t-book. The lectures were
delivered between February 8 and March 23, 1870. They appeared in
book form in July of the same year. These lectures contain much of
his best and most mature thought, of his most painstaking research
and keenest analysis. Talking with a friend in later years, he
said: "I have taken more pains with the Oxford Lectures than with
anything else I have ever done": and in the preface to the edition
of 1887 he began: "The following lectures were the most important
piece of my literary work, done with unabated power, best motive,
and happiest concurrence of circumstance." Ruskin took his
professorship very seriously. He spent almost infinite labour in
composing his more formal lectures, and during the eight years
in which he held the chair he published six volumes of them, not
to mention three Italian guide-books, which came under his
interpretation of his professional duties;--"the real duty
involved in my Oxford Professorship cannot be completely done by
giving lectures in Oxford only, but ... I ought also to give what
guidance I may to travellers in Italy." Not only by lecturing and
writing did he fill the chair, but he taught individuals, founded
and endowed a Drawing mastership, and presented elaborately
catalogued collections to illustrate his subject. His lecture
classes were always large, and his work had a marked influence in
the University.

INAUGURAL

We see lately a most powerful impulse given to the production of
costly works of art by the various causes which promote the sudden
accumulation of wealth in the hands of private persons. We have thus a
vast and new patronage, which, in its present agency, is injurious to
our schools; but which is nevertheless in a great degree earnest and
conscientious, and far from being influenced chiefly by motives of
ostentation. Most of our rich men would be glad to promote the true
interests of art in this country; and even those who buy for vanity,
found their vanity on the possession of what they suppose to be best.

It is therefore in a great measure the fault of artists themselves if
they suffer from this partly unintelligent, but thoroughly
well-intended patronage. If they seek to attract it by eccentricity,
to deceive it by superficial qualities, or take advantage of it by
thoughtless and facile production, they necessarily degrade themselves
and it to