“Your book—­since reviewers so swear—­may be rational,
    Still, ’tis certainly not either loyal or national;”

for it did not join in the chorus of congratulation to Prince Albert and the British public on the Great Exhibition of 1851, the apotheosis of trade and machinery.  The “Architect” finds also—­what may surprise the modern reader who has not noticed that many an able work has been thought unreadable on its first appearance—­that he cannot understand the language and ideas: 

    “Your style is so soaring—­and some it makes sore—­
    That plain folks can’t make out your strange mystical lore.”

He will allow the author to be quite right, when he finds something to agree upon; but the moment a sore point is touched, then Ruskin is “insane.”  In one respect the “Architect” hit the nail on the head:  “Readers who are not reviewers by profession can hardly fail to perceive that Ruskinism is violently inimical to sundry existing interests.”

The best men, we said, were the first to recognise Ruskin’s genius.  Let us throw into the opposite scale an opinion of more weight than the “Architect’s,” in a transcript of the original letter from Carlyle.

     “CHELSEA, March 9, 1851.

     “DEAR RUSKIN,

“I did not know yesterday till your servant was gone that there was any note in the parcel; nor at all what a feat you had done!  A loan of the gallant young man’s Memoirs was what I expected; and here, in the most chivalrous style, comes a gift of them.  This, I think, must be in the style prior to the Renaissance!  What can I do but accept your kindness with pleasure and gratitude, though it is far beyond my deserts?  Perhaps the next man I meet will use me as much below them; and so bring matters straight again!  Truly I am much obliged, and return you many hearty thanks.

“I was already deep in the ‘Stones’; and clearly purpose to hold on there.  A strange, unexpected, and I believe, most true and excellent Sermon in Stones—­as well as the best piece of schoolmastering in Architectonics; from which I hope to learn much in a great many ways.  The spirit and purport of these critical studies of yours are a singular sign of the times to me, and a very gratifying one.  Right good speed to you, and victorious arrival on the farther shore!  It is a quite new ‘Renaissance,’ I believe, we are getting into just now:  either towards new, wider manhood, high again as the eternal stars; or else into final death, and the (marsh?) of Gehenna for evermore!  A dreadful process, but a needful and inevitable one; nor do I doubt at all which way the issue will be, though which of the extant nations are to get included in it, and which is to be trampled out and abolished in the process, may be very doubtful.  God is great:  and sure enough, the changes in the ‘Construction of Sheepfolds’ as well as in other things, will require to be