ABSTRACT
Matthew Arnold is more widely known in this country [i.e. America] as the critic and the liberal thinker than as the poet; yet, to our mind, his poetry is more valuable than his prose, and it is to him and Clough that the men of the future will come who desire to find the clearest poetic expression of the sentiment and reflection of the most cultivated and thoughtful men of our generation. They are both called the poets of doubt; but, apart from this characteristic of them, there are in Clough a simplicity of narration, a thrust of wit, and, throughout, a graceful manliness which make him dear to many who have never known the shadow of scepticism; and likewise there are in Arnold a vividness in picturesque description, a penetrative imagination, a moral ardor, a sensitiveness to all that is charming in this world— individual powers and qualities whose results in poetic work are delightful apart from the restless and regretful spirit which infects all his writing….
