certain, a sweet Venetian peasant, with her child, and fruit from the market-boats of Mestre. The Ecce Agnus, topsy-turvy on the finely perspectived scroll, may be deciphered by whoso list. But the work itself is still sternly conscientious, severe, reverent, and faultless. The fourth is an example of the highest reach of technical perfection yet reached in art; all effort and labour seeming to cease in the radiant peace and simplicity of consummated human power. But all belief in supernatural things, all hope of a future state, all effort to teach, and all desire to be taught, have passed away from the artist's mind. The Child and her Dog are to him equally real, equally royal, equally mortal. And the History of Art since it reached this phase-cannot be given in the present number of Fors Clavigera. NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE 18. (I.) AFFAIRS of the Company. No. 50. G. £10, 10s. This is a subscription of five guineas for each year: this amount completes that sum (with the £15, 15, which appeared at p. 65 February Fors1) for each of the five years. 19. The publication of the following letter, with its answer, will, I hope, not cause Mr. Tarrant any further displeasure. I have only in the outset to correct his statement that the payment of £10, 14s. 11d. was on my behalf. It is simply payment to another lawyer. And my first statement 2 was absolutely accurate; I never said Mr. Tarrant had himself taxed, but that he had been " employed in taxing"; I do not concern myself with more careful analysis, when the accounts are all in print. My accusation is against the "legal profession generally," not against a firm which I have chosen as an entirely trustworthy one, to be employed both in St. George's business and my own. 2, BOND COURT, WALBROOK, 25th April, 1876. DEAR MR. RUSKIN,-I have the April Fors, in which I see you have published our account of costs against you, amounting to £47, 13s. 4d. The document was yours, and you had a perfect right to lay it before your readers, but you are the first client who has ever thought it necessary to put such a document of mine to such a use. I don't know, however, that it will do me any injury, although the statement preceding it is somewhat inaccurate, because our costs of the transfer of the Sheffield property were £26, 15s. 11d., which included a payment of £10, 14s. 11d. made on your behalf, leaving our costs at £16, 1s., the other portion of the £47, 13s. 4d. being costs relating to the constitution of the St. George's Company, leaving altogether £29, 14s. 11d. only payable to us beyond money paid on your account. It is hardly fair, therefore, to say that I employed myself in taxing the transfer of the property to nearly £50. As to the charge for letters (the writing of which is really not brickmakers' work), you must bear in mind that the entire conduct of your matters had to be done by correspondence, for which you are fairly chargeable; and I cannot accuse myself of having written a single letter that was unnecessary. As to the position of the St. George's Company, it is not a legal company, if by that you mean a company recognized by law: it has neither the advantages nor disadvantages of companies incorporated in accordance with the provisions of the 1 [Letter 62, § 19 (p. 530 in this edition).] |