juries, witnesses, etc.? The Times for May 18th of this year gives the following estimate of the cost of the Tichborne trial, which seems to me very moderate :

THE TRIAL OF THE TICHBORNE CLAIMANT.-On Saturday a return to the House of Commons, obtained by Mr. W. H. Smith, was printed, showing the amount expended upon the prosecution in the case of "Regina v. Castro, otherwise Orton, otherwise Tichborne," and the probable amount still remaining to be paid out of the vote of Parliament for "this service." The probable cost of the trial is stated at £55,315, 17s. 1d., of which £49,815, 17s. 1d. had been paid up to the 11th ult., and on the 11th of May inst. £5,500 remained unpaid. În 1872-73 counsel's fees were £1,146, 16s. 6d., and in 1873-74 counsel's fees were £22,495, 18s. 4d. The jury were paid £3,780, and the shorthand writers £3,493, 3s. The other expenses were witnesses, agents, etc., and law stationers and printing. Of the sum to be paid, £4,000 is for the Australian and Chili witnesses.-Times, May 18th, 1874.

18. (II.) I reprint the following letter as it was originally published. I meant to have inquired into the facts a little farther, but have not had time.

21, MINCING LANE, LONDON, E.C. 19th March, 1874.

DEAR SIRS,-On the 27th March, 1872, we directed your attention to this subject of Usury in a paper headed "CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE." We have since published our correspondence with the Rev. Dr. Cumming, and we take his silence as an acknowledgment of his inability to justify his teaching upon this subject. We have also publicly protested against the apathy of the Bishops and Clergy of the Established Church regarding this national sin. We now append an extract from the Hampshire Independent of the 11th instant, which has been forwarded to us :

"The Church of England in South Australia is in active competition with the money changers and those who sell doves. The Church Office, Leigh Street, Adelaide, advertises that it is prepared to lend money at current rates-no commission or brokerage charged,' which is really liberal on the part of the Church of England, and may serve to distinguish it as a lender from the frequenters of the synagogues.* It has been suggested that the Church Office should hang out the triple symbol of the Lombards, and that at the next examination of candidates for holy orders a few apposite questions might be asked, such as- -State concisely the best method of obtaining the highest rate of interest for Church moneys. Demonstrate how a system of Church money-lending was approved by the founder of Christianity.""

As such perverseness can only end in sudden and overwhelming calamity, we make no apology for again urging you to assist us in our endeavours to banish the accursed element at least from our own trade.

Your obedient servants,

J. C. SILLAR AND CO.

*It is possible that this lending office may have been organized as a method of charity, corresponding to the original Monte di Pieta, the modern clergymen having imagined, in consequence of the common error about interest, that they could improve the system of Venice by ignoring its main condition-the lending gratis,and benefit themselves at the same time.

1 [See above, p. 41.]

19. I put in large print-it would be almost worth capital letters-the following statement of the principle of interest as "necessary to the existence of money." I suppose it is impossible to embody the modern view more distinctly :

"Money, the representation and measure of value, has also the power to accumulate value by interest (italics not mine). This accumulative power is essential to the existence of money, for no one will exchange productive property for money that does not represent production. The laws making gold and silver a public tender impart to dead masses of metal, as it were, life and animation. They give them powers which without legal enactment they could not possess, and which enable their owner to obtain for their use what other men must earn by their labour. One piece of gold receives a legal capability to earn for its owner, in a given time, another piece of gold as large as itself; or in other words, the legal power of money to accumulate by interest compels the borrower in a given period, according to the rate of interest, to mine and coin, or to procure by the sale of his labour or products, another lump of gold as large as the first, and give it, together with the first, to the lender."-Kellogg on Labour and Capital, New York,

1849.1

1 [Labour and other Capital: the Rights of each Secured and the Wrongs of both Eradicated, by Edward Kellogg, pp. 54-55 ("Section IV.: The Power of Money to Accumulate Value by Interest").]

LETTER 451

MY LORD DELAYETH HIS COMING.2

THE BRITISH SQUIRE

LUCCA, 2nd August, 1874.

1. THE other day, in the Sacristan's cell at Assisi, I got into a great argument with the Sacristan himself, about the prophet Isaiah. It had struck me that I should like to know what sort of a person his wife was: and I asked my good host, over our morning's coffee, whether the Church knew anything about her. Brother Antonio, however, instantly and energetically denied that he ever had a wife. He was a "Castissimo profeta,"-how could I fancy anything so horrible of him! Vainly I insisted that, since he had children, he must either have been married, or been under special orders, like the prophet Hosea.* But my Protestant Bible was good for nothing, said the Sacristan. Nay, I answered, I never read, usually, in anything later than a thirteenth-century text; let him produce me one out of the convent library, and see if I couldn't find Shearjashub in it. The discussion dropped upon this,because the library was inaccessible at the moment; and no printed Vulgate to be found. But I think of it again to-day, because I have just got into another puzzle about Isaiah,—to wit, what he means by calling himself a "man

1 [Ruskin seems to have attached particular importance to this letter, as appears from the following entry in his diary at Lucca (July 30, 1874): "Beginning the great central Fors I chance on and read carefully, and as an answer to much thought last night, Isaiah 6th."]

2 [Matthew xxiv. 48. See below, § 7.]

3 [For Ruskin's friendship with the Sacristan at Assisi, see Vol. XXIII. p. xxxviii.] 4 See Hosea iii. 1.]

[See Isaiah vii. 3.]

XXVIII.

145

K

of unclean lips."* And that is a vital question, surely, to all persons venturing to rise up, as teachers;-vital, at all events, to me, here, and now;-for these following

reasons.

2. Thirty years ago, I began my true study of Italian, and all other art,-here, beside the statue of Ilaria di Caretto, recumbent on her tomb. It turned me from the study of landscape to that of life, being then myself in the fullest strength of labour, and joy of hope.

2

And I was thinking, last night, that the drawing which I am now trying to make of it, in the weakness and despair of declining age, might possibly be the last I should make before quitting the study of Italian, and even all other, art, for ever.

I have no intent of doing so: quite the reverse of that. But I feel the separation between me and the people round me, so bitterly, in the world of my own which they cannot enter; and I see their entrance to it now barred so absolutely by their own resolves (they having deliberately and self-congratulatingly chosen for themselves the Manchester Cotton Mill instead of the Titian 3), that it becomes every hour more urged upon me that I shall have to leave,-not father and mother, for they have left me; nor children, nor lands, for I have none,'-but at least this spiritual land and fair domain of human art and natural peace, because I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and therefore am undone, because mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts."

3. I say it, and boldly. Who else is there of you who can stand with me, and say the same? It is an age of progress, you tell me. Is your progress chiefly in this, that * Read Isaiah vi. through carefully.

1 [In the tour of 1845: see Modern Painters, Epilogue to vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 347), and ibid., p. 122, with plate, "Tomb of Ilaria di Caretto, Lucca." And again, Stones of Venice (Vol. XI. p. 239).]

2 [See Plate XIX. in Vol. XXIII. (p. 230).]

3 [See Letter 7, § 14 (Vol. XXVII. p. 128).] 4 See Matthew xix. 29.]

Isaiah vi. 5.]

you cannot see the King, the Lord of Hosts, but only Baal, instead of Him?

"The Sun is God," said Turner, a few weeks before he died with the setting rays of it on his face.1

He meant it, as Zoroaster meant it; and was a Sunworshipper of the old breed. But the unheard-of foulness of your modern faith in Baal is its being faith without worship. The Sun is not God,-you say. Not by any manner of means. A gigantic railroad accident, perhaps,2a coruscant divos,-put on the throne of God like a limelight; and able to serve you, eventually, much better than ever God did.

4. I repeat my challenge. You,-Te-Deum-singing princes, colonels, bishops, choristers, and what else,—do any of you know what Te means? or what Deum? or what Laudamus? Have any of your eyes seen the King, or His Sabaoth? Will any of you say, with your hearts, "Heaven and earth are full of His glory; and in His name we will set up our banners, and do good work, whether we live or die " ?6

You, in especial, Squires of England, whose fathers were England's bravest and best,-by how much better and braver you are than your fathers, in this Age of Progress, I challenge you: Have any of your eyes seen the King? Are any of your hands ready for His work, and for His weapons,-even though they should chance to be pruninghooks instead of spears?"

5. Who am I, that should challenge you-do you ask? My mother was a sailor's daughter, so please you; one of my aunts was a baker's wife-the other, a tanner's; and I don't know much more about my family, except that there

1 [Compare Ariadne Florentina, § 262 (Vol. XXII. p. 490).]

2 [See Letter 6, § 9 (Vol. XXVII. p. 108).]

3 [For the reference here to Aristophanes (Clouds, 828), see Vol. XIX. p. 326.] See above, p. 69.]

[For the meaning of Sabaoth ("hosts"), see Letter 12, § 10 (Vol. XXVII.

p. 205).]

[See Vol. XXVII. p. 44.]

[See Isaiah ii. 4; often quoted by Ruskin: see, e.g., Vol. XVII. p. 178.]