Obituary — John Ruskin, M.A., LL.D. 95 



and his fierce comments on those manufacturers and merchants who 

 pile up riches by the employment of labour. Doubtless Euskin 

 forgot for the moment that his own splendid abilities mainly owed 

 the opportunity for their development and sustained energy through 

 life to the accumulated fortune of his father, a partner in the firm of 

 Euskin, Telford, & Domecq, London. 



His success as an art-critic and writer gave him unbounded belief 

 in his power to carry out any matter upon which he had set his 

 heart. Thus, at one time (resenting the intervention of publishers) 

 he determined to print, illustrate, and publish his own works. At 

 another time he started a business as a tea-dealer in oi'der to show 

 that trade might be conducted in an honourable and honest manner. 

 He encouraged the undergraduates at Oxford to dig and repair the 

 roads ; and he himself undertook to keep the streets clean between 

 the British Museum and St. Giles', engaging a staff of helpers and 

 setting them an example of their duties. 



Everyone who loves Euskin is, of course, well acquainted with 

 his numerous works — his " Modern Painters," " Stones of Venice," 

 " Seven Lamps of Architecture," " Lectures on Architecture and 

 Painting," " Fors Clavigera," " Ethics of the Dnst," " Sesame and 

 Lilies," and some thirty other works, essays and lectures. But how- 

 many are aware that he had a strong attachment to geology and 

 mineralogy ! 



When taken as a boy to Wales by his parents he enjoyed his first 

 sight of really bold scenery ; he ascended Snowdon and Cader Idris, 

 and, to his intense delight, found for the first time in his life a real 

 mineral. Euskin believed if he had been allowed to remain there 

 in charge of the good Welsh guide and his wife they would have 

 made a man of him, and also " probably the first geologist of my 

 time in Europe." Although this youthful dream was never realized, 

 and he devoted his after years to art and architecture, his crossings 

 and recrossings of the Alps in his frequent pilgrimages to his 

 beloved Italy made a powerful impression upon his imagination, 

 as may be seen by his notes and sketches published in the 

 Geological Magazine for 1865, whilst his subsequent papers on 

 Banded and Brecciated Agates, 1867-1870, op. cit., may still be read 

 with intense pleasure for their wonderful word-painting ; these, too, 

 being all ilhistrated by Buskin's own hand. His " Deucalion " on 

 Geology is also most attractive. 



Only a few years since he was deeply engrossed in arranging a case 

 of specimens in the Mineralogical Gallery of the British Museum of 

 Natural History, Cromwell Eoad, to illustrate the structure of Agates, 

 accompanied by a printed description by himself. To this collection 

 he also presented the great South African uncut natural gem, which 

 he named the "Colenso Diamond" after the late Bishop Colenso. 

 The Euskin Museum, founded by him at Meersbrook Hall, near 

 SheflSeld, is a treasure-house of Art, in which minerals also find 

 a place. Of Euskin's many acts of noble generosity to the world 

 the public Press is now everywhere speaking in most just and 

 appreciative praise ; the innumerable kindnesses which he secretly 

 performed will never be known, but they will serve to keep his 



