feeling of the author; and the public,
either conversant with those facts or capable of being satisfied of
them without much thought, abandoned itself to the fascination of his
eloquence and acquiesced in his teachings, or arrayed itself in utter
hostility to him and his new ideas.

The second volume was more abstruse and deeper in feeling, and
comparatively few of Mr. Ruskin's followers through the first cared
to get entangled in the metaphysical mazes of the second, and it is
generally neglected, although containing some of the deepest and most
satisfactory studies on the fundamental principles of art and taste
which have ever been printed.

The third and fourth volumes, coming up again nearer the surface, made
an application of the principles investigated to the material for art
which Nature furnishes; and here again the author found in part his
audience diminished among those who had at first been carried away by
his enthusiasm or silenced and convinced by his unhesitating dogmatism.
A partial reaction took place, owing not only to the change in the tone
of the "Modern Painters," but to the springing up of a new school of
painting, the consequence, mainly and legitimately, of the teachings of
the work,--the pre-Raphaelite,--which, at once attacked virulently and
immeasurably by the old school of critics, and defended as earnestly by
Mr. Ruskin, became the subject of the war which was still waged between
him and them. Turner in the meanwhile had passed away and was admitted
to apotheosis, the malignant critics of yesterday becoming the ignorant
adulators of to-day: _his_ position was conceded, but the hostility to
Ruskin was sustained with unabated bitterness on the new field. He
was demolished anew, and proved, many useless times over and over, an
ignorant pretender; the public in the meanwhile, even his opponents,
taking up in turn his _proteges_, as he pointed them out to their
notice. The effect of his criticisms in enhancing the value of the works
they approved would be incredible, if one did not know how glad an
English public is to be led. As a single instance,--a drawing which was
sold from one of the water-color exhibitions at fifty guineas, sold
again, after Ruskin's notice, at two hundred and fifty; and in the lists
of pictures sold or to be sold at auction, one sees constantly, "Noticed
by Mr. Ruskin," "Approved by Mr. Ruskin," appended to the title.

The third volume, being devoted to the correction of