he is hardly presentable; well enough for Grub Street, but, as I told him, not at all the sort of company Mr. Lowe keeps.

I don't think Arminius has gained much by being his own expounder, for more vague declamatory trash than his letter I never read. The truth is, he cannot rise to an Englishman's conception of liberty, and understand how liberty, like virtue, is its own reward. "We go for self-government," I am always saying to him. "All right," he says, "if it is government by your better self." "Fiddlesticks about our better self!" answer I. "Who is to be the judge? "And what is the

No, the self every man chooses." self the mass of mankind will choose," cries he, "when they are not told there is a better and a worse self, and shown what the better is like?" "They will choose the worse, very likely," say I, "but that is just liberty." "And what is to bring good out of such liberty as that?" he asks. "The glorious and sanative qualities of our matchless Constitution," I reply; and that is always a stopper for him.

But what I grieve most to observe in Arminius's letter, and what will lead to my breaking with him in the long run, in spite of my love for intellect, is the bad revolutionary leaven which I see works stronger and stronger in him, and which he no doubt got from the worthless French company his grandfather kept.1 I noticed an instance of it while he

1 This partially explains, no doubt, though it cannot altogether excuse, the weak indulgence always cropping out in Arminius for France and its immoral people.-Ed.

was over here, and I have had another instance, besides his letter to you, since he went away. The instance while he was over here was this. I had taken him down to Wimbledon to see the shooting; and there, walking up and down before the grand tent, was Lord Elcho. Everybody knows Lord Elcho's appearance, and how admirably he looks the part of our governing classes; to my mind, indeed, the mere cock of his lordship's hat is one of the finest and most aristocratic things we have. So of course I pointed Lord Elcho out to Arminius. Arminius eyed him with a jacobinical sort of a smile, and then: "Cedar of Lebanon which God has not yet broken!" sneered he. I was pleased at Arminius knowing his St. Augustine, for the Prussians are in general thought to be much tainted with irreligion; but I felt at the time, and I feel still, that this was not by any means the proper way of speaking of a dashing nobleman like Lord Elcho.

The other instance is worse still. Besides writing Arminius long letters, I keep him regularly supplied with the Star, sending him my own copy after I have read it through twice. I particularly begged him to study the number for last Wednesday week, in which there was the most beautiful account of "An Aristocratic Reformer." The other papers had not got it. It related how the Honourable Charles Clifford, a gentleman of strikingly handsome appearance, addressed the crowd in Hyde Park from the foot-board of a hansom. He told them he cared nothing for the Walpoles or Pakingtons, who were for putting

down the voice of the people, for, said he, he was higher in social position than they. He was the son of a peer, his son-in-law was a peer, and all his family belonged to the aristocratic classes. This announcement was received with enthusiastic applause by the street-Hampdens present. "May I ask you, right honourable sir," cried one of them, "why, as you are such a big man, you do not open the Park gates to us poor people?” Mr. C. said he wished he had the keys of the Park in his pocket. But he delivered himself of the great principle that it is the duty of the aristocratic classes to protect and promote the interests of the working men, and then he drove off in his hansom amidst redoubled applause.

Now nothing, Sir, gives me such pride and pleasure as traits of this kind, which show that we have, as Lord Macaulay finely says, the most popular aristocracy and the most aristocratic people in the world. I thought it would do Arminius good to study the incident, and I wrote him word to that effect. Would you believe it, Sir? Mr. "Geist " cannot condescend to write me a letter, but he sends me back my Star with a vile sketch, or rather caricature, of this touching incident; and opposite Mr. C.'s gentlemanly figure he has written "Esel," and opposite the crowd "Lumpenpack," which a friend who knows German better than I do tells me are words of disrespect, and even contempt. This is a spirit which I hate and abhor, and I tell Arminius plainly through your columns (since he chooses to adopt this way of corresponding) that unless he can

break himself of it all is ended between him and me, and when next he comes to England he will find the garret-door in Grub Street bolted against him.

Your obedient servant,

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

R

VOL. III.

LETTER IV.

ARMINIUS ASSAILS THE BRITISH PRESS FOR ITS FREE AND INDEPENDENT COMMENTS ON FOREIGN POLITICS.

BERLIN, August 11, 1866.

SIR,

men,

FOR Heaven's sake try and prevail upon your countrywho are so very anxious for peace for themselves, not to go on biting first the French Emperor's tail and then ours, merely for the fun of the thing apparently, and to have the pleasure of at least seeing a fight between other people, if they cannot have one of their own. You know that Michelet, the French historian, all through his history, familiarly talks of your people as ce dogue; "upon this, ce dogue mordit such a one;" "upon that ce dogue déchira such another." According to him, you must always be mordre-ing or déchirer-ing some one, at home or abroad, such is your instinct of savageness; and you have,―undoubtedly you have,— a strong share of pugnacity. When I was over in England the other day, my poor friend Mr. Matthew Arnold insisted, with his usual blind adoration of everything English, on taking me down to admire one of your great public schools; precious institutions,