dful of golden sentences--things wisely thought and finely said
by persons having authority--and spin them into an exquisite prelection;
so that his work with all the finish of art retains a something of the
freshness of those elemental truths on which it was his humour to dilate.
He was, that is to say, an artist in ethics as in speech, in culture as
in ambition. 'Il est donne,' says Sainte-Beuve, 'de nos jours, a un bien
petit nombre, meme parmi les plus delicats et ceux qui les apprecient le
mieux, de recueillir, d'ordonner sa vie selon ses admirations et selon
ses gouts, avec suite, avec noblesse.' That is true enough; but Arnold
was one of the few, and might 'se vanter d'etre reste fidele a soi-meme,
a son premier et a son plus beau passe.' He was always a man of culture
in the good sense of the word; he had many interests in life and art, and
his interests were sound and liberal; he was a good critic of both morals
and measures, both of society and of literature, because he was commonly
at the pains of understanding his matter before he began to speak about
it. It is therefore not surprising that the part he played was one of
considerable importance or that his influence was healthy in the main. He
was neither prophet nor pedagogue but a critic pure and simple. Too well
read to be violent, too nice in his discernment to be led astray beyond
recovery in any quest after strange gods, he told the age its faults and
suggested such remedies as the study of great men's work had suggested to
him. If his effect was little that was not his fault. He returned to
the charge with imperturbable good temper, and repeated his remarks--which
are often exasperating in effect--with a mixture of mischievousness and
charm, of superciliousness and sagacity, and a serene dexterity of
phrase, unique in modern letters.

HOMER AND THEOCRITUS

The Odyssey.

I think that of all recent books the two that have pleased me best and
longest are those delightful renderings into English prose of the Greek
of Homer and Theocritus, which we owe, the one to Messrs. Henry Butcher
and Andrew Lang and the other to Mr. Lang's unaided genius. To read this
_Odyssey_ of theirs is to have a breath of the clear, serene airs that
blew through the antique Hellas; to catch a glimpse of the large, new
morning light that bathes the seas and highlands of the young heroic
world. In a space of shining and fragrant clarity you have a vision of
ma