which he shared with Carlyle, he did not give the same impression of 'grim fire-eyed despair.' Carlyle, we used to say, though he could denounce the world, could suggest no remedy. Ruskin, hardly more hopeful in fact, was yet always suggesting a possible regeneration. Wisdom is to be found, though it is strangely hidden away; and the Marmontel side of him comes out in his pictures of a conceivable Utopia. There is something pathetic in the kind of helpless and yet enthusiastic way in which he expounds the scheme of the 'St. George's Company.' He protests that he only undertakes such a task against his will; he would infinitely rather plunge into his favourite studies; he is forced to try to reform the world because the sight of all the wrongs and miseries is a torment to his spirit, and because he can find no one else to share his views or take up the burthen. He showed that he was in earnest by lavish generosity, and managed, at least, to start a museum. He seems to have made an oversight characteristic of nearly all founders of such societies. He began, as they all begin, by acquiring a piece of freehold land. He arranged, which also seems to be a fascinating amusement, for the currency which his followers
