ns at the
British Museum. He had also taken up some study of Egyptology, through
Champollion, Bunsen and Birch, in the hope of tracing the origin of
Greek decorative art. Comparative mythology, at that time, was a
department of philology, introduced to the English public chiefly by Max
Mueller. Under his influence Ruskin entered step by step upon an inquiry
which afterwards became of singular importance in his life and thought.

In 1865 he had told his hearers at Bradford that Greek Religion was not,
as commonly supposed, the worship of Beauty, but of Wisdom and Power.
They did not, in their great age, worship "Venus," but Apollo and
Athena. And he regarded their mythology as a sincere tradition,
effective in forming a high moral type, and a great school of art. In
the "Ethics of the Dust" he had explained the myth of Athena as parallel
to that of Neith in Egypt; and in his fable of Neith and St. Barbara he
had hinted at a comparison, on equal terms, of Ancient and Mediaeval
mythology. He ended by saying that, though he would not have his young
hearers believe "that the Greeks were better than we, and that their
gods were real angels," yet their art and morals were in some respects
greater, and their beliefs were worth respectful and sympathetic study.
The "Queen of the Air" is his contribution to this study.

On March 9th, 1869, his lecture at University College, London, on "Greek
Myths of Cloud and Storm," began with an attempt to explain in popular
terms how a myth differs from mere fiction on the one hand and from
allegory on the other, being "not conceived didactically, but didactic
in its essence, as all good art is." He showed that Greek poetry dealt
with the series of Nature-myths with which were interwoven ethical
suggestions; that these were connected with Egyptian beliefs, but that
the full force of them was only developed in the central period of Greek
history, and their interpretation was to be read in a sympathetic
analysis of the spirit of men like Pindar and AEschylus. "The great
question," he said, "in reading a story is, always, not what wild hunter
dreamed, or what childish race first dreaded it; but what wise man first
perfectly told, and what strong people first perfectly lived by it. And
the real meaning of any myth is that which it has at the noblest age of
the nation among whom it was current."

In the next chapter he worked out, as a sequel to his lecture, two
groups of Animal-myths; those con