Guérin might have said, should a modern spirit be better than an
ancient one, or what is either before the Eternal?) instead of for
what has been, conceitedly it may be, called the "tear-dew and
star-fire and rainbow-gold" of his phrase and verse. He felt this
magic at any rate. No matter that he applies the wrong comparison
instead of the right one, and depreciates French in order to exalt
German, instead of thanking Apollo for these two good different
things. The root of the matter is the right root, a discriminating
enthusiasm: and the flower of the matter is one of the most charming
critical essays in English. It is good, no doubt, to have made up
one's mind about Heine before reading Mr Arnold; but one almost envies
those who were led to that enchanted garden by so delightful an
interpreter.

Almost equally delightful, and with no touch of the sadness which must
always blend with any treatment of Heine, is the next essay, the pet,
I believe, of some very excellent judges, on "Pagan and Mediæval
Religious Sentiment," with its notable translation of Theocritus and
its contrast with St Francis. One feels, indeed, that Mr Arnold was
not quite so well equipped with knowledge on the one side as on the
other; indeed, he never was well read in mediæval literature. But his
thesis, as a thesis, is capable of defence; in the sternest times of
military etiquette he could not have been put to death on the charge
of holding out an untenable post; and he puts the different sides with
incomparable skill and charm. Mr Arnold glosses Pagan morals rather
doubtfully, but so skilfully; he rumples and blackens mediæval life
more than rather unfairly, but with such a light and masterly touch!

Different again, inferior perhaps, but certainly not in any hostile
sense inferior, is the "Joubert." It has been the fashion with some to