at matured
Ruskinian theory of art which his early works do not reach; and which
his writings between 1860 and 1870 do not touch. Though the Oxford
lectures are only a fragment of what he ought to have done, they should
be sufficient to a careful reader; though their expression is sometimes
obscured by diffuse treatment, they contain the root of the matter,
thought out for fifteen years since the close of the more brilliant, but
less profound, period of "Modern Painters."

The course on Birds[29] was given in the drawing school at the
University Galleries. The room was not large enough for the numbers that
crowded to hear Professor Ruskin, and each of these lectures, like the
previous and the following courses, had to be repeated to a second
audience. Great pains had been given to their preparation--much greater
than the easy utterance and free treatment of his theme led his hearers
to believe. For these lectures and their sequel, published as "Love's
Meinie," he collected an enormous number of skins--to compare the
plumage and wings of different species; for his work was with the
_outside_ aspect and structure of birds, not with their anatomy. He had
models made, as large as swords, of the different quill-feathers, to
experiment on their action and resistance to the air. He got a valuable
series of drawings by H.S. Marks, R.A., and made many careful and
beautiful studies himself of feathers and of birds at the Zoological
Gardens, and the British Museum; and after all, he had to conclude his
work saying, "It has been throughout my trust that if death should write
on these, 'What this man began to build, he was not able to finish,' God
may also write on them, not in anger, but in aid, 'A stronger than he
cometh.'"

[Footnote 29: March 15, May 2 and 9; repeated March 19, May 5, and 12,
1873.]

Two of the lectures on birds were repeated at Eton[30] before the boys'
Literary and Scientific Society and their friends; and between this and
1880 Ruskin often went to address the same audience, with the same
interest in young people that had taken him in earlier years to
Woolwich.

[Footnote 30: May 10 and 17.]

After a long vacation at Brantwood, the first spent there, he went up to
give his course on Early Tuscan Art ("Val d'Arno")[31]. The lectures
were printed separately and sold at the conclusion and the first numbers
were sent to Carlyle, whose unabated interest in his friend's work was
shown in his letter of Oct. 31