xviii INTRODUCTION

by Ruskin himself; there is a separate notice of one of his favourite artists (Prout), to whom frequent reference had been made in his earlier books, and an account of the development of Turner’s style (in the pamphlet on Pre-Raphaelitism). So, too, there is an essay on the protection of ancient buildings (The Opening of the Crystal Palace)-a subject already treated in The Seven Lamps. The pamphlet on “Sheepfolds” was an overflow from an appendix to The Stones of Venice. The Lectures on Architecture and Painting were a re-statement in popular form of the leading ideas in his already published works.

The volume is, however, something more than an appendix to the earlier volumes of Modern Painters and to The Stones of Venice. It introduces us to new interests, and especially to Ruskin’s advocacy of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which for some years played a considerable part in his literary activity, and which indirectly was to affect his personal fortunes. It introduces the author, secondly, in a new character; we see him in pursuit of a wider audience, seeking direct contact with popular audiences, and therefore mounting the lecture platform. We shall in this introduction deal first with these lectures, which serve to carry on the story of the author’s literary life, and then return to deal with the incidental productions of his pen which he had thrown off by the way during earlier years.

I

We left Ruskin (in the Introduction to Vol. X. p. xliii.) in the summer of 1853, having completed The Stones of Venice, and turning his way northwards for a well-earned holiday. On this holiday he and his wife were accompanied by John Everett Millais and the artist’s brother William. Ruskin had made the acquaintance of Millais, as will presently be related (p. xlvii.), as a result of his championship of the Pre-Raphaelites.

“I have dined and taken breakfast with Ruskin,” wrote Millais to Mrs. Combe on July 2, 1851, “and we are such good friends that he wishes me to accompany him to Switzerland this summer ... We are as yet singularly at variance in our opinions upon Art. One of our differences is about Turner. He believes that I shall be converted on further acquaintance with his works, and I that he will gradually slacken in his admiration.”¹ This remark is interesting in connexion with the

¹ The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, by his son John Guille Millais, 1899, vol. i. p. 118. This is the authority which I have mainly followed in the subsequent pages, so far as they relate to Millais.

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