multitude applauded. At any
rate, though the ill-omened series did not cease, nothing further
appeared in it which showed the tone of _Literature and Dogma_.
Indeed, of the concluding volumes, _God and the Bible_ and
_Last Essays on Church and Religion_, the first is an elaborate
and rather anxious apology, and the second a collection of diverse and
comparatively "anodyne" essays. It is significant--as showing how much
of the success of _Literature and Dogma_ had been a success of
scandal--that neither of these volumes enjoyed the least popularity.
_God and the Bible_ was never reprinted till the popular edition
of the series thus far in 1884; and _Last Essays_ was never
reprinted at all, or had not been up to the date of the invaluable
_Bibliography_ of the works. Indeed the copies now, 1899, on sale
appear to be of the first edition. This cool reception does not
discredit either Barbarians or Philistines or Populace. There are good
things in the _Last Essays_ (to which we shall return), but the
general effect of them is that of a man who is withdrawing from a
foray, not exactly beaten, but unsuccessful and disgusted, and is
trying to cover his retreat by alarums and excursions.

_God and the Bible_ tells much the same tale. It originally
appeared by instalments in the _Contemporary Review_, where it
must have been something of a choke-pear even for the readers of that
then young and thoughtful periodical. Unless the replier has the
vigour of Swift, or at least of Bentley, the adroitness in fence of
Pascal, or at least of Voltaire, "replies, duplies, quadruplies" are
apt to be wofully tedious reading, and Mr Arnold was rather a
_veles_ than a _triarius_ of controversy. He could harass,
but he did not himself stand harassing very well; and here he was not
merely the object of attacks from all sides, but was most uneasily
conscious that, in some cases at least, he did not wish his enemies to
destroy each other. He had absolutely no sympathy with the rabid
anti-Christianity of Clifford, very little with the mere agnosticism
of Huxley; he wanted to be allowed to take just so much Biblical
criticism as suited him and no more. He wished to prove, in his own
remarkable way, the truth and necessity of Christianity, and to this
wish the contradictions of sinners were too manifold. One must be
stony-hearted not to feel some pity for him, as, just when he thinks
he has evaded an orthodox brick, the tile of a disbeliever in the