JOHN RUSKIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1778, 19 December 1885, Page 26

JOHN RUSKIN.

Few great literary reputations have undergone so many vicissitudes during the lifetime of their owners as that of Mr Ruskin. Two and forty years ago, twelve months indeed before he had attained his quarter of a century, he .awoke one morning to find himself famous. With the issue of the first volume of " Modern Painters" in 1543, it was acknowledged, on every hand, that a new force had arisen in English literature. With the famous second volume, which records the high-water mark of criticism, or rather insight, into pictorial art, the fame of Ruskin may be said to have reached its first culminating point. Subsequent to this it began to wane, and then it rose once more with the publication of the " Stones of Venice." When this book had appeared, however, and, if the term be not accounted too commercial, had been discounted, a second ebb in the matter of RusMn's popularity set in. Thirty years ago taste was at its lowest point in this country. The two painters whom we bowed down to and worshipped were Maclise and Noel Paton ; we pinned our faith to Macaulay in matters literary ; while, as for the art which concerns itself with the life of every day, this had not yet come into being. It need not be matter, therefore, for wonderment, that the publication, in the early numbers of the Cornhill, of " Unto this Last," was the signal for a general outburst of hooting and laughter. Ruskin was •not understanded of the men of that day. They were materialists pure and simple. Their creed found expression in the phrase " How to make the best of both worlds.' 1 When one, therefore, appeared in their midst, lifting up his voice against the gods to whom they paid sacrifice, there was a cry that he should be stoned, even as was Stephen of old. For a couple of decades, however, the reputation of Mr Ruskin has been constantly on the increase. The Philistines of the 'fifties have now been pretty well gathered to their fathers, and the current generation has, in a great measure, been brought up under the direct teaching of the author of "Modern Painters." This teaching, it is needless to say, I is among the grandest known to all the genera- ' tions of men. Not only is Mr Ruskin continually in earnest, but his earnestness constantly ■ partakes, more or less, of the nature of a passion. And besides being in earnest, he possesses, and that in no small degree, the faculty of common sense. Indeed his insight, his imagination, the wonderful command he has over our common mother tongue, together with his marvellous faculty for either invective or eulogium, wpuld have all been rendered of comparatively 'non-effect, had they not been held in balance, had they not been informed and regulated by an everyday wisdom as keen and as shrewd as that of the "Poor Richard" of Benjamin Franklin or the " Samuel Weller " of Mr Dickens.