She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;
She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world-ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."
I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone?

"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say;
Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down

Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.

From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb'd on the graves, on stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded

panes.

She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are all alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,

For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.

Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,

Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,

For the humming street, and the child with its toy For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;

For the wheel where I spun,

And the blessed light of the sun!"

And so she sings her fill,

Singing most joyfully,

Till the spindle drops from her hand,

And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,

And over the sand at the sea;

And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,

A long, long sigh,

For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children;
Come, children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.

She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door:
She will hear the winds howling,

Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us

The waves roar and whirl,

A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.

Singing: "Here came a mortal,

But faithless was she!

And alone dwell for ever

The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.

We will gaze, from the sand-hills,

At the white, sleeping town;

At the church on the hill-side-
And then come back down.

Singing: "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea."

CHAPTER IV

LITERARY CRITICISM

"I think the moment is, on the whole, favourable for the Essays; and in going through them I am struck by the admirable riches of human nature that are brought to light in the group of persons whom they treat, and the sort of unity that as a book to stimulate the better humanity in us the volume has."-Letters, I, 286-7.-January, 1865.

[UCH of what passes for literary criticism is

a very perishable branch of literature. Most of Arnold's essays in this kind remain as sound, vital and interesting to-day as when they were written. By their virtue he probably exercises thirty years after his death a more constant and important influence upon current literary opinion and taste than any English critic living. The persistence of his critical force in literature is ascribable in the main to three causes. The first of these is clearly brought out in the passage of the letter quoted above: he did not attempt a chronicle of all the popular and transitory work issuing from the press; he carefully selected for comment men and books which he thought had some mark of immortality about them; he assembled, as he says, a group of

persons illustrating the "admirable riches of human
nature." In the second place, he conveyed along
with the firm and delicate delineations of his subjects
an irresistibly stimulating sense of his own fine de-
light in them—that indispensable personal gusto of
✓
the interpreter which excites the envy of the reader,
stimulates his curiosity, and makes him feel that,
until he shares it, he is excluded from one of the ex-
quisite pleasures of the world. The third and per-
haps most distinctive cause of Arnold's durability
is in the number and the soundness of the literary
principles and the general ideas which he states
and illustrates. Let us review in order: his more
important general ideas; his critical method; and
the principal subjects of his criticism.

The first question which we ask, in these days of world-wide war, regarding any one who ventures an opinion of European politics is whether he is "proAlly" or "pro-German." The waves of prejudice and passion set in motion by the great conflict wash every coast; and we find it difficult to conceive of any disinterested commentator. At the present moment it seems to some sensitive souls as if the statesmen of every nation, the poets, the historians, even the men of science, were all patriotically engaged in lying, at home and abroad, for their countries. The cynically philosophical tell us that the now inflamed and apparent mendacity of mankind is only a magnification of our normal and habitual disinclination