er the table as if _I_ had
been going to pluck _him_. They always smile when they mean pluck."

The Newdigate for 1838, for all his care and pains, was won by Dart. He
was, at any rate, beaten by a friend, and with a poem which his own
honourable sympathy and assistance had helped to perfect.

Another trifling incident lets us get a glimpse of the family life of
our young poet. The Queen's coronation in June, 1838, was a great event
to all the world, and Mr. Ruskin was anxious for his son to see it. Much
correspondence ensued between the parents, arranging everything for him,
as they always did--which of the available tickets should be accepted,
and whether he could stand the fatigue of the long waiting, and so
forth. Mrs. Ruskin did not like the notion of her boy sitting perched on
rickety scaffolding at dizzy altitudes in the Abbey. Mr. Ruskin,
evidently determined to carry his point, went to Westminster, bribed the
carpenters, climbed the structure, and reported all safe to stand a
century, "though," said he, "the gold and scarlet of the decorations
appeared very paltry compared with the Wengern Alp." But he could not
find No. 447, and wrote to the Heralds' Office to know if it was a place
from which a good view could be got. Blue-mantle replied that it was a
very good place, and Lord Brownlow had just taken tickets for his sons
close by. Then there was the great question of dress. He went to Owen's
and ordered a white satin waistcoat with gold sprigs, and a high
dress-coat with bright buttons, and asked his wife to see about white
gloves at Oxford--a Court white neck-cloth or a black satin would do.

Picture, then, the young Ruskin in those dressy days. A portrait was
once sent to Brantwood of a dandy in a green coat of wonderful cut,
supposed to represent him in his youth, but suggesting Lord Lytton's
"Pelham" rather than the homespun-suited seer of Coniston. "Did you ever
wear a coat like that?" I asked. "I'm not so sure that I didn't," said
he.

After that, they went to Scotland and the North of England for the
summer, and more fine sketches were made, some of which hang now in his
drawing-room, and compare not unfavourably with the Prouts beside them.
In firmness of line and fulness of insight they are masterly, and mark a
rapid progress, all the more astonishing when it is recollected how
little time could have been spared for practice. The subjects are
chiefly architectural--castles and churches and Go