with the ardor of his nature. But it had three serious defects. It
was diffuse, apt to pursue a topic into details, when these might
have been left to the reader's own reflection. It was redundant,
employing more words than were needed to convey the substance. It
was unchastened, indulging too freely in tropes and metaphors, in
quotations and adapted phrases even when the quotation added nothing
to the sense, but was due merely to some association in his own
mind. Thus it seldom reached a high level of purity and grace, and
though one might excuse its faults as natural to the work of a swift
and busy man, they were sufficient to prevent readers from deriving
much pleasure from the mere form and dress of his thoughts.
Nevertheless there are passages, and not a few passages, both in the
books and in the articles, of rare merit, among which may be cited
(not as exceptionally good, but as typical of his strong points) the
striking picture of his own youthful feeling toward the Church of
England contained in the "Chapter of Autobiography," and the
refined criticism of "Robert Elsmere," published in 1888. Almost
the last thing he wrote, a pamphlet on the Greek and Cretan
question, published in the spring of 1897, has all the force and
cogency of his best days. Two things were never wanting to him:
vigor of expression and an admirable command of appropriate words.

His writings fall into three classes: political, theological, and
literary--the last including, and indeed chiefly consisting of, his
books and articles upon Homer and the Homeric question. All the
political writings, except his books on "The State in its Relations
to the Church" and "Church Principles Considered in their Results,"
belong to the class of occasional literature, being pamphlets or
articles produced with a view to some current crisis or controversy.
They are valuable chiefly as proceeding from one who bore a leading