to currency, and to issue the
book through Mr. George Allen at a price which will place it within the
reach of the reading public at large.

The last edition of 1877, with its worn and "retouched" plates,[B] was
published at twenty-five shillings; less than a third of that sum will
suffice to procure a copy of this new issue in which the prints (save
for their reduced size) more nearly approach the clearness and beauty of
the originals of 1856 than any of the three editions which have
immediately preceded it.

[B] By this time (1877) the plates had become considerably worn, and
were accordingly "retouched" by Mr. Chas. A. Tomkins. But such
retouching proved worse than useless. The delicacy of the finer work
had entirely vanished, and the plates remained but a ghost of their
former selves, such as no one would recognize as doing justice to
Turner. The fifth is unquestionably the least satisfactory of the
five original editions containing Lupton's engravings.

I have before me the following interesting letter addressed by Mr.
Ruskin's father to Mr. W. Smith Williams, for many years literary
adviser to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co.:--

"CHAMOUNI, _August 4th, 1856._

"MY DEAR SIR,--I hear that in _The Athenaeum_ of 26th July there is
a good article on my son's _Harbors of England_, and I should be
greatly obliged by Mr. Gordon Smith sending me that number....

"The history of this book, I believe, I told you. Gambart, the
French publisher and picture dealer, said some 18 months ago that
he was going to put out 12 Turner plates, never published, of
English Harbors, and he would give my son two good Turner drawings
for a few pages of text to illustrate them.[C] John agreed, and
wrote the text, when poorly in the spring of 1855, at Tunbridge
Wells; and it seems the work has just come out. It was in my
opinion an extremely well done thing, and more likely, as far as it
went, if not to be extremely popular, at least to be received
without cavil than anything he had written. If there is a very
favorable review in _The Athenaeum_ ... it may tend to disarm the
critics, and partly influence opinion of his larger works....--With
our united kind regards,

"Yours very truly,
"JOHN JAMES RUSKIN."

[C] Mr. E. Gambart (who is still living) states that, to the best of
his recollection, he paid Mr. Ruski