iterary and un-painterlike--if I may use such an awkward
term--nature of English art is shown perhaps more forcibly in its
critics than in artists or public. One is especially struck in reading
criticisms of whatever grade with the excessive prominence given to the
artist's personality. The work of this year is judged not so much by its
excellence as by comparison with the work of last year. A----'s
pictures, and B----'s and C----'s and D----'s, are interesting and
valuable mainly as showing A----'s improvement, or B----'s falling off,
or C----'s unexpected change of theme, or D----'s fine mind and delicate
sensibilities.

Mr. Ruskin is without doubt the most remarkable of English critics, and
summarizes so many opposite theories and tendencies that his pages may
in some sort be taken as an epitome of the whole matter. It would be
impossible to abstract from their great bulk any consecutive or
consistent system of thought or precept. His influence has been mainly
by isolated ideas of more or less truth and value. It is impossible here
to analyze his work. Such is the mixed tissue of his woof that the
captive princess who was set to sort a roomful of birds' feathers had
scarcely a harder task than one who should try to separate and classify
his threads, some priceless and steady, some rotten, false, misleading.
Morals, manners, religion, political economy, are mixed with art in
every shape--art considered theoretically and technically, historically,
philosophically and prophetically. Various as are his views on these
varying subjects, on no one subject even do they remain invariable. Yet
such is the charm of his style, delightfully sarcastic, and eloquent as
a master's brush, so vividly is each idea presented in itself, that,
each idea being enjoyed as it comes, all seem at first of equal value.
We realize neither the fallacy of many taken singly nor the conflict of
all taken together. His points are often cleverly and faithfully put,
and our attention is so riveted on this cleverness and faithfulness that
we take for granted the rightness of his deductions, slovenly, illogical
or false though they may be. What we most remark in his books is how the
purely artistic element in his nature--of a very high grade and very
true instincts--is dwarfed of full development and stunted of full
results by the theorizing literary bent which he has in common with his
time and people. In theorizing even on truly-felt and clearly-stated