itself--that most, even if they be not sons by actual matriculation of
Oxford, feel that, as of other "Cities of God," they are citizens of
her by spiritual adoption, and by the welcome accorded in all such
cities to God's children. But if the scholar had been an alumnus of
Timbuctoo, and for Cumnor and Godstow had been substituted strange
places in _-wa_ and _-ja_, I cannot think that, even to
those who are of Oxford, the intrinsic greatness of this noble poem
would be much affected, though it might lose a separable charm. For it
has everything--a sufficient scheme, a definite meaning and purpose, a
sustained and adequate command of poetical presentation, and passages
and phrases of the most exquisite beauty. Although it begins as a
pastoral, the mere traditional and conventional frippery of that form
is by no means so prominent in it as in the later (and, I think, less
consummate) companion and sequel _Thyrsis_. With hardly an
exception, the poet throughout escapes in his phraseology the two main
dangers which so constantly beset him--too great stiffness and too
great simplicity. His "Graian" personification is not overdone; his
landscape is exquisite; the stately stanza not merely sweeps, but
sways and swings, with as much grace as state. And therefore the
Arnoldian "note"--the special form of the _maladie du siècle_
which, as we have seen, this poet chooses to celebrate--acquires for
once the full and due poetic expression and music, both symphonic and
in such special clangours as the never-to-be-too-often-quoted
distich--

"Still nursing the unconquerable hope,
Still clutching the inviolable shade"--

which marks the highest point of the composition.