It is over forty years ago that Ruskin startled the literary and artistic world with that marvellous book entitled "Modern Painters; Their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to All the Ancient Masters." The title contained the argument of the book, and it was a monumental heresy to utter at that time. Not that there was the least doubt as to its truth, but no voice had then been raised to proclaim it. The English people at that time were blind worshippers of Claude and one or two other old masters; and here was a daring youth--reminding one of David with his sling--going forth to do battle against all the received art opinions of his day, and boldly proclaiming Turner a better painter than Claude, Salvator Rosa, Gaspar Poussin, and the various Van-Somethings who had until that time held undisputed sway in conventional art circles. The young Oxford graduate was greeted with a perfect tempest of ridicule and denunciation. Every critic in the land hurled his lance at him, and every artist looked upon him with sovereign contempt. The young Oxford man, however, valiantly held his ground. He possessed genius, profound conviction, and a magnificent self-conceit; and he hurled back defiance to the whole art-clan, and rode forward. Criticism beat upon the book in vain. Everybody read it, and everybody talked about it, and it conquered criticism at last. No such sensation in the art line has been made in Ruskin's day. His teachings in the course of a few years well-nigh revolutionized art opinion in England. The sum and substance of it was Nature against conventionality. People must look at Nature with their own eyes and judge art by the help of Nature. This seems simple enough to-day, but it was a new doctrine in Ruskin's youth.