to his
mind "a man's power to detect the ring of false metal in the _Lays of
Ancient Rome_ was a good measure of his fitness to give an opinion about
poetical matters at all." According to Macaulay, Burke was "the greatest
man since Shakespeare." Arnold admired Burke, revered him, paid him the
highest compliment by trying to apply his ideas to actual life; but,
when Burke urged his great arguments by obstetrical and pathological
illustrations, Arnold was ready to denounce his extravagances, his
capriciousness, his lapses from good taste.

The same perfectly courageous criticism, qualifying generous admiration,
he applied in turn to Jeremy Taylor and Addison, to Milton, and Pope,
and Gray, and Keats, and Shelley, and Scott--to all the principal
luminaries of our literary heaven. He went all lengths with Mr.
Swinburne in praising Byron's "sincerity and strength," but he qualified
the praise: "Our soul had _felt_ him like the thunder's roll," but "he
taught us little." Devout Wordsworthian as he is, he does not shrink
from saying that much of Wordsworth's work is "quite uninspired, flat
and dull," and sets himself to the task of "relieving him from a great
deal of the poetical baggage which now encumbers him."

And so Lucidity, which reveals the Truth, enounces its decisions with
absolute courage; and to Lucidity and Courage is added the crowning
grace of Serenity. However much the subject of his study may offend his
taste or sin against his judgment, he never loses his temper with the
author whom he is criticising. He never bludgeons or scalps or
scarifies; but serenely indicates, with the calm gesture of a superior
authority, the defects and blots which mar perfection, but which the
unthinking multitude ignores, or, at worst, admires.

The years 1860 and 1861 mark an important stage in the development of
his critical method. He was now Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and he
delivered from the professorial chair his famous lectures _On
Translating Homer_, to which in 1862 he added his "Last Words." As much
as anything which he ever wrote, these lectures have a chance of living
and being enjoyed when we are dust. For Homer is immortal, and he who
interprets Homer to Englishmen may hope at least for a longer life than
most of us.

Few are those who can still recall the graceful figure in its silken
gown; the gracious address, the slightly supercilious smile, of the
_Milton jeune et voyageant_,[5] just returned from conta