k
in that perfunctory manner. He undertook to revise his whole teaching;
to write for his hearers a completely new series of treatises on art,
beginning with first principles and broad generalisations, and
proceeding to the different departments of sculpture, engraving,
landscape-painting and so on; then taking up the history of art:--an
encyclopaedic scheme. He took this Oxford work not as a substitute for
other occupation, exonerating him from further claims upon his energy
and time; nor as a bye-play that could be slurred. He tried to do it
thoroughly, and to do it in addition to the various work already in
hand, under which, as it was, he used to break down, yearly, after each
climax of effort.

This autumn and winter, with his first and most important course in
preparation, he was still writing letters to the _Daily Telegraph_;
being begged by Carlyle to come--"the sight of your face will be a
comfort," says the poor old man--and undertaking lectures at the Royal
Artillery Institution, Woolwich, and at the Royal Institution, London.
The Woolwich lecture, given on December 14th, was that added to later
editions of the "Crown of Wild Olive," under the title of "The Future of
England." The other, February 4th, 1870, on "Verona and its Rivers,"
involved not only a lecture on art and history and contemporary
political economy, but an exhibition of the drawings which he and his
assistants had made during the preceding summer.

Four days later he opened a new period in his career with his inaugural
Lecture in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford.

BOOK IV

PROFESSOR AND PROPHET (1870-1900)

CHAPTER I

FIRST OXFORD LECTURES (1870-1871)

On Tuesday, 8th February, 1870, the Slade Professor's lecture-room was
crowded to over-flowing with members of the University, old and young,
and their friends, who flocked to hear, and to see, the author of
"Modern Painters." The place was densely packed long before the time;
the ante-rooms were filled with personal friends, hoping for some corner
to be found them at the eleventh hour; the doors were blocked open, and
besieged outside by a disappointed multitude.

Professorial lectures are not usually matters of great excitement: it
does not often happen that the accommodation is found inadequate. After
some hasty arrangements Sir Henry Acland pushed his way to the table,
announced that it was impossible for the lecture to be held in that
place, and begged the audience