In any case, I shall go on at leisure, God willing, with the works I have undertaken.

Lastly. My Oxford professorship will provide for my expenses at Oxford as long as I am needed there.

21. Such, Companions mine, is your Master's position in life;—and such his plan for the few years of it which may yet remain to him. You will not, I believe, be disposed wholly to deride either what I have done, or mean to do; but of this you may be assured, that my spending, whether foolish or wise, has not been the wanton lavishness of a man who could not restrain his desires; but the deliberate distribution, as I thought best, of the wealth I had received as a trust, while I yet lived, and had power over it. For what has been consumed by swindlers, your modern principles of trade are answerable; for the rest, none even of that confessed to have been given in the partiality of affection, has been bestowed but in real self-denial. My own complete satisfaction would have been in buying every Turner drawing I could afford, and passing quiet days at Brantwood, between my garden and my gallery, praised, as I should have been, by all the world, for doing good to myself.

I do not doubt, had God condemned me to that selfishness, He would also have inflicted on me the curse of happiness in it. But He has led me by other ways, of which my friends who are wise and kind, neither as yet praising me, nor condemning, may one day be gladdened in witness of a nobler issue.

22. (III.) The following letter, with the extracts appended to it, will be of interest, in connection with our present initiation of closer Bible study for rule of conduct.

I should also be glad if Major Hartley could furnish me with any satisfactory explanation of the circumstances which have induced my correspondent's appeal.

"MY DEAR SIR,-When I had the pleasure of seeing you last week you expressed some interest in the house in Gloucestershire where for a time resided the great translator of the English Scriptures, William Tyndale, and which is now in a sadly neglected condition. It is charmingly set on the south-western slope of the Cotswolds, commanding a fine prospect over the richly wooded vale of the Severn, to the distant hills of Wales. After leaving Oxford, Tyndale came to reside in this manor-house of Little Sodbury, as tutor in the family of the proprietor, Sir John Walsh, and was there probably from 1521 to 1523. It was in the old dining-hall that, discussing with a neighbouring priest, Tyndale uttered his memorable words, "If God spare my life, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do.' This prediction he fulfilled, for he was the first man to translate from the original, and print in a foreign land, the English Scriptures, and was rewarded for his toil by being strangled and burnt. However England may have misused and abused the book, there can be no doubt that the introduction of Tyndale's Testaments marked a new and remarkable era in the history of our country; and whatever opinion may be formed of the contents of the volume, the fine masculine English and nervous simplicity of Tyndale's translation have commanded the admiration alike of friends and foes. Though they are probably familiar to you, I enclose an extract from the late Dr. Faber, a Roman Catholic, and another from Mr. Froude, the historian, as to the beauty of Tyndale's style.' (I wish Mr. Froude, the historian, cared a little less about style; and had rather told us what he thought about the Bible's matter. I bought the Rinnovamento of Venice

yesterday, with a review in it of a new Italian poem in praise of the Devil, of which the reviewer says the style is excellent.1) "You may also be interested in perusing a translation from the Latin of the only letter of the translator that has ever been discovered, and which touchingly reveals his sufferings in the castle of Vilvorde, in Flanders, shortly before he was put to death. Now I hope you will agree with me that the only house in the kingdom where so great a man resided ought not to be allowed to fall into decay and neglect as it is now doing. Part of the house is unroofed, the fine old dining-hall with its beautiful roof has been turned into a carpenter's shop, the chimney-piece and other portions of the fittings of the manorhouse having been carried off by the owner, Major Hartley, to his own residence, two or three miles off. I have appealed to the proprietor in behalf of the old house, but in vain, for he does not even condescend to reply. I should be glad if your powerful pen could draw attention to this as well as other similar cases of neglect. The interesting old church of St. Adeline, immediately behind the manor-house of Little Sodbury, and where Tyndale frequently preached, was pulled down in 1858, and the stones carried off for a new one in another part of the parish. Many would have gladly contributed towards a new church, and to save the old one, but they were never asked, or had any opportunity. I fear I have wearied you with these particulars, but I am sure you will not approve the doings I have recounted. With pleasant recollections of your kind hospitality,

"Believe me, dear Sir,

"Your faithful and obliged."

"The late Dr. Faber wrote of the English Bible, of which Tyndale's translation is the basis, as follows." (I don't understand much of this sweet writing of Dr. Faber's myself; but I beg leave to state generally that the stronghold of Protestant heresy is pure pig-headedness, and not at all a taste for pure English.)

"Who_will not say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives on the ear like music that can never be forgotten-like the sound of a church bell which a convert hardly knows he can forego. Its felicities seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The dower of all the gifts and trials of a man's life is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of the best moments; and all that there has been about him of soft and gentle, and pure and penitent and good, speaks to him for ever out of the English Bible. It is his sacred thing which doubt has never dimmed and controversy never soiled.' (Doctor!) 'In the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of righteousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his English Bible.'

"Mr. Froude says of Tyndale's version:

"Of the translation itself, though since that time it has been many times revised and altered, we may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are all familiar. The peculiar genius-if such a word may be permitted'-(better unpermitted)-' which breathes through it, the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the preternatural' (Do you really mean that, Mr. Froude?) 'grandeur, unequalled, unapproached in the attempted improvements of modern scholars, all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one mann-William Tyndale.'-Froude's History of England.2

"The only letter of William Tyndale which has been discovered was found in the archives of the Council of Brabant, and is as follows; it is addressed to the Marquis of Berg-op-Zoom, the Governor of Vilvorde Castle, in the Low Countries; the date is 1535:

"I believe, right worshipful, that you are not ignorant of what has been determined concerning me (by the Council of Brabant), therefore I entreat your [For another reference to this work, see Letter 83, § 8 n. (p. 266).] [Ch. xii. vol. iii. p. 84 (1873 edition).]

And finally, you see what an average year of carefully restricted expense has been to me!-Say £5500 for thirteen years, or, roughly, seventy thousand; and we have this-I hope not beyond me-sum in addition :

19. Those are the clearly stateable and memorable heads of expenditure-more I could give, if it were needful; still, when one is living on one's capital, the melting away is always faster than one expects; and the final state of affairs is, that on this 1st of April, 1877, my goods and chattels are simply these following:

In funded cash-six thousand Bank Stock, worth, at present prices, something more than fifteen thousand pounds.

Brantwood-worth, certainly with its house, and furnitures, five thousand. Marylebone freehold and leaseholds-three thousand five hundred. Greenwich freehold-twelve hundred.

Herne Hill leases and other little holdings-thirteen hundred.

So

And pictures and books, at present lowest auction prices, worth at least double my Oxford insurance estimate of thirty thousand: but put them at no more, and you will find that, gathering the wrecks of me together, I could still now retire to a mossy hermitage, on a little property of fifty-four thousand odd pounds; more than enough to find me in meal and cresses. that I have not at all yet reached my limit proposed in Munera Pulveris -of dying "as poor as possible," 1 nor consider myself ready for the digging scenes in Timon of Athens.2 Accordingly, I intend next year, when St. George's work really begins, to redress my affairs in the following

manner:

20. First. I shall make over the Marylebone property entirely to the St. George's Company, under Miss Hill's superintendence always. I have already had the value of it back in interest, and have no business now to keep it any more.3

Secondly. The Greenwich property was my father's, and I am sure he would like me to keep it. I shall keep it therefore; and in some way, make it a Garden of Tuileries, honourable to my father, and to the London he lived in.4

Thirdly. Brantwood I shall keep, to live upon, with its present servants-necessary, all, to keep it in good order; and to keep me comfortable, and fit for my work. I may not be able to keep quite so open 1 [See Munera Pulveris, § 153 (Vol. XVII. p. 276).]

2 Act iv. sc. 3.]

3 [See, on this subject, Letter 86 (p. 360 n.).]

[Compare Vol. XXVII. pp. 69, 105. Ruskin retained the properties for some time, and ultimately sold them when opportunity offered of increasing the Brantwood estate.]

a house there as I have been accustomed to do: that remains to be

seen.

Fourthly. My Herne Hill leases and little properties that bother me, I shall make over to my pet cousin-whose children, and their donkey,1 need good supplies of bread and butter, and hay: she always promising to keep my old nursery for a lodging to me, when I come to town.2

Fifthly. Of my ready cash, I mean to spend to the close of this year, another three thousand pounds, in amusing myself with such amusement as is yet possible to me-at Venice, and on the Alps, or elsewhere; and as, at the true beginning of St. George's work, I must quit myself of usury and the Bank of England, I shall (at some loss you will find, on estimate) then buy for myself twelve thousand of Consols stock, which, if the nation hold its word, will provide me with three hundred and sixty pounds a year-the proper degrees of the annual circle, according to my estimate, of a bachelor gentleman's proper income, on which, if he cannot live, he deserves speedily to die. And this, with Brantwood strawberries and cream, I will for my own poor part, undertake to live upon, uncomplainingly, as Master of St. George's Company,—or die. But, for my dependants, and customary charities, further provision must be made; or such dependencies and charities must end. Virtually, I should then be giving away the lives of these people to St. George, and not my own. Wherefore,

*

Sixthly. Though I have not made a single farthing by my literary work last year, I have paid Messrs. Hazell, Watson, and Viney an approximate sum of £800 for printing my new books, which sum has been provided by the sale of the already printed ones. I have only therefore now to stop working; and I shall receive regular pay for my past work— a gradually increasing, and-I have confidence enough in St. George and myself to say-an assuredly still increasing, income, on which I have no doubt I can sufficiently maintain all my present servants and pensioners; and perhaps even also sometimes indulge myself with a new missal. New Turner drawings are indeed out of the question; but as I have already thirty large and fifty or more small ones, and some score of illuminated MSS., I may get through the declining years of my æsthetic life, it seems to me, on those terms, resignedly, and even spare a book or two-or even a Turner or two, if needed-to my St. George's schools.

Now, to stop working for the press, will be very pleasant to me 5-not to say medicinal, or even necessary-very soon. But that does not mean stopping work. Deucalion and Proserpina can go on far better without printing; and if the public wish for them, they can subscribe for them.

* Counting from last April Fool's day to this.

1 [See above, p. 73.]

[This was always done. The Preface of Præterita was written at Herne Hill "in what was once my nursery," Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn having renewed the lease until 1907.]

$ [For his movements, see Vol. XXIV. pp. xxxiv. n., xliv.]

[This calculation was amply verified: see the account of Ruskin's publishing experiment in Vol. XXX., and compare the Introduction to Vol. XXVII. (pp. lxxxii.-lxxxvi.).]

5

[A self-denying ordinance which, however, was by no means to be carried out.]

4

then "kept," and then "reserved," every one of these words being weaker than the real one,' which means guarded as a watch-dog guards. To "reserve" the Devil, is quite a different thing from "watching" him. Again, you see that, for “lasciviousness," I have written "fury." The word 2 is indeed the same always translated lasciviousness, in the New Testament, and not wrongly, if you know Latin; but wherever it occurs (Mark vii. 22; Ephesians iv. 19, etc.), it has a deeper under-meaning than the lust of pleasure. It means essentially the character which "refuses to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely," which cannot be soothed, or restrained, but will take its own way, and rage its own rage,*-alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,—who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to fury (animal rage, carnivorousness in political economy,-competition, as of horses with swinging spurs at their sides in the Roman corso, in science, literature, and all the race of life), to work all uncleanness,-(not mere sensual vices, but all the things that defile, comp. Mark vii. 22, just quoted), with greediness; then, precisely in the same furrow of thought, St. Jude goes on,-"denying the only Despot, God;" and St. Paul, "but ye have not so learned Christ-if so be that ye have heard Him, and been taught by Him "—(which is indeed precisely the point dubitable)—" that ye put off the old man," etc.,—where you will find, following, St. Paul's explanation of the Decalogue, to end of chapter (Eph. iv.), which if you will please learn by heart with the ten commandments, and, instead of merely praying, when you hear that disagreeable crotchet of Moses's announced, "Thou