On this wide subject, the bearing of scientific on poetic truth, I know not where can be found truer and more suggestive teaching than that contained in Mr. Ruskin’s great work on Modern Painters. Each volume of that work, which has influenced so powerfully the painting of our time, has much to teach to the poet and to the student of Poetry. In the Preface to the Second Edition many of the principles expanded throughout the work are condensed. From that Preface I venture to quote one or two passages which throw much light on the subject of our discussion:— “The sculptor is not permitted to be wanting either in knowledge or expression of anatomical detail.... That which to the anatomist is the end is to the sculptor the means. The former desires details for their own sake; the latter that by means of them he may kindle his work with life, and stamp it with beauty. And so in landscape: botanical or geological details are not to be given as a matter of curiosity or subject of search, but as the ultimate elements of every species of expression and order of loveliness.” Again: “Details alone, and unreferred to a final purpose, are the sign of a tyro’s work.... Details perfect in unity and contributing to a final purpose are the sign of the production of a consummate master. It is not details sought for their own sake ... which constitute great art,—they are the lowest, most contemptible art; but it is detail referred to a great end, sought for the sake of the inestimable beauty which exists in the slightest and least of God’s works, and treated in a manly, broad, and impressive manner. There may be as much greatness of mind, as much nobility of manner, in a master’s treatment of the smallest features, as in his management of the more vast; and this greatness of manner chiefly consists in seizing the specific character of the object, together with all the great qualities of beauty which it has in common with the higher orders of existence.”