Let palma—­let the maxima palma—­of criticism be given to him in that he first fought for the creed of this literary orthodoxy, and first exemplified (with whatever admixture of will-worship of his own, with whatever quaint rites and ceremonies) the carrying out of the cult.  It is possible that his direct influence may have been exaggerated; one of the most necessary, though not of the most grateful, businesses of the literary historian is to point out that with rare exceptions, and those almost wholly on the poetic side, great men of letters rather show in a general, early, and original fashion a common tendency than definitely lead an otherwise sluggish multitude to the promised land.  But no investigation has deprived, or is at all likely to deprive, the Essays in Criticism of their place as an epoch-making book, as the manual of a new and often independent, but, on the whole, like-minded, critical movement in England.

Nor can the blow of the first essay be said to be ill followed up in the second, the almost equally famous (perhaps the more famous) Influence of Academies.  Of course here also, here as always, you may make reservations.  It is a very strong argument, an argument stronger than any of Mr Arnold’s, that the institutions of a nation, if they are to last, if they are to do any good, must be in accordance with the spirit of the nation; that if the French Academy has been beneficial, it is because the French spirit is academic; and that if (as we may fear, or hope, or believe, according to our different principles) the English spirit is unacademic, an Academy would probably be impotent and perhaps ridiculous in England.  But we can allow for this; and when we have allowed for it, once more Mr Arnold’s warnings are warnings on the right side, true, urgent, beneficial.  There are still the minor difficulties.  Even at the time, much less as was known of France in England then than now, there were those who opened their eyes first and then rubbed them at the assertion that “openness of mind and flexibility of intelligence” were the characteristics of the French people.  But once more also, no matter!  The central drift is right, and the central drift carries many excellent things with it, and may be allowed to wash away the less excellent.  Mr Arnold is right on the average qualities of French prose; whether he is right about the “provinciality” of Jeremy Taylor as compared to Bossuet or not, he is right about “critical freaks,” though, by the way—­but it is perhaps unnecessary to finish that sentence.  He is right about the style of Mr Palgrave and right about the style of Mr Kinglake; and I do not know that I feel more especially bound to pronounce him wrong about the ideas of Lord Macaulay.  But had he been as wrong in all these things as he was right, the central drift would still be inestimable—­the drift of censure and contrast applied to English eccentricity, the argument that this eccentricity, if it is not very good, is but too likely to be very bad.