21 MARCH 1914, Page 24

Matthew Arnold on Continental Life and Literature. By Alexander P.

Kelso. (B. H. Blackwell. la 6d. net.)—Mr. Kelso is—or was—a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. In publishing the essay with which he won the Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize last year, and in dating his preface from Allegheny, Pennsylvania,. be observes that "it seems like the irony of fate that Matthew Arnold should have to suffer his views cif

the Continent to be presented by an American, when we remember his criticisms of America and things American- criticisms less virulent but no more complimentary than those of Dickens or that enfant terrible, Kipling." We rather think, for our own part, that Arnold would have been delighted to find that an American reader could understand him so well and write such an agreeable essay on his Continental associations. Mr. Kelso knows his Arnold well, and by reason of his own non-English standpoint is all the better able to judge of Arnold's work and influence as "the prophet of true culture or education" amongst a people who 'were being carried captive for a want of knowledge."