kin was the first to provide casts from natural leaves and fruit in place of the ordinary conventional ornament. Among his pupils were Mr. George Allen (engraver, and afterwards Ruskin's publisher), Arthur Burgess (draughtsman and woodcutter), John Bunney (a skilful painter of architectural detail), and Mr. William Ward (a facsimile copyist of Turner). Arising out of Ruskin's work at the college were his books on 'The Elements of Drawing,' 1856, and 'The Elements of Perspective,' 1859.
Meanwhile Ruskin was engaged in many other subsidiary studies for the completion of 'Modern Painters.' In his continental tour of 1854 he was sketching in Switzerland. In 1855 he made studies of shipping at Deal, one outcome of which was his letterpress to Turner's ' Harbours of England,' 1856, with its famous description of a boat. In 1856 he was again in Switzerland, making studies at Chamouni and Fribourg for 'Modern Painters.' In 1858 he went to Switzerland and Italy, and spent some time in studying Paul Veronese at Turin. 'One day in the gallery,' says Mr. Augustus Hare, who happened to be there at the same time, 'I asked Ruskin to give me some advice. He said, "Watch me." He then looked at the flounce in the dress of a maid of honour of the queen of Sheba for five minutes, and then painted one thread; he looked for another five minutes, and then he painted another thread. At the rate at which he was working he might hope to paint the whole dress m ten years ; but it was a lesson as to examining well what one drew before drawing it.' Ruskin's diaries and letters show that he took the same minute labour in recording natural facts and impressions of places and pictures. Some illustration of his geological studies in Switzerland is given in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,' 1858. Nearly all serious reading was done, he says, abroad ; the heaviest box in the boot being always full of dictionaries. The subsequent task of composition was done at home ' as quietly and methodically as a piece of tapestry. I knew exactly what I had got to say, put the words firmly in their places like so many stitches, hemmed the edges of chapters round with what seemed to me the graceful flourishes, touched them finally with my cunningest points of colour, and read the work to papa and mamma at breakfast next morning, as a girl shows her sampler.' Ruskin revised carefully all he wrote ; a study of his manuscripts shows that alterations were introduced for accuracy rather than for display. The third volume of 'Modern Painters ' was written at Denmark Hill in 1855 and published in the following January ; the fourth followed 'n April, the fifth not till June 1860. The multifariousness of the work which delayed the completion of the book has been shown in the preceding paragraphs, and was amusingly set forth in a letter to Mrs. Carlyle of October 1855 : ' I have written since May good six hundred pages. Also I have prepared about thirty drawings for engravers this year, retouched the engravings (generally the worst part of the business), and etched some on steel myself. In the course of the six hundred pages I have had to make various remarks on German metaphysics, on poetry, political economy, cookery, music, geology, dress, agriculture, horticulture, and navigation, all of which subjects I have had to read up accordingly, and this takes time. . . . During my above-mentioned studies of horticulture I became dissatisfied with the Linnean, Jussieuan, and everybody-elseian arrangement of plants, and have accordingly arranged a system of my own. . . My studies of political economy have induced me to think also that nobody knows anything about that ; and I am at present engaged in an investigation, on independent principles, of the nature of money, rent, and taxes, in an abstract form, which sometimes keeps me awake all night. . . I have also several pupils, far and near, in the art of illumination ; an American young lady to direct in the study of landscape painting, and a Yorkshire young lady to direct in the purchase of Turners, and various little by-things besides. But I am coming to see you' (printed by Prof. C. E. Norton in preface to Brantwood edition of Aratra Pentelici).
The last three volumes of 'Modern Painters,' though they complete with some method the plan of the work originally laid down by dealing further with ideas of beauty and discussing ideas of relation, contain Ruskin's thoughts on innumerable subjects. The sub-title which the author gave to the third volume, 'Of Many Things,' describes the whole book. It is 'a mass of stirring thoughts and melodious speech about a thousand things divine and human, beautiful and good.' The descriptive passages in the later volumes give back to the reader's eyes the hills and clouds and fields ' as from a fresh consecration ' (address presented to Ruskin at Christmas 1885). 'I feel now,' wrote Charlotte Bronte, 'as if I had been walking blindfold ; the book seems to give me eyes.' No prose book ever opened so many people's eyes to what nature is, to her beauty, her colour, to the stateliness and delicacy of mountains and trees, to the gracious aspect
