The natural consequence of this is that every worker must become a stipendiary of the State-that all the profits of all the trades, from the highest to the lowest, must go into one immense treasury, from which the whole of us-day-labourers, skilled artisans, merchants, painters, scribblers, poets, and all the rest shall obtain, "according to the rank of it, fair pay for fair labour"a state of affairs under which the capital of the Barings will not serve them, nor the genius of Mr Ruskin advance his interests, but all be lost in a blank of equal income and equal rights. We have no objections, for our own part, to be thus put on a level with the last lawgiver; but yet surely he is aware that the world is not a new world created yesterday, but an old world, with a history showing very clearly what human nature is, and the principles upon which men have lived and laboured for some few thousand years.

Our readers will probably ask with amaze how it is possible to regard with any sort of gravity this system of impossible economy, and whether anything but inextinguishable laughter is fit criticism for such a scheme. But the laughter with which such dreams must be received is always tinctured with a deep gravity. The folly of wisdom is a melancholy thing, and the egotism and self-worship of genius is more lamentable still. Mr Ruskin is not a common man nor an ordinary critic; and it is sad to see him thus holding himself up to the ridicule of men. No doubt it is a beautiful thing, theo

retically, when a man of high attainments applies himself to the instruction of the ignorant, and, with a friendliness and brotherliness beyond praise, enters into correspondence with the homely artisan whose aspirations after intellectual and moral progress have so just a claim on his sympathy.

But there is a drawback even to such goodness. The artisan may be no way inferior in nature, and is, without doubt, equal in the sight of God, to any prince or peer. But yet, the gulf of education and training is one over which no man can pass to go to the other, any more than Lazarus could. The want of education is more than it seems on the outside. Mr Ruskin's humble friends may have as delicate sensibilities as he has. They may appreciate and enjoy that inheritance of literature which belongs more or less to every Englishman. They may perceive as keenly the beauty of nature, and may be as sensible of the broad rules of justice and truth. What they cannot have, except in very special instances, is that artificial experience-if we may use such a word-which is given by liberal training and knowledge of the world. A man who is confined all his life within a narrow sphere must be wanting in knowledge of all those curious complications of civilisation, all the wonderful network of opposed interests, which make up modern life. Time or temperament may give him that true wisdom, insight, and human toleration, which are the highest qualities of the sage, within the bounds of his personal influence. But an uneducated statesman is about the one impossibility. Bookknowledge, such as can be acquired wherever there is a library, is not enough to form this development of human power. The lowly legislator dreams, and his dreams may be beautiful. To his inexperienced eyes there is no reason why the most unlikely results should not

be made to ensue. He has a belief in power even when he resists it, which exists in no other class. In the generosity of poverty he can conceive of any surrender of fortune. To a man who must always, at the worst, have ten, twenty, a thousand times more than he has at his best, it must be so easy to give up the immeasurable superfluity. He believes in reason, too, with a simple faith which is often accompanied with the sublime of unreasonableness. He thinks the world may be convinced by eloquence, and will bend to truth, and answer infallibly to the touch of the helm, when it is touched by Genius, Beneficence, Wisdom. There is a beauty in this noble folly in the mind of the inexperienced and uneducated. In the abstract it is finer, perhaps, purer, more attractive, than anything practicable. But its very beauty is the mark of its weakness. It is a thing of air and clouds, incapable of life.

Such is precisely the system which with deadly seriousness, and with all the graces of genius, Mr Ruskin has set before the world. He does not even introduce it with the consciousness of a speculatist, but rather with the air of a prophet, who knows that the scheme he propounds is absolutely and divinely right. We may laugh or smile or cry at the exhibition, so far as he is himself concerned; but it is impossible to think of anything more injurious to the class which he specially addresses. We do not say that he flatters this class; on the contrary, he gives them very hard hits on many occasions, and points out their practical weaknesses with zeal and unction. The harm he does them is, that he sanctions by his example their own Utopian fancies-that he justifies this dreaming, which in them is excusable, by practising it himself, though in him it is inexcusable. For this reason the smile with which we began to consider his code sinks into seriousness. In his

case, peculiar as his mind is, and curious as is the conjunction of absurdity, simplicity, and beauty, the tenderest grace of thought and speech with the utmost foolishness of suggestion, the mischief may not be great. For Mr Ruskin's folly is too ethereal and his schemes too elaborate to catch the common eye. But he is not the only philosopher who has thus suffered his position as popular preacher and guide of untutored understandings to reduce him to the fancied level of those whom he instructs. There can be no greater danger both to the taught and the teacher. What we gain by the intercouse between the classes which is involved in lectures and correspondences like this, we lose in the perversion of influence which seems to follow-the lower class, with its necessarily narrow views and fantastic hopes, dragging down, as it seems, the higher with its advantages of culture and liberal educacation, instead of the latter widening, calming, and opening up, as it ought, the intelligence of the former. It is this which gives any importance or seriousness to the curiously futile little book which is the last of Mr Ruskin's works. It is to be hoped that his readers, more acute than himself, may perceive how he shirks every question he raises, and to what a comical chaos of impossibility he brings his supposed new social world; but it is a pity that any gentle reader of the 'Manchester Guardian' should be misled by so distinguished a name and so fine a talent to think that these wild dreamings are social philosophy.

This little book, too, in itself is a curious illustration of the evils of self-regard. There are many quotations in it, but they are mostly from Mr Ruskin's works. Modern Painters,' 'Sesame and Lilies,' and "The Crown of Wild Olive,' would seem to form the largest portion of his library, or, at least, to be the books he most believes in. His correspondent varies the selection by allusions to Carlyle's 'Frederick;'

but Mr Ruskin would not seem to set much store by 'Frederick,' or indeed anything beyond the little list given above. These books are weighty and precious to him. He gives thauks to heaven for having been permitted to write this and that golden sentence. And then he is eloquent in little pictures of himself and his surroundings. He meditates "before breakfast under the just opened blossoms of my orchard, assisted by much melodious advice from the birds, who (my gardener having positive orders never to trouble any of them in anything, or object to their eating even my best peas if they like their flavour) rather now get into my way than out of it when they see me about the walks, and take me into most of their counsels in nestbuilding." He "never reads anything in spring-time except the Ai, Ai on the 'sanguine flower inscribed with woe."" In short, Mr Ruskin himself, his garden, his blossoms, his birds, and his works, rank perilously high in the estimation of that brilliant writer and man of genius. He is charitable, but impatient of men who will have large families and die of over-work. He is spite ful at the poor lady who asks for a presentation to Christ's Hospital. After all, it would not be worth while being a governor of Christ's Hospital if there were not some people in the world incapable of providing for the education of their children. And Mr Ruskin is ready to weep when he tells us that his subscription of £20 for the poor widow made him unable to buy the Flora of Java,' and his contribution to the Eyre Defence and the Cruikshank Memorial Funds kept him from going to Switzerland. With a certain acrid satisfaction he tells us that in both cases it is the public which will be the eventual loser; for

"I am writing a book on botany just now.... And though you may think it not the affair of the public that I have not this book on Indian flowers,

it is their affair, finally, that what I write for them should be founded on as broad knowledge as possible." So again: "I suppose that when people see my name down for a hundred pounds to the Cruikshank Memorial, and for another to the Eyre Fund, they think only that I have more money than I know what to do with. Well, the giving of these subscriptions simply decides the question whether or no I shall be able to in the negative: and I wanted to go, not afford a journey to Switzerland this year only for health's sake, but to examine the junctions of the molasse sandstones and nagelfluh with the Alpine limestone, in order to complete some notes I meant to publish next spring on the geology of which must now lie by me at least anthe great northern Swiss valley-notes other year; and I believe this delay (though I say it) will be really something of a loss to the travelling public, for the little essay was intended to explain to them, in a familiar way, the real wonderfulness of their favourite mountain the Righi; and to give them some amusement in trying to find out where the many coloured pebbles of it had come from."

The public thus, by forcing Mr Ruskin to subscribe for the widow, and for Cruikshank and for Governor Eyre, has balked itself of two pleasures; which clearly proves that the public needs to be totally remodelled, and earth and heaven regulated on a new plan.

It is curious how thin and querulous the richest voice grows when it deplores and sympathises with itself. We are sorry to say it of Mr Ruskin, whose voice is capable of so much better things. In these very books, spoilt as they are with this narrow spirit of egotism, there are "bits" of the tenderest feeling, charming touches of criticism, full of thought and insight. Why will not he forget a little that he is Mr Ruskin, and suffer himself to be and to write, spontaneously without so much fuss about it? Either among the pictures or the primroses, the mountains or the cathedrals, he will then be the best of company. But heaven forbid that he should bring with him his bachelors and Rosières, his bishops and dukes!

THE catastrophe related at the end of the former part only made us, as I said, more determined to carry out the scheme of the elopement. The situation was, however, one of unquestionable difficulty, for it was evident that there was a female in Cayrasso's house who acted as a spy.

It must have been her window we mistook for Amalia's, and she of course had denounced us to the father; and a female spy, particularly in matters amatory, is the very deuce. We determined at last to make a counterfeit start in the morning, as, if this came to Cayrasso's ears, which it was pretty sure to do, it would lull his suspicions and free Amalia from his surveillance for the evening. I then went home to my barracks, and, after two or three hours' sleep, was back betimes in the "Casemates ready for a start. As it was expedient that our departure should be as public as possible, we delayed our start till past ten o'clock, and strolled leisurely across the square just as all the dismounted guards were passing home to their quarters. We were just turning out of the square when Cayrasso drove into it at the other end.

"Now, Tim," I said, "I do call that luck!-he's going to have it out with you, of course, and they'll tell him we're really off-nothing could be more fortunate."

We were both overjoyed, and hopping gaily on to a car drove to the "Mole." We found everything in readiness, and having unmoored the felucca, had begun to pole her out from the jetty, when Cayrasso rushed on to the scene, and standing on the brink of the landing-place shouted after us, "Ah! you run away, you scoundrels, but

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All right!" said Tim, and he shouted in the style of an indignant mariner, Slack your jaw, you confounded pork-pickling, rumadulterating, thieving, smuggling old son of a broken-backed Moorish donkey! Slack your jaw, or we'll put back and duck you, and wash some of the garlic out of your obscene carcass !

This unexpected counter staggered the assailant, and his second attempt was feebler: "Who breaks into honest men's houses at night, ladron?" he shouted.

"No one in 'Gib,' for there isn't an honest man on the Rock except the soldiers, and they live in barracks, you hoary villain," replied Tim.

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Perhaps you think there's no law at Gibraltar, but you'll find the reverse," screamed the Señor.

"There can't be much, or it would have hanged you long ago, you bloodsucker!" was the reply. "Will you repeat that on shore, braggart?"

"The next time you ask me to dine with you, you d-d old Jew," shouted Tim. All this time the crew were punting us out and trimming the lug-sail to the wind, and we were nearly beyond earshot. Cayrasso, decidedly short of repartee, had been ignominiously reduced to bawling after us a string of epithets quite unfit for publication. So Tim finally waved his cap, and shouting, "Adieu till Sunday next; have a good dinner for me, and tell 'somebody' not to pine in the meanwhile," sat down,

lighted a cigar, and remarked that "the eyes of the ancient one had about as much dust in them as they could well hold."

"Yes, Tim," I said, "you gave it him heartily-serve him right; and now we had better steer for Europa Point and lay-to behind the Rock till evening, when we'll creep back to the Mole. Briggs is on guard to-day there. I have arranged everything with him: he is to give us dinner (and a good dinner Mr Briggs always gives); and then he is to let us go in peace when the clock tolls the hour for retiring; but we must be alongside the Mole before gunfire."

The felucca's head was accordingly laid in the required direction. We were not long in rounding Europa Point, and, gliding well round the southern extremity of the Rock, dropped anchor in still water, under a beetling crag that screened us from landward observation. And "there we lay all that day;" and what a day it was! The breeze dropped down and died; the sun rose up and tormented us, as if it had been in league with Cayrasso; the liquor had been forgotten, and we were athirst, without a drop to drink; but what were all these sufferings compared with the boredom I underwent at the hands of the lovelorn Tim! There was no escape from him here; he had clawed me in his clutch; I had to play "Wedding Guest" to his "Ancient Mariner," and "I could not choose but hear." Amalia was offered to my contemplation in a thousand phases and in myriads of mixed metaphors, with a truly "damnable iteration." In this way she was his desert bride," his "Lalage sub currû nimium ardentis;" she was Beatrice, donna bella e beata;" "Zuleika," 66 ""a peri," a turtle-dove, a fawn, a star, a sea-gull, a cup of sparkling wine, a diamond, a pearl, a whole jeweller's shop. In vain I remonstrated; vainly I pointed out that it was un-English to strike a man who was down ;-it was of no

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use. Sleep deserted me "swift on her downy pinions flew from woe"-and left me scorched by the sun, dazzled by the sea, and parched with thirst, with no better quencher than Tim's full-flowing river of speech." Oh! those eyes of Amalia's! how I-blessed them during that long sweltering day. Time and the hour, however, worked their mission, and at last Romano the skipper announced that we must start if we wished to make the Mole before gunfire. We were lying so sheltered by the Rock and its projecting cliffs that no breath of wind could touch us, and it was necessary to row the felucca out to meet the breeze-a method of locomotion by which one progressed about half-a-mile an hour, so clumsy were the boat, the oars, and the rowers. But we met the breeze in a few hundred yards, and went away merrily before it. After a little the wind became shifty, squally, and intermittent, as all the winds that blow about the Rock are apt to be, and displayed a predominating bias in favour of bearing us away towards the opposite coast, which the clumsy rig of the felucca made it impossible to contend with. It was no good remonstrating with Romano. When I did he only gave some hopeless tugs at a rope, and replied,

"All ri, Señor-plenty timewind go shange. Pronto, pronto; à ora no possibile. Dam beastly sail no move. Car-r-ramba! borrico moreno!" and he would give another tug.

This was neither very lucid nor very consolatory, but the worst of it was that the wind didn't change, but carried us away past the Mole, past the town, past the Rock, right up to the head of the bay, where it left us suddenly becalmed, close to the mouth of the "First River."

"There is nothing for it but to row, Romano," I said; "get your fellows to it at once, and pull back." But so slow was our progress that we were obliged to abandon all