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 poets, easier though they are of access and apprehension even to the run of Englishmen. The thin, narrow, shallow, but very real melodies of Racine are as inaudible to him as the mightier symphonies of the great school; this perhaps, as he says, is natural in a foreigner. But no such excuse will serve for the confusion of judgment which places on a level the very best man of his kind, Pope, and Boileau, the very worst. Perhaps their respective Odes on St. Cecilia's Day and the Siege of Namur may be allowed to pair off as the shamefullest two lyrical poems in the world; but compare for a moment their general work, their didactic and satirical verse! the comparison is an insult too absurd to affect the Englishman. He is the finest, Boileau the dullest craftsman of their age and school.

It is singular and significant that Mr. Arnold, himself established and acknowledged as a poet standing in the first rank among his own people, has chosen for special praise and patronage men who have tried their hands at his work and failed, men who have fallen back baffled from the cliff-side he has climbed. Again I cite the evidence of his French critic; who naturally feels that he has paid the French but a poor compliment in praising as their best men those who fall short of their own aim and his achievement; "Il y a quelque chose de louche, de suspect, dans les louanges que prodigue aux poëtes manqués un poëte réussi. Or, parmi tous les nôtres c'est à M. Sainte-Beuve, poëte manqué dont le temps a fait un critique réussi, que le poëte anglais adresse son hommage respectueux. Il a eu mille fois raison d'étudier, d'apprécier, de louer cet illustre écrivain; il n'a peut-être pas eu