the shape of _Merope_. This was avowedly written as a sort of
professorial manifesto--a document to show what the only Professor of
Poetry whom England allowed herself thought, in theory and practice,
of at least dramatic poetry. It was, as was to be expected from the
author's official position and his not widespread but well-grounded
reputation, much less neglected than his earlier poetry had been. He
even tells us that "it sells well"; but the reviewers were not
pleased. The _Athenæum_ review is "a choice specimen of style,"
and the _Spectator_ "of argumentation"; the _Saturday Review_ is only
"deadly prosy," but none were exactly favourable till G.H. Lewes in
_The Leader_ was "very gratifying." Private criticism was a little
kinder. The present Archbishop of Canterbury (to whom, indeed, Mr
Arnold had just given "a flaming testimonial for Rugby") read it "with
astonishment at its goodness," a sentence which, it may be observed,
is a little double-edged. Kingsley (whom the editor of the _Letters_
good-naturedly but perhaps rather superfluously reintroduces to the
British public as "author of _The Saints' Tragedy_ and other poems")
was "very handsome." Froude, though he begs the poet to "discontinue
the line," was not uncomplimentary in other ways. His own conclusion,
from reviews and letters together, is pretty plainly put in two
sentences, that he "saw the book was not going to take as he wished,"
and that "she [Merope] is more calculated to inaugurate my
professorship with dignity than to move deeply the present race of
_humans_." Let us see what "she" is actually like.

It is rather curious that the story of Merope should have been so
tempting as, to mention nothing else, Maffei's attempt in Italian,
Voltaire's in French, and this of Mr Arnold's in English, show it to
have been to modern admirers and would-be practitioners of the
Classical drama: and the curiosity is of a tell-tale kind. For the