serious from the point of view of morality, but is one of Mr Arnold's
best claims to the title of a political philosopher, and even of a
political prophet. But it is less easy to say that this passage
appears to be either specially in place or well composed with its
companions. Perhaps the same is true of the earlier part, and its
extensive dealings with Isaiah and Plato. As regards the prophet, it
is pretty certain that of Mr Arnold's hearers, the larger number did
not care to have Isaiah spoken about in that particular manner, while
some at least of the rest did not care to have him spoken about at
all. Of the philosopher, it is equally safe to say that the great
majority knew very little, and that of the small minority, some must
have had obstinate questionings connected with the appearance of Plato
as an authority on the moral health of nations, and with the
application of Mr Arnold's own very true and very noble doctrine about
Aselgeia. In fact, although the lecture is the most thoughtful, the
most serious in part, the most forcible, and the truest of all Mr
Arnold's political or social discourses, yet it shares with all of
them the reproach of a touch of desultory dilettantism.

The others, at least equally interesting in parts, are much better as
wholes. The opening of the "Emerson," with its fond reminiscence of
Oxford, is in a vein which Mr Arnold did not often work, but which
always yielded him gold. In the words about Newman, one seems to
recognise very much more than meets the ear--an explanation of much in
the Arnoldian gospel, on something like the principle of revulsion, of
soured love, which accounts for still more in the careers of his
contemporaries, Mr Pattison and Mr Froude. He is less happy on
Carlyle--he never was very happy on Carlyle, and for obvious
reasons--but here he jars less than usual. As for Emerson himself,
some readers have liked Emerson better than Carlyle at first, but have
found that Carlyle "wears" a great deal better than Emerson. It seems
to have been the other way with Mr Arnold; yet he is not uncritical
about Emerson himself. On Emerson's poetry he is even, as on his own
principles he was, perhaps, bound to be, rather hypercritical. Most of
it, no doubt, is not poetry at all; but it has "once in a hundred
years," as Mr O'Shaughnessy sang, the blossoming of the aloe, the
star-shower of poetic meteors. And while, with all reverence, one is
bound to say that his denying the title o