THE COMPARATIVE POPULARITY OF LITERARY MEN.

No. of Votes.

r "In Memoriam" (257). 1. Tennyson 501 t "Idylls of the King" (1591. c "Modern Painters" (238). 2. Ruskin 462 t "Stones of Venice" (125). ("Literature and Dogma" (137).

3. Matthew Arnold 453 "Essays on Criticism" (89). " Poems " (50). " The Ring and the Book" (253). 4. Robert Browning 448 " Paracelsus " (58). E ("Men and Women" (37).

5. J. A. Froude ... 391 "History of England."

6. A. C. Swinburne 262 "Atalanta in Calydon."

7. E. A. Freeman 241 "History of the Norman Conquest."

8. Herbert Spencer 235 "Study of Sociology."

9. Cardinal Newman 192 "Apologia pro Vita Sua."

10. John Morley 187 "Life of Cobden."

We should have thought it clear that Mr. Spencer, great as

his influence as a thinker has been, has not gained his position by literary qualities, properly so called, at all ; while Mr. Freeman, again, is much more of an historian than of a writer, much greater in learning and in judgment than in charm of style. We are astonished to see Sir Henry Taylor,-the author of "Philip van Artevelde,"-so low on the list; he stands only thirty-first, and received only twenty votes ; whereas, in our opinion, he should certainly have stood sixth, and perhaps even higher. Even the winner of the prize does not include Sir Henry Taylor's name amongst the first ten, Mr. Cotter Morison having awarded the prize to a gentleman whose list is as follows :-

1. Browning "Dramatic Lyrics." 2. Tennyson "In Memoriam." 3. Swinburne "Atalanta in Calydon."

4. Newman "Apologia pro Vita Sua."

5. Ruskin "Modern Painters."

6. Matthew Arnold " Empedocles on Etna."

7. W. Morris "Life and Death of Jason."

8. John Morley "Voltaire." - 9. Lecicy "History of Rationalism in Europe." 10. E. A. Freeman "History of the Norman Conquest."

It is curious, too, that not ten votes have been given for any single woman, though in Mrs. Oliphant we have a novelist of great genius, whose history of English literature at the close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth century contains many chapters of singular brilliance, and whose mystical little tale, "A Beleaguered City," is a prose poem as original in conception as it is exquisite in execution. For our own parts, we confidently expect that Mrs. Oliphant will be put by the literary judgment of the future among the ten first writers now living, unequal as much of her work has undoubtedly been. It is significant, too, when such writers as Mr. Smiles and Mr. G. A. Sala, appear on the list of those who have at least ten supporters, to note the complete absence of the name of so original a poet as Mr. Buchanan,-though he has done nothing recently worthy of his genius,-of so fine a dramatist as Mr. Aubrey De Vere, whose "Alexander the Great" will be read and admired when many of these popular favourites are forgotten ; of a writer so full of the aroma of poetical feeling snd refined knowledge as Dean Church ; of so trenchant a controversialist and the master of so keen an invective as Goldwin Smith.

All these omissions surprise us, and yet, on the whole, we are better pleased with the voting than we should have supposed it possible that we should be, and have only this general fault to

find, that the choice of the special books on which the place assigned is founded, looks to us not nnfrequently to im- ply that the voters relied on the book which had made most stir in the world, rather than on the book which they would have chosen for themselves, had they really known thoroughly the author for whom they were voting. Take Cardinal Newman, whose name we should have certainly put im- mediately after Tennyson's, even if Tennyson's great superiority as a poet had put it quite beyond question that one who is a great poet, and nothing else, should stand first inletters. Both the prize-winner and the popular vote base Cardinal Newman's claims on his "Apologia pro Vita Sm.." Well, no doubt the Cardinal is best known by that frank and fascinating book, but no one who knows his writings as a whole would think of regarding it as his most marvellous literary achievement. Some would say that his volumes of "Oxford Sermons" contained the noblest passages he had ever written ; some would pick out that strange and beautiful poem, "The Dream of Gerontius," as the °nein which he touched the highest mark; some would find in the caustic irony and cogent logic of "The Lectures to Anglicans,"-lectures con- cerning the true drift of the Puseyite movement,-the greatest feat of literary skill he ever accomplished; while one or two, including the present writer, would find in that brilliant and pathetic story of martyrdom, " Carnets," the most substantial proof both of Dr. Newman's marvellous imaginative power and of the exquisite tenderness of his devotional genius. But hardly any one, we think, who knows the Cardinal's writings well, would hold that in -his " Apology " for his own life, masterly as it was, he dis- played his highest powers, unless it were in the piercing sarcasm of that imaginary dialogue with Canon Kingsley, which, with singular self-restraint, he has excluded from the later editions of the book. Again, how singular is the voting on Matthew Arnold's works. To put his " Litera- ture and Dogma" above his "Poems," or even above his "Essays in Criticism," seems to us to put his most con- spicuous failure above a conspicuous success. Even those who grant Mr. Arnold his virtual - denial of the truth of the Bible, as many, no doubt, of the voters would grant it, cannot maintain, with the smallest hope of being supported by the judgment of the thinking world, that his pleas for that residuum of significance which he insists on assigning to the Bible, will hold water for a moment. To empty the most personal religion in the world of all its personality, and then to assure men that nothing is changed, that it is left more solid than before, is the enterprise of a conjuror, not of a man of letters. And of this we feel absolutely confident, that even if the negative school to which Mr. Arnold belongs, could triumph, that school will regard with a half-pathetic scorn Mr. Arnold's effort to save the teaching of a book which he has done his very best to undermine. We can only account for the popularity of " Literature and Dogma," by supposing that amongst the cless of Teachers it had made many converts, who bega:n with imagining that they were only asked to abjure dog- matism, and who did .not find out that a complete abjuring of dogmatism means also a_ complete abjuring of faith, till they had been conquered by the irony and the unwavering arrogance of the book itself. Even the prize-winner's choice of "Empedocles on Etna" as Mr. Arnold's greatest work, though it shows indefinitely more insight than the. popular vote for "Literature and Dogma," betrays an unfortunate leaning to the didactic side of Mr. Arnold's mind. " Empedocles on Etna" contains two or three lyrics of unsurpassed beauty, but the argumentative scepticism which constitutes the bulk of the poem is not always poetical, and certainly does not approach the level of such poems as "The Scholar Gipsy" and " Thyrsis," "The Grande Chartreuse," and the two noble poems to the "Author of Obermann."

The winner of the prize is wise in placing Mr. Brown- ing's "Dramatic Lyrics" at the head of his poetical achieve- ments; but not wise, we take it, in placing a poet who delights in harshness of construction, in a shorthand style, and in abruptness for its own sake, above the greatest master of form whom a self-conscious age ever produced. Again, did the unanimous popular vote which declared Mr. Brovrning's "Ring and the Book" his greatest work, really represent the adhesion of the readers' own imaginations to that most unequal poem,-a poem containing some of Mr. Browning's highest flights of genius, and a good deal, too, of his grittiest and most head-splitting work, the Roman lawyers, for instance, being as nearly unreadable as verse ever was in this world,-or did it only represent the satisfac-

tion with which these readers regarded the achievement of a con- siderable feat in the reading and the interpreting and the admiring of a work of undoubted power, but equally un- doubted difficulty ? The decided preference for" Paracelsus " over "Men and Women" looks like it. " Paracelsns " is a hard nut to crack, and Teachers like a hard nut that they have cracked successfully. "Men and Women" are as much pleasanter than " Paracelsus," as poems, as a gallop in a meadow is more delightful than threading your way through a labyrinth. But then, no doubt, the intellectual triumph of threading the labyrinth successfully is much greater than the triumph of galloping swiftly over the soft turf. We almost wonder, seeing the preferences actually expressed, that " Sordello " itself did not get a considerable vote from the scholastic readers of the Tourrod of Education. Again, it would seem to us surprising that so fresh and fascinating a book as " Eothen " should not have been mentioned by the twenty-seven supporters of Kinglake, in preference—as regards literary style,—to the "Invasion of the Crimea," did we not reflect that " Eothen " is one of the kind of books which is alien to the didactic mind,— nay, which that type of mind regards as flippant. For ourselves, we regard " Eothen" as the most delightfully dashing book which any living author has contributed to English literature.

Still, take the voting as a whole, and we regard it as very creditable to the constituency who produced it. We doubt whether any other five hundred men in England,—unless selected specially by name for the purpose by a very good judge

• of critical ability,—would have made so sound and so catholic a choice as these, who are, we presume, the more energetic amongst the .readers of the Towrual of Education.