ment, which are not common things in critical prelections. Nor,
though one may think that Mr Arnold's general estimate of Byron is not
even half as sound as his general estimate of Wordsworth, does the
former appear to be in even the slightest degree insincere. Much as
there must have been in Byron's loose art, his voluble
inadequacy--nay, even in his choice of subject--that was repellent to
Mr Arnold: much more as there must have been in his unchastened
conduct, his flashy affectations, his lack of dignity, morality,
_tenue_ of every kind,--yet there were real links between them. Mr
Arnold saw in Byron an ally, if not an altogether admirable or
trustworthy ally, against the Philistine. He saw in him a link with
general European literature, a check and antidote to the merely
insular. Byron's undoubtedly "sincere and strong" dislike of the
extreme Romantic view of literature was not distasteful to Mr Arnold.
Indeed, in his own earlier poems there are not wanting Byronic touches
and echoes, not so easy to separate and put the finger on, as to see
and hear "confusedly." Lastly, he had, by that sort of reaction which
often exhibits itself in men of the study, an obvious admiration for
Force--the admiration which makes him in his letters praise France up
to 1870 and Germany after that date--and he thought he saw Force in
Byron. So that the _Essay_ is written with a stimulating mingle-mangle
of attraction and reluctance, of advocacy and admission. It is very
far indeed from being one of his best critically. You may, on his own
principles, "catch him out" in it a score of times. But it is a good
piece of special pleading, an excellent piece of writing, and one of
the very best and most consummate literary _causeries_ in
English.

In strict chronological order, a third example of these most
interesting and stimulating Prefaces should have been mentioned
between the "Wordsworth" and the "Byron"--the latter of which, indeed,
contains a reference to it. This is the famous Introduction to Mr T.H.
Ward's _English Poets_, which, in that work and in the second
series of _Essays in Criticism_, where it subsequently appeared,
has perhaps had more readers than any other of its author's critical
papers. It contains, moreover, that still more famous definition of
poetry as "a criticism of life" which has been so often attacked and
has sometimes been defended. I own to having been, both at the time
and since, one of its most decided and ir