V. PARNASSUS AND PLYNLIMMON 93

and Delphic pilgrimage, to take me in his hand one day when he had a visit to pay to the poet Rogers.¹

105. The old man, previously warned of my admissible claims, in Mr. Pringle’s sight, to the beatitude of such introduction, was sufficiently gracious to me, though the cultivation of germinating genius was never held by Mr. Rogers to be an industry altogether delectable to genius in its zenith.² Moreover, I was unfortunate in the line of observations by which, in return for his notice, I endeavoured to show myself worthy of it. I congratulated him with enthusiasm on the beauty of the engravings by which his poems were illustrated,-but betrayed, I fear me, at the same time some lack of an equally vivid interest in the composition of the poems themselves.³. At all events, Mr. Pringle-I thought at the time, somewhat abruptly- diverted the conversation to subjects connected with Africa. These were doubtless more calculated to interest the polished minstrel of St. James’s Place; but again I fell into misdemeanours by allowing my own attention, as my wandering eyes too frankly confessed, to determine itself on the pictures glowing from the crimson-silken walls; and accordingly, after we had taken leave, Mr. Pringle took occasion to advise me that, in future, when I was in the company of distinguished men, I should listen more attentively to their conversation.

106. These, and such other-(I have elsewhere⁴ related the Ettrick Shepherd’s favouring visit to us, also obtained by Mr. Pringle)-glorifications and advancements being the reward of my literary efforts, I was nevertheless not beguiled by them into any abandonment of the scientific studies

¹ [This must have been before 1834, in which year Pringle died.]

² [Rogers, however, subsequently beamed on Ruskin, whose letters to the poet (see Vol. XXXVI.) show that he had learnt how to please the great man. Ruskin in later years was an occasional guest at Rogers’s breakfast parties in St. James’s Place.]

³ [Subsequently, however, Ruskin knew the poems well, and a reference to the General Index will show how frequently he quoted them.]

⁴ [Ruskin does not elsewhere relate it in his own books; but a record of the visit is contained in letters from himself and his father to Hogg, which he had permitted Mrs. Garden to print in her Memorials (published shortly before this chapter of Præterita), pp. 273-277.]

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