lakes, with sketches of regions, including the characteristics of the soil, in which he had been reared, and talks of the note and habit of all birds that were wont to warble over him their morning song.  “The Pleasures of England,” the “Harbours of England,” and the “Art of England” further treat of his loved native land, the first of these being talks on the pleasures of learning, of faith, and of deed, illustrated by examples drawn from early English history, and the last treating of representative modern English artists, chiefly of the Pre-Raphaelite school.  “The Laws of Fesole” (1878) deals with the principles of Florentine draughtsmanship; “St. Mark’s Rest,” with the art and architecture of Venice; and “Val d’Arno,” with early Tuscan art, interspersed with the author’s accustomed ethical reflections.  “Mornings in Florence,” intended for the use of visitors to the art galleries of the beautiful city on the Arno, deals in the true artist-spirit with its famous examples of Christian art, giving prominence here also to the ethical side of the city’s history.  “In Montibus Sanctis,” and “Coeli Enarrant,” the one comprising studies of mountain form, and the other of cloud form and their visible causes, though separately published, are only reprints of the author’s larger and nobler embodiment of his views on art, in “Modern Painters.”  “The King of the Golden River,” of which we have previously spoken, is a fairy tale of much beauty, which he wrote for the “Fair Maid of Perth” whom he married, and who separated herself from him on the plea of “incompatibility.”  Playful as is the style of the story, it is not without a moral, on what constitutes true wealth and happiness.  “The Crown of Wild Olive” (1866) consists of lectures on work, traffic, and war; the latter lecture, delivered at the Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich, was also separately published under the title of “The Future of England.”  The two former, being addressed to working-men, laborers, and traders, discuss economic problems, and set forth tentatively their author’s antagonized political ethics, with which, in drawing this essay to a close, we now venture to deal.

After the magnificent work done by Ruskin in art up to his fortieth year, that he should turn, for practically the remainder of his life, to the seemingly vain and profitless task of a social reformer and regenerator of modern society, has to most men been a riddle too elusive and enigmatic to solve.  And yet, in his earlier career, had he not himself prepared us for just such a departure as he took in the sixties, for in art was he not equally revolutionary and iconoclastic, as well as personally self-willed, passionate, and impulsive?  Moreover, had not Mother Nature endowed him with the gifts of a seer and made him chivalrous as well as intensely sympathetic, while his early training inclined him to be serious, and even ascetic?  Nor were the rebuffs he met with throughout his career calculated at this stage to make him court the applause