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Page 17
A little later (May 1853), all his spare time is being spent on a
poem, which he thinks by far the best thing he has yet done, to wit,
_Sohrab and Rustum_. And he "never felt so sure of himself or so
really and truly at ease as to criticism." He stays in barracks at the
depot of the 17th Lancers with a brother-in-law, and we regret to find
that "Death or Glory" manners do not please him. The instance is a
cornet spinning his rings on the table after dinner. "College does
civilise a boy," he ejaculates, which is true--always providing that
it is a good college. Yet, with that almost unconscious naturalness
which is particularly noticeable in him, he is much dissatisfied with
Oxford--thinks it (as we all do) terribly fallen off since _his_
days. Perhaps the infusion of Dissenters' sons (it is just at the time
of the first Commission in 1854) may brace its flaccid sinews, though
the middle-class, he confesses, is abominably disagreeable. He sees a
good deal of this poor middle-class in his inspecting tours, and
decides elsewhere about the same time that "of all dull, stagnant,
unedifying _entourages_, that of middle-class Dissent is the
stupidest." It is sad to find that he thinks women utterly unfit for
teachers and lecturers; but Girton and Lady Margaret's may take
comfort, it is "no natural incapacity, but the fault of their
bringing-up." With regard to his second series of _Poems_ (_v.
infra_) he thinks _Balder_ will "consolidate the peculiar sort
of reputation he got by _Sohrab and Rustum_;" and a little later,
in April 1856, we have his own opinion of himself as a poet, whose
charm is "literalness and simplicity." Mr Ruskin is also treated--with
less appreciation than one could wish.
The second series just mentioned was issued in 1855, a second edition
of the first having been called for the year before. It contained,
like its predecessor, such of his earlier work as he chose to
republish and had not yet republished, chiefly from the
_Empedocles_ volume. But _Empedocles_ itself was only
represented by some scraps, mainly grouped as _The Harp-Player on
Etna. Faded Leaves_, grouped with an addition, here appear:
_Stagirius_ is called _Desire_, and the _Stanzas in Memory
of the Author of Obermann_ now become _Obermann_ simply. Only
two absolutely new poems, a longer and a shorter, appear: the first is
_Balder Dead_, the second _Separation_, the added number of
_Faded Leaves_. This is of no great value. _Balder_ is interesting,
though not extremely good. Its subject is connected with that of
Gray's _Descent of Odin_, but handled much more fully, and in
blank-verse narrative instead of ballad form. The story, like most of
those in Norse mythology, has great capabilities; but it may be
questioned whether the Greek-Miltonic chastened style which the poet
affects is well calculated to bring them out. The death of Nanna, and
the blind fratricide Hoder, are touchingly done, and Hermod's ride to
Hela's realm is stately. But as a whole the thing is rather dim and
tame.
Mr Arnold's election to the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford (May
1857) was a really notable event, not merely in his own career, but to
some, and no small, extent in the history of English literature during
the nineteenth century. The post is of no great value. I remember the
late Sir Francis Doyle, who was Commissioner of Customs as well as
Professor, saying to me once with a humorous melancholy, "Ah! Eau de
Cologne pays _much_ better than Poetry!" But its duties are far
from heavy, and can be adjusted pretty much as the holder pleases. And
as a position it is unique. It is, though not of extreme antiquity,
the oldest purely literary Professorship in the British Isles; and it
remained, till long after Mr Arnold's time, the only one of the kind
in the two great English Universities. In consequence partly of the
regulation that it can be held for ten years only--nominally five,
with a practically invariable re-election for another five--there is
at least the opportunity, which, since Mr Arnold's own time, has been
generally taken, of maintaining and refreshing the distinction of the
occupant of the chair. Before his time there had been a good many
undistinguished professors, but Warton and Keble, in their different
ways, must have adorned even a Chair of Poetry even in the University
of Oxford. Above all, the entire (or almost entire) freedom of action
left to the Professor should have, and in the case of Keble at least
had already had, the most stimulating effect on minds capable of
stimulation. For the Professor of Poetry at Oxford is neither, like
some Professors, bound to the chariot-wheels of examinations and
courses of set teaching, nor, like others, has he to feel that his
best, his most original, efforts can have no interest, and hardly any
meaning, for all but a small circle of experts. His field is
illimitable; his expatiation in it is practically untrammelled. It is
open to all; full of flowers and fruits that all can enjoy; and it
only depends on his own choice and his own literary and intellectual
powers whether his prelections shall take actual rank as literature
with the very best of that other literature, with the whole of which,
by custom, as an extension from poetry, he is at liberty to deal. In
the first century of the chair the custom of delivering these
Prelections in Latin had been a slight hamper--indeed to this day it
prevents the admirable work of Keble from being known as it should be
known. But this was now removed, and Mr Arnold, whose reputation (it
could hardly be called fame as yet) was already great with the knowing
ones, had not merely Oxford but the English reading world as audience.
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