confirmation of Mr Arnold's own belief as to the indifference of the
English people to criticism that no second edition of this book was
called for till four years were past, no third for ten, and no fourth
for nearly twenty.

Yet, to any one whom the gods have made in the very slightest degree
critical, it is one of the most fascinating (if sometimes also one of
the most provoking) of books; and the fascination and provocation
should surely have been felt even by others. As always with the
author, there is nothing easier than to pick holes in it: in fact, on
his own principles, one is simply bound to pick holes. He evidently
enjoyed himself very much in the _Preface:_ but it may be doubted
whether the severe Goddess of Taste can have altogether smiled on his
enjoyment. He is superciliously bland to the unlucky and no doubt
rather unwise Mr Wright (_v. supra_): he tells the _Guardian_ in a
periphrasis that it is dull, and "Presbyter Anglicanus" that he is
born of Hyrcanian tigers, and the editor of the _Saturday Review_ that
he is a late and embarrassed convert to the Philistines. He introduces
not merely Mr Spurgeon, a Philistine of some substance and memory, but
hapless forgotten shadows like "Mr Clay," "Mr Diffanger," "Inspector
Tanner," "Professor Pepper" to the contempt of the world. And then,
when we are beginning to find all this laughter rather
"thorn-crackling" and a little forced, the thing ends with the famous
and magnificent _epiphonema_ (as they would have said in the old days)
to Oxford, which must for ever conciliate all sons of hers and all
gracious outsiders to its author, just as it turns generation after
generation of her enemies sick with an agonised grin.

So, again, one may marvel, and almost grow angry, at the whim which
made Mr Arnold waste two whole essays on an amiable and interesting