The only other great Victorian literary lion of whom mention is made is Ruskin, and _Punch's_ attitude towards him is somewhat mixed. In 1871 he addressed an open letter to Ruskin, _à propos_ of his suggestions for preventing inundations of the Tiber, the gist of it being that, whatever he might be as an art critic, he was not infallible as an engineer. _Punch_ admitted the "mystical and musical" eloquence of Ruskin, whom he was quite content to regard as an oracle--though not always intelligible--on Art and Nature, Paintings Old and Modern, Lamps of Architecture, Crowns of Wild Olive, and so forth, but he refused to take him seriously as a writer on economics or social problems. He showed unexpected sympathy with him, however, over the famous road-making experiment in 1874 at Hincksey, when the not very expert efforts of his disciples moved Philistine undergraduates to ribald mirth:-- HINCKSEY DIGGINGS (See recent Correspondence in _Daily News_, and elsewhere) 'Tis well for snarlers analytic, Who the art of the snarl to the sneer have brought, To spit their scorn at the eloquent critic, Leader of undergraduate thought. Heart of the student it will not harden If from the bat and the oar he abstain, To plant the flowers in a cottage garden, And lay the pipes of a cottage drain. Pity we have for the man who thinks he Proves Ruskin fool for work like this. Why shouldn't young Oxford lend hands to Hincksey, Though Doctrinaires may take it amiss? Careless wholly of critic's menace, Scholars of Ruskin, to him be true; The truths he has writ in _The Stones of Venice_ May be taught by the Stones of Hincksey too. Other papers laughed at the "amateur navvies," Oxford caricaturists were busy, and "to walk over to Hincksey and laugh at the diggers became a fashionable afternoon amusement." But the road was wanted, and Ruskin, according to his biographer,[27] saw in it a means of practical protest against the fetish-worship of athletics, to say nothing of his probable desire to dissociate himself from the Postlethwaites and Maudles who had stolen some of their catchwords from Ruskin, but whose creed of "art for art's sake" he cordially loathed. And perhaps the best vindication of the experiment was the fact that the undergraduate road-diggers included Alfred Milner and Arnold Toynbee; and that in encouraging his disciples in the "gospel of labour" Ruskin formulated principles of social service on lines which have been faithfully carried out in the Universities' Settlements in East London and other cities. [Footnote 27: See the _Life of John Ruskin_, by Sir E. T. Cook.] [Sidenote: _Punch and American Humorists_]