se to whom it seems so are hardly in sympathy with Matthew Arnold
himself. And if the discussion seems to any one too often to take the
form of a critical examination, let him remember Mr. Arnold's own
words in comparing the treatment of Milton by Macaulay and by M.
Scherer:--

"Whoever comes to the _Essay on Milton_ with the desire to get
at the real truth about Milton, whether as a man or a poet, will
feel that the essay in nowise helps him. A reader who only wants
rhetoric, a reader who wants a panegyric on Milton, a panegyric on
the Puritans, will find what he wants. A reader who wants criticism
will be disappointed."

I have endeavoured, in dealing with the master of all English critics
in the latter half of the nineteenth century, to "help the reader who
wants criticism."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr Arthur Galton's _Matthew Arnold_ (London, 1897) adds a
few pleasant notes, chiefly about dachshunds.

[2] It is impossible, in dealing with them, to be too grateful to Mr.
T. B. Smart's _Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_ (London, 1892), a
most craftsmanlike piece of work.

CONTENTS.

* * * * *

CHAP.

I. LIFE TILL MARRIAGE, AND WORK TILL THE PUBLICATION OF THE
_POEMS_ OF 1853

II. LIFE FROM 1851-62--SECOND SERIES OF _POEMS_--_MEROPE_--_ON
TRANSLATING HOMER_

III. _A FRENCH ETON_--_ESSAYS IN CRITICISM_--_CELTIC LITERATURE_--_NEW
POEMS_--LIFE FROM 1862 TO 1867

IV. IN THE WILDERNESS

V. THE LAST DECADE

VI. CONCLUSION

* * * * *

INDEX

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

* * * * *

CHAPTER I.

LIFE TILL MARRIAGE, AND WORK TILL THE PUBLICATION OF THE _POEMS_
OF 1853.

Even those who are by no means greedy of details as to the biography
of authors, may without inconsistency regret that Matthew Arnold's
_Letters_ do not begin till he was just five-and-twenty. And then
they are not copious, telling us in particular next to nothing about
his literary work (which is, later, their constant subject) till he
was past thirty. We could spare schoolboy letters, which, though often
interesting, are pretty identical, save when written by little prigs.
But the letters of an undergraduate--especially when the person is
Matthew Arnold, and the University the Oxford of the years
1841-45--ought to be not a little symptomatic, not a little
illuminative. We might have learnt from them something more than we
kno