and at Mornex he began to carry it out. Mr. Allen was sent for to join him, and was to bring a printing-press in order that they might print the plates which Mr. Allen was to engrave from Ruskin's tracings of Turner's drawings. The work did not make great progress, but two of the engravings thus made at Mornex are given (reduced) in this edition (Vol. XIII., Plates xxiv. and xxvi.).

But Ruskin's main work at Mornex was done in complete solitude. This consisted of the third and fourth essays for Fraser's Magazine, now chapters iii. to vi. of Munera Pulveris.1 Ruskin regretted their "affected concentration of language "-the result, he said, of "thinking too long over particular passages, in many and many a solitary walk towards the mountains of Bonneville or Annecy." In revising the essays for publication in book-form he found it impossible to break up the concentration, and the work remains one of the most difficult of his treatises. It was intended, he says, only for "earnest readers”; but reviewers are not always, or perhaps often, in that category, and the curtness of expression in the essays proved a stumbling-block to many. It should be remembered that the essays as they stand were written only as an introduction to an intended treatise on a larger scale; as a mere "dictionary for reference," in Ruskin's words. (p. 145). But there is another peculiarity of the work which helps to explain its failure to catch the popular ear at the time, and which to this day makes it less read than Unto this Last. It is, in some ways, a more important part of Ruskin's economical writings; it is also very closely reasoned, and it follows throughout a clear plan. But there is mixed with it so much of excursus into classical fields, so much of verbal and literary argument, that readers fail to keep hold of the main thread. Ruskin, as we have seen, was occupying himself at the time with a minute study of many Greek and Latin authors, and Dante was his constant companion. All of them were impressed into the service of his economical theories.

There is a letter to his father written from Mornex which well illustrates the manner in which Ruskin made everything that he was reading work together; it also illustrates a particular passage in Munera Pulveris :4–

"October 23.-I have been reading the Odyssey to-night with much delight, and more wonder. Everything now has become a

1 References to his walks and talks at Mornex occur in §§ 147, 148 n., 150, 151.

2 Preface to Munera Pulveris, § 22; see below, p. 145.

3 See what Ruskin says in the letter on p. 487, below.

4 § 87 (below, p. 208). Compare the letter given at pp. 224-225 n. (“everything becomes endless when one works it out").

mystery to me-the more I learn, the more the mystery deepens and gathers. This which I used to think a poet's fairy tale, I perceive to be a great enigma-the Apocalypse, in a sort, of the Greeks. People's ineffable carelessness usually mixes up the gentle, industrious, kind Calypso with the enchantress Circe. She is the Patmos spirit of the Greeks (Calypse, Apo-Calypse), the goddess of wild nature. But what it all means, or meant, heaven only knows. I see we are all astray about everything-the best wisdom of the world has been spoken in these strange enigmas-Dante's, Homer's, Hesiod's, Virgil's, Spenser's-and no one listens, and God appoints all His best creatures to speak in this way: 'that hearing they may hear, and not understand';1 but why God will always have it so, and never lets any wise or great man speak plainly-Ezekiel, Daniel, St. John being utter torment to anybody who tries to understand them, and Homer scarcely more intelligible—there's no guessing.”

Ruskin's reading of these "enigmas" is full of flashes of insight and abounds in happy illustrations; but it sometimes led him into fanciful analogies, dubious etymologies, and strained interpretations. Matthew Arnold selected a passage from the essays in Fraser's Magazine—that in which Ruskin analyses the meaning of Shakespeare's names-to illustrate what he called "the note of provinciality "; by which he meant an absence of moderation and proportion-an excessive indulgence in literary whims in Ruskin's criticism. Ruskin's infinite ingenuity in discovering hidden meanings in ancient legends, and his determination to make all things-in classical and mediæval poetry and mythology-work together for the enforcement of his principles, recall the syncretism of the first centuries after Christ, when Greek philosophy sought to harmonise all creeds and assimilate all legends and all worships.3

A result of his thus giving the reins to his fancy is, in Munera Pulveris, a subtle and full-charged allusiveness, which makes the book somewhat difficult to read closely, and which calls, in this edition, for frequent annotation. Some of the explanatory notes are drawn, it will be seen, from the author's letters to his father, who had complained that he found the essays "dry."

The allusive note in the essays in Fraser's Magazine is struck in the title " Munera Pulveris "—which Ruskin afterwards gave to them. This title is one of the most obscure in his series, and even learned

1 Matthew xiii. 14.

2 For some characteristic passages in this sort, see §§ 100, 101, 109 n., 110 n., 125 n.

3 For the importance which Ruskin attached to his readings of "the mythology of Greece and the legends of Rome," and which he indicated in the titles of his later books, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 67.

commentators dismiss it with the bald remark that it is cryptic.1 It has been suggested that the title may be taken "in disconnection from its context in Horace," and has "no ulterior meaning."2 But Ruskin expressly cites the passage from Horace as the motto of his book (p. 147), and if the title had no "ulterior meaning" it would be very unlike Ruskin. "I am not fantastic," he wrote, "in my titles, as is often said; but try shortly to mark my chief purpose in the book by them."3 The desire to disconnect the quotation from the context is, however, very intelligible, for the Ode in question (i. 28) is one of the most vexed passages in Horace. Who is speaking, and who is being addressed; how many speakers there are; the scene of the Ode, the nature, the division of its parts, its purpose, are all points on which there are almost as many opinions as commentators. And on the solution of such questions, the translation of the lines quoted by Ruskin must depend. He does not himself give any translation; and it would be possible, with the necessary supply of ingenuity, to devise as many meanings for Ruskin's title as there are versions of the lines from which it is taken. This exercise, however, is hardly necessary; for there are sufficient clues in Ruskin's other works, and even in this book itself, to show what he had in his mind. The most important passage occurs in the Cestus of Aglaia, § 34. He is there speaking of the wasted labour and ill-directed ingenuity in too much of the art of the day; and apostrophising some patient toiler in that sort, he exclaims :

"Over that genius of yours, low laid by the Matin shore, if it expired so, the lament for Archytas would have to be sung again :'pulveris exigui—munera.'

It is thus clear that Ruskin read the first lines of the Ode as a lament over Archytas dead and buried, and not as meaning that Archytas lacks the gift of a little sand that would give rest to his shade. A literal translation of the lines, as Ruskin took them,

"

1 " Munera Pulveris is the title taken from the line of Horace—the cryptic allusion of which so few readers understand -so says Mr. Frederic Harrison (John Ruskin, 1902, p. 102), and he does not explain the secret. Other writers do not allude to

the title. A probable explanation was given in an article in Good Words, July 1893 ("Mr. Ruskin's Titles," by Mrs. E. T. Cook).

2 W. S. Kennedy in the New York Critic and Good Literature, June 21, 1884. 3 See Ariadne Florentina, § 27.

4 This latter is the version adopted by Sir Theodore Martin :--

"Thee, O Archytas, who hast scanned

The wonders of the world by sea and land,

The lack of some few grains

Of scattered dust detains

A shivering phantom here upon Matinum's strand."

66

possible meanings of Ruskin's phrase, because the choice of such "cryptic" titles was very characteristic of the later workings of his mind. We have seen instances of it already in the fifth volume of Modern Painters. When he called one of his plates in that volume Venga Medusa" and another "The Locks of Typhon," reminiscences of Aristophanes and Dante and Hesiod and Turner all crowded into his mind at once; the title had facets as many as his mingling thoughts. This habit of writing in parables-of turning an idea, or a word, or a phrase over and over, and making it flash out, for those who had eyes to see, a different shade of light at each turn-became more and more frequent with Ruskin, especially in books or passages written in what he calls his "third manner"—the manner of saying "all that comes into my head for my own pleasure.'

It may be added that the title Munera Pulveris though not printed before 1872-was in Ruskin's mind much earlier. The passage in Horace was incidentally quoted in the original essays in Fraser's Magazine (see § 134 n.); and in Time and Tide (1867) he refers to the essays, not then republished, under the title Munera Pulveris (see $ 115, 155, 167).

The long interval which elapsed between the appearance of the essays in Fraser's Magazine and their publication as a book was due to a rebuff of the same kind as that which had cut short the earlier essays in the Cornhill. The fourth paper was sent to Fraser's Magazine from Mornex in March 1863, and duly appeared in the number for April. "The present paper," wrote Ruskin at the end of it, "completes the definitions necessary for future service. The next in order will be the first chapter of the body of the work." But the next in order was never to come. Froude, the editor of the Magazine, “had not wholly lost courage," but "the Publisher indignantly interfered; and the readers of Fraser," says Ruskin, "as those of the Cornhill, were protected for that time from further disturbance on my part." This second veto was a bitter vexation to Ruskin. Mr. Allen well remembers the day on which Ruskin heard the news; he paced his terrace-walk for hours like a caged lion, and deep gloom gathered upon him. Froude, it is clear, had not lost faith in his contributor; for,

1 See, for instance, the title given to Letter xi. in Time and Tide (below, p. 368 n.).

2 Queen of the Air, § 134.

3 See below, p. 290 n.

4 See the Preface to Munera Pulveris, § 20; below, p. 143.

a few months later, when Ruskin's views had called forth a reply in Macmillan's Magazine (by Professor Cairnes), Froude invited Ruskin to write a rejoinder. This supplementary paper-in the form of a dialogue on Gold-was duly sent to Froude, but it was not printed. Probably it was Ruskin's father who stopped it; he was particularly sensitive, as a City merchant, to his son's heresies on questions of currency; and Ruskin had promised his father "to publish no more letters without letting you see them."1 Many years later this suppressed chapter came to light, Ruskin's servant and amanuensis Crawley having been in possession of a copy of it. It is now included in the Appendix to this volume (pp. 491–498).

It should be stated, as explaining the stoppage of Munera Pulveris in Fraser's Magazine, that the papers excited the same violent hostility and reprobation that were called forth by Unto this Last. Indeed, the outcry was now at its height, for reviews of Unto this Last, in its collected form, were appearing. The contemptuous tone of the writers in the press, and the remonstrances of private friends, hurt Ruskin's father not a little, and a strain of vexation in the son's letters at this time was caused by paternal entreaties for alterations or suppressions. Ruskin in reply (Mornex, August 19, 1862) begged his father "to mind critiques as little as possible; read, of me, what you can enjoy, put by the rest, and leave my 'reputation' in my own hands, and in God's-in whose management of the matter you and mama should trust more happily and peacefully than I can-for you believe that He brings all right for everything and everybody; and I, that He appoints noble laws, and blesses those who obey them, and destroys them who do not." Now, as in the case of the papers in the Cornhill Magazine, Ruskin had an enthusiastic supporter in Carlyle, who tried to reassure Ruskin's father. Writing to Ruskin on October 24, 1862, Froude said::

"The world talks of the article in its usual way. I was at Carlyle's last night. . . . He said that in writing to your father as to subject, he had told him that when Solomon's temple was building it was credibly reported that at least 10,000 sparrows sitting on the trees round declared that it was entirely wrong, quite contrary to received opinion, hopelessly condemned by public opinion, etc. Nevertheless it got finished, and the sparrows flew away and began to chirp in the same note about something else." ?

1 From a letter of November 23, 1863.

2 Here reprinted from p. 203 of W. G. Collingwood's Life of John Ruskin (1900).