If, instead of being a man of genius, delighting and elevating the mind of a nation, he were a blacksmith, he might leave his tools and his trade to his children without any limit; or if, with the produce of his play, he purchased a cow, or a cabin, no man could lay a claim upon either. But he must be taxed for being a man of talent; and men of no talent must be entitled, by an absurd law and a palpable injustice, to tear the fruit of his intellectual supremacy from his children after ten short years of possession. No man leaves Paris without regret, and without a wish for the liberty and peace of its people. MR RUSKIN'S WORKS. _Modern Painters_, vol. i. Second edition.----_Modern Painters_, vol. ii.----_The Seven Lamps of Architecture._----_The Stones of Venice._----_Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds._ By JOHN RUSKIN, M.A. On the publication of the first volume of Mr Ruskin's work on Modern Painters, a notice appeared of it in this Magazine. Since that time a second volume has been published of the same work, with two other works on architecture. It is the second volume of his _Modern Painters_ which will at present chiefly engage our attention. His architectural works can only receive a slight and casual notice; on some future occasion they may tempt us into a fuller examination. Although the second volume of the _Modern Painters_ will be the immediate subject of our review, we must permit ourselves to glance back upon the first, in order to connect together the topics treated by the two, and to prevent our paper from wearing quite the aspect of a metaphysical essay; for it is the nature of the sentiment of the beautiful, and its sources in the human mind, which is the main subject of this second volume. In the first, he had entered at once into the arena of criticism, elevating the modern artists, and one amongst them in particular, at the expense of the old masters, who, with some few exceptions, find themselves very rudely handled.