with the great critic; for, with a few quiet words he has completely demolished the pretensions of Edinburgh to be considered a fine city, and at a few blasts of his critical ram's horn the architectural glories of the New Town have fallen. If the force of his criticisms had not been felt, we should not have seen such an angry reply to them in Blackwood. The two radical principles of the Ruskinian theory of art are that mind is better than machinery, and that truth is better than falsehood. These two ideas lie at the bottom of all of the criticisms and dogmatismns of the Oxford graduate, and it is because the very bases of all his remarkable and startling theories have either been lost sight of, or never comprehended, that he has been so generally misunderstood, ridiculed and abused. But, though we do not anticipate an immediate revolution in architecture, painting, and sculpture, it is not possible that his remarkable writings should fail to give an entirely new direction to the artistic operations of the next generation. The old men will persevere in their old ways; but the new men, who have a career to make, will profit by the profound and sagacious theories which the author of the Stones of Venice has elucidated in his various writings. According to him, and we cannot dissent from his opinions, architecture has been a lost art during the past two hundred years. In all that time there has been an immense deal of costly building in Christendom, but nothing that deserves the name of noble architecture.

But, it is not as an expounder of the true theory of art that he is alone entitled to admiration; for even though all he had written on art were false and worthless, there would be enough remaining, interWoven among his criticisms, on the moralities of life, and the religious responsibilities of our nature, to place his writings among the most remarkable and profitable that the century has produced. In one of his Edinburgh lectures on Architecture there is a passage in relation to purchases of works of art, so full of noble thought, and the refined essence of Christian feeling, that we copy it, as much for its intrinsic beauty as, the novel and subtle principle which it evolves.

"There is, assuredly, no action of our social life, however unimportant, which, by kindly thought, may not be made to have a beneficial influence upon others; and, it is impossible to spend the smallest

sum of money, for any not absolute purpose, without a grave responsibility attaching to the manner of spending it. The object we ourselves covet, may, indeed. be desirable and harmless, so far as we are concerned, but the providing us with it may, perhaps, be a very prejudicial Occupation to some one else; and then it becomes instantly a moral question, whether we are to indulge ourselves in it or not. Whatever we wish to buy, we ought first to consider not only if the thing be fit for us, but if the manufacture be a wholesome and happy one; and if, on the whole, the sum we are going to spend, would do as much good spent in this way as it would if spent in any other way. It may be said we have not time to consider all this before we make a purchase. But no time could be spent in a more important duty; and God never imposes a duty without giving the time to do it. Let us, however, only acknowledge the principle;-once make up your mind to allow the consideration of the effect of your purchases, and you will soon easily find grounds enough to decide upon. Now let us remember, that every farthing we spend on objects of art has influence over men's minds and spirits, far more than over their bodies. By the purchase of every print which hangs on your walls, of every cup out of which you drink, and every table off which you eat your bread, you are educating a mass of men in one way or another. You are either employing them healthily or unwholesomely; you are making them lead happy or unhappy lives; you are leading them to look at nature and to love herto think, to feel, to enjoy; or you are blinding them to nature and keeping them bound, like beasts of burden, in mechanical and monotonous employments. We shall all be asked one day why we did not think more of this."

The particular application which Mr. Ruskin makes of this principle is, that it is better for the cause of art and humanity to purchase a cheap, original watercolor painting, than a high-priced engraving, an opinion from which no man with a heart in his bosom, or a sound idea in his head, will dissent. But if this principle be true in the morals of trade, and we do not see how it can honestly be gainsaid, with what force can it be applied to the case of literary purchases in this country.