ence of kind
friends and the help of a wide circle of admirers traced the drawing,
and subscribed its price--1,000 guineas, to which Mr. Agnew generously
added his commission--and it was presented to Mr. Ruskin as a token of
sympathy and respect. He was not insensible to the personal compliment
implied, and by way of some answer he spent the first few days of his
convalescence in arranging and annotating a series of drawings by
himself, and engravings, illustrating the Turners, to add to his show
during the remainder of the season. When they were sent off (early in
June) to Bond Street, he left home with the Severns to complete his
recovery at Malham.

There was another reason why that spontaneous testimonial was welcome at
the moment, for a curious and unaccustomed ordeal was impending for his
claims as an art critic. On his return from Venice after months of
intercourse with the great Old Masters, he found the Grosvenor Gallery
just opened for the first time, with its memorable exhibition of the
different extra-academical schools. It placed before the public, in
sharp contrast, the final outcome of the Pre-Raphaelitism for which he
had fought many a year before, and samples of the last new fashion from
Paris. The maturer works of Burne-Jones had been practically unseen by
the public, and Ruskin took the opportunity of their exhibition to write
his praise of the youngest of the Old Masters in the current numbers of
"Fors," and afterwards in two papers on the "Three Colours of
Pre-Raphaelitism" (_Nineteenth Century Magazine_, November and December,
1878). But in the same "Fors" he dismissed with half a paragraph of
contempt Mr. Whistler's eccentric sketch of Fireworks at Cremorne. Long
before, in 1863, when he was working with various artists connected with
the Pre-Raphaelite circle, Mr. Whistler had made overtures to the great
critic through Mr. Swinburne the poet; but he had not been taken
seriously. Now he had become the missionary in England of the new French
gospel of "impressionism," which to Ruskin was one of those half-truths
which are ever the worst of heresies. Mr. Whistler appealed to the law.
He brought an action for libel, which was tried on November 25th and
26th before Baron Huddleston, and recovered a farthing damages. Ruskin's
costs--amounting to L386 12s. 4d.--were paid by a public subscription to
which one hundred and twenty persons, including many strangers,
contributed.

By that time he was fully