The books of lectures which Ruskin wrote as Professor at Oxford, the work of teaching there, the guide-books and subsidiary papers of the period, the writing of Fors Glavigera, and the enterprises in connection with the St. George's Guild were all carried on, as we have seen, under a great and constant strain on his emotions. But to these multitudinous labours another and an exciting one has to be added. This consisted of frequent letters to the newspapers, or of letters of a public character which the recipients sent to the newspapers. These were collected, one hundred and fifty-two in number, by “An Oxford Pupil” in 1880, and the greater part of them had been written before 1878.

Ruskin's contributions to the press were as miscellaneous as voluminous. The collection of 1880 was arranged under the heads Art Criticism, Public Institutions,Pre-Raphaelitism, Turner, Pictures and Artists, Architecture and Restoration, Geology, Politics and War, Political Economy, Railways, Servants and Houses, Roman Inundations, Education, Women, Literary Criticism and Miscellaneous. What is the nature of these contributions, what their place in Ruskin's life and work, and what their value? The questions have been answered by two critics of high authority—Ruskin himself and Mark Pattison.