Suppl.], who in 1852 endeavoured to persuade Ruskin to accompany him to Athens and Mitylene. The trip was vetoed by his parents, and 'Greek and Goth' went their several ways (Præt. ii. ch. viii.) At a later time Ruskin became interested in excavations, gave General di Cesnola 1,000l. for diggings in Cyprus, and presented most of the finds to the British Museum. Of his contemporaries at Christ Church Ruskin has drawn some brilliant sketches in 'Præterita.' He formed a close and lifelong friendship with (Sir) Henry Acland [q. v. Suppl.], to whom he was drawn both by common artistic tastes and by Acland's type of radiant manhood; another friendship, which developed more slowly, was with Henry George Liddell [q. v. Suppl.] Though no athlete, Ruskin was accepted into 'the best set.' Pusey never spoke to him, and by 'the Oxford movement' he was untouched. He spoke sometimes at the Union. One motion supported by him was characteristic : 'that intellectual education as distinguished from moral discipline is detrimental to the interests of the lower order of a nation.' In the 'Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson' there is a reference to 'a very ingenious and somewhat sarcastic speech' by Ruskin in defence of the stage which greatly pleased the house.
Ruskin devoted much of his time at Oxford to writing verse. He competed for the Newdigate prize in 1837, with a poem on 'The Gipsies' (won by A. P. Stanley), and in 1838 on 'The Exile of St. Helena' (won by J. H. Dart). Ruskin's unsuccessful essays are included in his 'Poems' (1891). In 1839 he won the prize with a poem on 'Salsette and Elephanta' (recited in the theatre at Oxford on 12 June and published in that year ; new ed. 1878). The composition has some good lines, as, e.g. :
Though distant shone with many an azure gem
The glacier glory of his diadem ;
but on the whole it must be pronounced neither better nor worse than most poems of its class. Verses by him had already appeared in 'Friendship's Offering,' and he contributed for some years to that and other miscellanies of the period. Some of his album verses were pretty and have found their way into collections. He continued as an occasional amusement throughout his life to write songs and rhyming letters, but by the time he was twenty-six he abandoned 'versification as a serious pursuit, having come to the extremely wholesome conclusion that in poetry he could express nothing rightly that he had to say.'
Ruskin's Oxford course was interrupted by ill-health, which may have been accentuated by a disappointment of the heart. He had fallen in love with one of the daughters of his father's French partner (the Adele of his poems). As a suitor he combined, he tells us, 'the single-mindedness of Mr. Traddles with the conversational abilities of Mr. Toots,' and his Parisian flame laughed whole-heartedly at the literary offerings with which he sought to commend himself to her. In 1840 she married a handsome young French nobleman. Shortly afterwards, at Easter in that year, when Ruskin was putting on a spurt for his examinations, he was seized with a consumptive cough and spat some blood. The drop was not, as in the case of Keats, his death-warrant, but it was a death-blow to hopes of academical distinction. He went down from Oxford and for nearly two years was dragged about in search of health, through Switzerland and Italy and to Leamington (where he derived great benefit from Dr. Jephson's treatment). Memorials of these travels are given in Ruskin's 'Letters to Dale' (1893). In a few years Ruskin out-grew his tendency to consumption. He was fond of walking and of climbing among the Alps ; and in after years of rowing, as also of manual exercise. He retained far into old age evidences of unabated vigour in hair still thick and brown ; and could often be seen rowing his boat (of his own design) across the lake in half a gale of wind. But he was never a very strong man, and he taxed to the uttermost by constant mental strain such strength as he possessed. In April 1842, having recovered his health, Ruskin went up to Oxford, and was given an honorary double-fourth. He graduated B.A. in 1842 and M.A. in 1843. He was deeply sensitive of 'the ineffable charm' of Oxford and loved the university dearly. But it was among the hills and clouds, the trees and the mosses, that he really graduated.
It was. however, as 'an Oxford graduate' that he first emerged into fame. He had already in his teens appeared in print. His first published words, 'Enquiries on the Causes of the Colour of the Rhine,' and 'Considerations on the Strata of Mont Blanc,' were printed, when he was fifteen, in London's 'Magazine of Natural History' (1834, vol. viii. pp. 438 and 644), to which he contributed some other geological studies two years later (ib. 1836, vol. ix. p. 533). An article by him also appeared in the first volume of the 'Transactions of the Meteorological Society' (1839). More important was a series of articles in London's 'Architectural
