The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-28 00:00:00

JOHN nusKtzr.

"After having made a lame by hanging on t ) the
skirts of a famous artist—after deluding thole craving
for novelty into the belief that a dashing style must
imply precious discoveries —after having met the
humour of the time, by preaching the religion of architec-
ture with a freedom in the use of sacred names and sacred
things from which a more reverential man would have
shrunk—after having served as an eloquent though too
flattering guide to the treasures of Venice—after having
enriched the citizens of this Scottish metropolis with re-
ceipts how to amend the architecture of our city by
patching Palladian squares, streets, and crescents with
Gothic windows, balconies, and pinnacles—after having
lectured to decorators on the beauty and virtue of paint-
ing illegible letters on sign-boards and shop-fronts—the
wisdom of Mr. Ruskin has of late begun to cry in the
streets."

"Royal Academy Speaking of Mr. Ruskin's
Vade Mecum. of 1855," the reviewer declares in its
regard " rarely has vanity, so overweening in
stature, so unblushing iu front, so magisterial in
language risen up between a writer and his public."
During the course of a criticism upon recent effu-
sions of " Remusat and nontalembert," another
contributor to the Whig Quarterly, thus explains
for the benefit of the bewildered Bourbonists and
Republicans of Franco—the enthusiasm of—

ENGLAND'S RECEPTION OF NA.POLTION 111.
" Three or four causes contributed to its enthusiastic
character. In the first place we received him, without
reference to himself or his antecedents, as the ruler and
representative of our great rival nation, with which we
had then for the first time formed an offensive and defen-
sive alliance of the closest intimacy. We were anxious to
show to France how hearty was our friendship; how sin-
cere our reconciliation ; how generous and earnest our de-
sire to bury in oblivion all former jealousies and animosi-
ties ; how unfeigned our delight at a union on which we in-
stinctively felt, and deliberately and profoundly believe, so
much of the future welfare of Europe and of humanity
must hang. Next, it should ba remembered that Eng-
lishmen have a peculiar and inveterate admiration for all
who have raised themselves—who are the sons of their
own deeds—the architects of their own fortunes. We
always do honour to the man, be he lawyer, soldier, or
politician, who has risen from nothing. To this feeling
was added a vivid recollection of all that was romantic
and picturesque in the history of the man then making
in a royal
his progress through unexampled crowds
carriage ; how ho who was now the Queen's guest had
once been a special constable in London street.{—how he
who was now Emperor of the first nation of the Con-
tinent, had seven years before been a poor and obscure
exile on our shores. In all this, it must be admitted,
there was much to excite the imagination and to excuse
the somewhat extravagant ebullition of welcome which
waited on his progress through the city. Let, again,
much of this enthusiasm was due to the lady who accom-
panied him. Had he come without his Empress, his
reception would have been decidedly less warm. Her
history, no less than her rare grace and beauty, contri-
buted to this result. If the English people have
a weakness for a man who has raised himself from
an obsure position, they have another weakness