We omitted last week to state that the strange letter
supposed to have been written by Mr. Ruskin, on which we had commented. the week before, was a forgery,—and a forgery, as it seems to us, produced, with extreme unfairness, at a moment when Mr. Ruskin was contesting the Lord Rectorship of a Scotch Uni- versity with Mr. Bright. Mr. Ruskin, however, seems to be himself rather pleased than otherwise with the imitator's skill, and has explained that the Chesterfield forgery must have been done by some one who was aware of his practice of carrying his letters about unopened, occasionally taking them out just to look at the dreary piles. That is a pathetic picture. And, no doubt, one of the most frightful penalties which a famous man, not rich enough to have a private secretary, has to pay for his fame, is the burden of reading his correspondence, to say nothing of answering it. But if the habit of not reading it involves the addi- tional burden of disavowing forged answers, Mr. Ruskin must begin to read his letters again, for he can no longer gaze at the unopened piles " with a light heart."
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