r who have so delicate an eye for the
shyest and most sequestered beauties, as has this poet-painter. Probably
Wordsworth comes nearer to Ruskin than any other modern writer in his
love of the natural world, and he has given us the finest descriptions
we have of some phases of Nature; but there is a glow and a depth of
feeling about Ruskin's descriptions which even Wordsworth lacks. A real
worship of Nature runs through all that he has written. Think of a child
with such a nature as this brought up in a crowded city,--a city unlike
many others, especially in this country and on the Continent, where
lovely glimpses of Nature may be had from open squares, or streets
leading out into lovely country roads. In New York one can hardly walk
anywhere without catching glimpses of the water and the shores of New
Jersey or Long Island. Most boys, we fancy, penetrate to the Battery and
enjoy its superb outlook; or they have the run of Central Park, where
they make a sort of acquaintance with Nature, which, if somewhat
artificial, is much better than no knowledge at all. In Edinburgh the
inhabitants live under the shadow of its two fantastic mountains, and
from their windows can trace the windings of its glittering frith. Not
even the lofty houses of the Canongate or the battlements of the castle
afford the eye an equal pleasure. In Venice not even the Palace of the
Doge, the most beautiful building in the world, or the matchless walls
of fair St. Mark's, can keep the eye from seeking the blue waters of the
Adriatic or the purple outlines of the Alps. Beautiful Verona has a
broad and rushing river of deep blue sweeping through the heart of it;
it has an environment of cliffs, where grow the cypress and the olive,
and a far-away view of the St. Gothard Alps. Rome, from its amphitheatre
of hills, has views of unrivalled loveliness, and its broad Campagna is
a picture in itself. Paris even has its charms of external nature, as
have all the cities of the New World; but London is grim and gray, and
bare and desolate, wrapped in eternal fog. To be sure, it has the
Thames, and there are lovely suburbs; but we mean that vast, densely
crowded part of the city proper which we think of when we say London.

The father of John Ruskin was a London wine-merchant, who made and
bequeathed to him a large fortune. But they were very plain people, and
the youth knew nothing of ostentation or luxury. He says of his
childhood:--

"Nor did I painful