iber Studiorum_. "Interior of a church." It is worthy of
remark that Giorgione and Titian are always delighted to have an
opportunity of drawing priests. The English Church may, perhaps,
accept it as matter of congratulation that this is the only
instance in which Turner drew a clergyman. [Ruskin.]

[127] 1785.

[128] Wolsey's famous palace, twelve miles from London.

[129] I do not mean that this is his first acquaintance with the
country, but the first impressive and touching one, after his mind
was formed. The earliest sketches I found in the National
Collection are at Clifton and Bristol; the next, at Oxford.
[Ruskin.]

[130] The reference is to the two famous ruined abbeys of
Yorkshire--Whitby and Bolton.

[131] The Tenth Plague of Egypt. [Ruskin.]

[132] Rizpah, the Daughter of Aiah. [Ruskin.]

[133] Duerer [1471-1528], German painter, engraver, and designer.
Salvator [1615-73], Italian painter, etcher, satirical poet, and
musical composer.

[134] _I.e._, between November 17, 1796, and June 18, 1815.

[135] _Joel_ iii, 13.

SELECTIONS FROM

THE STONES OF VENICE

The first volume of _The Stones of Venice_ appeared in March, 1851; the
first day of May of the same year we find the following entry in
Ruskin's diary: "About to enter on the true beginning of the second
part of my Venetian work. May God help me to finish it--to His glory,
and man's good." The main part of the volume was composed at Venice in
the winter of 1851-52, though it did not appear until the end of July,
1853. His work on architecture, including _The Seven Lamps_, it will be
noted, intervenes between the composition of the second and third
volumes of _Modern Painters_; and Ruskin himself always looked upon
the work as an interlude, almost as an interruption. But he also came
to believe that this digression had really led back to the heart of
the truth for all art. Its main theme, as in _The Seven Lamps of
Architecture_, is its illustration of the principle that architecture
expresses certain states in the moral temper of the people by and for
whom it is produced. It may surprise us to-day to know that when Ruskin
wrote of the glories of Venetian architecture, the common "professional
opinion was that St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace were as ugly and
repulsive as they were contrary to rule and order." In a private letter
Gibbon writes of the Square of St. Mark's as "a large square decor