architects being Sir Thomas Deane and Mr. Woodward, and its style
modern Gothic, whilst amongst those chiefly interested in it were Dr.
Acland (the Regius Professor of Medicine) and Mr. Ruskin. The present
letter, written in June, 1858, was read by Dr. Acland at a lecture
given by him in that summer “to the members of the Architectural
Societies that met in Oxford” at that time. I am permitted to reprint
the following passage from Dr. Acland’s preface to the printed
lecture, as well as one or two passages from the lecture itself (see
below, pp. 130 and 132): “Many have yet to learn the apparently simple
truth, that to an Artist his Art is his means of probation in this
life; and that, whatever it may have of frivolity to us, to him it
is as the two or the five talents, to be accounted for hereafter. I
might say much on this point, for the full scope of the word Art seems
by some to be even now unrecognized. Before the period of printing,
Art was the largest mode of permanently recording human thought; it
was spoken in every epoch, in all countries, and delivered in almost
every material. In buildings, on medals and coins, in porcelain and
earthenware, on wood, ivory, parchment, paper and canvas, the graver
or the pencil has recorded the ideas of every form of society, of
every variety of race and of every character. What wonder that the
Artist is jealous of his craft, and proud of his brotherhood?”--See
“The Oxford Museum,” p. 4. The reader is also referred to “Sesame and
Lilies,” 1871 ed. §§ 103-4.
[123] See next letter, pp. 131 _seqq._
[124] After reading this letter to his audience Dr. Acland thus
continued: “The principles thus clearly enumerated by Mr. Ruskin are,
on the main, those that animate the earnest student of Gothic. It is
not for me especially to advocate Gothic Art, but only to urge, that
if called into life, it should be in conformity to its own proper
laws of vitality. If week after week, in my youth, with fresh senses
and a docile spirit, I have drank in each golden glow that is poured
by a Mediterranean sun from over the blue Ægæan upon the Athenian
Parthenon,--if, day by day, sitting on Mars’ Hill, I have watched each
purple shadow, as the temple darkened in majesty against the evening
sky,--if so, it has been to teach me, as the alphabet of all Art, to
love all truth and to hate all falsehood, and to kiss the hand of
every Master who has brought down, under whatever circumstance, and in
whatever age, one spark of true light from the Beauty and the subtle
Law, which stamps the meanest work of the Ever living, Ever-working
Artist.”--“The Oxford Museum,” pp. 56-7.
[125] See “The Oxford Museum,” pp. 17-23. The following is a portion
of the passage alluded to: “Without the Geologist on one side, and
the Anatomist and Physiologist on the other, Zoology is not worthy
of its name. The student of life, bearing in mind the more general
laws which in the several departments above named he will have sought
to appreciate, will find in the collections of Zoology, combined
with the Geological specimens and the dissections of the Anatomist,
a boundless field of interest and of inquiry, to which almost every
other science lends its aid: from each science he borrows a special
light to guide him through the ranges of extinct and existing animal
forms, from the lowest up to the highest types, which, last and most
perfect, but preshadowed in previous ages, is seen in Man. By the
aid of physiological illustrations he begins to understand how hard
to unravel are the complex mechanisms and prescient intentions of
the Maker of all; and he slowly learns to appreciate what exquisite
care is needed for discovering the real action of even an apparently
comprehended machine. And so at last, almost bewildered, but not cast
down, he attempts to scrutinize in the rooms devoted to Medicine,
the various injuries which man is doomed to undergo in his progress
towards death; he begins to revere the beneficent contrivances which
shine forth in the midst of suffering and disease, and to veil his
face before the mysterious alterations of structure, to which there
seem attached pain, with scarce relief, and a steady advance, without
a check, to death. He will look, and as he looks, will cherish hope,
not unmixed with prayer, that the great Art of Healing may by all
these things advance, and that by the progress of profounder science,
by the spread among the people of the resultant practical knowledge,
by stricter obedience to physiological laws, by a consequent more
self-denying spirit, some disorders may at a future day be cured,
which cannot be prevented, and some, perhaps, prevented, which never
can be cured.”
[126] Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, the naturalist and author of
many works, of which those on infusoria may be especially noted here.
He was born in 1795, and in 1842 was elected Principal Secretary to
the Berlin Academy of Science, which post he held till his death in
1876. The late Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, Bart., will also be
remembered in connection with the study of natural science, as well as
for his efforts in philanthropy. He died in March, 1879. I have been
unable to find any further information as to the prize mentioned by
Mr. Ruskin, or as to the essay which obtained it.
[127] Mr. Brodie, who succeeded his father as Sir Benjamin Brodie in
1867, was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Oxford in 1855.
[128] Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s book “On Color and the Diffusion of
Taste” was published in 1858.
[129] See note to p. 142.
[130]
“The monks of Melrose made good kail On Friday, when they fasted.”
The kail leaf is the one principally employed in the decorations of
the abbey. (Original note to “The Oxford Museum,” p. 83.)
[131] This engraving, which formed the frontispiece of “The Oxford
Museum,” will be found facing the title page of the present volume,
the original plate having proved in excellent condition. O’Shea was,
together with others of his name and family, amongst the principal
workmen on the building. The capital represents the following ferns:
the common hart’s-tongue (scolopendrium vulgare), the northern
hard-fern (blechnum boreale), and the male fern (filix mas).
[132] A new armory was to be added to the Castle.
[133] The _Literary Gazette_ of September 26, 1857, after quoting a
great part of the previous letter, stated that the new armory was not
to be built without all due regard to the preservation of the rock,
and that there was therefore no real cause for alarm.
[134] “Poems of the Fancy,” xiv. (1803). The quotation omits two lines
after the fourth:
“Who loved the little rock, and set Upon its head this coronet?”
The second stanza then begins: “Was it the humor of a child?” etc.
[135] The article on taverns occurred in the _Daily Telegraph_ of
the 8th December, and commented on a recent meeting of the Licensed
Victuallers’ Protection Society. There was also a short article upon
drunkenness as a cause of crime in the _Daily Telegraph_ of December
9--referred to by Mr. Ruskin in a letter which will be found in the
second volume of this book. The article on castles concluded with an
appeal for public subscriptions towards the restoration of Warwick
Castle, then recently destroyed by fire.
[136] The passage alluded to is partly as follows. “It happened also,
which was the real cause of my bias in after-life, that my father
had a real love of pictures.... Accordingly, wherever there was a
gallery to be seen, we stopped at the nearest town for the night; and
in reverentest manner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen’s houses in
England; not indeed myself at that age caring for the pictures, but
much for castles and ruins, feeling more and more, as I grew older,
the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, and perceiving, as soon
as I could perceive any political truth at all, that it was probably
much happier to live in a small house and have Warwick Castle to be
astonished at, than to live in Warwick Castle, and have nothing to be
astonished at; and that, at all events, it would not make Brunswick
Square in the least more pleasantly habitable to pull Warwick Castle
down. And, at this day, though I have kind invitations enough to visit
America, I could not, even for a couple of months, live in a country
so miserable as to possess no castles.”
[137] In a second article upon the same subject the _Daily Telegraph_
had expressed surprise at Mr. Ruskin’s former letter. “Who does not
remember,” it wrote, “his proposal to buy Verona, so as to secure from
decay the glorious monuments in it?”
[138] This letter, it will be noticed, was written during the
bombardment and a few days before the capitulation of Paris in 1871.
[139] On Friday, March 8, 1872, entitled “Turner and Mulready--On
the Effect of certain Faults of Vision on Painting, with especial
reference to their Works.” The argument of the lecturer, and
distinguished oculist, was that the change of style in the pictures of
Turner was due to a change in his _eyes_ which developed itself during
the last twenty years of his life. (See “Proceedings of the Royal
Institution,” 1872, vol. vi., p. 450.)
[140] “A History of the Gothic Revival.” By Charles L. Eastlake,
F.R.I.B.A. London, Longman and Co., 1872.--In this work Mr. Eastlake
had estimated very highly Mr. Ruskin’s influence, on modern
architecture, whilst his reviewer was “disposed to say that Mr.
Ruskin’s direct and immediate influences had almost always been in
the wrong; and his more indirect influences as often in the right.”
It is upon these words that Mr. Ruskin comments here, and to this
comment the critic replied in a letter which appeared in the _Pall
Mall Gazette_ of the 20th inst. The main portion of his reply was as
follows: “The direct influences, then, which I had principally in
my mind were those which had resulted in a preference for Venetian
over English Gothic, in the underrating of expressional character in
architecture, and the overrating of sculptured ornament, especially
of a naturalistic and imitative character, and more generally in an
exclusiveness which limited the due influence of some, as I think,
noble styles of architecture. By the indirect influences I meant the
habit of looking at questions of architectural art in the light of
imaginative ideas; the recognition of the vital importance of such
questions even in their least important details; and generally an
enthusiasm and activity which could have resulted from no less a force
than Mr. Ruskin’s wondrously suggestive genius.” To this explanation
Mr. Ruskin replied in his second letter on the subject.
[141] Mr. Street’s design for the New Law Courts was, after much
discussion, selected, May 30, 1868, and approved by commission,
August, 1870. The building was not, however, begun till February,
1874, and the hope expressed in this letter is therefore,
unfortunately, no expression of opinion on the work itself.
[142] Denmark Hill.
[143] See “Arabian Windows in the Campo Santa Maria, Mater Domini,”
Plate ii. of the “Examples of the Architecture of Venice,” selected
and drawn to measurement from the edifice, 1851. And see, too, “Stones
of Venice,” vol. ii., chap, vii., Gothic Palaces.
[144] This letter was originally received by “a Liverpool gentleman,”
and sent inclosed in a long letter signed “An Antiquarian,” to the
_Liverpool Daily Post_.
[145] An obvious misprint for “stone-layers.”
[146] Ribbesford Church was finally closed after the morning service
on Sunday, July 15, 1877. It was then restored, and was reopened and
reconsecrated on June 15, 1879. The _Kidderminster Times_ of the 21st
inst. contained an account of a meeting of the Ribbesford parishioners
to consider the restoration of the church. Hence the allusions in this
letter to “copying” the traceries.
[147] This circular, which was distributed as above noted during the
winter of 1879-80, is here reprinted by Mr. Ruskin’s permission,
in connection with the preceding letters upon restoration in
architecture. See the Notes on Prout and Hunt, 1879-80, p. 71.
[148] In February, 1878; see the “Turner Notes” of that year, and
“Fors Clavigera,” New Series--Letter the Fourth, March, 1880.
[149] Count Alvise Piero Zorzi, the author of an admirable and
authoritative essay on the restoration of St. Mark’s (Venice, 1877).
[150] This drawing (No. 28 in the Exhibition) was of a small portion
of the west front.
[151] “Stones of Venice,” vol. ii., chapter 4, of original edition,
and vol. i., chapter 4, of the smaller edition for the use of
travellers.
[152] In the first edition of this circular this sentence ran as
follows: “In the mean time, with the aid of the drawing just referred
to, every touch of it from the building, and left, as the color dried
in the morning light of the 10th May, 1877, some of the points chiefly
insisted on in the ‘Stones of Venice,’ are of importance now.”
[153] Printed “Pan-choreion” in the first edition.
[154] For “state,” the first edition reads “mind,” and for “have
become, in some measure, able,” it has “have qualified myself.” So
again for “am at this moment aided,” it reads “am asked, and enabled
to do so.”
[155] Early in 1879
[156] Printed in the second edition only.
[157] The reference is to the closing paragraph of the Preface to
the Notes, which runs as follows: “Athena, observe, of the Agora, or
Market _Place_. And St. James of the Deep Stream or _Market River_.
The Angels of Honest Sale and Honest Porterage; such honest porterage
being the grandeur of the Grand Canal, and of all other canals,
rivers, sounds, and seas that ever moved in wavering morris under
the night. And the eternally electric light of the embankment of
that Rialto stream was shed upon it by the Cross--know you that for
certain, you dwellers by high-embanked and steamer-burdened Thames.
And learn from your poor wandering painter this lesson--for the sum of
the best he had to give you (it is the Alpha of the Laws of true human
life)--that no city is prosperous in the sight of Heaven, unless the
peasant sells in its market--adding this lesson of Gentile Bellini’s
for the Omega, that no city is ever righteous in the Sight of Heaven
unless the Noble walks in its street.”--Notes on Prout and Hunt, p. 44.
[158] See the “Notes on Prout and Hunt,” p. 78.
[159] See the _Standard_ (Dec. 3, 1879). M. Meduna was the architect
who carried out the “restoration” of the South façade of the Cathedral.
[160] The _Reader_ of October 15 contained an article “On the
Conformation of the Alps,” to which in the following issue of the
journal (October 22) Sir Roderick Murchison replied in a letter
dated “Torquay, 16th October,” and entitled “On the Excavation of
Lake Basins in solid rocks by Glaciers,” the possibility of which he
altogether denied.
[161] “On the Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy,” delivered on
June 5, 1863. The subject was treated under three heads. 1. The
material of the Savoy Alps. 2. The mode of their formation. 3. The
mode of their subsequent sculpture. (See the report of the lecture in
the “Proceedings of the Royal Institution,” 1863, vol. iv., p. 142. It
was also printed by the Institution in a separate form, p. 4.)
[162] In reply to this letter, the _Reader_ of November 19, 1864,
published one from a Scottish correspondent, signed “Tain Caimbeul,”
the writer of which declared that, whilst he looked on Mr. Ruskin
“as a thoroughly reliable guide in all that relates to the external
aspects of the Alps,” he could not “accept his leadership in questions
of political economy or the mechanics of glacier motion.”
[163] See below, “Forbes: his real greatness,” pp. 187 _seqq._, and
the references given in the notes there.
[164] Even in lower Apennine, “Dat sonitum saxis, et torto vertice
torrens.”{*}
{*} Virgil, Æneid, vii. 567.
[165] See “Deucalion,” vol. i. p. 93.
[166]
There twice a day the Severn fills; The salt sea-water passes by,
And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills.
TENNYSON, “In Memoriam,” xix.
[167] See “Deucalion,” vol. i. p. 3 (Introduction).
[168] Following this letter in the same number of the _Reader_ was
one from the well-known geologist Mr. Joseph Beete Jukes, F.R.S.,
who, writing from “Selly Oak, Birmingham, Nov. 22,” described himself
as “the originator of the discussion.” He therefore was no doubt the
author of the article in the _Reader_ alluded to above (p. 173, note).
Mr. Jukes died in 1869.
[169] The following is the sentence from Mr. Jukes’ letter alluded to:
“Therefore when Mr. Ruskin says that ‘the forms of the Alps are quite
visibly owing to the action of elevatory, contractile, and expansive
forces,’ I would entreat him to listen to those who have had their
vision corrected by the laborious use of chain and theodolite and
protractor for many toilsome years over similar forms.”
[170] The Battle of Sempach (?). See the letters on “The Italian
Question,” at the beginning of the second volume.
[171] To the effect that “the form of the ground is the result wholly
of denudation.” For the “scheme,” consisting of ten articles, see the
note 172 below.
[172] Dr. William Buckland, the geologist, and at one time Dean of
Westminster. He died in 1856. See “Fors Clavigera,” 1873, Letter 34,
p. 19.
[173] This and the following sentences allude to parts of the
above-mentioned scheme. “The whole question,” wrote Mr. Jukes,
“depends on the relative dates of production of the lithological
composition, the petro-logical structure, and the form of the
surface,” The scheme then attempts to sketch the “order of the
processes which formed these three things,” in ten articles, of
which the following are specially referred to by Mr. Ruskin: “1.
The formation of a great series of stratified rocks on the bed of a
sea.... 3. The possible intrusion of great masses of granitic rock” in
more or less fluent state; and 6, 7, 8, 9, which dealt with alternate
elevation and depression, of which there might be “even more than one
repetition.”
[174] See Herodotus, ii. 92; Plato, Critias, 112; and Horace, Od. i.
31.
[175] The address was delivered by Mr. Jukes as President of the
Geological Section of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, which met in 1862 at Cambridge. (See the Report of the
Association, vol. xxxii. p. 54.)
[176] Mr. Jukes’ letter had concluded by recommending English
geologists to pursue their studies at home, on the ground that “a
student, commencing to learn comparative anatomy, does not think it
necessary to go to Africa and kill an elephant.” In the following
number of the _Reader_ (Dec. 10) Mr. Jukes wrote, in answer to the
present letter, that he had not intended to imply any hostility
towards Mr. Ruskin, with whose next letter the discussion ended.
[177] “M. A. C.” wrote “Concerning Stones,” and dealt--or attempted to
deal--with “atmospheric pressure” in addition to the pressure of water
alluded to in Mr. Ruskin’s letter of November 26. The letter signed
“G. M.” was entitled “Mr. Ruskin on Glaciers;” see next note. Both
letters appeared in the _Reader_ of December 3, 1864.
[178] Not in the “last letter,” but in the last but one--see _ante_,
p. 177, “A stone at the bottom of a stream,” etc. The parts of “G.
M.’s” letter specially alluded to by Mr. Ruskin are as follows:
“It is very evident that the nearer the source of the glacier, the
steeper will be the angle at which it advances from above, and the
greater its power of excavation.... Mr. Ruskin gets rid of the rocks
and _débris_ on the under side of the glacier by supposing that they
are pressed beyond the range of action in the solid body of the ice;
but there must be a limit to this, however soft the matrix.”
[179] See “Modern Painters,” Part v., chap. 13, “On the Sculpture
Mountains,” vol. iv. p. 174.
[180] In connection with the question of glacier-motion, Mr. Ruskin’s
estimate of Professor Forbes and his work is here reprinted from
Rendu’s “Glaciers of Savoy” (Macmillan, 1874), pp. 205-207. For a
passage on the same subject which was reprinted in the “Glaciers
of Savoy,” in addition to the new matter republished here, and for
a statement of the course of glacier-science, and the relation of
Forbes to Agassiz, the reader is referred to “Fors Clavigera,” 1873,
Letter 34, pp. 17-26. The “incidental passage” consists of a review
of Professor Tyndall’s “Forms of Water” (London, 1872), and the
“contemptible issue” was that of his position and Forbes’ amongst
geological discoverers.
[181] George Forbes, B.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the
Andersonian University, Glasgow, and editor of “The Glaciers of Savoy.”
[182] This saying of Macaulay’s occurred in an address which, as
M.P. for that city, he delivered at the opening of the Edinburgh
Philosophical Institution, 1846 (Nov. 4). Forbes’ criticism of it
and of the whole address may be found in a lecture introductory to
a course on Natural Philosophy, delivered before the University
of Edinburgh (Nov. 1 and 2, 1848), and entitled “The Danger of
Superficial Knowledge;” under which title it was afterwards printed,
together with a newspaper report of Macaulay’s address (London and
Edinburgh, 1849). In the edition of Macaulay’s speeches revised by
himself, the sentence in question is omitted, though others of a like
nature, such as “The profundity of one age is the shallowness of the
next,” are retained, and the whole argument of the address remains the
same. (See Macaulay’s Works, 8 vol. ed., Longmans, 1866. Vol. viii. p.
380, “The Literature of Great Britain.”) For a second mention of this
saying by Mr. Ruskin, see also “Remarks addressed to the Mansfield Art
Night Class,” 1873, now reprinted in “A Joy for Ever” (Ruskin’s Works,
vol. xi. p. 201).
The following are parts of the passage (extending over some pages) in
Forbes’ lecture alluded to by Mr. Ruskin:
“How false, then, as well as arrogant, is the self-gratulation
of those, who, forgetful of the struggles and painful efforts by
which knowledge is increased, would place themselves, by virtue of
their borrowed acquirements, in the same elevated position with
their great teachers--nay, who, perceiving the dimness of light and
feebleness of grasp, with which, often at first, great truths have
been perceived and held, find food for pride in the superior clearness
of their vision and tenacity of their apprehension!” Then, after
quoting some words from Dr. Whewell’s “Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences,” vol. ii. p. 525, and after some further remarks, the
lecturer thus continued: “The activity of mind, the earnestness, the
struggle after truth, the hopeless perplexity breaking up gradually
into the fulness of perfect apprehension,--the dread of error, the
victory over the imagination in discarding hypotheses, the sense of
weakness and humility arising from repeated disappointments, the
yearnings after a fuller revelation, and the sure conviction which
attends the final advent of knowledge sought amidst difficulties
and disappointments,--these are the lessons and the rewards of the
discoverers who first put truth within our reach, but of which we
who receive it at second hand can form but a faint and lifeless
conception.” (See pp. 39-41 of “The Danger of Superficial Knowledge.”)
[183] In the edition of Rendu’s “Glaciers of Savoy” already alluded to.
[184] Forbes died Dec. 31, 1868; Agassiz in 1873; and De Saussure in
1845.
[185] The letter from Forbes to Mr. Ruskin (dated December 2, 1864)
was presumably elicited by the allusions to Forbes in Mr. Ruskin’s
letter to the _Reader_ of November 26, 1874 (see _ante_, pp. 259 and
263). “Advancing years and permanently depressed state of health,”
ran the letter, “have taken the edge off the bitterness which the
injustice I have experienced caused me during many years. But ... the
old fire revives within me when I see any one willing and courageous,
like you, to remember an old friend, and to show that you do so.”--The
second letter speaks of the writer’s _“boyish enthusiasm”_ for
Agassiz, an expression to which Mr. Ruskin appends this note: “_The
italics are mine._ I think this incidental and naïve proof of the way
in which Forbes had spoken of Agassiz to his class, of the greatest
value and beautiful interest.--J. R.”