UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIF DA

LECTURE I.

INAUGURAL LECTURE.

WHEN any one steps into the place of a poet and critic such as Mr. Arnold, he naturally feels somewhat awkward in undertaking his new functions. 'If it had not been,' he fancies his hearers saying to themselves, for the inconvenient restrictions by which this Professorship is hampered, we might have kept, with all the tact and power superadded which arises out of a long experience, our man of genius. Now, however, he is forced, for us at least, into an unnecessary silence, in order that another may speak-another, who has, no doubt, much of his business yet to learn, and who, even when he has learnt it, is not likely to give out anything half so good as that to which his predecessor has accustomed us.'

And yet, perhaps, if we suppose the founder of this Chair to have been actuated, in limiting its tenure, by reason and not by caprice; there is something, even

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though it may involve temporary failures and occasional disappointments, to be said for such a limitation. Criticism, to speak roughly, for I am not aiming at any logical division, is of two kinds—the criticism of knowledge, and the criticism of sympathy. The critics who know, of whom Aristotle may be taken as the type and representative, judge mainly by the intellect; and any great leader of that school, if he be, in his degree, worthy to follow in the steps of his master, throws, like the noon-day sun, a broad and equal illumination over all the departments of his subject alike. But as the lovelier tints of colouring, and the more pathetic lights, are due to those narrowing rays which fasten upon their own domain, so is there a criticism of the sympathies specially worth having, wherever those sympathies are specially interested. It therefore might be not unreasonably hoped, and not unwisely attempted, to accumulate the most delicate insights, and the liveliest sensibilities of different minds, so that, converging from opposite quarters, they should coalesce into a perfect whole. For an unbroken succession of Aristotles it is vain to hope. But thus, it might be possible to build up, limb by limb, a great body of doctrine-of doctrine, keen with that intensity, which the wide critic is apt to want, and

all - embracing in that width, which no passionate critic is likely to attain to, unless he be one of those rare men, whom the world waits for through centuries of expectation. In this manner it ought to result, that the poetry of thought and the poetry of passion—that which belongs to the present and that which is reflected from the past, that which is of home growth, and that which rises up among other habits of thought, and takes its shape from a different national character—should, in their turns, be adequately interpreted and discussed.

If this way of looking at the office of Poetry Professor, and at the objects which he has to set before himself, be, under ordinary circumstances mean,

a right and convenient one, he should, I think, take the earliest opportunity (as I hope to do on the present occasion) of opening himself frankly and freely to his audience. It seems to me therefore desirable, before I enter into any details of criticism, before I praise one poet or disparage another, that my general view as to the nature of the poetical imagination, as to its uses and its dangers, as to the manner in which it acts for itself, and reacts upon the character at large, should be known to those for whom such criticisms of detail are intended. All this I believe to be

desirable, not only for you who hear, but also for me who speak. These questions go so deep into the roots of life, they have been so often disputed about, and still remain so incompletely solved, that I, for one, am not going to dogmatize thereon. I can but state plainly, and without affectation, what I think and feel. I can but promise that, being at least as anxious to learn as I am willing to teach, the objections which will rise up against any theories of mine, as they have risen up against the theories of men to whom I should not dream of comparing myself, shall be examined (if I know my own mind) with an attention unvexed by prejudice, and only eager for the truth.

So complete, indeed, is the discordance of sentiment, as to all these matters, between rival instructors, who alike claim the highest authority, that even before entering upon the actual subject of this address, I have to go a step back, and to fight, as it seems, for my very existence here, by undertaking the defence of Poetry itself. Against whom you will say, Quis vituperavit? Ay, that is the question; not against men up to their necks in business-stockbrokers, bankers, and the like-not against the family of that typical clerk

• Foredoomed his father's soul to cross,

Who pens a stanza when he should engross,'

but against writers of the highest genius, who could, as far as we can judge, equip, out of their rich and

ordinary poet or so, with

Against such high autho

powerful imaginations, an out much feeling the loss. rities, in a word, as Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin. I am not clear at this moment whether Mr. Carlyle has ever put his hatred of verse-making on record, in any formal shape; but it may be gathered from any one of his writings. Everybody knows how he confides, at uncertain intervals, to the eternities and immensities-his bitter regret, that men of noble faculties, like Tennyson and Browning, should have become entangled, under some evil star, in the meshes of rhyme, instead of devoting themselves to -I do not exactly know what-but to something or anything else. Mr. Ruskin, however, in one of his most characteristic passages, announces himself to the universe as admitting but two orders of poets. Both of these, according to him, must be first-rate in their range, though their range be different, and with poetry second-rate in quality no one ought to be allowed to trouble mankind. There is quite enough of the best,' says he, 'much more than we can read or enjoy,