be 'a leaven and a power,' because he, too, has made the great style
current in English. With his desire for culture and for perfection,
there is no destiny he would prefer to this, for which his nature, his
training, and his sympathies, all prepared him. To convey the message
of those ancients whom he loved so well, in that English tongue which
he was taught by them to use so perfectly;--to serve as an eternal
protest against charlatanism and vulgarity;--is exactly the mission
he would have chosen for himself.... The few writers of our language,
therefore, who give us 'an ideal of excellence, the most high and the
most rare,' have an important function; we should study their works
continually, and it should be a matter of passionate concern with us,
that the 'ideals,' that is, the definite and perfect models, should
abide with us forever." The Greeks recognized three kinds of
poetry,--Lyric, Dramatic, and Epic. Arnold tried all three. First,
then, as a lyricist.

=Arnold as a Lyricist=.--Lyric poetry is the artistic expression of
the poet's individual sentiments and emotions, hence it is subjective.
The action is usually vapid, the verse musical, the time quick. Unlike
the Epic and Drama, it has no preferred verse or meter, but leaves the
poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this species of
verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has been said, one searches in
vain through the whole course of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay
or serious, offhand poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is
soon discovered. Obviously, it lies in the fundamental qualities
of the poet's mind and temperament. Though by no means lacking in
emotional sensibility, Arnold was too intellectually self-conscious to
be carried away by the impulsiveness common to the lyrical moods. With
him the intellect was always master; the emotions, subordinate. With
the lyricist, the order is, in the main, at least, reversed. The poet