The Strayed Reveller

Introduftion.
With these exceptions, and his dignified but frigid
tragedy of " Merope," the chief part of Arnold's poetical
work was composed by 1853, and is comprehended in
three volumes, one mainly a reprint. There is nothing
extraordinary in the gradual impoverishment of his
poetical vein, which had never been remarkable for
affluence. His criticisms and private letters betray a
limited sympathy with his poetical predecessors and
immediate contemporaries, which, since it assuredly
was not in the slightest degree inspired by envy or
unworthy jealousy, can only be interpreted as betokening
an undue preponderance of the critical instinct,
fatal to the enthusiasm required for continuous
productiveness in poetry. The teeming soul is enthusiastic
and lavish of admiration, for only so can it
sufficiently respond to the innumerable impressions,
physical and spiritual, through which alone it is possible
to sustain incessant poetical activity. Arnold's
intellectual force and intellectual interests never waned,
but were diverted more and more from the sphere of
creation to the sphere of criticism; in which, however,
so novel and striking were his views and so original his
method of developing them, that he almost became a
creator. He laid English literature, in particular, under
the greatest obligation by his two golden little books,
" On translating Homer," and "On the Study of Celtic
Literature." His own attempts iat Homeric translation,
indeed, were by no means fortunate, but this in
no respect detracts from the value of his criticism.
His more ambitious prose writings have permeated
modern English thought, and furnished it with a
new and most beneficial element; it may be added,
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