Before recording some of the achievements of this time and glancing at the inciting causes of the transition which marks the era we have now reached, let us note the demands made upon Mr. Ruskin's thought and labor by universities and public institutions, whose audiences desired to have him appear before them in person and address them upon topics in which he and they were interested. These appearances on the lecture platform were now numerous, since many throughout the kingdom were eager to see and know the man whose art criticisms, principles that govern the beautiful, and stimulating thought on all subjects, had made so deep an impression on the reflecting minds of the age. His earliest appearance on the rostrum was at Edinburgh, where he delivered four lectures before the Philosophical Institution, chiefly on landscape-painters and on Christian art, with a plea for the use of Gothic in domestic architecture. Subsequent appearances were at Manchester, where he spoke on the Political Economy of Art and the relation of art to manufactures; at the South Kensington Museum, London, which had just been opened; and later at Oxford, where further on in his career he became Slade Professor of Art in his own University. From the accounts of these public lectures we get opinions as to the personal appearance of Ruskin at the period which add to our knowledge of him from paintings, drawings, and photographs, though not a few of these accounts vary from those given us in books, chiefly sketched by his lady friends and correspondents. The more trusty of the contemporary pictures speak of him as having "light, sand-colored hair; his face more red than pale; the mouth well cut, with a good deal of decision in its curve, though somewhat wanting in sustained dignity and strength; an aquiline nose; his forehead by no means broad or massive, but the brows full and well bound together; the eye [says the observer from whom we are quoting] we could not see, in consequence of the shadows that fell upon his [Ruskin's] countenance from the lights overhead, but we are sure that the poetry and passion we looked for almost in vain in other features must be concentrated here." Miss Mitford speaks of him at this time as "eloquent and distinguished-looking, fair and slender, with a gentle playfulness, and a sort of pretty waywardness that was quite charming." Another, a visitor at his London home, characterizes him as "emotional and nervous, with a soft, genial eye, a mouth thin and severe, and a voice that, though rich and sweet, yet had a tendency to sink into a plaintive and hopeless tone." Later on in years we have this verbal portrait from a disciple of the great art-teacher, occurring in an inaugural address delivered before the Ruskin Society of Glasgow: "That spare, stooping figure, the rough-hewn, kindly face, with its mobile, sensitive mouth, and clear deep eyes, so sweet and honest in repose, so keen and earnest and eloquent in debate!"