SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN, MASTER OF ARTS, OXON, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF ART IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 1871. [The right of Translation is reserved.] "In these books of mine, their distinctive character, as essays on art, is their bringing everything to a root in human passion or human hope. Arising first not in any desire to explain the principles of art, but in the endeavour to defend an individual painter from injustice, they have been coloured throughout,-nay, continually altered in shape, and even warped and broken, by digressions respecting social questions, which had for me an interest tenfold greater than the work I had been forced into undertaking. Every principle of painting which I have stated is traced to some vital or spiritual fact; and in my works on architecture the preference accorded finally to one school over another, is founded on a comparison of their influences on the life of the workman -a question by all other writers on the subject of architecture wholly forgotten or despised."-Modern Painters, vol. v., part ix., chap. i., § 7. ADVERTISEMENT. THE Publishers beg to state that this volume has originated in suggestions, from numerous quarters, that a book of the kind would he acceptable to a large circle of readers, to whom, from various and obvious causes, the principal works whence it is derived are not easily accessible. The Publishers think it right to add that Mr. Ruskin, though tacitly consenting to this publication, has taken no part in making the selections, and is in no way responsible for the appearance of the volume. |