another in the High Street, and another at the corner of Philpott's Lane, and another by the stables at the back of Tunstall Terrace, outside the town, where he has just bricked over the Dovesbourne, and filled Buttercup Meadow with broken bottles; and, by every measure, and on every principle of calculation, the growth of your prosperity is established!

You helpless sots and simpletons! Can't you at least manage to set your wives-what you have got of themto brew your beer, and give you an honest pint of it for your money? Let them have the halfpence first, anyhow, if they must have the kicks afterwards.

Read carefully over, then, thirsty and hungry friends, concerning these questions of meat and drink, that whole Fors of March, 1873; but chiefly Sir Walter's letter,' and what it says of Education, as useless, unless you limit your tippling-houses.*

14. Yet some kind of education is instantly necessary to give you the courage and sense to limit them. If I were in your place, I should drink myself to death in six months, because I had nothing to amuse me; and such education, therefore, as may teach you how to be rightly amused I am trying with all speed to provide for you. For, indeed, all real education, though it begins in the wisdom of John the Baptist (quite literally so; first in washing with pure water), goes on into an entirely merry and amused life, like St. Ursula's; and ends in a delightsome death. But to be amused like St. Ursula you must feel like her, and become interested in the distinct nature of Bad and Good. Above all, you must learn to know faithful and good men from miscreants.3 Then you will be amused by knowing the histories of the good ones-and very greatly entertained by visiting their tombs, and seeing their statues. You will

Compare Fors, February, 1872 [Letter 14, § 13 (Vol. XXVII. p. 256).]

even feel yourselves pleased, some day, in walking consider able distances, with that and other objects, and so truly seeing foreign countries, and the shrines of the holy men who are alive in them, as well as the shrines of the dead. You will even, should a voyage be necessary, learn to rejoice upon the sea, provided you know first how to row upon it, and to catch the winds that rule it with bright sails. You will be amused by seeing pretty people wear beautiful dresses when you are not kept yourselves in rags, to pay for them; you will be amused by hearing beautiful music, when you can get your steam-devil's tongues, and throats, and wind-holes anywhere else, stopped, that you may hear it; and take enough pains yourselves to learn to know it, when you do. All which sciences and arts St. George will teach you, in good time, if you are obedient to him:-without obedience, neither he nor any saint in heaven can help you.1

15. Touching which, now of all men hated and abused, virtue, and the connection more especially of the arts of the Muse with its universal necessity,—I have translated a piece of Plato for you, which, here following, I leave you to meditate on till next month :

2

"The Athenian."—It is true, my friends, that over certain of the laws, with us, our populace had authority; but it is no less true that there were others to which they were entirely subject.

"The Spartan."-Which mean you?

"The Athenian."-First, those which in that day related to music, if indeed we are to trace up to its root the change which has issued in our now too licentious life.

For, at that time, music was divided according to certain ideas and forms necessarily inherent in it; and one kind of songs consisted of prayers to the gods, and were called hymns; and another kind, contrary to these, for the most part were called laments,* and another, songs of resolute strength

*The Coronach of the Highlanders represents this form of music down to nearly our own days. It is to be defined as the sacredly ordered expression of the sorrow permitted to human frailty, but contrary to prayer, according to Plato's words, because expressing will contrary to the will of God.3

1 [For a passage originally intended for this Letter, see Appendix 19 (p. 578).] 2 [Laws, ii. 700-701.]

This note was placed in quotation marks in later editions, though not in ed. 1. It can hardly be doubted, however, that the note is Ruskin's.]

and triumph, were sacred to Apollo; and a fourth, springing out of the frank joy of life, were sacred to Dionusos, and called " dithyrambs." And these modes of music they called Laws as they did Laws respecting other matters; but the laws of music for distinction's sake were called Harplaws.

And these four principal methods, and certain other subordinate ones, having been determined, it was not permitted to use one kind of melody for the purpose of another; and the authority to judge of these, and to punish all who disobeyed the laws concerning them, was not, as now, the hissing, or the museless † cry of the multitude in dispraise, neither their clapping for praise: but it was the function of men trained in the offices of education to hear all in silence; and to the children and their tutors, and the most of the multitude, the indication of order was given with the staff; ‡ and in all these matters the multitude of the citizens was willing

1

"The origin of the word is unknown (Liddell and Scott). But there must have been an idea connected with a word in so constant use, and spoken of matters so intimately interesting; and I have myself no doubt that a sense of the doubling and redoubling caused by instinctive and artless pleasure in sound, as in nursery rhymes, extended itself gradually in the Greek mind into a conception of the universal value of what may be summed in our short English word "reply"; as, first, in the reduplication of its notes of rapture by the nightingale, then, in the entire system of adjusted accents, rhythms, strophes, antistrophes, and echoes of burden; and, to the Greek, most practically in the balanced or interchanged song of answering bodies of chorus entering from opposite doors on the stage continuing down to our own days in the alternate chant of the singers on each side of the choir.

"Museless," as one says "shepherdless," unprotected or helped by the Muse.

I do not positively understand this,2 but the word used by Plato signifies properly, "putting in mind," or rather putting in the notion, or 66 nous"; and I believe the wand of the master of the theatre was used for a guide to the whole audience, as that of the leader of the orchestra is to the band,-not merely, nor even in any principal degree, for timekeeping (which a pendulum in his place would do perfectly),-but for exhortation and encouragement. Supposing an audience thoroughly bent on listening and understanding, one can conceive the suggestion of parts requiring attention, the indication of subtle rhythm which would have escaped uncultivated ears, and the claim for sympathy in parts of singular force and beauty, expressed by a master of the theatre, with great help and pleasure to the audience; we can imagine it best by supposing some

1 [The derivation of the word remains unknown. Ruskin, in connecting it with some idea of "doubling," accepts the old explanation, d Oúpaμßos for di Oúpaμos, applied to Bacchus, meaning double-doored, an allusion to the double birth of the god (see Euripides, Baccha, 526), who is thus supposed to have given the name to the strain. But the fact that the first syllable in di Oúpaußos is long seems a fatal objection to this explanation: see Donaldson's Theatre of the Greeks, p. 17 n.] 2 [ῥάβδου κοσμούσης ή νουθέτησις ἐγίγνετο.]

to be governed, and did not dare to judge by tumult; but after these things, as time went on, there were born, beginners of the museless libertinage,-poets, who were indeed poetical by nature, but incapable of recognizing what is just and lawful for the Muse; exciting themselves in passion, and possessed, more than is due, by the love of pleasure: and these mingling laments with hymns, and pæans with dithyrambs, and mimicking the pipe with the harp, and dragging together everything into everything else, involuntarily and by their want of natural instinct * led men into the false thought that there is no positive rightness whatsoever in music, but that one may judge rightly of it by the pleasure of those who enjoy it, whether their own character be good or bad. And constructing such poems as these, and saying, concerning them, such words as these, they led the multitude into rebellion against the laws of music, and the daring of trust in their own capacity to judge of it. Whence the theatric audiences, that once were voiceless, became clamorous, as having professed knowledge, in the things belonging to the Muses, of what was beautiful and not; and instead of aristocracy in that knowledge, rose up a certain polluted theatrocracy. For if indeed the democracy had been itself composed of more or less well-educated persons, there would not have been so much harm; but from this beginning in music, sprang up general disloyalty, and pronouncing of their own opinion by everybody about everything; and on this followed mere licentiousness, for, having no fear of speaking, supposing themselves to know, fearlessness begot shamelessness. For, in our audacity, to have no fear of the opinion of the better person, is in itself a corrupt impudence, ending in extremity of license. And on this will always follow the resolve no more to obey established authorities; then, beyond this, men are fain to refuse the service and reject the teaching of father and mother, and of all old age,—and so one is close to the end of refusing to obey the national laws, and at last to think no more of oath, or faith, or of the gods themselves: thus at last likening themselves to the ancient and monstrous nature of the Titans, and filling their lives full of ceaseless misery.

great, acknowledged, and popular master, conducting his own opera, secure of the people's sympathy. A people not generous enough to give sympathy, nor modest enough to be grateful for leading, is not capable of hearing or understanding music. In our own schools, however, all that is needful is the early training of children under true musical law; and the performance, under excellent masters, of appointed courses of beautiful music, as an essential part of all popular instruction, no less important than the placing of classical books and of noble pictures, within the daily reach and sight of the people.

* Literally, "want of notion or conception."1

1 [μουσικῆς ἄκοιτες ὑπ ̓ ἀνοίας καταψευδόμενοι.]

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE

16. (I.) AFFAIRS of the Company.

Our accounts to the end of the year will be given in the February Fors.1 The entire pause in subscriptions, and cessation of all serviceable offers of Companionship, during the last six months, may perhaps be owing in some measure to the continued delay in the determination of our legal position. I am sure that Mr. Somervell,2 who has communicated with the rest of the Companions on the subject, is doing all that is possible to give our property a simply workable form of tenure; and then, I trust, things will progress faster; but whether they do or not, at the close of this seventh year, if I live, I will act with all the funds then at my disposal. 17. (II.) Affairs of the Master.

Paid

Nov. 18. The Bursar of Corpus

Dec.

Henry Swan; engraving for Laws of Fésole3

29. Jackson

7. C. F. Murray, for sketch of Princess Ursula and her

Father, from Carpaccio 1

10. Oxford Secretary

11. Self at Venice +.

12. Downs.

15. Burgess

£1135 3 45

395 0 0

£740 3 4

* I have refused several which were made without clear understanding of the nature of the Companionship; and especially such as I could perceive to be made, though unconsciously, more in the thought of the honour attaching to the name of Companions, than of the self-denial and humility necessary in their duties.

+Includes the putting up of scaffolds at St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace to cast some of their sculptures; and countless other expenses, mythologically definable as the opening of Danaë's brazen tower; besides enormous bills at the "Grand Hotel," and sundry inexcusable "indiscriminate charities."7

1 [Letter 74 (p. 48).]

[See Vol. XXVIII. p. 659.]

3 Plate II.: see Vol. XV. p. 367.]

[No. 56 in the Sheffield Museum: see Vol. XXX.]

[This amount should be £670, 9s. 4d., leaving a balance on December 15th of £275, 9s. 4d. See Letter 74, § 18 (p. 50), where Ruskin corrects the mistakes in accounts in Letter 72, § 13.]

[Some of the casts were sent to Sheffield: see below, p. 116.]

7 [See Letters 4, § 7 (Vol. XXVII. p. 67), and 93, § 6 (below, p. 471).]