UPON

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

PON the fine historic background of the Arnold family, the figure of the poet is drawn in clear outlines and carefully shaded in. No name is more highly honored in England than that of the great head master of Rugby, and his son bears the honored place in the succession; indeed he has added new lustre to the name. The world has begun to laugh at the claims of long descent, but the harshest scoffer of all would value the lineage of an Arnold. Culture and courage, unspotted purity and lofty ambition, would satisfy even those who covet earnestly the best gifts. Of Dr. Arnold, Browning might have written with the utmost applicability the lines so often inappropriately quoted,

"One who never turned his back, but marched breast-forward, Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph;

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake."

His son Matthew was born on Christmas Eve, 1822, at Laleham, in the valley of the Thames. Dr. Arnold had not yet been appointed to Rugby, but received pupils in his own house at that time. His son entered Rugby in 1837, living under his

father's own roof at the School-house. In 1840 he was elected to an open classical scholarship at Balliol. In 1842 he won the Hertford Scholarship, and in 1843 the Newdigate Prize, with his poem on Cromwell. Thus early he showed his bent toward poetry, and his capability of winning scholastic honors. He was elected Fellow of Oriel in 1845, and in 1847 was appointed Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne, then Lord President of the Council. These facts are given in the introduction to the Life and Letters which his family have given to the world in the place of any formal biography, as Mr. Arnold had expressly forbidden the preparation of such a work. It is not plain to us just how families of distinguished men justify to their consciences the keeping of the letter, but entirely contravening the spirit of such requests, or positive orders, as in some cases. To our mind the publication of the most intimate letters of a man's lifetime, written carelessly for the most loving eyes, and with no suspicion of after publicity, is only to be justified by the knowledge that such action would not be offensive to the taste of the departed friend. But such letters are eagerly sought and read, and furnish perhaps the best means of determining the real character of the man. This volume gives the reading world for the first time an opportunity to become acquainted with a great man who had been before the public in his capacity of author for forty years at least. The events of his life were few, and can be easily summed up with the help of the letters. But though uneventful, it is a beautiful life that is revealed in them, a life of absolute self-denial, of loving service,

of great disappointment and discouragement, heroically borne, of unremitting drudgery in an uncongenial occupation, of lofty endeavor and aspiration, of the gentlest human kindness to every living thing, of serenity amid things evil, and of deep religious feeling under the outer guise of dissent against prevalent dogma. In 1851 he was appointed to the Inspectorship of Schools, and began what proved to be his life-work, though that was far from his expectation at the time. He was married in that year to Frances Lucy, daughter of Sir William Wrightman, one of the judges of the Court of Queen's Bench. To her he writes about the schools soon after his appointment:

"I shall get interested in the schools after a little time; their effects on the children are so immense, and their future effects in civilizing the next generation of the lower classes, who, as things are going, will have most of the political power of the country in their hands, may be so important."

A little later he writes his sister, after he has been appointed Commissioner to report on the systems of elementary education in the French-speaking countries:

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"I like the thought of the mission more and more. know I have no special interest in the subject of public education, but a mission like this appeals even to the general interest which every educated man cannot help feeling in such a subject. I shall for five months get free from the routine work of it, of which I sometimes get very sick, and be dealing with its history and principles. Then foreign life is still to me perfectly delightful, and liberating in the highest degree, although I get more and more satisfied to live generally in England, and convinced that I shall work