catching the first rays of the rising sun, and the last rays of the sun as it departs.. They give a grace, a meaning, a dignity, to all the rest of the earth over which they brood. Above all earthly shadows, above the countersecting ranges of earthly differences, are seen the everlasting lights beyond-The Ancient of Days whose garment is white as snow,' and 'the great multitude clothed with white robes with palms in their hands. "

After such glowing images from Nature, it is hard to return to the details of Art. Let what remained to be said wait for a more fitting time.

If anything here written, too hastily, alas! shall help the sons and daughters of the West to find more pleasure in the simple love of nature, or to appreciate the work of the truth-loving artist; it may be that the painter shall ere long be a more welcome guest in the farm-house; and that, while he ministers to the enjoyment of others, his daily toil will be cheered by encouragement in the path of Truth, in which alone he finds his own joy.

In other words, I venture to utter the hope that Art is about to take its place as a humanizing element in the education of the Middle Classes; and that every year will show more plainly that the Arts are neither a mere luxury reserved for the wealthy nor an accomplishment intended to minister to personal vanity, but are among the means given to us to call forth admiration of what is good and pure.

In conclusion, the following passages, from the pen of our great Poet of Ottery, may serve to gather up the whole subject, and to show the intimate connexion between Art and Literature:

"Something analogous to the materials and structure of modern poetry I seem to have noticed in our common landscape-painters. Their foregrounds and intermediate distances are comparatively unattractive; while the main interest of the landscape is thrown into the background, where mountains and torrents and castles forbid the eye to proceed, and nothing tempts it to trace its way back again." &c.

"The two cardinal points of poetry-the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination; the sudden charm which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both; these are the Poetry of Nature.

"The Poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends and (as it were) fuses each into each, by that magical power to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of Imagination. This power-first put in action by the will and understanding, and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, control-reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea with the image; the individual with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objects;. and, while it blends and harmonises the natural and the artificial, still subordinates Art to Nature." *

May we not say of Painting, as of Poetry,

"GOOD SENSE is the BODY of poetic genius, FANCY its DRAPERY, MOTION its LIFE, and IMAGINATION the SOUL that is everywhere and in each, and forms all into one graceful and intelligent Whole." *

POSTSCRIPT.

Mr. Ruskin's 'Two Paths' reached me, in the midst of pressing engagements, the very day after I had sent off the foregoing paper to the printer. After such hasty perusal as time has permitted, I think I may feel confident that nothing which has been said above is essentially at variance with the principles so earnestly set forth by Mr. Ruskin, in a volume which gives increasing proof, if proof were needed, of his own love of Truth.

I extract a few passages which explain, much better than I have done, what Art is, and on what good Art depends.

The principle which seems to run through the book is, that there is no real improvement to be looked for in Decoration, except from the study of the living form, whether of the human figure, or of animal or vegetable nature. Thus does Mr. Ruskin, after a quarter of a century of devoted labour, find himself in harmony with the truly great workers and teachers in Art who have gone before him, and yet, in the best sense, consistent with himself. "Fine Art," as he truly says, "remains what it was two thousand years ago, in the days of Phidias: two thousand years hence it will be, in all its principles, and in all its great effects, just the same."

MEANING OF TERMS, MANUFACTURE-ART-
FINE ART.

"It would be well if all students would keep clearly in their mind the real distinction between these words which we use so often, 'Manufacture,' ' Art,' and 'Fine Art.'

““MANUFACTURE' is, according to the etymology and right use of the word, 'the making of anything by hands,'-directly or

indirectly, with or without the help of instruments or machines. Anything proceeding from the hands of man is manufacture; but it must have proceeded from his hands only, acting mechanically, and uninfluenced at the moment by direct intelligence.

"Then, secondly, ART is the operation of the hand and the intelligence of man together: there is an art of making machinery; there is an art of building ships; an art of making carriages; and so on. All these-properly called Arts, but not Fine Artsare pursuits in which the hand of man and his head go together, working at the same instant.

"Then, FINE ART is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together." (р. 57.)

GOOD ART IS NOT MERELY IMITATIVE.

"Good Art rarely imitates; it usually only describes or explains. But good Art always consists of two things:-First, the observation of fact; secondly, the manifesting of human design and authority in the way that fact is told. Great and good Art must unite the two." -(p. 18.)

DESIGN IMPLIES SELECTION.

The first principle of all good Art having been shown to be Love of Nature, Mr. Ruskin adds that the second must be Design. (p. 43.)

"A looking-glass does not design: it receives and communicates indiscriminately all that passes before it. A painter designs when he chooses some things, refuses others, and arranges all." -(p. 43).

THE TWO PRINCIPLES OF GREAT ART.

"Remember always you have two characters in which all greatness of Art consists. First, the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus great Art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life: for, as the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world about him, first sees nothing clearly, looks nothing fairly in the face, and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent and unescapable force of the things that he would not foresee, and could not understand; so the noble person looking the facts of the world full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent in consummating their good and restraining their evil.

SO

"Thus, in human life, you have the two fields of rightful toil for ever distinguished, yet for ever associated; Truth first-Plan, or Design, founded thereon: in Art, yo have the same twoO fields for ever distinguished, for ever associated; Truth firstPlan, or Design, founded thereon." (p. 46.)

THREE GREAT SCHOOLS OF ART.

"There have only yet appeared in the world three Schools of perfect Art-schools, that is to say, which did their work as well as it seems possible to do it. These are the Athenian, Florentine, and Venetian. 1st. The Athenian proposed to itself the perfect representation of the form of the human body. 2ndly. The Florentine School proposed to itself the perfect expression of human emotion, and the showing of the effects of passion in the human face and gesture. 3rdly. The Venetian School proposed to itself the representation of the effect of colour and shade on all things; chiefly on the human form." -(р. 19.)

....

Mr. Ruskin also distinguishes three great Periods of noble conventional Decoration-the Greek, the Early Gothic, and the Italian. (p. 80.)

In these divisions there is nothing inconsistent with what I have stated. The Athenian School corresponds with the Greek, the Florentine and the Venetian are two branches of what I have named as Italian. Certainly I ought to have ranged Titian with the three great men to whom I referred, who are also selected by Mr. Ruskin (p. 29) as the types of the Florentine School; but my object was purely elementary and general, with a view to readers to whom the whole subject might be new.

DESIGNERS CANNOT BE MANUFACTURED, ANY MORE THAN
WHEAT CAN BE MANUFACTURED.

...

"If designing could be taught, all the world would learn. My men continually come to me, in my drawing-class- Please, Sir, show us how to design.' .... Alas! I could as soon tell you how to make or manufacture an ear of wheat, as to make a good Artist of any kind. I can analyse the wheat very learnedly for you; tell you there is starch in it, and carbon, and silex. I can give you starch, and charcoal, and flint; but you are as far from your ear of wheat as you were before. All that can possibly be done for any one who wants ears of wheat is to show them where to find grains of wheat, and how to sow them; and then with patience, in Heaven's time, the ears will come or will perhaps come-ground and weather permitting. So, in this matter of making Artists: first, you must find your Artist in the grain, then you must plant him, fence and weed the field about him; and, with patience, ground and weather permitting, you may get an Artist out of him-not otherwise. And what I have to speak to you about to-night is mainly the ground and the weather, it being the first and quite most material question in this matter, whether.....the ground and weather of England in general suit wheat." (p. 115.)