Arnold's style, in prose as in poetry, is one of the elements of his power. Though not free from mannerisms, it is easy, harmonious, scholarly and scrupulously pure. He is content to write about plain things in a plain manner. His great charm is the constant play of wit and humour, of irony and satire, over his prose. The wit and irony are, as a rule, lambent rather than piercing, but they are sometimes exceedingly keen. Occasionally he rises to a high pitch of eloquence. There are few passages of English prose more memorable than the celebrated apostrophe to Oxford, the 'home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties.' Yet even there, when his feelings are most highly strung, the comic touch comes in: 'There are our young barbarians, all at play.' Arnold smiles at himself as he smiles at others, and by doing so takes all offence from his wit. [Sidenote: Dr. John Brown (1810-1882).] [Sidenote: William Brighty Rands (1823-1882).] Two minor names, those of Dr. John Brown and William Brighty Rands, are, perhaps, best included among the critics. The former is most widely known as the author of _Rab and his Friends_, a piece not easily surpassed for mingled pathos and humour. Brown wrote a style of very high merit. In the miscellaneous collection of his writings, which he entitled _Horæ Subsecivæ_, there is much to remind the reader of Lamb. Yet he was guiltless of imitation, and the resemblance exists because he had the same fine humour and the same sensitiveness of perception as the earlier writer. No one has written better than Brown about dogs; and his comprehension of them and his power of depicting them are seen even better in _Our Dogs_ than in the famous essay on Rab, where the human figures divide the interest with the great mastiff. Brown's critical papers are few, but they show that he knew how to get at the heart of his subject. Rands is a man much less known than he deserves to be. He wrote on many subjects, but generally under assumed names. His children's verse in _Lilliput Levee_ (1864) is very good, and his opinions on 'life and philosophy' in _Henry Holbeach_ (1865) are still better. This book is thoughtful, acute in criticism, and enriched with not a few memorable sayings. Perhaps the best essay in it is that on _Cavaliers and Roundheads_, where the description of the Tory or Cavalier mind, with no opinions, only dogmas, and a genial superstition which answers the purpose of religion, is admirable; and in another essay there is an even more delicious description of the minister of the Little Meeting, 'his heart amply supplied with the milk of human kindness, and his creed blazing with damnation.' Rich as English literature is, it is sensibly impoverished when work of this quality is forgotten.