Now, to derive an idea of England from the English Dissenter is and
was absurd. Politically, indeed, he had only too much power between
1832 and 1866, from the tradition which made Liberal politicians fond
of petting him. Socially, intellectually, and to a great extent
religiously, he had next to no power at all. To take the average
manager of a "British" school as the average representative of the
British nation was the wildest and most mischievous of confusions. Yet
this practically was the basis of Mr Arnold's crusade between 1867 and
1877.

The First Blast of the Trumpet was, intentionally no doubt, the last
of the Oxford lectures, and for that very reason a rather gentle and
insinuating one. _Culture its Enemies_, which was the origin and
first part, so to say, of _Culture and Anarchy_, carried the
campaign begun in the _Essays in Criticism_ forward; but only in
the most cautious manner, a caution no doubt partly due to the fact of
the author's expressed, and very natural and proper, intention of
closing his professorial exercises with the _bocca dolce_. Still
this is at least conceivably due to the fact that the boldest
extension of the campaign itself had not definitely entered, or at
least possessed, the author's mind. A considerable time, indeed from
July 1867 to January 1868, passed before the publication of the
lecture as an article in the _Cornhill_ was followed up by the
series from the latter month to August, which bore the general title
of _Anarchy and Authority_, and completed the material of
_Culture and Anarchy_ itself. This, as a book, appeared in 1869.

It began, according to the author's favourite manner, which was
already passing into something like a mannerism, with a sort of
half-playful, half-serious battery against a living writer (in this