One may less admire, despite its famous and often-quoted line, "Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole," the sonnet To a Friend, praising Homer and Epictetus and Sophocles, for it seems to some to have a Smatch of priggishness.
"Matthew Arnold"
George Saintsbury
Nor, in returning thanks, should it cause us trouble that our best thanks are poor, or even that they are mingled with an alloy of earthly regards, "mere man's motives-" Alas, Friend, what was free from this alloy,- Some Smatch thereof,-in best and purest love Preferred thy earthly father?
"Robert Browning"
Edward Dowden
