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SKILL AND BEAUTY IN ART.

JOHN RUSKIN.

From The Relation of Use to Art in "The Crown of Wild Olive."

Now, I pray you to observe for though I have said this often before, I have never yet said it clearly enough

of art

- every good piece involves first essentially the evidence of human skill,

and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it.

Skill and beauty always, then; and, beyond these, the formative arts have always been one or other of the two objects which I have just defined to you- truth, or serviceableness; and without these aims neither the skill nor their beauty will avail; only by these can either legitimately reign. All the graphic arts begin in keeping the outline of shadow that we have loved, and they end in giving to it the aspect of life; and all the architectural arts begin in the shaping of the cup and the platter, and they end in a glorified roof.

Therefore, you see, in the graphic arts you have skill, beauty, and likeness; and in the architectural arts, skill, beauty, and use; and you must have the three in each group, balanced and co-ordinate; and all the chief errors of art consist in losing or exaggerating one of these elements.

For instance, almost the whole system and hope of modern life are founded on the notion that you may substitute mechanism for skill, photograph for picture, cast-iron for sculpture. That is your main nineteenth-century faith, or infidelity. You think you can get everything by grinding — music, literature, and painting. You will

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find it grievously not so; you can get nothing but dust by mere grinding. Even to have the barley-meal out of it, you must have the barley first; and that comes by growth, not grinding. But essentially, we have lost our delight in skill; in that majesty of it which I was trying to make clear to you in my last address, and which long ago I tried to express, under the head of ideas of power. The entire sense of that we have lost, because we ourselves do not take pains enough to do right, and have no conception of what the right costs; so that all the joy and reverence we ought to feel in looking at a strong man's work, have ceased in us. We keep them yet a little in looking at a honeycomb or a bird's nest; we understand that these differ, by divinity of skill, from a lump of wax or a cluster of sticks. But a picture, which is a much more wonderful thing than a honeycomb or a bird's nest have we not known people, and sensible people too, who expected to be taught to produce that in six lessons?

THE BOSTON MASSACRE.

BANCROFT.

I. ON Friday the 2d of March, 1770, a British soldier of the Twenty-ninth Regiment asked to be employed at Gray's ropewalk, and was repulsed in the coarsest words. He then defied the rope-makers to a boxing match; and one of them accepting his challenge, he was beaten off. Returning with several of his companions, they too were driven away. A larger number came down to renew the fight with clubs and cutlasses, and in their turn encountered defeat.

2. There was an end to the affair at the rope-walk, but not at the barracks, where the soldiers inflamed each other's passions, as if the honor of the regiment had been tarnished.

3. On Saturday they prepared bludgeons; and being resolved to

brave the citizens on Monday night, they forewarned their particular acquaintances not to be abroad.

4. Evening came on. The young moon was shining in a cloudless winter sky, and its light was increased by a new-fallen snow. Parties of soldiers were driving about the streets, making a parade of valor, challenging resistance, and striking the inhabitants indiscriminately with sticks or sheathed cutlasses.

5. A band which rushed out from the barracks in Brattle Street, armed with clubs, cutlasses, and bayonets, provoked resistance; and an affray ensued. An ensign at the gate of the barrack-yard cried to the soldiers, "Turn out, and I will stand by you; kill them; stick them; knock them down; run your bayonets through them!" And one soldier after another levelled a firelock, and threatened to "make a lane" through the crowd.

6. Just before nine, as an officer crossed King Street, a barber's lad cried after him, "There goes a mean fellow who hath not paid my master for dressing his hair;" on which a sentinel left his post, and with his musket gave the boy a stroke on the head which made him stagger and cry for pain.

7. The street soon became clear, and nobody troubled the sentry, when a party of soldiers issued violently from the main guard, their arms glittering in the moonlight, and passed on hallooing, "Where are they? where are they? let them come!"

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8. "Pray, soldiers, spare my life!" cried a boy of twelve, whom they met. No, no; we will kill you all!" answered one of them, and knocked him down with his cutlass. They abused and insulted several persons at their doors, and others in the street, running about like madmen in a fury, crying, "Fire!" which seemed their watchword, and, "Where are they? knock them down!" Their outrageous behavior occasioned the ringing of the bell at the head of King Street.

9. The citizens whom the alarm set in motion came out with canes and clubs; a body of soldiers also came up, crying, “ Where

are the cowards?" and brandishing their arms. From ten to twenty boys came after them, asking, "Where are they? where are they?" "There is the soldier who knocked me down," said the barber's boy; and they began pushing one another towards the sentinel. He primed and loaded his musket.

10. "The lobster is going to fire," cried a boy. Waving his piece about, the sentinel pulled the trigger. "If you fire, you must die for it,” said one who was passing by.

"I don't care,” "Fire away!"

replied the sentry; "if they touch me, I will fire." shouted the boys, persuaded he could not do it without leave from a civil officer; and a young fellow spoke out, "We will knock him down for snapping," while they whistled through their fingers and huzzaed.

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II. "Stand off," said the sentry, and shouted aloud, "Turn out, main guard!" "They are killing the sentinel,” reported a servant, running to the main guard. Turn out; why don't you turn out?" cried Preston, who was captain of the day to the guard. A party of six formed with a corporal in front, and Preston following. With bayonets fixed, they haughtily rushed through the people, upon the trot, cursing them, and pushing them as they went along.

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12. They found about ten persons round the sentry, while about fifty or sixty came down with them. "For God's sake," said a citizen, holding Preston by the coat, take your men back again; if they fire, your life must answer for the consequences." "I know what I am about," said he hastily, and much agitated.

13. None pressed on them or provoked them till they began loading; when a party about twelve in number, with sticks in their hands, moved from the middle of the street, where they had been standing, gave three cheers, and passed along in front of the soldiers, whose muskets some of them struck as they went by. are cowardly rascals," said they, "for bringing arms against naked men. Lay aside your guns, and we are ready for you. Come on,

"You

you lobster scoundrels; fire, if you dare; we know you dare not."

14. Just then one of the soldiers received a blow from a stick thrown, which hit his musket; and the word "Fire!" being given, he stepped a little on one side, and shot a mulatto, who at the time was quietly leaning on a long stick.

15. The people immediately began to move off. The rest fired slowly and in succession on the people who were dispersing. One aimed deliberately at a boy who was running for safety. Three persons were killed; eight were wounded, two of them mortally. Of all the eleven, not more than one had any share in the disturbance.

16. So infuriated were the soldiers that, when the men returned to take up the dead, they prepared to fire again, but were checked by Preston; while the Twenty-ninth Regiment appeared under arms in King Street, as if bent on a further massacre. "This is our time," cried the soldiers; and dogs were never seen more greedy for their prey.

17. The bells rung in all the churches; the town drums beat. "To arms! to arms!" was the cry. And now was to be tested the true character of Boston. All its sons came forth, excited almost to madness; many were absolutely distracted by the sight of the dead bodies and of the blood, which ran plentifully in the streets, and was imprinted in all directions by the foot-tracks on the snow.

18. "Our hearts," says Warren, "beat to arms, almost resolved by one stroke to avenge the death of our slaughtered brethren." But they stood self-possessed and irresistible, demanding justice according to law.

19. The people would not be pacified till the regiment was confined to the guard-room and the barracks; and the governor himself gave assurance that instant inquiries should be made by the county magistrates. A warrant was issued against Preston, who surrendered himself to the sheriff; and the soldiers who composed the party were delivered up and committed to prison.