terest in the welfare, physical, moral, and spiritual, of his race. I was conscious in his presence of the bracing atmosphere of a noble nature. He seemed to me one of the manliest of men. Since I have seen him, the man seems greater than the author." On his return to Eversley he plunged again into his parish work. When he went up to his work at Westminster he had a severe attack of congestion of the liver, which prevented his preaching on the first Sunday after his arrival, and was only able after taking a flying leap, in surplice, hood, and stole, over the churchyard palings. The fire was an extensive one; but he, armed with a bill-hook, and now divested of everything ecclesiastical, was everywhere, organising bands of beaters, and, begirt with smoke and flame, resisting the advance of the fire at every advantageous point." His duties as canon of Chester were thoroughly enjoyed, and faithfully discharged. He was the means of establishing, while in Chester, the beginning of what grew to be the Chester Natural History Society, with its numbering of five or six hundred. The exceedingly interest-wards to preach once a day during his residence. ing course of lectures which he delivered before them was afterwards published under the title of "Town Geology." On to the close of his life, as had been from the beginning, the deepest leanings of his nature were in the direction of physical science. As he said in his address at the Social Science Congress, Bristol, "No one is more deeply, yea, awfully convinced than I am of the need of sound religious teaching. But no one is more deeply, yea, awfully convinced than I am that even the best religious teaching, especially in these days, will bear but stinted and shrivelled fruit unless accompanied by physical teaching; and thus supported (as all human thought should be) in the minds of teachers and of children alike, on a substratum of truth, reason, and common sense." Deeply affected by the illness of the Prince of Wales, on his recovery he took occasion to preach a sermon on "Loyalty" at the Chapel Royal, St James's, in which he urged the need of sanitary reform. "Let us repent of," he said, "and amend that scandalous neglect of the well-known laws of health and cleanliness which destroys thousands of lives yearly in the kingdom without need or reason, in defiance alike of science, of humanity, and of our Christian profession." To the great regret of all who knew him he left Chester to fill an appointment to a vacant stall in Westminster Abbey which had been offered to him. His eldest son returning at the time from America, and being much struck with his broken appearance, urged him to take rest and change before undertaking his new duties. He began his work at Westminster in September 1873, and his last sermon that year was preached in November, its subject being "The Beatific Vision." In December he returned to Eversley with his family, and left at the end of January 1874, with his daughter, for New York, taking some of his lectures with him, as his biographer remarks, "to meet his expenses." He enjoyed this visit, with its excitement of travel, but caught a severe cold while at San Francisco, which caused him to hasten his return home. Mr J. G. Whittier, the poet, who met him at Boston, says that he felt he was "in contact with a profoundly earnest and reverent spirit. His heart seemed overcharged with in " The illness of his wife in October also distressed him much. He preached his last sermon in the Abbey on 29th November with intense fervour. He left London on the 3d December for Eversley in good spirits, with his invalid wife. When they reached Eversley she appeared to be dying, when he endeavoured to console himself and those around him with comfortable words from the book of God and by self-repression. Careless of himself, a neglected cold developed into bronchitis, from bronchitis into pneumonia, until he lay himself on his death-bed. He was kept under the influence of opiates during this last illness, when his dreams were always of his travels in the West Indies, the Rocky Mountains, and California. These scenes he would recount to the nurse who watched beside him. In spite of all medical prohibitions, he rose before the end came, and making his way to his wife's side, and taking her hand, he said, "This is heaven; don't speak.' The cough returned upon him, he could say no more, and they never met again. He sent her pencilled notes from his bed until illness overcame him, and he could write no more. Thinking her gone before him, he asked no questions regarding his wife during the last two days, only saying, "I, too, am come to an end; but it is all right, all as it should be." His last words evinced a child-like faith in his Heavenly Father. On one of his last nights he was heard to say, "How beautiful God is." He passed away on the 23d of January 1875, under the impression that his wife had gone before him. The hearty, earnest work of thirty-two years in Eversley was over, and when the coffin was laid in the churchyard it was carried to the grave by villagers "who had known, loved, and trusted him for years." Every profession, rank, and school of thought was represented there. On the white marble cross which marks his resting-place are inscribed these words in Latin commemorating his lifelong attachment to his wife: "AMAVIMUS, AMAMUS, AMABIMUS," and the words above them, "God is love." ture, or a selfish act, in sickness or in health, in sunshine or in storm, by day or by night, could prove that the age of chivalry has not passed away for ever, then Charles Kingsley fulfilled the ideal of a 'most true and perfect knight' to the one woman blessed with that love in time and to eternity. To eternity, for such love is eternal; and he is not dead. He himself, the man, lover, husband, father, friend, he still lives in God, who is not the God of the dead but of the living." As an author, Charles Kingsley published in all thirty-five books. By nature a poet, many of his lyrics may be expected to live as long as the language. A Kingsley Memorial Fund, set on foot in February 1875, ended in the enlargement and adornment of Eversley church; and his bust has been placed beside that of his friend Maurice in the baptistry of Westminster Abbey. With all their sound sense, eloquence, imaginative vigour, and point, some theologians have alleged that in his sermons he has kept the atonement of Christ in the background. His weakness, in the words of one of his critics, is: "The regarding of the death of Christ as mainly or entirely intended to produce a moral effect on the hearts and minds of those who believe, and to serve as an example of perfect self-devotion and obedience to God, thus producing in the human heart an impression so powerful as to draw it to love Him, who has given us so great an Example, Teacher, and Guide; in short, to set man at one with God, and thus reconcile him to his Creator." These so-called imperfect doctrinal statements have been ascribed to the want of proper and systematic theological training for the ministry amongst clergymen of the Church of England. MAX MÜLLER ON CHARLES KINGSLEY. Never shall I forget the moment when, for the last time, I gazed upon the manly features of Charles Kingsley, features which death had rendered calm, grand, sublime. The constant struggle that in life seemed to allow no rest to his expression, the spirit, like a caged lion, shaking the bars of his prison, the mind striving for utterance, the soul wearying for loving response-all that was over. There remained only the satisfied expression of triumph and peace, as of a soldier who had fought a good fight, and who, while sinking into the stillness of the slumber of death, listens to the distant sounds of music and to the shouts of victory. One saw the ideal man, as nature had meant him to be, and one felt that there is no greater sculptor than death. As one looked on that marble statue, which only some weeks ago had so warmly pressed one's hand, his whole life flashed through one's thoughts. One remem and bered the young curate and the "Saint's Tragedy;" the Chartist parson and "Alton Locke;" the happy poet and the "Sands of Dee;" the brilliant novel-writer and "Hypatia "Westward Ho!" the rector of Eversley and his village sermons; the beloved professor at Cambridge, the busy canon at Chester, the powerful preacher in Westminster Abbey. One thought of him by the Berkshire chalk-streams and on the Devonshire coast; watching the beauty and wisdom of nature, reading her solemn lessons, chuckling too over her inimitable fun. One saw him in town alleys, preaching the Gospel of godliness and cleanliness, while smoking his pipe with soldiers and navvies. One heard him in drawing-rooms, listened to him with patient silence, till one of his vigorous or quaint speeches bounded forth, never to be forgotten. How children delighted in him! How young, wild men believed in him, and obeyed him too! How women were captivated by his chivalry, older men by his genuine humility and sympathy! All that was now passing away-was gone. But as one looked on him for the last time on earth, one felt that greater than the curate, the poet, the professor, the canon, had been the man himself, with his warm heart, his honest purposes, his trust in his friends, his readiness to spend himself, his chivalry and humanity, worthy of a better age. Of all this the world knew little-yet few men excited wider and stronger sympathies. Who can forget that funeral on the 28th January 1875, and the large sad throng that gathered round his grave? There was the representative of the Prince of Wales, and close by the gipsies of the Eversley common, who used to call him their Patrico-rai, their priest-king. There was the old squire of his village, and the labourers, young and old, to whom he had been a friend and a father. There were governors of distant colonies, officers and sailors, the bishop of his diocese, and the dean of his abbey; there were the leading Nonconformists of the neighbourhood, and his own devoted curates, peers, and members of the House of Commons, authors and publishers; and outside the churchyard, the horses and hounds and the huntsmen in pink, for though as good a clergyman as any, Charles Kingsley had been a good sportsman too, and had taken in his life many a fence as bravely as he took the last fence of all, without fear or trembling. All that he had loved, and all that had loved him was there, and few eyes were dry when he was laid in his own yellow gravel bed, the old trees which he had planted and cared for waving their branches to him for the last time, and the grey sunny sky looking down with calm pity on the deserted rectory, and on the short joys and the shorter sufferings of mortal men. JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. [1819-] knew more about the vignettes than the verses in the poem "Italy." Under the signature of Kata Phusin he contributed a series of essays to the Architectural Magazine. The late Mr William Henry Harrison he has called his literary master, and literary godfather, under whose careful eye Mr Ruskin's works generally passed twice over. "He was," he says, "inexorable in such matters, and many a sentence in Modern Painters,' which I had thought quite beautifully turned out after a forenoon's work on it, had to be turned outside in after all, and cut into the smallest pieces and sewn up again, because he had found out there wasn't a nominative in it, or a genitive, or a conjunction, or something else indispensable to a sentence's decent existence and position in life." A GIFTED art critic, one of the greatest interpre- ❘ it was found, on being cross-questioned, that he ters of outward nature of the age, and a writer of eloquent prose, he has added from time to time a fresh chapter to his autobiography in many of his published works. As far as now available, we may attempt to tell the chief incidents in his career in the briefest form. The son of a London wine merchant, born in 1819, in his youth he possessed every advantage of culture and fortune. "I was born in London," he says, "and accustomed for two or three years to no other prospect than that of the brick walls over the way; had no brothers, nor sisters, nor companions; and though I could always make myself happy in a quiet way, the beauty of the mountains had an additional charm of change and adventure which a countrybred child could not have felt." His father, early recognising his art-gift, fostered it by every means in his power. Affirming in one of his works the consciousness of special endowment, he has said, “This art-gift of mine could not have been won by any work or any conduct; it belongs to me by birthright, and came by Athena's will when I was hardly nine years old, from the air of English country villages and Scottish hills." In the third volume of "Modern Painters," in the chapter on the moral influence of landscape, he says: "The first thing which I remember, as an event in life, was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Craig, on Derwentwater; the intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the craig, into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with alltwining roots of trees ever since." His intense pleasure in mountains is "comparable only to the joy of a lover in being near a noble and kind mistress, but no more explicable or definable than the feeling of love itself." Following these autobiographical remarks, he tells us that, "almost as soon as I could see or hear, I had got reading enough to give me associations with all kinds of scenery." From early boyhood he wrote in verse, and a collection of his verses was printed for private circulation amongst his friends and relatives. These verses show fine feeling, and a delicate appreciation for the beauty of outward nature. At the age of fifteen he was a contributor in verse to an annual called Friendship's Offer ing. Mr Thomas Pringle, the editor, was the means of introducing young Ruskin to the veteran poet Rogers, but unfortunately for any good impression which he might be led to entertain for the future author of "Modern Painters," At Oxford he carried off the Newdigate prize for an English poem. He gained the degree of Master of Arts in 1842. Since that time he has received the distinction of an honorary Oxford studentship, and the degree of LL.D., which was conferred upon him by the University of Cambridge in 1871. The first volume of the work which established his fame as an independent thinker, and a masterly and eloquent writer on art, was issued in 1843. It was entitled "Modern Painters: their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters proved, etc., by a Graduate of Oxford." This work, a defence of Turner's style of painting, was produced in five volumes, the last appearing in 1860.* Lecturing in Edinburgh in 1853, he spoke thus of Turner: "I tell you the truth which I have given fifteen years of my life to ascertain, that this man, this Turner, of whom you have known so little while he was living among you, will one day take his place beside Shakespeare and Verulam, in the annals of the light of England. Yes; beside Shakespeare and Verulam, a third star in that central constellation, round which, in the astronomy of intellect, all other stars make their circuit. By Shakespeare, humanity was unseated to you; by Verulam, the principles of nature; and by Turner, her aspect. All * An instance of the influence of Ruskin's opinions on public artistic taste is seen in some recent sales of Turner's drawings in London. Between fifty and sixty water-colour drawings by Turner, about the size of the palm of the hand, brought £21,000. Ata later sale a small collection of his pictures brought the large sum of 41,560 guineas. In 1843 a watercolour drawing, which brought only 72 guineas, sold for £1018 in 1878. these were sent to unlock one of the gates of light, and to unlock it for the first time. But of all the three, though not the greatest, Turner was the most unprecedented in his work. Bacon did what Aristotle had attempted; Shakespeare did perfectly what Eschylus did partially; but none before Turner had lifted the veil from the face of nature; the majesty of the hills and forests had received no interpretation, and the clouds passed unrecorded from the face of the heavens which they adorned, and of the earth to which they ministered." In 1878 he again writes of Turner: "He was born on St George's Day in 1775. He produced no work of importance till he was past twenty; working constantly, from the day he could hold pencil, in steady studentship, with graduallyincreasing intelligence, and, fortunately for him, rightly-guided skill. His true master was Dr Munro. To the practical teaching of that first patron, and the wise simplicity of water-colour study, in which he was disciplined by him, and companied by Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the youth's power is primarily to be attributed. The greatness of the power itself it is impossible to over-estimate. As in my own advancing life I learn more of the laws of noble art, I recognise faults in Turner to which once I was blind; but only as I recognise also powers which my boy's enthusiasm did but disgrace by its advocacy." The "Seven Lamps of Architecture," which sprung out of memoranda collected for one of the sections of the third volume of "Modern Painters," was published in 1849. "I think," wrote Mary Russell Mitford in 1851, "that the most distinguished of our young writers are, the one a dear friend of mine, John Ruskin," the other was Charles Kingsley. "The Stones of Venice," in three volumes, was issued between the years 185153. The greater part of the sixth chapter of the second volume of this book, “On the Nature of Gothic Architecture, and the True Functions of the Workman in Arts," was republished in a cheap form in 1854. The profits arising from its sale were handed over to the Working-Men's College, now at 45 Great Ormond Street. Two works on drawing, "The Elements of Drawing," and "The Elements of Perspective," were the written results of Mr Ruskin's labours while superintending the instruction of its members. The fourth volume of "Modern Painters" was issued in 1855. In July 1857 he lectured at Manchester on art, and in the course of addresses he examined some of the modern theories of political economy. He also visited Scotland, examining the abbeys of Dunblane and Jedburgh. On his return to London he commenced what was to him a labour of love, the arrangement of the Turner drawings belonging to the nation. The autumn and winter of 1857 were devoted to this work. Much exhausted, he sought a change of scene in a visit to Switzer land. The following winter and spring he studied Titian's works. Mr Ruskin warmly recommended Holman Hunt's great picture, "The Light of the World," in a letter to the Times. He issued criticisms on the paintings exhibited by the Royal Academy between 1855-59. He also issued a pamphlet on "Pre-Raphaelism." He lectured before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in 1853 on "Architecture and Painting." These lectures afterwards formed a separate volume. Three lectures, under the title of "The Crown of Wild Olive," were issued in 1866. Some of these lectures and essays, published' in a collected form, bear such titles as "The Ethics of the Dust," "Sesame and Lilies," "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds," an ecclesiastical pamphlet, and "Unto this Last," a reprint of four articles which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine. Mr Ruskin's other chief works are: "Study of Architecture in our Schools," "The Queen of the Air," being a study of the Greek myths of cloud and storm; "Lectures on Art," "Munera Pulveris," "Essays on Political Economy," "Aratra Pentilici," "Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture," "The Eagle's Nest," "Time and Tide," lectures on laws of work; "Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art," "Giotto and his Works," "Harbours of England," etc. Mr Ruskin has said recently that "all my first books, to the end of the 'Stones of Venice,' were written in the simple belief I had been taught as a child; and especially the second volume of 'Modern Painters' was an oratory of enthusiastic praise of religious painting, in which you will find me placing Fra Angelico above all other painters." In his Fors Clavigera he has absolutely forbidden the members of St George to read Miss Martineau's works. Mr Ruskin has been censured for leaving the safe path of art criticism for that political economy. His works are now somewhat difficult of purchase, owing to their being withdrawn from the ordinary channels of publication; but in their purple calf bindings and gilt edges, the most of them may be had from Mr Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent. Some years ago he started a periodical pamphlet called Fors Clavigera (Fortune's Keeper of the Keys), only to be had on direct application to an agent, which expounds his particular views on art, literature, and the social life around him in England. "My book," says Mr Ruskin, in answer to one who grumbled at its price, "is meant for no one who cannot reach it. If a man with all the ingenuity of Lancashire in his brains, and breed of Lancashire in his body; with all the steam and coal power of Lancashire to back his ingenuity and muscle; all the press of literary England vomiting the most valuable information at his feet; with all the tenderness of charitable England aiding him in his efforts, and ministering to his needs; with all the liberality of republican Europe rejoicing in his dignities as a man and a brother; and with all the science of enlightened Europe directing his opinions on the subject of the materials of the sun, and the origin of his species; if, I say, a nan so circumstanced, assisted, and informed, living besides in the richest country of the globe, and, from his youth upwards, having been in the habit of 'seeing that he had value for his money,' cannot, as the upshot and net result of all, now afford to pay me tenpence a month -or an annual half-sovereign-for my literary labour, in Heaven's name, let him buy the best reading he can for twopence-halfpenny. For that sum, I clearly perceive he can at once provide himself with two penny illustrated newspapers and one halfpenny one-full of art, sentiment, and the Tichborne trial. He can buy a quarter of the dramatic works of Shakespeare, or a whole novel of Sir Walter Scott's. Good value for his money, he thinks!-reads one of them through, and in all probability loses some five years of the eyesight of his old age; which he does not, with all his Lancashire ingenuity, reckon as part of the price of his cheap book. But how has he read? There is an act of "Midsummer Night's Dream" printed in a page. Steadily and dutifully, as a student should, he reads his page. The lines slip past his eyes and mind, like sand in an hour-glass; he has some dim idea at the end of the act that he has been reading about fairies, and flowers, and asses. Does he know what a fairy is? Certainly not. Does he know what a flower is? He has perhaps never seen one wild, or happy, in his life. Does he even know-quite distinctly, inside and out-what an ass is?" The Slade professorship on art, arising from a bequest by the late Felix Slade, and worth between £300 and £400 per annum, was again conferred on Mr Ruskin in 1876. He has held this important professorship since its foundation in 1869. Mr Ruskin, while staying in Edinburgh in 1853, attended St John's Free Church, and heard Dr Guthrie preach. This divine was gratified one day at receiving the three volumes of his "Stones of Venice" from their distinguished author. The accompanying note was as follows: "Saturday, 26th, 1853. "I found a little difficulty in writing the words on the first page, wondering whether you would think the affectionate' misused or insincere. But I made up my mind at last to write what I felt-believing that you must be accustomed to people's getting very seriously and truly attached to you, almost at first sight, and therefore would believe me. "You asked me, the other evening, some kind questions about my father. He was an Edinburgh boy, and in answer to some account by me of the pleasure I had had in hearing you, and in the privilege of knowing you, as also of your exertions in the cause of the Edinburgh poor, he desires to send you the enclosed-to be applied by you in such manner as you may think fittest for the good of his native city. I have added slightly to my father's trust. I wish I could have done so more largely, but my profession of fault-finding with the world in general is not a lucrative one.-Always respectfully and affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN." In April 1876 Mr Ruskin finished the restoration of a spring of water between Croydon and Epsom, by erecting a tablet over it. About £500 was spent upon it altogether, converting what was a dirty pond into a clear pool of running water, fed from the springs below the chalk. The inscription is as follows: "In obedience to the Giver of Life, of the brooks and fruits that feed it, of the peace that ends it, may this well be kept sacred for the service of men, flocks, and flowers, and by kindness called Margaret's Well. This pool was beautified and endowed by John Ruskin, Esq., M.A., LL.D." The pool is situated by the highway, and is surrounded by trees and flowers. The dedication is a beautiful tribute to his mother, whose Christian name was Margaret. Mr Ruskin is responsible for the founding of the company or guild of St George. An estate called Abbeydale is being cultivated by companions on those principles, by which its members may truly become healthy, wealthy, and wise. One of his theories is the abolition of interest and rent, which he calls the great devil's law of theft by the rich from the poor, in the two terrific forms, either of buying men's tools and making them pay for the loan of them (interest), or buying men's lands, and making them pay for the produce of them (rent). His tenant farmers at Abbeydale are to regard themselves "in the spirit of a body of monks gathered for missionary purposes." Their ranks, he tells them, will not be thinned by disease or famine, and the simple question for each of them every day will be, not how they or their families shall live, but how much good service they can do to their country. In March 1878 Mr Ruskin was prostrated by a severe illness consequent upon his labours preparatory to an exhibition of his Turner drawings in New Bond Street. The introduction to his illustrative notes on these drawings contains the following interesting passage: "Morning breaks as I write along those Coniston Fells, and the level mists, motionless and grey beneath the rose of the moorlands, veil the lower woods, and the sleeping village, and the long lawns by the lake shore. Oh, that some one had but told me, in my youth, when all my heart seemed to be set on these colours and clouds that appear for a little while and |