III - LETTERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF Modern Painters, VOL. II

Summary

TO THE REV. W. L. BROWN

ON COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH

[It will have been observed how closely Ruskin had read Wordsworth before writing this volume; there are references also showing his familiarity with Coleridge. The following letter, belonging to the period, seems, therefore, appropriate here. It is of further interest for its protest against inversions in diction—a practice into which, on writing his volume two years later, Ruskin himself fell, and for which in later years he criticised himself severely: see his note of 1883 on p. 50, above. For the Rev. W. L. Brown, Ruskin's college tutor, see Vol. I. p. 464, and II. p. 223. The letter is here printed for the first time from a copy preserved at Brantwood: it is in the volume of 1827–1844, No. xi. of the Poetical MSS. (see Vol. II. p. 534).]

Dec. 20th, 1843.

My dear Sir,—I ought before to have thanked you for the valuable information contained in your condescending answers to my impudent animadversions: they are of course entirely satisfactory except that I must take the liberty of still falling foul of transposition.