to the meanings you put into them, never anywhere. All these things I not only "agree" with, but wd use Thor's Hammer, if I had it, to enforce and put in action on this rotten world. Well done, well done!-and pluck up a heart, and continue ag" and ag". And don't say "most gt thots are dressed in shrouds": many, many are the Phoebus Apollo celestial arrows you still have to shoot into the foul Pythons, and poisonous abominable Megatheriums and Plesiosaurians that go staggering ab', large as cathedrals, in our sunk Epoch ag"....

THE

'A professorship

At Basil! Since you see so much in it,
And think my life was reasonably drained
Of life's delights to render me a match
For duties arduous as such post demands,-
Be it far from me to deny my power.'

BROWNING'S Paracelsus.

HE main object of this journey was, however, not to study mythology, but to continue the revision of old estimates of architecture, and after seventeen years to look with a fresh eye at the subjects of 'Stones of Venice.' The churches and monuments of Verona had been less thoroughly studied than those of Venice, and now they were threatened with imminent restoration. On May 25th Mr. Ruskin wrote: It is very strange that I have just been in time-after 17 years' delay-to get the remainder of what I wanted from the red tomb of which my old drawing hangs in the passage'-(the Castelbarco monument; the drawing is reproduced in Studies in Both Arts.') 'To-morrow they put up scaffolding to retouch, and I doubt not, spoil it for evermore.' He succeeded in getting a delay of ten days, to enable him to paint the tomb in its original state; but before he went home it had its new white cap on and looked like a Venetian gentleman in a pantaloon's mask.' He brought away one of the actual stones of the old roof.

On June 3 he wrote I am getting on well with all my

own work; and much pleased with some that Mr. Bunney is doing for me; so that really I expect to carry off a great deal of Verona. . . . The only mischief of the place is its being too rich. Stones, flowers, mountains-all equally asking one to look at them; a history to every foot of ground, and a picture on every foot of wall; frescoes fading away in the neglected streets-like the colours of the dolphin.'

As assistants in this enterprise of recording the monuments of Venice and Verona, and of recording them more fully and in a more interesting way than by photography, he took with him Arthur Burgess and John Bunney, his former pupils. Mr. Burgess was the subject of a memoir by Mr. Ruskin in the Century Guild Hobby Horse (April 1887), appreciating his talents and lamenting his loss. Mr. Bunney, who had travelled with Mr. Ruskin in Switzerland in 1863, and had lately lived near Florence, thenceforward settled in Venice, where he died in 1882, after completing his great work, the St. Mark's now in the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield. memoir of him by Mr. Wedderburn appeared in the catalogue of the Venice Exhibition, at the Fine Art Society's Gallery in November 1882.

*

A

At Venice Mr. Ruskin had met his old friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, and Count Giberto Borromeo, whom he visited at Milan on his way home, with deep interest in the Luinis and in the authentic bust of St. Carlo, so closely resembling Mr. Ruskin himself. Another noteworthy encounter is recorded in a letter of May 4th.

'As I was drawing in the square this morning, in a lovely, quiet, Italian light, there came up the poet Longfellow with his little daughter-a girl of 12 or 13, with springy-curled flaxen hair, curls, or waves, that wouldn't come out in damp, I mean. They stayed talking beside me some time. I don't think it was a very vain thought that came over me, that if a photograph could have been taken of the beautiful square of

* Whose book on the English in Italy (from Venetian documents) was shortly to be published, with funds supplied by Mr. Ruskin.

Verona, in that soft light, with Longfellow and his daughter talking to me at my work-some people both in England and America would have liked copies of it.'

Readers of 'Fors' will recognise an incident noted on the 18th of June. Yesterday, it being quite cool, I went for a walk; and as I came down from a rather quiet hillside, a mile or two out of town, I past a house where the women were at work spinning the silk off the cocoons. There was a sort of whirring sound as in an English mill; but at intervals they sang a long sweet chant, all together, lasting about two minutes-then pausing a minute and then beginning again. It was good and tender music, and the multitude of voices prevented any sense of failure, so that it was very lovely and sweet, and like the things that I mean to try to bring to pass.' For he was already meditating on the thoughts that issued in the proposals of St. George's Guild, and the daily letters of this summer are full of allusions to a scheme for a great social movement, as well as to his plans for the control of Alpine torrents and the better irrigation of their valleys. On the 2nd of June he wrote:-'I see more and more clearly every day my power of showing how the Alpine torrents may be-not subdued-but "educated." A torrent is just like a human creature. Left to gain full strength in wantonness and rage, no power can any more redeem it: but watch the channels of every early impulse, and fence them, and your torrent becomes the gentlest and most blessing of servants.'

His mother was anxious for him to come home, being persuaded that he was overworking himself in the continued heat which his letters reported. But he was loath to leave Italy, in which, he said, his work for the future lay. He made two more visits to Venice, to draw some of the sculptured details, now quickly perishing, and to make studies of Tintoret and Carpaccio. Among other friends who met him there was Mr. Holman Hunt, with whom he went round his favourite Scuola di San Rocco (1st August). Two days later he wrote :— You will never believe it; but I have actually

been trying to draw a baby. The baby which the priest is holding in the little copy of Tintoret by Edward Jones which my father liked so much, over the basin stand in his bedroom.* All the knowledge I have gained in these 17 years only makes me more full of awe and wonder at Tintoret. But it is so sad-so sad ;-no one to care for him but me, and all going so fast to ruin. He has done that infant Christ in about five minutes-and I worked for two hours in vain, and could not tell why in vain-the mystery of his touch is so great.'

Final farewell was said to Verona on the 10th of August, for the homeward journey by the St. Gothard, and Giessbach, where he found the young friend of 1866 now near her end, -and Thun, where he met Professor C. E. Norton. On the way he wrote:

'LUGANO,

'Saturday,

‘14th August, 1869.

'MY DEAREST MOTHER,

'Yesterday-exactly three months from the day on which I entered Verona to begin work, I made a concluding sketch of the old Broletto of Como, which I drew first for the 7 lampst-I know not how many years ago, and left Italy, for this time-having been entirely well and strong every day of my quarter of a year's sojourn there.

'This morning, before breakfast, I was sitting for the first time before Luini's Crucifixion: for all religious-art qualities the greatest picture south of the Alps-or rather, in Europe.

'And just after breakfast I got a telegram from my cousin George announcing that I am Professor of Art-the first-at the University of Oxford.

'Which will give me as much power as I can well use-and would have given pleasure to my poor father-and therefore to me-once. It will make no difference in my general plans,

* Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones had been in Venice in June, 1862; the artist, then young and comparatively unknown, with a commission to copy for Mr. Ruskin.