letter of Fors Clavigera, Ruskin launched a scathing attack on paintings by James McNeill Whistler exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery. He found particular fault with Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, and accused Whistler of asking two hundred guineas for "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face". Whistler filed a libel suit against Ruskin, but Ruskin was ill when the case went to trial in November 1878, so the artist Edward Burne-Jones and Attorney General Sir John Holker represented him. The trial took place on 25 and 26 November, and many major figures of the art world at the time appeared at the trial. Artist Albert Moore appeared as a witness for Whistler, and artist William Powell Frith appeared for Ruskin. Frith said "the nocturne in black in gold is not in my opinion worth two hundred guineas". Frederic Leighton also agreed to give evidence for Whistler, but in the end could not attend as he had to go to Windsor to be knighted. Edward Burne-Jones, representing Ruskin, also asserted that Nocturne in Black and Gold was not a serious work of art. When asked to give reasons, Burne-Jones said he had never seen one painting of night that was successful, but also acknowledged that he saw marks of great labour and artistic skill in the painting. In the end, Whistler won the case, but the jury awarded damages of only a derisory farthing (the smallest coin of the realm) to the artist. Court costs were split between the two parties. Ruskin's were paid by public subscription organised by the Fine Art Society, but Whistler was bankrupt within six months, and was forced to sell his studio. The episode tarnished Ruskin's reputation, and may have accelerated his mental decline. It did nothing to mitigate Ruskin's exaggerated sense of failure in persuading his readers to share in his own keenly felt priorities. Guild of St George Ruskin founded his utopian society, the Guild of St George, in 1871 (although originally it was called St George's Fund, and then St George's Company, before becoming the Guild in 1878). Its aims and objectives were articulated in Fors Clavigera. A communitarian protest against nineteenth-century industrial capitalism, it had a hierarchical structure, with Ruskin as its Master, and dedicated members called "Companions". Ruskin wished to show that contemporary life could still be enjoyed in the countryside, with land being farmed by