The only part on which there may be some difference between admirers
is the final simile of the Tyrian trader. This finishes off the piece
in nineteen lines, of which the poet was--and justly--proud, which are
quite admirable by themselves, but which cannot perhaps produce any
very clear evidences of right to be where they are. No ingenuity can
work out the parallel between the "uncloudedly joyous" scholar who is
bid avoid the palsied, diseased _enfants du siècle_, and the
grave Tyrian who was indignant at the competition of the merry Greek,
and shook out more sail to seek fresh markets. It is, once more,
simply an instance of Mr Arnold's fancy for an end-note of relief, of
cheer, of pleasant contrast. On his own most rigid principles, I fear
it would have to go as a mere sewn-on patch of purple: on mine, I
welcome it as one of the most engaging passages of a poem delightful
throughout, and at its very best the equal of anything that was
written in its author's lifetime, fertile as that was in poetry.

He himself, though he was but just over thirty when this poem
appeared, and though his life was to last for a longer period than had
passed since his birth to 1853, was to make few further contributions
to poetry itself. The reasons of this comparative sterility are
interesting, and not quite so obvious as they may appear. It is true,
indeed,--it is an arch-truth which has been too rarely
recognised,--that something like complete idleness, or at any rate
complete freedom from regular mental occupation, is necessary to the
man who is to do poetic work great in quality and in quantity at once.
The hardest occupation--and Mr Arnold's, though hard, was not exactly
that--will indeed leave a man sufficient time, so far as mere time is
concerned, to turn out as much verse as the most fertile of poets has
ever produced. But then that will scarcely do. The Muses are
feminine--and it has been observed that you cannot make up even to the