intance with Greek and Old
French will demur to Mr Arnold's assignment of an ineffably superior
poetical quality to one of the two passages he quotes over the other.
So yet again with the denial of "high seriousness" to Chaucer. One
feels disposed to enter and argue out a whole handful of not quite
contradictory pleas, such as "He _has_ high seriousness" (_vide_ the
"Temple of Mars," the beginning of the _Parliament of Fowls_, and many
other places): "Why should he have high seriousness?" (a most
effective demurrer); and "What _is_ high seriousness, except a fond
thing vainly invented for the nonce?"

But, as has so constantly to be said in reference to Mr Arnold, these
things do not matter. He must have his catchwords: and so "criticism
of life" and "high seriousness" are introduced at their and his peril.
He must have his maintenance of the great classics, and so he exposes
what I fear may be called no very extensive or accurate acquaintance
with Old French. He must impress on us that conduct is three-fourths
of life, and so he makes what even those who stop short of
_latreia_ in regard to Burns may well think mistakes about that
poet likewise. But all the spirit, all the tendency, of the
_Introduction_ is what it ought to be, and the plea for the
"real" estimate is as wholly right in principle as it is partly wrong
in application.

It is well borne out by the two interesting articles on Gray and Keats
which Mr Arnold contributed to the same work. In the former, and here
perhaps only, do we find him putting his shoulder to the work of
critical advocacy and sympathy with an absolutely whole heart. With
Wordsworth, with Byron, with Heine, he was on points more or fewer at
grave difference; though he affected to regard Goethe as a _magnus
Apollo_ of criticism and creation both, I think in his heart of
hearts there must have been some misgivings; and it is impossible that
he should not have known his fancy for people like the Guerins to be
mere _engouement_. Gray's case was different. The resemblances
between subject and critic were extraordinary. Mr Arnold is really an
industrious, sociable, and moderately cheerful Gray of the nineteenth
century; Gray an indolent, recluse, more melancholy Arnold of the
eighteenth. Again, the literary quality of the bard of the
_Elegy_ was exactly of the kind which stimulates critics most.
From Sainte-Beuve downwards the fraternity has, justly or unjustly,
been accused of a tendency to