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In the days when the Rev. Thomas Dale had a school in Grove Lane, Camberwell, he was, as well as a schoolmaster, a poet, author, and preacher. In 1835 he was presented to the living of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street; in 1843, to a Canonry of St. Paul’s; and he died in 1870, shortly after accepting the Deanery of Rochester.

Amongst his papers were some writings of John Ruskin, his pupil in Grove Lane and, later, at King’s College. The earliest of these is an essay written the year before Mr. Ruskin went to Oxford; the others are letters from Rome, Lausanne, and Leamington. The interest of these papers is great. They belong to that period when Mr. Ruskin was trying his powers, when “Modern Painters” was taking form, and when some of the most perfect pieces of prose ever written were given to English readers. The hand of the master is very visible in all these papers, though the earliest of them belongs to the days of boyhood.

Mr. Ruskin has given us in “Præterita” a history of himself and of all the influences which aided in the development of his powers. There is about these recollections a calm clearness, an acceptance of facts as they were, without either railing against them or gilding them. The writer is amused as he looks back down the vista of years and recalls what the little boy in the blue shoes thought; what most appealed to the mind of the schoolboy carrying his bag of books; how the devotion of his parents and the traditions of their mode of life fenced him round; how his mind kept its own tendencies amongst all the training, and went steadily forward, accumulating knowledge, and growing towards the light. His was a mind that never altered violently either its faith or its opinions; the matured fruit is not so dissimilar to the bud and flower but that the process of growth can be clearly traced without need of dissection or twisting of logic.

He writes of his schooldays in “Præterita” as follows:—

“Meantime it having been perceived by my father and mother that Dr. Andrews could neither prepare me for the University nor for the duties of a bishopric, I was sent as a day-scholar to the private school kept by the Rev. Thomas Dale in Grove Lane, within a walking distance of Herne Hill. Walking down with my father after breakfast, carrying my blue bag of books, I came home to half-past one dinner, and prepared my lesson in the evening for the next day. Under these conditions I saw little of my fellow scholars, the two sons of Mr. Dale, Tom and James, and three boarders..... I have already described in the first chapter of ‘Fiction, Fair and Foul,’ Mr. Dale’s rejection of my clearly known grammar as a ‘Scotch thing.’ In that one action he rejected himself from being my master; and I thenceforward learnt all he taught me only because I had to do it.”

The master, who, with the authority of his kind, thus wounded his pupil’s feelings, was short, with thick hair, fair probably in those days, blue eyes, and firm square features. He was stern and impressive in manner. He was a man of power, an Evangelical leader, very much respected and admired by his following, but somewhat unbending in manner, austere to younger people, but withal generous and charitable beyond his means. He had also a keen sense of humour, though no one could have held “practical joking” in greater detestation.

This essay was either written for or submitted by the author to him in 1836, when Mr. Ruskin was sixteen or seventeen years old. To quote again from “Præterita”:—

“Some little effort was made to pull me together in 1836 by sending me to hear Mr. Dale’s lectures at King’s College, where I explained to Mr. Dale, on meeting him one day in the court of entrance, that porticoes should not be carried on the top of arches; and considered myself exalted because I went in at the same door with boys who had square caps on. The lectures were on early English Literature, of which, though I had never read a word of any before Pope, I thought myself already a much better judge than Mr. Dale. His quotation of ‘Knut the king went sailing by’ stayed with me, and I think that was all I learnt during the summer.”

As the essay is not on early English Literature and has not been annotated or marked by the master, it was not apparently done as work for the course of lectures. It is, in fact, a glowing defence of the writer’s favourite authors, Walter Scott, Bulwer Lytton, and Byron. It begins logically and calmly, but as soon as the defence begins the champion draws his sword and falls fiercely on his opponents. He is a most gloriously enthusiastic partisan; but the religious schools of that day dealt more hardly with the novelists, poets, and playwrights than they do now. In spite of his strong Evangelical bias, Mr. Dale was not among the decriers of fiction and poetry. Walter Scott was a favourite in his household; there are no records of his feelings about Lytton’s work, but Byron was an acknowledged great poet, sullied by the authorship of “Don Juan,” a position the poet still holds in the majority of opinions. As soon as he could read, Mr. Ruskin tells us, Pope’s Homer and the Waverley Novels became his regular week-day books, so his dictum on Sir Walter was the result of a considerable course of study taken by a small boy in his little chair in his own corner. Byron was also an old friend. The poems, including “Don Juan,” were read by the elder Mr. Ruskin to his wife and son. He was a beautiful reader, and did justice to the music of the verse. There are not many who, writing at sixteen, can look back on so long and so cultivated an acquaintance with their favourite authors.

Mr. Ruskin matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in October 1836, and went into residence the following January. At the end of three years came a period of great disappointment and anxiety for himself and his friends. His health broke down and he was threatened with consumption. He went abroad for the winter of 1840-41, travelling with his parents and visiting Italy for the first time. His “severest and chiefly antagonist master” shared in the anxiety, and the two long letters from Rome and Lausanne were written to inform him of the state of his pupil’s health. Perhaps the severity and antagonism revived in future discussions: certainly these letters are most friendly and confidential in tone: the regret for the exemplary goodness of his college days seems meant for sympathetic eyes. The writer’s rapid, forcible description of the country he passes through, his impression of Chartres Cathedral, are all in the masterly style we connect with his name, wonderfully picturesque and vivid without ever being stiff or stilted. Not forgetful of the principal interest of his correspondent, he describes his impressions of the religious life of the country he travels through, writing from the Evangelical standpoint, from whence Mr. Ruskin has since moved, but which at that time was a subject of agreement between him and Mr. Dale. This is, therefore, a more correct description of his opinions at this time than any reminiscence can offer us, for the gradual alteration of opinions naturally softens the outline in retrospection, as the blue distance softens the mountains on the horizon.

His opinion of St. Peter’s at Rome has not altered since this first impression more than fifty years ago, when the magnificence and barbarism of the great building is so forcibly expressed. Then comes a wonderfully vivid passage; the description of that “strange horror” that to him overlay the whole city. One cannot but be thankful that it was not this paragraph that was mutilated in breaking the seal.

The cloud of ill-health and anxiety never left the travellers; its shadow is in the next letter of six months after. During all this time that possible fatal development overhung the daily life of the parents and their only son. Still, in spite of the enforced care and seclusion, the time was by no means wasted. He saw and enjoyed Pompeii and went up Vesuvius, all his impressions and opinions being very similar to those he still expresses. The remarks on the Oxford Movement are particularly valuable, because one feels a natural curiosity as to how so powerful an influence affected the various thinkers then at the University. They are all the more interesting for the very reason that they do not contain a statement of opinion, but a simple account of the impression the men and their teaching made upon one who was at the same time tenacious of his views and unusually bold in facing difficulties. At this time, when a dreaded disease threatened him, his mind was evidently set on serious themes. The third letter, written from Leamington, discusses a question of conscience. The writer sets himself to argue out his difficulty with the evident intention of taking holy orders if he should be assured that such was the duty of a man in his position, bound by no necessity to work for his bread, and having the responsibility of preaching the gospel for the saving of souls. What the answer was we do not know, but we know the result. This is the last of the long letters. The others are short notes of no interest, though showing evidence that the discussions were not at an end.

Sydney Smith was a canon with Mr. Dale at St. Paul’s, and, speaking of “Modern Painters,” Mr. Ruskin tells us:—“In the literary world, attention was first directed to the book by Sydney Smith, in the hearing of my severest and chiefly antagonist master, the Rev. Thomas Dale, who, with candid kindness, sent the following note of the matter to my father:—

“ ‘You will not be uninterested to hear that Mr. Sydney Smith (no mean authority in such cases) spoke in the highest terms of your son’s work, on a public occasion, and in presence of several distinguished literary characters. He said it was a work of transcendent talent, presented the most original views and the most elegant and powerful language, and would work a complete revolution in the world of taste. He did not know when he said this how much I was interested in the author!’ ”

Helen Pelham Dale.

June, 1893.