Let us hope that there are after all few to whom it has presented itself--that most, even if they be not sons by actual matriculation of Oxford, feel that, as of other "Cities of God," they are citizens of her by spiritual adoption, and by the welcome accorded in all such cities to God's children. But if the scholar had been an alumnus of Timbuctoo, and for Cumnor and Godstow had been substituted strange places in _-wa_ and _-ja_, I cannot think that, even to those who are of Oxford, the intrinsic greatness of this noble poem would be much affected, though it might lose a separable charm. For it has everything--a sufficient scheme, a definite meaning and purpose, a sustained and adequate command of poetical presentation, and passages and phrases of the most exquisite beauty. Although it begins as a pastoral, the mere traditional and conventional frippery of that form is by no means so prominent in it as in the later (and, I think, less consummate) companion and sequel _Thyrsis_. With hardly an exception, the poet throughout escapes in his phraseology the two main dangers which so constantly beset him--too great stiffness and too great simplicity. His "Graian" personification is not overdone; his landscape is exquisite; the stately stanza not merely sweeps, but sways and swings, with as much grace as state. And therefore the Arnoldian "note"--the special form of the _maladie du siecle_ which, as we have seen, this poet chooses to celebrate--acquires for once the full and due poetic expression and music, both symphonic and in such special clangours as the never-to-be-too-often-quoted distich-- "Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade"-- which marks the highest point of the composition. The only part on which there may be some difference between admirers is the final simile of the Tyrian trader. This finishes off the piece in nineteen lines, of which the poet was--and justly--proud, which are quite admirable by themselves, but which cannot perhaps produce any very clear evidences of right to be where they are. No ingenuity can work out the parallel between the "uncloudedly joyous" scholar who is bid avoid the palsied, diseased _enfants du siecle_, and the grave Tyrian who was indignant at the competition of the merry Greek, and shook out more sail to seek fresh markets. It is, once more, simply an instance of Mr Arnold's fancy for an end-note of relief, of cheer, of pleasant contrast. On his own most rigid principles, I fear it would have to go as a mere sewn-on patch of purple: on mine, I welcome it as one of the most engaging passages of a poem delightful throughout, and at its very best the equal of anything that was written in its author's lifetime, fertile as that was in poetry.