars of a Roman temple, and the church of St. Ambrose, remain to usof the ancient city. Warned by her destruction, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, and Venice, joined in the vow--called of the Lombard League--toreduce the Emperor's power within its just limits. And, in 1164, Alexander, under the protection of Louis VII. Of France and Henry II. OfEngland, 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, changedinto a fortress, and held by the Pope's guard, resisted his assaultuntil, by the Emperor's order, fire was set to the Church of St. Mary ofPity. 

The Leonine city was taken; the Pope retired to the Coliseum, whence, uttering once again his fixed defiance of the Emperor, but fearingtreachery, he fled in disguise down the Tiber to the sea, and soughtasylum at Benevento. 

The German army encamped round Rome in August of 1166, with the signbefore their eyes of the ruins of the church of Our Lady of Pity. Themarsh-fever struck them--killed the Emperor's cousin, Frederic ofRothenburg, the Duke of Bavaria, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Bishopsof Liége, Spire, Ratisbonne, and Verden, and two thousand knights; thecommon dead were uncounted. The Emperor gathered the wreck of his armytogether, retreated on Lombardy, quartered his soldiery at Pavia, andescaped in secret over the Mont Cenis with thirty knights. 

88. No places of strength remained to him south of the Alps but Paviaand Montferrat; and to hold these in check, and command the plains ofPiedmont, the Lombard League built the fortress city, which, from thePope who had maintained through all adversity the authority of histhrone and the cause of the Italian people, they named "Alessandria. "

Against this bulwark the Emperor, still indomitable, dashed with hisutmost regathered strength after eight years of pause, and in the temperin which men set their souls on a single stake. All had been lost inhis last war, except his honor--in this, he lost his honor also. Whatever may be the just estimate of the other elements of hischaracter, he is unquestionably, among the knights of his time, notablein impiety. In the battle of Cassano, he broke through the Milanesevanguard to their _caroccio_, and struck down with his own hand itsgolden crucifix;--two years afterwards its cross and standard were bowedbefore him--and in vain. [91] He fearlessly claims for himself right ofdecision between contending popes, and camps against the rightful one onthe ashes of the Church of the Virgin. 

Foiled in his first assault on Alessandria, detained before it throughthe inundations of the winter, and threatened by the army of the Leaguein the spring, he announced a truce to the besieged, that they mightkeep Good Friday. Then violating alike the day's sanctity and his ownoath, he attacked the trusting city through a secretly completed mine. And, for a second time, the verdict of God went forth against him. Everyman who had obtained entrance within the city was slain or cast from itsramparts;--the Alessandrines threw all their gates open--fell, with thebroken fugitives, on the investing troops, scattered them in disorder, and burned their towers of attack. The Emperor gathered their remainsinto Pavia on Easter Sunday, --spared in his defeat by the army of theLeague. 

89. And yet, once more, he brought his cause to combat-trial. Temporizing at Lodi with the Pope's legates, he assembled, under theArchbishops of Magdebourg and Cologne, and the chief prelates andprinces of Germany, a seventh army; brought it down to Como across theSplügen, 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 ofMilan, 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 herknights bound themselves--under the name of the Cohort of Death--to winfor her, or to die. 

The field of battle is in the midst of the plain, now covered with maizeand mulberry trees, from which the traveler, entering Italy by the LagoMaggiore, sees first the unbroken snows of the Rosa behind him and thewhite pinnacles of Milan Cathedral in the south. The Emperor, as was hiswont, himself led his charging chivalry. The Milanese knelt as itcame;--prayed aloud to God, St. Peter, and St. Ambrose--then advancedround their _caroccio_ on foot. The Emperor's charge broke through theirranks nearly up to their standard--then the Cohort of Death rode againsthim. 

90. And all his battle changed before them into flight. For the firsttime in stricken field, the imperial standard fell, and was taken. TheMilanese followed the broken host until their swords were weary; and theEmperor, struck fighting from his horse, was left, lost among the dead. The Empress, whose mercy to Milan he had forbidden, already woremourning for him in Pavia, when her husband came, solitary andsuppliant, to its gate. 

The lesson at last sufficed; and Barbarossa sent his heretic bishops toask forgiveness of the Pope, and peace from the Lombards. 

Pardon and peace were granted--without conditions. "Cćsar's successor"had been the blight of Italy for a quarter of a century; he had ravagedher harvests, burnt her cities, decimated her children with famine, heryoung men with the sword; and, seven times over, in renewed invasion, sought to establish dominion over her, from the Alps to the rock ofScylla. 

She asked of him no restitution;--coveted no province--demanded nofortress, of his land. Neither coward nor robber, she disdained alikeguard and gain upon her frontiers: she counted no compensation for hersorrow; and set no price upon the souls of her dead. She stood in theporch of her brightest temple--between the blue plains of her earth andsea, and, in the person of her spiritual father, gave her enemy pardon. 

"Black demons hovering o'er his mitered head, " think you, gentlesonneteer of the daffodil-marsh? And have Barbarossa's race been taughtof better angels how to bear themselves to a conquered emperor, --orEngland, by braver and more generous impulses, how to protect his exiledson?

The fall of Venice, since that day, was measured by Byron in a singleline:

 "An Emperor tramples where an emperor knelt. "

But what words shall measure the darker humiliation of the Germanpillaging his helpless enemy and England leaving her ally under thesavage's spear?

91. With the clews now given, and an hour or two's additional reading ofany standard historian he pleases, the reader may judge on securegrounds whether the truce of Venice and peace of Constance were of theDevil's making: whereof whatever he may ultimately feel or affirm, thisat least he will please note for positive, that Mr. Wordsworth, havingno shadow of doubt of the complete wisdom of every idea that comes intohis own head, writes down in dogmatic sonnet his first impression ofblack instrumentality in the business; so that his innocent readers, taking him for their sole master, far from caring to inquire into thething more deeply, may remain even unconscious that it is disputable, and forever incapable of conceiving either a Catholic's feeling, or acareful historian's hesitation, touching the centrally momentous crisisof power in all the Middle Ages! Whereas Byron, knowing the historythoroughly, and judging of Catholicism with an honest and open heart, ventures to assert nothing that admits of debate, either concerninghuman motives or angelic presences; but binds into one line of massivemelody the unerringly counted sum of Venetian majesty and shame. 

92. In a future paper, I propose examining his method of dealing withthe debate, itself on a higher issue: and will therefore close thepresent one by trampling a few of the briers and thorns of popularoffense 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 isa proud man's natural manner of confession)[92]--the naughtiness of hislife. 

The hypocrisy[93] even of Pall Mall and Petit Trianon does not, Iassume, 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 byhis own motto "Trust Byron. " You always may; and the commonsmooth-countenanced man of the world is guiltier in the precise measureof 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, andDrama, 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 Byrontells you of realities, and that their being pretty ones is, to mymind, --at the first (literally) blush, of the matter, rather in hisfavor. If however you have imagined that he means you to think Dudu aspretty as Myrrha, [94] or even Haidee, whether in full dress or none, aspretty 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 apiece of very serious work, the ascertainment of the real and fullmeaning of the word Blasphemy. It signifies simply "Harmfulspeaking"--Male-diction--or shortly "Blame"; and may be committed asmuch against a child or a dog, if you _desire_ to hurt them, as againstthe Deity. And it is, in its original use, accurately opposed to anotherGreek word, "Euphemy, " which means a reverent and loving manner ofbenediction--fallen entirely into disuse in modern sentiment andlanguage. 

Now the compass and character of essential Male-diction, so-called inLatin, or Blasphemy, so-called in Greek, may, I think, be best explainedto the general reader by an instance in a very little thing, firsttranslating the short pieces of Plato which best show the meaning of theword 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. 

 "And through the whole of life, beyond all other need for it, there is need of Euphemy from a man to his parents, for there is no heavier punishment than that of light and winged words, " (to _them_)? "for Nemesis, the angel of Divine Recompense, has been throned Bishop over all men who sin in such manner. "--IV. Steph. 717. 

The word which I have translated "recompense" is more strictly that"heavenly Justice"--the proper Light of the World, from which nothingcan be hidden, and by which all who will may walk securely; whence themystic answer of Ulysses to his son, as Athena, herself invisible, walkswith them, filling the chamber of the house with light, "This is thejustice of the Gods who possess Olympus. " See the context in referenceto which Plato quotes the line. --Laws, X. Steph. 904. The little storythat I have to tell is significant chiefly in connection with the secondpassage of Plato above quoted. 

94. I have elsewhere mentioned that I was a homebred boy, and that as mymother diligently and scrupulously taught me my Bible and Latin Grammar, so my father fondly and devotedly taught me my Scott, my Pope, and myByron. [95] The Latin grammar out of which my mother taught me was the11th edition of Alexander Adam's--(Edinb. : Bell and Bradfute, 1823)--namely, that Alexander Adam, Rector of Edinburgh High School, into whose upper class Scott passed in October 1782, and who--previousmasters having found nothing noticeable in the heavy-looking lad--_did_find sterling qualities in him, and "would constantly refer to him fordates, and particulars of battles, and other remarkable events alludedto in Horace, or _whatever other authors the boys were reading_; andcalled him the historian of his class" (L. I. 126). _That_ Alex. Adam, also, who, himself a loving historian, remembered the fate of every boyat his school during the fifty years he had headed it, and whose lastwords--"It grows dark, the boys may dismiss, " gave to Scott's heart thevision and the audit of the death of Elspeth of the Craigburn-foot. 

Strangely, in opening the old volume at this moment (I would not give itfor an illuminated missal) I find, in its article on Prosody, somethings extremely useful to me, which I have been hunting for in vainthrough Zumpt and Matthić. In all rational respects I believe it to bethe best Latin Grammar that has yet been written. 

When my mother had carried me through it as far as the syntax, it wasthought desirable that I should be put under a master: and the masterchosen was a deeply and deservedly honored clergyman, the Rev. ThomasDale, mentioned in Mr. Holbeach's article, "The New Fiction, "(_Contemporary Review_ for February of this year), together with Mr. Melville, who was our pastor after Mr. Dale went to St. Pancras. 

95. On the first day when I went to take my seat in Mr. Dale'sschoolroom, I carried my old grammar to him, in a modest pride, expecting some encouragement and honor for the accuracy with which Icould repeat, on demand, some hundred and sixty close-printed pages ofit. 

But Mr. Dale threw it back to me with a fierce bang upon his desk, saying (with accent and look of seven-times-heated scorn), "That's a_Scotch_ thing. "

Now, my father being Scotch, and an Edinburgh High School boy, and mymother having labored in that book with me since I could read, and allmy happiest holiday time having been spent on the North Inch of Perth, these four words, with the action accompanying them, contained as muchinsult, pain, and loosening of my respect for my parents, love of myfather's country, and honor for its worthies, as it was possible tocompress into four syllables and an ill-mannered gesture. Which weretherefore pure, double-edged and point-envenomed blasphemy. For to makea boy despise his mother's care, is the straightest way to make him alsodespise his Redeemer's voice; and to make him scorn his father and hisfather's house, the straightest way to make him deny his God, and hisGod's Heaven. 

96. I speak, observe, in this instance, only of the actual words andtheir effect; not of the feeling in the speaker's mind, which was almostplayful, though his words, tainted with extremity of pride, were suchlight ones as men shall give account of at the Day of Judgment. The realsin of blasphemy is not in the saying, nor even in the thinking; but inthe wishing which is father to thought and word: and the nature of it issimply in wishing evil to anything; for as the quality of Mercy is notstrained, so neither that of Blasphemy, the one distilling from theclouds of Heaven, the other from the steam of the Pit. He that is unjustin little is unjust in much, he that is malignant to the least is to thegreatest, he who hates the earth which is God's footstool, hates yetmore Heaven which is God's throne, and Him that sitteth thereon. Finally, therefore, blasphemy is wishing ill to _any_ thing; and itsoutcome is in Vanni Fucci's extreme "ill manners"--wishing ill to God. 

On the contrary, Euphemy is wishing well to everything, and its outcomeis in Burns' extreme "good manners, " wishing well to--

 "Ah! wad ye tak a thought, and men'!"

That is the supreme of Euphemy. 

97. Fix then, first in your minds, that the sin of malediction, whetherShimei's individual, or John Bull's national, is in the vulgarmalignity, not in the vulgar diction, and then note further that the"phemy" or "fame" of the two words, blasphemy and euphemy, signifiesbroadly the bearing of _false_ witness _against_ one's neighbor in theone case, and of _true_ witness _for_ him in the other: so that whilethe peculiar province of the blasphemer is to throw firelight on theevil in good persons, the province of the euphuist (I must use the wordinaccurately for want of a better) is to throw sunlight on the good inbad ones; such, for instance, as Bertram, Meg Merrilies, Rob Roy, RobinHood, and the general run of Corsairs, Giaours, Turks, Jews, Infidels, and Heretics; nay, even sisters of Rahab, and daughters of Moab andAmmon; and at last the whole spiritual race of him to whom it was said, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?"

98. And being thus brought back to our actual subject, I purpose, aftera few more summary notes on the luster of the electrotype language ofmodern passion, to examine what facts or probabilities lie at the rootboth of Goethe's and Byron's imagination of that contest between thepowers of Good and Evil, of which the Scriptural account appears to Mr. Huxley so inconsistent with the recognized laws of political economy;and has been, by the cowardice of our old translators, so maimed of itsvitality, that the frank Greek assertion of St. Michael's not daring toblaspheme the devil, [96] is tenfold more mischievously deadened andcaricatured by their periphrasis of "durst not bring against him arailing accusation, " than by Byron's apparently--and onlyapparently--less reverent description of the manner of angelic encounterfor an inferior ruler of the people. 

 "Between His Darkness and His Brightness There passed a mutual glance of great politeness. "

 PARIS, _September 20, 1880. _

POSTSCRIPT. 

99. I am myself extremely grateful, nor doubt a like feeling in most ofmy readers, both for the information contained in the first of the twofollowing letters; and the correction of references in the second, ofwhich, however, I have omitted some closing sentences which the writerwill, I think, see to have been unnecessary. [97]

 NORTH STREET, WIRKSWORTH: _August 2, 1880. _

DEAR SIR, --When reading your interesting article in the Junenumber of the _Nineteenth Century_, and your quotation from WalterScott, I was struck with the great similarity between some of the Scotchwords and my native tongue (Norwegian). _Whigmaleerie_, as to thederivation of which you seem to be in some perplexity, is in Norwegian_Vćgmaleri_. _Vćg_, pronounced "Vegg, " signifying wall, and Maleri"picture, " pronounced almost the same as in Scotch, and derived from _atmale_, to paint. Siccan is in Danish _sikken_, used more about somethingcomical than great, and scarcely belonging to the written language, inwhich _slig_, such, and _slig en_, such a one, would be the equivalent. I need not remark that as to the written language Danish and Norwegianis the same, only the dialects differ. 

Having been told by some English friends that this explanation wouldperhaps not be without interest to yourself, I take the liberty ofwriting this letter. I remain yours respectfully, THEA BERG. 

 INNER TEMPLE: _September 9, 1880. _

SIR, --In your last article on Fiction, Foul and Fair(_Nineteenth Century_, September 1880) you have the following note:

"Juan viii. 5" (it ought to be 9) "but by your Lordship's quotation, Wordsworth says 'instrument' not 'daughter. '"

Now in Murray's edition of Byron, 1837, octavo, his Lordship's quotationis as follows:--

 "But thy most dreaded instrument In working out a pure intent Is man arranged for mutual slaughter; Yea, Carnage is thy daughter. "

And his Lordship refers you to "Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode. "

I have no early edition of Wordsworth. In Moxon's, 1844, no such linesappear in the Thanksgiving Ode, but in the ode dated 1815, and printedimmediately before it, the following lines occur. 

 "But man is thy most awful instrument In working out a pure intent. "

It is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that Wordsworth alteredthe lines after "Don Juan" was written. I am, with great respect, yourobedient servant, RALPH THICKNESSE. 

 JOHN RUSKIN, Esq. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 88: November, 1880. --ED. ]

[Footnote 89: "Childe Harold, " iv. 79; compare "Adonais, " and Sismondi, vol. I. P. 148. ]

[Footnote 90: Adrian the Fourth. Eugenius died in the previous year. ]

[Footnote 91: "All the multitudes threw themselves on their knees, praying mercy in the name of the crosses they bore: the Count ofBlandrata took a cross from the enemies with whom he had served, andfell at the foot of the throne, praying for mercy to them. All the courtand the witnessing army were in tears--the Emperor alone showed no signof emotion. Distrusting his wife's sensibility, he had forbidden herpresence at the ceremony; the Milanese, unable to approach her, threwtowards her windows the crosses they carried, to plead forthem. "--Sismondi (French edition), vol. I. P. 378. ]

[Footnote 92: The most noble and tender confession is in Allegra'sepitaph, "I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me. "]

[Footnote 93: Hypocrisy is too good a word for either Pall Mall orTrianon, being justly applied (as always in the New Testament), only tomen whose false religion has become earnest, and a part of their being:so that they compass heaven and earth to make a proselyte. There is norelation between minds of this order and those of common rogues. NeitherTartuffe nor Joseph Surface are hypocrites--they are simply impostors:but many of the most earnest preachers in all existing churches arehypocrites in the highest; and the Tartuffe-Squiredom and JosephSurface-Masterhood of our virtuous England which build churches and paypriests to keep their peasants and hands peaceable, so that rents andper cents may be spent, unnoticed, in the debaucheries of themetropolis, are darker forms of imposture than either heaven or earthhave yet been compassed by; and what they are to end in, heaven andearth only know. Compare again, "Island, " ii. 4, "the prayers of Abellinked to deeds of Cain, " and "Juan, " viii. 25, 26. ]

[Footnote 94: Perhaps some even of the attentive readers of Byron maynot have observed the choice of the three names--Myrrha (bitterincense), Marina (sea lady), Angiolina (little angel)--in relation tothe plots of the three plays. ]

[Footnote 95: I shall have lost my wits very finally when I forget thefirst time that I pleased my father with a couplet of English verse(after many a year of trials); and the radiant joy on his face as hedeclared, reading it aloud to my mother with emphasis half choked bytears, --that "it was as fine as anything that Pope or Byron everwrote!"]

[Footnote 96: Of our tingle-tangle-titmouse disputes in Parliament likeRobins in a bush, but not a Robin in all the house knowing his great A, hear again Plato: "But they, for ever so little a quarrel, uttering muchvoice, blaspheming, speak evil one of another, --and it is not becomingthat in a city of well-ordered persons, such things should be--no;nothing of them nohow nowhere, --and let this be the one law for all--letnobody speak mischief of anybody ([Greek: Mędena kakęgoreitômędeis]). "--Laws, book ii. S. 935; and compare Book iv. 117. ]

[Footnote 97: A paragraph beginning "I find press corrections alwaysirksome work, and in my last paper trust the reader's kindness to makesome corrections in the preceding paper, " is here omitted, and thecorrections made. --ED. ]

FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL. 

V. [98]

THE TWO SERVANTS. 

100. I have assumed throughout these papers, that everybody knew whatFiction meant; as Mr. Mill assumed in his Political Economy, thateverybody knew what wealth meant. The assumption was convenient to Mr. Mill, and persisted in: but, for my own part, I am not in the habit oftalking, even so long as I have done in this instance, without makingsure that the reader knows what I am talking about; and it is high timethat we should be agreed upon the primary notion of what Fiction is. 

A feigned, fictitious, artificial, supernatural, put-together-out-of-one's-head, thing. All this it must be, to beginwith. The best type of it being the most practically fictile--a Greekvase. A thing which has two sides to be seen, two handles to be carriedby, and a bottom to stand on, and a top to be poured out of, this, everyright fiction _is_, whatever else it may be. Planned rigorously, roundedsmoothly, balanced symmetrically, handled handily, lipped softly forpouring out oil and wine. Painted daintily at last with images ofeternal things--

 Forever shalt thou love, and she be fair. 

101. Quite a different thing from a "cast, "--this work of clay in thehands of the potter, as it seemed good to the potter to make it. Veryinteresting, a cast from life may perhaps be; more interesting, to somepeople perhaps, a cast from death;--most modern novels are likespecimens from Lyme Regis, impressions of skeletons in mud. 

"Planned rigorously"--I press the conditions again one by one--it mustbe, as ever Memphian labyrinth or Norman fortress. Intricacy full ofdelicate surprise; covered way in secrecy of accurate purposes, not astone useless, nor a word nor an incident thrown away. 

"Rounded smoothly"--the wheel of Fortune revolving with it in unfeltswiftness; like the world, its story rising like the dawn, closing likethe sunset, with its own sweet light for every hour. 

"Balanced symmetrically"--having its two sides clearly separate, its warof good and evil rightly divided. Its figures moving in majestic law oflight and shade. 

"Handled handily"--so that, being careful and gentle, you can take easygrasp of it and all that it contains; a thing given into your handhenceforth to have and to hold. Comprehensible, not a mass that bothyour arms cannot get round; tenable, not a confused pebble heap of whichyou can only lift one pebble at a time. 

"Lipped softly"--full of kindness and comfort: the Keats line indeed theperpetual message of it--"For ever shalt thou love, and she be fair. "All beautiful fiction is of the Madonna, whether the Virgin of Athens orof Judah--Pan-Athenaic always. 

And all foul fiction is _leze majesté_ to the Madonna and to womanhood. For indeed the great fiction of every human life is the shaping of itsLove, with due prudence, due imagination, due persistence and perfectionfrom the beginning of its story to the end; for every human soul, itsPalladium. And it follows that all right imaginative work is beautiful, which is a practical and brief law concerning it. All frightful thingsare either foolish, or sick, visits of frenzy, or pollutions of plague. 

102. Taking thus the Greek vase at its best time, for the symbol of fairfiction: of foul, you may find in the great entrance-room of the Louvre, filled with the luxurious _orfčvrerie_ of the sixteenth century, typesperfect and innumerable: Satyrs carved in serpentine, Gorgons platted ingold, Furies with eyes of ruby, Scyllas with scales of pearl; infinitelyworthless toil, infinitely witless wickedness; pleasure satiated intoidiocy, passion provoked into madness, no object of thought, or sight, or fancy, but horror, mutilation, distortion, corruption, agony of war, insolence of disgrace, and misery of Death. 

It is true that the ease with which a serpent, or something that will beunderstood for one, can be chased or wrought in metal, and the smallworkmanly skill required to image a satyr's hoof and horns, as comparedto that needed for a human foot or forehead, have greatly influenced thechoice of subject by incompetent smiths; and in like manner, theprevalence of such vicious or ugly story in the mass of modernliterature is not so much a sign of the lasciviousness of the age, as ofits stupidity, though each react on the other, and the vapor of thesulphurous pool becomes at last so diffused in the atmosphere of ourcities, that whom it cannot corrupt, it will at least stultify. 

103. Yesterday, the last of August, came to me from the Fine ArtSociety, a series of twenty black and white scrabbles[99] of which I aminformed in an eloquent preface that the author was a Michael Angelo ofthe glebe, and that his shepherds and his herdswomen are akin in dignityand grandeur to the prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine. 

Glancing through the series of these stupendous productions, I find onepeculiarly characteristic and expressive of modern picture-making andnovel-writing, --called "Hauling" or more definitely "Paysan rentrant duFumier, " which represents a man's back, or at least the back of hiswaistcoat and trousers, and hat, in full light, and a small blot wherehis face should be, with a small scratch where its nose should be, elongated into one representing a chink of timber in the background. 

Examining the volume farther, in the hope of discovering some trace ofreasonable motive for the publication of these works by the Society, Iperceive that this Michael Angelo of the glebe had indeed naturalfaculty of no mean order in him, and that the woeful history of his lifecontains very curious lessons respecting the modern conditions ofImagination and Art. 

104. I find in the first place, that he was a Breton peasant; hisgrandmother's godson, baptized in good hope, and christened Jean, afterhis father, and François after the Saint of Assisi, his godmother'spatron. It was under her care and guidance and those of his uncle, theAbbé Charles, that he was reared; and the dignified and laboriousearnestness of these governors of his was a chief influence in his life, and a distinguishing feature in his character. The Millet family led anexistence almost patriarchal in its unalterable simplicity anddiligence; and the boy grew up in an environment of toil, sincerity anddevoutness. He was fostered upon the Bible, and the great book ofnature.... When he woke, it was to the lowing of cattle and the song ofbirds; he was at play all day, among "the sights and sounds of the openlandscape; and he slept with the murmur of the spinning-wheel in hisears, and the memory of the evening prayer in his heart.... He learnedLatin from the parish priest, and from his uncle Charles; and he sooncame to be a student of Virgil, and while yet young in his teens beganto follow his father out into the fields, and thenceforward, as becamethe eldest boy in a large family, worked hard at grafting and plowing, sowing and reaping, scything and shearing and planting, and all the manyduties of husbandmen. Meanwhile, he had taken to drawing ... Copiedeverything he saw, and produced not only studies but compositions also;until at last his father was moved to take him away from farming, andhave him taught painting. "

105. Now all this is related concerning the lad's early life by theprefatory and commenting author, as if expecting the general reader toadmit that there had been some advantage for him in this manner ofeducation:--that simplicity and devoutness are wholesome states of mind;that parish curés and uncle Abbés are not betrayers or devourers ofyouthful innocence--that there is profitable reading in the Bible, andsomething agreeably soothing--if not otherwise useful--in the sound ofevening prayer. I may observe also in passing, that his education, thusfar, is precisely what, for the last ten years, I have been describingas the most desirable for all persons intending to lead an honest andChristian life: (my recommendation that peasants should learn Latinhaving been, some four or five years ago, the subject of much merrimentin the pages of _Judy_ and other such nurses of divine wisdom in thepublic mind. ) It however having been determined by the boy's father thathe should be a painter, and that art being unknown to the Abbé Charlesand the village Curé (in which manner of ignorance, if the infalliblePope did but know it, he and his _now_ artless shepherds stand at afatal disadvantage in the world as compared with monks who couldilluminate with color as well as word)--the simple young soul is sentfor the exalting and finishing of its artistic faculties to Paris. 

106. "Wherein, " observers my prefatory author, "the romantic movementwas in the full tide of prosperity. "

Hugo had written "Notre Dame, " and Musset had published "Rolla" and the"Nuits"; Balzac the "Lys dans la Vallée"; Gautier the "Comédie de laMort"; Georges Sand "Léone Léonie"; and a score of wild and eloquentnovels more; and under the instruction of these romantic authors, hislandlady, to whom he had intrusted the few francs he possessed, to doleout to him as he needed, fell in love with him, and finding he couldnot, or would not, respond to her advances, confiscated the wholedeposit, and left him penniless. The preface goes on to tell us how, notfeeling himself in harmony with these forms of Romanticism, he takes tothe study of the Infinite, and Michael Angelo; how he learned to paintthe Heroic Nude; how he mixed up for imitation the manners of Rubens, Ribera, Mantegna, and Correggio; how he struggled all his life withneglect, and endured with his family every agony of poverty; owed hisbutcher and his grocer, was exposed to endless worry and annoyance fromwrits and executions; and when first his grandmother died, and then hismother, neither death-bed was able to raise the money that would havecarried him from Barbizon to Gruchy. 

The work now laid before the public by the Fine Art Society is to beconsidered, therefore--whatever its merits or defects may be--as anexpression of the influence of the Infinite and Michael Angelo on a mindinnocently prepared for their reception. And in another place I may takeoccasion to point out the peculiar adaptability of modern etching to theexpression of the Infinite, by the multitude of scratches it can put ona surface without representing anything in particular; and toillustration of the majesty of Michael Angelo by preference of the backsand legs of people to their faces. 

107. But I refer to the book in this paper, partly indeed because mymind is full of its sorrow, and I may not be able to find anotheropportunity of saying so; but chiefly, because the author of the prefacehas summed the principal authors of depraved Fiction in a singlesentence; and I want the reader to ask himself why, among all the formsof the picturesque which were suggested by this body of literaryleaders, none were acceptable by, none helpful to, the mind of a youthtrained in purity and faith. 

He will find, if he reflect, that it is not in romantic, or any otherhealthy aim, that the school detaches itself from those called sometimesby recent writers "classical"; but first by Infidelity, and an absenceof the religious element so total that at last it passes into the hatredof priesthood which has become characteristic of Republicanism; andsecondly, by the taint and leprosy of animal passion idealized as agoverning power of humanity, or at least used as the chief element ofinterest in the conduct of its histories. It is with the _Sin_ of MasterAnthony that Georges Sand (who is the best of them) overshadows theentire course of a novel meant to recommend simplicity of life--and bythe weakness of Consuelo that the same authoress thinks it natural toset off the splendor of the most exalted musical genius. 

I am not able to judge of the degree of moral purpose, or conviction, with which any of the novelists wrote. But I am able to say withcertainty that, whatever their purpose, their method is mistaken, andthat no good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation ofits diseases. 

108. All healthy and helpful literature sets simple bars between rightand wrong; assumes the possibility, in men and women, of having healthyminds in healthy bodies, and loses no time in the diagnosis of fever ordyspepsia in either; least of all in the particular kind of fever whichsignifies the ungoverned excess of any appetite or passion. The"dullness" which many modern readers inevitably feel, and some modernblockheads think it creditable to allege, in Scott, consists not alittle in his absolute purity from every loathsome element or excitementof the lower passions; so that people who live habitually in Satyric orhircine conditions of thought find him as insipid as they would apicture of Angelico's. The accurate and trenchant separation between himand the common railroad-station novelist is that, in his total method ofconception, only lofty character is worth describing at all; and itbecomes interesting, not by its faults, but by the difficulties andaccidents of the fortune through which it passes, while, in the railwaynovel, interest is obtained with the vulgar reader for the vilestcharacter, because the author describes carefully to his recognition theblotches, burrs and pimples in which the paltry nature resembles hisown. The "Mill on the Floss" is perhaps the most striking instanceextant of this study of cutaneous disease. There is not a single personin the book of the smallest importance to anybody in the world butthemselves, or whose qualities deserved so much as a line of printer'stype in their description. There is no girl alive, fairly clever, halfeducated, and unluckily related, whose life has not at least as much init as Maggie's, to be described and to be pitied. Tom is a clumsy andcruel lout, with the making of better things in him (and the same may besaid of nearly every Englishman at present smoking and elbowing his waythrough the ugly world his blunders have contributed to the making of);while the rest of the characters are simply the sweepings out of aPentonville omnibus. [100]

109. And it is very necessary that we should distinguish thisessentially Cockney literature, developed only in the London suburbs, and feeding the demand of the rows of similar brick houses, which branchin devouring cancer round every manufacturing town, --from the reallyromantic literature of France. Georges Sand is often immoral; but she isalways beautiful, and in the characteristic novel I have named, "LePéché de Mons. Antoine, " the five principal characters, the old CavalierMarquis, --the Carpenter, --M. De Chateaubrun, --Gilberte, --and the reallypassionate and generous lover, are all as heroic and radiantly ideal asScott's Colonel Mannering, Catherine Seyton, and Roland Graeme; whilethe landscape is rich and true with the emotion of years of life passedin glens of Norman granite and beside bays of Italian sea. But in theEnglish Cockney school, which consummates itself in George Eliot, thepersonages are picked up from behind the counter and out of the gutter;and the landscape, by excursion train to Gravesend, with return ticketfor the City-road. 

110. But the second reason for the dullness of Scott to the uneducatedor miseducated reader lies far deeper; and its analysis is related tothe most subtle questions in the Arts of Design. 

The mixed gayety and gloom in the plan of any modern novel fairly cleverin the make of it, may be likened, almost with precision, to thepatchwork of a Harlequin's dress, well spangled; a pretty thing enough, if the human form beneath it be graceful and active. Few personages onthe stage are more delightful to me than a good Harlequin; also, if Ichance to have nothing better to do, I can still read my Georges Sand orAlfred de Musset with much contentment, if only the story end well. 

But we must not dress Cordelia or Rosalind in robes of triangularpatches, covered with spangles, by way of making the _coup d'oeil_ ofthem less dull; and so the story-telling of Scott is like the robe ofthe Sistine Zipporah--embroidered only on the edges with gold and blue, and the embroidery involving a legend written in mystic letters. 

And the interest and joy which he intends his reader to find in histale, are in taking up the golden thread here and there in its intendedrecurrence--and following, as it rises again and again, his melodythrough the disciplined and unaccented march of the fugue. 

111. Thus the entire charm and meaning of the story of the Monasterydepend on the degree of sympathy with which we compare the first andlast incidents of the appearance of a character, whom perhaps not one intwenty readers would remember as belonging to the dramatispersonć--Stawarth Bolton. 

Childless, he assures safety in the first scene of the opening tale tothe widow of Glendinning and her two children--the elder boy challenginghim at the moment, "I will war on thee to the death, when I can draw myfather's sword. " In virtually the last scene, the grown youth, now incommand of a small company of spearmen in the Regent Murray's service, is on foot, in the first pause after the battle at Kennaquhair, besidethe dead bodies of Julian Avenel and Christie, and the dyingCatherine. [101]

Glendinning forgot for a moment his own situation and duties, and wasfirst recalled to them by a trampling of horse, and the cry of St. George for England, which the English soldiers still continued to use. His handful of men, for most of the stragglers had waited for Murray'scoming up, remained on horseback, holding their lances upright, havingno command either to submit or resist. 

"There stands our captain, " said one of them, as a strong party ofEnglish came up, the vanguard of Foster's troop. 

"Your captain! with his sword sheathed, and on foot in the presence ofhis enemy? a raw soldier, I warrant him, " said the English leader. "So!ho! young man, is your dream out, and will you now answer me if you willfight or fly?"

"Neither, " answered Halbert Glendinning, with great tranquillity. 

"Then throw down thy sword and yield thee, " answered the Englishman. 

"Not till I can help myself no otherwise, " said Halbert, with the samemoderation of tone and manner. 

"Art thou for thine own hand, friend, or to whom dost thou owe service?"demanded the English captain. 

"To the noble Earl of Murray. "

"Then thou servest, " said the Southron, "the most disloyal nobleman whobreathes--false both to England and Scotland. "

"Thou liest, " said Glendinning, regardless of all consequences. 

"Ha! art thou so hot now, and wert so cold but a minute since? I lie, doI? Wilt thou do battle with me on that quarrel?"

"With one to one, one to two, or two to five, as you list, " said HalbertGlendinning; "grant me but a fair field. "

"That thou shalt have. Stand back, my mates, " said the braveEnglishman. "If I fall, give him fair play, and let him go off free withhis people. "

"Long life to the noble captain!" cried the soldiers, as impatient tosee the duel as if it had been a bull. 

"He will have a short life of it, though, " said the sergeant, "if he, anold man of sixty, is to fight for any reason, or for no reason, withevery man he meets, and especially the young fellows he might be fatherto. And here comes the warden, besides, to see the sword-play. "

In fact, Sir John Foster came up with a considerable body of hishorsemen, just as his captain, whose age rendered him unequal to thecombat with so strong and active a youth as Glendinning, lost hissword. [102]

"Take it up for shame, old Stawarth Bolton, " said the English warden;"and thou, young man, get you gone to your own friends, and loiter nothere. "

Notwithstanding this peremptory order, Halbert Glendinning could nothelp stopping to cast a look upon the unfortunate Catherine, who layinsensible of the danger and of the trampling of so many horses aroundher--insensible, as the second glance assured him, of all and forever. Glendinning almost rejoiced when he saw that the last misery of life wasover, and that the hoofs of the war-horses, amongst which he wascompelled to leave her, could only injure and deface a senseless corpse. He caught the infant from her arms, half ashamed of the shout oflaughter which rose on all sides, at seeing an armed man in such asituation assume such an unwonted and inconvenient burden. 

"Shoulder your infant!" cried a harquebusier. 

"Port your infant!" said a pikeman. 

"Peace, ye brutes!" said Stawarth Bolton, "and respect humanity inothers, if you have none yourselves. I pardon the lad having done somediscredit to my gray hairs, when I see him take care of that helplesscreature, which ye would have trampled upon as if ye had been litteredof bitch-wolves, not born of women. "

The infant thus saved is the heir of Avenel, and the intricacy andfateful bearing of every incident and word in the scene, knitting intoone central moment all the clews to the plot of two romances, as therich boss of a Gothic vault gathers the shaft moldings of it, can onlybe felt by an entirely attentive reader; just as (to follow out thelikeness on Scott's own ground) the willow-wreaths changed to stone ofMelrose tracery can only be caught in their plighting by the keenesteyes. The meshes are again gathered by the master's own hand when thechild now in Halbert's arms, twenty years hence, stoops over him tounlace his helmet, as the fallen knight lies senseless on the field ofCarberry Hill. [103]

112. But there is another, and a still more hidden method in Scott'sdesigning of story, in which, taking extreme pains, he counts on muchsympathy from the reader, and can assuredly find none in a modernstudent. The moral purpose of the whole, which he asserted in thepreface to the first edition of Waverley, was involved always with theminutest study of the effects of true and false religion on theconduct;--which subject being always touched with his utmost lightnessof hand and stealthiness of art, and founded on a knowledge of theScotch character and the human heart, such as no other living manpossessed, his purpose often escapes first observation as completely asthe inner feelings of living people do; and I am myself amazed, as Itake any single piece of his work up for examination, to find how manyof its points I had before missed or disregarded. 

113. The groups of personages whose conduct in the Scott romance isdefinitely affected by religious conviction, may be arranged broadly, asthose of the actual world, under these following heads:

1. The lowest group consists of persons who, believing in the generaltruths of Evangelical religion, accommodate them to their passions, andare capable, by gradual increase in depravity, of any crime or violence. I am not going to include these in our present study. Trumbull ("RedGauntlet"), Trusty Tomkyns ("Woodstock"), Burley ("Old Mortality"), arethree of the principal types. 

2. The next rank above these consists of men who believe firmly andtruly enough to be restrained from any conduct which they clearlyrecognize as criminal, but whose natural selfishness renders themincapable of understanding the morality of the Bible above a certainpoint; and whose imperfect powers of thought leave them liable in manydirections to the warping of self-interest or of small temptations. 

Fairservice. Blattergowl. Kettledrummle. Gifted Gilfillan. 

3. The third order consists of men naturally just and honest, but withlittle sympathy and much pride, in whom their religion, while in thedepth of it supporting their best virtues, brings out on the surface alltheir worst faults, and makes them censorious, tiresome, and oftenfearfully mischievous. 

Richie Moniplies. Davie Deans. Mause Hedrigg. 

4. The enthusiastic type, leading to missionary effort, often tomartyrdom. 

Warden, in "Monastery. " Colonel Gardiner. Ephraim Macbriar. JoshuaGeddes. 

5. Highest type, fulfilling daily duty; always gentle, entirely firm, the comfort and strength of all around them; merciful to every humanfault, and submissive without anger to every human oppression. 

Rachel Geddes. Jeanie Deans. Bessie Maclure, in "Old Mortality"--theQueen of all. 

114. In the present paper, I ask the reader's patience only with myfulfillment of a promise long since made, to mark the opposition of theeffects of an entirely similar religious faith in two men of inferiorposition, representing in perfectness the commonest types in Scotlandof the second and third order of religionists here distinguished, AndrewFairservice ("Rob Roy"), and Richie Moniplies ("Nigel"). 

The names of both the men imply deceitfulness of one kind oranother--Fairservice, as serving fairly only in pretense; Moniplies, ashaving many windings, turns, and ways of escape. Scott's names arethemselves so Moniplied that they need as much following out asShakespeare's; and as their roots are pure Scotch, and few people have agood Scottish glossary beside them, or would use it if they had, thenovels are usually read without any turning of the first keys to them. Idid not myself know till very lately the root of Dandie Dinmont'sname--"Dinmont, " a two-year-old sheep; still less that of Moniplies, which I had been always content to take Master George Heriot's renderingof: "This fellow is not ill-named--he has more plies than one in hiscloak. " ("Nigel, " i. 72. ) In its first sense, it is the Scotch word fortripe, Moniplies being a butcher's son. 

115. Cunning, then, they both are, in a high degree--but Fairserviceonly for himself, Moniplies for himself and his friend; or, in gravebusiness, even for his friend first. But it is one of Scott's firstprinciples of moral law that cunning never shall succeed, unlessdefinitely employed _against an enemy_ by a person whose essentialcharacter is wholly frank and true; as by Roland against Lady Lochleven, or Mysie Happer against Dan of the Howlet-hirst; but consistent cunningin the character always fails: Scott allows no Ulyssean hero. 

Therefore the cunning of Fairservice fails always, and totally; but thatof Moniplies precisely according to the degree of its selfishness:wholly, in the affair of the petition--("I am sure I had a' the rightand a' the risk, " i. 73)--partially, in that of the carcanet. This hehimself at last recognizes with complacency:--

"I think you might have left me, " says Nigel in their parting scene (i. 286), "to act according to my own judgment. "

"Mickle better not, " answered Richie; "mickle better not. We are a'frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our owncases. And for me--even myself--I have always observed myself to be muchmore prudential in what I have done in your lordship's behalf, than evenin what I have been able to transact for my own interest--whilk last, Ihave, indeed, always postponed, as in duty I ought. "

"I do believe thou hast, " answered Lord Nigel, "having ever found theetrue and faithful. "

And his final success is entirely owing to his courage and fidelity, notto his cunning. 

To this subtlety both the men join considerable power of penetrationinto the weaknesses of character; but Fairservice only sees thesurface-failings, and has no respect for any kind of nobleness; whileRichie watches the gradual lowering of his master's character andreputation with earnest sorrow. 

 "My lord, " said Richie, "to be round with you, the grace of God is better than gold pieces, and, if they were my last words, " he said, raising his voice, "I would say you are misled, and are forsaking the paths your honorable father trode in; and what is more, you are going--still under correction--to the devil with a dishclout, for ye are laughed at by them that lead you into these disordered bypaths" (i. 282). 

116. In the third place, note that the penetration ofMoniplies, --though, as aforesaid, more into faults than virtues, --beingyet founded on the truth of his own nature, is undeceivable. No roguecan escape him for an instant; and he sees through all the machinationsof Lord Glenvarloch's enemies from the first; while Fairservice, shrewdenough in detecting the follies of good people, is quite helpless beforeknaves, and is deceived three times over by his own chosenfriends--first by the lawyer's clerk, Touthope (ii. 21), then by thehypocrite MacVittie, and finally by his true blue Presbyterian friendLaurie. 

In these first elements of character the men are thus broadlydistinguished; but in the next, requiring analysis, the differences aremuch more subtle. Both of them have, in nearly equal degree, thepeculiar love of doing or saying what is provoking, by an exactcontrariety to the wishes of the person they are dealing with, which isa fault inherent in the rough side of uneducated Scottish character; butin Andrew, the habit is checked by his self-interest, so that it is onlybehind his master's back that we hear his opinion of him; and only whenhe has lost his temper that the inherent provocativeness comes out--(seethe dark ride into Scotland). 

On the contrary, Moniplies never speaks but in praise of his _absent_master; but exults in mortifying him in direct colloquy: yet neverindulges this amiable disposition except with a really kind purpose, andentirely knowing what he is about. Fairservice, on the other hand, gradually falls into an unconscious fatality of varied blunder andprovocation; and at last causes the entire catastrophe of the story bybringing in the candles when he has been ordered to stay downstairs. 

117. We have next to remember that with Scott, Truth and Courage areone. He somewhat overvalued _animal_ courage--holding it the basis ofall other virtue--in his own words, "Without courage there can be notruth, and without truth no virtue. " He would, however, sometimes allowhis villains to possess the basis, without the super-structure, and thusRashleigh, Dalgarno, Balfour, Varney, and other men of that stamp are tobe carefully distinguished from his erring _heroes_, Marmion, Bertram, Christie of the Clinthill, or Nanty Ewart, in whom loyalty is always thereal strength of the character, and the faults of life are owing totemporary passion or evil fate. Scott differs in this standard ofheroism materially from Byron, [104] in whose eyes mere courage, withstrong affections, are enough for admiration: while Bertram, and evenMarmion, though loyal to his country, are meant only to be pitied--nothonored. But neither Scott nor Byron will ever allow any grain of mercyto a coward; and the final difference, therefore, between Fairserviceand Moniplies, which decides their fate in Scott's hands, is thatbetween their courage and cowardice. Fairservice is driven out at thekitchen door, never to be heard of more, while Richie rises into SirRichie of Castle-Collop--the reader may perhaps at the moment think bytoo careless grace on the King's part; which, indeed, Scott in somemeasure meant;--but the grotesqueness and often evasiveness of Richie'scommon manner make us forget how surely his bitter word is backed by hisready blow, when need is. His first introduction to us (i. 33), isbecause his quick temper overcomes his caution, --

 "I thought to mysel', 'Ye are owre mony for me to mell with; but let me catch ye in Barford's Park, or at the fit of the vennel, I could gar some of ye sing another sang. ' Sae, ae auld hirpling deevil of a potter behoved just to step in my way and offer me a pig, as he said, just to pit my Scotch ointment in, and _I gave him a push, as but natural_, and the tottering deevil couped owre amang his ain pigs, and damaged a score of them. And then the reird[105] raise"--

while in the close of the events (ii. 365), he wins his wife by a pieceof hand-to-hand fighting, of the value of which his cool and sternestimate, in answer to the gay Templar, is one of the great sentencesmarking Scott's undercurrent of two feelings about war, in spite of hislove of its heroism. 

"Bravo, Richie, " cried Lowestoffe, "why, man, there lies Sin struck downlike an ox, and Iniquity's throat cut like a calf. "

"I know not why you should upbraid me with my upbringing, MasterLowestoffe, " answered Richie, with great composure; "but I can tell you, the shambles is not a bad place for training one to this work. "

118. These then being the radical conditions of native character in thetwo men, wholly irrespective of their religious persuasion, we have tonote what form their Presbyterian faith takes in each, and what effectit has on their consciences. 

In Richie, it has little to do; his conscience being, in the deep of it, frank and clear. His religion commands him nothing which he is not atonce ready to do, or has not habitually done; and it forbids him nothingwhich he is unwilling to forego. He pleads no pardon from it for knownfaults; he seeks no evasions in the letter of it for violations of itsspirit. We are scarcely therefore aware of its vital power in him, unless at moments of very grave feeling and its necessary expression. 

 "Wherefore, as the letter will not avail you with him to whom it is directed, you may believe that Heaven hath sent it to _me_, who have a special regard for the writer--have besides, as much mercy and honesty within me as man can weel mak' his bread with, and am willing to aid any distressed creature, that is my friend's friend. "

So, again, in the deep feeling which rebukes his master's careless ruinof the poor apprentice--

 "I say, then, as I am a true man, when I saw that puir creature come through the ha' at that ordinary, whilk is accurst (Heaven forgive me for swearing) of God and man, with his teeth set, and his hands clenched, and his bonnet drawn over his brows.... " He stopped a moment, and looked fixedly in his master's face. 

--and again in saving the poor lad himself when he takes the street tohis last destruction "with burning heart and bloodshot eye":

 "Why do you stop my way?" he said fiercely. 

 "Because it is a bad one, Master Jenkin, " said Richie. 

 "Nay, never start about it, man; you see you are known. Alack-a-day! that an honest man's son should live to start at hearing himself called by his own name. "

 "I pray you in good fashion to let me go, " said Jenkin. "I am in the humor to be dangerous to myself, or to anyone. "

 "I will abide the risk, " said the Scot, "if you will but come with me. You are the very lad in the world whom I most wish to meet. "[106]

 "And you, " answered Vincent, "or any of your beggarly countrymen, are the last sight I should ever wish to see. You Scots are ever fair and false. "

 "As to our poverty, friend, " replied Richie, "that is as Heaven pleases; but touching our falsity, I'll prove to you that a Scotsman bears as leal and true a heart to his friend as ever beat in an English doublet. "

119. In these, and other such passages, it will be felt that I have doneRichie some injustice in classing him among the religionists who havelittle sympathy! For all real distress, his compassion is instant; buthis doctrinal religion becomes immediately to him a cause of failure incharity. 

 "Yon divine has another air from powerful Master Rollock, and Mess David Black of North Leith, and sic like. Alack-a-day, wha can ken, if it please your lordship, whether sic prayers as the Southrons read out of their auld blethering black mess-book there, may not be as powerful to invite fiends, as a right red-het prayer warm from the heart may be powerful to drive them away; even as the evil spirit was driven by the smell of the fish's liver from the bridal chamber of Sara, the daughter of Raguel!"

The scene in which this speech occurs is one of Scott's most finishedpieces, showing with supreme art how far the weakness of Richie'ssuperstitious formality is increased by his being at the time partiallydrunk!

It is on the other hand to be noted to his credit, for an earnest andsearching Bible-reader, that he quotes the Apocrypha. Not so giftedGilfillan, --

 "But if your honor wad consider the case of Tobit--!"

 "Tobit!" exclaimed Gilfillan with great heat; "Tobit and his dog baith are altogether heathenish and apocryphal, and none but a prelatist or a papist would draw them into question. I doubt I hae been mista'en in you, friend. "

Gilfillan and Fairservice are exactly alike, and both are distinguishedfrom Moniplies in their scornfully exclusive dogmatism, which is indeedthe distinctive plague-spot of the lower evangelical sect everywhere, and the worst blight of the narrow natures, capable of its zealousprofession. In Blattergowl, on the contrary, as his name implies, the_doctrinal_ teaching has become mere Blather, Blatter, or patter--astring of commonplaces spoken habitually in performance of his clericalfunction, but with no personal or sectarian interest in them on hispart. 

"He said fine things on the duty o' resignation to the will of God--thatdid he"; but his own mind is fixed under ordinary circumstances only onthe income and privilege of his position. Scott however indicates thiswithout severity as one of the weaknesses of an established church, tothe general principle of which, as to all other established andmonarchic law, he is wholly submissive, and usually affectionate (seethe description of Colonel Mannering's Edinburgh Sunday), so thatBlattergowl, _out of the pulpit_, does not fail in his serious pastoralduty, but gives real comfort by his presence and exhortation in thecottage of the Mucklebackits. 

On the other hand, to all kinds of Independents and Nonconformists(unless of Roderick Dhu type) Scott is adverse with all his powers; andaccordingly, Andrew and Gilfillan are much more sternly and scornfullydrawn than Blattergowl. 

120. In all the three, however, the reader must not for an instantsuspect what is commonly called "hypocrisy. " Their religion is noassumed mask or advanced pretense. It is in all a confirmed and intimatefaith, mischievous by its error, in proportion to its sincerity (compare"Ariadne Florentina, " paragraph 87), and although by his cowardice, petty larceny, [107] and low cunning, Fairservice is absolutely separatedinto a different class of men from Moniplies--in his fixed religiousprinciple and primary conception of moral conduct, he is exactly likehim. Thus when, in an agony of terror, he speaks for once to his masterwith entire sincerity, one might for a moment think it was a lecture byMoniplies to Nigel. 

 "O, Maister Frank, a' your uncle's follies and your cousin's fliskies, were nothing to this! Drink clean cap-out, like Sir Hildebrand; begin the blessed morning with brandy-taps like Squire Percy; rin wud among the lasses like Squire John; gamble like Richard; win souls to the Pope and the deevil, like Rashleigh; rive, rant, _break the Sabbath_, and do the Pope's bidding, like them a' put thegither--but merciful Providence! tak' care o' your young bluid, and gang na near Rob Roy. "

I said, one might for a moment think it was a Moniplies' lecture toNigel. But not for two moments, if we indeed can think at all. We couldnot find a passage more concentrated in expression of Andrew's totalcharacter; nor more characteristic of Scott in the calculated precisionand deliberate appliance of every word. 

121. Observe first, Richie's rebuke, quoted above, fastens Nigel's mindinstantly on the _nobleness_ of his father. But Andrew's to Frankfastens as instantly on the _follies_ of his uncle and cousins. 

Secondly, the sum of Andrew's lesson is--"do anything that is rascally, if only you save your skin. " But Richie's is summed in "the grace of Godis better than gold pieces. "

Thirdly, Richie takes little note of creeds, except when he is drunk, but looks to conduct always; while Andrew clinches his catalogue ofwrong with "doing the Pope's bidding" and Sabbath-breaking; thesedefinitions of the unpardonable being the worst absurdity of all Scotchwickedness to this hour--everything being forgiven to people who go tochurch on Sunday, and curse the Pope. Scott never loses sight of thismarvelous plague-spot of Presbyterian religion, and the last words ofAndrew Fairservice are:--

 "The villain Laurie! to betray an auld friend that sang aff the same psalm-book wi' him _every Sabbath_ for twenty years, "

and the tragedy of these last words of his, and of his expulsion fromhis former happy home--"a jargonelle pear-tree at one end of thecottage, a rivulet and flower plot of a rood in extent in front, akitchen garden behind, and a paddock for a cow" (viii. 6, of the 1830edition) can only be understood by the reading of the chapter he quoteson that last Sabbath evening he passes in it--the 5th of Nehemiah. 

122. For--and I must again and again point out this to the modernreader, who, living in a world of affectation, suspects "hypocrisy" inevery creature he sees--the very plague of this lower evangelical pietyis that it is _not_ hypocrisy; that Andrew and Laurie _do_ both expectto get the grace of God by singing psalms on Sunday, whatever rascalitythey practice during the week. In the modern popular drama of"School, "[108] the only religious figure is a dirty and malicious usherwho appears first reading Hervey's "Meditations, " and throws away thebook as soon as he is out of sight of the company. But when Andrew isfound by Frank "perched up like a statue by a range of beehives in anattitude of devout contemplation, with one eye watching the motions ofthe little irritable citizens, and the other fixed on a book ofdevotion, " you will please observe, suspicious reader, that the devoutgardener has no expectation whatever of Frank's approach, nor has he anydesign upon him, nor is he reading or attitudinizing for effect of anykind on any person. He is following his own ordinary customs, and hisbook of devotion has been already so well used that "much attrition haddeprived it of its corners, and worn it into an oval shape"; itsattractiveness to Andrew being twofold--the first, that it containsdoctrine to his mind; the second, that such sound doctrine is set forthunder figures properly belonging to his craft. "I was e'en taking aspell o' worthy Mess John Quackleben's 'Flower of a Sweet Savour sown onthe Middenstead of this World'" (note in passing Scott's easy, instant, exquisite invention of the name of author and title of book); and it isa question of very curious interest how far these sweet "spells" inQuackleben, and the like religious exercises of a nature compatible withworldly business (compare Luckie Macleary, "with eyes employed onBoston's 'Crook in the Lot, ' while her ideas were engaged in summing upthe reckoning"--Waverley, i. 112)--do indeed modify in Scotland thenational character for the better or the worse; or, not materiallyaltering, do at least solemnize and confirm it in what good it may becapable of. My own Scottish nurse described in "Fors Clavigera" forApril, 1873, would, I doubt not, have been as faithful and affectionatewithout her little library of Puritan theology; nor were her minorfaults, so far as I could see, abated by its exhortations; but I cannotbut believe that her uncomplaining endurance of most painful disease, and steadiness of temper under not unfrequent misapprehension by thosewhom she best loved and served, were in great degree aided by so much ofChristian faith and hope as she had succeeded in obtaining, with littletalk about it. 

123. I knew however in my earlier days a right old Covenanter in myScottish aunt's house, of whom, with Mause Hedrigg and David Deans, Imay be able perhaps to speak further in my next paper. [109] But I canonly now write carefully of what bears on my immediate work: and mustask the reader's indulgence for the hasty throwing together of materialsintended, before my illness last spring, to have been far morethoroughly handled. The friends who are fearful for my reputation as an"écrivain" will perhaps kindly recollect that a sentence of "ModernPainters" was often written four or five times over in my own hand, andtried in every word for perhaps an hour--perhaps a forenoon--before itwas passed for the printer. I rarely now fix my mind on a sentence, or athought, for five minutes in the quiet of morning, but a telegram comesannouncing that somebody or other will do themselves the pleasure ofcalling at eleven o'clock, and that there's two shillings to pay. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 98: October 1881. ]

[Footnote 99: "Jean François Millet. " Twenty Etching's and Woodcutsreproduced in Facsimile, and Biographical Notice by William ErnestHenley. London, 1881. ]

[Footnote 100: I am sorry to find that my former allusion to the boatingexpedition in this novel has been misconstrued by a young authoress ofpromise into disparagement of her own work; not supposing it possiblethat I could only have been forced to look at George Eliot's by afriend's imperfect account of it. ]

[Footnote 101: I am ashamed to exemplify the miserable work of "review"by mangling and mumbling this noble closing chapter of the "Monastery, "but I cannot show the web of work without unweaving it. ]

[Footnote 102: With ludicrously fatal retouch in the later edition "wasdeprived of" his sword. ]

[Footnote 103: Again I am obliged, by review necessity, to omit half thepoints of the scene. ]

[Footnote 104: I must deeply and earnestly express my thanks to myfriend Mr. Hale White for his vindication of Goethe's real opinion ofByron from the mangled representation of it by Mr. Matthew Arnold(_Contemporary Review_, August, 1881). ]

[Footnote 105: "Reirde, rerde, Anglo-Saxon reord, lingua, sermo, clamor, shouting" (Douglas glossary). No Scottish sentence in the Scott novelsshould be passed without examining every word in it, his dialect, asalready noticed, being always pure and classic in the highest degree, and his meaning always the fuller, the further it is traced. ]

[Footnote 106: The reader must observe that in quoting Scott forillustration of particular points I am obliged sometimes to alter thesuccession and omit much of the context of the pieces I want, for Scottnever lets you see his hand, nor get at his points without rememberingand comparing far-away pieces carefully. To collect the evidence of anyone phase of character, is like pulling up the detached roots of acreeper. ]

[Footnote 107: Note the "wee business of my ain, " i. 213. ]

[Footnote 108: Its "hero" is a tall youth with handsome calves to hislegs, who shoots a bull with a fowling-piece, eats a large lunch, thinksit witty to call Othello a "nigger, " and, having nothing to live on, andbeing capable of doing nothing for his living, establishes himself inlunches and cigars forever, by marrying a girl with a fortune. Theheroine is an amiable governess, who, for the general encouragement ofvirtue in governesses, is rewarded by marrying a lord. ]

[Footnote 109: The present paper was, however, the last. --ED. ]

FAIRY STORIES. [110]

124. Long since, longer ago than the opening of some fairy tales, I wasasked by the publisher who has been rash enough, at my request, toreprint these my favorite old stories in their earliest English form, toset down for him my reasons for preferring them to the more polishedlegends, moral and satiric, which are now, with rich adornment of everypage by very admirable art, presented to the acceptance of the Nursery. 

But it seemed to me to matter so little to the majestic independence ofthe child-public, who, beside themselves, liked, or who disliked, whatthey pronounced entertaining, that it is only on strict claims of apromise unwarily given that I venture on the impertinence of eulogy; andmy reluctance is the greater, because there is in fact nothing verynotable in these tales, unless it be their freedom from faults which forsome time have been held to be quite the reverse of faults by themajority of readers. 

125. In the best stories recently written for the young, there is ataint which it is not easy to define, but which inevitably follows onthe author's addressing himself to children bred in schoolrooms anddrawing-rooms, instead of fields and woods--children whose favoriteamusements are premature imitations of the vanities of elder people, andwhose conceptions of beauty are dependent partly on costliness of dress. The fairies who interfere in the fortunes of these little ones are aptto be resplendent chiefly in millinery and satin slippers, and appallingmore by their airs than their enchantments. 

The fine satire which, gleaming through every playful word, renders someof these recent stories as attractive to the old as to the young, seemsto me no less to unfit them for their proper function. Children shouldlaugh, but not mock; and when they laugh, it should not be at theweaknesses and the faults of others. They should be taught, as far asthey are permitted to concern themselves with the characters of thosearound them, to seek faithfully for good, not to lie in wait maliciouslyto make themselves merry with evil: they should be too painfullysensitive to wrong to smile at it; and too modest to constitutethemselves its judges. 

126. With these minor errors a far graver one is involved. As thesimplicity of the sense of beauty has been lost in recent tales forchildren, so also the simplicity of their conception of love. That wordwhich, in the heart of a child, should represent the most constant andvital part of its being; which ought to be the sign of the most solemnthoughts that inform its awakening soul and, in one wide mystery of puresunrise, should flood the zenith of its heaven, and gleam on the dew atits feet; this word, which should be consecrated on its lips, togetherwith the Name which it may not take in vain, and whose meaning shouldsoften and animate every emotion through which the inferior things andthe feeble creatures, set beneath it in its narrow world, are revealedto its curiosity or companionship; this word, in modern child-story, istoo often restrained and darkened into the hieroglyph of an evilmystery, troubling the sweet peace of youth with premature gleams ofuncomprehended passion, and flitting shadows of unrecognized sin. 

These great faults in the spirit of recent child-fiction are connectedwith a parallel folly of purpose. Parents who are too indolent andself-indulgent to form their children's characters by wholesomediscipline, or in their own habits and principles of life are consciousof setting before them no faultless example, vainly endeavor tosubstitute the persuasive influence of moral precept, intruded in theguise of amusement, for the strength of moral habit compelled byrighteous authority:--vainly think to inform the heart of infancy withdeliberative wisdom, while they abdicate the guardianship of itsunquestioning innocence; and warp into the agonies of an immaturephilosophy of conscience the once fearless strength of its unsullied andunhesitating virtue. 

127. A child should not need to choose between right and wrong. Itshould not be capable of wrong; it should not conceive of wrong. Obedient, as bark to helm, not by sudden strain or effort, but in thefreedom of its bright course of constant life; true, with anundistinguished, praiseless, unboastful truth, in a crystallinehousehold world of truth; gentle, through daily entreatings ofgentleness, and honorable trusts, and pretty prides of child-fellowshipin offices of good; strong, not in bitter and doubtful contest withtemptation, but in peace of heart, and armor of habitual right, fromwhich temptation falls like thawing hail; self-commanding, not in sickrestraint of mean appetites and covetous thoughts, but in vital joy ofunluxurious life, and contentment in narrow possession, wisely esteemed. 

Children so trained have no need of moral fairy tales; but they willfind in the apparently vain and fitful courses of any tradition of oldtime, honestly delivered to them, a teaching for which no other can besubstituted, and of which the power cannot be measured; animating forthem the material world with inextinguishable life, fortifying themagainst the glacial cold of selfish science, and preparing themsubmissively, and with no bitterness of astonishment, to behold, inlater years, the mystery--divinely appointed to remain such to all humanthought--of the fates that happen alike to the evil and the good. 

128. And the effect of the endeavor to make stories moral upon theliterary merit of the work itself, is as harmful as the motive of theeffort is false. For every fairy tale worth recording at all is theremnant of a tradition possessing true historical value;--historical, atleast in so far as it has naturally arisen out of the mind of a peopleunder special circumstances, and risen not without meaning, nor removedaltogether from their sphere of religious faith. It sustains afterwardsnatural changes from the sincere action of the fear or fancy ofsuccessive generations; it takes new color from their manner of life, and new form from their changing moral tempers. As long as these changesare natural and effortless, accidental and inevitable, the story remainsessentially true, altering its form, indeed, like a flying cloud, butremaining a sign of the sky; a shadowy image, as truly a part of thegreat firmament of the human mind as the light of reason which it seemsto interrupt. But the fair deceit and innocent error of it cannot beinterpreted nor restrained by a willful purpose, and all additions to itby act do but defile, as the shepherd disturbs the flakes of morningmist with smoke from his fire of dead leaves. 

129. There is also a deeper collateral mischief in this indulgence oflicentious change and retouching of stories to suit particular tastes, or inculcate favorite doctrines. It directly destroys the child's powerof rendering any such belief as it would otherwise have been in hisnature to give to an imaginative vision. How far it is expedient tooccupy his mind with ideal forms at all may be questionable to many, though not to me; but it is quite beyond question that if we do allow ofthe fictitious representation, that representation should be calm andcomplete, possessed to the full, and read down its utmost depth. Thelittle reader's attention should never be confused or disturbed, whetherhe is possessing himself of fairy tale or history. Let him know hisfairy tale accurately, and have perfect joy or awe in the conception ofit as if it were real; thus he will always be exercising his power ofgrasping realities: but a confused, careless, or discrediting tenure ofthe fiction will lead to as confused and careless reading of fact. Letthe circumstances of both be strictly perceived and long dwelt upon, andlet the child's own mind develop fruit of thought from both. It is ofthe greatest importance early to secure this habit of contemplation, andtherefore it is a grave error, either to multiply unnecessarily, or toillustrate with extravagant richness, the incidents presented to theimagination. It should multiply and illustrate them for itself; and, ifthe intellect is of any real value, there will be a mystery andwonderfulness in its own dreams which would only be thwarted by externalillustration. Yet I do not bring forward the text or the etchings inthis volume as examples of what either ought to be in works of the kind:they are in many respects common, imperfect, vulgar; but their vulgarityis of a wholesome and harmless kind. It is not, for instance, gracefulEnglish, to say that a thought "popped into Catherine's head"; but itnevertheless is far better, as an initiation into literary style, that achild should be told this than that "a subject attracted Catherine'sattention. " And in genuine forms of minor tradition, a rude and more orless illiterate tone will always be discernible; for all the best fairytales have owed their birth, and the greater part of their power, tonarrowness of social circumstances; they belonged properly to districtsin which walled cities are surrounded by bright and unblemished country, and in which a healthy and bustling town life, not highly refined, isrelieved by, and contrasted with, the calm enchantment of pastoral andwoodland scenery, either under humble cultivation by peasant masters, orleft in its natural solitude. Under conditions of this kind theimagination is enough excited to invent instinctively (and rejoice inthe invention of) spiritual forms of wildness and beauty, while yet itis restrained and made cheerful by the familiar accidents and relationsof town life, mingling always in its fancy humorous and vulgarcircumstances with pathetic ones, and never so much impressed with itssupernatural fantasies as to be in danger of retaining them as any partof its religious faith. The good spirit descends gradually from anangel into a fairy, and the demon shrinks into a playful grotesque ofdiminutive malevolence, while yet both keep an accredited and vitalinfluence upon the character and mind. But the language in which suchideas will be usually clothed, must necessarily partake of theirnarrowness; and art is systematically incognizant of them, having onlystrength under the conditions which awake them to express itself in anirregular and gross grotesque, fit only for external architecturaldecoration. 

130. The illustrations of this volume are almost the only exceptions Iknow to the general rule. They are of quite sterling and admirable art, in a class precisely parallel in elevation to the character of the taleswhich they illustrate; and the original etchings, as I have before saidin the Appendix to my "Elements of Drawing, " were quite unrivaled inmasterfulness of touch since Rembrandt (in some qualities of delineationunrivaled even by him). These copies have been so carefully executed, that at first I was deceived by them, and supposed them to be lateimpressions from the plates (and what is more, I believe the masterhimself was deceived by them, and supposed them to be his own); andalthough on careful comparison with the first proofs they will be foundno exception to the terrible law that literal repetition of entirelyfine work shall be, even to the hand that produced it, --much more to anyother, --forever impossible, they still represent, with sufficientfidelity to be in the highest degree instructive, the harmonious lightand shade, the manly simplicity of execution, and the easy, unincumberedfancy, of designs which belonged to the best period of Cruikshank'sgenius. To make somewhat enlarged copies of them, looking at themthrough a magnifying glass, and never putting two lines where Cruikshankhas put only one, would be an exercise in decision and severe drawingwhich would leave afterwards little to be learnt in schools, I wouldgladly also say much in their praise as imaginative designs; but thepower of genuine imaginative work, and its difference from that which iscompounded and patched together from borrowed sources, is of allqualities of art the most difficult to explain; and I must be contentwith the simple assertions of it. 

And so I trust the good old book, and the honest work that adorns it, tosuch favor as they may find with children of open hearts and lowlylives. 

 DENMARK HILL, _Easter_, 1868. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: This paper forms the introduction to a volume entitled"German Popular Stories, with Illustrations after the original designsof George Cruikshank, edited by Edgar Taylor, with Introduction by JohnRuskin, M. A. " London: Chatto and Windus, 1868. The book is a reprint ofMr. Edgar Taylor's original (1823) selections of the "Hausmärchen, " or"German Popular Stories" of the Brothers Grimm. The original selectionswere in two octavo volumes; the reprint in one of smaller size, it being(the publisher states in his preface) "Mr. Ruskin's wish that the newedition should appeal to young readers rather than to adults. "--ED. ]

 * * * * *

ECONOMY. 

HOME, AND ITS ECONOMIES. 

(_Contemporary Review, May_ 1873. )

USURY. A REPLY AND A REJOINDER. 

(_Contemporary Review, February_ 1880. )

USURY. A PREFACE. 

(_Pamphlet_, 1885. )

 * * * * *

HOME, AND ITS ECONOMIES. [111]

131. In the March number of the _Contemporary Review_ appeared twopapers, [112] by writers of reputation, which I cannot but hope theirauthors will perceive upon reflection to have involved errors only themore grave in that they have become, of late, in the minds of nearly allpublic men, facile and familiar. I have, therefore, requested theeditor's permission to offer some reply to both of these essays, theirsubjects being intimately connected. 

The first of which I speak was Mr. Herbert Spencer's, which appearedunder the title of "The Bias of Patriotism. " But the real subject of thepaper (discussed in its special extent, with singular care and equity)was only the bias of National vanity; and the debate was opened by thisvery curious sentence, --"Patriotism is nationally, that which Egoism isindividually. "

Mr. Spencer would not, I think, himself accept this statement, if putinto the clear form, "What is Egoism in one man, is Patriotism in two ormore, and the vice of an individual, the virtue of a multitude. "[113]But it is strange, --however strictly Mr. Spencer may of late haveconfined his attention to metaphysical or scientific subjects, disregarding the language of historical or imaginative literature--itis strange, I repeat, that so careful a student should be unaware thatthe term "patriotism" cannot, in classical usage, be extended to theaction of a multitude. No writer of authority ever speaks of a nation ashaving felt, or acted, patriotically. Patriotism is, by definition, avirtue of individuals; and so far from being in those individuals a modeof egoism, it is precisely in the sacrifice of their egoism that itconsists. It is the temper of mind which determines them to defer theirown interests to those of their country. 

132. Supposing it possible for any parallel sentiment to animate anation as one body, it could have reference only to the position it heldamong other families of the world. The name of the emotion would then beproperly "Cosmism, " and would signify the resolution of such a people tosacrifice its own special interests to those of Mankind. Cosmismhitherto has indeed generally asserted itself only in the desire of theCosmic nation that all others should adopt its theological opinions, andpermit it to adopt their personal property; but Patriotism has trulyexisted, and even as a dominant feeling, in the minds of many personswho have been greatly influential on the fates of their races, and thatone of our leading philosophers should be unconscious of the nature ofthis sentiment, and ignorant of its political power, is to be noted aspainfully characteristic of the present state of England itself. 

It does not indeed follow that a feeling of which we are unaware isnecessarily extinguished in us; and the faculties of perception andanalysis are always so paralyzed by the lingual ingenuities of logicthat it is impossible to say, of any professed logician, whether he maynot yet be acting under the real force of ideas of which he has lostboth the consciousness and conception. No man who has once entangledhimself in what Mr. Spencer defines, farther on, as the "science of therelations implied by the conclusions, exclusions, and overlappings ofclasses, " can be expected during the rest of his life to perceive moreof any one thing than that it is included, excluded, or overlapped bysomething else; which is in itself a sufficiently confused state ofmind, and especially harmful in that it permits us to avoid consideringwhether our intellectual linen is itself clean, while we concernourselves only to ascertain whether it is included, excluded, oroverlapped by our coat collar. But it is a grave phenomenon of the timethat patriotism--of all others--should be the sentiment which an Englishlogician is not only unable to define, but attempts to define as itsprecise contrary. In every epoch of decline, men even of highintellectual energy have been swept down in the diluvium of public life, and the crystalline edges of their minds worn away by friction withblunted ones; but I had not believed that the whole weight of thedepraved mob of modern England, though they have become incapable alikeof fidelity to their own country, and alliance with any other, could sofar have perplexed one of our exactest students as to make him confuseheroism with conceit, and the loves of country and of home with theiniquities of selfishness. Can it be only a quarter of a century sincethe Last Minstrel died--and have we already answered his "Lives there aman?" with the calm assertion that there live no other than such; andthat the "wretch concentered all in self "is the "Patriot" of ourgeneration?

133. Be it so. Let it even be admitted that egoism is the only powerconceivable by a modern metaphysician to be the spring of mental energy;just as chemical excitement may be the only power traceable by themodern physician as the source of muscular energy. And still Mr. Spencer's subsequent analysis is inaccurate, and unscholarly. For egoismdoes not necessarily imply either misapprehension or mismeasurement. There are modes of the love of our country which are definitely selfish, as a cat's of the hearthrug, yet entirely balanced and calm in judicialfaculty; passions which determine conduct, but have no influence onopinion. For instance, I have bought for my own exclusive gratification, the cottage in which I am writing, near the lake-beach on which I usedto play when I was seven years old. Were I a public-spirited scientificperson, or a benevolently pious one, I should doubtless, instead, besurveying the geographical relations of the Mountains of the Moon, ortranslating the Athanasian Creed into Tartar-Chinese. But I hate thevery name of the public, and labor under no oppressive anxiety eitherfor the advancement of science, or the salvation of mankind. I thereforeprefer amusing myself with the lake-pebbles, of which I know nothing butthat they are pretty; and conversing with people whom I can understandwithout pains, and who, so far from needing to be converted, seem to meon the whole better than myself. This is moral egoism, but it is notintellectual error. I never form, much less express, any opinion as tothe relative beauties of Yewdale crag and the Mountains of the Moon; nordo I please myself by contemplating, in any exaggerated light, thespiritual advantages which I possess in my familiarity with theThirty-nine Articles. I know the height of my neighboring mountains to afoot; and the extent of my real possessions, theological and material, to an article. Patriotic egoism attaches me to the one; personal egoismsatisfies me in the other; and the calm selfishness with which Naturehas blessed all her unphilosophical creatures, blinds me to theattractions--as to the faults--of things with which I have no concern, and saves me at once from the folly of contempt, and the discomfort ofenvy. I might have written, as accurately, "The discomfort of contempt";for indeed the forms of petulant rivalry and self-assertion which Mr. Spencer assumes to be developments of egoism, are merely its diseases;(taking the word "disease" in its most literal meaning). A man of senseis more an egoist in modesty than a blockhead is in boasting; and it isneither pride nor self-respect, but only ignorance and ill-breeding, that either disguise the facts of life, or violate its courtesies. 

134. It will not, I trust, be thought violation of courtesy to a writerof Mr. Spencer's extending influence, if I urge on his attention thedanger under which metaphysicians are always placed of supposing thatthe investigation of the processes of thought will enable them todistinguish its forms. 'As well might the chemist, who had exhaustivelyexamined the conditions of vitreous fusion, imagine himself thereforequalified to number or class the vases bent by the breath of Venice. Mr. Spencer has determined, I believe, to the satisfaction of his readers, in what manner thoughts and feelings are constructed; it is time for himnow to observe the results of the construction, whether native to hisown mind, or discoverable in other intellectual territories. Patriotismis, however, perhaps the last emotion he can now conveniently study inEngland, for the temper which crowns the joy of life with the sweetnessand decorum of death can scarcely be manifested clearly in a countrywhich is fast rendering herself one whose peace is pollution, and whosebattle, crime; within whose confines it is loathsome to live, and inwhose cause it is disgraceful to die. 

135. The chief causes of her degradation were defended, with delicateapology, in the second paper to which I have above referred; themodification by Mr. W. R. Greg of a letter which he had addressed, onthe subject of luxurious expenditure and its economical results, to the_Pall Mall Gazette_; and which Mr. Greg states to have given rise inthat journal to a controversy in which four or five combatants tookpart, the looseness of whose notions induced him to express his own morecoherent ones in the _Contemporary Review_. [114]

I am sorry to find that Mr. Greg looked upon my own poor part in thatcorrespondence as controversial. I merely asked him a question which hedeclared to be insidious and irrelevant (not considering that if it werethe one, it could not be the other), and I stated a few facts respectingwhich no controversy was possible, and which Mr. Greg, in his own terms, "sedulously abstained" from noticing. 

But Mr. Greg felt my question to be insidious because it made him partlyconscious that he had only examined one half of the subject he wasdiscussing, and even that half without precision. 

Mr. Goldwin Smith had spoken of a rich man as consuming the means ofliving of the poor. Mr. Greg, in reply, pointed out how beneficially therich man spent what he had got. Upon which I ventured to inquire "how hegot it"; which is indeed precisely the first of all questions to beasked when the economical relations of any man with his neighbor are tobe examined. 

Dick Turpin is blamed--suppose--by some plain-minded person forconsuming the means of other people's living. "Nay, " says Dick to theplain-minded person, "observe how beneficently and pleasantly I spendwhatever I get!"

"Yes, Dick, " persists the plain-minded person; "but how do you get it?"

"The question, " says Dick, "is insidious and irrelevant. "

Do not let it be supposed that I mean to assert any irregularity orimpropriety in Dick's profession--I merely assert the necessity for Mr. Greg's examination, if he would be master of his subject, of the mannerof Gain in every case, as well as the manner of Expenditure. Suchaccounts must always be accurately rendered in a well-regulated society. 

 136. "Le lieutenant adressa la parole au capitaine, et lui dit qu'il venait d'enlever ces mannequins, remplis de sucre, de cannelle, d'amandes, et de raisins sees, ŕ un épicier de Bénavente. Aprčs qu'il eut rendu compte de son expédition au bureau, les dépouilles de l'épicier furent portées dans l'office. Alors il ne fut plus question que de se réjouir; je débutai par le buffet, que je parai de plusieurs bouteilles de ce bon vin que le Seigneur Rolando m'avoit vanté. "

Mr. Greg strictly confines himself to an examination of the benefitsconferred on the public by this so agreeable festivity; but he must notbe surprised or indignant that some inquiry should be made as to theresulting condition of the épicier de Bénavente. 

And it is all the more necessary that such inquiry be instituted whenthe captain of the expedition is a minion, not of the moon, but of thesun; and dazzling, therefore, to all beholders. "It is heaven whichdictates what I ought to do upon this occasion, "[115] says Henry ofNavarre; "my retreat out of this city, [116] before I have made myselfmaster of it, will be the retreat of my soul out of my body. ""Accordingly all the quarter which still held out, we forced, " says M. De Rosny, "after which the inhabitants, finding themselves no longerable to resist, laid down their arms, and the city was given up toplunder. My good fortune threw a small iron chest in my way, in which Ifound about four thousand gold crowns. "

I cannot doubt that the Baron's expenditure of this sum would be in thehighest degree advantageous to France and to the Protestant religion. But complete economical science must study the effect of its abstractionon the immediate prosperity of the town of Cahors; and even beyondthis--the mode of its former acquisition by the town itself, whichperhaps, in the economies of the nether world, may have delegated someof its citizens to the seventh circle. [117]

137. And the most curious points in the partiality of modern economicalscience are that while it always waives this question of ways and meanswith respect to rich persons, it studiously pushes it in the case ofpoor ones; and while it asserts the consumption of such an article ofluxury as wine (to take that which Mr. Greg himself instances) to beeconomically expedient, when the wine is drunk by persons who are notthirsty, it asserts the same consumption to be altogether inexpedient, when the privilege is extended to those who are. Thus Mr. Gregdismisses, in one place, with compassionate disdain, the extremelyvulgar notion "that a man who drinks a bottle of champagne worth fiveshillings, while his neighbor is in want of actual food, is in some waywronging his neighbor"; and yet Mr. Greg himself, elsewhere, [118]evidently remains under the equally vulgar impression that thetwenty-four millions of such thirstier persons who spend fifteen percent of their incomes in drink and tobacco, are wronging their neighborsby that expenditure. 

138. It cannot, surely, be the difference in degree of refinementbetween malt liquor and champagne which causes Mr. Greg's undefinedsensation of moral delinquency and economical error in the one case, andof none in the other; if that be all, I can relieve him from hisembarrassment by putting the cases in more parallel form. A clergymanwrites to me, in distress of mind, because the able-bodied laborers whocome begging to him in winter, drink port wine out of buckets in summer. Of course Mr. Greg's logical mind will at once admit (as a consequenceof his own very just _argumentum ad hominem_ in a previous page[119])that the consumption of port wine out of buckets must be as much abenefit to society in general as the consumption of champagne out ofbottles; and yet, curiously enough, I am certain he will feel myquestion, "Where does the drinker get the means for his drinking?" morerelevant in the case of the imbibers of port than in that of theimbibers of champagne. And although Mr. Greg proceeds, with that loftycontempt for the dictates of nature and Christianity which radicaleconomists cannot but feel, to observe that "while the natural man andthe Christian would have the champagne drinker forego his bottle, andgive the value of it to the famishing wretch beside him, the radicaleconomist would condemn such behavior as distinctly criminal andpernicious, " he would scarcely, I think, carry out with the sametriumphant confidence the conclusions of the unnatural man and theanti-christian, with respect to the laborer as well as the idler; anddeclare that while the extremely simple persons who still believe in thelaws of nature, and the mercy of God, would have the port-drinker foregohis bucket, and give the value of it to the famishing wife and childbeside him, "the radical economist would condemn such behavior asdistinctly criminal and pernicious. "

Mr. Greg has it indeed in his power to reply that it is proper toeconomize for the sake of one's own wife and children, but not for thesake of anybody else's. But since, according to another exponent of theprinciples of Radical Economy, in the _Cornhill Magazine_, [120] awell-conducted agricultural laborer must not marry till he isforty-five, his economies, if any, in early life, must be as offensiveto Mr. Greg on the score of their abstract humanity, as those of therichest bachelor about town. 

139. There is another short sentence in this same page, of which it isdifficult to overrate the accidental significance. 

"The superficial observer, " says Mr. Greg, "recollects a text which heheard in his youth, but of which he never considered the preciseapplicability--'He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hathnone. '"

The assumptions that no educated Englishman can ever have heard thattext except in his youth, and that those who are old enough to rememberhaving heard it, "never considered its precise applicability, " aresurely rash, in the treatment of a scientific subject. I can assure Mr. Greg that a few gray-headed votaries of the creed of Christendom stillread--though perhaps under their breath--the words which earlyassociations have made precious to them; and that in the bygone days, when that Sermon on the Mount was still listened to with respect by manynot illiterate persons, its meaning was not only considered, but verydeliberately acted upon. Even the readers of the _Contemporary Review_may perhaps have some pleasure in retreating from the sunshine ofcontemporary science, for a few quiet moments, into the shadows of thatof the past, and hearing in the following extracts from two letters ofScott's (the first describing the manner of life of his mother, whosedeath it announces to a friend, the second, anticipating the verdict ofthe future on the management of his estate by a Scottish nobleman) whatrelations between rich and poor were possible, when philosophers had notyet even lisped in the sweet numbers of Radical Sociology. 

 * * * * *

140. "She was a strict economist, which she said, enabled her to beliberal; out of her little income of about Ł300 a year she bestowed atleast a third in well-chosen charities, and with the rest, lived like agentlewoman, and even with hospitality more general than seemed to suither age; yet I could never prevail on her to accept of any assistance. You cannot conceive how affecting it was to me to see the littlepreparations of presents which she had assorted for the New Year, forshe was a great observer of the old fashions of her period--and to thinkthat the kind heart was cold which delighted in all these arts of kindlyaffection. "

141. "The Duke is one of those retired and high-spirited men who willnever be known until the world asks what became of the huge oak thatgrew on the brow of the hill, and sheltered such an extent of ground. During the late distress, though his own immense rents remained inarrears, and though I know he was pinched for money, as all men were, but more especially the possessors of entailed estates, he absentedhimself from London in order to pay, with ease to himself, the laborersemployed on his various estates. These amounted (for I have often seenthe roll and helped to check it) to nine hundred and fifty men, workingat day wages, each of whom on a moderate average might maintain threepersons, since the single men have mothers, sisters, and aged or veryyoung relations to protect and assist. Indeed it is wonderful how mucheven a small sum, comparatively, will do in supporting the Scottishlaborer, who in his natural state is perhaps one of the best, mostintelligent, and kind-hearted of human beings; and in truth I havelimited my other habits of expense very much since I fell into the habitof employing mine honest people. I wish you could have seen about ahundred children, being almost entirely supported by their fathers' orbrothers' labor, come down yesterday to dance to the pipes, and get apiece of cake and bannock, and pence apiece (no very deadly largess) inhonor of hogmanay. I declare to you, my dear friend, that when I thoughtthe poor fellows, who kept these children so neat, and well taught, andwell behaved, were slaving the whole day for eighteen pence or twentypence at most, I was ashamed of their gratitude, and of their becks andbows. But after all, one does what one can, and it is better twentyfamilies should be comfortable according to their wishes and habits, than that half that number should be raised above their situation. "

 * * * * *

142. I must pray Mr. Greg farther to observe, if he has condescended toglance at these remains of almost prehistoric thought, that although themodern philosopher will never have reason to blush for any man'sgratitude, and has totally abandoned the romantic idea of making even somuch as one family comfortable according to their wishes and habits, thealternative suggested by Scott, that half "the number should be raisedabove their situation" may become a very inconvenient one if thedoctrines of Modern Equality and competition should render the otherhalf desirous of parallel promotion. 

143. It is now just sixteen years since Mr. Greg's present philosophy ofExpenditure was expressed with great precision by the Common Councilmenof New York, in their report on the commercial crisis of 1857, in thefollowing terms:--[121]

 "Another erroneous idea is that luxurious living, extravagant dressing, splendid turn-outs and fine houses, are the cause of distress to a nation, No more erroneous impression could exist. Every extravagance that the man of 100. 000 or 1, 000, 000 dollars indulges in, adds to the means, the support, the wealth of ten or a hundred who had little or nothing else but their labor, their intellect, or their taste. If a man of 1, 000, 000 dollars spends principal and interest in ten years, and finds himself beggared at the end of that time, he has actually made a hundred who have catered to his extravagance, employers or employed, so much richer by the division of his wealth. He may be ruined, but the nation is better off and richer, for one hundred minds and hands, with 10, 000 dollars apiece, are far more productive than one with the whole. "

Now that is precisely the view also taken of the matter by a largenumber of Radical Economists in England as well as America; only theyfeel that the time, however short, which the rich gentleman takes todivide his property among them in his own way, is practically wasted;and even worse, because the methods which the gentleman himself islikely to adopt for the depression of his fortune will not, in allprobability, be conducive to the elevation of his character. It appears, therefore, on moral as well as economical grounds, desirable that thedivision and distribution should at once be summarily effected; and theonly point still open to discussion in the views of the CommonCouncilmen is to what degree of minuteness they would think it advisableto carry the subsequent subdivision. 

144. I do not suppose, however, that this is the conclusion which Mr. Greg is desirous that the general Anti-Christian public should adopt;and in that case, as I see by his paper in the last number of the_Contemporary_, [122] that he considers the Christian life itselfvirtually impossible, may I recommend his examination of the manners ofthe Pre-Christian? For I can certify him that this important subject, of which he has only himself imperfectly investigated one side, had beenthoroughly investigated on all sides, at least seven hundred yearsbefore Christ; and from that day to this, all men of wit, sense, andfeeling have held precisely the same views on the subjects of economyand charity, in all nations under the sun. It is of no consequencewhether Mr. Greg chooses the experience of Boeotia, Lombardy, orYorkshire, nor whether he studies the relation of work to-day or underHesiod, Virgil, or Sydney Smith. But it is desirable that at least heshould acquaint himself with the opinions of some such persons, as wellas with those of the Common Councilmen of New York; for though a man ofsuperior sagacity may be pardoned for thinking, with the friends of Job, that Wisdom will die with him, it can only be through neglect of theexisting opportunities of general culture that he remains distinctlyunder the impression that she was born with him. 

145. It may perhaps be well that in conclusion, I should state brieflythe causes and terms of the economical crisis of our own day, which hasbeen the subject of the debate between Mr. Goldwin Smith and Mr. Greg. 

No man ever became, or can become, largely rich merely by labor andeconomy. [123] All large fortunes (putting treasure-trove and gamblingout of consideration) are founded either on occupation of land, usury, or taxation of labor. Whether openly or occultly, the landlord, money-lender, and capitalist employer, gather into their possession acertain quantity of the means of existence which other people produce bythe labor of their hands. The effect of this impost upon the conditionof life of the tenant, borrower, and workman, is the first point to bestudied;--the results, that is to say, of the mode in which CaptainRoland fills his purse. 

Secondly, we have to study the effects of the mode in which CaptainRoland empties his purse. The landlord, usurer, or labor-master, doesnot, and cannot, himself consume all the means of life he collects. Hegives them to other persons, whom he employs for his own behoof--growersof champagne, jockeys, footmen, jewelers, builders, painters, musicians, and the like. The division of the labor of these persons from theproduction of food to the production of articles of luxury is veryfrequently, and at the present day, very grievously the cause of famine. But when the luxuries are produced, it becomes a quite separate questionwho is to have them, and whether the landlord and capitalist areentirely to monopolize the music, the painting, the architecture, thehand-service, the horse-service, and the sparkling champagne of theworld. 

146. And it is gradually, in these days, becoming manifest to thetenants, borrowers, and laborers, that instead of paying these largesums into the hands of the landlords, lenders, and employers, for themto purchase music, painting, etc. , with, the tenants, borrowers, andworkers had better buy a little music and painting for themselves. That, for instance, instead of the capitalist-employer paying three hundredpounds for a full-length portrait of himself, in the attitude ofinvesting his capital, the united workmen had better themselves pay thethree hundred pounds into the hands of the ingenious artist, for apainting in the antiquated manner of Leonardo or Raphael, of somesubject more religiously or historically interesting to them; and placedwhere they can always see it. And again instead of paying three hundredpounds to the obliging landlord, for him to buy a box at the opera with, whence to study the refinements of music and dancing, the tenants arebeginning to think that they may as well keep their rents to themselves, and therewith pay some Wandering Willie to fiddle at their own doors, orbid some gray-haired minstrel

 "Tune, to please a peasant's ear, The harp a king had loved to hear. "

And similarly the dwellers in the hut of the field and garret of thecity are beginning to think that instead of paying half a crown for theloan of half a fire-place, they had better keep their half-crown intheir pockets till they can buy for themselves a whole one. 

147. These are the views which are gaining ground among the poor; and itis entirely vain to endeavor to repress them by equivocations. They arefounded on eternal laws; and although their recognition will long berefused, and their promulgation, resisted as it will be, partly byforce, partly by falsehood, can only be through incalculable confusionand misery, recognized they must be eventually; and with these threeultimate results:--that the usurer's trade will be abolishedutterly, --that the employer will be paid justly for his superintendenceof labor, but not for his capital, and the landlord paid for hissuperintendence of the cultivation of land, when he is able to direct itwisely: that both he, and the employer of mechanical labor, will berecognized as beloved masters, if they deserve love, and as noble guideswhen they are capable of giving discreet guidance; but neither will bepermitted to establish themselves any more as senseless conduits throughwhich the strength and riches of their native land are to be poured intothe cup of the fornication of its capital. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 111: _Contemporary Review_, May 1873. ]

[Footnote 112: These were, first, Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Bias ofPatriotism, " being the ninth chapter of his "Study of Sociology, " firstpublished in the _Contemporary Review_; and, secondly, Mr. W. R. Greg's"What is culpable luxury?" See below, p. 303, § 135. --ED. ]

[Footnote 113: I take due note that Mr. Spencer partly means by hisadverbial sentence that Patriotism is individual Egoism, expecting itsown central benefit through the Nation's circumferent benefit, asthrough a funnel: but, throughout, Mr. Spencer confuses this sentiment, which he calls "reflex egoism, " with the action of "corporateconscience. "]

[Footnote 114: See the letters on "How the Rich Spend their Money"(reprinted from the _Pall Mall_) in "Arrows of the Chace, " vol. Ii. , where the origin of the discussion is explained. --ED. ]

[Footnote 115: I use the current English of Mrs. Lennox's translation, but Henry's real saying was (see the first--green leaf--edition ofSully), "It is written above what is to happen to me on every occasion. ""Toute occasion" becomes "cette occasion" in the subsequent editions, and finally "what is to happen to me" (ce que doit ętre fait de moi)becomes "what I ought to do" in the English. ]

[Footnote 116: Cahors. See the "Memoirs of the Duke of Sully, " Book 1. (Bohn's 1856 Edition, vol. I. , pp. 118-9. )--ED. ]

[Footnote 117: Where violence and brutality are punished. See Dante's"Inferno, " Canto xii. --ED. ]

[Footnote 118: See the _Contemporary Review_ at pp. 618 and624. --ED. ]

[Footnote 119: Viz. :--That if the expenditure of an income of Ł30, 000 ayear upon luxuries is to rob the poor, so _pro tanto_ is the expenditureof so much of an income of Ł300 as is spent on anything beyond "thesimplest necessaries of life. "--ED. ]

[Footnote 120: Referring to two anonymous articles on "The AgriculturalLaborer, " in the _Cornhill Magazine_, vol. 27, Jan. And June 1873, pp. 215 and 307. --ED. ]

[Footnote 121: See the Times of November 23rd of that year. ]

[Footnote 122: "Is a Christian life feasible in thesedays?"--ED. ]

[Footnote 123: See _Munera Pulveris_, § 139: "No man can become largelyrich by his personal will.... It is only by the discovery of some methodof taxing the labor of others that he can become opulent. " And see also_Time and Tide_, § 81. --ED. ]

USURY. [124]

A REPLY AND A REJOINDER. 

148. I have been honored by the receipt of a letter from the Bishop ofManchester, which, with his Lordship's permission, I have requested theeditor of the _Contemporary Review_ to place before the large circle ofhis readers, with a brief accompanying statement of the circumstances bywhich the letter has been called forth, and such imperfect reply as itis in my power without delay to render. 

 J. RUSKIN. 

 MANCHESTER, _December_ 8, 1879. 

DEAR SIR, --In a letter from yourself to the Rev. F. A. Malleson, [125] published in the _Contemporary Review_ of the currentmonth, I observe the following passage:--"I have never yet heard so muchas _one_ (preacher) heartily proclaiming against all those 'deceiverswith vain words, ' that no 'covetous person, which is an idolater, hath_any_ inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God;' and on myselfpersonally and publicly challenging the Bishops of England generally, and by name the Bishop of Manchester, to say whether usury was, or wasnot, according to the will of God, I have received no answer from anyone of them. " I confess, for myself, that until I saw this passage inprint a few days ago, I was unaware of the existence of such challenge, and therefore I could not answer it. It appears to have been delivered(A) in No. 82 of a series of letters which, under the title of _ForsClavigera_, you have for some time been addressing to the workingclasses of England, but which, from the peculiar mode of theirpublication, are not easily accessible to the general reader and which Ihave only caught a glimpse of, on the library-table of the AthenćumClub, on the rare occasions when I am able to use my privileges as amember of that Society. I have no idea why I had the honor of beingspecially mentioned by name (B); but I beg to assure you that my silencedid not arise from any discourtesy towards my challenger, nor from thatdiscretion which, some people may think, is usually the better part ofepiscopal valor, and which consists in ignoring inconvenient questionsfrom a sense of inability to answer them; but simply from the fact thatI was not conscious that your lance had touched my shield. 

149. The question you have asked is just one of those to whichAristotle's wise caution applies: "We must distinguish and define suchwords, if we would know how far, and in what sense, the opposite viewsare true" (_Eth. Nic. _, ix, c. Viii. § 3). What do you mean by "usury"?(C) Do you comprehend under it _any_ payment of money as interest forthe use of borrowed capital? or only exorbitant, inequitable, grindinginterest, such as the money-lender, Fufidius, extorted?

 Quinas hic capiti mercedes exsecat, atque Quanto perditior quisque est, tanto acrius urget: Nomina sectatur modo sumta veste virili Sub patribus duris tironum. Maxime, quis non, Jupiter, exclamat, simul atque audivit?

 --_Hor. Sat. _ i. 2, 14-18. 

Usury, in itself, is a purely neutral word, carrying with it, in itsprimary meaning, neither praise nor blame; and a "usurer" is defined inour dictionaries as "a person accustomed to lend money and take interestfor it"--which is the ordinary function of a banker, without whosehelp great commercial undertakings could not be carried out; though itis obvious how easily the word may pass into a term of reproach, so thatto have been "called a usurer" was one of the bitter memories thatrankled most in Shylock's catalogue of his wrongs. 

150. I do not believe that anything has done more harm to the practicalefficacy of religions sanctions than the extravagant attempts that arefrequently made to impose them in cases which they never originallycontemplated, or to read into "ordinances, " evidently "imposed for atime"--[Greek: dikaiômata mechri kairou] (Heb. Ix. 10)--a law ofeternal and immutable obligation. Just as we are told (D) not to expectto find in the Bible a scheme of physical science, so I do not expect tofind there a scheme of political economy. What I do expect to find, inrelation to my duty to my neighbor, are those unalterable principles ofequity, fairness, truthfulness, honesty (E), which are the indispensablebases of civil society. I am sure I have no need to remind you that, while a Jew was forbidden by his law to take usury--_i. E. _, interest forthe loan of money--from his brother, if he were waxen poor and falleninto decay with him, and this generous provision was extended even tostrangers and sojourners in the land (Lev. Xxv. 35-38), and theinteresting story in Nehemiah (v. 1-13), tells us how this principle wasrecognized in the latest days of the commonwealth--still in that old lawthere is no denunciation of usury in general, and it was expresslypermitted in the case of ordinary strangers[126] (Deut. Xxiii. 20). 

It seems to me plain also that our Blessed Lord's precept about"lending, hoping for nothing again" (Luke vi. 35), has the same, or asimilar, class of circumstances in view, and was intended simply togovern a Christian man's conduct to the poor and needy, and "such ashave no helper, " and cannot, without a violent twist (F), be construedinto a general law determining forever and in all cases the legitimateuse of capital. Indeed, on another occasion, and in a very memorableparable, the great Founder of Christianity recognizes, and impliedlysanctions, the practice of lending money at interest. "Thou oughtest, "says the master, addressing his unprofitable servant, "thououghtest"--[Greek: edei se]--"to have put my money to the exchangers;and then, at my coming, I should have received mine own _with usury_. "

151. "St. Paul, no doubt, denounces the covetous. " (G) But who is the[Greek: pleonektęs]? Not the man who may happen to have money out onloan at a fair rate of interest; but, as Liddell and Scott give themeaning of the word, "one who has or claims _more than his share_;hence, greedy, grasping, selfish. " Of such men, whose affections arewholly set on things of the earth, and who are not very scrupulous howthey gratify them, it may, perhaps, not improperly be said (H) that they"have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. " But here, again, it would be a manifest "wresting" of the words to make them applyto a case which we have no proof that the Apostle had in contemplationwhen he uttered them. Rapacity, greed of gain, harsh and oppressivedealing, taking unfair advantage of our own superior knowledge andanother's ignorance, shutting up the bowels of compassion towards abrother who we see has need--all these and the like things are forbiddenby the very spirit of Christianity, and are manifestly "_not_ accordingto the will of God, " for they are all of them forms of injustice orwrong. But money may be lent at interest without one of these badpassions being brought in to play, and in these cases I confess myinability to see where, either in terms or in spirit, such use of moneyis condemned either by the Christian code of charity, or by that naturallaw of conscience which we are told (I) is written on the hearts of men. 

152. Let me take two or three simple instances by way of illustration. The following has happened to myself. All my life through--from the timewhen my income was not a tenth part of what it is now--I have felt it aduty, while endeavoring to discharge all proper claims, to live withinthat income, so to adjust my expenditure to it that there should be amargin on the right side. This margin, of course, accumulated, andreached in time, say, Ł1000. Just then, say, the London andNorth-Western Railway Company proposed to issue Debenture Stock, bearing four per cent. Interest, for the purpose of extending thecommunications, and so increasing the wealth, of the country. Whom inthe world am I injuring--what conceivable wrong am I doing--where or howam I thwarting "the Will of God"--if I let the Company have my Ł1000, and have been receiving from them Ł40 a year for the use of it eversince? Unless the money had been forthcoming from some quarter or other, a work which was absolutely necessary for the prosperity of the nation, and which finds remunerative employment (K) for an immense number ofEnglishmen, enabling them to bring up their families in respectabilityand comfort, would never have been accomplished. Will you tell me thatthis method of carrying out great commercial enterprises, sanctioned byexperience (L) as the most, if not the only, practicable one, is "notaccording to the Will of God"?

153. Take another instance. In Lancashire a large number of cotton millshave been erected on the joint-stock principle with limited liability. The thing has been pushed too far probably, and at one time there was agood deal of unwholesome speculation in floating companies. But that isnot the question before us; and the enterprises gave working men anopportunity of investing their savings, which was a great stimulus tothrift, and, so far, an advantage to the country. In a mill, which itwould perhaps cost Ł50, 000 to build and fit with machinery, thesubscribed capital, which would be entitled to a division of profitsafter all other demands had been satisfied, would not amount probably tomore than Ł20, 000. The rest would be borrowed at rates of interestvarying according to the conditions of the market. You surely would notmaintain that those who lent their money for such a purpose, and werecontent with 5 or 6 per cent, for the use of it, thus enabling, in goodtimes, the shareholders to realize 20 or 25 per cent, on theirsubscribed capital, were doing wrong either to the shareholders oranyone else, or could in any sense be charged with acting "not accordingto the will of God"?

154. Take yet one case more. A farmer asks his landlord to drain hisland. "Gladly, " says his squire, "if you will pay me five per cent onthe outlay. " In other words, "if you will let me share the increasedprofits to this extent. " The bargain is agreeable to both sides; theproductiveness of the land is largely increased; who is wronged? Surelysuch a transaction could not fairly be described as "not according tothe will of God"; surely, unless the commerce and productive industriesof the country are to be destroyed, and, with the destruction, itspopulation is to be reduced to what it was in the days of Elizabeth, these and similar transactions--which can be kept entirely clear of thesin of covetousness, and rest upon the well-understood basis of mutualadvantage, each and all being gainers by them--are not only legitimate, but inevitable (M). And now that I have taken up your challenge, and, sofar as my ability goes, answered it, may I, without staying to inquirehow far your charge against the clergy can be substantiated, that they"generally patronize and encourage all the iniquity of the world bysteadily preaching away the penalties of it" (N), be at least allowed todemur to your wholesale denunciation of the great cities of the earth, which you say "have become loathsome centers of fornication andcovetousness, the smoke of their sin going up into the face of Heaven, like the furnace of Sodom, and the pollution of it rotting and ragingthrough the bones and souls of the peasant people round them, as if theywere each a volcano, whose ashes brake out in blains upon man andbeast. "[127] Surely, Sir, your righteous indignation at evil has causedyou to overcharge your language. No one can have lived in a great city, as I have for the last ten years, without being aware of its sins andits pollutions. But unless you can prevent the aggregation of humanbeings into great cities, these are evils which must necessarily exist;at any rate, which always have existed. The great cities of to-day arenot worse than great cities always have been (O). In one capitalrespect, I believe they are better. There is an increasing number oftheir citizens who are aware of these evils, and who are trying theirbest, with the help of God, to remedy them. In Sodom there was but onerighteous man who "vexed his soul" at the unlawful deeds that hewitnessed day by day, on every side; and he, apparently, did no morethan vex his soul. In Manchester, the men and women, of all ranks andpersuasions, who are actively engaging in some Christian orphilanthropic work, to battle against these gigantic evils, are to bereckoned by hundreds. Nowhere have I seen more conspicuous instances ofChristian effort, and of single-hearted devotion to the highestinterests of mankind. And though, no doubt, if these efforts were betterorganized, more might be achieved, and elements, which one could wishabsent, sometimes mingle with and mar the work, still a great city, even"with the smoke of its sin going up into the face of Heaven, " is thenoblest field of the noblest virtues, because it gives the amplest scopefor the most varied exercise of them. 

If you will teach us clergy how better to discharge our office asministers of a Kingdom of Truth and Righteousness, we shall all owe youa deep debt of gratitude; which no one will be more forward toacknowledge than, my dear Sir, yours faithfully and with much respect, J. MANCHESTER. 

 JOHN RUSKIN, Esq. 

155. The foregoing letter, to which I would fain have given my undividedand unwearied attention, reached my hands, as will be seen by its date, only in the close of the year, when my general correspondence always faroverpasses my powers of dealing with it, and my strength--such as now isleft me--had been spent, nearly to lowest ebb, in totally unexpectedbusiness arising out of the threatened mischief at Venice. But I amcontent that such fragmentary reply as, under this pressure, has beenpossible to me, should close the debate as far as I am myself concerned. The question at issue is not one of private interpretation; and theinterests concerned are too vast to allow its decision to be longdelayed. 

The Bishop will, I trust, not attribute to disrespect the mode of replyin the form of notes attached to special passages, indicated byinserted letters, which was adopted in _Fors Clavigera_ in all cases ofimportant correspondence, as more clearly defining the several pointsunder debate. 

156. (A) "The challenge appears to have been delivered. " May Irespectfully express my regret that your lordship should not have readthe letter you have honored me by answering. The number of _Fors_referred to does not deliver--it only reiterates--the challenge given inthe _Fors_ for January 1st, 1875, with reference to the prayer "Havemercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, and so fetch themhome, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that they may be saved among theremnant of the true Israelites, " in these following terms: "Who _are_the true Israelites, my Lord of Manchester, on your Exchange? Do theystretch their cloth, like other people?--have they any underhanddealings with the liable-to-be-damned false Israelites--Rothschilds andthe like? or are they duly solicitous about those wanderers' souls? andhow often, on the average, do your Manchester clergy preach from thedelicious parable, savoriest of all Scripture to rogues (at least sincethe eleventh century, when I find it to have been specially headed withgolden title in my best Greek MS. ) of the Pharisee and Publican, --andhow often, on the average, from those objectionable First and FifteenthPsalms?"

(B) "I have no idea why I had the honor of being specially mentioned byname. " By diocese, my Lord; not name, please observe; and for this verysimple reason: that I have already fairly accurate knowledge of thedivinity of the old schools of Canterbury, York, and Oxford; but Ilooked to your Lordship as the authoritative exponent of the moreadvanced divinity of the school of Manchester, with which I am not yetfamiliar. 

157. (C) "What do you mean by usury?" What _I_ mean by that word, myLord, is surely of no consequence to anyone but my few readers, andfewer disciples. What David and his Son meant by it I have prayed yourLordship to tell your flock, in the name of the Church which dictatesdaily to them the songs of the one, and professes to interpret to themthe commands of the other. 

And although I can easily conceive that a Bishop at the court of theThird Richard might have paused in reply to a too curious layman'squestion of what was meant by "Murder"; and can also conceive a Bishopat the court of the Second Charles hesitating as to the significance ofthe word "Adultery"; and farther, in the present climacteric of theBritish Constitution, an elder of the Church of Glasgow debating withinhimself whether the Commandment which was severely prohibitory of Theftmight not be mildly permissive of Misappropriation;--at no time, norunder any conditions, can I conceive any question existing as to themeaning of the words [Greek: tokos], _foenus_; _usura_, or usury: andI trust that your Lordship will at once acquit me of wishing to attachany other significance to the word than that which it was to the fullintended to convey on every occasion of its use by Moses, by David, byChrist, and by the Doctors of the Christian Church, down to theseventeenth century. 

Nor, even since that date, although the commercial phrase "interest" hasbeen adopted in order to distinguish an open and unoppressive rate ofusury from a surreptitious and tyrannical one, has the debate oflawfulness or unlawfulness ever turned seriously on that distinction. Itis neither justified by its defenders only in its mildness, norcondemned by its accusers only in its severity. Usury in any degree isasserted by the Doctors of the early Church to be sinful, just as theftand adultery are asserted to be sinful, though neither may have beenaccompanied with violence; and although the theft may have been on themost splendid scale, and the fornication of the most courtly refinement. 

So also, in modern days, though the voice of the Bank of England inParliament declares a loan without interest to be a monster, [128] and aloan made below the current rate of interest, a monster in its degree, the increase of dividends above that current rate is not, as far as Iam aware, shunned by shareholders with an equally religious horror. 

158. But--this strange question being asked--I give its simple and broadanswer in the words of Christ: "The taking up that thou layedst notdown;"--or, in explained and literal terms, usury is any money paid, orother advantage given, for the loan of anything which is restored to itspossessor uninjured and undiminished. For simplest instance, taking acabman the other day on a long drive, I lent him a shilling to get hisdinner. If I had kept thirteen pence out of his fare, the odd pennywould have been usury. 

Or again. I lent one of my servants, a few years ago, eleven hundredpounds, to build a house with, and stock its ground. After some years hepaid me the eleven hundred pounds back. If I had taken eleven hundredpounds and a penny, the extra penny would have been usury. 

I do not know whether by the phrase, presently after used by yourLordship, "religious sanctions, " I am to understand the Law of God whichDavid loved, and Christ fulfilled, or whether the splendor, thecommercial prosperity, and the familiar acquaintance with all thesecrets of science and treasures of art, which we admire in the City ofManchester, must in your Lordship's view be considered as "cases" whichthe intelligence of the Divine Lawgiver could not have originallycontemplated. Without attempting to disguise the narrowness of thehorizon grasped by the glance of the Lord from Sinai, nor theinconvenience of the commandments which Christ has directed those wholove Him to keep, am I too troublesome or too exigent in asking from oneof those whom the Holy Ghost has made our overseers, at least a distinctchart of the Old World as contemplated by the Almighty; and a cleardefinition of even the inappropriate tenor of the orders of Christ: ifonly that the modern scientific Churchman may triumph more securely inthe circumference of his heavenly vision, and accept more gratefully theglorious liberty of the free-thinking children of God?

159. To take a definite, and not impertinent, instance, I observe inthe continuing portion of your letter that your Lordship recognizes inChrist Himself, as doubtless all other human perfections, so also theperfection of an usurer; and that, confidently expecting one day to hearfrom His lips the convicting sentence, "Thou knewest that I was anaustere man, " your Lordship prepares for yourself, by the disposition ofyour capital no less than of your talents, a better answer than thebarren, "Behold, there thou hast that is thine!" I would only observe inreply, that although the conception of the Good Shepherd, which in yourLordship's language is "implied" in this parable, may indeed be lessthat of one who lays down his life for his sheep, than of one who takesup his money for them, the passages of our Master's instruction, ofwhich the meaning is not implicit, but explicit, are perhaps those whichHis simpler disciples will be safer in following. Of which I find, earlyin His teaching, this, almost, as it were, in words of one syllable:"Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of theeturn not thou away. "

There is nothing more "implied" in this sentence than the probabledisposition to turn away, which might be the first impulse in the mindof a Christian asked to lend for nothing, as distinguished from thedisciple of the Manchester school, whose principal care is rather tofind, than to avoid, the enthusiastic and enterprising "him that wouldborrow of thee. " We of the older tradition, my Lord, think thatprudence, no less than charity, forbids the provocation or temptation ofothers into the state of debt, which some time or other we might becalled upon, not only to allow the payment of without usury, but evenaltogether to forgive. 

160. (D) "Just as we are told. " Where, my Lord, and by whom? It ispossible that some of the schemers in physical science, of whom, only afew days since, I heard one of the leading doctors explain to a pleasedaudience that serpents once had legs, and had dropped them off in theprocess of development, may have advised the modern disciple of progressof a new meaning in the simple phrase, "upon thy belly shalt thou go";and that the wisdom of the serpent may henceforth consist, for truebelievers of the scientific Gospel, in the providing of meats for thatspiritual organ of motion. It is doubtless also true that we shall lookvainly among the sayings of Solomon for any expression of the opinionsof Mr. John Stuart Mill; but at least this much of Natural science, enough for our highest need, we may find in the Scriptures--that by theWord of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by thebreath of His mouth;--and this much of Political, that the Blessing ofthe Lord, _it_ maketh rich--and He addeth no sorrow with it. 

(E) "What I do expect to find. " Has your Lordship _no_ expectationsloftier than these, from severer scrutiny of the Gospel? As forinstance, of some ordinance of Love, built on the foundation of Honesty?

161. (F) "Cannot without a violent twist. " I have never myself found anyperson sincerely desirous of obeying the Word of the Lord, who had theleast wish, or occasion, to twist it; nay, even those who study it onlythat they may discover methods of pardonable disobedience, recognize theunturnable edge of its sword--and in the worst extremity of their need, strive not to avert, but to evade. The utmost deceivableness ofunrighteousness cannot deceive itself into satisfactorymisinterpretation; it is reduced always to a tremulous omission of thetexts it is resolved to disobey. But a little while since, I heard anentirely well-meaning clergyman, taken by surprise in the course offamily worship in the house of a wealthy friend, and finding himselfunder the painful necessity of reading the fifteenth Psalm, omit thefirst sentence of the closing verse. I chanced afterwards to have anopportunity of asking him why he had done so, and received for answer, that the lowliness of Christian attainment was not yet "up" to thatverse. The harmonies of iniquity are thus curiously perfect:--theeconomies of spiritual nourishment approve the same methods ofadulteration which are found profitable in the carnal; until the prudentpastor follows the example of the well-instructed dairyman; andprovides for his new-born babes the _in_sincere Milk of the Word, thatthey may _not_ grow thereby. 

162. (G) "St. Paul, no doubt, denounces the covetous. " Am I tounderstand your Lordship as considering this undeniable denunciation anoriginal and peculiar view taken by the least of the Apostles--perhaps, in this particular opinion, not worthy to be called an Apostle? Thetraditions of my earlier days were wont to refer me to an earlier sourceof the idea; which does not, however, appear to have occurred to yourLordship's mind--else the reference to the authority of Liddell andScott, for the significance of the noun [Greek: pleonektęs], ought tohave been made also for that of the verb [Greek: epithumeô] And yourLordship's frankness in referring me to the instances of your ownpractice in the disposal of your income, must plead my excuse for whatmight have otherwise seemed impertinent--in noting that theblamelessness of episcopal character, even by that least of theApostles, required in his first Epistle to Timothy, consists not merelyin contentment with an episcopal share of Church property, but in beingin no respect either [Greek: aischrokordęs]--a taker of gain in a baseor vulgar manner, or [Greek: philarguros]--a "lover of silver, " thislatter word being the common and proper word for covetous, in theGospels and Epistles; as of the Pharisees in Luke xvi. 14; andassociated with the other characters of men in perilous times, 2 Timothyiii. 2, and its relative noun [Greek: philarguria, given in sum for theroot of _all_ evil in 2 Timothy vi. 10, while even the authority ofLiddell and Scott in the interpretation of [Greek: pleonexia] itself asonly the desire of getting more than our share, may perhaps be betteredby the authority of the teacher, who, declining the appeal made to himas an equitable [Greek: meristęs] (Luke xii. 14-46), tells his disciplesto beware of coveteousness, simply as the desire of getting more than wehave got. "For a man's life consisteth not in the _abundance_ of thethings which he possesseth. "

163. Believe me, my Lord, it is not without some difficulty that I checkmy natural impulse to follow you, as a scholar, into the interestinganalysis of the distinctions which may be drawn between Rapacity andAcquisitiveness; between the Avarice, or the prudent care, ofpossession; between the greed, and the modest expectation, of gain;between the love of money, which is the root of all evil; and thecommercial spirit, which is in England held to be the fountain of allgood. These delicate adjustments of the balance, by which we strive toweigh to a grain the relative quantities of devotion which we may renderin the service of Mammon and of God, are wholly of recent invention andapplication; nor have they the slightest bearing, either on thespiritual purport of the final commandment of the Decalogue, or on thedistinctness of the subsequent prohibition of practical usury. 

It must be remembered, also, how difficult it has become to define theterm "filthy" with precision, in the present state, moral and physical, of the English atmosphere; and still more so, to judge how far, in thathealthy element, a moderate and delicately sanctified appetite for goldmay be developed into livelier qualms of hunger for righteousness. Itmay be matter of private opinion how far the lucre derived by yourLordship from commission on the fares and refreshments of the passengersby the North-Western may be odoriferous or precious, in the same senseas the ointment on the head of Aaron; or how far that received by thePrimate of England in royalties on the circulation of improvingliterature[129] may enrich--as with perfumes out of brokenalabaster--the empyreal air of Addington. But the higher class oflaborers in the Lord's vineyard might surely, with true grace, receive, from the last unto the first, the reflected instruction so often givenby the first unto the last, "Be content with your wages. "

(H) "It may, perhaps, not improperly be said, " The Bible Society willdoubtless in future gratefully prefix this guarantee to theirpublications. 

(I) "Which we are told. " Can we then no more find for ourselves thiswriting on our hearts--or has it ceased to be legible?

164. (K) "Remunerative employment. " I cannot easily express theastonishment with which I find a man of your Lordship's intelligencetaking up the common phrase of "giving employment, " as if, indeed, laborwere the best gift which the rich could bestow on the poor. Of course, every idle vagabond, be he rich or poor, "gives employment" to someotherwise enough burdened wretch, to provide his dinner and clothes forhim; and every vicious vagabond, in the destructive power of his vice, gives sorrowful occupation to the energies of resisting and renovatingvirtue. The idle child who litters its nursery and tears its frock, gives employment to the housemaid and seamstress; the idle woman, wholitters her drawing-room with trinkets, and is ashamed to be seen twicein the same dress, is, in your Lordship's view, the enlightenedsupporter of the arts and manufactures of her country. At the close ofyour letter, my Lord, you, though in measured terms, indignantly dissentfrom my statement of the power of great cities for evil, and indeed Ihave perhaps been led, by my prolonged study of the causes of the Fallof Venice, into clearer recognition of some of these urban influencesthan may have been possible to your Lordship in the center of thevirtues and proprieties which have been blessed by Providence in therise of Manchester. But the Scriptural symbol of the power of temptationin the hand of the spiritual Babylon--"all kings have been drunk withthe wine of her Fornication"--is perfectly literal in its exposition ofthe special influence of cities over a vicious, that is to say, adeclining, people. They are the foci of its fornication, and thepractical meaning is that the lords of the soil take the food and laborof the peasants, who are their slaves, and spend them especially informs of luxury perfected by the definitely so-called "women of the_town_" who, whether East-cheap Doll, or West--much the reverse ofcheap--Nell, are, both in the color which they give to the Arts, and inthe tone which they give to the Manners, of the State, a literal plague, pestilence and burden to it, quite otherwise malignant and maleficentthan the poor country lassie who loses her snood among the heather. Andwhen, at last, _real_ political economy shall exhibit the exact sourcesand consequences of the expenditure of the great capitals ofcivilization on their own indulgences, your Lordship will be furnished, in the statistics of their most splendid and most impious pleasure, withrecord of precisely the largest existing source of "remunerativeemployment"--(if _that_ were all the poor had to ask for), next afterthe preparation and practice of war. I believe it is, indeed, probablethat "facility of intercourse" gives the next largest quantity ofoccupation; and, as your Lordship rightly observes, to most respectablepersons. And if the entire population of Manchester lost the use of itslegs, your Lordship would similarly have the satisfaction of observing, and might share in the profits of providing, the needful machinery ofporterage and stretchers. But observe, my Lord--and observe as a finaland inevitable truth--that whether you lend your money to provide aninvalided population with crutches, stretchers, hearses, or the railroadaccommodation which is so often synonymous with the three, the _tax onthe use_ of these, which constitutes the shareholder's dividend, is apermanent burden upon them, exacted by avarice, and by no means an aidgranted by benevolence. 

165. (L) "Sanctioned by experience. " The experience of twenty-threeyears, my Lord, and with the following result:--

"We have now had an opportunity of practically testing the theory. Notmore than seventeen" (now twenty-three--I quote from a letter dated1875) "years have passed since" (by the final abolition of the Usurylaws) "all restraint was removed from the growth of what Lord Coke calls'this pestilent weed, '" and we see Bacon's words verified--"the richbecoming richer, and the poor poorer, throughout the civilized world. "Letter from Mr. R. Sillar, quoted in _Fors Clavigera_, No. 43. 

(M) "Inevitable. " Neither "impossible" nor "inevitable" were words ofold Christian Faith. But see the closing paragraph of my letter. 

(N) Before you call on me to substantiate this charge, my Lord, Ishould like to insert after the words, "steadily preaching, " the phrase, "and politely explaining"--with the Pauline qualification, "whether byword, or our epistle. "

166. (O) "The great cities of to-day are not worse than great citiesalways have been, " I do not remember having said that they were, myLord; I have never anticipated for Manchester a worse fate than that ofSardis or Sodom; nor have I yet observed any so mighty works shown forthin her by her ministers, as to make her impenitence less pardonable thanthat of Sidon or Tyre. But I used the particular expression which yourLordship supposes me to have overcharged in righteous indignation, "aboil breaking forth with blains on man and beast, " because thatparticular plague was the one which Moses was ordered, in the EternalWisdom, to connect with the ashes of the Furnace--literally, no lessthan spiritually, when he brought the Israelites forth out of Egypt, _from the midst of the Furnace of Iron_. How literally, no less than infaith and hope, the smoke of "the great city, which spiritually iscalled Sodom and Egypt, " has poisoned the earth, the waters, and theliving creatures, flocks and herds, and the babes that know not theirright hand from their left--neither Memphis, Gomorrah, nor Cahors arethemselves likely to recognize: but, as I pause in front of theinfinitude of the evil that I cannot find so much as thought tofollow--how much less words to speak!--a letter is brought to me whichgives what perhaps may be more impressive in its single and historicalexample, than all the general evidence gathered already in the pages of_Fors Clavigera_. 

 * * * * *

167. "I could never understand formerly what you meant about usury, andabout its being wrong to take interest. I said, truly, then that I'trusted you, ' meaning I knew that in such matters you did not'opine'--and that innumerable things were within your horizon which hadno place within mine. 

"But as I did not understand I could only watch and ponder. Gradually Icame to see a little--as when I read current facts about India--aboutalmost every country, and about our own trade, etc. Then (one of severalcircumstances that could be seen more closely) among my mother's kindredin the north, I watched the ruin of two lives. They began married lifetogether, with good prospects and sufficient means, in a lovely littlenest among the hills, beyond the Rochdale smoke. Soon this became toonarrow. 'A splendid trade, ' more mills, frequent changes into even finerdwellings, luxurious living, ostentation, extravagance, increasing yearby year, all, as now appears, made possible by usury--borrowed capital. The wife was laid in her grave lately, and her friends are _thankful_. The husband, with ruin threatening his affairs, is in a worse, andliving, grave of evil habits. "

 "These are some of the loopholes through which light has fallen upon your words, giving them a new meaning, and making me wonder how I could have missed seeing it from the first. Once alive to it, I recognize the evil on all sides, and how we are entangled by it; and though I am still puzzled at one or two points, I am very clear about the principle--that usury is a deadly thing, "

Yes; and deadly always with the vilest forms of destruction both to souland body. 

168. It happens strangely, my Lord, that although throughout the sevenvolumes of _Fors Clavigera_, I never have set down a sentence withoutchastising it first into terms which could be _literally_ as well as intheir widest bearing justified against all controversy, you couldperhaps not have found in the whole book, had your Lordship read it forthe purpose, any saying quite so literally and terrifically demonstrableas this which you have chanced to select for attack. For, in the firstplace, of all the calamities which in their apparently mercilessinfliction paralyzed the wavering faith of medićval Christendom, the"boil breaking forth into blains, " in the black plagues of Florence andLondon, was the fatalest messenger of the fiends: and, in the secondplace, the broad result of the Missionary labors of the cities ofMadrid, Paris, and London, for the salvation of the wild tribes of theNew World, since the vaunted discovery of it, may be summed in the stemsentence--Death, by drunkenness and smallpox. 

The beneficent influence of recent commercial enterprise in thecommunication of such divine grace, and divine blessing (not to speak ofother more dreadful and shameful conditions of disease), may be studiedto best advantage in the history of the two great French and EnglishCompanies, who have enjoyed the monopoly of clothing the nakedness ofthe Old World with coats of skins from the New. 

The charter of the English one, obtained from the Crown in 1670, was inthe language of modern Liberalism--" wonderfully liberal, "[130]comprising not only the grant of the exclusive trade, but also of fullterritorial possession, to all perpetuity, of the vast lands within thewatershed of Hudson's Bay. The Company at once established some fortsalong the shores of the great inland sea from which it derived its name, and opened a very lucrative trade with the Indians, _so that it neverceased paying rich dividends_ to the fortunate shareholders, untiltowards the close of the last century. 

Up to this time, with the exception of the voyage of discovery whichHerne (1770-71) made under its auspices to the mouth of the CoppermineRiver, it had done but little for the promotion of geographicaldiscovery in its vast territory. 

169. Meanwhile, the Canadian (French) fur traders had become so hatefulto the Indians, that these savages formed a conspiracy for their totalextirpation. _Fortunately for the white men_, the smallpox broke outabout this time among the redskins, and swept them away as the fireconsumes the parched grass of the prairies. Their unburied corpses weretorn by the wolves and wild dogs, and the survivors were too weak anddispirited to be able to undertake anything against the foreignintruders. The Canadian fur traders now also saw the necessity ofcombining their efforts for their mutual benefit, instead of ruiningeach other by an insane competition; and consequently formed in 1783 asociety which, under the name of the North-West Company of Canada, ruled over the whole continent from the Canadian lakes to the RockyMountains, and in 1806 it even crossed the barrier and established itsforts on the northern tributaries of the Columbia river. To the north itlikewise extended its operations, encroaching more and more upon theprivileges of the Hudson's Bay Company, which, roused to energy, nowalso pushed on its posts further and further into the interior, andestablished, in 1812, a colony on the Red River to the south of WinnipegLake, thus driving, as it were, a sharp thorn into the side of itsrival. But a power like the North-West Company, which had no less than50 agents, 70 interpreters, and 1120 "voyageurs" in its pay, and whosechief managers used to appear at their annual meetings at Fort William, on the banks of Lake Superior, with all the pomp and pride of feudalbarons, was not inclined to tolerate this encroachment; and thus, aftermany quarrels, a regular war broke out between the two parties, which, after two years' duration, led to the expulsion of the Red Rivercolonists, and the murder of their governor Semple. This event tookplace in the year 1816, and is but one episode of the bloody feuds whichcontinued to reign between the two rival Companies until 1821. 

170. The dissension's of the fur traders had most deplorableconsequences for the redskins; for both Companies, to swell the numberof their adherents, lavishly distributed spirituous liquors--atemptation which no Indian can resist. The whole of the meeting-groundsof the Saskatchewan and Athabasca were but one scene of revelry andbloodshed. Already decimated by the smallpox, the Indians now became thevictims of drunkenness and discord, and it was to be feared that if thewar and its consequent demoralization continued, the most importanttribes would soon be utterly swept away. 

At length wisdom prevailed over passion, and the enemies came to aresolution which, if taken from the very beginning, would have savedthem both a great deal of treasure and many crimes. Instead ofcontinuing to swing the tomahawk, they now smoked the calumet, andamalgamated in 1821, under the name of "Hudson's Bay Company, " andunder the wing of the Charter. 

The British Government, as a dowry to the impoverished couple, presentedthem with a license of exclusive trade throughout the whole of thatterritory which, under the name of the "Hudson's Bay and North-Westterritories, " extends from Labrador to the Pacific, and from the RedRiver to the Polar Ocean. 

171. Such, my Lord, have been the triumphs of the modern Evangel ofUsury, Competition, and Private Enterprise, in a perfectly clearinstance of their action, chosen I hope with sufficient candor, since"History, " says Professor Hind, "does not furnish another example of anassociation of private individuals exerting a powerful influence over solarge an extent of the earth's surface and administering their affairswith such consummate skill, and unwavering devotion to the originalobjects of their incorporation. "

That original object being, of course, that poor naked America, havingyet in a manner two coats, might be induced by these Christian merchantsto give to him that had none?

In like manner, may any Christian householder, who has two houses orperchance two parks, ever be induced to give to him that hath none? Mytemper and my courtesy scarcely serve me, my Lord, to reply to yourassertion of the "inevitableness" that, while half of Great Britain islaid out in hunting-grounds for sport more savage than the Indians, thepoor of our cities must be swept into incestuous heaps; or into dens andcaves which are only tombs disquieted, so changing the whiteness ofJewish sepulchers into the blackness of Christian ones, in which thehearts of the rich and the homes of the poor are alike as graves thatappear not;--only their murmur, that sayeth "it is not enough, " soundsdeeper beneath us every hour; nay, the whole earth, and not only thecities of it, sends forth that ghastly cry; and her fruitful plains havebecome slime-pits, and her fair estuaries, gulfs of death; for _us_, theMountain of the Lord has become only Golgotha, and the sound of the newsong before the Throne is drowned in the rolling death-rattle of thenations, "Oh Christ; where is thy victory?"

These are thy glorious works, Mammon parent of Good, --and this the truedebate, my Lord of Manchester, between the two Angels of yourChurch, --whether the "Dreamland" of its souls be now, orhereafter, --now, the firelight in the cave, or hereafter, the sunlightof Heaven. 

172. How, my Lord, am I to receive, or reply to, the narrow concessionsof your closing sentence? The Spirit of Truth was breathed even from theAthenian Acropolis, and the Law of Justice thundered even from theCretan Sinai; but for _us_, He who said, "I am the Truth, " said also, "Iam the Way, and the Life;" and for _us_, He who reasoned ofRighteousness, reasoned also of Temperance and Judgment to come. Is thisthe sincere milk of the Word, which takes the hope from the Person ofChrist, and the fear from the charge of His apostle, and forbids toEnglish heroism the perilous vision of Immortality? God be with you, myLord, and exalt your teaching to that quality of Mercy which, distillingas the rain from Heaven--not strained as through channels from a sullenreservoir-may soften the hearts of your people to receive the NewCommandment, that they Love one another. So, round the cathedral of yourcity, shall the merchant's law be just, and his weights true; the tableof the money-changer not overthrown, and the bench of the money-lenderunbroken. 

And to as many as walk according to this rule, Peace shall be on them, and Mercy, and upon the Israel of God. 

 * * * * *

173. With the preceding letter must assuredly end--for the present, ifnot forever--my own notes on a subject of which my strength no longerserves me to endure the stress and sorrow; but I may possibly be able tocollect, eventually, into more close form, the already manifold andsufficient references scattered through _Fors Clavigera_: and perhaps toreprint for the St. George's Guild the admirable compendium of Britishecclesiastical and lay authority on the subject, collected by JohnBlaxton, preacher of God's Word at Osmington in Dorsetshire, printed byJohn Norton under the title of "The English Usurer, " and sold by FrancisBowman, in Oxford, 1631. A still more precious record of the fiercestruggle of usury into life among Christians, and of the resistance toit by Venice and her "Anthony, "[131] will be found in the dialogue"della Usura, " of Messer Speron Sperone (Aldus, in Vinegia, MDXIII. ), followed by the dialogue "del Cathaio, " between "Portia, sola, efanciulla, fame, e cibo, vita, e morte, di ciascuno che la conosce, " andher lover Moresini, which is the source of all that is loveliest in the_Merchant of Venice_. Readers who seek more modern and more scientificinstruction may consult the able abstract of the triumph of usury, drawnup by Dr. Andrew Dickson White, President of Cornell University ("TheWarfare of Science, " H. S. King & Co. , 1877), in which the victory ofthe great modern scientific principle, that two and two make five, istraced exultingly to the final overthrow of St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Bossuet, by "theestablishment of the Torlonia family in Rome. " A better collection ofthe most crushing evidence cannot be found than this, furnished by anadversary; a less petulant and pompous, but more earnest voice fromAmerica, "Usury the Giant Sin of the Age, " by Edward Palmer (PerthAmboys, 1865), should be read together with it. In the meantime, thesubstance of the teaching of the _former_ Church of England, in thegreat sermon against usury of Bishop Jewell, may perhaps not uselesslyoccupy one additional page of the _Contemporary Review_:--

174. "Usury is a kind of lending of money, or corne, or oyle, or wine, or of any other thing, wherein, upon covenant and bargaine, we receiveagaine the whole principall which we delivered, and somewhat more, forthe use and occupying of the same; as if I lend 100 pound, and for itcovenant to receive 105 pound, or any other summe, greater then was thesumme which I did lend: this is that which we call usury: such a kind ofbargaining as no good man, or godly man ever used. Such a kind ofbargaining as all men that ever feared God's judgments have alwaiesabhorred and condemned. It is filthy gaines, and a worke of darkenesse, it is a monster in nature: the overthrow of mighty kingdoms, thedestruction of flourishing States, the decay of wealthy cities, theplagues of the world, and the misery of the people: it is theft, it isthe murthering of our brethren, its the curse of God, and the curse ofthe people. This is Usury. By these signes and tokens you may know it. For wheresoever it raigneth all those mischiefes ensue. 

"Whence springeth usury? Soone shewed. Even thence whence theft, murder, adultery, the plagues, and destruction of the people doe spring. Allthese are the workes of the divell, and the workes of the flesh. Christtelleth the Pharisees, You are of your father the divell, and the lustsof your father you will doe. Even so may it truely be sayd to theusurer, Thou art of thy father the divell, and the lusts of thy fatherthou wilt doe, and therefore thou hast pleasure in his workes. Thedivell entered into the heart of Judas, and put in him this greedinesse, and covetousnesse of game, for which he was content to sell his master. Judas's heart was the shop, the divell was the foreman to worke in it. They that will be rich fall into tentation and snares, and into manyfoolish and noysome lusts, which drowne men in perdition anddestruction. For the desire of money is the roote of all evil. And St. John saith, Whosoever committeth sinne is of the Divell, 1 Joh. 3-8. Thus we see that the divell is the planter, and the father of usury. 

"What are the fruits of usury? A. 1. It dissolveth the knot andfellowship of mankind. 2. It hardeneth man's heart. 3. It maketh menunnaturall, and bereaveth them of charity, and love to their dearestfriends. 4. It breedeth misery and provoketh the wrath of God fromheaven. 5. It consumeth rich men, it eateth up the poore, it makethbankrupts, and undoeth many householders. 6. The poore occupiers aredriven to flee, their wives are left alone, their children arehopelesse, and driven to beg their bread, through the unmercifulldealing of the covetous usurer. 

175. "He that is an usurer, wisheth that all others may lacke and cometo him and borrow of him; that all others may lose, so that he may havegaine. Therefore our old forefathers so much abhorred this trade, thatthey thought an usurer unworthy to live in the company of Christian men. They suffered not an usurer to be witnesse in matters of Law. Theysuffer him not to make a Testament, and to bestow his goods by will. When an usurer dyed, they would not suffer him to be buried in placesappointed for the buriall of Christians. So highly did they mislike thisunmercifull spoyling and deceiving our brethren. 

"But what speak I of the ancient Fathers of the Church? There was neverany religion, nor sect, nor state, nor degree, nor profession of men, but they have disliked it. Philosophers, Greekes, Latins, lawyers, divines, Catholikes, heretics; all tongues and nations have ever thoughtan usurer as dangerous as a theefe. The very sense of nature proves itto be so. If the stones could speak they would say as much. But somewill say all kindes of usury are not forbidden. There may be cases whereusury may stand with reason and equity, and herein they say so much asby wit may be devised to paint out a foule and ugly idoll, and to shadowthemselves in manifest and open wickednesse. Whatsoever God sayeth, yetthis or this kind of usury, say they, which is done in this or thissort, is not forbidden. It proffiteth the Commonwealth, it relievethgreat numbers, the poore should otherwise perish, none would lend them. By like good reason, there are some that defend theft and murder; theysay, there may be some case where it is lawful to kill or to steale;for God willed the Hebrews to rob the Ćgyptians, and Abraham to kill hisowne sonne Isaac. In these cases the robbery and the killing of hissonne were lawfull. So say they. Even so by the like reason doe some ofour countrymen maintayne concubines, curtizans, and brothel-houses, andstand in defence of open stewes. They are (say they) for the benefit ofthe country, they keepe men from more dangerous inconveniences; takethem away, it will be worse. Although God say, there shall be no whoreof the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a whorekeeper of thesonnes of Israel: yet these men say all manner of whoredom is notforbidden. In these and these cases it is not amisse to alow it. "

 "As Samuel sayd to Saul, so may we say to the usurer, Thou hast devised cases and colours to hide thy shame, but what regard hath God to thy cases? What careth He for thy reasons? the Lord would have more pleasure, if when thou heareth His voyce thou wouldest obey Him. For what is thy device against the counsell, and ordinance of God? What bold presumption is it for a mortall man to controule the commandments of immortall God? And to weigh his heavenly wisdome in the ballance of humane foolishnesse? When God sayth, Thou shalt not take usury, what creature of God art thou which canst take usury? When God maketh it unlawfull, what art thou, oh man, that sayst, it is lawfull? This is a token of a desperate mind. It is found true in thee, that Paul sayd, the love of money is the root of all ill. Thou art so given over unto the wicked Mammon, that thou carest not to doe the will of God. "

Thus far, the theology of Old England. Let it close with the calm law, spoken four hundred years before Christ, [Greek: a mę katethou, mę anelę]. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 124: _Contemporary Review_, February 1880. ]

[Footnote 125: See below (p. 393, § 236), in the eighth letter on theLord's Prayer. --ED. ]

[Footnote 126: In Proverbs xxviii. 8, "usury" is coupled with "unjustgain, " and a pitiless spirit towards the poor, which shows in what sensethe word is to be understood there, and in such other passages as Ps. Xv. 5 and Ezek. Xviii. 8, 9. ]

[Footnote 127: See post, p. 394, § 237. --ED. ]

[Footnote 128: Speech of Mr. J. C. Hubbard, M. P. For London, reported in_Standard_ of 26th July, 1879. ]

[Footnote 129: See the Articles of Association of the East Surrey Hall, Museum, and Library Company. (_Fors Clavigera_, Letter lxx. )]

[Footnote 130: "The Polar World, " p. 342, Longmans, 1874. ]

[Footnote 131:

 "The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, The best conditioned and unwearied spirit, In doing courtesies; and one in whom _The ancient Roman honor more appears, Than any that draws breath in Italy. _"

This is the Shakespearian description of that Anthony, whom the modernBritish public, with its new critical lights, calls a "sentimentalistand speculator!"--holding Shylock to be the real hero, and innocentvictim of the drama. ]

USURY. [132]

A PREFACE. 

176. In the wise, practical, and affectionate sermon, given from St. Mary's pulpit last autumn to the youth of Oxford, by the good Bishop ofCarlisle, his Lordship took occasion to warn his eagerly attentiveaudience, with deep earnestness, against the crime of debt; dwellingwith powerful invective on the cruelty and selfishness with which, toooften, the son wasted in his follies the fruits of his father's labor, or the means of his family's subsistence; and involved himself inembarrassments which, said the Bishop, "I have again and again known tocause the misery of all subsequent life. "

The sin was charged, the appeal pressed, only on the preacher'sundergraduate hearers. Beneath the gallery, the Heads of Houses sate, remorseless; nor from the pulpit was a single hint permitted that anymeasures could be rationally taken for the protection, no less than thewarning, of the youth under their care. No such suggestion would havebeen received, if even understood, by any English congregation of thistime;--a strange and perilous time, in which the greatest commercialpeople of the world have been brought to think Usury the most honorableand fruitful branch, or rather perennial stem, of commercial industry. 

177. But whose the fault that English congregations are in this temper, and this ignorance? The saying of mine, [133] which the author of thisbook quotes in the close of his introduction, was written by me with ameaning altogether opposite, and far more forcible, than that which itmight seem to bear to a careless interpreter. [134] In the present stateof popular revolt against all conception and manner of authority, butmore especially spiritual authority, the sentence reads as if it werewritten by an adversary of the Church, --a hater of its Prelacy, --anadvocate of universal liberty of thought and license of crime: whereasthe sentence is really written in the conviction (I might say knowledge, if I spoke without deference to the reader's incredulity) that thePastoral Office must forever be the highest, for good or evil, in everyChristian land; and that when _it_ fails in vigilance, faith, orcourage, the sheep _must_ be scattered, and neither King nor law availany more to protect them against the fury of their own passions, nor anyhuman sagacity against the deception of their own hearts. 

178. Since, however, these things are instantly so, and the Bishops ofEngland have now with one accord consented to become merely the highlysalaried vergers of her Cathedrals, taking care that the choristers donot play at leapfrog in the Churchyard, that the Precincts are elegantlyiron-railed from the profane parts of the town, and that the doors ofthe building be duly locked, so that nobody may pray in it atimproper times, --these things being so, may we not turn to the"every-man-his-own-Bishop" party, with its Bible Society, Missionaryzeal, and right of infallible private interpretation, to ask at leastfor some small exposition to the inhabitants of their own country, ofthose Scriptures which they are so fain to put in the possession ofothers; and this the rather, because the popular familiar version of theNew Testament among us, unwritten, seems to be now the exact contrary ofthat which we were once taught to be of Divine authority. 

179. I place, side by side, the ancient and modern versions of the sevenverses of the New Testament which were the beginning, and are indeed theheads, of all the teaching of Christ:--

 _Ancient. _

 Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for their's is the kingdom of Heaven. 

 Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. 

 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

 Blessed are they which do hunger for righteousness, for they shall be filled. 

 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 

 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 

 Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. 

 _Modern. _

 Blessed are the Rich in Flesh, for their's is the kingdom of Earth. 

 Blessed are they that are merry, and laugh the last. 

 Blessed are the proud, in that they _have_ inherited the earth. 

 Blessed are they which hunger for unrighteousness, in that they shall divide its mammon. 

 Blessed are the merciless, for they shall obtain money. 

 Blessed are the foul in heart, for they shall see no God. 

 Blessed are the War-makers, for they shall be adored by the children of men. 

180. Who are the true "Makers of War, " the promoters and supports of it, I showed long since in the note to the brief sentence of "Unto thislast. " "It is entirely capitalists' (_i. E. _, Usurers') wealth[135] whichsupports unjust Wars. " But to what extent the adoration of the Usurer, and the slavery consequent upon it, has perverted the soul or bound thehands of every man in Europe, I will let the reader hear, from authorityhe will less doubt than mine:--

"Financiers are the mischievous feudalism of the 19th century. A handfulof men have invented distant, seductive loans, have introduced nationaldebts in countries happily ignorant of them, have advanced money tounsophisticated Powers on ruinous terms, and then, by appealing to smallinvestors all over the world, got rid of the bonds. Furthermore, withthe difference between the advances and the sale of bonds, they caused afall in the securities which they had issued, and, having sold at 80, they bought back at 10, taking advantage of the public panic. Again, with the money thus obtained, they bought up consciences, whereconsciences are marketable, and under the pretense of providing thecountry thus traded upon with new means of communication, they passedmoney into their own coffers. They have had pupils, imitators, andplagiarists; and at the present moment, under different names, thefinanciers rule the world, are a sore of society, and form one of thechief causes of modern crises. 

"Unlike the Nile, wherever they pass they render the soil dry andbarren. The treasures of the world flow into their cellars, and thereremain. They spend one-tenth of their revenues; the remainingnine-tenths they hoard and divert from circulation. They distributefavors, and are great political leaders. They have not assumed the placeof the old nobility, but have taken the latter into their service. Princes are their chamberlains, dukes open their doors, and marquisesact as their equerries when they deign to ride. 

"These new grandees canter on their splendid Arabs along Rotten Ron, theBois de Boulogne, the Prospect, the Prater, or Unter den Linden. Theshopkeepers, and all who save money, bow low to these men, who representtheir savings, which they will never again see under any other form. Proof against sarcasms, sure of the respect of the Continental Press, protecting each other with a sort of freemasonry, the financiers dictatelaws, determine the fate of nations, and render the cleverest politicalcombinations abortive. They are everywhere received and listened to, andall the Cabinets feel their influence. Governments watch them withuneasiness, and even the Iron Chancellor has his gilded Egeria, whoreports to him the wishes of this the sole modern Autocrat"--_Letterfrom Paris Correspondent_, "_Times_, " _30th January_, 1885. 

 * * * * *

181. But to this statement, I must add the one made to § 149 (see note)of "Munera Pulveris, " that if we could trace the innermost of all causesof modern war, they would be found, not in the avarice or ambition, butthe idleness of the upper classes. "They have nothing to do but to teachthe peasantry to kill each other"--while that the peasantry are thusteachable, is further again dependent on their not having been educatedprimarily in the common law of justice. See again "Munera Pulveris, "Appendix I. : "Precisely according to the number of just men in a nationis their power of avoiding either intestine or foreign war. "

I rejoice to see my old friend Mr. Sillar gathering finally together theevidence he has so industriously collected on the guilt of usury, andsupporting it by the always impressive language of symbolical art;[136]for indeed I had myself no idea, till I read the connected statementwhich these pictures illustrate, how steadily the system ofmoney-lending had gained on the nation, and how fatally every hand andfoot was now entangled by it. Yet in commending the study of this bookto every virtuous and patriotic Englishman, I must firmly remind thereader, that all these sins and errors are only the branches from oneroot of bitterness--mortal Pride. For this we gather, for this we war, for this we die--here and hereafter; while all the while the Wisdomwhich is from above stands vainly teaching us the way to Earthly Richesand to Heavenly Peace, "What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, butto do justice, to love mercy, and to walk _humbly_ with thy God?"

 BRANTWOOD, _7th March_, 1885. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 132: Introduction to a pamphlet entitled "Usury and theEnglish Bishops, " or more fully, "Usury, its pernicious effects onEnglish agriculture and commerce: An allegory dedicated withoutpermission to the Bishops of Manchester, Peterborough and Rochester"(London: A. Southey, 146, Fenchurch Street, 1885). By R. J. Sillar. (See_Fors Clavigera_, vol. V. Letter 56. )--ED. ]

[Footnote 133: "Everything evil in Europe is primarily the fault of herBishops. "]

[Footnote 134: "I knew, in using it, perfectly well what you meant. "(Note by Mr. Sillar. )]

[Footnote 135: "Cash, " I should have said, in accuracy--not "wealth. "]

[Footnote 136: Mr. Sillar's pamphlet consists of a collection ofparagraphs, all condemnatory of usury, from the writings of the Englishbishops, from the sixteenth century down to the present time; and isillustrated by five emblematic woodcuts representing an oak tree(English commerce) gradually overgrown and destroyed by an ivy-plant(usury). --ED. ]

 * * * * *

THEOLOGY. 

NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 

(Pamphlet, 1851. )

THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH. 

(_Letters and Epilogue_, 1879-1881. )

THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE. 

(_Contemporary Review, March_ 1873. )

 * * * * *

NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. [137]

PREFACE (CALLED "ADVERTISEMENT") TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

_Many persons will probably find fault with me for publishing opinionswhich are not new: but I shall bear this blame contentedly, believingthat opinions on this subject could hardly be just if they were not 1800years old. Others will blame me for making proposals which arealtogether new: to whom I would answer, that things in these days seemnot so far right but that they may be mended. And others will simplycall the opinions false and the proposals foolish--to whose goodwill, ifthey take it in hand to contradict me, I must leave what I havewritten--having no purpose of being drawn, at present, into religiouscontroversy. If, however, any should admit the truth, but regret thetone of what I have said, lean only pray them to consider how much lessharm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness, than by untimelyfear. _

 DENMARK HILL, _February, 1851. _

PREFACE TO THE SECOND (1851) EDITION. 

_Since the publication of these Notes, I have received many letters uponthe affairs of the Church, from persons of nearly every denomination ofChristians; for all these letters I am grateful, and in many of them Ihave found valuable information, or suggestion: but I have not leisureat present to follow out the subject farther; and no reason has beenshown me for modifying or altering any part of the text as it stands. Itis republished, therefore, without change or addition_. 

_I must, however, especially thank one of my correspondents for sendingme a pamphlet, called "Sectarianism, the Bane of Religion and theChurch, "[138] which I would recommend, in the strongest terms, to thereading of all who regard the cause of Christ; and, for help in readingthe Scriptures, I would name also the short and admirable arrangement ofparallel passages relating to the offices of the clergy, called "TheTestimony of Scripture concerning the Christian Ministry. "_[139]

PREFACE TO THIRD (CALLED SECOND) EDITION. 

_I have only to add to this first preface, that the boldness of thepamphlet, --ungraceful enough, it must be admitted, --has done no one anyharm, that I know of; but on the contrary, some definite good, as far asI can judge; and that I republish the whole now, letter for letter, asoriginally printed, believing it likely to be still serviceable, and, onthe ground it takes for argument, (Scriptural authority, )incontrovertible as far as it reaches; though it amazes me to find onre-reading it, that, so late as 1851, I had only got the length ofperceiving the schism between sects of Protestants to be criminal, andridiculous, while I still supposed the schism between Protestants andCatholics to be virtuous and sublime. _

_The most valuable part of the whole is the analysis of governments, §§213-15; the passages on Church discipline, §§ 204-5, being alsoanticipatory of much that I have to say in Fors, where I hope tore-assert the substance of this pamphlet on wider grounds, and with moremodesty. _

 BRANTWOOD, _3rd August, 1875. _

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 137: This pamphlet was originally published in 1851, under thetitle of "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds, " by John Ruskin, M. A. , author of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture, " etc. (Smith, Elder, &Co. ). A second edition, with an additional preface, followed in the sameyear, after which the pamphlet remained out of print till 1875, when itwas reprinted in a third, erroneously called a second, edition (GeorgeAllen, Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent). --ED. ]

[Footnote 138: London: 1846. Nisbet & Co. , Berners Street. ]

[Footnote 139: London: 1847. T. K. Campbell, 1, Warwick Square. ]

NOTES, ETC. , ETC. 

182. The following remarks were intended to form part of the appendix toan essay on Architecture: but it seemed to me, when I had put them intoorder, that they might be useful to persons who would not care topossess the work to which I proposed to attach them: I publish them, therefore, in a separate form; but I have not time to give them moreconsistency than they would have had in the subordinate positionoriginally intended for them. I do not profess to teach Divinity, and Ipray the reader to understand this, and to pardon the slightness andinsufficiency of notes set down with no more intention of connectedtreatment of their subject than might regulate an accidentalconversation. Some of them are simply copied from my private diary;others are detached statements of facts, which seem to me significativeor valuable, without comment; all are written in haste, and in theintervals of occupation with an entirely different subject. It may beasked of me, whether I hold it right to speak thus hastily andinsufficiently respecting the matter in question? Yes. I hold it rightto _speak_ hastily; not to _think_ hastily. I have not thought hastilyof these things; and, besides, the haste of speech is confessed, thatthe reader may think of me only as talking to him, and saying, asshortly and simply as I can, things which, if he esteem them foolish oridle, he is welcome to cast aside; but which, in very truth, I cannothelp saying at this time. 

183. The passages in the essay which required notes, described therepression of the political power of the Venetian Clergy by the VenetianSenate; and it became necessary for me--in supporting an assertion madein the course of the inquiry, that the idea of separation of Church andState was both vain and impious--to limit the sense in which it seemedto me that the word "Church" should be understood, and to note one ortwo consequences which would result from the acceptance of suchlimitation. This I may as well do in a separate paper, readable by anyperson interested in the subject; for it is high time that _some_definition of the word should be agreed upon. I do not mean a definitioninvolving the doctrine of this or that division of Christians, butlimiting, in a manner understood by all of them, the sense in which the_word_ should thenceforward be used. There is grievous inconvenience inthe present state of things. For instance, in a sermon lately publishedat Oxford, by an anti-Tractarian divine, I find this sentence, --"It isclearly within the province of the State to establish a national_church_, or _external institution of certain forms of worship_. " Nowsuppose one were to take this interpretation of the word "Church, " givenby an Oxford divine, and substitute it for the simple word in some Bibletexts, as, for instance, "Unto the angel of the external institution ofcertain forms of worship of Ephesus, write, " etc. Or, "Salute thebrethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the externalinstitution of certain forms of worship which is in his house, "--whatawkward results we should have, here and there! Now I do not say it ispossible for men to agree with each other in their religious _opinions_, but it is certainly possible for them to agree with each other upontheir religious _expressions_; and when a word occurs in the Bible ahundred and fourteen times, it is surely not asking too much ofcontending divines to let it stand in the sense in which it thereoccurs; and when they want an expression of something for which it does_not_ stand in the Bible, to use some other word. There is no compromiseof religious opinion in this; it is simply proper respect for theQueen's English. 

184. The word occurs in the New Testament, as I said, a hundred andfourteen times. [140] In every one of those occurrences, it bears oneand the same grand sense: that of a congregation or assembly of men. Butit bears this sense under four different modifications, giving fourseparate meanings to the word. These are--

I. The entire Multitude of the Elect; otherwise called the Body ofChrist; and sometimes the Bride, the Lamb's Wife; including the Faithfulin all ages;--Adam, and the children of Adam yet unborn. 

In this sense it is used in Ephesians v. 25, 27, 32; Colossians i. 18;and several other passages. 

II. The entire multitude of professing believers in Christ, existing onearth at a given moment; including false brethren, wolves in sheep'sclothing, goats and tares, as well as sheep and wheat, and other formsof bad fish with good in the net. 

In this sense it is used in 1 Cor. X. 32, xv. 9; Galatians i. 13; 1 Tim. Iii. 5, etc. 

III. The multitude of professed believers, living in a certain city, place, or house. This is the most frequent sense in which the wordoccurs, as in Acts vii. 38, xiii. 1; 1 Cor. I. 2, xvi. 19, etc. 

IV. Any assembly of men: as in Acts xix. 32, 41. 

185. That in a hundred and twelve out of the hundred and fourteen texts, the word bears some one of these four meanings, is indisputable. [141]But there are two texts in which, if the word had alone occurred, itsmeaning might have been doubtful. These are Matt. Xvi. 18, and xviii. 17. 

The absurdity of founding any doctrine upon the inexpressibly minutepossibility that, in these two texts, the word might have been used witha different meaning from that which it bore in all the others, coupledwith the assumption that the meaning was this or that, is self-evident:it is not so much a religious error as a philological solecism;unparalleled, so far as I know, in any other science but that ofdivinity. 

Nor is it ever, I think, committed with open front by Protestants. NoEnglish divine, asked in a straightforward manner for a Scripturaldefinition of "the Church, " would, I suppose, be bold enough to answer"the Clergy. " Nor is there any harm in the common use of the word, soonly that it be distinctly understood to be not the Scriptural one; andtherefore to be unfit for substitution in a Scriptural text. There is noharm in a man's talking of his son's "going into the Church; "meaningthat he is going to take orders: but there is much harm in his supposingthis a Scriptural use of the word, and therefore, that when Christ said, "Tell it to the Church, " He might possibly have meant, "Tell it to theClergy. "

186. It is time to put an end to the chance of such misunderstanding. Let it but be declared plainly by all men, when they begin to statetheir opinions on matters ecclesiastical, that they will use the word"Church" in one sense or the other;--that they will accept the sense inwhich it is used by the Apostles, or that they deny this sense, andpropose a new definition of their own. We shall then know what we areabout with them--we may perhaps grant them their new use of the term, and argue with them on that understanding; so only that they will notpretend to make use of Scriptural authority, while they refuse to employScriptural language. This, however, it is not my purpose to do atpresent. I desire only to address those who are willing to accept theApostolic sense of the word Church; and with them, I would endeavorshortly to ascertain what consequences must follow from an acceptance ofthat Apostolic sense, and what must be our first and most necessaryconclusions from the common language of Scripture[142] respecting thesefollowing points:--

 (1) The distinctive characters of the Church, (2) The Authority of the Church. (3) The Authority of the Clergy over the Church. (4) The Connection of the Church with the State. 

187. These are four separate subjects of question; but we shall not haveto put these questions in succession with each of the four Scripturalmeanings of the word Church, for evidently its second and third meaningmay be considered together, as merely expressing the general orparticular conditions of the Visible Church, and the fourthsignification is entirely independent of all questions of a religiouskind. So that we shall only put the above inquiries successivelyrespecting the Invisible and Visible Church; and as the two last--ofauthority of Clergy, and connection with State--can evidently only havereference to the Visible Church, we shall have, in all, these sixquestions to consider:--

 (1) The distinctive characters of the Invisible Church. (2) The distinctive characters of the Visible Church. (3) The Authority of the Invisible Church. (4) The Authority of the Visible Church, (5) The Authority of Clergy over the Visible Church. (6) The Connection of the Visible Church with the State. 

188. (1) What are the distinctive characters of the Invisible Church?That is to say, What is it which makes a person a member of this Church, and how is he to be known for such? Wide question--if we had to takecognizance of all that has been written respecting it, remarkable as ithas been always for quantity rather than carefulness, and full ofconfusion between Visible and Invisible: even the Article of the Churchof England being ambiguous in its first clause: "The _Visible_ Church isa congregation of Faithful men. " As if ever it had been possible, exceptfor God, to see Faith, or to know a Faithful man by sight! And there islittle else written on this question, without some such quick confusionof the Visible and Invisible Church;--needless and unaccountableconfusion. For evidently, the Church which is composed of Faithful menis the one true, indivisible, and indiscernible Church, built on thefoundation of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being thechief corner-stone. It includes all who have ever fallen asleep inChrist, and all yet unborn, who are to be saved in Him: its Body is asyet imperfect; it will not be perfected till the last saved human spiritis gathered to its God. 

A man becomes a member of this Church only by believing in Christ withall his heart; nor is he positively recognizable for a member of it, when he has become so, by any one but God, not even by himself. Nevertheless, there are certain signs by which Christ's sheep may beguessed at. Not by their being in any definite Fold--for many are lostsheep at times; but by their sheeplike behavior; and a great many areindeed sheep, which, on the far mountain side, in their peacefulness, wetake for stones. To themselves, the best proof of their being Christ'ssheep is to find themselves on Christ's shoulders; and, between them, there are certain sympathies (expressed in the Apostles' Creed by theterm "communion of Saints"), by which they may in a sort recognize eachother, and so become verily visible to each other for mutual comfort. 

189. (2) The Limits of the Visible Church, or of the Church in theSecond Scriptural Sense, are not so easy to define: they are awkwardquestions, these, of stake-nets. It has been ingeniously and plausiblyendeavored to make Baptism a sign of admission into the Visible Church:but absurdly enough; for we know that half the baptized people in theworld are very visible rogues, believing neither in God nor devil; andit is flat blasphemy to call these Visible Christians; we also know thatthe Holy Ghost was sometimes given before Baptism, [143] and it would beabsurdity to call a man, on whom the Holy Ghost had fallen, an InvisibleChristian. The only rational distinction is that which practically, though not professedly, we always assume. If we hear a man professhimself a believer in God and in Christ, and detect him in no glaringand willful violation of God's law, we speak of him as a Christian; and, on the other hand, if we hear him or see him denying Christ, either inhis words or conduct, we tacitly assume him not to be a Christian. Amawkish charity prevents us from outspeaking in this matter, and fromearnestly endeavoring to discern who are Christians and who are not; andthis I hold[144] to be one of the chief sins of the Church in thepresent day; for thus wicked men are put to no shame; and better men areencouraged in their failings, or caused to hesitate in their virtues, bythe example of those whom, in false charity, they choose to callChristians. Now, it being granted that it is impossible to know, determinedly, who are Christians indeed, that is no reason for utternegligence in separating the nominal, apparent, or possible Christian, from the professed Pagan or enemy of God. We spend much time in arguingabout efficacy of sacraments and such other mysteries; but we do not actupon the very certain tests which are clear and visible. We know thatChrist's people are not thieves--not liars--not busybodies--notdishonest--not avaricious--not wasteful--not cruel. Let us then getourselves well clear of thieves--liars--wasteful people--avariciouspeople--cheating people--people who do not pay their debts. Let usassure them that they, at least, do not belong to the Visible Church;and having thus got that Church into decent shape and cohesion, it willbe time to think of drawing the stake-nets closer. 

I hold it for a law, palpable to common sense, and which nothing but thecowardice and faithlessness of the Church prevents it from putting inpractice, that the conviction of any dishonorable conduct or willfulcrime, of any fraud, falsehood, cruelty, or violence, should be groundfor the excommunication of any man:--for his publicly declaredseparation from the acknowledged body of the Visible Church: and that heshould not be received again therein without public confession of hiscrime and declaration of his repentance. If this were vigorouslyenforced, we should soon have greater purity of life in the world, andfewer discussions about high and low churches. But before we can obtainany idea of the manner in which such law could be enforced, we have toconsider the second respecting the Authority of the Church. Nowauthority is twofold: to declare doctrine, and to enforce discipline;and we have to inquire, therefore, in each kind, --

190. (3) What is the authority of the Invisible Church? Evidently, inmatters of doctrine, all members of the Invisible Church must have been, and must ever be, at the time of their deaths, right in the pointsessential to Salvation. But, (A), we cannot tell who _are_ members ofthe Invisible Church. 

(B) We cannot collect evidence from death-beds in a clearly stated form. 

(C) We can collect evidence, in any form, only from some one or two outof every sealed thousand of the Invisible Church. Elijah thought he wasalone in Israel; and yet there were seven thousand invisible ones aroundhim. Grant that we had Elijah's intelligence; and we could onlycalculate on collecting one seven-thousandth part of the evidence oropinions of the part of the Invisible Church living on earth at a givenmoment: that is to say, the seven-millionth or trillionth of itscollective evidence. It is very clear, therefore, we cannot hope to getrid of the contradictory opinions, and keep the consistent ones, by ageneral equation. But, it has been said, these are no contradictoryopinions; the Church is infallible. There was some talk about theinfallibility of the Church, if I recollect right, in that letter of Mr. Bennett's to the Bishop of London. If any Church is infallible, it isassuredly the Invisible Church, or Body of Christ: and infallible in themain sense it must of course be by its definition. An Elect person mustbe saved, and therefore cannot eventually be deceived on essentialpoints: so that Christ says of the deception of such, "If it were_possible_" implying it to be impossible. Therefore, as we said, if onecould get rid of the variable opinions of the members of the InvisibleChurch, the constant opinions would assuredly be authoritative: but, forthe three reasons above stated, we cannot get at their constantopinions: and as for the feelings and thoughts which they dailyexperience or express, the question of Infallibility -which is practicalonly in this bearing--is soon settled. Observe, St. Paul, and the restof the Apostles, write nearly all their epistles to the InvisibleChurch:--those epistles are headed, --Romans, "To the beloved of God, called to be saints; "1 Corinthians, "To them that are sanctified inChrist Jesus; "2 Corinthians, "To the saints in all Achaia;" Ephesians, "To the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in ChristJesus; "Philippians, "To all the saints which are at Philippi;"Colossians, "To the saints and faithful brethren which are at Colosse;"1 and 2 Thessalonians, "To the Church of the Thessalonians, which isin God the Father, and the Lord Jesus; "1 and 2 Timothy, "To his own sonin the faith; "Titus, to the same; 1 Peter, "To the Strangers, Electaccording to the foreknowledge of God;" 2 Peter, "To them that haveobtained like precious faith with us; " 2 John, "To the Elect lady; "Jude, " To them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved inJesus Christ, and called. "

191. There are thus fifteen epistles, expressly directed to the membersof the Invisible Church. Philemon and Hebrews, and 1 and 3 John, areevidently also so written, though not so expressly inscribed. That ofJames, and that to the Galatians, are as evidently to the VisibleChurch: the one being general, and the other to persons "removed fromHim that called them. " Missing out, therefore, these two epistles, butincluding Christ's words to His disciples, we find in the Scripturaladdresses to members of the Invisible Church, fourteen, if not more, direct injunctions "not to be deceived. "[145] So much for the"Infallibility of the Church. "

Now, one could put up with Puseyism more patiently, if its fallaciesarose merely from peculiar temperaments yielding to peculiartemptations. But its bold refusals to read plain English; its elaborateadjustments of tight bandages over its own eyes, as wholesomepreparation for a walk among traps and pitfalls; its daring trustfulnessin its own clairvoyance all the time, and declarations that every pit itfalls into is a seventh heaven; and that it is pleasant and profitableto break its legs;--with all this it is difficult to have patience. Onethinks of the highwayman with his eyes shut in the "Arabian Nights"; andwonders whether any kind of scourging would prevail upon the Anglicanhighwayman to open "first one and then the other. "

192. (4) So much, then, I repeat, for the infallibility of the_In_visible Church, and for its consequent authority. Now, if we want toascertain what infallibility and authority there is in the VisibleChurch, we have to alloy the small wisdom and the light weight ofInvisible Christians, with the large percentage of the false wisdom andcontrary weight of Undetected Anti-Christians. Which alloy makes up thecurrent coin of opinions in the Visible Church, having such value as wemay choose--its nature being properly assayed--to attach to it. 

There is, therefore, in matters of doctrine, _no such thing_ as theAuthority of the Church. We might as well talk of the authority of amorning cloud. There may be light _in_ it, but the light is not of it;and it diminishes the light that it gets; and lets less of it throughthan it receives, Christ being its sun. Or, we might as well talk of theauthority of a flock of sheep--for the Church is a body to be taught andfed, not to teach and feed: and of all sheep that are fed on the earth, Christ's Sheep are the most simple, (the children of this generation arewiser): always losing themselves; doing little else in this world _but_lose themselves;--never finding themselves; always found by Some Oneelse; getting perpetually into sloughs, and snows, and bramble thickets, like to die there, but for their Shepherd, who is forever finding themand bearing them back, with torn fleeces and eyes full of fear. 

193. This, then, being the No-Authority of the Church in matter ofDoctrine, what Authority has it in matters of Discipline?

Much, every way. The sheep have natural and wholesome power (however farscattered they may be from their proper fold) of getting together inorderly knots; following each other on trodden sheepwalks, and holdingtheir heads all one way when they see strange dogs coming; as well as ofcasting out of their company any whom they see reason to suspect of notbeing right sheep, and being among them for no good. All which thingsmust be done as the time and place require, and by common consent. Apath may be good at one time of day which is bad at another, or after achange of wind; and a position may be very good for sudden defense, which would be very stiff and awkward for feeding in. And common consentmust often be of such and such a company on this or that hillside, inthis or that particular danger, --not of all the sheep in the world: andthe consent may either be literally common, and expressed in assembly, or it may be to appoint officers over the rest, with such and suchtrusts of the common authority, to be used for the common advantage. Conviction of crimes, and excommunication, for instance, could neitherbe effected except before, or by means of, officers of some appointedauthority. 

194. (5) This then brings us to our fifth question. What is theAuthority of the Clergy over the Church?

The first clause of the question must evidently be, --Who _are_ theClergy? And it is not easy to answer this without begging the rest ofthe question. 

For instance, I think I can hear certain people answering, that theClergy are folk of three kinds;--Bishops, who overlook the Church;Priests, who sacrifice for the Church; Deacons, who minister to theChurch: thus assuming in their answer, that the Church is to besacrificed _for_, and that the people cannot overlook and minister toher at the same time;--which is going much too fast. I think, however, if we define the Clergy to be the "Spiritual Officers of theChurch, "--meaning, by Officers, merely People in office, --we shall havea title safe enough and general enough to begin with, and correspondingtoo, pretty well, with St. Paul's general expression [Greek:proistamenoi], in Rom. Xii. 8, and 1 Thess. V. 13. 

Now, respecting these Spiritual Officers, or office-bearers, we have toinquire, first, What their Office or Authority is, or should be?secondly, Who gave, or should give, them that Authority? That is to say, first, What is, or should be, the _nature_ of their office? andsecondly, What the _extent_, or force, of their authority in it? forthis last depends mainly on its derivation. 

195. First, then, What should be the offices, and of what kind should bethe authority, of the Clergy?

I have hitherto referred to the Bible for an answer to every question. Ido so again; and, behold, the Bible gives me no answer. I defy you toanswer me from the Bible. You can only guess, and dimly conjecture, whatthe offices of the Clergy _were_ in the first century. You cannot showme a single command as to what they shall be. Strange, this; the Biblegives no answer to so apparently important a question! God surely wouldnot have left His word without an answer to anything His children oughtto ask. Surely it must be a ridiculous question--a question we oughtnever to have put, or thought of putting. Let us think of it again alittle. To be sure, --It _is_ a ridiculous question, and we should beashamed of ourselves for having put it:--What should be the offices ofthe Clergy? That is to say, What are the possible spiritual necessitieswhich at any time may arise in the Church, and by what means and men arethey to be supplied?--evidently an infinite question. Different kinds ofnecessities must be met by different authorities, constituted as thenecessities arise. Robinson Crusoe, in his island, wants no Bishop, andmakes a thunderstorm do for an Evangelist. The University of Oxfordwould be ill off without its Bishop; but wants an Evangelist besides;and that forthwith. The authority which the Vaudois shepherds need is ofBarnabas, the Son of Consolation; the authority which the city of Londonneeds is of James, the Son of Thunder. Let us then alter the form of ourquestion, and put it to the Bible thus: What are the necessities mostlikely to arise in the Church? and may they be best met by differentmen, or in great part by the same men acting in different capacities?and are the names attached to their offices of any consequence? Ah, theBible answers now, and that loudly. The Church is built on theFoundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being thecorner-stone. Well; we cannot have two foundations, so we can have nomore Apostles nor Prophets:--then, as for the other needs of the Churchin its edifying upon this foundation, there are all manner of things tobe done daily;--rebukes to be given; comfort to be brought; Scripture tobe explained; warning to be enforced; threatenings to be executed;charities to be administered; and the men who do these things arecalled, and call themselves, with absolute indifference, Deacons, Bishops, Elders, Evangelists, according to what they are doing at thetime of speaking. St. Paul almost always calls himself a deacon, St. Peter calls himself an elder, 1 Peter v. 1; and Timothy, generallyunderstood to be addressed as a bishop, is called a deacon in 1 Tim. Iv. 6--forbidden to rebuke an elder, in v. 1, and exhorted to do the work ofan evangelist, in 2 Tim. Iv. 5. But there is one thing which, asofficers, or as separate from the rest of the flock, they _never_ callthemselves, --which it would have been impossible, as so separate, theyever _should_ have called themselves; that is--_Priests_. 

196. It would have been just as possible for the Clergy of the earlyChurch to call themselves Levites, as to call themselves (ex-officio)Priests. The whole function of Priesthood was, on Christmas morning, atonce and forever gathered into His Person who was born at Bethlehem; andthenceforward, all who are united with Him, and who with Him makesacrifice of themselves; that is to say, all members of the InvisibleChurch become, at the instant of their conversion, Priests; and are socalled in 1 Peter ii. 5, and Rev. I. 6, and xx. 6, where, observe, thereis no possibility of limiting the expression to the Clergy; theconditions of Priesthood being simply having been loved by Christ, andwashed in His blood. The blasphemous claim on the part of the Clergy ofbeing _more_ Priests than the godly laity--that is to say, of having ahigher Holiness than the Holiness of being one with Christ, --isaltogether a Romanist heresy, dragging after it, or having its originin, the other heresies respecting the sacrificial power of the Churchofficer, and his repeating the oblation of Christ, and so having powerto absolve from sin:--with all the other endless and miserablefalsehoods of the Papal hierarchy; falsehoods for which, that theremight be no shadow of excuse, it has been ordained by the Holy Spiritthat no Christian minister shall once call himself a Priest from one endof the New Testament to the other, except together with his flock; andso far from the idea of any peculiar sanctification, belonging to theClergy, ever entering the Apostles' minds, we actually find St. Pauldefending himself against the possible imputation of inferiority: "Ifany man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself thinkthis again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's" (2 Cor. X. 7). As for the unhappy retention of the term Priest in our EnglishPrayer-book, so long as it was understood to mean nothing but an upperorder of Church officer, licensed to tell the congregation from thereading-desk, what (for the rest) they might, one would think, haveknown without being told, --that "God pardoneth all them that trulyrepent, "--there was little harm in it; but, now that this order ofClergy begins to presume upon a title which, if it mean anything at all, is simply short for Presbyter, and has no more to do with the wordHiereus than with the word Levite, it is time that some order should betaken both with the book and the Clergy. For instance, in that dangerouscompound of halting poetry with hollow Divinity, called the "LyraApostolica, " we find much versification on the sin of Korah and hiscompany: with suggested parallel between the Christian and LeviticalChurches, and threatening that there are "Judgment Fires, forhigh-voiced Korahs in their day. " There are indeed such fires. But whenMoses said, "a Prophet shall the Lord raise up unto you, like unto me, "did he mean the writer who signs [Greek: g] in the "Lyra Apostolica"?The office of the Lawgiver and Priest is now forever gathered into OneMediator between God and man; and THEY are guilty of the sin of Korahwho blasphemously would associate themselves in His Mediatorship. 

197. As for the passages in the "Ordering of Priests" and "Visitation ofthe Sick" respecting Absolution, they are evidently pure Romanism, andmight as well not be there, for any practical effect which they have onthe consciences of the Laity; and had much better not be there, asregards their effect on the minds of the Clergy. It is indeed true thatChrist promised absolving powers to His Apostles: He also promised tothose who believed, that they should take up serpents; and if they drankany deadly thing, it should not hurt them. His words were fulfilledliterally; but those who would extend their force to beyond theApostolic times, must extend both promises or neither. 

Although, however, the Protestant laity do not often admit the absolvingpower of their clergy, they are but too apt to yield, in some sort, tothe impression of their greater sanctification; and from this instantlyresults the unhappy consequence that the sacred character of the Laymanhimself is forgotten, and his own Ministerial duty is neglected. Mennot in office in the Church suppose themselves, on that ground, in asort unholy; and that, therefore, they may sin with more excuse, and beidle or impious with less danger, than the Clergy: especially theyconsider themselves relieved from all ministerial function, and aspermitted to devote their whole time and energy to the business of thisworld. No mistake can possibly be greater. Every member of the Church isequally bound to the service of the Head of the Church; and that serviceis pre-eminently the saving of souls. There is not a moment of a man'sactive life in which he may not be indirectly preaching; and throughouta great part of his life he ought to be _directly_ preaching, andteaching both strangers and friends; his children, his servants, and allwho in any way are put under him, being given to him as special objectsof his ministration. So that the only difference between a Churchofficer and a lay member is either a wider degree of authority given tothe former, as apparently a wiser and better man, or a specialappointment to some office more easily discharged by one person than bymany: as, for instance, the serving of tables by the deacons; theauthority or appointment being, in either case, commonly signified by amarked separation from the rest of the Church, and the privilege orpower[146] of being maintained by the rest of the Church, without beingforced to labor with his hands, or incumber himself with any temporalconcerns. 

198. Now, putting out of the question the serving of tables, and othersuch duties, respecting which there is no debate, we shall find theoffices of the Clergy, whatever names we may choose to give to those whodischarge them, falling mainly into two great heads:--Teaching;including doctrine, warning, and comfort: Discipline; including reproofand direct administration of punishment. Either of which functions wouldnaturally become vested in single persons, to the exclusion of others, as a mere matter of convenience: whether those persons were wiser andbetter than others or not; and respecting each of which, and theauthority required for its fitting discharge, a short inquiry must beseparately made. 

199. I. Teaching. --It appears natural and wise that certain men shouldbe set apart from the rest of the Church that they may make Theology thestudy of their lives: and that they should be thereto instructedspecially in the Hebrew and Greek tongues; and have entire leisuregranted them for the study of the Scriptures, and for obtaining generalknowledge of the grounds of Faith, and best modes of its defense againstall heretics: and it seems evidently right, also, that with thisScholastic duty should be joined the Pastoral duty of constantvisitation and exhortation to the people; for, clearly, the Bible, andthe truths of Divinity in general, can only be understood rightly intheir practical application; and clearly, also, a man spending his timeconstantly in spiritual ministrations, must be better able, on any givenoccasion, to deal powerfully with the human heart than one unpracticedin such matters. The unity of Knowledge and Love, both devotedaltogether to the service of Christ and His Church, marks the trueChristian Minister; who, I believe, whenever he has existed, has neverfailed to receive due and fitting reverence from all men, --of whatevercharacter or opinion; and I believe that if all those who profess to besuch were such indeed, there would never be question of their authoritymore. 

200. But, whatever influence they may have over the Church, theirauthority never supersedes that of either the intellect or theconscience of the simplest of its lay members. They can assist thosemembers in the search for truth, or comfort their over-worn and doubtfulminds; they can even assure them that they are in the way of truth, orthat pardon is within their reach: but they can neither manifest thetruth, nor grant the pardon. Truth is to be discovered, and Pardon to bewon, for every man by himself. This is evident from innumerable texts ofScripture, but chiefly from those which exhort every man to seek afterTruth, and which connect knowing with doing. We are to seek afterknowledge as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures; therefore, from every man she must be naturally hid, and the discovery of her isto be the reward only of personal search. The kingdom of God is astreasure hid in a field; and of those who profess to help us to seek forit, we are not to put confidence in those who say, --Here is thetreasure, we have found it, and have it, and will give you some of it;but in those who say, --We think that is a good place to dig, and youwill dig most easily in such and such a way. 

201. Farther, it has been promised that if such earnest search be made, Truth shall be discovered: as much truth, that is, as is necessary forthe person seeking. These, therefore, I hold, for two fundamentalprinciples of religion, --that, without seeking, truth cannot be known atall; and that, by seeking, it may be discovered by the simplest. I say, without seeking it cannot be known at all. It can neither be declaredfrom pulpits, nor set down in Articles, nor in anywise "prepared andsold" in packages, ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man byhimself out of its husk, with such help as he can get, indeed, but notwithout stern labor of his own. In what science is knowledge to be hadcheap? or truth to be told over a velvet cushion, in half an hour's talkevery seventh day? Can you learn chemistry so?--zoology?--anatomy? anddo you expect to penetrate the secret of all secrets, and to know thatwhose price is above rubies; and of which the depth saith, --It is not inme, --in so easy fashion? There are doubts in this matter which evilspirits darken with their wings, and that is true of all such doubtswhich we were told long ago--they can "be ended by action alone. "[147]

202. As surely as we live, this truth of truths can only so bediscerned: to those who act on what they know, more shall be revealed;and thus, if any man will do His will, he shall know the doctrinewhether it be of God. Any man, --not the man who has most means ofknowing, who has the subtlest brains, or sits under the most orthodoxpreacher, or has his library fullest of most orthodox books, --but theman who strives to know, who takes God at His word, and sets himself todig up the heavenly mystery, roots and all, before sunset, and the nightcome, when no man can work. Beside such a man, God stands in more andmore visible presence as he toils, and teaches him that which nopreacher can teach--no earthly authority gainsay. By such a man, thepreacher must himself be judged. 

203. Doubt you this? There is nothing more certain nor clear throughoutthe Bible: the Apostles themselves appeal constantly to their flocks, and actually _claim_ judgment from them, as deserving it, and having aright to it, rather than discouraging it. But, first notice the way inwhich the discovery of truth is spoken of in the Old Testament: "Evilmen understand not judgment; but they that seek the Lord understand allthings, " Proverbs xxviii. 5. God overthroweth, not merely thetransgressor or the wicked, but even "the words of the transgressor, "Proverbs xxii. 12, and "the counsel of the wicked, " Job v. 13, xxi. 16;observe again, in Proverbs xxiv. 14, "My son, eat thou honey, because itis good--so shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul, when thouhast _found it_, there shall be a reward;" and again, "What man is hethat feareth the Lord? him shall He teach in the way that He shallchoose;" so Job xxxii. 8, and multitudes of places more; and then, withall these places, which express the definite and personal operation ofthe Spirit of God on every one of His people, compare the place inIsaiah, which speaks of the contrary of this human teaching: a passagewhich seems as if it had been written for this very day and hour. "Because their fear towards me is taught by the _precept of men_;therefore, behold, the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and theunderstanding of their prudent men shall be hid" (xxix. 13, 14). Thentake the New Testament, and observe how St. Paul himself speaks of theRomans, even as hardly needing his epistle, but able to admonish oneanother: "_Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly untoyou in some sort, as putting you in mind_" (xv. 15). Anyone, we shouldhave thought, might have done as much as this, and yet St. Paulincreases the modesty of it as he goes on; for he claims the right ofdoing as much as this, only "because of the grace given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. " Thencompare 2 Cor. V. 11, where he appeals to the consciences of the peoplefor the manifestation of his having done his duty; and observe in verse21 of that, and I of the next chapter, the "pray" and "beseech, " not"command"; and again in chapter vi. Verse 4, "approving ourselves as theministers of God. " But the most remarkable passage of all is 2 Cor. Iii. 1, whence it appears that the churches were actually in the habit ofgiving letters of recommendation to their ministers; and St. Pauldispenses with such letters, not by virtue of his Apostolic authority, but because the power of his preaching was enough manifested in theCorinthians themselves. And these passages are all the more forcible, because if in any of them St. Paul had claimed absolute authority overthe Church as a teacher, it was no more than we should have expected himto claim, nor could his doing so have in anywise justified a successorin the same claim. But now that he has not claimed it, --who, following him, shall dare to claim it? And the consideration of thenecessity of joining expressions of the most exemplary humility, whichwere to be the example of succeeding ministers, with such assertion ofDivine authority as should secure acceptance for the epistle itself inthe sacred canon, sufficiently accounts for the apparent inconsistencieswhich occur in 2 Thess. Iii. 14, and other such texts. 

204. So much, then, for the authority of the Clergy in matters ofDoctrine. Next, what is their authority in matters of Discipline? Itmust evidently be very great, even if it were derived from the peoplealone, and merely vested in the clerical officers as the executors oftheir ecclesiastical judgments, and general overseers of all the Church. But granting, as we must presently, the minister to hold office directlyfrom God, his authority of discipline becomes very great indeed; howgreat, it seems to me most difficult to determine, because I do notunderstand what St. Paul means by "delivering a man to Satan for thedestruction of the flesh. " Leaving this question, however, as much toohard for casual examination, it seems indisputable that the authority ofthe Ministers or court of Ministers should extend to the pronouncing aman Excommunicate for certain crimes against the Church, as well as forall crimes punishable by ordinary law. There ought, I think, to be anecclesiastical code of laws; and a man ought to have jury trial, according to this code, before an ecclesiastical judge; in which, if hewere found guilty, as of lying, or dishonesty, or cruelty, much more ofany actually committed violent crime, he should be pronouncedexcommunicate; refused the Sacrament; and have his name written in somepublic place as an excommunicate person until he had publicly confessedhis sin and besought pardon of God for it. The jury should always be ofthe laity, and no penalty should be enforced in an ecclesiastical courtexcept this of excommunication. 

205. This proposal may seem strange to many persons; but assuredly this, if not much more than this, is commanded in Scripture, first in the(much-abused) text, "Tell it unto the Church;" and most clearly in 1Cor. V. 11-13; 2 Thess. Iii. 6 and 14; 1 Tim. V. 8 and 20; and Titusiii. 10; from which passages we also know the two proper degrees of thepenalty. For Christ says, Let him who refuses to hear the Church, "beunto thee as an heathen man and a publican, " But Christ ministered tothe heathen, and sat at meat with the publican; only always withdeclared or implied expression of their inferiority; here, therefore, isone degree of excommunication for persons who "offend" their brethren, committing some minor fault against them; and who, having beenpronounced in error by the body of the Church, refuse to confess theirfault or repair it; who are then to be no longer considered members ofthe Church; and their recovery to the body of it is to be sought exactlyas it would be in the case of an heathen. But covetous persons, railers, extortioners, idolaters, and those guilty of other gross crimes, are tobe entirely cut off from the company of the believers; and we are not somuch as to eat with them. This last penalty, however, would require tobe strictly guarded, that it might not be abused in the infliction ofit, as it has been by the Romanists. We are not, indeed, to eat withthem, but we may exercise all Christian charity towards them, and givethem to eat, if we see them in hunger, as we ought to all our enemies;only we are to consider them distinctly as our _enemies_: that is tosay, enemies of our Master, Christ; and servants of Satan. 

206. As for the rank or name of the officers in whom the authorities, either of teaching or discipline, are to be vested, they are leftundetermined by Scripture. I have heard it said by men who know theirBible far better than I, that careful examination may detect evidence ofthe existence of three orders of Clergy in the Church. This may be; butone thing is very clear, without any laborious examination, that"bishop" and "elder" sometimes mean the same thing; as, indisputably, inTitus i. 5 and 7, and I Peter v. I and 2, and that the office of thebishop or overseer was one of considerably less importance than it iswith us. This is palpably evident from I Timothy iii. , for what divineamong us, writing of episcopal proprieties, would think of saying thatbishops "must not be given to wine, " must be "no strikers, " and must notbe "novices"? We are not in the habit of making bishops of novices inthese days; and it would be much better that, like the early Church, wesometimes ran the risk of doing so; for the fact is we have not bishopsenough--by some hundreds. The idea of overseership has been practicallylost sight of, its fulfillment having gradually become physicallyimpossible, for want of more bishops. The duty of a bishop is, withoutdoubt, to be accessible to the humblest clergymen of his diocese, and todesire very earnestly that all of them should be in the habit ofreferring to him in all cases of difficulty; if they do not do this oftheir own accord, it is evidently his duty to visit them, live with themsometimes, and join in their ministrations to their flocks, so as toknow exactly the capacities and habits of life of each; and if any ofthem complained of this or that difficulty with their congregations, thebishop should be ready to go down to help them, preach for them, writegeneral epistles to their people, and so on: besides this, he should ofcourse be watchful of their errors--ready to hear complaints from theircongregations of inefficiency or aught else; besides having generalsuperintendence of all the charitable institutions and schools in hisdiocese, and good knowledge of whatever was going on in theologicalmatters, both all over the kingdom and on the Continent. This is thework of a right overseer; and I leave the reader to calculate how manyadditional bishops--and those hard-working men, too--we should needto have it done, even decently. Then our present bishops might allbecome archbishops with advantage, and have general authority over therest. [148]

207. As to the mode in which the officers of the Church should beelected or appointed, I do not feel it my business to say anything atpresent, nor much respecting the extent of their authority, either overeach other or over the congregation, this being a most difficultquestion, the right solution of which evidently lies between two mostdangerous extremes--insubordination and radicalism on one hand, andecclesiastical tyranny and heresy on the other: of the two, insubordination is far the least to be dreaded--for this reason, thatnearly all real Christians are more on the watch against their pridethan their indolence, and would sooner obey their clergyman, ifpossible, than contend with him; while the very pride they supposeconquered often returns masked, and causes them to make a merit of theirhumility and their abstract obedience, however unreasonable: but theycannot so easily persuade themselves there is a merit in abstract_dis_obedience. 

208. Ecclesiastical tyranny has, for the most part, founded itself onthe idea of Vicarianism, one of the most pestilent of the Romanisttheories, and most plainly denounced in Scripture. Of this I have a wordor two to say to the modern "Vicarian. " All powers that be areunquestionably ordained of God; so that they that resist the Power, resist the ordinance of God. Therefore, say some in these offices, We, being ordained of God, and having our credentials, and being in theEnglish Bible called ambassadors for God, do, in a sort, represent God. We are Vicars of Christ, and stand on earth in place of Christ. I haveheard this said by Protestant clergymen. 

209. Now the word ambassador has a peculiar ambiguity about it, owing toits use in modern political affairs; and these clergymen assume that theword, as used by St. Paul, means an Ambassador Plenipotentiary;representative of his King, and capable of acting for his King. Whatright have they to assume that St. Paul meant this? St. Paul never usesthe word ambassador at all. He says, simply, "We are in embassage fromChrist; and Christ beseeches you through us. " Most true. And let itfurther be granted, that every word that the clergyman speaks isliterally dictated to him by Christ; that he can make no mistake indelivering his message; and that, therefore, it is indeed ChristHimself who speaks to us the word of life through the messenger's lips. Does, therefore, the messenger represent Christ? Does the channel whichconveys the waters of the Fountain represent the Fountain itself?Suppose, when we went to draw water at a cistern, that all at once theLeaden Spout should become animated, and open its mouth and say to us, See, I am Vicarious for the Fountain. Whatever respect you show to theFountain, show some part of it to me. Should we not answer the Spout, and say, Spout, you were set there for our service, and may be takenaway and thrown aside[149] if anything goes wrong with you? But theFountain will flow forever. 

210. Observe, I do not deny a most solemn authority vested in everyChristian messenger from God to men. I am prepared to grant this to theuttermost; and all that George Herbert says, in the end of "TheChurch-porch, " I would enforce, at another time than this, to theuttermost. But the Authority is simply that of a King's _Messenger_; notof a King's _Representative_. There is a wide difference; all thedifference between humble service and blasphemous usurpation. 

Well, the congregation might ask, grant him a King's messenger in casesof doctrine, --in cases of discipline, an officer bearing the King'sCommission. How far are we to obey him? How far is it lawful to disputehis commands?

For, in granting, above, that the Messenger always gave his messagefaithfully, I granted too much to my adversaries, in order that theirargument might have all the weight it possibly could. The Messengersrarely deliver their message faithfully; and sometimes have declared, asfrom the King, messages of their own invention. How far are we, knowingthem for King's messengers, to believe or obey them?

211. Suppose, for instance, in our English army, on the eve of somegreat battle, one of the colonels were to give his order to hisregiment: "My men, tie your belts over your eyes, throw down yourmuskets, and follow me as steadily as you can, through this marsh, intothe middle of the enemy's line, " (this being precisely the order issuedby our Puseyite Church officers). It might be questioned, in the realbattle, whether it would be better that a regiment should show anexample of insubordination, or be cut to pieces. But happily in theChurch there is no such difficulty; for the King is always with Hisarmy: not only with His army, but at the right hand of every soldier ofit. Therefore, if any of their colonels give them a strange command, allthey have to do is to ask the King; and never yet any Christian askedguidance of his King, in any difficulty whatsoever, without mentalreservation or secret resolution, but he had it forthwith. We concludethen, finally, that the authority of the Clergy is, in matters ofdiscipline, large (being executive, first, of the written laws of God, and secondly, of those determined and agreed upon by the body of theChurch), in matters of doctrine, dependent on their recommendingthemselves to every man's conscience, both as messengers of God, and asthemselves men of God, perfect, and instructed to good works. [150]

212. (6) The last subject which we had to investigate was, it will beremembered, what is usually called the connection of "Church and State. "But, by our definition of the term Church, throughout the whole ofChristendom, the Church (or society of professing Christians) _is_ theState, and our subject is therefore, properly speaking, the connectionof lay and clerical officers of the Church; that is to say, the degreesin which the civil and ecclesiastical governments ought to interferewith or influence each other. 

It would of course be vain to attempt a formal inquiry into thisintricate subject;--I have only a few detached points to noticerespecting it. 

213. There are three degrees or kinds of civil government. The first andlowest, executive merely; the government in this sense being simply theNational Hand, and composed of individuals who administer the laws ofthe nation, and execute its established purposes. 

The second kind of government is deliberative; but in its deliberation, representative only of the thoughts and will of the people or nation, and liable to be deposed the instant it ceases to express those thoughtsand that will. This, whatever its form, whether centered in a king or inany number of men, is properly to be called Democratic. The third andhighest kind of government is deliberative, not as representative of thepeople, but as chosen to take separate counsel for them, and havingpower committed to it, to enforce upon them whatever resolution it mayadopt, whether consistent with their will or not. This government isproperly to be called Monarchical, whatever its form. 

214. I see that politicians and writers of history continually run intohopeless error, because they confuse the Form of a Government with itsNature. A Government may be nominally vested in an individual; and yetif that individual be in such fear of those beneath him, that he doesnothing but what he supposes will be agreeable to them, the Governmentis Democratic; on the other hand, the Government may be vested in adeliberative assembly of a thousand men, all having equal authority, andall chosen from the lowest ranks of the people; and yet if that assemblyact independently of the will of the people, and have no fear of them, and enforce its determinations upon them, the Government is Monarchical;that is to say, the Assembly, acting as One, has power over the Many, while in the case of the weak king, the Many have power over the One. 

A Monarchical Government, acting for its own interest, instead of thepeople's, is a tyranny. I said the Executive Government was the hand ofthe nation:--the Republican Government is in like manner its tongue. The Monarchical Government is its head. 

All true and right government is Monarchical, and of the head. What isits best form, is a totally different question; but unless it act _for_the people, and not as representative of the people, it is no governmentat all; and one of the grossest blockheadisms of the English in thepresent day, is their idea of sending men to Parliament to "represent_their_ opinions. " Whereas their only true business is to find out thewisest men among them, and send them to Parliament to represent their_own_ opinions, and act upon them. Of all puppet-shows in the SatanicCarnival of the earth, the most contemptible puppet-show is a Parliamentwith a mob pulling the strings. 

215. Now, of these three states of Government, it is clear that themerely executive can have no proper influence over ecclesiasticalaffairs. But of the other two, the first, being the voice of the people, or voice of the Church, must have such influence over the Clergy as isproperly vested in the body of the Church. The second, which stands inthe same relation to the people as a father does to his family, willhave such farther influence over ecclesiastical matters, as a father hasover the consciences of his adult children. No absolute authority, therefore, to enforce their attendance at any particular place ofworship, or subscription to any particular Creed. But indisputableauthority to procure for them such religious instruction as he deemsfittest, [151] and to recommend it to them by every means in his power;he not only has authority, but is under obligation to do this, as wellas to establish such disciplines and forms of worship in his house as hedeems most convenient for his family: with which they are indeed atliberty to refuse compliance, if such disciplines appear to them clearlyopposed to the law of God; but not without most solemn conviction oftheir being so, nor without deep sorrow to be compelled to such acourse. 

216. But it may be said, the Government of a people never does stand tothem in the relation of a father to his family. If it do not, it is noGovernment. However grossly it may fail in its duty, and however littleit may be fitted for its place, if it be a Government at all, it haspaternal office and relation to the people. I find it written on the onehand, --"Honor thy Father; "on the other, --"Honor the King:" on the onehand, --"Whoso smiteth his Father, shall be put to death;"[152] on theother, --"They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. " Well, but, it may be farther argued, the Clergy are in a still more solemnsense the Fathers of the People, and the People are their beloved Sons;why should not, therefore, the Clergy have the power to govern the civilofficers?

217. For two very clear reasons. 

In all human institutions certain evils are granted, as of necessity;and, in organizing such institutions, we must allow for the consequencesof such evils, and make arrangements such as may best keep them incheck. Now, in both the civil and ecclesiastical governments there willof necessity be a certain number of bad men. The wicked civilian hascomparatively little interest in overthrowing ecclesiastical authority;it is often a useful help to him, and presents in itself little whichseems covetable. But the wicked ecclesiastical officer has much interestin overthrowing the civilian, and getting the political power into hisown hands. As far as wicked men are concerned, therefore, it is betterthat the State should have power over the Clergy, than the Clergy overthe State. 

Secondly, supposing both the Civil and Ecclesiastical officers to beChristians; there is no fear that the civil officer should underrate thedignity or shorten the serviceableness of the minister; but there isconsiderable danger that the religious enthusiasm of the minister mightdiminish the serviceableness of the civilian. (The History of ReligiousEnthusiasm should be written by someone who had a life to give to itsinvestigation; it is one of the most melancholy pages in human records, and one of the most necessary to be studied. ) Therefore, as far as goodmen are concerned, it is better the State should have power over theClergy than the Clergy over the State. 

218. This we might, it seems to me, conclude by unassisted reason. Butsurely the whole question is, without any need of human reason, decidedby the history of Israel. If ever a body of Clergy should have receivedindependent authority, the Levitical Priesthood should; for they wereindeed a Priesthood, and more holy than the rest of the nation. ButAaron is always subject to Moses. All solemn revelation is made toMoses, the civil magistrate, and he actually commands Aaron as to thefulfillment of his priestly office, and that in a necessity of life anddeath: "Go, and make an atonement for the people. " Nor is anything moreremarkable throughout the whole of the Jewish history than the perfectsubjection of the Priestly to the Kingly Authority. Thus Solomon thrustsout Abiathar from being priest, I Kings ii. 27; and Jehoahaz administersthe funds of the Lord's House, 2 Kings xii. 4, though that money wasactually the Atonement Money, the Hansom for Souls (Exod. Xxx. 12). 

219. We have, however, also the beautiful instance of Samuel uniting inhimself the offices of Priest, Prophet, and Judge; nor do I insist onany special manner of subjection of Clergy to civil officers, or _viceversâ_; but only on the necessity of their perfect unity and influenceupon each other in every Christian kingdom. Those who endeavor to effectthe utter separation of ecclesiastical and civil officers, are striving, on the one hand, to expose the Clergy to the most grievous and mostsubtle of temptations from their own spiritual enthusiasm and spiritualpride; on the other, to deprive the civil officer of all sense ofreligious responsibility, and to introduce the fearful, godless, conscienceless, and soulless policy of the Radical and the (so-called)Socialist. Whereas, the ideal of all government is the perfect unity ofthe two bodies of officers, each supporting and correcting the other;the Clergy having due weight in all the national councils; the civilofficers having a solemn reverence for God in all their acts; the Clergyhallowing all worldly policy by their influence; and the magistracyrepressing all religious enthusiasm by their practical wisdom. Toseparate the two is to endeavor to separate the daily life of the nationfrom God, and to map out the dominion of the soul into twoprovinces--one of Atheism, the other of Enthusiasm. These, then, werethe reasons which caused me to speak of the idea of separation of Churchand State as Fatuity; for what Fatuity can be so great as the not havingGod in our thoughts; and, in any act or office of life, saying in ourhearts, "There is no God"?

220. Much more I would fain say of these things, but not now: this onlyI must emphatically assert, in conclusion:--That the schism between theso-called Evangelical and High Church Parties in Britain, is enough toshake many men's faith in the truth or existence of Religion at all. Itseems to me one of the most disgraceful scenes in Ecclesiasticalhistory, that Protestantism should be paralyzed at its very heart byjealousies, based on little else than mere difference between high andlow breeding. For the essential differences in the religious opinions ofthe two parties are sufficiently marked in two men whom we may take asthe highest representatives of each--George Herbert and John Milton; andI do not think there would have been much difficulty in atoning thosetwo, if one could have got them together. But the real difficulty, nowadays, lies in the sin and folly of both parties; in thesuperciliousness of the one, and the rudeness of the other. Evidently, however, the sin lies most at the High Church door, for the Evangelicalsare much more ready to act with Churchmen than they with theEvangelicals; and I believe that this state of things cannot continuemuch longer; and that if the Church of England does not forthwith unitewith herself the entire Evangelical body, both of England and Scotland, and take her stand with them against the Papacy, her hour has struck. She cannot any longer serve two masters; nor make courtesies alternatelyto Christ and Antichrist. That she _has_ done this is visible enough bythe state of Europe at this instant. Three centuries since Luther--threehundred years of Protestant knowledge--and the Papacy not yetoverthrown! Christ's truth still restrained, in narrow dawn, to thewhite cliffs of England and white crests of the Alps;--the morning starpaused in its course in heaven;--the sun and moon stayed, with Satanfor their Joshua. 

221. But how to unite the two great sects of paralyzed Protestants? Bykeeping simply to Scripture. The members of the Scottish Church have nota shadow of excuse for refusing Episcopacy; it has indeed been abusedamong them, grievously abused; but it is in the Bible; and that is allthey have a right to ask. 

They have also no shadow of excuse for refusing to employ a written formof prayer. It may not be to their taste--it may not be the way in whichthey like to pray; but it is no question, at present, of likes ordislikes, but of duties; and the acceptance of such a form on their partwould go half-way to reconcile them with their brethren. Let them allegesuch objections as they can reasonably advance against the English form, and let these be carefully and humbly weighed by the pastors of bothchurches: some of them ought to be at once forestalled. For the EnglishChurch, on the other hand, _must_ cut the term Priest entirely out ofher Prayer-book, and substitute for it that of Minister or Elder; thepassages respecting Absolution must be thrown out also, except thedoubtful one in the Morning Service, in which there is no harm; and thenthere would be only the Baptismal question left, which is one of wordsrather than of things, and might easily be settled in Synod, turning therefractory Clergy out of their offices, to go to Rome if they chose. Then, when the Articles of Faith and form of worship had been agreedupon between the English and Scottish Churches, the written forms andarticles should be carefully translated into the European languages, andoffered to the acceptance of the Protestant churches on the Continent, with earnest entreaty that they would receive them, and dueentertainment of all such objections as they could reasonably allege;and thus the whole body of Protestants, united in one great Fold, wouldindeed go in and out, and find pasture; and the work appointed for themwould be done quickly, and Antichrist overthrown. 

222. Impossible: a thousand times impossible!--I hear it exclaimedagainst me. No--not impossible. Christ does not order impossibilities, and He _has_ ordered us to be at peace one with another. Nay, it isanswered--He came not to send peace, but a sword. Yes, verily: to send asword upon earth, but not within His Church; for to His Church He said, "My Peace I leave with you. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 140: I may, perhaps, have missed count of one or twooccurrences of the word; but not, I think, in any important passages. ]

[Footnote 141: The expression "House of God, " in 1 Tim. Iii. 15, isshown to be used of the congregation by 1 Cor. Iii. 16, 17. 

I have not noticed the word [Greek: kyriakę (oikia)] from which theGerman "Kirche, " the English "Church, " and the Scotch "Kirk" arederived, as it is not used with that signification in the NewTestament. ]

[Footnote 142: Any reference _except_ to Scripture, in notes of thiskind would, of course, be useless: the argument from, or with, theFathers is not to be compressed into fifty pages. I have something tosay about Hooker; but I reserve that for another time, not wishing tosay it hastily, or to leave it without support. ]

[Footnote 143: Acts x. 44. ]

[Footnote 144: Let not the reader be displeased with me for these shortand apparently insolent statements of opinion. I am not writinginsolently, but as shortly and clearly as I can; and when I seriouslybelieve a thing, I say so in a few words, leaving the reader todetermine what my belief is worth. But I do not choose to temper downevery expression of personal opinion into courteous generalities, and solose space, and time, and intelligibility at once. We are utterlyoppressed in these days by our courtesies, and considerations, andcompliances, and proprieties. Forgive me them, this once, or rather letus all forgive them to each other, and learn to speak plainly first, and, if it may be, gracefully afterwards; and not only to speak, but tostand by what we have spoken. One of my Oxford friends heard, the otherday, that I was employed on these notes, and forthwith wrote to me, in apanic, not to put my name to them, for fear I should "compromisemyself. " I think we are most of us compromised to some extent already, when England has sent a Roman Catholic minister to the second city inItaly, and remains herself for a week without any government, becauseher chief men cannot agree upon the position which a Popish cardinal isto have leave to occupy in London. ]

[Footnote 145: Matt. Xxiv. 4; Mark xiii. 5; Luke xxi. 8; 1 Cor. Iii. 18, vi. 9, xv. 33; Eph. Iv. 14, v. 6; Col. Ii. 8; 2 Thess. Ii. 3; Heb. Iii. 13; 1 John i. 8, iii. 7; 2 John 7, 8. ]

[Footnote 146: [Greek: exousia] in 1 Cor. Ix. 12. 2 Thess, iii. 9. ]

[Footnote 147: (Carlyle, "Past and Present, " chapter xi. ) Can anythingbe more striking than the repeated warnings of St. Paul against strifeof words; and his distinct setting forth of Action as the only truemeans of attaining knowledge of the truth, and the only sign of men'spossessing the true faith? Compare 1 Timothy vi. 4, 20, (the latterverse especially, in connection with the previous three, ) and 2 Timothyii. 14, 19, 22, 23, tracing the connection here also; add Titus i. 10, 14, 16, noting "_in works_ they deny him, " and Titus iii. 8, 9, "affirmconstantly that they be careful to maintain good works; but avoidfoolish questions;" and finally, 1 Timothy i. 4-7: a passage which seemsto have been especially written for these times. ]

[Footnote 148: I leave, in the main text, the abstract question of thefitness of Episcopacy unapproached, not feeling any call to speak of itat length at present; all that I feel necessary to be said is, thatbishops being granted, it is clear that we have too few to do theirwork. But the argument from the practice of the Primitive Church appearsto me to be of enormous weight, --nor have I ever heard any rationalplea alleged against Episcopacy, except that, like other things, it iscapable of abuse, and has sometimes been abused; and as, altogetherclearly and indisputably, there is described in the Bible an episcopaloffice, distinct from the merely ministerial one; and, apparently, alsoan episcopal officer attached to each church, and distinguished in theRevelation as an Angel, I hold the resistance of the Scotch PresbyterianChurch to Episcopacy to be unscriptural, futile, and schismatic. ]

[Footnote 149: "By just judgment be deposed, " Art. 26. ]

[Footnote 150: The difference between the authority of doctrine anddiscipline is beautifully marked in 2 Timothy ii. 25, and Titus ii. 12-15. In the first passage, the servant of God, teaching divinedoctrine, must not strive, but must "in _meekness_ instruct those thatoppose themselves;" in the second passage, teaching us "that denyingungodliness and worldly lusts he _is to live soberly, righteously, andgodly_ in this _present world_, " the minister is to speak, exhort, andrebuke with ALL AUTHORITY--both functions being expressed as united in 2Timothy iv. 3. ]

[Footnote 151: Observe, this and the following conclusions dependentirely on the supposition that the Government is part of the Body ofthe Church, and that some pains have been taken to compose it ofreligious and wise men. If we choose, knowingly and deliberately, tocompose our Parliament, in great part, of infidels and Papists, gamblersand debtors, we may well regret its power over the Clerical officer; butthat we should, at any time, so compose our Parliament, is a sign thatthe Clergy themselves have failed in their duty, and the Church in itswatchfulness;--thus the evil accumulates in reaction. Whatever I say ofthe responsibility or authority of Government, is therefore to beunderstood only as sequent on what I have said previously of thenecessity of closely circumscribing the Church, and then composing theCivil Government out of the circumscribed Body. Thus, all Papists wouldat once be rendered incapable of share in it being subjected to thesecond or most severe degree of excommunication--first, as idolaters, by1 Cor. V. 10; then as covetous and extortioners (selling absolution, ) bythe same text; and, finally, as heretics and maintainers of falsehoods, by Titus iii. 10, and 1 Tim. Iv. 1. 

I do not write this hastily, nor without earnest consideration both, ofthe difficulty and the consequences of such Church Discipline. Buteither the Bible is a superannuated book, and is only to be read as arecord of past days; or these things follow from it, clearly andinevitably. That we live in days when the Bible has becomeimpracticable, is (if it be so) the very thing I desire to beconsidered. I am not setting down these plans or schemes as at presentpossible. I do not know how far they are possible; but it seems to methat God has plainly commanded them, and that, therefore, theirimpracticability is a thing to be meditated on. ]

[Footnote 152: Exod. Xxi. 15. ]

THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH. [153]

LETTERS. 

I. [154]

 BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE, _20th June, 1879. _

223. DEAR MR. MALLESON, --I could not at once answer yourimportant letter; for, though I felt at once the impossibility of myventuring to address such an audience as you proposed, I am unwilling tofail in answering to any call relating to matters respecting which myfeelings have been long in earnest, if in any wise it may be possiblefor me to be of service therein. My health--or want of it--now utterlyforbids my engagement in any duty involving excitement or acuteintellectual effort; but I think, before the first Tuesday in August, Imight be able to write one or two letters to yourself, referring to, and more or less completing, some passages already printed in _Fors_ andelsewhere, which might, on your reading any portions you thoughtavailable, become matter of discussion during the meeting at someleisure time, after its own main purposes had been answered. 

At all events, I will think over what I should like, and be able, torepresent to such a meeting, and only beg you not to think me insensibleof the honor done me by your wish, and of the gravity of the trustreposed in me. 

 Ever most faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. 

 THE REV. F. A. MALLESON. 

II. 

 BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, _23rd June, 1879. _

224. DEAR MR. MALLESON, --Walking, and talking, are now alikeimpossible to me;[155] my strength is gone for both; nor do I believetalking on such matters to be of the least use except to promote, between sensible people, kindly feeling and knowledge of each other'spersonal characters. I have every trust in _your_ kindness and truth;nor do I fear being myself misunderstood by you; what I may be able toput into written form, so as to admit of being laid before your friendsin council, must be set down without any question of personalfeeling--as simply as a mathematical question or demonstration. 

225. The first exact question which it seems to me such an assembly maybe earnestly called upon by laymen to solve, is surely axiomatic: thedefinition of themselves as a body, and of their business as such. 

Namely: as clergymen of the Church of England, do they considerthemselves to be so called merely as the attached servants of aparticular state? Do they, in their quality of guides, hold a positionsimilar to that of the guides of Chamouni or Grindelwald, who, being anumbered body of examined and trustworthy persons belonging to thoseseveral villages, have nevertheless no Chamounist or Grindelwaldistopinions on the subject of Alpine geography or glacier walking; but areprepared to put into practice a common and universal science of Localityand Athletics, founded on sure survey and successful practice? Are theclergymen of the Ecclesia of England thus simply the attached andsalaried guides of England and the English, in the way, known of allgood men, that leadeth unto life?--or are they, on the contrary, a bodyof men holding, or in any legal manner required, or compelled to hold, opinions on the subject--say, of the height of the Celestial Mountains, the crevasses which go down quickest to the pit, and other cognatepoints of science--differing from, or even contrary to, the tenets ofthe guides of the Church of France, the Church of Italy, and otherChristian countries?

Is not this the first of all questions which a Clerical Council has toanswer in open terms?

 Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. 

III. 

 BRANTWOOD, _6th July. _

226. My first letter contained a Layman's plea for a clear answer to thequestion, "What is a clergyman of the Church of England?" Supposing theanswer to this first to be, that the clergy of the Church of England areteachers, not of the Gospel to England, but of the Gospel to allnations; and not of the Gospel of Luther, nor of the Gospel ofAugustine, but of the Gospel of Christ, --then the Layman's secondquestion would be:

Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain words and short termsas that a plain man may understand it?--and, if so, would it not be, ina quite primal sense, desirable that it should be so, rather than leftto be gathered out of Thirty-nine Articles, written by no means inclear English, and referring, for further explanation of exactly themost important point in the whole tenor of their teaching, [156] to a"Homily of Justification, "[157] which is not generally in thepossession, or even probably within the comprehension, of simplepersons?

 Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. 

IV. 

 BRANTWOOD, _8th July. _

227. I am so very glad that you approve of the letter plan, as itenables me to build up what I would fain try to say, of little stones, without lifting too much for my strength at once; and the sense ofaddressing a friend who understands me and sympathizes with me preventsmy being brought to a stand by continual need for apology, or fear ofgiving offense. 

But yet I do not quite see why you should feel my asking for a simpleand comprehensible statement of the Christian Gospel at starting. Areyou not bid to go into _all_ the world and preach it to every creature?(I should myself think the clergyman most likely to do good who acceptedthe [Greek: pasę thę ktisei] so literally as at least to sympathize withSt. Francis' sermon to the birds, and to feel that feeding either sheepor fowls, or unmuzzling the ox, or keeping the wrens alive in the snow, would be received by their Heavenly Feeder as the _perfect_ fulfillmentof His "Feed my sheep" in the higher sense. )[158]

228. That's all a parenthesis; for although I should think that yourgood company would all agree that kindness to animals was a kind ofpreaching to them, and that hunting and vivisection were a kind ofblasphemy to them, I want only to put the sterner question before yourcouncil, _how_ this Gospel is to be preached either [Greek: pantachou]"or to "[Greek: panta ta ethnę] if first its preachers have notdetermined quite clearly what it _is_? And might not such definition, acceptable to the entire body of the Church of Christ, be arrived at bymerely explaining, in their completeness and life, the terms of theLord's Prayer--the first words taught to children all over the Christianworld?

I will try to explain what I mean of its several articles, in followingletters; and in answer to the question with which you close your last, Ican only say that you are at perfect liberty to use any, or all, or anyparts of them, as you think good. Usually, when I am asked if letters ofmine may be printed, I say: "Assuredly, provided only that you print thementire. " But in your hands, I withdraw even this condition, and trustgladly to your judgment, remaining always

 Faithfully and affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. 

 THE REV. F. A. MALLESON. 

V. 

 [Greek: pater hęmon ho en tois ouranois]

 _Pater noster qui es in cćlis. _

 BRANTWOOD, _10th July. _

229. My meaning, in saying that the Lord's Prayer might be made afoundation of Gospel-teaching, was not that it contained all thatChristian ministers have to teach; but that it contains what allChristians are agreed upon as first to be taught; and that no goodparish-working pastor in any district of the world but would be glad totake his part in making it clear and living to his congregation. 

And the first clause of it, of course rightly explained, gives us theground of what is surely a mighty part of the Gospel--its "first andgreat commandment, " namely, that we have a Father whom we _can_ love, and are required to love, and to desire to be with Him in Heaven, wherever that may be. 

And to declare that we have such a loving Father, whose mercy is over_all_ His works, and whose will and law is so lovely and lovable that itis sweeter than honey, and more precious than gold, to those who can"taste" and "see" that the Lord is Good--this, surely, is a mostpleasant and glorious good message and _spell_ to bring to men--asdistinguished from the evil message and accursed spell that Satan hasbrought to the nations of the world instead of it, that they have noFather, but only "a consuming fire" ready to devour them, unless theyare delivered from its raging flame by some scheme of pardon for all, for which they are to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the Son. 

Supposing this first article of the true Gospel agreed to, how would theblessing that closes the epistles of that Gospel become intelligible andliving, instead of dark and dead: "The grace of Christ, and the _love_of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, "--the most _tender_ wordbeing that used of the Father?

VI. 

 [Greek: hagiasthętô to onoma sou]

 _Sanctificetur nomen tuum. _

 BRANTWOOD, _12th July, 1879. _

230. I wonder how many, even of those who honestly and attentively joinin our Church services, attach any distinct idea to the second clause ofthe Lord's Prayer, the _first petition_ of it, the first thing that theyare ordered by Christ to seek of their Father?

Am I unjust in thinking that most of them have little more notion on thematter than that God has forbidden "bad language, " and wishes them topray that everybody may be respectful to Him?

Is it any otherwise with the Third Commandment? Do not most look on itmerely in the light of the statute of swearing? and read the words "willnot hold him guiltless" merely as a passionless intimation that howevercarelessly a man may let out a round oath, there really _is_ somethingwrong in it?

On the other hand, can anything be more tremendous than the wordsthemselves--double-negatived:

 [Greek: "ou gar mę katharisę ... Kurios"]

For _other_ sins there is washing;--for this, none! the seventh verse, Ex. Xx. , in the Septuagint, marking the real power rather than theEnglish, which (I suppose) is literal to the Hebrew. 

To my layman's mind, of practical needs in the present state of theChurch, nothing is so immediate as that of explaining to thecongregation the meaning of being gathered in His name, and having Himin the midst of them; as, on the other hand, of being gathered inblasphemy of His name, and having the devil in the midst ofthem--presiding over the prayers which have become an abomination. 

231. For the entire body of the texts in the Gospel against hypocrisyare one and all nothing but the expansion of the threatening that closesthe Third Commandment. For as "the name whereby He shall be called isTHE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, "--so the taking that name in vainis the sum of "the deceivableness of _un_righteousness in them thatperish. "

Without dwelling on the possibility--which I do not myself, however, fora moment doubt--of an honest clergyman's being able actually to preventthe entrance among his congregation of persons leading openly wickedlives, could any subject be more vital to the purposes of your meetingsthan the difference between the present and the probable state of theChristian Church which would result, were it more the effort of zealousparish priests, instead of getting wicked _poor_ people to _come_ tochurch, to get wicked rich ones to stay out of it?

Lest, in any discussion of such question, it might be, as it too oftenis, alleged that "the Lord looketh upon the heart, " etc. , let me bepermitted to say--with as much positiveness as may express my deepestconviction--that, while indeed it is the Lord's business to look uponthe heart, it is the pastor's to look upon the hands and the lips; andthat the foulest oaths of the thief and the street-walker are, in theears of God, sinless as the hawk's cry, or the gnat's murmur, comparedto the responses in the Church service, on the lips of the usurer andthe adulterer, who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but thoseof the outcast ones whom they have made their victims. 

It is for the meeting of clergymen themselves--not for a laymanaddressing them--to ask further, how much the name of God may be takenin vain, and profaned instead of hallowed--_in_ the pulpit, as well asunder it. 

 Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. 

VII

 [Greek: elthetô ę basilheia sou]

 _Adveniat regnum tuum. _

 BRANTWOOD, _14th July, 1879. _

232. DEAR MR. MALLESON, --Sincere thanks for both your lettersand the proofs[159] sent. Your comment and conducting link, when needed, will be of the greatest help and value, I am well assured, suggestingwhat you know will be the probable feeling of your hearers, and thepoint that will come into question. 

Yes, certainly, that "His" in the fourth line was meant to imply thateternal presence of Christ; as in another passage, [160] referring tothe Creation, "when His right hand strewed the snow on Lebanon, andsmoothed the slopes of Calvary, " but in so far as we dwell on thattruth, "Hast thou seen _Me_, Philip, and not the Father?"[161] we arenot teaching the people what is specially the Gospel of _Christ_ ashaving a distinct function--namely, to _serve_ the Father, and do theFather's will. And in all His human relations to us, and commands to us, it is as the Son of Man, not as the "power of God and wisdom of God, "that He acts and speaks. Not as the Power; for _He_ must pray, like oneof us. Not as the Wisdom; for He must not know "if it be possible" Hisprayer should be heard. 

233. And in what I want to say of the third clause of His prayer (_His_, not merely as His ordering, but His using), it is especially thiscomparison between _His_ kingdom, and His Father's, that I want to seethe disciples guarded against. I believe very few, even of the mostearnest, using that petition, realize that it is the Father's--not theSon's--kingdom, that they pray may come, --although the whole prayer isfoundational on that fact: "_For_ Thine is the kingdom, the power, andthe glory. " And I fancy that the mind of the most faithful Christian isquite led away from its proper hope, by dwelling on the reign--or thecoming again--of Christ; which, indeed, they are to look for, and_watch_ for, but not to pray for. Their prayer is to be for the greaterkingdom to which He, risen and having all His enemies under His feet, isto surrender _His_, "that God may be All in All. "

And, though the greatest, it is that everlasting kingdom which thepoorest of us can advance. We cannot hasten Christ's coming. "Of the dayand hour, knoweth none. " But the kingdom of God is as a grain of mustardseed:--we can sow of it; it is as a foam-globe of leaven:--we can mingleit; and its glory and its joy are that even the birds of the air canlodge in the branches thereof. 

Forgive me for getting back to my sparrows; but truly, in the presentstate of England, the fowls of the air are the only creatures, tormentedand murdered as they are, that yet have here and there nests, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And it would be well if many of us, inreading that text, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, " had evengot so far as to the understanding that it was at least _as much_, andthat until we had fed the hungry, there was no power in us to inspirethe unhappy. 

 Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. 

I will write my feeling about the pieces of the Life of Christ you havesent me, in a private letter. I may say at once that I am sure it willdo much good, and will be upright and intelligible, which how fewreligious writings are!

VIII. 

 [Greek: genęthętô to thelęma sou hôs en ouranô, kaě epě gęs. ]

 _Fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra. _

 BRANTWOOD, _9th August, 1879. _

234. I was reading the second chapter of Malachi this morning by chance, and wondering how many clergymen ever read it, and took to heart the"commandment for _them_. "

For they are always ready enough to call themselves priests (though theyknow themselves to be nothing of the sort) whenever there is any dignityto be got out of the title; but, whenever there is any good, hotscolding or unpleasant advice given them by the prophets, in thatself-assumed character of theirs, they are as ready to quit it as everDionysus his lion-skin, when he finds the character of Heraklesinconvenient. "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words" (yes, and someof His people, too, in your time): "yet ye say, Wherein have we weariedHim? When ye say, Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of theLord, and He delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?"

How many, again and again I wonder, of the lively young ecclesiasticssupplied to the increasing demand of our west-ends of flourishing Citiesof the Plain, ever consider what sort of sin it is for which God (unlessthey lay it to heart) will "curse their blessings, and spread dung upontheir faces, " or have understood, even in the dimmest manner, what part_they_ had taken, and were taking, in "corrupting the covenant of theLord with Levi, and causing many to stumble at the Law"?

235. Perhaps the most subtle and unconscious way which the religiousteachers upon whom the ends of the world are come, have done this, is innever telling their people the meaning of the clause in the Lord'sPrayer, which, of all others, their most earnest hearers have ofteneston their lips: "Thy will be done. " They allow their people to use it asif their Father's will were always to kill their babies, or dosomething unpleasant to them, instead of explaining to them that thefirst and intensest article of their Father's will was their ownsanctification, and following comfort and wealth; and that the one onlypath to national prosperity and to domestic peace was to understand whatthe will of the Lord was, and to do all they could to get it done. Whereas one would think, by the tone of the eagerest preachers nowadays, that they held their blessed office to be that, not of showing men howto do their Father's will on earth, but how to get to heaven withoutdoing any of it either here or there!

236. I say, especially, the most eager preachers; for nearly the wholeMissionary body (with the hottest Evangelistic sect of the EnglishChurch) is at this moment composed of men who think the Gospel they areto carry to mend the world with, forsooth, is that, "If any man sin, hehath an Advocate with the Father;" while I have never yet, in my ownexperience, met either with a Missionary or a Town Bishop who so much asprofessed himself "to understand what the will of the Lord" was, farless to teach anybody else to do it; and for fifty preachers, yes, andfifty hundreds whom I have heard proclaiming the Mediator of the NewTestament, that "they which were called might receive the promise ofeternal inheritance, " I have never yet heard so much as _one_ heartilyproclaiming against all those "deceivers with vain words" (Eph. V. 6), that "no covetous person which is an idolater hath _any_ inheritance inthe kingdom of Christ, or of God;" and on myself personally and publiclychallenging the Bishops of England generally, and by name the Bishop ofManchester, to say whether usury was, or was not, according to the willof God, I have received no answer from any one of them. [162]

 _13th August. _

237. I have allowed myself, in the beginning of this letter, to dwell onthe equivocal use of the word "Priest" in the English Church (seeChristopher Harvey, Grosart's edition, p. 38), because the assumption ofthe mediatorial, in defect of the pastoral, office by the clergy fulfillitself, naturally and always, in their pretending to absolve the sinnerfrom his punishment, instead of purging him from his sin; andpractically, in their general patronage and encouragement of all theiniquity of the world, by steadily preaching away the penalties of it. So that the great cities of the earth, which ought to be the places seton its hills, with the temple of the Lord in the midst of them, to whichthe tribes should go up, [163]--centers to the Kingdoms and Provinces ofHonor, Virtue, and the Knowledge of the law of God, --have become, instead, loathsome centers of fornication and covetousness--the smoke oftheir sin going up into the face of Heaven like the furnace of Sodom, and the pollution of it rotting and raging through the bones and thesouls of the peasant people round them, as if they were each a volcanowhose ashes broke out in blains upon man and upon beast. [164]

And in the midst of them, their freshly-set-tip steeples ring the crowdto a weekly prayer that the rest of their lives may be pure and holy, while they have not the slightest intention of purifying, sanctifying, or changing their lives in any the smallest particular; and their clergygather, each into himself, the curious dual power, and Janus-facedmajesty in mischief, of the prophet that prophesies falsely, and thepriest that bears rule by his means. 

And the people love to have it so. 

 BRANTWOOD, _12th August. _

I am very glad of your little note from Brighton. I thought it needlessto send the two letters there, which you will find at home; and theypretty nearly end all _I_ want to say; for the remaining clauses of theprayer touch on things too high for me. But I will send you oneconcluding letter about them. 

IX. 

 [Greek: ton arton ęmôn ton epiousion dos hęmin sęmeron. ]

 _Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie. _

 BRANTWOOD, _19th August. _

238. I retained the foregoing letter by me till now, lest you shouldthink it written in any haste or petulance; but it is every word of itdeliberate, though expressing the bitterness of twenty years of vainsorrow and pleading concerning these things. Nor am I able to write, otherwise, anything of the next following clause of the prayer;--for nowords could be burning enough to tell the evils which have come on theworld from men's using it thoughtlessly and blasphemously, praying Godto give them what they are deliberately resolved to steal. For all trueChristianity is known--as its Master was--in breaking of bread, and allfalse Christianity in stealing it. 

Let the clergyman only apply--with impartial and level sweep--to hiscongregation the great pastoral order: "The man that will not work, neither should he eat;" and be resolute in requiring each member of hisflock to tell him _what_--day by day--they do to earn theirdinners;--and he will find an entirely new view of life and itssacraments open upon him and them. 

239. For the man who is not--day by day--doing work which will earn hisdinner, must be stealing his dinner;[165] and the actual fact is thatthe great mass of men, calling themselves Christians, do actually liveby robbing the poor of their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever:and the simple examination of the mode of the produce and consumption ofEuropean food--who digs for it, and who eats it--will prove that to anyhonest human soul. 

Nor is it possible for any Christian Church to exist but in pollutionsand hypocrisies beyond all words, until the virtues of a life moderatein its self-indulgence, and wide in its offices of temporal ministry tothe poor, are insisted on as the normal conditions in which, only, theprayer to God for the harvest of the earth is other than blasphemy. 

In the second place. Since in the parable in Luke, the bread asked foris shown to be also, and chiefly, the Holy Spirit (Luke xi. 13), and theprayer, "Give us each day our daily bread, " is, in its fullness, thedisciples', "Lord, evermore give us _this_ bread, "--the clergyman'squestion to his whole flock, primarily literal: "Children, have ye hereany meat?" must ultimately be always the greater spiritual one:"Children, have ye here any Holy Spirit?" or, "Have ye not heard yetwhether there _be_ any? and, instead of a Holy Ghost the Lord and Giverof Life, do you only believe in an unholy mammon, Lord and Giver ofDeath?"

The opposition between the two Lords has been, and will be as long asthe world lasts, absolute, irreconcilable, mortal; and the clergyman'sfirst message to his people of this day is--if he be faithful--"Chooseye this day whom ye will serve. "

 Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN. 

X. 

 [Greek: kai aphes hęmin ta opheilęmata hęmôn, ôs kai hęmeis aphiemen tois opheiletais hęmôn. ]

 _Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. _

 BRANTWOOD, _3rd September. _

240. DEAR MR. MALLESON, --I have been very long before trying tosay so much as a word about the sixth clause of the Pater; for wheneverI began thinking of it, I was stopped by the sorrowful sense of thehopeless task you poor clergymen had, nowadays, in recommending andteaching people to love their enemies, when their whole energies werealready devoted to swindling their friends. 

But, in any days, past or now, the clause is one of such difficulty, that, to understand it, means almost to know the love of God whichpasseth knowledge. 

But, at all events, it is surely the pastor's duty to prevent his flockfrom _mis_understanding it; and above all things to keep them fromsupposing that God's forgiveness is to be had simply for the asking, bythose who "willfully sin after they have received the knowledge of thetruth. "

241. There is one very simple lesson also, needed especially by peoplein circumstances of happy life, which I have never heard fully enforcedfrom the pulpit, and which is usually the more lost sight of, becausethe fine and inaccurate word "trespasses" is so often used instead ofthe single and accurate one "debts. " Among people well educated andhappily circumstanced it may easily chance that long periods of theirlives pass without any such conscious sin as could, on any discovery ormemory of it, make them cry out, in truth and in pain, --"I have sinnedagainst the Lord. " But scarcely an hour of their happy days can passover them without leaving--were their hearts open--some evidence writtenthere that they have "left undone the things that they ought to havedone, " and giving them bitterer and heavier cause to cry, and cryagain--forever, in the pure words of their Master's prayer, "Dimittenobis _debita_ nostra. "

In connection with the more accurate translation of "debts" rather than"trespasses, "[166] it would surely be well to keep constantly in themind of complacent and inoffensive congregations that in Christ's ownprophecy of the manner of the last judgment, the condemnation ispronounced only on the sins of omission: "I was hungry, and ye gave Meno meat. "

242. But, whatever the manner of sin, by offense or defect, which thepreacher fears in his people, surely he has of late been wholly remissin compelling their definite recognition of it, in its several andpersonal particulars. Nothing in the various inconsistency of humannature is more grotesque than its willingness to be taxed with anyquantity of sins in the gross, and its resentment at the insinuation ofhaving committed the smallest parcel of them in detail. And the EnglishLiturgy, evidently drawn up with the amiable intention of makingreligion as pleasant as possible, to a people desirous of saving theirsouls with no great degree of personal inconvenience, is perhaps in nopoint more unwholesomely lenient than in its concession to the popularconviction that we may obtain the present advantage, and escape thefuture punishment, of any sort of iniquity, by dexterously concealingthe manner of it from man, and triumphantly confessing the quantity ofit to God. 

243. Finally, whatever the advantages and decencies of a form of prayer, and how wide soever the scope given to its collected passages, it cannotbe at one and the same time fitted for the use of a body of well-taughtand experienced Christians, such as should join the services of a Churchnineteen centuries old, --and adapted to the needs of the timid sinnerwho has that day first entered its porch, or of the remorseful publicanwho has only recently become sensible of his call to a pew. 

And surely our clergy need not be surprised at the daily increasingdistrust in the public mind of the efficacy of Prayer, after having solong insisted on their offering supplication, _at least_ every Sundaymorning at eleven o'clock, that the rest of their lives hereafter mightbe pure and holy, leaving them conscious all the while that they wouldbe similarly required to inform the Lord next week, at the same hour, that "there was no health in them!"

Among, the much-rebuked follies and abuses of so-called "Ritualism, "none that I have heard of are indeed so dangerously and darkly "Ritual"as this piece of authorized mockery of the most solemn act of humanlife, and only entrance of eternal life--Repentance. 

Believe me, dear Mr. Malleson, Ever faithfully and respectfully yours, J. RUSKIN. 

XI. 

[Greek: kai mę eisenenkęs hęmas eis peirasmon, alla rhysai hęmas apo touponęrou; hoti sou estin hę basileia, kai hę dynamis, kai hę doxa, eistous aiônas. Amęn. ]

_Et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a malo; quia tuum estregnum, potentia, et gloria in sceeula sceculorum. Amen. _

 BRANTWOOD, _14th September, 1879. _

244. DEAR MR. MALLESON, --The gentle words in your last letterreferring to the difference between yourself and me in the degree ofhope with which you could regard what could not but appear to thegeneral mind Utopian in designs for the action of the Christian Church, surely might best be answered by appeal to the consistent tone of theprayer we have been examining. 

Is not every one of its petitions for a perfect state? and is not thislast clause of it, of which we are to think to-day--if fullyunderstood--a petition not only for the restoration of Paradise, but ofParadise in which there shall be no deadly fruit, or, at least, notempter to praise it? And may we not admit that it is probably only forwant of the earnest use of this last petition that not only thepreceding ones have become formal with us, but that the private andsimply restricted prayer for the little things we each severally desire, has become by some Christians dreaded and unused, and by others usedfaithlessly, and therefore with disappointment?

245. And is it not for want of this special directness and simplicity ofpetition, and of the sense of its acceptance, that the whole nature ofprayer has been doubted in our hearts, and disgraced by our lips; thatwe are afraid to ask God's blessing on the earth, when the scientificpeople tell us He has made previous arrangements to curse it; and that, instead of obeying, without fear or debate, the plain order, "Ask, andye shall receive, that your joy may be full, " we sorrowfully sink backinto the apology for prayer, that "it is a wholesome exercise, even whenfruitless, " and that we ought piously always to suppose that the textreally means no more than "Ask, and ye shall _not_ receive, that yourjoy may be _empty_"?

Supposing we were first all of us quite sure that we _had_ prayed, honestly, the prayer against temptation, and that we would thankfully berefused anything we had set our hearts upon, if indeed God saw that itwould lead us into evil, might we not have confidence afterwards that Hein whose hand the king's heart is, as the rivers of water, would turnour tiny little hearts also in the way that they should go, and that_then_ the special prayer for the joys He taught them to seek would beanswered to the last syllable, and to overflowing?

246. It is surely scarcely necessary to say, farther, what the holyteachers of all nations have invariably concurred in showing, --thatfaithful prayer implies always correlative exertion; and that no man canask honestly or hopefully to be delivered from temptation, unless he hashimself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep outof it. But, in modern days, the first aim of all Christian parents is toplace their children in circumstances where the temptations (which theyare apt to call "opportunities") may be as great and as many aspossible; where the sight and promise of "all these things" in Satan'sgift may be brilliantly near; and where the act of "falling down toworship me" may be partly concealed by the shelter, and partly excused, as involuntary, by the pressure, of the concurrent crowd. 

In what respect the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of _them_, differ from the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, which are God'sforever, is seldom, as far as I have heard, intelligibly explained fromthe pulpit; and still less the irreconcilable hostility between the tworoyalties and realms asserted in its sternness of decision. 

Whether it be, indeed, Utopian to believe that the kingdom we are taughtto pray for _may_ come--verily come--for the asking, it is surely notfor man to judge; but it is at least at his choice to resolve that hewill no longer render obedience, nor ascribe glory and power, to theDevil. If he cannot find strength in himself to advance towards Heaven, he may at least say to the power of Hell, "Get thee behind me;" andstaying himself on the testimony of Him who saith, "Surely I comequickly, " ratify his happy prayer with the faithful "Amen, even so, come, Lord Jesus. "

 Ever, my dear friend, Believe me affectionately and gratefully yours, J. RUSKIN. 

NOTE. --The following further letters from Mr. Ruskin to Mr. Malleson were printed in "Letters to the Clergy. "

 _Sept. 13th. _

247. DEAR MR. MALLESON, --I am so very grateful for yourproposal to edit the letters without any further reference to me. Ithink that will be exactly the right way; and I believe I can put you atreal ease in the doing of it, by explaining, as I can in very few words, the kind of _carte blanche_ I should rejoicingly give you. 

Interrupted to-day! more to-morrow with, I hope, the last letter. 

 J. RUSKIN. 

 _14th Sept. _

I've nearly done the last letter, but will keep it till to-morrow, rather than finish hurriedly, for the first post. Your nice little notehas just come; and I can only say that you cannot please me better thanby acting with perfect freedom in all ways; and that I only want to see, or reply to, what you wish me for the matter's sake. And surely there isno occasion for any thought or waste of type about _me_ personally, except only to express your knowledge of my real desire for the healthand power of the Church, More than this praise you must not give me; forI have learned almost everything, I may say, that I know, by my errors. 

 I am affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. 

 _17th Oct. _

248. I am thankful to see that the letters read clearly and easily, andcontain all that was in my mind to get said; and nothing can possibly bemore right in every way than the printing and binding, [167] nor morecourteous and firm than your preface. 

Yes, there _will_ be a chasm to cross--a _tauriformisAufidus_[168]--greater than Rubicon, and the roar of it for many a yearhas been heard in the distance, through the gathering fog on the earth, more loudly. 

The River of spiritual Death to this world, and entrance to Purgatory inthe other, come down to us. 

When will the feet of the Priests be dipped in the still brim of thewater? Jordan overflows his banks already. 

 * * * * *

When you have put your large edition, with its correspondence, intopress, I should like to read the sheets as they are issued; and putmerely letters of reference to be taken up in a short "Epilogue. " But Idon't want to do or say anything more till you have all in perfectreadiness for publication. I should merely add my reference letters inthe margin, and the shortest possible notes at the end. 

 J. RUSKIN. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 153: These letters were written by Mr. Ruskin to the Rev. F. A. Malleson, Vicar of Broughton-in-Furness, by whom they were read, after a few introductory remarks, before the Furness Clerical Society. They originated, as may be gathered from the first of them, in a requestby Mr. Malleson that Mr. Ruskin would address the society on thesubject. They have been printed in three forms:--(1) in a small pamphlet(October 1879) "for private circulation only, " among the members of theFurness and one or two other clerical societies; (2) in the_Contemporary Review_ of December 1879; (3) in a volume (Strahan & Co. , 1880) entitled "The Lord's Prayer and the Church, " and containing alsovarious replies to Mr, Ruskin's letters, and an epilogue by way ofrejoinder by Mr. Ruskin himself. This volume was edited by Mr. Malleson, with whose concurrence Mr. Ruskin's contributions to it are reprintedhere. --ED. ]

[Footnote 154: Called Letter II. In the Furness pamphlet, --where a noteis added to the effect that there was a previous unpublishedletter. --ED. ]

[Footnote 155: In answer to the proposal of discussing the subjectduring a mountain walk. --F. A. M. ]

[Footnote 156: Art, xi. ]

[Footnote 157: Homily xi. Of the Second Table. ]

[Footnote 158: "_Arrows of the Chace. _"]

[Footnote 159: See postscript to this letter. --ED. ]

[Footnote 160: Referring to the closing sentence of the third paragraphof the fifth 'ter, which _seemed_ to express what I felt could not beMr. Ruskin's full meaning, I pointed out to him the following sentencein "Modern Painters:"--

"When, in the desert, Jesus was girding Himself for the work of life, angels of life came and ministered unto Him; now, in the fair world, when He is girding Himself for the work of death, the ministrants cometo Him from the grave; but from the grave conquered. One from the tombunder Abarim, which _His_ own hand had sealed long ago; the other fromthe rest which He had entered without seeing corruption. "

On this I made a remark somewhat to the following effect: that I feltsure Mr. Ruskin regarded the loving work of the Father and of the Son tobe _equal_ in the forgiveness of sins and redemption of mankind; thatwhat is done by the Father is in reality done also by the Son; and thatit is by a mere accommodation to human infirmity of understanding thatthe doctrine of the Trinity is revealed to us in language, inadequateindeed to convey divine truths, but still the only language possible;and I asked whether some such feeling was not present in his mind whenhe used the pronoun "His, " in the above passage from "Modern Painters, "of the Son, where it would be usually understood of the Father; and as acorollary, whether, in the letter, he does not himself fully recognizethe fact of the redemption of the world by the loving self-sacrifice ofthe Son in entire concurrence with the equally loving will of theFather. This, as well as I can recollect, is the origin of the passagein the second paragraph in the seventh letter. --F. A. M. ]

[Footnote 161: The "Letters to the Clergy" adds note: "Yet hast thou notknown Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John xiv. 9). --ED. ]

[Footnote 162: _Fors Clavigera_, Letter lxxxii. (See _ante_, §148. --ED. )]

[Footnote 163: "Bibliotheca Pastorum, " Vol. I. "The Economist ofXenophon, " Pref. , p. Xii--ED. ]

[Footnote 164: See _ante_, p. 319, § 154; p. 330, § 166. --ED. ]

[Footnote 165: "_Arrows of the Chace. _"]

[Footnote 166: "_Arrows of the Chace. _"]

[Footnote 167: Referring to the first edition, printed for privatecirculation. --F. A. M. ]

[Footnote 168:

 "Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus, Qua regna Dauni praefluit Appuli Quum saevit, horrendamque cultis Diluviem meditatur agris. "

 --HOR. , _Carm. _, iv. 14. ]

EPILOGUE. 

 BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, _June 1880. _

249. MY DEAR MALLESON, --I have glanced at the proofs you send;and _can_ do no more than glance, even if it seemed to me desirable thatI should do more, --which, after said glance, it does in no wise. Let meremind you of what it is absolutely necessary that the readers of thebook should clearly understand--that I wrote these Letters at yourrequest, to be read and discussed at the meeting of a private society ofclergymen. I declined then to be present at the discussion, and Idecline still. You afterwards asked leave to print the Letters, to whichI replied that they were yours, for whatever use you saw good to make ofthem: afterwards your plans expanded, while my own notion remainedprecisely what it had been--that the discussion should have beenprivate, and kept within the limits of the society, and that itsconclusions, if any, should have been announced in a few pages of clearprint, for the parishioners' exclusive reading. 

I am, of course, flattered by the wider course you have obtained for theLetters, but am not in the slightest degree interested by the debateupon them, nor by any religious debates whatever, undertaken withoutserious conviction that there is a jot wrong in matters as they are, orserious resolution to make them a tittle better. Which, so far as I canread the minds of your correspondents, appears to me the substantialstate of them. [169]

250. One thing I cannot pass without protest--the quantity of talk aboutthe writer of the Letters. What I am, or am not, is of no momentwhatever to the matters in hand. I observe with comfort, or at leastwith complacency, that on the strength of a couple of hours' talk, at atime when I was thinking chiefly of the weatherings of slate you weregood enough to show me above Goat's Water, you would have ventured tobaptize me in the little lake--as not a goat, but a sheep. The best Ican be sure of, myself, is that I am no wolf, and have never aspired tothe dignity even of a Dog of the Lord. 

You told me, if I remember rightly, that one of the members of theoriginal meeting denounced me as an arch-heretic[170]--meaning, doubtless, an arch-pagan; for a heretic, or sect-maker, is of all termsof reproach the last that can be used of me. And I think he should havebeen answered that it was precisely as an arch-pagan that I ventured torequest a more intelligible and more unanimous account of the ChristianGospel from its preachers. 

251. If anything in the Letters offended those of you who hold me abrother, surely it had been best to tell me between ourselves, or totell it to the Church, or to let me be Anathema Maranatha in peace, --inany case, I must at present so abide, correcting only the mistakes aboutmyself which have led to graver ones about the things I wanted to speakof. [171]

The most singular one, perhaps, in all the Letters is that of Mr. Wanstall's, that I do not attach enough weight to antiquity. I have onlycome upon the sentence to-day (29th May), but my reply to it is partlywritten already, with reference to the wishes of some other of yourcorrespondents to know more of my reasons for finding fault with theEnglish Liturgy. 

252. If people are taught to use the Liturgy rightly and reverently, itwill bring them all good; and for some thirty years of my life I used toread it always through to my servant and myself, if we had no Protestantchurch to go to, in Alpine or Italian villages. One can always tacitlypray of it what one wants, and let the rest pass. But, as I have grownolder, and watched the decline in the Christian faith of all nations, Ihave got more and more suspicious of the effect of this particular formof words on the truthfulness of the English mind (now fast becoming asalt which has lost his savor, and is fit only to be trodden underfootof men). And during the last ten years, in which my position at Oxfordhas compelled me to examine what authority there was for the code ofprayer, of which the University is now so ashamed that it no more darescompel its youths so much as to hear, much less to utter it, I gotnecessarily into the habit of always looking to the original forms ofthe prayers of the fully developed Christian Church. Nor did I think ita mere chance which placed in my own possession a manuscript of theperfect Church service of the thirteenth century, written by the monksof the Sainte Chapelle for St. Louis; together with one of the samedate, written in England, probably for the Diocese of Lincoln; addingsome of the Collects, in which it corresponds with St. Louis's, and theLatin hymns so much beloved by Dante, with the appointed music for them. 

253. And my wonder has been greater every hour, since I examined closelythe text of these and other early books, that in any state of declining, or captive, energy, the Church of England should have contented itselfwith a service which cast out, from beginning to end, all theseintensely spiritual and passionate utterances of chanted prayer (thewhole body, that is to say, of the authentic _Christian_ Psalms), and inadopting what it timidly preserved of the Collects, mangled or bluntedthem down to the exact degree which would make them eitherunintelligible or inoffensive--so vague that everybody might use them, or so pointless that nobody could be offended by them. For a specialinstance: The prayer for "our bishops and curates, and all congregationscommitted to their charge, " is, in the Lincoln Service-book, "for ourbishop, and all congregations committed to _his_ charge. " The changefrom singular to plural seems a slight one. But it suffices to take theeyes of the people off their own bishop into infinite space; to change aprayer which was intended to be uttered in personal anxiety andaffection, into one for the general good of the Church, of which nobodycould judge, and for which nobody would particularly care; and, finally, to change a prayer to which the answer, if given, would be visible, intoone of which nobody could tell whether it were answered or not. 

254. In the Collects, the change, though verbally slight, is thustremendous in issue. But in the Litany--word and thought go all wildtogether. The first prayer of the Litany in the Lincoln Service-book isfor the Pope and all ranks beneath him, implying a very noteworthy pieceof theology--that the Pope might err in religious matters, and that theprayer of the humblest servant of God would be useful to him:--"UtDompnum Apostolicum, et omnes gradus ecclesie in sancta religioneconservare digneris. " Meaning that whatever errors particular personsmight, and must, fall into, they prayed God to keep the Pope right, andthe collective testimony and conduct of the ranks below him. Thenfollows the prayer for their own bishop and _his_ flock--then for theking and the princes (chief lords), that they (not all nations) might bekept in concord--and then for _our_ bishops and abbots, --the Church ofEngland proper; every one of these petitions being direct, limited, andpersonally heartfelt;--and then this lovely one for themselves:--

"Ut obsequium servitutis nostre rationabile facias. "--"That Thou wouldstmake the obedience of our service reasonable" ("which is your reasonableservice"). 

This glorious prayer is, I believe, accurately an "early English" one. It is not in the St. Louis Litany, nor in a later elaborate Frenchfourteenth century one; but I find it softened in an Italian MS. Of thefifteenth century into "ut nosmet ipsos in tuo sancto servitioconfortare et conservare digneris, "--"that Thou wouldst deign to keepand comfort us ourselves in Thy sacred service" (the comfort, observe, being here asked for whether reasonable or not!); and in the best andfullest French service-book I have, printed at Rouen in 1520, itbecomes, "ut congregationes omnium sanctorum in tuo sancto servitioconservare digneris;" while victory as well as concord is asked for theking and the princes, --thus leading the way to that for our own Queen'svictory over all her enemies, a prayer which might now be advisedlyaltered into one that she--and in her, the monarchy of England--mightfind more fidelity in their friends. 

255. I give one more example of the corruption of our Prayer-Book, withreference to the objections taken by some of your correspondents to thedistinction implied in my Letters between the Persons of the Father andthe Christ. 

The "Memoria de Sancta Trinitate, " in the St. Louis service-book, runsthus:--

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessionevere fidei eterne Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentiamajestatis adorare unitatem, quesumus ut ejus fidei firmitate ab omnibussemper muniemur adversis. Qui vivis et regnas Deus, per omnia seculaseculorum. Amen. "

"Almighty and everlasting God, who has given to Thy servants, inconfession of true faith to recognize the glory of the Eternal Trinity, and in the power of Majesty to pray to the Unity; we ask that by thefirmness of that faith we may be always defended from all adversethings, who livest and reignest God through all ages. Amen. "

256. Turning to our Collect, we find we have first slipped in the word"us" before "Thy servants, " and by that little insertion have slipped inthe squire and his jockey, and the public-house landlord--and anyoneelse who may chance to have been coaxed, swept, or threatened intoChurch on Trinity Sunday, and required the entire company of them toprofess themselves servants of God, and believers in the mystery of theTrinity. And we think we have done God a service!

"Grace. " Not a word about grace in the original. You don't believe byhaving grace, but by having wit. 

"To acknowledge. " "Agnosco" is to recognize, not to acknowledge. To_see_ that there are three lights in a chandelier is a great deal morethan to acknowledge that they are there. 

"To worship. " "Adorare" is to pray to, not to worship. You may worship amere magistrate; but you _pray_ to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

The last sentence in the English is too horribly mutilated to be dealtwith in any patience. The meaning of the great old collect is that bythe shield of that faith we may quench all the fiery darts of the devil. The English prayer means, if it means anything, "Please keep us in ourfaith without our taking any trouble; and, besides, please don't let uslose our money, nor catch cold. "

"Who livest and reignest. " Right; but how many of any extant or instantcongregations understand what the two words mean? That God is a livingGod, not a dead Law; and that He is a reigning God, putting wrong thingsto rights, and that, sooner or later, with a strong hand and a rod ofiron; and not at all with a soft sponge and warm water, washingeverybody as clean as a baby every Sunday morning, whatever dirty workthey may have been about all the week. 

257. On which latter supposition your modern Liturgy, in so far as ithas supplemented instead of corrected the old one, has entirely modeleditself, --producing in its first address to the congregation before theAlmighty precisely the faultfulest and foolishest piece of Englishlanguage that I know in the whole compass of English or Americanliterature. In the seventeen lines of it (as printed in myold-fashioned, large-print Prayer-Book), there are seven times over twowords for one idea. 

 1. Acknowledge and confess. 

 2. Sins and wickedness. 

 3. Dissemble nor cloke. 

 4. Goodness and mercy. 

 5. Assemble and meet. 

 6. Requisite and necessary. 

 7. Pray and beseech. 

There is, indeed, a shade of difference in some of these ideas for agood scholar, none for a general congregation;[172] and what differencethey can guess at merely muddles their heads: to acknowledge sin isindeed different from confessing it, but it cannot be done at a minute'snotice; and goodness is a different thing from mercy, but it is by nomeans God's infinite goodness that forgives our badness, but that judgesit. 

258. "The faultfulest, " I said, "and the foolishest. " After usingfourteen words where seven would have done, what is it that the wholespeech gets said with its much speaking? This Morning Service of allEngland begins with the assertion that the Scripture moveth us in sundryplaces to confess our sins before God. _Does_ it so? Have yourcongregations ever been referred to those sundry places? Or do they takethe assertion on trust, or remain under the impression that, unless withthe advantage of their own candor, God must remain ill-informed on thesubject of their sins?

"That we should not dissemble nor cloke them. " _Can_ we then? Are thesegrown-up congregations of the enlightened English Church in thenineteenth century still so young in their nurseries that the "Thou, God, seest me" is still not believed by them if they get under the bed?

259. Let us look up the sundry moving passages referred to. 

(I suppose myself a simple lamb of the flock, and only able to use myEnglish Bible. )

I find in my concordance (confess and confession together) forty-twooccurrences of the word. Sixteen of these, including John's confessionthat he was not the Christ, and the confession of the faithful fathersthat they were pilgrims on the earth, do indeed move us strongly toconfess Christ before men. Have you ever taught your congregations whatthat confession means? They are ready enough to confess Him in church, that is to say, in their own private synagogue. Will they inParliament? Will they in a ballroom? Will they in a shop? Sixteen of thetexts are to enforce their doing _that_. 

The most important one (1 Tim. Vi. 13) refers to Christ's own goodconfession, which I suppose was not of His sins, but of His obedience. How many of your congregations can make any such kind of confession, orwish to make it?

The eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth (1 Kings viii. 33, 2 Chron. Vi. 26, Heb. Xiii. 15) speak of confessing thankfully that God is God(and not a putrid plasma nor a theory of development), and thetwenty-first (Job xl. 14) speaks of God's own confession, that no doubtwe are the people, and that wisdom shall die with us, and on whatconditions He will make it. 

260. There remains twenty-one texts which do speak of the confession ofour sins--very moving ones indeed--and Heaven grant that some day theBritish public may be moved by them. 

(1. ) The first is Lev. V. 5, "He shall confess that he hath sinned _inthat thing_. " And if you can get any soul of your congregation to say hehas sinned in _any_thing, he may do it in two words for one if he likes, and it will yet be good liturgy. 

(2. ) The second is indeed general--Lev. Xvi. 21: the command that thewhole nation should afflict its soul on the great day of atonement oncea year. The Church of England, I believe, enjoins no such unpleasantceremony. Her festivals are passed by her people often indeed in theextinction of their souls, but by no means in their intentionalaffliction. 

(3, 4, 5. ) The third, fourth, and fifth (Lev. Xxvi. 40, Numb. V. 7, Nehem. I. 6) refer all to national humiliation for definite idolatry, accompanied with an entire abandonment of that idolatry, and ofidolatrous persons. How soon _that_ form of confession is likely to finda place in the English congregations the defenses of their main idol, mammon, in the vilest and cruelest shape of it--usury--with which thisbook has been defiled, show very sufficiently. 

261. (6. ) The sixth is Psalm xxxii. 5--virtually the whole of thatpsalm, which does, indeed, entirely refer to the greater confession, once for all opening the heart to God, which can be by no means donefifty-two times a year, and which, once done, puts men into a state inwhich they will never again say there is no health in them; nor thattheir hearts are desperately wicked; but will obey forever the instantlyfollowing order, "Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are true of heart. "

(7. ) The seventh (Acts xxiv. 14) is the one confession in which I canmyself share:--"After the way which they call heresy, so worship I theLord God of my fathers. "

(8. ) The eighth (James v. 16) tells us to confess our faults--not toGod, but "one to another"--a practice not favored by Englishcatechumens--(by the way, what _do_ you all mean by "auricular"confession--confession that can be heard? and is the Protestantpleasanter form one that can't be?)

(9. ) The ninth is that passage of St. John (i. 9), the favoriteevangelical text, which is read and preached by thousands of falsepreachers every day, without once going on to read its great companion, "Beloved, if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, andknoweth all things; but if our heart condemn us _not_, then have weconfidence toward God. " Make your people understand the second text, andthey will understand the first. At present you leave them understandingneither. 

262. And the entire body of the remaining texts is summed in Joshua vii. 19 and Ezra x. 11, in which, whether it be Achan, with his Babylonishgarment, or the people of Israel, with their Babylonish lusts, themeaning of confession is simply what it is to every brave boy, girl, man, and woman, who knows the meaning of the word "honor" before God orman--namely, to say what they have done wrong, and to take thepunishment of it (not to get it blanched over by any means), and to doit no more--which is so far from being a tone of mind generally enforcedeither by the English, or any other extant Liturgy, that, though all mymaids are exceedingly pious, and insist on the privilege of going tochurch as a quite inviolable one, I think it a scarcely to be hoped forcrown and consummation of virtue in them that they should tell me whenthey have broken a plate; and I should expect to be met only with looksof indignation and astonishment if I ventured to ask one of them how shehad spent her Sunday afternoon. 

"Without courage, " said Sir Walter Scott, "there is no truth; andwithout truth there is no virtue. " The sentence would have been itselfmore true if Sir Walter had written "candor" for "truth, " for it ispossible to be true in insolence, or true in cruelty. But in lookingback from the ridges of the Hill Difficulty in my own past life, and inall the vision that has been given me of the wanderings in the ways ofothers--this, of all principles, has become to me surest--that the firstvirtue to be required of man is frankness of heart and lip: and Ibelieve that every youth of sense and honor, putting himself to faithfulquestion, would feel that he had the devil for confessor, if he had nothis father or his friend. 

263. That a clergyman should ever be so truly the friend of hisparishioners as to deserve their confidence from childhood upwards, maybe flouted as a sentimental ideal; but he is assuredly only their enemyin showing his Lutheran detestation of the sale of indulgences bybroadcasting these gratis from his pulpit. 

The inconvenience and unpleasantness of a catechism concerning itselfwith the personal practice as well as the general theory of duty, areindeed perfectly conceivable by me: yet I am not convinced that suchmanner of catechism would therefore be less medicinal; and during thepast ten years it has often been matter of amazed thought with me, whileour President at Corpus read prayers to the chapel benches, what mightby this time have been the effect on the learning as well as the creedof the University, if, forty years ago, our stern old Dean Gaisford, ofthe House of Christ, instead of sending us to chapel as to the house ofcorrection, when we missed a lecture, had inquired, before he allowed usto come to chapel at all, whether we were gamblers, harlot-mongers, orin concealed and selfish debt. 

264. I observe with extreme surprise in the preceding letters theunconsciousness of some of your correspondents, that there ever was sucha thing as discipline in the Christian Church. Indeed, the lastwholesome instance of it I can remember was when my own great-greatuncle Maitland lifted Lady ---- from his altar-rails, and led her back toher seat before the congregation, when she offered to take theSacrament, being at enmity with her son. [173] But I believe a few hourshonestly spent by any clergyman on his Church history would show himthat the Church's confidence in her prayer has been always exactlyproportionate to the strictness of her discipline; that her presentfright at being caught praying by a chemist or an electrician, resultsmainly from her having allowed her twos and threes gathered in the nameof Christ to become sixes and sevens gathered in the name of Belial; andthat therefore her now needfulest duty is to explain to her stammeringvotaries, extremely doubtful as they are of the effect of theirsupplications either on politics or the weather, that although Elijahwas a man subject to like passions as we are, he had them better undercommand; and that while the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous manavaileth much, the formal and lukewarm one of an iniquitous manavaileth--much the other way. 

Such an instruction, coupled with due explanation of the nature ofrighteousness and iniquity, directed mainly to those who have the powerof both in their own hands, being makers of law, and holders ofproperty, would, without any further debate, bring about a very singularchange in the position and respectability of English clergymen. 

265. How far they may at present be considered as merely the Squire'sleft hand, bound to know nothing of what he is doing with his right, itis for their own consciences to determine. 

For instance, a friend wrote to me the other day, "Will you not comehere? You will see a noble duke destroying a village as old as theConquest, and driving out dozens of families whose names are in DomesdayBook, because, owing to the neglect of his ancestors and rackrenting fora hundred years, the place has fallen out of repair, and the people arepoor, and may become paupers. A local paper ventured to tell the truth. The duke's agent called on the editor, and threatened him withdestruction if he did not hold his tongue. " The noble duke, doubtless, has proper Protestant horror of auricular confession. But suppose, instead of the local editor, the local parson had ventured to tell thetruth from his pulpit, and even to intimate to his Grace that he mightno longer receive the Body and Blood of the Lord at the altar of thatparish! The parson would scarcely--in these days--have been thereforemade bonfire of, and had a pretty martyr's memorial by Mr. Scott'spupils; but he would have lighted a goodly light, nevertheless, in thisEngland of ours, whose pettifogging piety has now neither the courage todeny a duke's grace in its church, nor to declare Christ's in itsParliament. 

266. Lastly. Several of your contributors, I observe, have rashly dippedtheir feet in the brim of the water of that raging question of Usury;and I cannot but express my extreme regret that you should yourself haveyielded to the temptation of expressing opinions which you have had noleisure either to sound or to test. My assertion, however, that therich lived mainly by robbing the poor, referred not to Usury, but toRent; and the facts respecting both these methods of extortion areperfectly and indubitably ascertainable by any person who himself wishesto ascertain them, and is able to take the necessary time and pains. Isee no sign, throughout the whole of these letters, of any wishwhatever, on the part of one of their writers, to ascertain the facts, but only to defend practices which they hold to be convenient in theworld, and are afraid to blame in their congregations. Of thepresumption with which several of the writers utter their notions on thesubject, I do not think it would be right to speak farther, in anepilogue to which there is no reply, in the terms which otherwise wouldhave been deserved. In their bearing on other topics, let me earnestlythank you (so far as my own feelings may be permitted voice in thematter) for the attention with which you have examined, and the couragewith which you have ratified, or at least endured, letters whichcould not but bear at first the aspect of being written in ahostile--sometimes even in a mocking spirit. That aspect is untrue, noram I answerable for it: the things of which I had to speak could not beshortly described but in terms which might sound satirical; for allerror, if frankly shown, is precisely most ridiculous when it is mostdangerous, and I have written no word which is not chosen as theexactest for its occasion, whether it move sigh or smile. In my earlierdays I wrote much with the desire to please, and the hope of influencingthe reader. As I grow older and older, I recognize the truth of thePreacher's saying, "Desire shall fail, and the mourners go about thestreets;" and I content myself with saying, to whoso it may concern, that the thing is verily thus, whether they will hear or whether theywill forbear. No man more than I has ever loved the places where God'shonor dwells, or yielded truer allegiance to the teaching of His evidentservants. No man at this time grieves more for the danger of the Churchwhich supposes him her enemy, while she whispers procrastinating _paxvobiscum_ in answer to the spurious kiss of those who would fain tollcurfew over the last fires of English faith, and watch the sparrow findnest where she may lay her young, around the altars of the Lord. 

 Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 169: The following extracts from letters of Mr. Ruskin to Mr. Malleson were printed in the "Letters to the Clergy":--

"_14th May_, 1880. --My dear Malleson, ... I had never seen _yours_ atall when I wrote last. I fell first on ----, whom I read with someattention, and commented on with little favor; went on to the next, andremained content with that taste till I had done my Scott (_NineteenthCentury_). 

"I have this morning been reading your own, on which I very earnestlycongratulate you. God knows it is not because they are friendly orcomplimentary, but because you _do_ see what I mean; and people hardlyever do; and I think it needs very considerable power and feeling toforgive and understand as you do. You have said everything I want tosay, and much more, except on the one point of excommunication, whichwill be the chief, almost the only, subject of my final note. "

"_16th May. _--Yes, the omission of the 'Mr. ' meant much change in all myfeelings towards you and estimates of you; for which change, believe me, I am more glad and thankful than I can well tell you. 

"J. RUSKIN. "]

[Footnote 170: Only a heretic!--F. A. M. ]

[Footnote 171: I may perhaps be pardoned for vindicating-at least myarithmetic, which, with Bishop Colenso, I rather pride myself upon. Oneof your correspondents greatly doubts my having heard five thousandasserters of evangelical principles (Catholic-absolvent orProtestant-detergent are virtually the same). I am now sixty years old, and for forty-five of them was in church at least once on theSunday, --say once a month also in afternoons, --and you have above threethousand church services. When I am abroad I am often in half-a-dozenchurches in the course of a single day, and never lose a chance oflistening to anything that is going on. Add the conversations pursued, not unearnestly, with every sort of reverend person I can get to talk tome--from the Bishop of Strasburg (as good a specimen of a town bishop asI have known), with whom I was studying ecstatic paintings in the year1850--down to the simplest traveling tinker inclined Gospelwards, whom Iperceive to be sincere, and your correspondent will perceive that myrapid numerical expression must be far beneath the truth. He subjoinshis more rational doubt of my acquaintance with many town missionaries;to which I can only answer, that as I do not live in town, nor set upfor a missionary myself, my spiritual advantages have certainly not beengreat in that direction. I simply assert that of the few I haveknown, --beginning with Mr. Spurgeon, under whom I sat with muchedification for a year or two, --I have not known any such teaching as Ispeak of. ]

[Footnote 172: The only explanation ever offered for this exuberantwordiness is that if worshipers did not understand one term they wouldthe other, and in some cases, in the Exhortation and elsewhere, one wordis of Latin and the other of Saxon derivation. [1] But this is surely avery feeble excuse for bad composition. Of a very different kind is thatbeautiful climax which is reached in the three admirably chosen pairs ofwords in the Prayer for the Parliament, "peace and happiness, truth andjustice, religion and piety. "--F. A. M. 

(Note 1: The repetition of synonymous terms is of very frequentoccurrence in sixteenth century writing, as "for ever and aye, " "Timeand the hour run through the roughest day" (_Macbeth_, i. 3). )]

[Footnote 173: In some of the country districts of Scotland the right ofthe Church to interfere with the lives of private individuals is stillexercised. Only two years ago, a wealthy gentleman farmer was rebuked bythe "Kirk Session" of the Dissenting Church to which he belonged, forinfidelity to his wife. 

At the Scottish half-yearly Communion the ceremony of "fencing thetables" used to be observed; that is, turning away all those whose liveswere supposed to have made them unfit to receive the Sacrament. ]

THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE. [174]

267. Every age of the world has its own special sins, and specialsimplicities; and among our own most particular humors in both kindsmust be reckoned the tendency to parade our discoveries of the laws ofNature, as if nobody had ever heard of a law of Nature before. 

The most curious result of this extremely absurd condition of mind isperhaps the alarm of religious persons on subjects of which one wouldhave fancied most of the palpable difficulties had been settled beforethe nineteenth century. The theory of prayer, for instance, and ofMiracles. I noticed a lengthy discussion in the newspapers a month ortwo ago, on the propriety of praying for, or against rain. It hadsuddenly, it seems, occurred to the public mind, and to that of thegentlemen who write the theology of the breakfast-table, that rain wasowing to natural causes; and that it must be unreasonable to expect Godto supply on our immediate demand what could not be provided but byprevious evaporation. I noticed farther that this alarming difficultywas at least softened to some of our Metropolitan congregations by theassurances of their ministers, that, although, since the last lecture byProfessor Tyndall at the Royal Institution, it had become impossible tothink of asking God for any temporal blessing, they might still hopetheir applications for spiritual advantages would occasionally besuccessful;--thus implying that though material processes werenecessarily slow, and the laws of Heaven respecting matter, inviolable, mental processes might be instantaneous, and mental laws at any momentdisregarded by their Institutor: so that the spirit of a man might bebrought to maturity in a moment, though the resources of Omnipotencewould be overtaxed, or its consistency abandoned, in the endeavor toproduce the same result On a greengage. 

More logically, though not more wisely, other divines have asserted thatprayer is medicinally beneficial to ourselves, whether we obtain what weask for or not; and that our moral state is gradually elevated by thehabit of praying daily that the Kingdom of God may come, --though nothingwould more astonish us than its coming. 

268. With these doubts respecting the possibility or propriety ofmiracle, a more immediate difficulty occurs as to its actual nature ordefinition. What is the quality of any event which may be properlycalled "miraculous"? What are the degrees of wonderfulness?--what thesurpassing degree of it, which changes the wonder into the sign, or maybe positively recognized by human intelligence as an interruption, instead of a new operation, of those laws of Nature with which, of late, we have become so exhaustively acquainted? For my own part, I can onlysay that I am so haunted by doubt of the security of our best knowledge, and by discontent in the range of it, that it seems to me contrary tomodesty, whether in a religious or scientific point of view, to regard_any_thing as miraculous. I know so little, and this little I know is soinexplicable, that I dare not say anything is wonderful because it isstrange to me, or not wonderful because it is familiar. I have not theslightest idea how I compel my hand to write these words, or my lips toread them: and the question which was the thesis of Mr. Ward's veryinteresting paper, "Can Experience prove the Uniformity of Nature?"[175]is, in my mind, so assuredly answerable with the negative which thewriter appeared to desire, that, precisely on that ground, theperformance of any so-called miracle whatever would be morallyunimpressive to me. If a second Joshua to-morrow commanded the sun tostand still, and it obeyed him; and he therefore claimed deference as amiracle-worker, I am afraid I should answer, "What! a miracle that thesun stands still?--not at all. I was always expecting it would. The onlywonder, to me, was its going on. "

269. But even assuming the demonstrable uniformity of the laws orcustoms of Nature which are known to us, it remains a difficult questionwhat manner of interference with such law or custom we might logicallyhold miraculous, and what, on the contrary, we should treat only asproof of the existence of some other law, hitherto undiscovered. 

For instance, there is a case authenticated by the signatures of severalleading physicists in Paris, in which a peasant girl, under certainconditions of morbid excitement, was able to move objects at somedistance from her without touching them. Taking the evidence for what itmay be worth, the discovery of such a faculty would only, I suppose, justify us in concluding that some new vital energy was developingitself under the conditions of modern bodily health; and not that anyinterference with the laws of Nature had taken place. Yet the generallyobstinate refusal of men of science to receive any verbal witness ofsuch facts is a proof that they believe them contrary to a code of lawwhich is more or less complete in their experience, and altogethercomplete in their conception; and I think it is therefore their provinceto lay down for us the true principle by which we may distinguish themiraculous violation of a known law from the sudden manifestation of anunknown one. 

270. In the meantime, supposing ourselves ever so incapable of defininglaw, or discerning its interruption, we need not therefore lose ourconception of the one, nor our faith in the other. Some of us may nomore be able to know a genuine miracle, when we see it, than others toknow a genuine picture; but the ordinary impulse to regard, therefore, all claim to miraculous power as imposture, or self-deception, remindsme always of the speech of a French lady to me, whose husband'scollection of old pictures had brought unexpectedly low prices in theauction-room, --"How can you be so senseless, " she said, "as to attachyourself to the study of an art in which you see that all excellence isa mere matter of opinion?" Some of us have thus come to imagine thatthe laws of Nature, as well as those of Art, may be matters of opinion;and I recollect an ingenious paper by Mr. Frederic Harrison, some twoyears ago, on the "Subjective Synthesis, "--which, after proving, whatdoes not seem to stand in need of so elaborate proof, that we can onlyknow, of the universe, what we can see and understand, went on to statethat the laws of Nature "were not objective realities, any more thanthey were absolute truths. "[176] Which decision, it seems to me, is asif some modest and rational gnat, who had submitted to the humiliatingconviction that it could know no more of the world than might betraversed by flight, or tasted by puncture, yet, in the course of anexperiment on a philosopher with its proboscis, hearing him speak of theInstitutes of Justinian, should observe, on its return to the society ofgnats, that the Institutes of Justinian were not objective realities, any more than they were absolute truths. And, indeed, the careless useof the word "Truth" itself, often misleads even the most accuratethinkers. A law cannot be spoken of as a truth, either absolute orconcrete. It is a law of nature, that is to say, of my own particularnature, that I fall asleep after dinner, and my confession of this factis a truth; but the bad habit is no more a truth than the statement ofit is a bad habit. 

271. Nevertheless, in spite of the treachery of our conceptions andlanguage, and in just conclusion even from our narrow experience, theconviction is fastened in our hearts that the habits or laws of Natureare more constant than our own and sustained by a firmer Intelligence:so that, without in the least claiming the faculty of recognition ofmiracle, we may securely define its essence. The phenomena of theuniverse with which we are acquainted are assumed to be, under generalconditions, constant, but to be maintained in that constancy by asupreme personal Mind; and it is farther supposed that, underparticular conditions, this ruling Person interrupts the constancy ofthese phenomena, in order to establish a particular relation withinferior creatures. 

272. It is, indeed, singular how ready the inferior creatures are toimagine such a relation, without any very decisive evidence of itsestablishment. The entire question of miracle is involved with that ofthe special providences which are supposed, in some theories ofreligion, sometimes to confound the enemies, and always to protect thedarlings of God: and in the minds of amiable persons, the natural andvery justifiable sense of their own importance to the well-being of theworld may often encourage the pleasant supposition that the Deity, however improvident for others, will be provident for _them_. Irecollect a paper on this subject by Dr. Guthrie, published not long agoin some religious periodical, in which the writer mentioned, as astrikingly Providential circumstance, the catching of his foot on aledge of rock which averted what might otherwise have been a fatal fall. Under the sense of the loss to the cause of religion and the society ofEdinburgh, which might have been the consequence of the accident, it isnatural that Dr. Guthrie should refer to it with strongly exciteddevotional feelings: yet, perhaps, with better reason, a junior memberof the Alpine Club, less secure of the value of his life, would havebeen likely on the same occasion rather to be provoked by his ownawkwardness, than impressed by the providential structure of the rock. At the root of every error on these subjects we may trace either animperfect conception of the universality of Deity, or an exaggeratedsense of individual importance: and yet it is no less certain that everytrain of thought likely to lead us in a right direction must be foundedon the acknowledgment that the personality of a Deity who has commandedthe doing of Justice and the showing of Mercy can be no otherwisemanifested than in the signal support of causes which are just, andfavor of persons who are kind. The beautiful tradition of the deaths ofCleobis and Bito, indeed, expresses the sense proper to the wisest men, that we are unable either to discern or decide for ourselves in whatthe favor of God consists: but the promises of the Christian religionimply that its true disciples will be enabled to ask with prudence whatis to be infallibly granted. 

273. And, indeed, the relations between God and His creatures which itis the function of miracle to establish, depend far more on thecorrespondence of events with human volition than on the marvelouscharacter of the events themselves. These relations are, in the main, twofold. Miracles are either to convince, or to assist. We are apt tothink of them as meant only to establish faith, but many are for mereconvenience of life. Elisha's making the ax-head swim, and the poisonedsoup wholesome, were not to convince anybody, but merely to give help inthe quickest way. Conviction is, indeed, in many of the most interestingmiracles, quite a secondary end, and often an unattained one. The hungrymultitude are fed, the ship in danger relieved by sudden calm. Thedisciples disregard the multiplying of the loaves, yet are stronglyaffected by the change in the weather. 

But whether for conviction, aid (or aid in the terrific form ofpunishment), the essence of miracle is as the manifestation of a Powerwhich can direct or modify the otherwise constant phenomena of Nature;and it is, I think, by attaching too great importance to what may betermed the missionary work of miracle, instead of what may indistinction be called its pastoral work, that many pious persons, noless than infidels, are apt to despise, and therefore to deny, miraculous power altogether. 

274. "We do not need to be convinced, " they say, "of the existence ofGod by the capricious exertion of His power. We are satisfied in thenormal exertion of it; and it is contrary to the idea of His ExcellentMajesty that there should be any other. "

But all arguments and feelings must be distrusted which are founded onour own ideas of what it is proper for Deity to do. Nor can I, evenaccording to our human modes of judgment, find any impropriety in thethought that an energy may be natural without being normal, and Divinewithout being constant. The wise missionary may indeed require nomiracle to confirm his authority; but the despised pastor may needmiracle to enforce it, or the compassionate governor to make itbeneficial. And it is quite possible to conceive of Pastoral Miracle asresulting from a power as natural as any other, though not as perpetual. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and some of the energies granted tomen born of the Spirit may be manifested only on certain conditions andon rare occasions; and therefore be always wonderful or miraculous, though neither disorderly nor unnatural. 

Thus St. Paul's argument to Agrippa, "Why should it be thought with youa thing impossible that God should raise the dead?" would be suicidal, if he meant to appeal to the miracle as a proof of the authority of hismission. But, claiming no authority, he announces as a probable andacceptable fact the opening of a dispensation in which it was as naturalfor the dead to be raised as for the Gospel to be preached to the poor, though both the one and the other were miraculous signs that the Masterof Nature had come down to be Emmanuel among men, and that no prophetwas in future to look for another. 

We have indeed fallen into a careless habit of using the wordssupernatural and superhuman, as if equivalent. A human act may besuper-doggish, and a Divine act superhuman, yet all three actsabsolutely Natural. It is, perhaps, as much the virtue of a Spirit to beinconstant as of a poison to be sure, and therefore always impossible toweigh the elements of moral force in the balance of an apothecary. 

275. It is true that, in any abstract reflection on these things, one isinstantly brought to pause by questions of the reasonableness, thenecessity, or the expedient degree of miracle. Christ walks on thewater, overcoming gravity to that extent. Why not have flown, andovercome it altogether? He feeds the multitude by breaking existentloaves; why not have commanded the stones into bread? Or, instead ofmiraculously feeding either an assembly or a nation, why not enablethem, like Himself, miraculously to fast, for the needful time? And ingenerally admitting the theories of pastoral miracle the instantquestion submits itself, --Supposing a nation wisely obedient to divinelyappointed ministers of a sensible Theocracy, how much would itsgovernment be miraculously assisted, and how many of its affairs broughtto miraculous prosperity of issue? Would its enemies be destroyed byangels, and its food poured down upon it from the skies, or would thesupernatural aid be limited to diminishing the numbers of its slain inbattle, [177] or to conducting its merchant ships safely, orinstantaneously, to the land whither they would go?

But no progress can be made, and much may be prevented, in theexamination of any really difficult human problem, by thus approachingit on the hypothetical side. Such approach is easy to the foolish, pleasant to the proud, and convenient to the malicious, but absolutelyfruitless of practical result. Our modesty and wisdom consist alike inthe simple registry of the facts cognizable by us, and our duty, inmaking active use of them for the present, without concerning ourselvesas to the possibilities of the future. And the two main facts we have todeal with are that the historical record of miracle is always ofinconstant power, and that our own actual energies are inconstant almostin exact proportion to their worthiness. 

276. First, I say, the history of miracle is of inconstant power. St. Paul raises Eutychus from death, and his garments effect miraculouscure; yet he leaves Trophimus sick at Miletum, recognizes only the mercyof God in the recovery of Epaphroditus, and, like any uninspiredphysician, recommends Timothy wine for his infirmities. And in thesecond place, our own energies are inconstant almost in proportion totheir nobleness. We breathe with regularity, and can calculate upon thestrength necessary for common tasks. But the record of our best work, and of our happiest moments, is always one of success which we did notexpect, and of enthusiasm which we could not prolong. 

277. And therefore we can only look for an imperfect and interrupted, but may surely insist on an occasional, manifestation of miraculouscredentials by every minister of religion. There is no practicaldifficulty in the discernment of marvel properly to be held superhuman. It is indeed frequently alleged by the admirers of scientific discoverythat many things which were wonderful fifty years ago, have ceased to beso now; and I am perfectly ready to concede to them that what they nowthemselves imagine to be admirable, will not in the future be admired. But the petty sign, said to have been wrought by the augur Attus beforeTarquin, would be as impressive at this instant as it was then; whilethe utmost achievements of recent scientific miracle have scarcely yetachieved the feeding of Lazarus their beggar, still less theresurrection of Lazarus their friend. Our Christian faith, at allevents, stands or falls by this test. "These signs shall follow themthat believe, " are words which admit neither of qualification normisunderstanding; and it is far less arrogant in any man to look forsuch Divine attestation of his authority as a teacher, than to claim, without it, any authority to teach. And assuredly it is no proof of anyunfitness or unwisdom in such expectations, that, for the last thousandyears, miraculous powers seem to have been withdrawn from, or at leastindemonstrably possessed, by a Church which, having been again and againwarned by its Master that Riches were deadly to Religion, and Loveessential to it, has nevertheless made wealth the reward of Theologicallearning, and controversy its occupation. There are states of moraldeath no less amazing than physical resurrection; and a church whichpermits its clergy to preach what they have ceased to believe, and itspeople to trust what they refuse to obey, is perhaps more trulymiraculous in impotence, than it would be miraculous in power, if itcould move the fatal rocks of California to the Pole, and plant thesycamore and the vine between the ridges of the sea. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 174: _Contemporary Review_, March, 1873. ]

[Footnote 175: Read at the November meeting of the MetaphysicalSociety. ]

[Footnote 176: I quote from memory but am sure of the purport of thesentence, though not of its expression. ]

[Footnote 177: "And be it death proclaimëd through our host to boast ofthis. "--_Henry V. _]

 * * * * *

AN OXFORD LECTURE. 

(_Nineteenth Century, January 1878. _)

 * * * * *

AN OXFORD LECTURE. [178]

278. I am sure that all in this audience who were present yesterday atDr. Acland's earnest and impressive lecture must have felt how deeply Ishould be moved by his closing reference to the friendship begun in ourundergraduate days;--of which I will but say that, if it alone were allI owed to Oxford, the most gracious kindness of the Alma Mater would inthat gift have been fulfilled to me. 

But his affectionate words, in their very modesty, as if even standingon the defense of his profession, the noblest of human occupations! andof his science--the most wonderful and awful of human intelligences!showed me that I had yet not wholly made clear to you the exactlylimited measure in which I have ventured to dispute the fitness ofmethod of study now assigned to you in this University. 

279. Of the dignity of physical science, and of the happiness of thosewho are devoted to it for the healing and the help of mankind, I neverhave meant to utter, and I do not think I _have_ uttered, one irreverentword. But against the curiosity of science, leading us to call virtuallynothing gained but what is new discovery, and to despise every use ofour knowledge in its acquisition; of the insolence of science, inclaiming for itself a separate function of that human mind which in itsperfection is one and indivisible, in the image of its Creator; and ofthe perversion of science, in hoping to discover by the analysis ofdeath, what can only be discovered by the worship of life, --of these Ihave spoken, not only with sorrow, but with a fear which every day Iperceive to be more surely grounded, that such labor, in effacing fromwithin you the sense of the presence of God in the garden of the earth, may awaken within you the prevailing echo of the first voice of itsDestroyer, "_Ye_ shall be as gods. "

280. To-day I have little enough time to conclude, --none to review--whatI have endeavored thus to say; but one instance, given me directly inconversation after lecture, by one of yourselves, will enable me toexplain to you precisely what I _mean_. 

After last lecture, in which you remember I challenged our physiologiststo tell me how a bird flies, one of you, whose pardon, if he thinks itneedful, I ask for this use of his most timely and illustrativestatement, came to me, saying, "You know the way in which we are shownhow a bird flies, is, that any one, a dove for instance, is given to us, plucked, and partly skinned, and incised at the insertion of the wingbone; and then, with a steel point, the ligament of the muscle at theshoulder is pulled up, and out, and made distinct from other ligaments, and we are told 'that is the way a bird flies, ' and on that matter it isthought we have been told enough. "

I say that this instance given me was timely; I will say more--in thechoice of this particular bird, providential. Let me take, in theirorder, the two subjects of inquiry and instruction, which are indeedoffered to us in the aspect and form of that one living creature. 

281. Of the splendor of your own true life, you are told, in the wordswhich, to-day, let me call, as your Fathers did, words ofinspiration--"Yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, that is coveredwith silver wings and her feathers with gold. " Of the manifold iris ofcolor in the dove's plumage, watched carefully in sunshine as the birdmoves, I cannot hope to give you any conception by words; but that it isthe most exquisite, in the modesty of its light, and in the myriadmingling of its hue, of all plumage, I may partly prove to you in thisone fact, that out of all studies of color, the one which I woulddesire most to place within your reach in these schools, is Turner'sdrawing of a dove, done when he was in happy youth at Farnley. But ofthe causes of this color, and of the peculiar subtlety in itsiridescence, nothing is told you in any scientific book I have ever seenon ornithology. 

282. Of the power of flight in these wings, and the tender purpose oftheir flight, you hear also in your Fathers' book. To the Church, flyingfrom her enemies into desolate wilderness, there were indeed given twowings as of a great eagle. But the weary saint of God, looking forwardto his home in calm of eternal peace, prays rather--"Oh that I had wingslike a dove, for then should I flee away, and be at rest. " And of thesewings, and this mind of hers, this is what reverent science should teachyou: first, with what parting of plume, and what soft pressure andrhythmic beating of divided air, she reaches that miraculous swiftnessof undubious motion, compared with which the tempest is slow, and thearrow uncertain; and secondly, what clew there is, visible, orconceivable to thought of man, by which, to her living conscience anderrorless pointing of magnetic soul, her distant home is felt afarbeyond the horizon, and the straight path, through concealing clouds, and over trackless lands, made plain to her desire, and her duty, by thefinger of God. 

283. And lastly, since in the tradition of the Old Covenant she was madethe messenger of forgiveness to those eight souls saved through thebaptism unto death, and in the Gospel of the New Covenant, under herimage, was manifested the well-pleasing of God, in the fulfillment ofall righteousness by His Son in the Baptism unto life, --surely alike allChristian people, old and young, should be taught to be gladdened by hersweet presence; and in every city and village in Christendom she shouldhave such home as in Venice she has had for ages, and be, among thesculptured marbles of the temple, the sweetest sculpture; and, fluttering at your children's feet, their never-angered friend. Andsurely also, therefore, of the thousand evidences which any carefullythoughtful person may see, not only of the ministration of good, but ofthe deceiving and deadly power of the evil angels, there is no one moredistinct in its gratuitous, and unreconcilable sin, than that this--ofall the living creatures between earth and sky--should be the one chosento amuse the apathy of our murderous idleness, with skill-less, effortless, merciless slaughter. 

284. I pass to the direct subject on which I have to speak finallyto-day;--the reality of that ministration of the good angels, and ofthat real adversity of the principalities and powers of Satan, in which, without exception, all earnest Christians have believed, and theappearance of which, to the imagination of the greatest and holiest ofthem, has been the root, without exception, of all the greatest artproduced by the human mind or hand in this world. 

That you have at present no art properly so called in England atall--whether of painting, sculpture, or architecture[179]--I, for one, do not care. In midst of Scottish Lothians, in the days of Scott, therewas, by how much less art, by so much purer life, than in the midst ofItaly in the days of Raphael. But that you should have lost, not onlythe skill of Art, but the simplicity of Faith and life, all in one, andnot only here deface your ancient streets by the Ford of the waters ofsacred learning, but also deface your ancient hills with guilt ofmercenary desolation, driving their ancient shepherd life into exile, and diverting the waves of their streamlets into the cities which arethe very centers of pollution, of avarice, and impiety: for this I _do_care, --for this you have blamed me for caring, instead of merely tryingto teach you drawing. I have nevertheless yet done my best to show youwhat real drawing is; and must yet again bear your blame for trying toshow you, through that, somewhat more. 

285. I was asked, as we came out of chapel this morning, by one of theFellows of my college, to say a word to the Undergraduates, aboutThirlmere. His request, being that of a faithful friend, came to enforceon me the connection between this form of spoliation of our native landof its running waters, and the gaining disbelief in the power of prayerover the distribution of the elements of our bread and water, in rain, and sunshine, --seedtime, and harvest. Respecting which, I must ask youto think with me to-day what is the meaning of the myth, if you call itso, of the great prophet of the Old Testament, who is to be again sentbefore the coming of the day of the Lord. For truly, you will find thatif any part of your ancient faith be true, it is needful for every soulwhich is to take up its cross, with Christ, to be also firsttransfigured in the light of Christ, --talking with Moses and with Elias. 

The contest of Moses is with the temporal servitude, --of Elijah, withthe spiritual servitude, of the people; and the war of Elijah is withtheir servitude essentially to two Gods, Baal, or the Sun God, in whosehand they thought was their life, and Baalzebub--the Fly God, --ofCorruption, in whose hand they thought was the arbitration of death. 

The entire contest is summed in the first assertion by Elijah, of hisauthority as the Servant of God, over those elemental powers by whichthe heart of Man, whether Jew or heathen, was filled with food andgladness. 

And Elijah the Tishbite; who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said untoAhab, "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, thereshall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. "

286. Your modern philosophers have explained to you the absurdity of allthat: you think? Of all the shallow follies of this age, thatproclamation of the vanity of prayer for the sunshine and rain; and thecowardly equivocations, to meet it, of the clergy who never in theirlives really prayed for anything, I think, excel. Do these modernscientific gentlemen fancy that nobody, before they were born, knew thelaws of cloud and storm, or that the mighty human souls of former ages, who every one of them lived and died by prayer, and in it, did not knowthat in every petition framed on their lips they were asking for whatwas not only fore-ordained, but just as probably fore-_done_? or thatthe mother pausing to pray before she opens the letter from Alma orBalaclava, does not know that already he is saved for whom she prays, oralready lies festering in his shroud? The whole confidence and glory ofprayer is in its appeal to a Father who knows our necessities before weask, who knows our thoughts before they rise in our hearts, and whosedecrees, as unalterable in the eternal future as in the eternal past, yet in the close verity of visible fact, bend, like reeds, before thefore-ordained and faithful prayers of His children. 

287. Of Elijah's contest on Carmel with that Sun-power in which, literally, you again now are seeking your life, you know the story, however little you believe it. But of his contest with the Death-power, on the Hill of Samaria, you read less frequently, and more doubtfully. 

"Oh, thou Man of God, the King hath said, Come down. And Elijah answeredand said, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from Heaven, andconsume thee, and thy fifty. "

How monstrous, how revolting, cries your modern religionist, that aprophet of the Lord should invoke death on fifty men. And he sitshimself, enjoying his muffin and _Times_, and contentedly allows theslaughter of fifty thousand men, so it be in the interests of England, and of his own stock on Exchange. 

But note Elijah's message. "Because thou hast sent to inquire ofBaalzebub the God of Ekron, therefore, thou shalt not go down from thebed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. "

"Because thou hast sent to inquire:" he had not sent to _pray_ to theGod of Ekron, only to _ask_ of him. The priests of Baal _prayed_ toBaal, but Ahaziah only _questions_ the fly-god. 

He does not pray "Let me recover, " but he asks "_Shall_ I recover ofthis disease?"

The scientific mind again, you perceive, --Sanitary investigation; byoracle of the God of Death. Whatever can be produced of disease, byflies, by aphides, by lice, by communication of corruption, shall not wemoderns also wisely inquire, and so recover of our diseases?

All which may, for aught I know, be well; and when I hear of the vinedisease or potato disease being stayed, I will hope also that plague maybe, or diphtheria, or aught else of human plague, by due sanitarymeasures. 

288. In the meantime, I see that the common cleanliness of the earth andits water is despised, as if _it_ were a plague; and after myselflaboring for three years to purify and protect the source of theloveliest stream in the English midlands, the Wandel, I am finallybeaten, because the road commissioners insist on carrying the roadwashings into it, at its source. But that's nothing. Two years ago, Iwent, for the first time since early youth, to see Scott's country bythe shores of Yarrow, Teviot, and Gala waters. I will read you onceagain, though you will remember it, his description of one of thosepools which you are about sanitarily to draw off into yourengine-boilers, and then I will tell you what I saw myself in thatsacred country. 

 Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, By lone Saint Mary's silent lake; Thou know'st it well, --nor fen, nor sedge, Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge; Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink At once upon the level brink; And just a trace of silver sand Marks where the water meets the land. 

 Far in the mirror, bright and blue, Each hill's huge outline you may view; Shaggy with heath, but lonely, bare, Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake, is there, Save where, of land, yon slender line Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine. 

 * * * * *

 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 hallow'd soil, The peasant rests him from his toil, And, dying, bids his bones be laid, Where erst his simple fathers pray'd. 

289. What I saw myself, in that fair country, of which the sight remainswith me, I will next tell you. I saw the Teviot oozing, not flowing, between its wooded banks, a mere sluggish injection, among the filthystones, of poisonous pools of scum-covered ink; and in front of JedburghAbbey, where the foaming river used to dash round the sweet ruins as ifthe rod of Moses had freshly cleft the rock for it, bare and foulnakedness of its bed, the whole stream carried to work in the mills, thedry stones and crags of it festering unseemly in the evening sun, andthe carcass of a sheep, brought down in the last flood, lying there inthe midst of the children at their play, literal and ghastly symbol, inthe sweetest pastoral country in the world, of the lost sheep of thehouse of Israel. 

That is your symbol to-day, of the Lamb as it had been slain; and thatthe work of your prayerless science;--the issues, these, of yourenlightened teaching, and of all the toils and the deaths of theCovenanters on those barren hills, of the prophetic martyrs here in yourcrossing streets, and of the highest, sincerest, simplest patriot ofCatholic England, Sir Thomas More, within the walls of England's centralTower. So is ended, with prayer for the bread of this life, also thehope of the life that is to come. Yet I will take leave to show you thelight of that hope, as it shone on, and guided, the children of the agesof faith. 

290. Of that legend of St. Ursula which I read to you so lately, youremember, I doubt not, that the one great meaning is the victory of herfaith over all fears of death. It is the laying down of all the joy, ofall the hope, nay of all the Love, of this life, in the eagerapprehension of the rejoicing and the love of Eternity. What truth therewas in such faith I dare not say that I know; but what manner of humansouls it made, you may for yourselves _see_. Here are enough brought toyou, of the thoughts of a believing people. [180] This maid in her purityis no fable; this is a Venetian maid, as she was seen in the earthlydawn, and breathed on by the breeze of her native sea. And here she isin her womanhood, in her courage and perfect peace, waiting for herdeath. 

I have sent for this drawing for you, from Sheffield, where it is tostay, they needing it more than you. It is the best of all that myfriend did with me at Venice, for St. George, and with St. George's helpand St. Ursula's. It shows you only a piece of the great picture of themartyrdom--nearly all have fallen around the maid, and she kneels withher two servant princesses, waiting for her own death. Faithful behindtheir mistress, they wait with her, --not feebler, but less raised inthought, as less conceiving their immortal destiny; the one, a gentlegirl, conceiving not in her quiet heart any horror of death, bows herfair head towards the earth, almost with a smile; the other, fearfullest her faith should for an instant fail, bursts into passion of prayerthrough burning tears. St. Ursula kneels, as daily she knelt, before thealtar, giving herself up to God forever. 

And so you see her, here in the days of childhood, and here in hersacred youth, and here in her perfect womanhood, and here borne to hergrave. 

Such creatures as these _have_ lived--do live yet, thank God, in thefaith of Christ. 

291. You hear it openly said that this, their faith, was a foolishdream. Do you choose to find out whether it was or not? You may if youwill, but you can find it out in one way only. 

Take the dilemma in perfect simplicity. Either Christianity is true ornot. Let us suppose it first one, then the other, and see what follows. 

Let it first be supposed untrue. Then rational investigation will in allprobability discover that untruth; while, on the other hand, irrationalsubmission to what we are told may lead us into any form of absurdity orinsanity; and, as we read history, we shall find that this insanity hasperverted, as in the Crusades, half the strength of Europe to its ruin, and been the source of manifold dissension and misery to society. 

Start with the supposition that Christianity is untrue, much more withthe desire that it should be, and that is the conclusion at which youwill certainly arrive. 

But, on the other hand, let us suppose that it is, or may be, true. Then, in order to find out whether it is or not, we must attend to whatit says of itself. And its first saying is an order to adopt a certainline of conduct. _Do_ that first, and you shall know more. Its promiseis of blessing and of teaching, more than tongue can utter, or mindconceive, if you choose to do this; and it refuses to teach or help youon any other terms than these. 

292. You may think it strange that such a trial is required of you. Surely the evidences of our future state might have been granted onother terms--nay, a plain account might have been given, with allmystery explained away in the clearest language. _Then_, we should havebelieved at once. 

Yes, but, as you see and hear, that, if it be our way, is not God's. Hehas chosen to grant knowledge of His truth to us on one condition and noother. If we refuse that condition, the rational evidence around us isall in proof of our death, and that proof is true, for God also tellsus that in such refusal we shall die. 

You see, therefore, that in either case, be Christianity true or false, death is demonstrably certain to us in refusing it. As philosophers, wecan expect only death, and as unbelievers, we are condemned to it. 

There is but one chance of life--in admitting so far the possibility ofthe Christian verity as to try it on its own terms. There is not theslightest possibility of finding out whether it be true, or not, first. 

"Show me a sign first and I will come, " you say. "No, " answers God. "Come first, then you shall see a sign. "

Hard, you think? You will find it is not so, on thinking more. For this, which you are commanded, is not a thing unreasonable in itself. So farfrom that, it is merely the wisest thing you could do for your own andfor others' happiness, if there were no eternal truth to be discovered. 

You are called simply to be the servant of Christ, and of other men forHis sake; that is to say, to hold your life and all its faculties as ameans of service to your fellows. All you have to do is to be sure it_is_ the service you are doing them, and not the service you doyourself, which is uppermost in your minds. 

293. Now you continually hear appeals to you made in a vague way, whichyou don't know how far you can follow. You shall not say that, to-day; Iboth can and will tell you what Christianity requires of you in simplestterms. 

Read your Bible as you would any other book--with strictest criticism, frankly determining what you think beautiful, and what you think falseor foolish. But be sure that you try accurately to understand it, andtransfer its teaching to modern need by putting other names for thosewhich have become superseded by time. For instance, in such a passage asthat which follows and supports the "Lie not one to another" ofColossians iii. --"seeing that ye have put on the new man, which isrenewed in knowledge after the spirit of Him that created him, where"(meaning in that great creation where) "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free. " Inapplying that verse to the conduct and speech of modern policy, it fallsnearly dead, because we suffer ourselves to remain under a vagueimpression--vague, but practically paralyzing, --that though it was verynecessary to speak the truth in the countries of Scythians and Jews, there is no objection to any quantity of lying in managing the affairsof Christendom. But now merely substitute modern for ancient names, andsee what a difference it will make in the force and appeal of thepassage, "Lie not one to another, brethren, seeing that ye have put offthe old man, with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which isrenewed to knowledge, " [Greek: eis epignôsin], according to theknowledge of Him that created him, in that great creation where there isneither Englishman nor German, baptism nor want of baptism, Turk norRussian, slave nor free, but Christ is all, and in all. 

294. Read your Bible, then, making it the first morning business of yourlife to understand some piece of it clearly, and your daily business toobey of it all that you understand, beginning first with the most humanand most dear obedience--to your father and mother. Doing all things asthey would have you do, for the present: if they want you to belawyers--be lawyers; if soldiers--soldiers; if to get on in theworld--even to get money--do as they wish, and that cheerfully, afterdistinctly explaining to them in what points you wish otherwise. Theirsis for the present the voice of God to you. 

But, at the same time, be quite clear about your own purpose, and thecarrying out of that so far as under the conditions of your life youcan. And any of you who are happy enough to have wise parents will findthem contented in seeing you do as I now tell you. 

295. First cultivate all your personal powers, not competitively, butpatiently and usefully. You have no business to read in the longvacation. Come _here_ to make scholars of yourselves, and go to themountains or the sea to make men of yourselves. Give at least a month ineach year to rough sailor's work and sea fishing. Don't lounge andflirt on the beach, but make yourselves good seamen. Then, on themountains, go and help the shepherd at his work, the wood-men at theirs, and learn to know the hills by night and day. If you are staying inlevel country, learn to plow, and whatever else you can that is useful. Then here in Oxford, read to the utmost of your power, and practicesinging, fencing, wrestling, and riding. No rifle practice, and noracing--boat or other. Leave the river quiet for the naturalist, theangler, and the weary student like me. 

You may think all these matters of no consequence to your studies of artand divinity; and that I am merely crotchety and absurd. Well, that isthe way the devil deceives you. It is not the sins which we _feel_sinful, by which he catches us; but the apparently healthy ones, --thosewhich nevertheless waste the time, harden the heart, concentrate thepassions on mean objects, and prevent the course of gentle and fruitfulthought. 

296. Having thus cultivated, in the time of your studentship, yourpowers truly to the utmost, then, in your manhood, be resolved theyshall be spent in the true service of men--not in being ministered unto, but in ministering. Begin with the simplest of all ministries--breakingof bread to the poor. Think first of that, not of your own pride, learning, comfort, prospects in life: nay, not now, once come tomanhood, may even the obedience to parents check your own conscience ofwhat is your Master's work. "Whoso loveth father and mother more than meis not worthy of me. " Take the perfectly simple words of the Judgment, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it untome:" but you must _do_ it, not preach it. And you must not be resolvedthat it shall be done only in a gentlemanly manner. Your pride must belaid down, as your avarice, and your fear. Whether as fishermen on thesea, plowmen on the earth, laborers at the forge, or merchants at theshop-counter, you must break and distribute bread to the poor, set downin companies--for that also is literally told you--upon the greengrass, not crushed in heaps under the pavement of cities. Take Christ atHis literal word, and, so sure as His word is true, He will be known ofyou in breaking of bread. Refuse that servant's duty because it isplain, --seek either to serve God, or know Him, in any other way: yourservice will become mockery of Him, and your knowledge darkness. Everyday your virtues will be used by the evil spirits to conceal, or to makerespectable, national crime; every day your felicities will become baitsfor the iniquity of others; your heroisms, wreckers' beacons, betrayingthem to destruction; and before your own deceived eyes and wanderinghearts every false meteor of knowledge will flash, and every perishingpleasure glow, to lure you into the gulf of your grave. 

297. But obey the word in its simplicity, in wholeness of purpose andwith serenity of sacrifice, like this of the Venetian maids', and trulyyou shall receive sevenfold into your bosom in this present life, as inthe world to come, life everlasting. All your knowledge will become toyou clear and sure, all your footsteps safe; in the present brightnessof domestic life you will foretaste the joy of Paradise, and to yourchildren's children bequeath, not only noble fame, but endless virtue. "He shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways;and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep yourhearts and minds through Christ Jesus. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 178: Left, at the Editor's request, with only some absolutelyneedful clearing of unintelligible sentences, as it was written for freedelivery. It was the last of a course of twelve given thisautumn;--refers partly to things already said, partly to drawings on thewalls; and needs the reader's pardon throughout, for faults andabruptness incurable but by re-writing the whole as an essay instead ofa lecture. --(_Nineteenth Century_, January, 1878. )]

[Footnote 179: Of course, this statement is merely a generalization ofmany made in the preceding lectures, the tenor of which any readersacquainted with my recent writings may easily conceive. ]

[Footnote 180: The references were to the series of drawings latelymade, in Venice, for the Oxford and Sheffield schools, from the works ofCarpaccio, by Mr. Fairfax Murray. ]