at his first work did for painting. The
book is written in more ornate style than any other, but he who loves
impassioned prose will find many specimens here that can only by
equaled in De Quincey's best work. Read the peroration of the "Lamp
of Sacrifice" and you will not need to be told that this is the finest
tribute to the work of the builders of the mediaeval cathedral. Here is
a part of this eloquent passage:

It is to far happier, far higher exaltation that we owe those
fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild fancies
and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever
filled the depth of midsummer dream; those vaulted gates,
trellised with close leaves; those window labyrinths of
twisted tracery and starry light; those misty masses of
multitudinous pinnacle and diademed tower; the only witnesses,
perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear of nations.
All else for which the builders sacrificed has passed away.
* * * But of them and their life and their toil upon earth,
one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those great heaps
of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave
their powers, their honors and their errors; but they have
left us their adoration.

No space is left here to mention in detail Ruskin's other works, but
_Unto This Last_, _The Stones of Venice_, _Sesame and Lilies_ and _The
Crown of Wild Olive_ may be commended as well worth careful reading.
Also _Preterita_ is alive with noble passages, such as the pen-picture
of the view from the Dale in the Alps, or of the Rhone below Geneva.
Read also Ruskin's description of Turner's "Slave Ship" or the
impressive passage on the mental slavery of the modern workman in the
sixth chapter of the second volume of _The Stones of Venice_. Read
these things and you will have no doubt of the genius of Ruskin or of
his command of the finest impassioned prose in the English language.

TENNYSON LEADS THE VICTORIAN WRITERS

THE POET WHO VOICED THE ASPIRATIONS OF HIS AGE--"LOCKSLEY
HALL," "IN MEMORIAM" AND "THE IDYLLS OF THE KING" AMONG HIS
BEST WORKS.

Of all the great English writers of the Victorian age it is probable
that the next century will give the foremost place to Tennyson. Better
than any other poet of his day, he stands as a type of the English
people in obedience to law, in strong religious faith, in splendid
imaginative force and in a