302 PRÆTERITA-II

of six weeks’ study than to be able to count and call by their right names every scale stuck in the mud of the universe.

Also I got a wholesome perception, from that book, of the true relation between artists and scientific gentlemen. For I saw that the real genius concerned in the Poissons Fossiles was the lithographer’s, and not at all the scientific gentleman’s; and that the book ought to have been called after the lithographer, his fishes, only with their scales counted and called bad names by subservient Mons. Agassiz.

63. The second thing of specific meaning that went on in Leamington lodgings was the aforesaid highly laboured drawing of the Château of Amboise, “out of my head”; representing the castle as about seven hundred feet above the river, (it is perhaps eighty or ninety,) with sunset light on it, in imitation of Turner; and the moon rising behind it, in imitation of Turner; and some steps and balustrades (which are not there) going down to the river, in imitation of Turner; with the fretwork of St. Hubert’s Chapel done very carefully in my own way,-I thought perhaps a little better than Turner.

This drawing, and the poem of the “Broken Chain,” which it was to illustrate,¹ after being beautifully engraved by Goodall, turned out afterwards equally salutary exercises;

¹ [For the poem, see Vol. II. pp. 124-180. The original drawing, and Goodall’s engraving, are there both given: between pp. 170, 171. In the Introduction to that volume (pp. xlii. and xliii.) a letter from Ruskin, and other particulars with regard to E. Goodall’s engraving, are given. Some more may here be added from the MS. of Præterita:-

“The drawing was engraved by Goodall as carefully as if it had been a Turner, and Mr. Goodall said of my touches on the progressive plate that nobody could have touched a plate in that manner but Turner. And there were not wanting friends who said they liked the drawing as well as Turner. And I was greatly set up on my fancy horse-blind of both eyes. Be it noted, however, that this was neither Mr. Goodall’s fault, nor flattery. He never said my drawing was as good as Turner’s, but he was really interested by the study I had given to line engraving, by my admiration of its skill, so little in general appreciated, and by my knowledge of its sources of effect. He was happy, at our final visit, in having my father’s praise and mine of his son’s drawings-afterwards the academician.”]

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