ifteen years the _sixth edition_ of this work in
this form was being sold, in spite of the fact that, five years before,
a smaller reprint of the same book had been brought out at 5s., and was
then in its fourth edition of 3,000 copies each.

Compared with the enormous sale of sensational novels and school books,
this is no great matter; but for a didactic work, offered to the public
without advertisement, and in the face of the almost universal
opposition of the book-selling trade, it means not only that, as an
author, Ruskin had made a secure reputation, but also that he deserved
the curious tribute once paid him by the journal of a big modern shop
(Compton House, Liverpool) as a "great tradesman."

CHAPTER III

OXFORD TEACHING (1872-1875)

Early in 1872, after bringing out "Munera Pulveris," the essays he had
written ten years before for _Fraser_ on economy; after getting those
street-sweepers to work near the British Museum where he was making
studies of animals and Greek sculpture; and after once more addressing
the Woolwich cadets, this time[25] on the Bird of Calm (the mythology of
the Halcyon), Professor Ruskin went to Oxford to give a course of ten
lectures[26] on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, afterwards
published under the title of "The Eagle's Nest." He wrote to Professor
Norton:

[Footnote 25: January 13, 1872.]

[Footnote 26: Feb. 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 24. 29; March 2, 7, and 9.]

"I am, as usual, unusually busy. When I get fairly into my lecture
work at Oxford I always find the lecture would come better some
other way, just before it is given, and so work from hand to mouth.
I am always unhappy, and see no good in saying so. But I am
settling to my work here--recklessly--to do my best with it:
feeling quite sure that it is talking at hazard for what chance
good may come. But I attend regularly in the schools as mere
drawing-master, and the men begin to come in one by one, about
fifteen or twenty already; several worth having as pupils in any
way, being of temper to make good growth of."

Why was he always unhappy? It was not that Mr. W.B. Scott criticised
"Ruskin's influence" in that March; or that by Easter he had to say
farewell to his old home on Denmark Hill, and settle "for good" at
Brantwood. Nor that he could go abroad again for a long summer in Italy
with Mr. and Mrs. Severn and the Hilliards and Mr. Albert Goodwin. They
s