Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/904

Rh society and persons with inexhaustible fancy, wit, eloquence and freedom, until he was attacked with a violent brain malady in the spring of 1878 (act. 59); and, although he recovered in a few months sufficiently to do some occasional work, he resigned his professorship early in 1879. The next three years he spent at Brantwood, mainly in retirement, and unhappy in finding nearly all his labours interrupted by his broken health. In 1880 he was able to travel in northern France, and began the Bible of Amiens, finished in 1885; and he issued occasional numbers of Fors, the last of which appeared at Christmas 1884. In 1882 he had another serious illness, with inflammation of the brain; but he recovered sufficiently to travel to his old haunts in France and Italy-his last visit. And in the following year he was re-elected professor at Oxford and resumed his lectures; but increasing brain excitement, and indignation at the establishment of a laboratory to which vivisection was admitted, led him to resign his Oxford career, and he retired in 1884 to Brantwood, which he never left. He now suffered from frequent attacks of brain irritation and exhaustion, and had many causes of sorrow and disappointment. His lectures were published at intervals from 1870 to 1885 in Aratra Pentelici, The Eagle's Nest, Love'.s Meinie, Ariadne Florentina, Val d'Arno, Proserpina, Deucation, The Laws of Fesolé, The Bible of Amiens, The Art of England and The 'Pleasures of England, together with a series of 'pamphlets, letters, articles, notes, catalogues and circulars.

In the retirement of Brantwood he began his last work, Praeterita, a desultory autobiography with personal anecdotes and reminiscences. He was again attacked with the same mental malady in 1885, which henceforth left him fit only for occasional letters and notes. In 1887 it was found that he had exhausted (spent, and given away) the whole of the fortune he had received from his father, amounting, it is said, to something like £200,000; and he was dependent on the vast and increasing sale of his works, which produced an average income of £4000 a year, and at times on the sale of his pictures and realizable property. In 1872 a correspondent had remonstrated with him in vain as to taking “ usury, ” i.e. interest on capital lent to others for use. In 1874 Ruskin himself had begun to doubt its lawfulness. In 1876 he fiercely assailed the practice of receiving interest or rent, and he henceforth lived on his capital, which he gave freely to friends, dependants, public societies, charitable and social objects. The course of his opinions and his practice is fully explained in successive letters in F ors. Until 1889 he continued to write chapters of Praeterita, which was designed to record memories of his life down to the year 1875 (aet. 56). It was, in fact, only completed in regular series down to 1858 (aet. 59), with a separate chapter as to Mrs Arthur Severn, and a fragment called Dileoto, containing letters and early recollections of friends, especially of Turner. These two books were published between 1885 and 1889; and except for occasional letters, notes and prefaces, they form the last writings of the author of Modern Painters. His literary career thus extends over fifty years. But he has left nothing more graceful, naive and pathetic than his early memories in Praeterita -a book which must rank with the most famous “ Confessions ” in any literature. The last ten years of his life were passed in complete retirement at Brantwood, in the loving care of the Severn family, to whom the estate was transferred, with occasional visits from friends, but with no sustained work beyond correspondence, the revision of his works, and a few notes and prefatory words to the books of others. He wished to withdraw his early art writings from circulation, but the public demand made this practically impossible. And now the whole of his writings are under the control of Mr George Allen, in several forms and prices, including a cheap series at 5s. per volume.

The close of his life was one of entire peace and honour. He was loaded with the degrees of the universities and membership of numerous societies a.nd academies. “Ruskin Societies ” were founded in many parts of the kingdom. His works were translated and read abroad, and had an enormous circulation in Great Britain and the United States. Many volumes about his career and opinions were issued in his lifetime both at home and abroad. His 80th birthday, 8th February 1899, was celebrated by a burst of congratulations and addresses, both public and private. His strength failed gradually: his mind remained feeble but unclouded, and his spirit serene. An attack of influenza struck him down, and carried him od suddenly after only two days' illness, zoth January 1900. He was buried in Coniston churchyard by his own express wish, the family refusing the offer of a grave in Westminster Abbey.-Ruskin's litevary life may be arranged in three divisions. From 1837 to 1860 (aet. 18 to 41) he was occupied mainly with the arts. From 1860 to 1871 (aet. 41 to 52) he was principally occupied with social problems. From 1871 to 1885 (aet. 52 to 66) he was again drawn back largely to art by his lectures as professor, whilst prosecuting his social Utopia by speech, pen, example and purse. But the essential break in his life was in 1860, which marks the close of his main works on art and the opening of his attempt to found a new social gospel. With re ard to his views of art, he himself modified and revised them lrom time to time; and it is admitted that some of his judgments are founded on imperfect study and personal bias. But the essence of his teaching has triumphed in effect, and has profoundly modified the views of artists, critics and the public, although it is but rarely accepted as complete or'linal. The moral of his teaching-that' all living art requires truth, nature, purity, earnestness-has now become the axiom of all aesthetic work or judgment. John Ruskin founded the Reformation in Art.

With regard to his economic and social ideas there is far less general concurrence, though the years that have passed since Unto this Last appeared have seen the practical overthrow of the rigid plutonomy which he denounced. So, too, the vague and sentimental socialism. which pervades Munera Pulveris, Time and T ide and Fors is now very much in the air, and represents the aspirations 0f many energetic reformers. But the negative part of Ruskin's teaching on economics, social and political problems, has been much more effective than the positive part of his teaching. It must be admitted that nearly the whole of his practical experiments to realize his dreams have come to nothing, which is not unnatural, seeing his defiance of the ordinary habits and standards of the world. A more serious defect was his practice of violently assailing philosophers, economists andrmen of science, of whom he knew almost nothing, and whom he perversely misunderstood: men such as Adam Smith, Comte, Mill, Spencer, Darwin and all who followed them. In art, Ruskin had enjoyed an unexampled training, which made him a consummate expert.' In philosophy and science he was an amateur, seeking to found a new sociology and a Utopian polity out of his own inner consciousness and study of nature, of poetry and the Bible. It is not wonderful if, in doing this, he poured forth a quantity of crude conceits and some glaring blunders. But in the most Quixotic of his schemes, and the most Laputan of his theories, his pure and chivalrous nature, his marvellous insight into the heart of things and men, and his genius to seize on all that is true, real and noble in life, made his most startling proposals pregnant with meaning, and even his casual play full of fascination and moral suggestion.

In mastery of prose language he has never been surpassed, when he chose to curb his florid imagination and his discursive eagerness of soul. The beauty and gorgeous imagery of his art works bore away the public from the first, in spite of their heretical dogmatism and their too frequent extravagance of rhetoric. But his later economic and social pieces, such as Unto this Last, Time and Tide, Sesame and Lilies, are composed in the purest and most lucid of English styles. And many of his simply technical and explanatory notes have the same quality. Towards the close of his life, in For: and in Praeterita, will be found passages of tenderness, charm and subtlety which have never been surpassed in our language.

Ruskin's life and Writings have been the subject of many works composed by friends, disciples and admirers. The principal is the Life, by W. G. Collingwood, his friend, neighbour and secretary (1900). His pupil, Mr E. T. Cook, published his Studies in Ruskin in 1890, with full details of his career as professor. Mr J. A. Hobson, in John Ruskin, Social Reformer (2nd ed., 1899), has elaborately discussed his social and economic teaching, and claims him as " the greatest social teacher of l1is age.” An analysis of his works has been written by Mrs Meynell (1900). His art theories have been discussed by Professor Charles Waldstein of Cambridge in The Work of John Ruskin (1894), by Robert de la Sizeranne in Ruskin et la religion de la beauté (1897), and by Professor H. J. Brunhes of Fribourg in Ruskin et la Bible (1901). The monumental “library edition ” of Ruskin's works (begun in 1903), prepared by Mr E. T. Cook, with Mr A. Wedderburn, is the greatest of all the tributes of literary admiration. (F. HA.)

RUSSELL (FAMILY). The great English Whig house of the Russells, earls and dukes of Bedford, rose under the favour of Henry VIII. Obsequious genealogists have traced their