ntage in what he adopts and in what
he rejects. Of his critical remarks it is enough at present to express
the belief, that in this department he has no rival in this country, and
will not soon be beaten. Further acknowledgments, both to him and to the
other three editors named, will be duly and cheerfully made, as the
occasions for them shall arise....

"In the Introductions our leading purpose is to gather up all the
historical information that has yet been made accessible, concerning the
times when the several plays were written and first acted, and the
sources whence the plots and materials of them were taken. It will be
seen that in the history of the poet's plays, the indefatigable labors
of Mr. Collier and others, often resulting in important discoveries,
have wrought changes amounting almost to a total revolution, since the
Chiswick edition was published. And we dwell the more upon what
Shakspeare seems to have taken from preceding writers, because it
exhibits him, where we like most to consider him, as holding his
unrivalled inventive powers subordinate to the higher principles of art.
Besides, if Shakspeare be the most original of writers, he is also one
of the greatest of borrowers; and as few authors have appropriated so
freely from others, so none can better afford to have his obligations in
this kind made known."...

THE STONES OF VENICE--RELIGION, GLORY, AND ART.

Mr. John Ruskin, the "Oxford Student," whose _Modern Painters_ and
_Seven Lamps of Architecture_ have made for him the best fame in the
literature of art, has just completed the most remarkable of his works,
_The Stones of Venice_, and from advance sheets of it (for which we are
indebted to Mr. John Wiley, his American publisher), we present some of
his preliminary and more general observations, indicating his great
argument that THE DECLINE OF THE POLITICAL PROSPERITY OF VENICE WAS
COINCIDENT WITH THAT OF HER DOMESTIC AND INDIVIDUAL RELIGION. Popular as
the previous works of Mr. Ruskin have been, we cannot doubt that this
splendid performance will be the most read and most admired of all.

"Since the first dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three
thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands: the
thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the First of these great powers
only the memory remains; of the Second, the ruin; the Third, which
inherits their greatness, if it forget their example, may be led through