He ought to have studied nature, and to have loved the study, or he can never estimate, and never feel, that _truth_ of effect which is the great aim of the artist. Mr Ruskin's works will help to shame out of the field all such half-informed and conventional criticism, the mere connoisseurship of the picture gallery. On the other hand, they will train men who have always been delighted spectators of nature to be also attentive observers. Our critics will learn how to admire, and mere admirers will learn how to criticise. Thus a public will be educated; and here, if anywhere, we may confidently assert that the art will prosper in proportion as there is an intelligent public to reward it. We like that bold enterprise of Mr Ruskin's which distinguishes the first volume, that daring enumeration of the great palpable facts of nature--the sky, the sea, the earth, the foliage--which the painter has to represent. His descriptions are often made indistinct by a multitude of words; but there is light in the haze--there is a genuine love of nature felt through them. This is almost the only point of sympathy we feel with Mr Ruskin; it is the only hold his volumes have had over us whilst perusing them; we may be, therefore, excused if we present here to our readers a specimen or two of his happier descriptions of nature. We will give them _the Cloud_ and _the Torrent_. They will confess that, after reading Mr Ruskin's description of the clouds, their first feeling will be an irresistible impulse to throw open the window, and look upon them again as they roll through the sky. The torrent may not be so near at hand, to make renewed acquaintance with. We must premise that he has been enforcing his favourite precept, the minute, and faithful, and perpetual study of nature. He very justly scouts the absurd idea that trees and rocks and clouds are, under any circumstances, to be _generalised_--so that a tree is not to stand for an oak or a poplar, a birch or an elm, but for a _general tree_. If a tree is at so great a distance that you cannot distinguish what it is, as you cannot paint more than you see, you must paint it indistinctly. But to make a purposed indistinctness where the kind of tree would be very plainly seen is a manifest absurdity. So, too, the forms of clouds should be studied, and as much as possible taken from nature, and not certain _general clouds_ substituted at the artist's pleasure.