The dispute between the forces of reaction and progress intensified during 1856 when the publication of Modern Painters III prompted a retrospective critical assessment of Ruskin 's work. Fierce attacks from conservative critics in the Quarterly Review, March 1856 and the Edinburgh Review, April 1856 drew progressive critics to Ruskin's defence. The latter included the British Quarterly Review, April 1856, the Westminster Review, April 1856, the American Putnam's Monthly Magazine, May 1856, the Eclectic Review, June 1856, Fraser's Magazine, June 1856, the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, June 1856, the National Review, July 1856, and Blackwood's Magazine, November 1856. The authors of many of these reviews, such as George Richmond and William Morris, were personal friends of Ruskin.