laxity of life; and even
in _Faust_, which he esteemed the "most wonderful work of poetry in our
century," the fact that it is a "seduction-drama" marred his pleasure.
In the same tone he wrote, in the last year of his life, about Renan's
_Abbesse_--"I regret the escapade extremely; he was entirely out of his
role in writing such a book.... Renan descends sensibly in the scale
from having produced his _Abbesse_." Heine, with all his genius, "lacked
the old-fashioned, laborious, eternally needful moral deliverance": he
left a name blemished by "intemperate susceptibility, unscrupulousness
in passion, inconceivable attacks on his enemies, still more
inconceivable attacks on his friends, want of generosity, sensuality,
incessant mocking."

[Illustration: Pains Hill Cottage, Cobham, Surrey

Matthew Arnold's home from 1873 until his death in 1888]

And, while he thus criticised the defective morality of writers whom he
greatly admired, he was, perhaps naturally, still more severe on the
moral defects of those whom he esteemed less highly. "Burns," he said,
"is a beast, with splendid gleams, and the medium in which he lived,
Scotch peasants, Scotch Presbyterianism, and Scotch drink, is
repulsive." On Coleridge, critic, poet, philosopher, his judgment was
that he "had no morals," and that his character inspired "disesteem,
nay, repugnance." Bulwer-Lytton he thought a consummate novel-writer,
but "his was by no means a perfect nature"--"a strange mixture of
what is really romantic and interesting with what is tawdry and
gimcracky." _Villette_ he pronounced "disagreeable, because the writer's
mind contains nothing but hunger, rebellion, and rage, and therefore
that is all she can put into her book." Of Harriet Martineau, the other
of the "two gifted women," whose exploits he had glorified in _Haworth
Churchyard_, he wrote in later years that she had "undeniable talent,
energy, and merit," but "what an unpleasant life and unpleasant nature!"

And, so everywhere the moral element--the sense for Conduct--mingles
itself with his literary judgment. But it was in his attack on Shelley,
written within four months of his own death, that he most vigorously
displayed his detestation of moral shortcomings, and his sense of their
poisonous effect on the performances of genius. "In this article on
Shelley," he wrote, "I have spoken of his life, not his poetry.
Professor Dowden was too much for my patience."[33] It can hardly be
questione