roduce their effect. But that there was, if
no repentance, a certain disgust, I cannot but believe. He must have
seen--he almost acknowledges that he saw--that the work which he at
least thought was conservative was being utilised by others in a
purely destructive spirit; he must have found himself in very
unwelcome alliances; and (which is worst of all to a delicate and
sensitive spirit) he must constantly have found fools dotting his
_i_'s and emphasising his innuendoes in their own clumsy and
Philistine fashion. At any rate, it is purely historical to say that
he did henceforward almost entirely change his main line of operation
as to religious matters, and that though, as has been shown, he
persisted, not too fortunately, in politics, his method of discussion
in that likewise was altered. As we heard no more of the three Lord
Shaftesburys, so Bottles and his unwelcome society were permitted to
remain unchronicled. In the latter department seriousness came upon Mr
Arnold; in the former, if not a total, yet a general and certainly
most welcome silence.

Most welcome: for he was voiceful enough on other and his proper
subjects. "Falkland," which followed "A French Critic on Milton," in
March in the _Fortnightly_, and "George Sand," which followed it,
as has been said, in June in the _Nineteenth Century_, somewhat
deserved the title (_Mixed Essays_) of the volume in which they
were two years later reprinted. But the last essay of the year 1877,
that on Mr Stopford Brooke's _Primer_, was, like the "French
Critic," and even more than that, pure literature. "A French Critic on
Goethe," which appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ for January
1878, followed next. The other pieces of this year, which also, with
one exception, appeared in _Mixed Essays_, were, with that
exception, evidences of a slight but venial relapse, or let us say of
convalescence not yet quite turned into health. "Equality"
(_Fortnightly_, March 1878), "Irish Catholicism and British
Liberalism" (_Fortnightly_, July 1878), and "Porro Unum est
Necessarium" (_Fortnightly_, November 1878), were, if not of "the
utmost last provincial band," yet not of the pure Quirites, the
genuine citizens of the sacred city of Mr Arnold's thought: and he
seceded from this latter in not a few of those estimable but
unimportant Irish essays which have been noticed in the last chapter.

But the literary contents of _Mixed Essays_ are very interesting,
and the Johnson paper (re