successful in the most objective form of poems, the heroic narrative. When he was urging with all his command of paradox that the English hexameter—the existence of which still remains to be proved—was the best medium into which to translate Homer, he himself was giving in his Sohrab and Rustum the nearest analogue in English to the rapidity of action, plainness of thought, plainness of diction, and the nobleness of Homer. Yet even here we felt that something was wanting, as we feel in almost all attempts at reproduction of the Romance temper: it is not sincere, and cannot, therefore, be great. Where Matthew Arnold is sincere in his poetic work is when he gives expression to his 'yearning for the light,' and summons the spirit of renunciation to support him through the days of gloom.
These moods he reserved for expression in verse. In prose no one is less gloomy than he. If we might define him as a happy Heine, we should give the best point of view from which to survey his prose work, his criticism of life that underlies and involves all his criticism of books, of faiths, and of institutions. Like the German poet, he was armed with all the culture of his time—science does not count in such matters—and like him he played off the one side of his nature against
