Mr. Ruskin is without doubt the most remarkable of English critics, and summarizes so many opposite theories and tendencies that his pages may in some sort be taken as an epitome of the whole matter. It would be impossible to abstract from their great bulk any consecutive or consistent system of thought or precept. His influence has been mainly by isolated ideas of more or less truth and value. It is impossible here to analyze his work. Such is the mixed tissue of his woof that the captive princess who was set to sort a roomful of birds' feathers had scarcely a harder task than one who should try to separate and classify his threads, some priceless and steady, some rotten, false, misleading. Morals, manners, religion, political economy, are mixed with art in every shape--art considered theoretically and technically, historically, philosophically and prophetically. Various as are his views on these varying subjects, on no one subject even do they remain invariable. Yet such is the charm of his style, delightfully sarcastic, and eloquent as a master's brush, so vividly is each idea presented in itself, that, each idea being enjoyed as it comes, all seem at first of equal value. We realize neither the fallacy of many taken singly nor the conflict of all taken together. His points are often cleverly and faithfully put, and our attention is so riveted on this cleverness and faithfulness that we take for granted the rightness of his deductions, slovenly, illogical or false though they may be. What we most remark in his books is how the purely artistic element in his nature--of a very high grade and very true instincts--is dwarfed of full development and stunted of full results by the theorizing literary bent which he has in common with his time and people. In theorizing even on truly-felt and clearly-stated facts, in explaining their origin and unfolding their effects, his guidance is least valuable. We may more safely ask him _what_ than _why_. His influence on English art has been great at the instant: whether it will be permanent is doubtful. At one time it was said that without having read his books one could tell by an inspection of the Royal Academy walls what Mr. Ruskin had written in the past year. Now, the most notable exponents of his teaching, whether consciously so or not, are on the one hand the shining lights of the Grosvenor Gallery--hierophants of mysticism and allegory and symbolism and painted souls and moral beauty expressed in the flesh, copying Ruskin's _Botticelli_ line for line, forgetting that what was naivete in him, and in him admirable, because all before him had done so much less well, becomes to-day in them the direst affectation, is reprehensible in them because many before them have done so much better. On the other hand, we have a naturalistic throng which follows Mr. Ruskin's precepts when he overweights the other side of the scale and says that art should "never