denouncing all such persons as these. But we have yet to learn that Kant was a less practical thinker than Plato, or that Plato was less a metaphysician than Kant; while we look in vain for affected thinkers among the Fichtes and Hamiltons of recent times. If Mr. Ruskin had given the names of those whom he advises prudent people to brush out of their way "like spiders," we might have agreed with him or we might not. But his words will be understood as, on the whole, deprecating the study of metaphysics, and as such we regret them. It would of course be absurd to enter here upon a eulogium or defence of the most sublime studies, theology excepted, in which the intellect of man can be engaged: but why should Mr. Ruskin thus gratuitously strive to alienate that audience, which, of all others, is most fitted to learn of him, and of which it is the highest compliment that we can pay him to say that he is worthy to be the teacher?

A few more instances of unwariness or inaccuracy might be culled from Mr. Ruskin's works. But considering the voluminousness of his writings, it is altogether absurd to view them in any other light than that in which we regard the noddings of Homer, or the grammatical and geographical slips of Shakspeare. They are, for one thing; utterly insufficient to furnish an excuse for the manner in which critics have treated Ruskin. We deliberately assert that several of these have earned the just indignation of Ruskin's audience, that is, of the educated world. The writer in the Quarterly whose absolute blindness to the whole meaning of Ruskin in his system of criticism, we think we have already shown, and who is understood to be no less imposing a personage than Sir Charles Eastlake, not only says that his intellectual qualities are guided by no moral principle whatever, that the truth of his conclusions

is to him "no object in the process of reasoning," but adds that "his writings have all the qualities of premature old age-its coldness, callousness, and contraction." It is our firm belief that there is not, in the whole range of literature, an expression more amazing, more incomprehensible, than this last. We do not answer it: certainly not. We only request readers, first to read any volume or any page of Ruskin's, and then to ponder, one by one, the words, coldness, callousness, contraction, as a description of the author's spirit. But the charge of want of controlling principle, of regardlessness of truth in conclusions, amounts to a charge of utter falsity; if our verdict is affirmative, we convict Mr. Ruskin of being, not only a scoundrel, but a scoundrel of the deepest dye, at once false and hypocritical. If all Mr. Ruskin has ever alleged against living artists were concentrated into one thunderbolt, it would fall like a rocket compared with this. To make such an accusation without ample and indubitable proof was surely to run the risk of being excluded from all honorable society. And what is Sir Charles's proof? Why, in the first place, we hear of Ruskin's "revilings of all that is most sacred in the past, and his insults to all who are most sensitive in the present." This about reviling the sacred past is, let us plainly say, insufferable drivel. Ruskin feels, and has expressly said, that the dead can be pained by no criticism; and it is an insult to common sense, to call in question a man's moral integrity, because he rubs the gilt from ancient names. As for insults to the living, the reference is, no doubt, chiefly to the pamphlets on the Academy Exhibitions. It so happens that we agree with nearly every word of the first of these, which alone could be charged with severity, and with no word of it more cordially, according to our humble capacity, than that which condemns Sir Charles Eastlake's

insipid and mawkish Beatrice. There is nothing in the pamphlet which a gentleman might not have written, and which gentlemen might not accept. It may perhaps be, that artists in general will not thank the president, for leading us to believe, that they all take to whimpering, when Ruskin, never casting a shadow of reflection on their moral qualities, points boldly and bluntly out their artistic shortcomings. But there is another department of proof, by which Sir Charles would establish Mr. Ruskin's complete moral worthlessness. He quotes several of those expressions in which the latter reflects on the want of faith exhibited, as he believes, at the present time, in the inanity of fashionable amusements, and such things, and we are to take these expressions as satisfactory evidence of "malice, bitterness, and uncharitableness." Readers must refer to pp. 405, 406, vol. 196, of the Quarterly Review for this extraordinary passage. It is Sir Charles's last daring attempt to set reason, sense, and even credibility, at defiance. We shall not ask whether there may be reasons for attacking the faithless, frivolous and selfish, besides malice, bitterness and uncharitableness. Nor is it worth while to ask the honorable Sir Charles why he has not seen fit to quote, say, the appeals made by Ruskin on behalf of the Swiss peasants, as well as the attacks on the follies of London. But is it not delightful to figure the indignation of this virtuous president, against two such moral monsters as Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Thackeray? By bringing so grave and definite a charge against Mr. Ruskin, and supporting it as he has done, Sir Charles Eastlake puts himself in a position which few men would like to occupy!

The pert, penny-a-lining flippancy, with which the Edinburgh Review attacked Ruskin might best be treated with silent contempt. But there is one point in its article, to

which allusion may be made. The reviewer notices that autobiographical passage to which we had occasion to refer; and his mode of noticing it is a passing sneer. Now it admits of no doubt whatever, that the question. as to how a critic's system is connected with his natural endowment, is always of importance; and the question is in the case of Ruskin of more express and essential moment than in any other. When you clear away all else, you find that the grand, central affirmation, which he makes in the face of the world, is, that he has brought into view a certain number of the facts of nature. From this, all his teaching branches out: on this, all his theories are, in one sense or other, based. Take from him the circumstance of having made a truthful interpretation, an authentic revelation, of nature, and you take from him everything: leave him this, and it is, as we said, impossible, on any hypothesis, that his system can be destroyed, save in the way in which a sterling currency is destroyed when it is re-stamped. This being so, it was of the last importance for the world to know that he had been pre-eminently fitted, by original endowment, for making observations upon natural appearance; and to have turned aside, when it came directly in his way to give information on the point, would have been to display an unmanly and effeminate sensitiveness. In the sneer of the Edinburgh reviewer, therefore, there was a twofold insult: to the nation, whom he pretended to instruct: to the man, whom he pretended to understand.

But perhaps neither Sir Charles Eastlake's downright accusation of malice, uncharitableness, and regardlessness of truth, in one word, of total reprobacy and worthlessness, nor the piteous frivolity of the last-mentioned imbecile, can be pronounced, on the whole, so base and beggarly, as one

of the attacks, occurring incidentally in a rambling kind of article, made upon Ruskin in Blackwood. The writer of course discovers indubitable inconsistency in Ruskin's works. Since, in order to know whether a system is consistent or not, you must be of sufficient mental compass to embrace it, as a whole, within your sphere of intellectual vision, we should probably have to make important modifications in the view we have presented of Ruskin and his system, if critics of a certain order did not find both inconsistent. Having discovered his inconsistency, the critic proceeds to account for it. Here imitation, and the finish resulting only in imitation, and both the finish and the imitation that end only in themselves, are decried; there truth is exalted, and the finish subservient to truth is praised. Over this remarkable contradiction, the expert critic brings his little lamp. He has found it! Ruskin wanted to praise when he liked and blame when he liked, according as whim or malice prompted, and so he put in two different rules, that he might use the one at one time and the other at another. The fear and dread of such terrible critics as this small ebon dwarf lay upon Ruskin, and so he contrived an elaborate trick, he uttered a deliberate lie, that he might have a weapon against them in the day of battle. We hope it was not Professor Aytoun who propounded this theory. The writers in Blackwood toady him so pitiably, that neither general rumor, nor internal evidence, can make you perfectly certain that an article is by him and not an imitation. By discovering what a man finds in the character or system of another, one is led with peculiar accuracy to the truth concerning the essential nature of himself. We should experience a feeling of strange and painful repulsion from the man, in whose breast there dwelt a sympathy, casting so foul and dingy a light