From The Church Quarterly Review. upon the mountain-side; to the perfect shape of the swallow that skims THE century is drawing to a close, the summer air. He has told them the the sands of the hour-glass are fast wonderful meanings which lie hidden running out, and the number of its in the sculptured stones of Venice or years will soon be told. And as the the storied marbles of the Shepherd's hurrying march of time bears us on- Tower. More than this, in an age ward, the men who have made this when the struggle of life is fierce, and nineteenth-century England of ours the pressing claims of things present what she is are rapidly passing out of are apt to make us lose sight of higher sight. One by one they have left us, and diviner aims, Mr. Ruskin has never these giants of old days, who fifty years ceased to call us to a life of high and ago bore the brunt of the battle, and holy faith in God and active love to fought their way through storm and man. He has lifted up his voice boldly stress. Carlyle and Newman, Brown- to rebuke the idlers and the pleasureing and Tennyson, poets and prophets, seekers, and to remind us that man painters and thinkers, we have seen does not live by bread alone. "The them die full of years and honors, leav- greatness of a nation," he has often ing a bright track of light to guide our said, "must be measured not alone by footsteps through the darkness which its wealth and apparent power, but by hides them from our eyes. Here and the degree in which its people have there one remains to make us wonder learned together in the great world of at the fire of an ardor which is still books, of art, and of nature, pure and unspent, and of an energy which age ennobling joys." cannot destroy. And one other there Wherever the English language is is, a mighty prophet in his day, who spoken his books are read. His words has laid down his sword and shield, have borne their message to other and withdrawn himself from the din realms, and in the furthest climes his and tumult of the camp. In his home name is honored to-day by every honon the heights above Coniston Water, est seeker after truth. Count Leo Mr. Ruskin is spending a calm and Tolstoi, the well-known Russian phitranquil old age. For him the heat lanthropist, told an Englishman the and burden of the day are over, and other day that he thought Ruskin one the repose of evening has been well of the greatest men of the age, and earned. But in his peaceful retreat that if all Englishmen did not agree on that lovely shore he is not forgot- with him in this, it was because no ten. His presence seems to cast a man is a prophet in his own country. blessed influence over all that moun-But there is no doubt, he added, that tain region, and the thoughts of his future ages will do him justice. countrymen go out to him in love and The practice of writing biographies reverence. His name has become a of distinguished persons during their household word in English homes; lifetime is growing every day more thousands of workers through the common. It may not commend itself breadth and length of the land remem- to our old-fashioned ideas, and it is ber him with grateful affection as they go out to their daily toil. Many and great are the services which he has rendered the men and women of this generation. He has opened their eyes to the beauty of common things; to the splendor of the grass which grows The Life and Work of John Ruskin. By W. G. Collingwood, M.A., Editor of "The Poems of John Ruskin," etc., with Portraits and other Illustra tions, in two volumes. London, 1893. attended with some obvious drawbacks; but whether for good or evil, the custom has become general. Mr. Collingwood, who has given us a life of Ruskin in two handsome volumes, illustrated with portraits of his hero at different stages of his life, has more to say in defence of his action than most biographers of living celebrities. A whole literature, as he remarks, ha's already grown up around Mr. Ruskin's nanie. Studies of Ruskin's life and of rare interest and value, but has her work, epitomes of his art-teaching, ac- self revised the proofs of the whole counts of the many public institutions work, making several important addiwhich he has founded or helped, have tions and corrections; so that the presbeen published in a score of different ent life comes to us with the highest magazines. His position as an art sanction and authority. Mr. Collingcritic has been savagely attacked and wood does not pretend to give us an 'vigorously defended. His theories and exhaustive criticism of Mr. Ruskin's schemes of social reform have been teaching either in art or ethics. His the object of much friendly criticism, work is of a purely biographical charand not a little good-tempered ridicule. |acter, and the chief events of Mr. RusMiss Thackeray has devoted a charm-kin's life are set down in proper order ing chapter to her recollections of her from his birth until the present day. father's friend, and Mr. Ruskin him- We have a full account of his journeys, self has, in his "Præterita," given us of his studies, of his books, his lecthe most delightful autobiography of tures; of all the strange variety of his youth. We can only hope, in com- schemes which have engrossed his mon with all those who have enjoyed time and thoughts in turn. And we those vivid and original pages, that he have, too, many of Mr. Ruskin's own may yet live once again to take up his letters, as well as several from Carlyle, pen and give us some more of those from Robert Browning and his wife, recollections which bring the scenes of and other friends, which are now pubpast days and their actors before us in lished for the first time. A full and a way that nothing else can ever do. accurate chronological table, a bibliogBut since at his age and in his declin- raphy of Mr. Ruskin's writings, and a ing health, we fear this must remain catalogue of his drawings are added at uncertain, we welcome this biography, the end of each volume, and greatly written by one who has long enjoyed increase the interest and usefulness of Mr. Ruskin's confidence, and that of the work. his nearest friends and relations, as the best substitute that we can have for a continuation of "Præterita." John Ruskin was born at his father's house in Bloomsbury — 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, on February Mr. Collingwood, it is well known, 8, 1819. Both his parents were of has acted in the capacity of private Scottish birth. His father, the son of secretary to Mr. Ruskin for many an Edinburgh tradesman, came to seek years. He has lived with him at his fortunes in London as a boy, and Brantwood, and has been liberally worked his way upwards until, about supplied with material for his present 1809, he entered into partnership with work by himself and his friends. Miss a Spanish sherry merchant, Mr. Peter Prout, the daughter of the artist, has Domecq, the owner of large vineyards contributed her reminiscences of young at Macharnudo, in Spain. Ruskin conRuskin in his early days at Denmark tributed the brains, Domecq the sherry, Hill. Both Mr. and Mrs. Arthur and a third partner, Mr. Henry Telford, Severn, who have during many years the capital necessary for the undertakmade their home with Mr. Ruskin, ing. have given the author the benefit of their help and advice. Mr. Severn has adorned the book with a lovely drawing of Brantwood and Coniston Water, as well as sketches of Mr. Ruskin's former homes at Denmark Hill and Herne Hill, while Mrs. Severn has not only lent several of her cousin's drawings, including an admirable likeness of the great man by his own hand, a sketch The business prospered under the management of the shrewd and energetic young Scotchman, who conducted the correspondence, travelled for orders, and directed the Spanish growers himself. By degrees he made a considerable fortune, paid off the debts of his less prosperous father, and after nine years of work and waiting, married his cousin, Margaret Cox, and settled in a house in Bloomsbury. Mr. came and at Ruskin, who was the only child of this | nursery in his old house-to which he excellent couple, has himself made us brought my mother and me, sixty-two years familiar with the virtues and the pecul- since, I being then four years old.. I iarities, the habits and, the beliefs, of have written frankly, garrulously, both his parents. We know them both ease; speaking of what it gives me joy to intimately the father, "that entirely remember, at any length I like-sometimes honest man,” "" going daily backwards very carefully of what I think it may be and forwards to his office, yet relieving total silence things which I have no pleasuseful for others to know; and passing in his business cares by his love of books ure in reviewing (pp. v., vii). and pictures, regarded in the light of a household god at home-the mother, business, and every spring, generally Ruskin père still travelled for the passionately devoted to her child, but unflinching in her stern Puritan rule, the solemnity of a religious festival, the on May 10, the birthday observed with making little John learn whole chap-family set out in their carriage and ters of the Bible by heart at a sitting, journeyed by easy stages to the north, allowing him a single currant when he to dessert, and rigidly putting in turn, and seeing churches and cascalling at towns and great country seats away all toys, even the Punch and Judy dressed in scarlet and gold, which tles, lakes and mountains, in their intervals of leisure. The English lakes, a kind aunt brought him from the Soho Bazaar. Peace, obedience, and faith, all visited in this manner. and Scotland, Wales, and Paris were and the habit of fixed attention were, mer tours were events of great imporThese sum— Mr. Ruskin considers, the chief advan-tance in the boy Ruskin's life. He has tages of this early training. Its de- told us how full of wonder and delight the world seemed to him as, sitting propped up by his own little trunk, between his parents, in the postchaise, he looked out through the glass windows at the country on either side. How tenderly he recalls the days when he rambled with his nurse among the steep rocks and gnarled trunks of Friar's Crag, or gleaned the ripe corn in the harvest-fields on Tay side with his Scotch cousins. fects were its formalism and hardness. "I had nothing to love," he writes in "Præterita ;"" my parents were, in a sort, visible powers of nature to me, no more loved than the sun and moon." Happily for the lonely child, born in the heart of London, he was from the first familiar with country sights and sounds. His early summers were spent at Hampstead and Dulwich. At three years old he went to Scotland and there first saw the mountains which have been the true love of his life) When on his return his portrait was painted by Northcote, the artist asked him what background he would like, the child answered without a moment's hesitation, "Blue hills." (The next year his parents moved to a house on Herne Hill, surrounded by green fields and spacious gardens that were Eden for the little boy-"all the more," Mr. Collingwood suggests, suggests, "that the fruit of it was forbidden" an (i. 18). (Here John Ruskin's youth was spent. Here the first volume of "Modern Painters" was composed, and here, on May 10, 1886, he wrote the preface to "Præterita.” I write these few prefatory words on my father's birthday, in what was once my I weary for the fountain foaming, My mind is on the mountain roaming, The crags are lone on Coniston And Glaramara's dell, And dreary on the mighty one, The cloud-enwreathed Scafell. Oh! what although the crags be stern, There is a thrill of strange delight That passes quivering o'er me, When blue hills rise upon the sight Like summer clouds before me. for those very Coniston Crags where | Saussure's "Voyages dans les Alpes' day by day he still sees the morning on his next birthday gave him new inbreak, in the following lines: terest in physical geology, and his first published work was a short essay "On the Strata of Mont Blanc," which appeared in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History for March, 1834, together with a letter in which he inquired the cause of the color of the Rhine water. The next year the Ruskins went abroad again. This time they visited Venice and Verona where young Ruskin made careful drawings of the Scaligeri monuments—and spent some time in Switzerland. While at Lucerne he went up the Righi and saw the wonderful storm sunset, moonlight, and daybreak, which he afterwards described in a famous passage of "Modern Painters.” Mr. Ruskin returned A present of Rogers's "Italy," illus- home with his family for Christmas, trated with Turner's vignettes, on his 1835, and a few weeks later received a birthday that year, first inspired him visit from Mr. Domecq, his partner in with admiration for this painter, and a the wine business, and his four daughfew weeks later the pleasure which ters, whom John Ruskin calls "the both he and his father took in Prout's first really well-bred and well-dressed Sketches in Flanders and Germany "girls" he had met. He promptly fell made his mother suggest a tour on in love with the eldest of the four, the Continent. So, the day after his Adèle, and wrote stories for her amusefather's birthday, the whole family ment, and poems in which he proşet off, travelling in good old-fash- claimed his passion. The bright-eyed ioned style, with four horses and postil- French girl laughed at her boyish lover ions, maidservants, and courier. They and his strange, shy ways, but young worked slowly through Flanders and Ruskin remained constant, and when up the Rhine, never in a hurry, finding four years afterwards he heard of her good horses and pleasant rooms every-marriage to a French baron, the shock where, and people who took off their brought on a serious illness. hals to them when they arrived and departed. When they reached Schaffhausen they took a walk one Sunday evening, and there, standing on a garden terrace, John Ruskin caught his first sight of the Alps. They were clear as crystal, sharp on the pure horizon sky, and already tinged with rose by the setting sun. Infinitely beyond all that we had ever thought or dreamed; the seen walls of lost Eden could not have been more beautiful to us; not more awful, round heaven, the walls of sacred Death.1 At every place he wrote verses and made pen-and-iuk sketches in imitation of Turner's vignettes. The gift of 1 Præterita, i. 195. First one But neither love nor despair could make him idle. His classical education had hitherto been conducted in a somewhat desultory manner. master, then another, had taught him Greek and Latin. He had taken lessons in mathematics and attended courses of lectures at King's College to prepare himself for matriculation at Oxford. His father destined him for the Church, and hoped to see him a bishop before he died. Before he was three years old he had climbed into a chair and preached his first sermon, thumping on a red cushion before him, and saying, "Peeple, be dood. If you are dood, Dod will love you. If you are not dood, Dod will not love you. made upon him in his journal in the following characteristic lines: I found in him a somewhat eccentric, keen-mannered, matter-of-fact, Englishminded gentleman; good-natured evidently, bad-tempered evidently, hating humbug of all sorts, shrewd, perhaps a little selfish, highly intellectual, the powers of the mind not brought out with any delight in their manifestation or intention of display, but flashing out occasionally in a word or look. to be set down at the first glimpse, and set Pretty close that [he adds later] and fully down the same evening (i. 90). Peeple, be dood" (i. 21). A sermon Harlech Castle. He records the imwhich, as Miss Thackeray remarks, pression which his first sight of Turner Mr. Ruskin has been preaching all his life long. With this end in view, young Ruskin's name was put down by his father at Christ Church, and here he entered as gentleman commoner in January, 1837. His mother, in her anxiety to be near her son, left home and took lodgings in the High Street, where she remained during his residence at college, and saw him constantly. The three years which he spent at Oxford were not thrown away Young Ruskin studied hard, made friends with Dr. Acland and the veteran geologist, Dr. Buckland, and won the Newdigate after two unsuccessful attempts, in the first of which Dean Stanley bore off the prize. But he did not neglect his art-studies, and found time to write a series of papers on "The Poetry of Architecture, or the Architecture of the Nations of Europe considered in its association with Nat ural Scenery and National Character," which appeared in Loudon's magazine, and have been quite recently published in a separate form. His love and admiration for Turner increased daily, and on his twenty-first birthday his father presented him with a picture of Winchelsea by his favorite master, and gave him an allowance of 2001. a year for pocket-money. The first use he made of his wealth was to buy another Turner, a drawing of Harlech Castle. The transaction, Mr. Collingwood tells us, was by no means agreeable to his father "the canny Scotch merchant, who had heaped up riches, hoping his son would gather them" (i. 89); but even his parent's disapproval could not damp the young man's pride and delight in his newly acquired treasure. "It was not a piece of painted paper, but a Welsh castle and village, and Snowdon in blue cloud, that I bought for my seventy pounds." The purchase of this picture, moreover, led to an introduction to the painter himself, whom young Ruskin met at the house of the dealer who had sold him the 1 Præterita, ii. 29. Three months after his coming of age, a sudden breakdown of health brought Ruskin's Oxford career to an abrupt end. This collapse was caused partly by overwork, partly by the grief at the disappointment of the love affair on which his hopes had been set. He ill with fever in Rome, and was taken was ordered abroad for the winter, fell wards to Venice and Switzerland. On by his parents to Naples, and afterhis return to England he went up to Oxford for a pass, and took his B.A. degree in May, 1841. When I was sure I had got through [he writes] I went out for a walk in the fields north of New College, happy in the sense of recovered freedom, but extremely doubtful to what use I should put it. There I was at two-and-twenty, with such and such powers, all second-rate, except the analytical ones, which were as much in embryo as the rest, and which I had no means of measuring; such and such likings hitherto indulged rather against conscience, and a dim sense of duty to myself, my parents, and a daily more vague shadow of Eternal Law. What should I be or do? . . . Oxford taught me as much Latin and Greek have also told me that fritillaries grew in as she could, and though I think she might Iffley meadow, it was better that she left me to find them for myself. I must get on to the days of opening sight and effective labor, and to the scenes of nobler education, which all men who keep their hearts open receive in the end of days.2 The result of these meditations appeared in the first volume of "Modern 2 Præterita, ii. 33. |