The Lord Chief Justice dwelt chiefly on the affinity between
Horace and Arnold,—an affinity which the present writer finds it hard to recognise,—but he dwelt truly enough on the singular combination of great qualities in Matthew Arnold's mind :—" Thackeray may have written more pungent social satire, Tennyson may be a greater poet, John Morley may be a greater critical biographer, Cardinal Newman may have a more splendid style, Lightfoot or Ellicott or Jowett may be greater ecclesiastical scholars and have done more for the interpretation of St. Paul. But for a union of the satirist, the poet, the delineator of character, the wielder of an admirable style, the striver after the eternal truths of Scripture and re- ligion, he is, in my judgment, not only first, but he is unique." We should hardly take exception to the remark that Matthew Arnold was " a striver after the eternal truths of Scripture," but we should certainly deny that the strife was successful, for he proved that either Scripture did not mean what it said, or that what it meant was a mere anthropomorphic dream, which can only be rendered useful to man after it has been rifled of all its most effective and impressive thoughts, and when all its most passionate prayers have been explained away. But all the other great qualities enumerated by Lord Coleridge were certainly his, and they present a very remarkable com- bination of lofty powers. In irony he was as great as he was kindly. In criticism he never failed to fix on some telling and true feature of his subject ; but it was in poetry that he was really unique. No other poet has ever combined so lucid and single an intellectual vision with so mellow an atmosphere of feeling, and so happy a buoyancy of heart.
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