Note 122 — LETTERS ON ART.

In 1858 the Oxford Museum was in course of building, its architects being Sir Thomas Deane and Mr. Woodward, and its style modern Gothic, whilst amongst those chiefly interested in it were Dr. Acland (the Regius Professor of Medicine) and Mr. Ruskin. The present letter, written in June, 1858, was read by Dr. Acland at a lecture given by him in that summer “to the members of the Architectural Societies that met in Oxford” at that time. I am permitted to reprint the following passage from Dr. Acland’s preface to the printed lecture, as well as one or two passages from the lecture itself (see below, pp. 130 and 132): “Many have yet to learn the apparently simple truth, that to an Artist his Art is his means of probation in this life; and that, whatever it may have of frivolity to us, to him it is as the two or the five talents, to be accounted for hereafter. I might say much on this point, for the full scope of the word Art seems by some to be even now unrecognized. Before the period of printing, Art was the largest mode of permanently recording human thought; it was spoken in every epoch, in all countries, and delivered in almost every material. In buildings, on medals and coins, in porcelain and earthenware, on wood, ivory, parchment, paper and canvas, the graver or the pencil has recorded the ideas of every form of society, of every variety of race and of every character. What wonder that the Artist is jealous of his craft, and proud of his brotherhood?”—See “The Oxford Museum,” p. 4. The reader is also referred to “Sesame and Lilies,” 1871 ed. §§ 103-4.