the various social ideals then popular, and to propose his own.  He had already done something of the sort in “Unto this Last”; but “Time and Tide” is much more complete, and the result of seven years’ further thought and experience.  His “Fors Clavigera” is a continuation of these letters, but written at a time when other work and ill health broke in upon his strength.  “Time and Tide” is not only the statement of his social scheme as he saw it in his central period, but, written as these letters were—­at a stroke, so to speak—­condensed in exposition and simple in language, they deserve the most careful reading by the student of Ruskin.

[Footnote 13:  During February, March and April, 1867, and published in the Manchester Examiner and Leeds Mercury.]

Before this work was ended, Carlyle had come back from Mentone to Chelsea, and was begging his friend, in the warmest terms, to come and see him.  Shortly afterward, a passage which Ruskin would not retract gave offence to Carlyle.  But the difference was healed, and later years reveal the sage of Chelsea as kindly and affectionate as ever.  This friendship between the two greatest writers of their age, between two men of vigorous individuality, outspoken opinions, and widely different tastes and sympathies, is a fine episode in the history of both.

In May, Ruskin was invited to Cambridge to receive the honorary degree of LL.D., and to deliver the Rede Lecture.  The Cambridge Chronicle of May 24th, 1867, says:  “The body of the Senate House was quite filled with M.A.’s and ladies, principally the latter, whilst there was a large attendance of undergraduates in the galleries, who gave the lecturer a most enthusiastic reception.”  A brief report of the lecture was printed in the newspaper; but it was not otherwise published, and the manuscript seems to have been mislaid for thirty years.  I take the liberty of copying the opening sentences as a specimen of that Academical oratory which Mr. Ruskin then adopted, and used habitually in his earlier lectures at Oxford.

The title of the discourse was “The Relation of National Ethics to National Arts.”

“In entering on the duty to-day entrusted to me, I should hold it little respectful to my audience if I disturbed them by expression of the diffidence which they know that I must feel in first speaking in this Senate House; diffidence which might well have prevented me from accepting such duty, but ought not to interfere with my endeavour simply to fulfil it.  Nevertheless, lest the direction which I have been led to give to my discourse, and the narrow limits within which I am compelled to confine the treatment of its subject may seem in anywise inconsistent with the purpose of the founder of this Lecture—­or with the expectations of those by whose authority I am appointed to deliver it, let me at once say that I obeyed their command, not thinking myself able to teach any dogma in the philosophy of the arts,