which could be of any new interest to the members of this University:  but only that I might obtain the sanction of their audience, for the enforcement upon other minds of the truth, which—­after thirty years spent in the study of art, not dishonestly, however feebly—­is manifest to me as the clearest of all that I have learned, and urged upon me as the most vital of all I have to declare.”

He then distinguished between true and false art, the true depending upon sincerity, whether in literature, music or the formative arts:  he reinforced his old doctrine of the dignity of true imagination as the attribute of healthy and earnest minds; and energetically attacked the commercial art-world of the day, and the notion that drawing-schools were to be supported for the sake of the gain they would bring to our manufacturers.

In this lecture we see the germ of the ideas, as well as the beginning of the style, of the Oxford Inaugural course, and the “Eagle’s Nest”; something quite different in type from the style and teaching of the addresses to working men, or to mixed popular audiences at Edinburgh or Manchester, or even at the Royal Institution.  At this latter place, on June 4th, Sir Henry Holland in the chair, he lectured on “The Present State of Modern Art, with reference to advisable arrangement of the National Gallery,” repeating much of what he had said in “Time and Tide” about the taste for the horrible and absence of true feeling for pure and dignified art in the theatrical shows of the day, and in the admiration for Gustave Dore, then a new fashion.  Mr. Ruskin could never endure that the man who had illustrated Balzac’s “Contes Drolatiques” should be chosen by the religious public of England as the exponent of their sacred ideals.

In July after a short visit to Huntly Burn near Abbotsford, he went to Keswick for a few weeks, from whence he wrote the rhymed letters to his cousin at home, quoted (with the date wrongly given as 1857) in “Praeterita” to illustrate his “heraldic character” of “Little Pigs” and to shock exoteric admirers.  Like, for example, Rossetti and Carlyle, Ruskin was fond of playful nicknames and grotesque terms of endearment.  He never stood upon his dignity with intimates; and was ready to allow the liberties he took, much to the surprise of strangers.

He reached Keswick by July 4, and spent his time chiefly in walks upon the hills, staying at the Derwentwater Hotel.  He wrote: 

     “Keswick, 19th July, ’67, Afternoon, 1/2 past 3.

     “My dearest Mother,

“As this is the last post before Sunday I send one more line to say I’ve had a delightful forenoon’s walk—­since 1/2 past ten—­by St. John’s Vale, and had pleasant thoughts, and found one of the most variedly beautiful torrent beds I ever saw in my life; and I feel that I gain strength, slowly but certainly, every day.  The great good of the place is that I can be content without going