Page:Matthew Arnold (IA matthewarnold00harr).pdf/13

 in which Greece was singularly rich, the order of gnomic poets, who condensed in metrical aphorisms their thoughts on human destiny and the moral problems of life. The type is found in the extant fragments of Solon, of Xenophanes, and above all of Theognis. The famous maxim of Solon— (nothing overdone)—might serve as a maxim for Arnold. But of all the gnomic poets of Greece, the one with whom Arnold has most affinity is Theognis. Let us compare the 108 fragments of Theognis, as they are paraphrased by J. Hookham Frere, with the collected poems of Arnold, and the analogy will strike us at once: the stoical resolution, the disdain of vulgarity, the aversion from civic brawls, the aloofness both from the rudeness of the populace and the coarseness of ostentatious wealth. The seventeenth fragment of Theognis, as arranged by Frere, might serve as a motto for Arnold's poems and for Arnold's temper.

I walk by rule and measure, and incline To neither side, but take an even line; Fix'd in a single purpose and design. With learning's happy gifts to celebrate, To civilize and dignify the State; Not leaguing with the discontented crew, Nor with the proud and arbitrary few.

This is the very key-note of so many poems, of Culture and Anarchy, of 'sweetness and light,' of epiekeia; it is the tone of the euphues, of the, of the 'wise and good,'

This intensely gnomic, meditative, and ethical vein in Arnold's poetry runs through the whole of his singularly equable work, from the earliest sonnets to the latest domestic elegies. His Muse, as he sings himself, is ever —

Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground Of thought and of austerity within.