by these, care to
hear of the lovely writers of old days, quaint creatures that they
were?--Merry Miss Mitford, actually living in the country, actually
walking in it, loving it, and finding history enough in the life of the
butcher's boy, and romance enough in the story of the miller's daughter,
to occupy all her mind with, innocent of troubles concerning the Turkish
question; steady-going old Barham, confessing nobody but the Jackdaw of
Rheims, and fearless alike of Ritualism, Darwinism, or disestablishment;
iridescent clearness of Thomas Hood--the wildest, deepest infinity of
marvelously jestful men; manly and rational Sydney, inevitable,
infallible, inoffensively wise of wit;[3]--they are gone their way, and
ours is far diverse; and they and all the less-known, yet pleasantly and
brightly endowed spirits of that time, are suddenly as unintelligible to
us as the Etruscans--not a feeling they had that we can share in; and
these pictures of them will be to us valuable only as the sculpture
under the niches far in the shade there of the old parish church, dimly
vital images of inconceivable creatures whom we shall never see the like
of more.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This paper was written as a preface to a series of "Reminiscences"
from the pen of the late Mr. W. H. Harrison, commenced in the
_University Magazine_ of May 1878. It was separately printed in that
magazine in the preceding month, but owing to Mr. Ruskin's illness at
the time, he was unable to see it through the press. A letter from Mr.
Ruskin to Mr. Harrison, printed in "Arrows of the Chace," may be found
of interest in connection with the opening statements of this
paper.--[ED.]

[2] "Friendship's Offering" of 1835 included two poems, signed "J. R.,"
and entitled "Saltzburg" and "Fragments from a Metrical Journal;
Andernacht and St. Goar."--[ED.]

[3] In the "Life and Times of Sydney Smith," by Stuart J. Reid (London,
1884, p. 374), appears a letter addressed to the author by Mr. Ruskin,
to whom the book is dedicated:--

"OXFORD, _Nov. 15th, 1883_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I wanted to tell you what deep respect I had for Sydney
Smith; but my time has been cut to pieces ever since your note reached
me. He was the first in the literary circles of London to assert the
value of 'Modern Painters,' and he has always seemed to me equally
keen-sighted and generous in his estimate of literary efforts. His
'Moral Philosophy' is the only book