Studies in Interpretation. By William Henry Hudson. (G. P. Putnam's
Sons.)—This volume contains three critical essays dealing with Keats, Clough, and Matthew Arnold respectively. They are well worth study. About Keats, for instance, how true is this : "His habit was to describe things as he saw them, without seeking to read into them the joys and sorrows of the human life ;" and the critic goes on to contrast this with the sympathetic treatment which the modern spirit is wont to give to Nature. The essay on Clough will probably be less appreciated, because Clough's readers are still unaccountably few. The third, on Matthew Arnold, is admirable, especially in the justice that it does to the "clear sharp ring of the noblest stoical note that is heard throughout his verse." Professor Hudson, however, does not fail to recognise that Arnold, like Epictetns and Marcus Aurelius, is not helpful for the many. There is a curious over- sight, we may remark, in the way in which this is substantially repeated on pp. 219-20.
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