NOTES BY THE AUTHOR¹

NOTE 1 (p. 35, above)²

“With the Idolatrous Egyptian.”-The probability is indeed slight in comparison, but it is a probability nevertheless, and one which is daily on the increase. I trust that I may not be thought to underrate the danger of such sympathy, though I speak lightly of the chance of it. I have confidence in the central religious body of the English and Scottish people, as being not only untainted with Romanism, but immovably adverse to it: and, however strongly and swiftly the heresy of the Protestant and victory of the Papist may seem to be extending among us, I feel assured that there are barriers in the living faith of this nation which neither can overpass.³ Yet this confidence is only in the ultimate faithfulness of a few, not in the security of the nation from the sin and punishment of partial apostacy. Both have, indeed, in some sort, been committed and suffered already; and, in expressing my belief of the close connection of the distress and burden which the mass of the people at present sustain, with the encouragement which, in various directions, has been given to the Papist, do not let me be called superstitious or irrational.⁴ No man was ever more inclined than I, both by natural disposition and by many ties of early association, to a sympathy with the principles and forms of the Romanist Church;⁵ and there is much in its discipline which conscientiously,

¹ [In editions 1 and 2, the text was followed by seventeen “Notes.” In the edition of 1880 these were omitted, with the exception of five which were recast, with additions, in the form of Appendices. In this edition the shorter notes have been given under the text (viz. Notes 2-6, and 8-16, in eds. 1 and 2). The other three, which are long, and which, in two cases, were added to in the edition of 1880, are for better convenience given separately here.]

² [”1, page 13” in eds. 1 and 2. Omitted as “a piece of rabid Protestantism” from later editions.]

³ [The MS. adds, “although not having been yet audaciously enough assailed, the strength of those rock foundations has not been felt.”]

⁴ [Ruskin, as he says in the opening words of Præterita, was “a violent Tory of the old school”-a description which perhaps needs correction in view of some of his later opinions, but which certainly seems borne out by the tone of this note of 1848-1849. The “encouragement given in various directions to the Papist” refers presumably to Catholic Emancipation (1829), and the Maynooth grant (1845).]

⁵ [This statement is somewhat surprising in view of Ruskin’s strictly Protestant bringing-up; but foreign travel had readily given him sympathy with the æsthetic side of Roman Catholicism. This appears very strongly in the diary of 1848:-

“(ROUEN, October 15). The church service of this afternoon in the cathedral was, I suppose, the last at which we shall be present this journey in a Romanist church; and it has perhaps contributed more to my former

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