from any lawful source, is a part of the pleasure itself, a vital part, which remains in our keeping as long as we recognize and cherish it. Thus, the pleasure obtained from seeing the Venus of Milo or reading "The Eve of St. Agnes" is not ended when we have left the Louvre or closed the book. It becomes a portion of our inheritance, a portion of the joy of living; and the statue and the poem have fulfilled their allotted purpose in yielding us this delight. There is a curious fashion nowadays of criticising art and poetry, and even fiction, with scant reference to the pleasure for which they exist; yet a rational estimate of these things is hardly possible from any other standpoint. Mr. Ruskin, we know, has invented that pleasing novelty, ethical art-criticism, and, by its means, as Mr. Dallas frankly admits, he has made, not the criticism only, but the art itself, intelligible and palatable to his English readers. It would seem as if they hardly held themselves justified in enjoying a thing unless there was a moral meaning back of it, a moral principle involved in their own happiness. This meaning and this principle Mr. Ruskin has supplied, bringing to bear upon his task all the earnest-
