g its obscurity. But the
splendid passage beginning--

"The Poet to whose mighty heart,"

and ending--

"His sad lucidity of soul,"

has far more interest than concerns the mere introduction, in this
last line itself, of one of the famous Arnoldian catchwords of later
years. It has far more than lies even in its repetition, with fuller
detail, of what has been called the author's main poetic note of
half-melancholy contemplation of life. It has, once more, the interest
of _poetry_--of poetical presentation, which is independent of any
subject or intention, which is capable of being adapted perhaps to
all, certainly to most, which lies in form, in sound, in metre, in
imagery, in language, in suggestion--rather than in matter, in sense,
in definite purpose or scheme.

It is one of the heaviest indictments against the criticism of the
mid-nineteenth century that this remarkable book--the most remarkable
first book of verse that appeared between Tennyson's and Browning's in
the early thirties and _The Defence of Guenevere_ in 1858--seems to
have attracted next to no notice at all. It received neither the
ungenerous and purblind, though not wholly unjust, abuse which in the
long--run did so much good to Tennyson himself, nor the absurd and
pernicious bleatings of praise which have greeted certain novices of
late years. It seems to have been simply let alone, or else made the
subject of quite insignificant comments.

In the same year (1849) Mr Arnold was represented in the _Examiner_ of
July 21 by a sonnet to the Hungarian nation, which he never included
in any book, and which remained peacefully in the dust-bin till a
reference in his _Letters_ quite recently set the ruthless reprinter
on its track. Except for an ending, itself not very good, the thing is
quite valueless: the author himself says to his mother, "it is not
worth much." And three years passed before he followed up his first
volume with a second, which should still more clearly have warned the
intelligent critic that here was somebody, though such a critic would
not have been guilty of undue hedging if he had professed himself
still unable to decide whether a new great poet had arisen or not.

This volume was _Empedodes on Etna and other Poems_, [still] _By A._
London: Fellowes, 1852. It contained two attempts--the title-piece and
_Tristram and Iseult_--much longer and more ambitious than anything
that the poet had yet done, and thirty-three smaller