are still far from Bottles; the three Lord Shaftesburys relieve us by
not even threatening to appear. And accordingly the two essays add in
no small degree, though somewhat after the fashion of an appendix or
belated episode, to the charm of the book. They have an unction which
never, as it so often does in the case of Mr Arnold's dangerous master
and model Renan, degenerates into unctuosity; they are nobly serious,
but without being in the least dull; they contain some exceedingly
just and at the same time perfectly urbane criticism of the ordinary
reviewing kind, and though they are not without instances of the
author's by-blows of slightly unproved opinion, yet these are by no
means eminent in them, and are not of a provocative nature. And I do
not think it fanciful to suppose that the note of grave if
unclassified piety, of reconciliation and resignation, with which they
close the book, was intended--that it was a deliberate "evening
voluntary" to play out of church the assistants at a most remarkable
function--such a function as criticism in English had not celebrated
before, such as, I think, it may without unfairness be said has not
been repeated since. _Essays in Criticism_, let us repeat, is a
book which is classed and placed, and it will remain in that class and
place: the fresh wreaths and the fresh mud, that may be in turn
unfitly thrown upon it, will affect neither.

Between this remarkable book and the later ones of the same
_lustrum_, we may conveniently take up the thread of biography
proper where we last dropped it. The letters are fuller for this
period than perhaps for any other; but this very fulness makes it all
the more difficult to select incidents, never, perhaps, of the very
first importance, but vying with each other in the minor biographical
interests. A second fishing expedition to Viel Salm was attempted in
August 1862; but it did not escape the curse which seems to dog