It will be noted that the bulk of Arnold's verse is relatively small—a fact doubtless to be at tributed to the preoccupation of official duties. It is equally notable that throughout. his body of verse a level of excellence is maintained so nearly invariahle that at most there are per haps not more than a round dozen titles which one would not regret to see removed. Although it can not now with accuracy be said that Arnold is not a popular poet, it is nevertheless true that he does not appeal to the wide audience of Tenny son and Browning. Dis poetical work will, it is certain, have always a peculiar grace for not a few. In its grave and noble music, in its stoic austerity, it will claim its own fit audience.
But it is a question whether Arnold will not in time taken place in the general mind as the third great poet of the Victorian age. On this point Arnold himself wrote: "My poems repre sent on the whole the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century: and thus they will probably have their day as people become con scious to themselves of what that movement of mind is, and interested in the literary produc tions that reflect it. It might be fairly urged that I have less poetical sentiment than Tenny son, and less intellectual vigor and abundance than Browning; yet because I have, perhaps, more of a fusion of the two than either of them, end have more regularly applied that fusion to the main line of modern development, I am likely enough to have my turn as they have had theirs." Among Arnold's prose writings are: On Trans lating Bonier (1861-62), and the Study of Celtic Literature (1867), both redactions of Oxford lectures; Essays in Critirixm (1865) ; Culture and Anarchy (1869) ; Saint Paul and Protestant ism (1870) ; Literature and Dogma (1873) ; Mixed Essays (1879) ; Irish Essays (1882) ; Discourses in America (1885) ; Essays in Criti cism, second series (18'88). Two volumes of his letters were published in 1895 under the editor ship of G. W. E. Russell. These, though they are likely to add little to his literary fame. do, as his editor hoped they might, "reveal aspects of his character . . . which could be only imperfectly apprehended through the more formal medium of his published works." Besides all these. there are other theological and social essay,, and reports and hooks on He also edited selections. front Dr. Johnson (1878), Wordsworth (1879), Byron (1881) , and Burke (1881). with noteworthy prefaces. Arnold's work in prose is not altogether uniform in value. Naturally what pertains to schools is of interest primarily to educators: although students of Arnold's style will find A French Eton (1864) a valuable document. Likewise much that he wrote on politics and theology, though it served its purpose, now possesses chiefly an historical value. Literature and Dogma and Cod and the Bible, the former of which he himself considered his most significant work, were in his own time much misunderstood. Their purpose was to assert the natutal truth of the Christian religion as against its dogma, to emphasize the literary aspect of the Bible, and, in the words of Mr. Brownell, to make "each a theme. a topic of literature"—a part of that generous culture of Nvhich he was so per suasive an advocate. Arnold was among the
earliest thus to apply to these subjects the methods of literary (..itieism—he wrote of them in a style quite new in treatises of the sort: but he failed at the time to satisfy either orthodox or radical. Tlis permanent place as a critic is made secure by such volumes as the first series of Essays in Criticism. Not only is the thought here of the first order, but the style is of the best, ranking with that of Newman, his master. The essays follow the sympathetic method of Sainte Bett•e. Especially brilliant is the essay on Heine, an author from whom Arnold derived many of his ideas and the sting with which he attacked Philistinism. The essay on "Pagan and Media.val Sentiment" is a charming eontrast between Greek and medi•val ideals as repre sented by Theocritus and Saint Francis of Assisi. The Oxford lectures above referred to are now classics. Of time discourses delivered in America, the one on "Literature and Science" is a strong plea for literature against the encroachments of science: and the one on "Emerson," though clear ly inadequate as an estimate, contains passages of great eloquence. Arnold's influence is still paramount in English criticism. Many of his phrases, such as 'sweetness and light,' the lyrical •ry'. the definition of poetry as 'a criticism of life,' the contention that criticism should be "a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the the description of conduct as 'three fourths of life,' the phrase 'the not--ourselves that makes for righteousness,' the division of the British public into 'Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace,' the infusion of new meaning into the terms 'llebraism' and 'llellenism'—all these have become common property; but more, his general manner of treating literary themes very widely prevails. Even during his lifetime his judgments in this field were received as ex cathedra. Ile did away with the pompous rheto ric and blustering animosities of the Eight eenth-Century school, and substituted therefor restraint, poise, taste—in short, the ethical ele ment. It was this that he introduced into Eng lish criticism a imi.w era. What Principal Shairp lies happily called 'the sparkling banter' of his occasional manner ( for example, in ruiturc and Anarchy), has led to the ascription to Arnold by the careless and the unperceptive of a flippancy which, it is hardly necessary to state, was not characteristic of his temper.
It was Arnold's expressed wish that he should not be the subject of a biography. For the de tails of his laborious life consult the charming Letters cited above; for his influence on educa tion, Fitch, Thomas•and Matthew Arnold (New York, 1897) ; for the social aspect of his work, Robertson, Modern Hunianixts (London, 1.891) ; and for some of his best recent literary ap praisals• Saintsbury, Matthew Arnold (New York, 1899) : Gates, Three Studies in Literature (New York, 1899) ; Woodberry, Makers of Lit erature (New York, 1900) ; Ilarrison. Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, nun Other Literary Estimates (New York, 1900) : and Brownell, T•ictorian Prose' Masters (New York, 1902).