ABSTRACT
This ‘criticism of life’ crotchet was, however, only one of a few critical perversities with which Mr. Arnold alternately amused and irritated his readers; and on these it is not necessary to dwell. It is more pleasant to dwell, as one can do, with admiration almost unqualified on his general work as a critic of literature. Much has been said since his death of the Essays in Criticism as an ‘epoch-making book,’ and, with a little care in defining the precise nature of the epoch which it did make, the phrase may be defended. It would be too much to say that the principles of criticism for which Mr. Arnold contended were new and original-or rather it would be the reverse of a compliment to say so, since it is literally certain that any fundamentally novel discovery on this ancient subject would turn out another Invention of the Mare’s-nest. There is no critical canon in the Essays which has not been observed in and might not be illustrated from the practice of some critics for long before the Essays appeared. But it is quite true that these principles were at that time undergoing what from time to time in our literary history they have frequently undergone, a phase of neglect; and it is equally true that Mr. Arnold’s lucid exposition of these principles, and the singularly fascinating style of the series of papers in which he illustrated them, gave a healthy stimulus and a true direction to English literary criticism, which during the twenty years now completed since the publication of the Essays it has on the whole preserved. And to credit any writer with such an achievement as this is undoubtedly to concede his claim to a permanent place in the history of English letters.
