Ruskin Relics

"; and she was Ruskin's own private, particular "water

it was one which he continually quoted in conversation and discussed with pleasure in his autobiography. Of all the novels he read in those evenings of "auld lang syne," when he pulled the four candles close to him at the drawing-room table, and we sketched furtively in corners, Laurence Hilliard and I, and the ladies plied their needles-no novel was read with more delight and effect. It was a prett

d to learn the mysteries of reef-knots and clove-hitch from an old captain grandfather. It would have been so good for him! But one must not forget that in the making of John Ruskin there was a quarter of the blood of a seafarer. It is a rather curious fact, also, and one which has not, I believe, been mentioned in print, that the earliest Ruskin of all was a sea captain. Mr. W. Hutton Brayshay tells me that he has found in the Record Office a notice of th

hing-craft and the old ship of the line was not merely a literary man's concoction, but the outcome of much study and sketching at Deal, where he spent the summer of 1855 to steep himself in the subject. In the early sixties, again, he stayed for some time at Boulogne in lodgings under the sandhills north

photograph

ARBOUR IN T

ern, Esq., p

HALL AND

of the indigenous tubs for the diversion of rowing. He did not fish, and he had the greatest scorn for rowing as it is done at Oxford. "That's not rowing; that's galley-slaves' work!" he used to tell us. "To bend to the stroke, and time your oars to the beat of the waves," was his ideal: he liked going out when there was a little sea on, and white horses; and he would paddle away before the wind with great enjoyment. But when there is a little sea on, at Coniston, it means a good deal of wind; thou

ch by W. G.

MP" ADRIFT O

; in trolling, one went out alone, but there were rods and lines which needed space for convenient stowage. Consequently the boats were rather long, and rather low in the water; the sculls were fixed on pins, so that you could drop them when you got a bite, or landed hastily to take the hair-rope at your end of the net in drawing up. Feathering the oar was quite unknown; great speed unnecessary; great stability desirable; but not what a sailor would call seaworthiness. On the whole, for pleasure-boating on the lakes, these boats are safe and convenient; accidents are extremely rare, though hundre

ves, pho

N MUSEUM,

rs. In the matter of boats he had a very willing and capable helper in Laurence Hilliard, who was the cleverest and neatest-fingered boy that ever rigged a model; and many were the models he designed and finished with exquisite perfection of detail in the outhouse-workshop at Brantwood. Laurie, as every one called him, was deep in Scott Russell at

t 1794 came to Coniston, and mistook the old Coniston Hall for Conishead Priory, as it seems: and with an odd fallacy of romance described the "solemn vesper that once swelled along the lake from those consecrated walls, and awakened, perhaps, the enthusiasm of the voyager, while evening stole upon the scene." But she was right enough in being charmed with the spot, as

ve a talk about politics. Now the carpenter was used to Conservative orators and Liberal arguers, but he knew that Ruskin was a different sort of man; and all day long before the hour fixed for the visit he was in a greatly perturbed state of mind, walking up and down and wondering-a new thing for him-how he should tackle this unknown personality. At last the distinguished guest arrived. He was solemnly welcomed and shown into the parlour. The door was shut upon the twain. The son (Mr. John Bell), w

r one of the most skilful of craftsmen, as his father was before him-and one fine day in spring she was launched at the boat-house with great ceremo

ve place

end grac

ne to

arts an

ir homestead than otherwise. He had helped to stave off the failure by lending them ￡300, which they proposed to pay in geese! And the stranger at the launch was the man in possession. Alas! for "these conse

ves, pho

FOR THE "J

we had as soon walk round. She rode the waves beautifully, but you didn't seem to get forrarder with her. Perhaps it was the fallacy of the Scott Russell lines that made her heavy, or must we put all the blame upon Ruskin? He tried to build a boat that would sail and row equally well, and that is not easy. She was never sailed, though th

had several very beautiful models built and rigged by Charles Dalby, of Folkestone, a past-master in the

eon in "Modern Painters," vol. v., "The Wings of the Lion"), and England:-"Bare head, bare fist, bare foot, and blue jacket. If these will not save us, nothing will." He has told me of talks with Carlyle, who regretted he had not taken up the Kings of Norway earlier in life, instead of Frederick the Great, and spent his better strength upon the better subject; and Ruskin himself, though too late for evidences of the taste to appear in his writings, liked to hear of our seafaring ancestors of the North. It was a touch of this feeli