This autumn and winter, with his first and most important course in preparation, he was still writing letters to the Daily Telegraph; being begged by Carlyle to come—­“the sight of your face will be a comfort,” says the poor old man—­and undertaking lectures at the Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich, and at the Royal Institution, London.  The Woolwich lecture, given on December 14th, was that added to later editions of the “Crown of Wild Olive,” under the title of “The Future of England.”  The other, February 4th, 1870, on “Verona and its Rivers,” involved not only a lecture on art and history and contemporary political economy, but an exhibition of the drawings which he and his assistants had made during the preceding summer.

Four days later he opened a new period in his career with his inaugural Lecture in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford.

BOOK IV

PROFESSOR AND PROPHET (1870-1900)

CHAPTER I

FIRST OXFORD LECTURES (1870-1871)

On Tuesday, 8th February, 1870, the Slade Professor’s lecture-room was crowded to over-flowing with members of the University, old and young, and their friends, who flocked to hear, and to see, the author of “Modern Painters.”  The place was densely packed long before the time; the ante-rooms were filled with personal friends, hoping for some corner to be found them at the eleventh hour; the doors were blocked open, and besieged outside by a disappointed multitude.

Professorial lectures are not usually matters of great excitement:  it does not often happen that the accommodation is found inadequate.  After some hasty arrangements Sir Henry Acland pushed his way to the table, announced that it was impossible for the lecture to be held in that place, and begged the audience to adjourn to the Sheldonian Theatre.  At last, welcomed by all Oxford, the Slade Professor appeared, to deliver his inaugural address.[21]

[Footnote 21:  The inaugural course was given Feb. 8, 16, 23; March 3, 9, 16 and 23, 1870.]

It was not strictly academic, the way he used to come in, with a little following of familiars and assistants,—­exchange recognition with friends in the audience, arrange the objects he had brought to show,—­fling off his long sleeved Master’s gown, and plunge into his discourse.  His manner of delivery had not altered much since the time of the Edinburgh Lectures.  He used to begin by reading, in his curious intonation, the carefully-written passages of rhetoric, which usually occupied only about the half of his hour.  By-and-by he would break off, and with quite another air extemporise the liveliest interpolations, describing his diagrams or specimens, restating his arguments, re-enforcing his appeal.  His voice, till then artificially cadenced, suddenly became vivacious; his gestures, at first constrained, became dramatic.  He used