recognised by various commissions and committees on artistic subjects. On the subject of the National Gallery Ruskin wrote at this time several letters and pamphlets. Turner, who had a warm regard for both the Ruskins, had appointed the son one of his executors. Foreseeing the litigation that ensued, Ruskin declined to act. But when at last the estate came out of chancery, Ruskin undertook the arrangement of the works which passed to the nation, and in this connection compiled several catalogues. The labour of sorting the nineteen thousand sketches was enormous. The arrangement of the Turner drawings which still obtains at the National Gallery is Ruskin's, but he protested, frequently and ineffectually, against the place allotted to them.
These were not the only by-works which interrupted the completion of 'Modern Painters.' Ruskin saw Venice crumbling away before his eyes and her pictures uncared for. He set himself, before it was too late, to trace the lines of her fading beauty, and 'to record, as far as I may, the warning which seems to me to be uttered by every one of the fast-gaining waves that beat, like passing bells, against the" Stones of Venice." ' With regard to this book, published 1851-3, Ruskin often complained that no one ever believed a word of his moral lessons deduced from the history of Venice as recorded in her monuments. But there has never been more than one opinion about the noble eloquence and haunting beauty of the descriptive passages, or about the permanent value of his work among the earlier masters of Venetian painting and sculpture and the earlier school of Venetian architecture. Ruskin's eminence as a writer on architectural subjects received some official recognition in 1874, when a proposal was made to confer the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects upon him. He was travelling in Italy at the time, and was indignant at various restorations then in progress. He declined the honour, on the ground that architects were among the worst offenders (Ruskin Union Journal, March 1900). 'Stones of Venice,' which was fully illustrated by the author, and supplemented by a series of 'Examples of Venetian Architecture,' drawn on a larger scale, cost him an infinity of labour, of which he has left several records in his letters. 'I went through so much hard, dry, mechanical toil at Venice,' he writes to Norton, 'that I quite lost, before I left it, the charm of the place. Analysis is an abominable business. I am quite sure that people who work out subjects thoroughly are disagreeable wretches. One only feels as one should when one doesn't know much about the matter.' The 'Stones of Venice' and volume ii. of ' Modern Painters 'gave an impetus to many art movements of the day. Such were the Arundel Society, which, largely under the direction of his friend Mr. Edmund Oldfield, did much to preserve records of the wall paintings of Italy ; and the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, which may be said to have taken as its motto Ruskin's words, 'Do not let us talk of restoration ; the theory is a lie from beginning to end.' The enlargement of the National Gallery, by its now rich collection of early religious paintings, is also in no small measure owing to the persistence of Ruskin's advocacy and the influence of his works.
From another point of view the gist of 'Stones of Venice' was the chapter (vi. in vol. ii.) ' On the Nature of Gothic Architecture : and herein of the true functions of the workman in art.' This chapter, in which Ruskin takes as the touchstone of architectural styles their compatibility with the happy life of the workman, struck an answering chord in William Morris [q. v. Suppl.] A reprint of the chapter was one of the earlier productions of the Kelmscott press (1892). 'In future days.' said Morris in a preface thereto, ' it will be considered as one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of the century. To some of us, when we first read it, it seemed to point out a new road on which the world should travel.' It was in this spirit that the chapter had been reprinted in 1854 at the instance of Dr. F. J. Furnivall (see his preface to ' Two Letters ' from Ruskin to F. D. Maurice privately printed 1890) for distribution at the opening meeting of the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street. 'Many of our men afterwards told me,' says Dr. Furnivall, 'how toucht they had been by Ruskin's eloquent appreciation of their class.' Ruskin's acquaintance with Maurice had sprung from correspondence on a pamphlet on the reunion of Protestant Christians which Ruskin had put out in 1851 under the title 'Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds 'a title which drew down upon the author an indignant remonstrance from a Scottish farmer who considered that his shilling had been obtained on false pretences. Ruskin, though not sympathising with Maurice's theology, warmly approved his social labours, and took charge from the commencement of the drawing classes at the college. He impressed D. G. Rossetti also into this service, and himself attended regularly until May 1858, after which time he gave only occasional lectures or informal talks. Rus-
