to present him with their Gold Medal in acknowledgment of his services to the cause of architecture; and during his journey official announcement of the award reached him.  He dictated from Assisi (June 12, 1874) a letter to Sir Gilbert Scott, explaining why he declined the honour intended him.  He said in effect that if it had been offered at a time when he had been writing on architecture it would have been welcome; but it was not so now that he felt all his efforts to have been in vain and the profession as a body engaged in work—­such as the “restoration” of ancient buildings—­with which he had no sympathy.  It had been represented to him that his refusal to accept a Royal Medal would be a reflection upon the Royal donor.  To which he replied: 

“Having entirely loyal feelings towards the Queen, I will trust to her Majesty’s true interpretation of my conduct; but if formal justification of it be necessary for the public, would plead that if a Peerage or Knighthood may without disloyalty be refused, surely much more the minor grace proceeding from the monarch may be without impropriety declined by any of her Majesty’s subjects who wish to serve her without reward, under the exigency of peculiar circumstances.”

It was only the term before that Prince Leopold had been at Oxford, a constant attendant on Ruskin’s lectures, and a visitor to his drawing school.  The gentle prince, with his instinct for philanthropy, was not to be deterred by the utterances of “Fors” from respecting the genius of the Professor; and the Professor, with his old-world, cavalier loyalty, readily returned the esteem and affection of his new pupil.  A sincere friendship was formed, lasting until the Prince’s death.

In June, 1875, Princess Alice and her husband, with Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold, were at Oxford.  Ruskin had just made arrangements completing his gifts to the University galleries and schools.  The Royal party showed great interest in the Professor and his work.  The Princess, the Grand Duke of Hesse, and Prince Leopold acted as witnesses to the deed of gift, and Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold accepted the trusteeship.

With all the Slade Professor’s generosity, the Ruskin drawing school, founded in these fine galleries to which he had so largely contributed, in a palatial hall handsomely furnished, and hung with Tintoret and Luini, Burne-Jones and Rossetti, and other rare masters, ancient and modern; with the most interesting examples to copy—­at the most convenient of desks, we may add—­yet in spite of it all, the drawing school was not a popular institution.  When the Professor was personally teaching, he got some fifteen or twenty—­if not to attend, at any rate to join.  But whenever the chief attraction could not be counted on, the attendance sank to an average of two or three.  The cause was simple.  An undergraduate is supposed to spend his morning in lectures, his afternoon in taking exercise, and his evening