THE 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D. 
 
 LATE HEAD-MASTER OF RUGBY SCHOOL, AND REGIUS PROFESSOR 
 OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 BY 
 
 AETHUE PENRHYN STANLEY.]).!). 
 
 DEAN OF WESTMINSTER 
 TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 1903.
 
 Lf 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE sources from which this work has been drawn 
 have necessarily been exceedingly various. It was in 
 fact originally intended that the several parts should 
 have been supplied by different writers, as in the in- 
 stance of the valuable contribution which, in addition 
 to his kind assistance throughout, has been furnished 
 to the earlier part by Mr. Justice Coleridge ; and 
 although, in its present shape, the responsibility of 
 arranging and executing it has fallen upon one per- 
 son, yet it should still be clearly understood how 
 largely I have availed myself of the aid of others, in 
 order to supply the defects of my own personal knowl- 
 edge of Dr. Arnold's life and character, which was 
 confined to the intercourse I enjoyed with him, first 
 as his pupil at Rugby, from 1829 to 1834, and thence- 
 forward, on more familiar terms, to the end of his 
 life. 
 
 To his family, I feel that the fewest words will best 
 express my sense, both of the confidence which they 
 reposed in me by intrusting to my care so precious a 
 charge, and of the manifold kindness with which they 
 have assisted me, as none others could. To the many
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 attached friends of his earlier years, the occurrence of 
 whose names in the following pages makes it unneces- 
 sary to mention them more particularly here, I would 
 also take this opportunity of expressing my deep obli- 
 gations, not only for the readiness with which they 
 have given me access to all letters and information 
 that I could require, but still more for the active 
 interest which they have taken in lightening my re* 
 sponsibility and labor, and for the careful and most 
 valuable criticism to which some of them have allowed 
 me to subject the whole or the greater part of this 
 work. Lastly, his pupils will perceive the unsparing 
 use I have made of their numerous contributions. I 
 had at one time thought of indicating the various 
 distinct authorities from which the chapter on his 
 " School Life at Rugby " has been compiled, but I 
 found that this would be impracticable. The names 
 of some of those who have most aided me will be 
 found in the Correspondence. To those many others, 
 who are not there mentioned and may I here be 
 allowed more especially to name my younger school- 
 fellows, with whom I have become acquainted chiefly 
 through the means of this work, and whose recollec- 
 tions, as being the most recent and the most lively, 
 have been amongst the most valuable that I have re- 
 ceived I would here express my warmest thanks for 
 the more than assistance which they have rendered 
 me. Great as has been the anxiety and difficulty of 
 this undertaking, it has been relieved by nothing so 
 much as the assurance which I have received through 
 their co-operation, that I was not mistaken in the esti- 
 mate I had formed of our common friend and master, 
 and that the influence of his teaching and example
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 Dontinues and will continue to produce the fruits 
 which he would most have desired to see. 
 
 The Correspondence has been selected from the 
 mass of letters preserved, in many cases, in almost 
 unbroken series from first to last. One large class 
 those to the parents of his pupils I have been un- 
 able to procure, and possibly they could not have 
 been made available for the present work. Another 
 numerous body of letters those which were ad- 
 dressed to scientific or literary men on questions 
 connected with his edition of Thucydides or his His- 
 tory I have omitted, partly as thinking them too 
 minute to occupy space wanted for subjects of more 
 general importance ; partly because their substance or 
 their results have for the most part been incorporated 
 into his published works. To those which appear in 
 the present collection, something of a fragmentary 
 character has been imparted by the necessary omis- 
 sion, wherever it was possible, of repetitions, such as 
 must necessarily occur in letters written to different 
 persons at the same time, of allusions which would 
 have been painful to living individuals, of domestic 
 details, which, however characteristic, could not have 
 been published without a greater infringement on 
 privacy than is yet possible, of passages which, with- 
 out further explanation than could be given, would 
 certainly have been misunderstood. Still, enough 
 remains to give in his own words, and in his own 
 manner, what he thought and felt on the subjects 
 of most interest to him. And though the mode of 
 expression must be judged by the relation in which he 
 stood to those whom he addressed, and with the usual 
 nd just allowance for the familiarity and unreserved- 
 i*
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 ness of epistolary intercourse, yet, on the whole, the 
 Letters represent (except where they correct them- 
 selves) what those who knew him best believe to 
 have been his deliberate convictions and his habitual 
 feelings. 
 
 The object of the Narrative has been to state so 
 much as would enable the reader to enter upon the 
 Letters with a correct understanding of their writer in 
 his different periods of life, and his different sphere of 
 action. In all cases where it was possible, his opinions 
 and plans have been given in his own words, and in 
 no case, whether in speaking of what he did or in- 
 tended to do, from mere conjecture of my own or of 
 any one else. Wherever the Narrative has gone into 
 greater detail, as in the chapter on his " School Life 
 at Rugby," it has been where the Letters were com- 
 paratively silent, and where details alone would give 
 to those who were most concerned a true representa- 
 tion of his views and actions. 
 
 In conclusion, it will be obvious that to have mixed 
 up any judgment of my own, either of praise or cen- 
 sure, with the facts or the statements contained hi this 
 work, would have been wholly irrelevant. The only 
 question which I have allowed myself to ask hi each 
 particular act or opinion that has come before me, 
 has been not whether I approved or disapproved of it, 
 but whether it was characteristic of him. To have 
 assumed the office of a judge, in addition to that of a 
 narrator or editor, would have increased the respon- 
 sibility, already great, a hundredfold ; and in the 
 present case, the vast importance of many of the 
 questions discussed the insufficient time and knowl- 
 edge which I had at command the almost filial
 
 PREFACE. VH 
 
 relation in which I stood towards him would have 
 rendered it absolutely impossible, even had it not been 
 effectually precluded by the nature of the work itself. 
 For similar reasons, I have abstained from giving any 
 formal account of his general character. He was one 
 of a class whose whole being, intellectual, moral, and 
 spiritual, is like the cloud of the poet, 
 
 " Which moveth altogether, if it move at all," 
 
 and whose character, therefore, is far better expressed 
 by their own words and deeds, than by the represen- 
 tation of others. Lastly, I would also hope that the 
 plan, which I have thus endeavored to follow, will in 
 some measure compensate for the many deficiencies, 
 which I have vainly endeavored to remedy in the ex- 
 ecution of the task which I have undertaken. Some, 
 indeed, there must be, who will painfully feel the con- 
 trast, which probably always exists in the case of any 
 remarkable man, between the image of his inner life, 
 as it was known to those nearest and dearest to him, 
 and the outward image of a written biography, which 
 can rarely be more than a faint shadow of what they 
 cherish in their own recollections the one represent- 
 ing what he was the other only what he thought 
 and did ; the one formed in the atmosphere which he 
 had himself created, the other necessarily accom- 
 modating itself to the public opinion to which it is 
 mainly addressed. But even to these and much 
 more to readers in general it is my satisfaction to 
 reflect that any untrue or imperfect impression of 
 his thoughts and feelings which may be gathered from 
 my account of them will be sufficiently corrected by 
 his own representation of them in his Letters, and
 
 Till PREFACE. 
 
 that the attention will not be diverted by any extra- 
 neous comments or inferences from the lessons which 
 will be best learned from the mere record itself of his 
 life and teaching. 
 
 May 14th, 1844, 
 University College, Oxford. 
 
 *** The additions contained in this and the previous editions, subsequent 
 to the first, are contained in a Supplement.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 Pag* 
 
 Birth. -^ Education at Wai-minster and Winchester. Character and 
 Pursuits as a Boy. Associations of his Childhood in after Life. 
 LETTER FROM MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. Education at Ox- 
 ford. Corpus Society. Early Friends. Tucker. Cornish. 
 Dyson. Keble. Pursuits. Attic Society. Religious Doubts 
 on his Ordination ,17 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 LIFE AT LALEHAM. 
 
 Election at Oriel. Fellows of Oriel. Marriage and Settlement 
 at Laleham. Formation of his Eeligious Character and Belief. 
 Early Objects of Ambition. Love for Laleham. Occupations 
 and Views as Private Tutor. Letter from Mr. Price. General 
 Pursuits. Lexicon and Edition of Thucydides. Articles on 
 Roman History in Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. First Acquaint- 
 ance with Niebuhr's History, and with German Literature. First 
 Visit to Rome, and Friendship with Chevalier Bunsen. Forma- 
 tion of his Views on Social and Theological Subjects. Inde- 
 pendent Views. First Volume of Sermons. Election to the 
 Head-mastership of Rugby. Prediction of Dr. Hawkins. . . 37 
 
 1. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Choice of a Profession ... 63 
 
 2. To Rev. G. Cornish. Leaving Oxford 64 
 
 3. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Incapacity for the Profession of a 
 
 Schoolmaster 64 
 
 4. To Rev. J. Tucker. Oxford Friends. Religious State . 65 
 
 5. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Occupations at Laleham . . .67 
 
 6. To Rev. G. Cornish. Winter at Fledborough ... 69 
 
 7. To the same. Interest in India. Pupils. Religious State . 70
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 8. To the same. Death of his Brother. Domestic Life and Inter- 
 
 ests at Laleham. Pupils. Desire of Personal Intercourse 
 with his Friends 72 
 
 9. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. On his Style 75 
 
 10. To Rev. J. Tucker. Ecclesiastical History. State of the Re- 
 
 ligious World. Ireland 76 
 
 11. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Christian Year. Roman History . 77 
 
 12. To Rev. J. Tucker. Pupils. Intercourse with Poor. Tour 
 
 in Scotland and the Lakes. West India Slavery . . 78 
 
 13. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Niebuhr. Pupils .... 79 
 
 1 4. To Rev. J. Tucker. Aristotle's Politics. Prophecy. Daniel. 
 
 English Reformation 79 
 
 1 5. To Rev. G. Cornish. Tour in Italy. Contrast of Lower Orders 
 
 in England and Italy 80 
 
 16. To Rev. J. Tucker. Tour in Italy. Quarterly Review . 81 
 
 17. To Rev. G. Cornish. Prevalence of Intellectual Activity united 
 
 with Moral Depravity. Roman Catholicism . . .82 
 
 18. To Rev. J. Tucker. Church Reform 83 
 
 19. To Rev. J. Tucker. Pain at having given Offence by Opinions 
 
 on Inspiration 84 
 
 20. To Rev. E. Hawkins. Doubts about Standing for the Head- 
 
 mastership of Rugby Expulsion at Public Schools . . 86 
 
 21. To Rev. G. Cornish. Views in offering himself as a Candidate 
 
 for Rugby . . . .86 
 
 22. To Rev. J. Tucker. Election at Rugby .... 87 
 
 23. To Rev. E. Hawkins. Election at Rugby . . . .87 
 
 24. To Rev. J. Tucker. Intentions at Rugby. Church Reform 88 
 
 25. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Hopes for Rugby. Church and 
 
 State. Reform 89 
 
 26. To Augustus Hare, Esq. Rome. Bunsen. " Guesses at 
 
 Truth." Bohemia 91 
 
 27. To Rev. J. Tucker. Protest against supposed Worldliness . 91 
 
 28. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Intercourse with Friends. Dyson. 
 
 Love for Laleham ........ 92 
 
 29. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Laleham and Rugby ... 93 
 
 30. To W. W. Hull, Esq. First Volume of Sermons. Leaving 
 
 Laleham .94 
 
 31. To Rev. J. Tucker. Laleham and Rugby. First Volume of 
 
 Sermons - . ' . 94 
 
 32. To Rev. G. Cornish. Settlement at Rugby . . . , 96 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 SCHOOL LIFE AT RUOBT. 
 
 State of Opinion on English Public Schools. His Qualifications 
 for the Situation of Head-master of Rugby. Difficulties. 
 Changes. Fixed Principles of Education. His Relation to the 
 Public. To the Trustees. To the Assistant Masters. To the 
 School. His Views of Christianizing Public Schools. Pecu- 
 liarity of Public Schools. General Mode of Dealing with it
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 I. Discipline of the School. 1. Punishments. 2. Fagging. 
 Influence of the Sixth Form. 3. Kemoval of Boys. II. In- 
 struction. Religious Spirit. Stimulus to Exertion. Respect 
 for Industry. View of Academical Distinctions. 1. Importance 
 of Classics. 2. Modern History, Modern Languages and Mathe- 
 matics. 3. Les>oiis in the Sixth Form. 4. General Effect of 
 his Intellectual Teaching. III. The School Chapel. Services. 
 Communion. Confirmation. Sermons. IV. Personal In- 
 tercourse with the Boarders in his own House, and with his Schol- 
 ars generally. V. General Results of his Head-mastership at 
 Rugby. Letter from Dr. Moberly 96 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GENERAL LIFE AT RUGBY. 
 
 Intellectual Advance on coming to Rugby. His Views and 
 Writings. I. Practical Element. Interest in Public and Na- 
 tional Life. Vehement Language on Political and Ecclesiastical 
 Subjects. Conservatism. Jacobinism. Popular Principles. 
 Liberal Principles. II. Speculative Element. Design of Three 
 Great Works. 1. History of Rome. 2. Commentary on the 
 Scriptures. 3. " Christian Politics," or " Church and State." 
 Private Life at Rugby. Domestic Circle. Friendships. In- 
 tercourse with the Poor. Life at Fox How . . . .174 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LIFB AND CORBESPONDENCE, AUGUST, 1828, TO AUGUST, 1830. 
 
 Hopeful View. First Volume of his Edition of Thucydides. 
 Essay on the Social Progress of States. Pamphlet on " The 
 Christian Duty of conceding the Roman Catholic Claims" . . 219 
 
 1. To J. T. Coleridae, Esq. Entrance on his Work at Rugby . 221 
 
 2. To Kev. F. C. Blackstone. First Impressions of Rugby . 222 
 . To the same. Differences of Opinion ..... 223 
 
 4. To Mrs. Evelyn. On the Death of her Husband . . .224 
 
 5. To Rev. J. Lowe. Pamphlet, Clergy and Statesmen . . 225 
 
 6. To Rev. J. C. Hare. " Defence of Niebuhr." Pamphlet " On 
 
 Roman Catholic Claims." Estimate of the Past. Spirit 
 
 of Chivalry . . 227 
 
 7. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Pamphlet " On Roman Catholic 
 
 Claims." Toryism. Ignorance of the Clergy . . . 228 
 
 8. To the Parent of a Pupil holding Unitarian Opinions . . 230
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 9. To Rev. G. Cornish. Domestic Happiness. Pamphlet 
 
 Schism 231 
 
 10. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Idolatry How far applicable to 
 
 the Church of Home 234 
 
 11. To Rev. J. Tucker. Thoughts of Emigration to Australia . 235 
 
 12. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Death of his Father-in-law. School. 
 
 Latin Verse and Prose. Thucydides. Pamphlet . . 236 
 
 13. To Rev. H. Jenkins. Thucydides. True Principles of Phi- 
 
 lology 238 
 
 14. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Libel in John Bull. Respect for 
 
 Episcopacy 238 
 
 15. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. On the same 239 
 
 16. To F. Hartwell, Esq. Interest in School 239 
 
 17. To Rev. G. Cornish. School. French Revolution of 1830. 
 
 Guizot. Niebuhr. Grande Chartreuse. Venice. Pa- 
 dua. Tyrol. Old Testament. School Sermons . . 240 
 
 18. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Church In what sense a Society. 
 
 French Revolution of 1830. Belgian Revolution . .243 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 UFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, SEPTEMBER, 1830, TO DECEMBER, 1832. 
 
 Alarm at the Social Condition of the Lower Orders in England. 
 Wish to rouse the Clergy. Attempts to Influence the Useful 
 Knowledge Society. Establishment of the " Englishman's Reg- 
 ister." Thirteen Letters in the " Sheffield Courant." Want of 
 Sympathy. Evangelical Party. Wish for Commentary on Old 
 Testament. Second Volume of Sermons, with Essay on Inter- 
 pretation of Scripture 246 
 
 19. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Want of Sympathy. Public Affairs. 
 
 False Reports of his Proselytizing his Pupils. Conser- 
 vatism 252 
 
 20. To Susannah Arnold. Public Affairs. Duty of the Clergy. 
 
 State of the Lower Orders. Record Newspaper . . . 254 
 
 21. To Rev. Augustus Hare. Public Affairs. Old Testament 
 
 Prophets. St Paul and St. James. Want of a Magazine 
 for the Poor 256 
 
 22. To Rev. H. Massingberd. Liberal Party and Reform . . 257 
 
 23. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Proposal of setting up a News- 
 
 paper 258 
 
 24. To Chevalier Bunsen. Death of Niebuhr. Italv. First News 
 
 of French Revolution. Interview with Niebuhr. Church 
 Reform, and Reform Bill. Dread of Warlike Spirit in 
 
 France 259 
 
 John Ward, Esq. Englishman's Register. Aristocracy.
 
 CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 Reform Bill. - National Debt. Monopolies. Corn Laws. 
 
 Political Excitement 261 
 
 26. To Susannah Arnold. Liberal Conservatives . . . 263 
 
 27. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Englishman's Kegister. Thucydides 264 
 
 28. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Failure of " Englishman's Reg- 
 
 ister" . 266 
 
 29. To W. Tooke, Esq. Refusal of an Offer of Preferment. Use- 
 
 ful Knowledge Society. " Cottage Evenings " . . . 266 
 
 30. To Mrs. Fletcher. On the Death of her Son . . .268 
 
 31. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Sheffield Courant Letters . . .269 
 
 32. To the Archbishop of Dublin. The same. Pestilences . 269 
 
 33. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Irvingism. Gift of Tongues. 
 
 Coming of " the Day of the Lord." Whigs and Tories . 270 
 
 34. To W. W. Hull, Esq Contrast of Private Happiness with 
 
 Public Distress. Cholera. Work on the Evidences . .271 
 
 35. To Rev. J. C. Hare. Philological Museum. Religion and 
 
 TToAtTtKJJ .......... 272 
 
 36. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Farewell on his leaving Oxford. 
 
 Danger of Public Schools. Church Reform. . . . 273 
 
 37. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Essay on Interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 Right Use of the Second Commandment .... 274 
 
 38. To Rev. G. Cornish. Rydal. Intercourse with Friends. 
 
 Archbishop Whately. Essay 274 
 
 39. To the same. On the Death of a Child .... 275 
 
 40. To the Lady F. Egerton. On the Conversion of an Atheist . 276 
 
 41. To the same. On the same 278 
 
 42. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Rydal. Newspaper. Sheffield 
 
 Courant. School Composition 280 
 
 43. To Rev. G. Cornish. Rugby Life. Penny Magazine . . 281 
 
 44. To Rev. J. E. Tyler. Society for the Promotion of Christian 
 
 Knowledge. Usefulness of Miscellaneous Information for 
 the People 281 
 
 45. To J. Ward, Esq. Domestic Life. Intercourse with Poor. 
 
 Useful Knowledge Society 283 
 
 46. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Wish for a Commentary on the 
 
 Bible 284 
 
 47. To Rev. J. E. Tyler. Collection of Sermons . . .285 
 
 48. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Idea of a Commentary without 
 
 Sectarianism. Death of his Sister Susannah . . . 286 
 
 49. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Family Sickness. Friendship . 288 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, JANUARY, 1833, TO SEPTEMBER, 1835. 
 
 Fears for the Church Establishment. Pamphlet on the " Princi- 
 ples of Church Reform." Outcry occasioned by it. Settlement 
 of his own Views Preface to Third Volume of Thucydides. 
 Fragments on " the State and the Church." Third Volume of 
 Sermons. Purchase of Fox How. Return to Roman History. 
 Influence over his Scholars 290
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 50. To Rev. J. Hcarn. New Year's Day in Westmoreland. In- 
 
 tolerance 299 
 
 51. tTo W. K. Hamilton, Esq.* Rome and the Towns of Italy. 
 
 Gloomy Prospects 300 
 
 52. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Pamphlet on Church Reform. 
 
 Reasons for writing rt 301 
 
 53. To the same. Reasons for his coming to Westmoreland. 
 
 Commentary. Magazine 302 
 
 54. To Rev. J. Tucker. Farewell on his going to India. Recol- 
 
 lections of Oxford. Gloomy Views of Europe and England 303 
 
 55. To an Old Pupil.(A.) Advice on living in Uncongenial Society 304 
 
 56. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Remonstrance against a Charge of 
 
 Haste and Ignorance in his Writings 305 
 
 57. To the same 306 
 
 58. To W. Smith, Esq. Unitarians. In what sense Christians . 308 
 
 59. To Chevalier Bunsen. Political Opinions. Jacobinism. 
 
 Economistes. Toryism. Historical Liberty. Reform 
 Bill. Articles and Liturgy . ... . . .310 
 
 60. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Calumnies . . . .312 
 
 61. To Rev. J. Hearn. False View of what is Christian Doctrine 313 
 
 62. To Lady Cavan. The Right Use of the Fourth Commandment 315 
 
 63. To J. T. Coleridge, Esq. Description of Fox How . . .316 
 
 64. To a Pupil. Want of Devotion and Reverence . . .317 
 
 65. To W. W. Hull, Esq. His Birthday. Pamphlet. Confir- 
 
 mation. Cricket-matches 318 
 
 66. To Rev. Augustus Hare. Pamphlet. Not Latitudinarian .318 
 
 67. To Rev. G. Cornish. The same. Westmoreland and War- 
 
 wickshire .......... 320 
 
 68. To Rev. J. C. Hare. Bunsen. Third Volume of Niebuhr. 
 
 Roman History 321 
 
 69. To Mr. Serjeant Coleridge. Birth of his Youngest Daughter. 
 
 Bunsen's Letters. Political Excitement. Whately. 
 Oxford Party. Church of England. Christ the only Ob- 
 ject of Religious Affection. Church and State. School. 
 
 Allan Bank. Teaching his Daughters .... 321 
 
 70. To Jacob Abbott. Interest in America. Young Christian. 
 
 Unitarianism ...... ... 325 
 
 71. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Translation of the New Testa- 
 
 ment. Grounds of Roman Catholic Relief Act. High 
 Churchmen .......... 326 
 
 72. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Health. Confession. Faith. Un- 
 
 certainty of Life. Death of his Friends Lowe and Augus- 
 tus Hare 328 
 
 73. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Fixing of Views. Mountain 
 
 Scenery. School 329 
 
 74. To Rev. J. C. Hare. On the Death of Augustus Hare . 330 
 
 75. To Rev. Dr Hawkins. Tracts for the Times. Episcopacy 
 
 not Essential 330 
 
 * The names of his Laleham pupils in this Table of Contents are market] 
 by a t-
 
 CONTENTS. X7 
 
 76. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Abstract of his Work on the Identity of 
 
 Church and State 332 
 
 77. To Rev. J. C. Hare. Declaration for the Admission of Dissent- 
 
 ers to the Universities. Unitarians. Petition against the 
 Jew Bill 333 
 
 78. * To H. Balston, Esq.* Advice on Composition . . . 334 
 
 79. To W. Empson, Esq. Irish Establishment. Colleges and 
 
 Halls 335 
 
 80. To Rev. Dr. Longley. False Hopes of Reaction. School 
 
 Pupils in Westmoreland 337 
 
 81. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Respect for Episcopacy. 
 
 Church and State. Sermons on the Evidences. Mechan- 
 ics' Institute 338 
 
 82. To a former Landlord. Advice under painful Illness. For- 
 
 giveness of Injuries 339 
 
 83. To Mrs. Delafield. On her 77th Birthday .... 341 
 
 84. To Chevalier Bunsen. Roman History. Elyrians. Physi- 
 
 cal History. Trades' Unions. Letter on Christian Sacri- 
 fice. Abbott's Works. America 341 
 
 85. To an old Pupil. ( A. ) t Right Use of University Distinctions. 
 
 Reserve 343 
 
 86. To T. F. Ellis, Esq. Course of Study desirable for Orders . 344 
 
 87. * To H. Highton, Esq. Rugby Magazine .... 346 
 
 88. To Rev. J. Hearn. New Poor Law. Name of Christ . 346 
 
 89. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. On his Elevation to the Bench. 
 
 Church Government. Wordsworth. Coleridge's " Letters 
 on Inspiration "......... 347 
 
 90. To Rev. J. C. Hare. Plan of a Theological Review . . 348 
 
 91. To Rev. Dr. Longley. Fifth Form. Number of the School. 
 
 School Grammar. Expulsion. Entrance. Examina- 
 tion 349 
 
 92. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Influence over Pupils. Church 
 
 Government .......... 351 
 
 93. To Chevalier Bunsen. Want of Sympathy. TroAtriK^. 
 
 Hymn-Book. High-Church Party. Evangelicals. Whigs. 
 
 Philosophy of Parties. Interest in School. Hebrew 352 
 
 94. *To C. J. Vaughan,Esq. Interest in Old Pupils. Advice to 
 
 learn German. Advice for Reading 355 
 
 95. To A. P. Stanley, Esq. Oxford. Popular and Liberal Prin- 
 
 ciples. Tory Reaction 357 
 
 96. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Origin of Civilization. Influ- 
 
 ence of Greek Philosophy. Odium ..... 359 
 
 97. To an Old Pupil. (A ) Value of Veneration. Calumnies . 360 
 
 98. To Sir T. S. Pasley, Bart. Comparative Advantages of Pri- 
 
 vate and Public Education 361 
 
 99. t To H. Strickland, Esq. Advice for a Tour in Asia Minor . 362 
 
 * The names of his former Rugby pupils, where not otherwise specified, 
 are marked with an *. 
 
 t The letters of the alphabet thus affixed are merely for the sake of dis. 
 tmguishing between the several pupils so addressed.
 
 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 100. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Calumnies. Example of Bur- 
 
 net, Aristophanes. Pindar. Homer. Pupils. Ox- 
 ford and the London University ...... 363 
 
 101. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Heads of Houses and Convocation. 
 
 Clergy and Dissenters 365 
 
 102. To a Person distressed by Sceptical Doubts . . . 366 
 
 103. * To H. Hatch, Esq. Consumption 369 
 
 104. To the Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Want of Leisure. Defects 
 
 in existing Books. Liberty and Toryism .... 369 
 
 105. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Separation from Friends . .371 
 
 106. * To C. J. Vaughan, Esq. Hatch. Intercourse with Poor. 
 
 Phaedo of Plato. Livy . .... 371 
 
 107. To Chevalier Bunsen. Polybius. Hannibal's Passage. 
 
 Hebrew 372 
 
 108. * To J. P. Cell, Esq. Interest in Former Pupils . . . 374 
 
 109. * To A. P. Stanley, Esq. Hatch. Pupils . . . .375 
 
 110. To an Old Pupil. (B.) Health. Exercise . . . .376 
 
 111. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Rugby in the Holidays. Rugby 
 
 Magazine. Pupils. Phaxlo. Coleridge's Table-Talk . 378
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AND CORRESPONDENCE, SEPTEMBER, 1835, TO NOVEMBER, 1838. 
 
 Pag 
 
 (1.) Contest with the Oxford School of Theology. Change of 
 Feelings towards the High-Church Party. Oxford School. 
 Hampden Controversy. Article in the Edinburgh Review. 
 (2) Contest in the London University. Endeavor to alter the 
 Examination in Arts. Failure. Retirement from the Senate. 13 
 
 112. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Acceptance of a Fellowship in the 
 
 London University. Idea of a Church . . . .25 
 
 113. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. The same. Idea of an Establishment 25 
 
 114. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Irvingism. Miraculous Gifts. 
 
 True Development of Christianity 27 
 
 115. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Conservatism and Toryism . . 28 
 
 116. To W. Empson, Esq. Party Feeling. Ireland . . 29 
 
 117. To Chevalier Bunsen. Roman History. Niebuhr. Etrus- 
 
 can and Oscan Languages. Pastoral Epistles . . .30 
 
 118. To J. C. Platt, Esq. Lieber on Education. London Univer- 
 
 sity. " Religion and Politics." Roman History . . 31 
 
 119. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Interest in School. Southey. 
 
 Coleridge . . 33 
 
 120. * To C. J. Vaughan. Esq. Congratulation on Success at 
 
 Cambridge 34 
 
 121. To an Old Pupil. (B.) Failure in Success at Oxford. Hamp- 
 
 den Controversy 35 
 
 122. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Hampden Controversy ... 36 
 
 1 23. To the same. The same 37 
 
 124. To Rev. J. Hearn. Youth and Old Age. Dr. Hampden and 
 
 the Reformers 37 
 
 125. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Petition against the Jew Bill. Ireland 39 
 
 126. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Wish to circulate " Church of 
 
 England Tracts." Church Authority. Jew Bill. Pam- 
 phlet on Roman Catholic Claims . . . . .40 
 
 127. To Sir T. S. Pasley, Bart. Reality 42
 
 xvm CONTENTS. 
 
 128 * To Dr. Greenhill. Medicine. Physical Science . . 42 
 
 129. To the Archbishop of Dublin. The Jew Bill. Ireland. 
 
 Pastoral Epistles. Idolatry and Unitarianism. Wish for 
 the Chair of Theology at Oxford. Love for Rugby . . 44 
 
 130. To A. P. Stanley, Esq. Fanaticism. Oxford Tracts . 46 
 
 131. To the Earl of Howe. Authorship of the Edinburgh Review 48 
 
 132. To the same. On the same 49 
 
 133. To the same. On the same 49 
 
 134. To Mrs. Bucklnnd. Visit to the Isle of Wight. Fox How. 
 
 Winchester. Rugby 50 
 
 135. To Rev. Dr Hawkins. Marriage Act .... 51 
 
 136. To Sir J. Franklin, Bart. Colonial Society. Convicts. 
 
 Missionary Spirit 52 
 
 137. To Rev. J. Hearn. Rest. Family Circle. Conservatism 53 
 
 138. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Fox How. Mountains. Latin 
 
 Verse. Teaching Shakespeare to Greeks. Barante . 54 
 
 139. * To A. P. Stanley, Esq. Oxford in Autumn. Utilitarian- 
 
 ism Faith and Reason 55 
 
 140. To Sir T. Pasley, Bart. Administration of the Sacramento 58 
 
 141. * To Dr. Greenhill. Supposed Dangers of Study of Medicine 59 
 
 142. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Coleridge's Literary Remains . .61 
 
 143. To the Archbishop of Dublin. Neutrality. Rest. Celtic 
 
 Languages .61 
 
 144. *To W. C. Lake, Esq. Germany. Excess in Division of 
 
 Labor. Institutes of Gains. Edition of St. Paul's Epis- 
 tles. Priesthood 62 
 
 145. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Illness. Death of his Aunt. Church 
 
 and Priesthood 64 
 
 146. To J. C. Platt, Esq. New Poor Law. Reaction . . 65 
 
 147. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. English Divines. Pilgrim's Pro- 
 
 gress 67 
 
 148. To Sir T. Pasley, Bart Christianity and the Church. Suc- 
 
 cession 68 
 
 149. To J. C. Platt, Esq. Church Rates. " Impartiality " in Re- 
 
 ligious Matters 70 
 
 150. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Fox How in Winter. Plan of 
 
 Roman History. Study and Practice of Law. Medicine. 
 
 Oxford ... 72 
 
 151. To Rev. G. Cornish. Fox How. Oxford. Corpus . 74 
 
 152. To Rev. J. Hearn. Consent of Antiquity. Eucharist . . 75 
 
 153. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Grammars 77 
 
 154. To G. Pry me, Esq., M. P. College Fines. Oaths. Halls 78 
 
 155. To Crabbe Robinson, Esq. London University. Degree in 
 
 Arts. Unitarians. Examiners . . . . .80 
 
 156. To Sir T. S. Pasley, Bart Oxford. Abbott's '-Way to do 
 
 Good" Duke of Wellington's Despatches. Weather . 83 
 
 157. To an Old Pupil, (c.) Religious Duty of Cultivating the In- 
 
 tellect 84 
 
 158 To Bishop Otter. London University. Charter. Different 
 
 Plans 85 
 
 59. To Rev. H. Hill. Thucydides. Rome. Ordination . 89 
 
 160. * To J. C. Vaughan, Esq. Roman History. Professions . 90 
 
 161. To ivL'v. J. Hearn. Parties uuu individual;; . ... 90
 
 CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 162. * To Dr. Greenhill. Homoeopathy. Magnetism. Study 
 
 and Practice of Law and Medicine ..... 91 
 
 163. To W. Empson, Esq. London University .... 92 
 
 164. To Rev. T. Penrose. Peace. Contrast of Parish and School 94 
 
 165. To W. Empson, Esq. London University. Degrees in Arts 94 
 
 166. To J. C. Platt, Esq. Newspapers. Tour in France. Se- 
 
 curity of English Aristocracy 96 
 
 167. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Legends in Roman History. 
 
 Charter of London University 97 
 
 168. fTo Rev. T. J. Ormerod. The two Antichrists , . . 98 
 
 169. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Legends in Roman History . . 98 
 
 170. To the Rev. Dr. Hawkins. London and Oxford. Sanderson. 
 
 Fox How 101 
 
 171. To Chevalier Bunsen. Archbishop of Cologne. Church and 
 
 State. Rothe 102 
 
 172. *To A. H. Clough, Esq. Oxford Scenery . . .104 
 
 173. To Sir T. Pasley, Bart. Defeat at the London University. 
 
 Herman Meri vale. Eton. Railway . . . .105 
 
 174. To the Bishop of Norwich. Difficulties in London University. 
 
 Respect for Bishops . . . . . . .106 
 
 175. To Rev. J. E. Tyler. The same. King's College . . 107 
 
 176. To an Old Pupil. (D.) Oxford Theology . . . .108 
 
 177. To C. J. Vaughan, Esq. Congratulations on Success at Cam- 
 
 bridge Ill 
 
 178. To the Earl of Burlington. Viva-voce Examination . .112 
 
 179. * To Dr. Greenhill. Sermons on Prophecy. Weather . 114 
 
 180. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. First Volume of Roman History. 
 
 Aristocracy. London University. Rugby . . .114 
 
 181. To the Bishop of Norwich. Reasons for Retiring from the 
 
 London University . . . .. . . .115 
 
 182. To an Old Pupil. (D.) Athanasian Creed . . . .117 
 
 183. To T. F. Ellis, Esq. Advice for Visiting Rome. . . .118 
 
 184. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Oxford Examinations. Physical Sci- 
 
 ence. Froude's Remains 120 
 
 185. t To Rev. W. K. Hamilton. Wordsworth's Greek Grammar. 
 
 Scepticism. Bunsen 121 
 
 186. To the Earl of Burlington. Retirement from the London Uni- 
 
 versity 122 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, NOVEMBER, 1838, TO AUGUST, 1841. 
 
 Desire for Peace and for Positive Truths. " Lecture on the Divis- 
 ions of Knowledge." " Two Sermons on Prophecy." Second 
 Edition of Thucydides. Attempt to form a Society for drawing 
 Attention to the "State of the Lower Orders. " Herts Reformer 
 Letters." Views on the Church. Subscription. Fourth Vol- 
 ume of Sermons 123 
 
 1*
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 187. To. Rev. J. Hcarn. Rest of Parish contrasted with Anxiety of 
 
 School. Bunsen. State of Lower Orders. Egyptian 
 Discoveries 130 
 
 188. To Chevalier Bunsen. Church and State. Eucharist . 132 
 
 189. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Wish to remove Suspicion of Hetero- 
 
 doxy 134 
 
 190. To J. C. Platt, Esq. Chartism. New Poor Law . . 136 
 
 191. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Gladstone on Church and State. 
 
 Despondency. Roman History. Social Evils. Re- 
 actions 136 
 
 192. *To A. P. Stanley, Esq. Restoration of Deacons . . 138 
 
 193. *To J. P. Gell, Esq. Appointment to College in Van Die- 
 
 men's Land 139 
 
 194. To James Stephen, Esq. Advantage of uniting the Office of 
 
 a Clergvman with that of a Teacher 140 
 
 195. * To E. Wise, Esq. Private Tuition 141 
 
 196. * To J. P. Gell, Esq. On the Death of his Brother . .142 
 
 197. To James Stephen, Esq. Inconvenience of Local Committees 
 
 in Educational Institutions 142 
 
 198. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Legal Decision on the Founda- 
 
 tioners of Rugby School 142 
 
 199. To Sir T. S. Pasley, Bart. Chartism. Reality of Politics. 
 
 Confirmations 143 
 
 200. To Archdeacon Hare. Niebuhr's Letters. Thucydides . 144 
 
 201. To an Old Pupil. (E.) Unitarianism. Priestley . . . 145 
 
 202. To Rev. G. Cornish. Childishness of Boys. Oxford Com- 
 
 memoration of 1839 146 
 
 203. To Chevalier Bunsen. Birthday. South of France. Italy. 
 
 Provencal Language. Despondency . : 147 
 
 204. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. South of France. Spanish Man- 
 
 ners. Coleridge's Literary Remains. Chartism . . 149 
 
 205. To Sir T. S. Pasley. Toulon. Pope's Palace at Avignon. 
 
 Pony. British Association at Birmingham . . .150 
 
 206. * To J. L. Hoskyns, Esq. Reading for Ordination . . 152 
 
 207. * To T. Bnrbidge, Esq 156 
 
 208. To Chevalier Bunsen. On the Doctrine of the Eucharist . 158 
 
 209. To J. Marshall, Esq. Society for calling Attention to the 
 
 State of the Lower Orders 159 
 
 210. * To H. Balstoii, Esq. Liveliness necessary for a School- 
 
 master 160 
 
 211. To an Old Pupil. (D.) Ordination. Difficulties in Subscrip- 
 
 tion. Deacons 161 
 
 212. On Church Endowments 162 
 
 213. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. State of the Poor. Westmoreland . 163 
 
 214. To James Marshall, Esq. Necessity of Union of Parties . 163 
 
 215. To Rev. J. Hearn. Westmoreland. Aurora Borcalis. 
 
 Taylor's Ancient Christianity. Early Church . . . 164 
 
 216. To J. C Platt, Esq. Lecture for Mechanics' Institutes. 
 
 State of the Poor. Trials of Chartists . . . .166 
 
 217. To Thomas Carlyle, Esq. State of the Poor . . .168
 
 CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 **. To J. Marshall, Esq. Englishman's Register. Political 
 Creed. Economists. King's Supremacy. Christian 
 Church. Dissent. Historical Reforms. Aristocracy 
 Political Privileges . 169 
 
 \19. To Sir T. S. Pasley, Bart. Difficulties of Scripture. Coloni- 
 zation. Daniel 172 
 
 220. To Archdeacon Hare. Niebuhr. Coleridge. Thirlwall's 
 
 Greece 174 
 
 221. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Political Differences . . .175 
 
 222. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Formation of his Opinions. -" 
 
 Prophecy 175 
 
 223. To Sir Culling E. Smith, Bart. Anonymous Writing in 
 
 Newspapers . . . . . . . . . .178 
 
 224. * To Rev. H. Fox. Call to a Missionary Life . . .179 
 
 225. * To the same. On the same 180 
 
 226. To Chevalier Bunsen. Berne. Roman History. Privilege 
 
 Question 182 
 
 227. To W. W. Hull, Esq. War with China . . . .183 
 
 228. To W. Leaper Newton, Esq. Railway Travelling on Sundays 184 
 
 229. To the same 184 
 
 230. To the same 186 
 
 231. * To Ho wel Lloyd, Esq. On the study of Welsh . . .187 
 
 232. To W. W. Hull, Esq. On Subscription . . . .187 
 
 233. To the same 188 
 
 234. To the same 189 
 
 235. * To J. P. Cell, Esq. Van Diemen's Land. Sacred Names 189 
 
 236. t To Rev. W. K. Hamilton. Music. Flowers. Keble . 190 
 
 237. To Rev. Herbert Hill. Importance of Mathematics . . 191 
 
 238. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Church Extension. Prophecy . 192 
 
 239. To Chevalier Bunsen. Rugby Life. Second Volume of Ro- 
 
 man History. Subscription. Deacons. State Services . 193 
 
 240. To the same. On the Accession of the King of Prussia. 
 
 Refusal of the Wardenship of Manchester . . . .196 
 
 241. To an Old Pupil. (B.) Danger of Oxford Society. Tour in 
 
 Italy 196 
 
 242. * To Rev. H. Balston. Consumption. Responsibility of 
 
 School .... 198 
 
 243. To Chevalier Bunsen. Russia. War. Fox How. Want 
 
 of Leisure 199 
 
 244. To Sir T. S. Pasley, Bart. Dangers of War. Chartism. 
 
 Cyprian. Austria 200 
 
 245. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Bampton Lectures. Episcopacy. 
 
 Internal Evidence 201 
 
 246. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Illness. Ottery. School. Ox- 
 
 ford. Rationalism. Second Volume of Roman History 203 
 
 247. * To W. S. Karr, Esq. Sanscrit Football Matches . . 205 
 
 248. To Archdeacon Hare. Sermons on " Victory of Faith." 
 
 King's Supremacy ........ 206 
 
 249. * To Rev. H. Balston. Guernsey ..... 207 
 
 250. * To the Same. The School Consumption . . . 207 
 
 251. To an Old Pupil. (G.) Law and Orders. Parochial Ministry 
 
 and Education .... .... 208 
 
 252. To the Same. Dangers not to be sought .... 209
 
 XXli CONTENTS. 
 
 253. To RTI OH Pnpil. (H.) Importance of Good Men engaged in 
 
 Busi.icss . 210 
 
 254. t To Rev. W. K. Hamilton. Salisbury. War. . . 211 
 
 255. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. " Via Media." Succession. Glad- 
 
 stone on Church Principles. Church . . . .211 
 
 256. To an Old Pupil, (o.) Ordination 214 
 
 257. To the same. Oaths 214 
 
 258. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Shooting. Education of Girls. 
 
 Agreement with Pearson's Definition of the Church. 
 Fourth Volume of Sermons 215 
 
 259. To W. Balston, Esq. On the Death of his Son, H. Balston 217 
 
 260. To Rev. T. Penrose. On the same. Third Volume of Ro- 
 
 man History 217 
 
 261. tTo Rev. T. J. Ormerod. Fox How. Southey. Words- 
 
 worth 218 
 
 262. To W. W. Hull, Esq. Winter Holidays. Future Prospects 218 
 
 263. To Rev. J. Hearn. Occupations. Over Caution . . 219 
 
 264. To Chevalier Bunsen. Third Volume of Roman History. 
 
 Hannibal and Nelson. War. Oxford School . .221 
 
 265. * To Rev. A. P. Stanley. Modern Greece. Tour in Italy. 
 
 Oxford .223 
 
 266. *J. P. Gell, Esq. Van Diemen's Land. Rugby Life. 
 
 Public Affairs 224 
 
 267. To Sir J. Franklin, Bart. Difficulties of Education in Van 
 
 Diemen's Land . 226 
 
 268. To the same -228 
 
 269. To Rev. T. Penrose. Provident and Masonic Clubs . . 230 
 
 270. * To Rev. T. J. Ormerod. True and False Sacrifice . . 230 
 
 271. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Fourth Volume of Sermons. 
 
 Differences of Opinion. Rugby. Aristotle . . .231 
 
 272. To the same. Dissent 234 
 
 273. To Rev. James Randell. Dissent The Doctrine of the 
 
 Trinity 235 
 
 274. To Rev. J. Hearn. Fever at Rugby. Return of Mr. Tucker 235 
 
 275. To Rev. J. Tucker. Renewal of Intercourse . . . .236 
 
 276. To the same 238 
 
 277. To the same. Farewell on his Return to India . . 239 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 General Views during his last Year 240 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 278. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Acceptance of Professorship of Mod- 
 
 ern History 244 
 
 279. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. School Difficulties. Difficulties 
 
 of Hannibal's March. Notes. Professorship . . .245 
 880. To Sir T. S. Pasley, Bart. Bishopric of Jerusalem. Chris- 
 tian Ministry 24'
 
 CONTENTS. XX1H 
 
 281. * To Rev. A. P. Stanley. Plan for Lectures . 248 
 
 282. To W. Empson, Esq. Professorship. Tour to Spain. 
 
 Guelph and Ghibelin Controversy. Lamennais . .249 
 
 283. To Rev. T. Hill. Popery and Protestantism . . .250 
 
 284. To an Old Pupil. (r>.) Roman Catholics and Oxford School 251 
 
 285. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Oxford School. Bishop Selwyn 252 
 
 286. To Chevalier Bunsen. Advance of Life .... 253 
 Inaugural Lecture. Introductory Lecture. Intentions for the Fu- 
 ture. Course on English History. Terminal Lectures on Biog- 
 
 ' raphy 254 
 
 287. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Influence of Jews. Church and State 
 
 288. To Rev. F. C. Blackstone. Professorship . . . .263 
 
 289. * To Rev. R. Thorpe. Oxford School .... 264 
 
 290. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. High and Low Church. Roman 
 
 Catholics and Protestants 265 
 
 291. To Rev. Dr. Hawkins. Offer to resign the Professorship . 266 
 
 292. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Intentions for the Professorship . 267 
 
 293. To the same 268 
 
 294. To Rev. J. Hearn. Windermere in Winter. Occupations . 268 
 
 295. To Rev. H. Hill. Stay in Oxford 269 
 
 296. To an Old Pupil. (K.) Influences of Oxford . . . .270 
 
 297. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Stay in Oxford .... 270 
 
 298. To Archdeacon Hare. Charge. Despondency . . . 271 
 
 299. To Rev. H. Fox. India. Difficulties of Moral Sense. El- 
 
 phinstone's India ......... 272 
 
 300. To Chevalier Bunsen. Basque Language. Carthagena . 273 
 
 301. To Rev Dr. Hawkins. Terminal Lecture. Carlyle's Visit . 274 
 
 302. To Mr. Justice Coleridge. Colonial Bishoprics. . . . 275 
 Last Days. Diary. Occupations. Farewell Sermon. Last 
 
 Evening. Death. Conclusion 275 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Prayers written for various Occasions in Rugby School (with occa- 
 sional Prayers) 299 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 Selection of Subjects for School Exercises ..... 308 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 Epitaphs in Rugby Chapel . 312 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 Travelling Journals 314 
 
 I. TOUR IN NORTH OF ITALY, 1825. 
 
 1. Contrast of English and Italian Peasantry 315 
 
 2. Cliff above the Lake of Como (First Visit) . . . .316
 
 XXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 II. TOUR IN SCOTLAND, 182ft. 
 
 Comparison of Scotch and English Education . . . .317 
 
 III. TOUB TO BOMB THBOCOH FRANCE AND ITALY, 1827. 
 
 1. Prayers for Kings 318 
 
 2. French People 318 
 
 3. Approach to Rome (first Visit) 319 
 
 4. View from the Capitol. Arch of Titns . . . .321 
 
 5. Monte Mario 322 
 
 6. Roman Churches ......... 323 
 
 7. Evils of Residence abroad 324 
 
 8. Meeting with Savigny 324 
 
 9. Colosseum 324 
 
 10. Plain of the Po Italy and Prussia 325 
 
 11. Cliff above the Lake of Como (second Visit) .... 327 
 
 IV. TOCB IN GEBMANT, 1828. 
 
 1. First View of the Rhine 327 
 
 2. The Elbe. Rivers and Human Life 328 
 
 V. TOUB IN SWITZERLAND AND NORTH OF HALT, 1829. 
 
 1. The Jura . . . . 329 
 
 2. The Mediterranean 330 
 
 3. The Lake of Como. England and Italy .... 330 
 
 4. Chiavenna 331 
 
 5. Champagne . 333 
 
 VI. TOUR IN THE SAME. 
 
 1 . French Liberals at Geneva 333 
 
 2. View from S. Maria del Monte ...... 334 
 
 3. Cliff above the Lake of Como (third Visit) . . . .336 
 
 4. Good Influence of Italian Clergy on Wills . . . ' . 337 
 
 5. Imitation of Herodotus '' . 338 
 
 6. Anniversary of his Wedding-Day 339 
 
 7. Visit to Niebuhr at Bonn 340 
 
 8. Germany, France, and England 342 
 
 VII. TOUB IN SCOTLAND, 1831. 
 
 1. Contrast of Scotch and English Churches . . . . . .843 
 
 2. Church Reform ., 344 
 
 VIII. TOUR IN NORTH OF FRANCE, 1837. 
 
 1. Recollections of different Visits to Dover > 845 
 
 2. Chartrez. Good and Evil of Roman Catholicism '. . 348 
 
 IX. TOUR IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. 
 
 1. Paris > . 1 .349 
 
 2. France and England 350
 
 CONTENTS. ixv 
 
 3. Palace at Avignon 350 
 
 4. Plain of Crau. Salon 351 
 
 5. Geneva 352 
 
 6. Roads and Railways 353 
 
 7. France . 353 
 
 X. TOUR TO ROME AND NAPLES THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY, 1840. 
 
 1. Orleans. Siege of Orleans 355 
 
 2 Use of Images 356 
 
 3. French Geology. Feudal Castles 358 
 
 4. Ancient and Modern Times 360 
 
 5. Sunset on the Mediterranean 361 
 
 6. Italians 361 
 
 7. Campo Santa at Pisa 361 
 
 8. Approach to Rome. Tuscan Population. Sienna. Sce- 
 
 nery. Radicofani. Campagna. Rome. Athens. 
 Jerusalem 366 
 
 9. Pantheon. S. Stephano Rotondo. Martyrs . . . 369 
 
 10. Appii Forum . . 371 
 
 11. Mola di Gaeta. Cicero's Villa 371 
 
 12. Naples 372 
 
 13. Pompeii 372 
 
 14. Aquila. Church of England at Home and Abroad . . . 373 
 
 15. Vale of Rieti. Moral and Natural Beauty .... 374 
 
 16. Ancient City Walls. Watershed of the Apennines . . 376 
 
 17. Banks of Metaurus 378 
 
 18. Classical Inscriptions ........ 379 
 
 19. Papal Government 379 
 
 20. Modena. Political Freedom 380 
 
 21. Italian Switzerland. Swiss Nation ..... 382 
 
 22. Swiss and English Scenery 383 
 
 23. Swiss Lowlands 384 
 
 24. Farewell to France 386 
 
 25. Landing in England 386 
 
 26. London to Rugby 386 
 
 27. Arrival at Fox How 387 
 
 XI. TOUR IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE, 1841. 
 
 1. Prospects of Theology . 389 
 
 2. French Scenery 389 
 
 3. Gascony 389 
 
 4. Contrast of S. Jean de Luz and Mola di Gaeta . . . 390 
 5'. Frontier of France and Spain ' . 390 
 
 6. Birthplace of Scaliger 391 
 
 7. Translation of the Bible into French 391 
 
 8. Roman Catholicism 392 
 
 9. Prospects for England 392 
 
 10. Prospects for France. Return . . . . . . 393 
 
 LIST OF WORKS . .* 394 
 
 INDEX . 395
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS AMOLD, D. D. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EAELY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 THOMAS AENOLD, seventh child and youngest son of 
 William and Martha Arnold, was born on June 13th, 
 1795, at West Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, where his 
 family had been settled for two generations, their origi- 
 nal residence having been at Lowestoff, in Suffolk. 
 
 His father, who was collector of the customs at 
 Cowes, died suddenly of spasm in the heart, on March 
 3d, 1801. His two elder brothers, William and Mat- 
 thew, died, the first in 1806, the second in 1820. His 
 sisters all survived him, with the exception of the 
 third, Susannah, who, after a lingering complaint in 
 the spine, died at Laleham in 1832. 
 
 His early education was confided by his mother to 
 her sister, Miss Delafield, who took an affectionate 
 pride in her charge, and directed all his studies as a 
 child. In 1803 he was sent to Warminster school, in 
 Wiltshire, under Dr. Griffiths, with whose assistant 
 master, Mr. Lawes, he kept up his intercourse long 
 after they had parted. In 1807 he was removed to 
 Winchester, where, having entered as a commoner, 
 and afterwards become a scholar of the college, he 
 remained till 1811. In after life he always cherished 
 
 2* B
 
 18 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 a strong Wykehamist feeling, and, during his head- 
 mastersliip at Rugby, often recurred to his knowledge, 
 there first acquired, of the peculiar constitution of a 
 public school, and to his recollections of the tact in 
 managing boys shown by Dr. Goddard, and the skill 
 in imparting scholarship which distinguished Dr. Ga- 
 bell ; both, during his stay there, successively head- 
 masters of Winchester. 
 
 He was then, as always, of a shy and retiring dispo- 
 sition, but his manner as a child, and till his entrance 
 at Oxford, was marked by a stiffness and formality the 
 very reverse of the joyousness and simplicity of his 
 later years ; his family and schoolfellows both remem- 
 ber him as unlike those of his own age, and with 
 peculiar pursuits of his own ; and the tone and style 
 of his early letters, which have been for the most part 
 preserved, are such as might naturally have been pro- 
 duced by living chiefly in the company of his elders, 
 and reading, or hearing read to him before he could 
 read himself, books suited to a more advanced age. 
 His boyish friendships were strong and numerous. 
 It is needless here to enumerate the names of those 
 Winchester schoolfellows of whose after years it was 
 the pride and delight to watch the course of their 
 companion through life ; but the fond recollections, 
 which were long cherished on both sides, of his inter- 
 course with his earliest friend at Warminster, of whom 
 he saw and heard nothing from that time till he was 
 called upon in 1829 to write his epitaph, are wortli 
 recording,* as a remarkable instance of strong impres- 
 sions of nobleness of character, early conceived and 
 long retained. 
 
 Both as a boy and a young man he was remarkable 
 for a difficulty in early rising, amounting almost to a 
 constitutional infirmity ; and though his after life will 
 show how completely this was overcome by habit, yet 
 he often said that early rising was a daily effort to him, 
 
 * See Letter on the death of George Evelyn, in 1828.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 19 
 
 and that in this instance he never found the truth of 
 the usual rule, that all things are made easy by custom. 
 With this, however, was always united great occasional 
 energy ; and one of his schoolfellows gives it as his im- 
 pression of him, that " he was stiff in his opinions, and 
 utterly immovable by force or fraud, when he had made 
 up his mind, whether right or wrong." 
 
 It is curious to trace the beginnings of some of his 
 later interests in his earliest amusements and occupa- 
 tions. He never lost the recollection of the impression 
 produced upon him by the excitement of naval and 
 military affairs, of which he naturally saw and heard 
 much by living at the Isle of Wight in the time of the 
 war ; and the sports in which he took most pleasure, 
 with the few playmates of his childhood, were in sail- 
 ing rival fleets in his father's garden, or acting the 
 battles of the Homeric heroes with whatever imple- 
 ments he could use as spear and shield, and reciting 
 their several speeches from Pope's translation of the 
 Iliad. He was from his earliest years extremely fond 
 of ballad poetry, which his Winchester schoolfellows 
 used to learn from his repetition before they had seen 
 it in print ; and his own compositions as a boy all ran 
 in the same direction. A play of this kind, in which 
 his schoolfellows were introduced as the dramatis per- 
 sonse, and a long poem of " Simon de Montfort," in 
 imitation of Scott's Marmion, procured for him at 
 school, by way of distinction from another boy of the 
 same name, the appellation of Poet Arnold. And the 
 earliest specimen of his composition which has been 
 preserved is a little tragedy, written before he was 
 seven years old, on " Piercy, Earl of Northumber- 
 land," suggested apparently by Home's play of Doug- 
 las ; which, however, contains nothing worthy of no- 
 tice, except, perhaps, the accuracy of orthography, 
 language, and blank-verse metre, in which it is writ- 
 ten, and the precise arrangement of the different acts 
 and scenes. 
 
 He was, however, most remarked for his forwardness
 
 20 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 in history and geography. It was on these subjects 
 that he chiefly gave early indications of that strong 
 power of memory which, though in later years it de- 
 pended mainly on association, used to show itself in 
 very minute details, extending to the exact state of 
 the weather on particular days, or the exact words 
 and position of passages which he had not seen for 
 twenty years. One of the few recollections which he 
 retained of his father was, that he received from him, 
 at three years old, a present of Smollett's History of 
 England, as a reward for the accuracy with which he 
 had gone through the stories connected with the por- 
 traits and pictures of the successive reigns ; and at the 
 same age he used to sit at his aunt's table arranging 
 his geographical cards, and recognizing by their shape 
 at a glance the different counties of the dissected map 
 of England. 
 
 He long retained a grateful remembrance of the 
 miscellaneous books to which he had access in the 
 school library at Warminster, and when, in his Pro- 
 fessorial chair at Oxford, he quoted Dr. Priestley's 
 Lectures on History, it was from his recollection of 
 what he had there read when he was eight years old. 
 At Winchester he was a diligent student of Russell's 
 Modern Europe ; Gibbon and Mitford he had read 
 twice over before he left school ; and amongst the 
 comments on his reading and the bursts of political 
 enthusiasm on the events of the day in which he in- 
 dulged in his Winchester letters, it is curious, as con- 
 nected with his later labors, to read his indignation, 
 when fourteen years old, " at the numerous boasts 
 which are everywhere to be met with in the Latin 
 writers." " I verily believe," he adds, " that half at 
 least of the Roman history is, if not totally false, at 
 least scandalously exaggerated : how far different are 
 the modest, unaffected, and impartial narrations of 
 Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon." 
 
 The period both of his home and school education 
 was too short to exercise much influence upon his
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 21 
 
 after life. But he always looked back upon it with a 
 marked tenderness. The keen sense which he enter- 
 tained of the bond of relationship and of early asso- 
 ciation, not the less from the blank in his own do- 
 mestic recollections, occasioned by his father's death 
 and his own subsequent removal from the Isle of 
 Wight, invested with a peculiar interest the scenes 
 and companions of his childhood. His strong domes- 
 tic affections had acted as an important safeguard to 
 him, when he was thrown at so early an age into the 
 new sphere of an Oxford life ; and when, in later 
 years, he was left the head of the family, he delighted 
 in gathering round him the remains of his father's 
 household, and in treasuring up every particular relat- 
 ing to his birthplace and parentage, even to the graves 
 of the older generations of the family in the parish 
 church at Lowestoff, and the great willow-tree in his 
 father's grounds at Slattwoods, from which he trans- 
 planted shoots successively to Laleham, to Rugby, and 
 to Fox How. Every date in the family history, with 
 the alteration of hereditary names, and the changes of 
 their residence, was carefully preserved for his children 
 in his own handwriting, and when in after years he 
 fixed on the abode of his old age in Westmoreland, it 
 was his great delight to regard it as a continuation of 
 *his own early home in the Isle of Wight. And when, 
 as was his wont, he used to look back from time to 
 time over the whole of this period, it was with the 
 solemn feeling which is expressed in one of his later 
 journals, written on a visit to the place of his earliest 
 school education, in the interval between the close of 
 his life at Laleham and the beginning of his work at 
 Rugby. " Warminster, January 5th [1828]. I have 
 not written this date for more than twenty years, and 
 how little could I foresee, when I wrote it last, what 
 would happen to me in the interval. And now to look 
 forward twenty years how little can I guess of that 
 also. Only may He in whose hands are time and eter- 
 nity, keep me evermore his own ; that whether I live,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 I may live unto Him ; or whether I die, I may die 
 unto him ; may He guide me with His counsel, and 
 after that receive me to glory through Jesus Christ 
 our Saviour." 
 
 In 1811, in his sixteenth year, he was elected as a 
 scholar at Corpus Christi College, Oxford ; in 1814, 
 his name was placed in the first class in Litterse Hu- 
 maniores ; in the next year he was elected Fellow of 
 Oriel College ; and he gained the Chancellor's prize 
 for the two University Essays, Latin and English, for 
 the years 1815 and 1817. Those who know the influ- 
 ence which his college friendships exercised over his 
 after life, and the deep affection which he always bore 
 to Oxford, as the scene of the happiest recollections of 
 his youth, and the sphere which he hoped to occupy 
 with the employments of his old age, will rejoice in 
 the possession of the following record of his under- 
 graduate life by that true and early friend, to whose 
 timely advice, protection, and example, at the critical 
 period when he was thrown with all the spirits and 
 the inexperience of boyhood on the temptations of the 
 University, he always said and felt, that " he had owed 
 more than to any other man in the world." 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Heath's Court, September, 1843. 
 MY DEAR STANLEY, 
 
 When you informed me of Mrs. Arnold's wish that 
 I would contribute to your memoir of our dear friend, 
 Dr. Arnold, such recollections as I had of his career 
 as an undergraduate at Oxford, with the intimation 
 that they were intended to fill up that chapter in his 
 life, my only hesitation in complying with her wish 
 arose from my doubts whether my impressions were
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 23 
 
 so fresh and true, or my powers of expression such as 
 to enable me to do justice to the subject. A true and 
 lively picture of him at that time would be, I am sure, 
 interesting in itself; and I felt certain also that his 
 Oxford residence contributed essentially to the forma- 
 tion of his character in after life. My doubts remain ; 
 but I have not thought them important enough to pre- 
 vent my endeavoring at least to comply with her re- 
 quest ; nor will I deny that I promise myself much 
 pleasure, melancholy though it may be, in this attempt 
 to recall those days. They had their troubles, I dare 
 say, but in retrospect they always appear to me among 
 the brightest and least checkered, if not the most use- 
 ful, which have ever been vouchsafed to me. 
 
 Arnold and I, as you know, were undergraduates of 
 Corpus Christi, a college very small in its numbers and 
 humble in its buildings, but to which we and our fel- 
 low-students formed an attachment never weakened in 
 the after course of our lives. At the time I speak of, 
 1809, and thenceforward for some few years, it was 
 under the presidency, mild and inert, rather than pa- 
 ternal, of Dr. Cooke. His nephew, Dr. Williams, was 
 the vice-president and medical fellow, the only lay fel- 
 low permitted by the statutes. Retired he was in his 
 habits, and not forward to interfere with the pursuits 
 or studies of the young men. But I am bound to 
 record not only his learning and good taste, but the 
 kindness of his heart, and his readiness to assist them 
 by advice and criticism in their compositions. When 
 I wrote for the Latin verse prize, in 1810, I was much 
 indebted to him for advice in matters of taste and 
 Latinity, and for the pointing out many faults in my 
 rough verses. 
 
 Our tutors were the present Sedleian Professor, the 
 Rev. G. L. Cooke, and the lately deceased President, 
 the Rev. T. Bridges. Of the former, because he is 
 alive, I will only say that I believe no one ever at- 
 tended his lectures without learning to admire his 
 unwearied industry, patience, and good temper, and
 
 24 LIFE OF DR. ABNOLD. 
 
 that few, if any, quitted his pupil-room without re- 
 taining a kindly feeling towards him. The recent 
 death of Dr. Bridges would have affected Arnold as it 
 has me : he was a most amiable man ; the affectionate 
 earnestness of his manner, and his high tone of feel- 
 ing, fitted him especially to deal with young men ; lie 
 made us always desirous of pleasing him ; perhaps his 
 fault was that lie was too easily pleased ; I am sure 
 that he will be long and deeply regretted in the Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 It was riot, however, so much by the authorities of 
 the college that Arnold's character was affected, as by 
 its constitution and system, and by the residents whom 
 it was his fortune to associate with familiarly there. 
 I shall hardly do justice to my subject, unless I state 
 a few particulars as to the former, and what I am 
 at liberty to mention as to the latter. Corpus is a 
 very small establishment, twenty fellows and twenty 
 scholars, with four exhibitioners, form the foundation. 
 No independent members were admitted except gen- 
 tlemen commoners, and they were limited to six. Of 
 the scholars, several were bachelors, and the whole 
 number of students actually under college tuition sel- 
 dom exceeded twenty. But the scholarships, though 
 not entirely open, were yet enough so to admit of 
 much competition ; their value, and still more, the 
 creditable strictness and impartiality with which the 
 examinations were conducted, (qualities at that time 
 more rare in college elections than now,) insured a 
 number of good candidates for each vacancy, and we 
 boasted a more than proportionate share of successful 
 competitors for university honors. It had been gener- 
 ally understood, (I know not whether the statutes 
 prescribe the practice,) that in the examinations a 
 large allowance was made for youth ; certain it was 
 that we had many very young candidates, and that of 
 these, many remarkable for early proficiency succeeded. 
 We were then a small society, the members rather un- 
 der the usual age, and with more than the ordinary
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 25 
 
 proportion of ability and scholarship ; our mode of 
 tuition was in harmony with these circumstances ; not 
 by private lectures, but in classes of such a size as ex- 
 cited emulation, and made us careful in the exact and 
 neat rendering of the original, yet not so numerous as 
 to prevent individual attention on the tutor's part, and 
 familiar knowledge of each pupil's turn and talents. 
 In addition to the books read in lecture, the tutor at 
 the beginning of the term settled with each student 
 upon some book to be read by himself in private, and 
 prepared for the public examination at the end of the 
 term in Hall ; and with this book something on paper, 
 either analysis of it, or remarks upon it, was expected 
 to be produced, which insured that the book should 
 have really been read. It has often struck me since, 
 that this whole plan, whicn is now I believe in com- 
 mon use in the University, was well devised for the 
 tuition of young men of our age. We were not en- 
 tirely set free from the leading-strings of the school ; 
 accuracy was cared for ; we were accustomed to vivd 
 voce rendering, and vivd voce question and answer 
 in our lecture-room, before an audience of fellow-stu- 
 donts, whom we sufficiently respected ; at the same 
 time, the additional reading trusted to ourselves alone 
 prepared us for accurate private study, and for our 
 final exhibition in the schools. 
 
 One result of all these circumstances was, that we 
 lived on the most familiar terms with each other : we 
 might be, indeed w,e were, somewhat boyish in man- 
 ner, and in the liberties we took with each other ; but 
 our interest in literature, ancient and modern, and in 
 all the stirring matters of that stirring time, was not 
 boyish ; we debated the classic and romantic question ; 
 we discussed poetry and history, logic and philosophy ; 
 or we fought over the Peninsular battles and the 
 Continental campaigns with the energy of disputants 
 personally concerned in them. Our habits were inex- 
 pensive and temperate : one break-up party was held 
 in the junior common room at the end of each term, in 
 
 VOL. I 3
 
 26 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 which we indulged our genius more freely, and our 
 merriment, to say the truth, was somewhat exuberant 
 and noisy ; but the authorities wisely forbore too 
 strict an inquiry into this. 
 
 It was one of the happy peculiarities of Corpus that 
 the bachelor scholars were compelled to residence. 
 This regulation, seemingly inconvenient, but most 
 wholesome as I cannot but think for themselves, and 
 now unwisely relaxed, operated very beneficially on 
 1 .he undergraduates ; with the best and the most ad- 
 vanced of these they associated very usefully : I speak 
 here with grateful and affectionate remembrances of 
 the privileges which I enjoyed in this way. 
 
 You will see that a society thus circumstanced was 
 exactly one most likely to influence strongly the char- 
 acter of such a lad as Arnold was at his election. He 
 came to us in Lent Term, 1811, from Winchester, win- 
 ning his election against several very respectable can- 
 didates. He was a mere boy in appearance as well as 
 in age ; but we saw in a very short time that he was 
 quite equal to take his part in the arguments of the 
 common room ; and he was, I rather think, admitted 
 by Mr. Cooke at once into his senior class. As he was 
 equal, so was he ready to take part in our discussions : 
 he was fond of conversation on serious matters, and 
 vehement in argument ; fearless too in advancing his 
 opinions which, to say the truth, often startled us a 
 good deal ; but he was ingenuous and candid, and 
 though the fearlessness with which, so young as he 
 was, he advanced his opinions might have seemed to 
 betoken presumption, yet the good temper with which 
 he bore retort or rebuke relieved him from that impu- 
 tation ; he was bold and warm, because so far as his 
 knowledge went he saw very clearly, and he was an 
 ardent lover of truth, but I never saw in him even 
 then a grain of vanity or conceit. I have said that 
 some of his opinions startled us a good deal ; we were 
 indeed for the most part Tories in Church and State, 
 great respecters of things as they were, and not very
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 27 
 
 tolerant of the disposition which he brought with him 
 to question their wisdom. Many and long were the 
 conflicts we had, and with unequal numbers. I think 
 I have seen all the leaders of the common room 
 engaged with him at once, with little order or consid- 
 eration, as may be supposed, and not always with 
 great scrupulosity as to the fairness of our arguments. 
 This was attended by no loss of regard, and scarcely 
 ever, or seldom, by even momentary loss of temper. 
 We did not always convince him perhaps we ought 
 not always to have done so yet in the end a consid- 
 erable modification of his opinions was produced ; in 
 one of his letters to me, written at a much later period, 
 he mentions this change. In truth, there were those 
 among us calculated to produce an impression on his 
 affectionate heart and ardent, ingenuous mind ; and 
 the rather because the more we saw of him, and the 
 more we battled with him, the more manifestly did we 
 respect and love him. The feeling with which we 
 argued gave additional power to our arguments over a 
 disposition such as his ; and thus he became attached 
 to young men of the most different tastes and intel- 
 lects ; his love for each taking a different color, more 
 or less blended with respect, fondness, or even humor, 
 according to those differences ; and in return they all 
 uniting. in love and respect for him. 
 
 There will be some few to whom these remem- 
 brances will speak with touching truth ; they will 
 remember his single-hearted and devout schoolfellow, 
 who early gave up his native land, and devoted himself 
 to the missionary cause in India ; the high-souled and 
 imaginative, though somewhat indolent lad, who came 
 to us from Westminster one bachelor, whose father's 
 connection with the House of Commons, and resi- 
 dence in Palace Yard, made him a great authority 
 with us as to the world without, and the statesmen 
 whose speeches he sometimes heard, but we discussed 
 much as if they had been personages in history ; and 
 whose remarkable love for historical and geographical
 
 28 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 research, and his proficiency in it, with his clear judg- 
 ment, quiet % humor, and mildness in communicating 
 information, made him peculiarly attractive to Ar- 
 nold ; and above all, our senior among the under- 
 graduates, though my junior in years, the author of 
 the Christian Year, who came fresh from the single 
 teaching of his venerable father, and achieved the 
 highest honors of the University at an age when 
 others frequently are but on her threshold. Arnold 
 clung to all these with equal fidelity, but regarded 
 each with different feelings ; each produced on him a 
 salutary, but different effect. His love for all without 
 exception I know, if I know anything of another man's 
 heart, continued to his life's end ; it survived (how 
 can the mournful facts be concealed in any complete 
 and truth-telling narrative of his life ?) separation, 
 suspension of intercourse, and entire disagreement of 
 opinion, with the last of these, on points believed by 
 them both to be of essential importance. These two 
 held their opinions with a zeal and tenacity propor- 
 tionate to their importance ; each believed the other 
 in error pernicious to the faith and dangerous to him- 
 self ; and what they believed sincerely, each thought 
 himself bound to state, and stated it openly, it may be 
 with too much of warmth ; and unguarded expres- 
 sions were unnecessarily, I think inaccurately, re- 
 ported. Such disagreements in opinion between the 
 wise and good are incident to our imperfect state ; and 
 even the good qualities of the heart, earnestness, want 
 of suspicion, may lay us open to them ; but in the 
 case before me the affectionate interest with which 
 each regarded the other never ceased. I had the 
 good fortune to retain the intimate friendship and cor- 
 respondence of both, and I can testify with author- 
 ity that the elder spoke and wrote of the younger as 
 an elder brother might of a younger whom he ten- 
 derly loved, though he disapproved of his course ; 
 while it was not in Arnold's nature to forget how 
 much he had owed to Keble : he bitterly lamented,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 29 
 
 what he labored to avert, the suspension of their inti- 
 mate intercourse ; he was at all times anxious to 
 renew it ; and although, where the disagreement 
 turned on points so vital between men who held each 
 to his own so conscientiously, this may have been too 
 much to expect, yet it is a most gratifying thought to 
 their common friends that they would probably have 
 met at Fox How under Arnold's roof, but a few weeks 
 after he was called away to that state in which the 
 doubts and controversies of this life will receive their 
 clear resolution. 
 
 I return from my digression : Arnold came to us 
 of course not a formed scholar, nor, I think, did he 
 leave the college with scholarship proportioned to his 
 great abilities and opportunities. And this arose in 
 part from the decided preference which he gave to the 
 philosophers and historians of antiquity over the poets, 
 coupled with the distinction which he then made, 
 erroneous as I think, and certainly extreme in degree, 
 between words and things, as he termed it. His cor- 
 respondence with me will show how much he modified 
 this too in after life ; but at that time he was led by it 
 to undervalue those niceties of language, the intimate 
 acquaintance with which he did not then perceive to 
 be absolutely necessary to a precise knowledge of the 
 meaning of the author- His compositions, therefore, 
 at this time, though full of matter, did not give prom- 
 ise of that clear and spirited style which he after- 
 wards mastered ; he gained no verse prize, but was 
 an unsuccessful competitor for the Latin verse in the 
 year 1812, when Henry Latham succeeded, the third 
 brother of that house who had done so ; and though 
 this is the only occasion on which I have any memo- 
 randum of his writing, I do not doubt that he made 
 other attempts. Among us were several who were 
 fond of writing English verse ; Keble was even then 
 raising among us those expectations, which he has 
 since so fully justified, and Arnold was not slow to 
 follow the example. I have several poems of his writ- 
 
 3*
 
 30 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ten about this time, neat and pointed in expression, 
 and just in thought, but not remarkable for fancy or 
 imagination. I remember some years after his telling 
 me that he continued the practice " on principle ; " he 
 thought it a useful and humanizing exercise. 
 
 But, though not a poet himself, he was not insensi- 
 ble of the beauties of poetry far from it. I reflect 
 with some pleasure, that I first introduced him to 
 what has been somewhat unreasonably called the Lake 
 Poetry : my near relation to one, and connection with 
 another of the poets, whose works were so called, were 
 the occasion of this ; and my uncle having sent me the 
 Lyrical Ballads, and the first edition of Mr. .Words- 
 worth's poems, they became familiar among us. We 
 were proof, I am glad to think, against the criticism, 
 if so it might be called, of the " Edinburgh Review ; " 
 we felt their truth and beauty, and became zealous dis- 
 ciples of Wordsworth's philosophy. This was of pecu- 
 liar advantage to Arnold, whose leaning was too direct 
 for the practical and evidently useful it brought out 
 in him that feeling for the lofty and imaginative which 
 appeared in all his intimate conversation, and may be 
 seen spiritualizing those even of his writings, in which, 
 from their subject, it might seem to have less place. 
 You know in later life how much he thought his 
 beloved Fox How enhanced in value by its neighbor- 
 hood to Rydal Mount, and what store he set on the 
 privilege of frequent and friendly converse with the 
 venerable genius of that sweet spot. 
 
 But his passion at the time I am treating of was for 
 Aristotle and Thucydides ; and however he became 
 some few years after more sensible of the importance 
 of the poets in classic literature, this passion he re- 
 tained to the last ; those who knew him intimately, or 
 corresponded with him, will bear me witness how 
 deeply he was imbued with the language and ideas 
 of the former, how in earnest and unreserved conver- 
 sation, or in writing, his train of thoughts was affected 
 by the Ethics and Rhetoric, how he cited the maxims
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 31 
 
 of the Stagyrite as oracles, and how his language was 
 quaintly and racily pointed with phrases from him. I 
 never knew a man who made such familiar, even fond 
 use of an author : it is scarcely too much to say, that 
 he spoke of him as of one intimately and affectionately 
 known and valued by him ; and when he was select- 
 ing his son's University, with much leaning for Cam- 
 bridge, and many things which at the time made him 
 incline against Oxford, dearly as he loved her, Aris- 
 totle turned the scale ; " I could not consent," said 
 he, " to send my son to a University where he would 
 lose the study of him altogether." " You may be- 
 lieve," he said with regard to the London University, 
 " that I have not forgotten the dear old Stagyrite in 
 our examinations, and I hope that he will be construed 
 and discussed in Somerset House as well as in the 
 schools." His fondness for Thucydides first prompted 
 a Lexicon Thucydideum, in which he made some pro- 
 gress at Laleham in 1821 and 1822, and ended as you 
 know in his valuable edition of that author. 
 
 Next to these he loved Herodotus. I have said that 
 he was not, while I knew him at Oxford, a formed 
 scholar, and that he composed stiffly and with diffi- 
 culty, but to this there was a seeming exception ; he 
 had so imbued himself with, the style of Herodotus 
 and Thucydides, that he could write narratives in the 
 style of either at pleasure with wonderful readiness, 
 and as we thought with the greatest accuracy. I 
 remember, too, an account by him of a Vacation Tour 
 in the Isle of Wight, after the manner of the Anabasis. 
 
 Arnold's bodily recreations were walking and bath- 
 ing. It was a particular delight to him, with two or 
 three companions, to make what he called a skirmish 
 across the country ; on these occasions we deserted the 
 road, crossed fences, and leaped ditches, or fell into 
 them : he enjoyed the country round Oxford, and 
 while out in this way his spirits would rise and his 
 mirth overflowed. Though delicate in appearance, 
 and not giving promise of great muscular strength, yet
 
 32 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 his form was light, and he was capable of going long 
 distances and bearing much fatigue. 
 
 You know that to his last moment of health he had 
 the same predilections ; indeed he was, as much as any 
 I ever knew, one whose days were 
 
 . " Bound each to each by natural piety." 
 
 His manner had all the tastes and feelings of his youth, 
 only more developed and better regulated. The same 
 passion for the sea and shipping, and his favorite Isle 
 of Wight, the same love for external nature, the same 
 readiness in viewing the characteristic features of a 
 country and its marked positions, or the most beautiful 
 points of a prospect, for all which he was remarkable 
 in after life, we noticed in him then. When Professor 
 Buckland, then one of our Fellows, began his career in 
 that science, to the advancement of which he has con- 
 tributed so much, Arnold became one of his most ear- 
 nest and intelligent pupils, and you know how famil- 
 iarly and practically he applied geological facts in all 
 his later years. 
 
 In June, 1812, 1 was elected Fellow of Exeter Col- 
 lege, and determined to pursue the law as my profes- 
 sion : my residence at Oxford was thenceforward only 
 occasional ; but the friendship which had grown up 
 between us suffered no diminution. Something, I for- 
 get now the particular circumstance, led to an inter- 
 change of letters, which ripened into a correspondence, 
 continued with rather unusual regularity, when our 
 respective occupations are considered, to within a few 
 days of his death. It may show the opinion which I 
 even then entertained of him, that I carefully pre- 
 served from the beginning every letter which I ever 
 received from him : you have had an opportunity of 
 judging of the value of the collection. 
 
 After I had ceased to reside, a small debating society 
 called the Attic Society was formed in Oxford,* which 
 
 It In this society he formed or confirmed his acquaintance with a ne>
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 33 
 
 held its meetings in the rooms of the members by 
 turns. Arnold was among the earliest members, and 
 was, I believe, an embarrassed speaker. This I should 
 have expected ; for, however he might appear a confi- 
 dent advancer of his own opinions, he was in truth 
 bashful, and at the same time had so acute a percep- 
 tion of what was ill-seasoned or irrelevant, that he 
 would want that freedom from restraint which is essen- 
 tial at least to young speakers. This society was the 
 germ of the Union, but I believe he never belonged 
 to it. 
 
 In our days the religious controversies had not be- 
 gun, by which the minds of young men at Oxford are, 
 I fear, now prematurely and too much occupied ; the 
 routine theological studies of the University were, I 
 admit, deplorably low, but the e?rnest ones amongst us 
 were diligent readers of Barrow, Hooker, and Taylor. 
 Arnold was among these, but I have no recollection of 
 anything at that time distinctive in his religious opin- 
 ions. What occurred afterwards does not properly fall 
 within my chapter, yet it is not unconnected with it, 
 and I believe I can sum up all that need be said on 
 such a subject, as shortly and as accurately, from the 
 sources of information in my hands, as any other per- 
 son can. His was an anxiously inquisitive mind, a 
 scrupulously conscientious heart ; his inquiries, pre- 
 viously to his taking orders, led him on to distressing 
 doubts on certain points in the Articles ; these were 
 not low nor rationalistic in their tendency, according 
 to the bad sense of that term ; there was no indis- 
 position in him to believe merely because the article 
 transcended his reason ; he doubted the proof and the 
 interpretation of the textual authority. His state was 
 very painful, and I think morbid ; for I remarked that 
 
 circle of friends, chiefly of other colleges, whose names will appear in the 
 ensuing correspondence by the side of those of an earlier date from Corpus, 
 and of a somewhat later date from Oriel, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Hull, Mr. Randall, 
 Mr. Blackstone, and Mr. Hare, and through him with his Cambridge 
 brother, now Archdeacon Hare. 
 
 c
 
 34 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the two occasions on which I was privy to his distress 
 were precisely those in which to doubt was against his 
 dearest schemes of worldly happiness ; and the con- 
 sciousness of this seemed to make him distrustful of 
 the arguments which were intended to lead his mind 
 to acquiescence. Upon the first occasion to which I 
 allude, he was a Fellow of Oriel, and in close inter- 
 course with one of the friends I have before men- 
 tioned, then also a Fellow of the same college : to him 
 as well as to me he opened his mind, and from him he 
 received the wisest advice, wliich he had the wisdom 
 to act upon ; he was bid to pause in his inquiries, to 
 pray earnestly for help and light from above, and turn 
 himself more strongly than ever to the practical duties 
 of a holy life ; he did so, and through severe trials was 
 finally blessed with perfect peace of mind and a settled 
 conviction. If there be any so unwise as to rejoice that 
 Arnold in his youth had doubts on important doc- 
 trines, let him be sobered with the conclusion of those 
 doubts, when Arnold's mind had not become weaker, 
 nor his pursuit of truth less honest or ardent, but when 
 his abilities were matured, his knowledge greater, his 
 judgment more sober ; if there be any who, in youth, 
 are suffering the same distress which befell him, let 
 his conduct be their example, and the blessing which 
 was vouchsafed to him, their hope and consolation. 
 In a letter from that friend to myself, of the date of 
 February 14, 1819, 1 find the following extract, which 
 gives so true and so considerate an account of this 
 passage in Arnold's life, that you may be pleased to 
 insert it. 
 
 " I have not talked with Arnold lately on the dis- 
 tressing thoughts which he wrote to you about, but I 
 am fearful, from his manner at times, that he has by 
 no means got rid of them, though I feel quite confi- 
 dent that all will be well in the end. The subject of 
 them is that most awful one, on which all very in- 
 quisitive reasoning minds are, I believe, most liable to 
 such temptations I mean the doctrine of the blessed
 
 LIFE OF DR. AENOLD. 35 
 
 Trinity. Bo not start, my dear Coleridge ; I do not 
 believe that Arnold has any serious scruples of the 
 understanding about it, but it is a defect of his mind 
 that he cannot get rid of a certain feeling of objec- 
 tions and particularly when, as he fancies, the bias 
 is so strong upon him to decide one way from interest ; 
 he scruples doing what I advise him, which is, to put 
 down the objections by main force whenever they arise 
 in his mind, fearful that in so doing he shall be violat- 
 ing his conscience for a maintenance' sake. I am still 
 inclined to think with you that the wisest thing he 
 could do would be to take John M. (a young pupil 
 whom I was desirous of placing under his care) and a 
 curacy somewhere or other, and cure himself not by 
 physic, i. e. reading and controversy, but by diet and 
 regimen, i. e. holy living. In the mean time what an 
 excellent fellow he is. I do think that one might 
 safely say, as some one did of some other, ' One had 
 better have Arnold's doubts than most men's certain- 
 ties.' " * 
 
 I believe I have exhausted my recollections ; and if 
 I have accomplished as I ought what I proposed to 
 myself, it will be hardly necessary for me to sum up 
 formally his character as an Oxford undergraduate. 
 At the commencement a boy and at the close retain- 
 ing, not ungracefully, much of boyish spirits, frolic, 
 and simplicity ; in mind vigorous, active, clear-sighted, 
 industrious, and daily accumulating and assimilating 
 treasures of knowledge ; not averse to poetry, but de- 
 lighting rather in dialectics, philosophy, and history, 
 with less of imaginative than reasoning power ; in 
 argument bold almost to presumption, and vehement ; 
 in temper easily roused to indignation, yet more easily 
 appeased and entirely free from bitterness ; fired, in- 
 deed, by what he deemed ungenerous or unjust to 
 others, rather than by any sense of personal wrong ; 
 somewhat too little deferential to authority ; yet with- 
 
 * On this subject see, further, the note in Chapter IX.
 
 36 LIFE OF DR. AENOLD. 
 
 out any real inconsistency loving what was good and 
 great in antiquity the more ardently and reverently 
 because it was ancient ; a casual or unkind observer 
 might have pronounced him somewhat too pugnacious 
 in conversation and too positive. I have given, I be- 
 lieve, the true explanation ; scarcely anything would 
 have pained him more than to be convinced that he 
 had been guilty of want of modesty, or of deference 
 where it was justly due ; no one thought these virtues 
 of more sacred obligation. In heart, if I can speak 
 with confidence of any of the friends of my youth, I 
 can of his, that it was devout and pure, simple, sin- 
 cere, affectionate, and faithful. 
 
 It is time that I should close ; already, I fear, 1 
 have dwelt with something like an old man's prolixity 
 on passages of my youth, forgetting that no one can 
 take the same interest in them which I do myself: 
 that deep personal interest must, however, be my ex- 
 cuse. Whoever sets a right value on the events of 
 his life for good or for evil, will agree that next in im- 
 portance to the rectitude of his own course and the 
 selection of his partner for life, and far beyond all the 
 wealth or honors which may reward his labor, far even 
 beyond the unspeakable gift of bodily health, are the 
 friendships which he forms in youth. That is the sea- 
 son when natures soft and pliant grow together, each 
 becoming part of the other, and colored by it ; thus to 
 become one in heart with the good, and generous, and 
 devout, is, by God's grace, to become, in measure, 
 good, and generous, and devout. Arnold's friendship 
 has been one of the many blessings of my life. I 
 cherish the memory of it with mournful gratitude, 
 and I cannot but dwell with lingering fondness on the 
 scene and the period which first brought us together. 
 Within the peaceful walls of Corpus I made friends, 
 of whom all are spared me but Arnold he has fallen 
 asleep but the bond there formed, which the lapse 
 of years and our differing walks in life did not un- 
 loosen, and which strong opposition of opinions only
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 37 
 
 rendered more intimate ; though interrupted in time, 
 I feel not to be broken may I venture, without 
 unseasonable solemnity, to express the firm trust, that 
 it will endure forever in eternity. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Stanley, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 J. T. C. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LIFE AT LALEHAM. 
 
 THE society of the Fellows of Oriel College then, as for 
 some time afterwards, numbered amongst its members 
 some of the most rising men in the University, and it 
 is curious to observe the list, which, when the youthful 
 scholar of Corpus was added to it, contained the names 
 of Copleston, Davison, Whately, Keble, Hawkins, and 
 Hampden, and shortly after he left it, those of New- 
 man and Pusey, the former of whom was elected into 
 his vacant Fellowship. Amongst the friends with 
 whom he thus became acquainted for the first time, 
 may chiefly be mentioned Dr. Hawkins, since Pro- 
 vost of Oriel, to whom in the last year of his life he 
 dedicated his Lectures on Modern History, and Dr. 
 Whately, afterwards Principal of St. Alban's Hall, 
 and now Archbishop of Dublin, towards whom his 
 regard was enhanced by the domestic intercourse 
 which was constantly interchanged in later years be- 
 tween their respective families, and to whose writings 
 and conversations he took an early opportunity of 
 expressing his obligations in the Preface to his first 
 volume of Sermons, in speaking of the various points 
 on which the communication of his friend's views had
 
 38 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 " extended or confirmed his own." For the next four 
 years he remained at Oxford taking private pupils and 
 reading extensively in the Oxford libraries, an advan- 
 tage which he never ceased to remember gratefully 
 himself, and to impress upon others, and of which the 
 immediate results remain in a great number of MSS., 
 both in the form of abstracts of other works, and of 
 original sketches on history and theology. They are 
 remarkable rather as proofs of industry than of power, 
 and the style of all his compositions, both at this time 
 and for some years later, is cramped by a stiffness and 
 formality alien alike to the homeliness of his first pub- 
 lished works and the vigor of his later ones, and strik- 
 ingly recalling his favorite lines, 
 
 " The old man clogs our earlie* !; years, 
 And simple childhood comes the last." 
 
 But already, in the examination of the Oriel Fellow- 
 ships, Dr. Whately had pointed out to the other elect- 
 ors the great capability of " growth " which he be- 
 lieved to be involved in the crudities of the youthful 
 candidate's exercises, and which, even in points where 
 he was inferior to his competitors, indicated an ap- 
 proaching superiority. And widely different as were 
 his juvenile compositions in many points from those 
 of his after life, yet it is interesting to observe in them 
 the materials which those who knew the pressure of 
 his numerous avocations used to wonder when he 
 could have acquired, and to trace amidst the strangest 
 contrast of his general thoughts and style occasional 
 remarks of a higher strain, which are in striking, 
 though in some instances perhaps accidental, coinci- 
 dence with some of his later views. He endeavored 
 in his historical reading to follow the plan which he 
 afterwards recommended in his Lectures, of making 
 himself thoroughly master of some one period, the 
 15th century, with Philip de Comines as his text-book, 
 seems to have been the chief sphere of his studies, 
 and the first book after his election which appears in.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 39 
 
 the Oriel library as taken out in his name, is Rymer's 
 Fcedera. Many of the judgments in his maturer years 
 on Gibbon, Livy, and Thucydides, are to be found in a 
 MS. of 1815, in which, under the name of " Thoughts 
 on History," he went through the characteristics of 
 the chief ancient and modern historians. And it is 
 almost startling, in the midst of a rhetorical burst of 
 his youthful Toryism in a journal of 1815, to meet 
 with expressions of real feeling about the social state 
 of England such as might have been written in his 
 latest years ; or amidst the commonplace remarks 
 which accompany an analysis of St. Paul's Epistles 
 and Chrysostorn's Homilies, in 1818, to stumble on a 
 statement complete, as far as it goes, of his subsequent 
 doctrine of the identity of Church anJ State. 
 
 Meanwhile he had been gradually led to fix upon 
 his future course in life. In Decemuer, 1818, he was 
 ordained deacon at Oxford ; and on August llth, 
 1820, he married Mary, youngest daughter of the Rev. 
 John Penrose, Rector of Medborough, in Nottingham- 
 shire, and sister of one of his earliest school and col- 
 lege friends, Trevenen Penrose : having previously 
 settled in 1819 at Laleham, near Staines, with his 
 mother, aunt, and sister, where he remained for the 
 next nine years, taking seven or eight young men as 
 private pupils in preparation for the Universities, for a 
 short time in a joint establishment with his brother-in- 
 law, Mr. Buckland, and afterwards independently by 
 himself. Here were born six out of his nine children. 
 The three youngest, besides one which died in infancy 
 in 1832, were born at Rugby. 
 
 In the interval which had elapsed between the end 
 of his undergraduate career at Oxford and his en- 
 trance upon life, had taken place the great change 
 from boyhood to manhood, and with it a correspond- 
 ing change or growth of character, more marked and 
 more important than at any subsequent period of his 
 life. There was indeed another great step to be taken 
 before his mind reached that later stage of develop-
 
 40 LIFE OF DR. AENOLD. 
 
 ment which was coincident with his transition from 
 Lalcham to Rugby. The prosaic and matter of fact 
 element which has been described in his early Oxford 
 life still retained its predominance, and to a certain 
 extent dwarfed and narrowed his sphere of thought ; 
 the various principles of political and theological sci- 
 ence which contained in germ all that was to grow 
 out of them, had not yet assumed their proper har- 
 mony and proportions ; his feelings of veneration, if 
 less confined than in later years, were also less in- 
 tense ; his hopes and views, if more easily restrained 
 by the advice of others, were also less wide in their 
 range, and less lofty in their conception. 
 
 But, however great were the modifications which 
 his character subsequently underwent, it is the change 
 of tone at this time between the earlier letters of this 
 period (such as the one or two first of the ensuing 
 series) and those which immediately succeed them, 
 that marks the difference between the high spirit and 
 warm feelings of his youth, and the fixed earnestness 
 and devotion which henceforth took possession of his 
 whole heart and will. Whatever may have been the 
 outward circumstances which contributed to this 
 the choice of a profession the impression left upon 
 him by the sudden loss of his elder brother the new 
 and to him elevating influences of married life the 
 responsibility of having to act as the guide and teacher 
 of others it was now for the first time that the prin- 
 ciples, which before he had followed rather as a matter 
 of course, and as held and taught by those around 
 him, became emphatically part of his own convictions, 
 to be embraced and carried out for life and for death. 
 
 From this time forward such defects as were pecu- 
 liar to his boyhood and early youth entirely disappear ; 
 the indolent habits the morbid restlessness and occa- 
 sional weariness of duty the indulgence of vague 
 schemes without definite purpose the intellectual 
 doubts which beset the first opening of his mind to the 
 realities of religious belief, when he shared at least in
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 41 
 
 part the state of perplexity which in his later sermons 
 he feelingly describes as the severest of earthly trials, 
 and which so endeared to him throughout life the 
 story of the confession of the Apostle Thomas, all 
 seem to have vanished away and never again to have 
 diverted him from the decisive choice and energetic 
 pursuit of what he set before him as his end and duty. 
 From this time forward no careful observer can fail to 
 trace that deep consciousness of the invisible world, 
 and that power of bringing it before him in the midst 
 and through the means of his most active engagements, 
 which constituted the peculiarity of his religious life, 
 and the moving spring of his whole life. It was not 
 that he frequently introduced sacred names in writing 
 or in conversation, or that he often dwelt on divine 
 interpositions ; where many would have done so with- 
 out scruple, he would shrink from it, and in speaking 
 of his own religious feelings, or in appealing to the 
 religious feelings of others, he was, except to those 
 most intimate with him, exceedingly reserved. But 
 what was true generally of the thorough interpenetra- 
 tion of the several parts of his character, was peculiarly 
 true of it in its religious aspect : his natural faculties 
 were not unclothed, but clothed upon ; they were at 
 once colored by, and gave a color to, the belief which 
 they received. It was in Ms common acts of life, 
 whether public or private, that the depth of his relig- 
 ious convictions most visibly appeared ; it was in his 
 manner of dwelling on religious subjects, that the 
 characteristic tendencies of his mind chiefly displayed 
 themselves. 
 
 Accordingly, whilst it is impossible, for this reason, 
 to understand his religious belief except through the 
 knowledge of his actual life and his writings on ordi- 
 nary subjects, it is impossible, on the other hand, to 
 understand his life and writings without bearing in 
 mind how vivid was his realization of those truths of 
 the Christian Revelation on which he most habitually 
 dwelt. It was this which enabled him to undertake 
 
 4*
 
 42 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 labors which without such a power must have crushed 
 or enfeebled the spiritual growth which in him they 
 seemed only to foster. It was the keen sense of 
 thankfulness consciously awakened by every distinct 
 instance of his many blessings, which more than any- 
 thing else explained his close union of joyousness with 
 seriousness. In his even tenor of life it was difficult 
 for any one who knew him not to imagine " the golden 
 chain of heavenward thoughts and humble prayers by 
 which, whether standing or sitting, in the intervals of 
 work or amusement," he " linked together " his 
 " more special and solemn devotions," (Serm. vol. iii. 
 p. 277,) or not to trace some tiling of the consciousness 
 of an invisible presence in the collectedness with 
 which, at the call of his common duties, he rose at 
 once from his various occupations : or in the calm 
 repose which, in the midst of his most active labors, 
 took all the disturbing accidents of life as a matter of 
 course, and made toil so real a pleasure, and relaxa- 
 tion so real a refreshment to him. And in his solemn 
 and emphatic expressions on subjects expressly relig- 
 ious ; in his manner of awful reverence when in speak- 
 ing of God or of the Scriptures ; in his power of real- 
 izing the operation of something more than human, 
 whether in his abhorrence of evil or in his admiration 
 of goodness ; the impression on those who heard 
 him was often as though he knew what others only 
 believed, as though he had seen what others only 
 talked about. " No one could know him even a lit- 
 tle," says one who was himself not amongst his most 
 intimate friends, " and not be struck by his absolute 
 wrestling with evil, so that like St. Paul he seemed to 
 be battling with the wicked one, and yet with the 
 feeling of God's help on his side, scorning as well as 
 hating him." 
 
 Above all, it was necessary for a right understand- 
 ing, not only of his religious opinions, but of his whole 
 character, to enter into the peculiar feeling of love and 
 adoration which he entertained towards our Lord Jesus
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 43 
 
 Christ, peculiar in the distinctness and intensity 
 which, as it characterized almost all his common im- 
 pressions, so in this case gave additional strength and 
 meaning to those feelings with which he regarded not 
 only His work of Redemption but Himself, as a living 
 Friend and Master. " In that unknown world in 
 which our thoughts become instantly lost," it was his 
 real support and delight to remember that " still there 
 is one object on which our thoughts and imaginations 
 may fasten, no less than our affections ; that amidst 
 the light, dark from excess of brilliance, which sur- 
 rounds the throne of God, we may yet discern the 
 gracious form of the Son of Man." (Serm. vol. iii. 
 p. 90.) In that consciousness which pressed upon 
 him at times even heavily, of the difficulty of consid- 
 ering God in his own nature, believing as he did that 
 " Providence, the Supreme Being, the Deity, and other 
 such terms repel us to an infinite distance," and that 
 the revelation of the Father, in Himself unapproach- 
 able, is to be looked upon rather as the promise of 
 another life, than as the support of this life, it was to 
 him a thought of perhaps more than usual comfort to 
 feel that " our God " is " Jesus Christ our Lord, the 
 image of the invisible God," and that " in Him is rep- 
 resented all the fulness of the Godhead, until we know 
 even as we are known." (vol. v. p. 222.) And with this 
 full conviction both of his conscience and understand- 
 ing, that He of whom he spoke was " still the very 
 selfsame Jesus in all human affections and divine ex- 
 cellences ; " there was a vividness and tenderness in 
 his conception of Him, on which, if one may so say, 
 all his feelings of human friendship and affection 
 seemed to fasten as on their natural object, " bringing 
 before him His actions, imaging to himself His very 
 voice and look : " there was to him (so to speak) a 
 greatness in the image thus formed of Him, on which 
 all his natural instincts of reverence, all his range of 
 historical interest, all his admiration of truth and good- 
 ness at once centred. " Where can we find a name
 
 44 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 so holy as that we may surrender our whole souls to 
 it, before which obedience, reverence without measure, 
 intense humility, most unreserved adoration may be 
 all duly rendered ? " was the earnest inquiry of his 
 whole nature, intellectual and moral, no less than re- 
 ligious. And the answer to it in like manner expressed 
 what he endeavored to make the rule of his own per- 
 sonal conduct, and the centre of all his moral and 
 religious convictions : " One name there is, and one 
 alone, one alone in heaven and earth not truth, not 
 justice, not benevolence, not Christ's mother, not His 
 holiest servants, not His blessed sacraments, nor His 
 very mystical body the Church, but Himself only who 
 died for us and rose again, Jesus Christ, both God and 
 Man." (Serm. vol. iv. p. 210.) 
 
 These were the feelings which, though more fully 
 developed with the advance of years, now for the first 
 time took thorough possession of his mind ; and which 
 struck upon his moral nature at this period, with the 
 same kind of force (if one may use the comparison) 
 as the new views which he acquired from time to time 
 of persons and principles in historical or philosophical 
 speculations, impressed themselves upon his intellect- 
 ual nature. There is naturally but little to interrupt 
 the retirement of his life at Laleham, which was only 
 broken by the short tours in England or on the Conti- 
 nent, in which then, as afterwards, he employed his 
 vacations. Still, it is not without interest to dwell on 
 these years, the profound peace of which is contrasted 
 so strongly with the almost incessant agitations of his 
 subsequent life, and " to remain awhile " (thus apply- 
 ing his own words on another subject) " on the high 
 ground where the waters which are hereafter to form 
 the separate streams " of his various social and theo- 
 logical views, "lie as yet undistinguished in their com- 
 mon parent lake." 
 
 Whatever may have been the exact notions of his 
 future course which presented themselves to him, it is 
 evident that he was not insensible to the attraction of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 45 
 
 visions of extensive influence, and almost to his latest 
 hour he seems to have been conscious of the existence 
 of the temptation within him, and of the necessity of 
 contending against it. " I believe," he said, many 
 years afterwards, in speaking of these early struggles 
 to a Rugby pupil who was consulting him on the 
 choice of a profession " I believe that, naturally, I 
 am one of the most ambitious men alive," and " the 
 three great objects of human ambition," he added, to 
 which alone he could look as deserving the name, were 
 " to be the prime minister of a great kingdom, the 
 governor of a great empire, or the writer of works 
 which should live in every age and in every country." 
 But in some respects the loftiness of his aims made 
 it a matter of less difficulty to confine himself at once 
 to a sphere in which, whilst he felt himself well and 
 usefully employed, he felt also that the practical busi- 
 ness of his daily duties acted as a check upon his own 
 inclinations and speculations. Accordingly, when he 
 entered upon his work at Laleham, he seems to have 
 regarded it as his work for life. " I have always 
 thought," he writes in 1823, " with regard to ambi- 
 tion, that I should like to be aut Caesar aut nullus, 
 and as it is pretty well settled for me that I shall not 
 be Caesar, I am quite content to live in peace as 
 nullus." 
 
 It was a period, indeed, on which he used himself to 
 look back, even from the wider usefulness of his later 
 years, almost with a fond regret, as to the happiest 
 time of his life. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God 
 and his righteousness, and then all other things shall 
 be added to you," was a passage to which now, more 
 than any other time, he was in the habit of recurring, 
 as one of peculiar truth and comfort. His situation 
 supplied him exactly with that union of retirement 
 and work which more than any other condition suited 
 his natural inclinations, and enabled him to keep up 
 more uninterrupted than was ever again in his power 
 the communication which he so much cherished with
 
 46 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 his friends and relations. Without undertaking any 
 directly parochial charge, he was in the habit of ren- 
 dering constant assistance to Mr. Hearn, the curate of 
 the place, both in the parish church and workhouse, 
 and in visiting the villagers thus uniting with his 
 ordinary occupations greater means than he was after- 
 wards able to command, of familiar intercourse with 
 his poorer neighbors, which he always so highly val- 
 ued. Bound as he was to Laleham by all these ties, 
 he long loved to look upon it as his final home ; and 
 the first reception of the tidings of his election at 
 Rugby was overclouded with deep sorrow at leaving 
 the scene of so much happiness. Years after he had 
 left it, he still retained his early affection for it, and 
 till he had purchased his house in Westmoreland, he 
 entertained a lingering hope that he might return to it 
 in his old' age, when he should have retired from 
 Rugby. Often he would revisit it, and delighted in 
 renewing his acquaintance with all the families of the 
 poor whom he had known during his residence ; in 
 showing to his children his former haunts ; in looking 
 once again on his favorite views of the great plain of 
 Middlesex the lonely walks along the quiet banks 
 of the Thames the retired garden, with its " Campus 
 Hartius," and its " wilderness of trees," which lay 
 behind his house, and which had been the scene of so 
 many sportive games and serious conversations the 
 churchyard of Laleham, then doubly dear to him, as 
 containing the graves of his infant child whom he 
 buried there in 1832, and of his mother, his aunt, and 
 his sister Susannah, who had long formed almost a 
 part of his own domestic circle, and whom he lost 
 within a few years after his departure to Rugby. 
 
 His general view of his work as a private tutor is 
 best given in his own words in 1831 to a friend who 
 was about to engage in a similar occupation. 
 
 " I know it has a bad name, but my wife and I always hap- 
 pened to be fond of it, and if I were to leave Rugby for no 
 demerit of my own, I would take to it again with all the pleas-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 47 
 
 ure in life. I enjoyed, and do enjoy, the society of youths of 
 seventeen or eighteen, for they are all alive in limbs and spir- 
 its at least, if not in mind, while in older persons the body 
 and spirits often become lazy and languid without the mind 
 gaining any vigor to compensate for it. Do not take your 
 work as a dose, and I do not think you will find it nauseous. 
 I am sure you will not, if your wife does not ; and if she is a 
 sensible woman, she will not either if you do not. The mis- 
 ery of private tuition seems to me to consist in this, that men 
 enter upon it as a means to some further end ; are always im- 
 patient for the time when they may lay it aside ; whereas if 
 you enter upon it heartily as your life's business, as a man 
 enters upon any other profession, you are not then in danger 
 of grudging every hour you give to it, and thinking of how 
 much privacy and how much society it is robbing you ; but 
 you take to it as a matter of course, making it your material 
 occupation, and devote your time to it, and then you find that 
 it is in itself full of interest, and keeps life's current fresh and 
 wholesome by bringing you in such perpetual contact with all 
 the spring of youthful liveliness. I should say, have your 
 pupils a good deal with you, and be as familiar with them as 
 you possibly can. I did this continually more and more be- 
 fore I left Laleham, going to bathe with them, leaping and all 
 other gymnastic exercises within my capacity, and sometimes 
 sailing or rowing with them. They I believe always liked it, 
 and I enjoyed it myself like a boy, and found myself con- 
 stantly the better for it." 
 
 In many respects his method at Laleham resembled 
 the plan which he pursued on a larger scale at Rugby. 
 Then, as afterwards, he had a strong sense of the duty 
 of protecting his charge, at whatever risk to himself, 
 from the presence of companions who were capable 
 only of exercising an evil influence over their associ- 
 ates ; and, young as he was, he persisted in carrying 
 out this principle, and in declining to take any addi- 
 tional pupils as long as he had under him any of such 
 a character, whom yet he did not feel himself justified 
 in removing at once. And in answer to the request of 
 his friends that he would raise his terms, " I am con- 
 firmed in my resolution not to do so," he writes in 
 1827, " lest I should get the sons of very great people
 
 48 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 as my pupils whom it is almost impossible to sophron- 
 ize." In reply to a friend in 1821, who had asked his 
 advice iu a difficult case of dealing with a pupil, 
 
 " I have no douot," he answers, " that you have acted per- 
 fectly right; for lenity is seldom to be repented of; and be- 
 sides, if you should find that it has been ill bestowed, you can 
 have recourse to expulsion after all. But it is clearly right 
 to try your chance of making an impression ; and if you can 
 make any at all, it is at once your justification and encourage- 
 ment to proceed. It is very often like kicking a football up 
 hill ; you kick it onwards twenty yards, and it rolls back nine- 
 teen ; still you have gained one yard, and thus in a good many 
 kicks you make some progress. This, however, is on the sup- 
 position that the pupil's fault is axpcuria and not xoxm ; for if 
 he laughs behind your back at what you say to him, he will 
 corrupt others, and then there is no help for it, but he must 
 go. This is to me all the difference : I would be as patient 
 as I possibly could with irresolution, unsteadiness, and fits of 
 idleness ; but if a pupil has set his mind to do nothing, but 
 considers all the work as so much fudge, which he will evade 
 if he can, I have made up my resolution that I will send him 
 away without scruple ; for not to speak of the heartless 
 trouble that such an animal would give to myself, he is a liv- 
 ing principle of mischief in the house, being ready at all times 
 to pervert his companions ; and this determination I have ex- 
 pressed publicly, and if I know myself I will act upon it, and 
 I advise you most heartily to do the same. Thus, then, with 
 
 Mr. , when he appeared penitent and made professions 
 
 of amendment, you were clearly right to give him a longer 
 trial. If he be sincere, however unsteady and backsliding, 
 he will not hurt the principles of your other pupils ; for he 
 will not glory in his own misconduct, which I suppose is the 
 danger ; but if you have reason to think that the impression 
 you made on him was only temporary, and that it has since 
 entirely gone away, and his own evil principles as well as evil 
 practices are in vigor, then I would advise you to send him 
 off without delay ; for then taking the mischief he will do to 
 others into the account, the football rolls down twenty-five 
 yards to your kick of twenty, and that is a losing game." 
 
 k< t> 'E\0umj oftvvr) TroXXa <f>povfovra irtp ftrf^fvos Kpartfiv" he 
 writes, "must be the feeling of many a working tutor who 
 cannot open the eyes of his pupils to see what knowledge is, 
 I do not mean human knowledge only, but ' wisdom.' "
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 49 
 
 "You could scarcely conceive the rare instances of igno- 
 rance that I have met with amongst them. One had no 
 notion of what was meant by an angel ; another could not tell 
 how many Gospels there are, nor could he, after due delibe- 
 ration, recollect any other names than Matthew, Mark, and 
 Luke ; and a third holds the first concord in utter contempt, 
 and makes the infinitive mood supply the place of the princi- 
 pal verb in the sentence without the least suspicion of any 
 impropriety. My labor, therefore, is more irksome than I 
 have ever known it; but none of my pupils give me any 
 uneasiness on the most serious points, and five of them stayed 
 the sacrament when it was last administered. I ought con- 
 stantly to impress upon my mind how light an evil is the 
 greatest ignorance or dulness when compared with habits 
 of profligacy, or even of wilful irregularity and riotous- 
 ness." 
 
 " I regret in your son," he says, (in writing to a parent,) " a 
 carelessness which does not allow him to think seriously of 
 what he is living for, and to do what is right not merely as a 
 matter of regularity, but because it is a duty. I trust you 
 will not think that I am meaning anything more than my 
 words convey, or that what I am regretting in your son is not 
 to be found in nineteen out of twenty young men of his age ; 
 but I conceive that you would wish me to form my desire of 
 what your son should be, not according to the common stand- 
 ard, but according to the highest, to be satisfied with no less 
 in him than I should have been anxious to find in a son of my 
 own. He is capable of doing a great deal ; and I have not 
 seen anything in him which has called for reproof since he 
 has been with me. I am only desirous that he should work 
 more heartily, just, in short, as he would work if he took an 
 interest of himself in his own improvement. On this, of 
 course, all distinction in Oxford must depend : but much more 
 than distinction depends on it; for the difference between a 
 useful education, and one which does not affect the future life, 
 rests mainly on the greater or less activity which it has com- 
 municated to the pupil's mind; whether he has learned to 
 think, or to act, and to gain knowledge by himself, or whether 
 he has merely followed passively as long as there was some 
 one to draw him." 
 
 It is needless to anticipate the far more extended in- 
 fluence which he exercised over his Rugby scholars, by
 
 50 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 describing in detail the impression produced upon his 
 pupils at Laleham. Yet the mere difference of the 
 relation in which he stood towards them in itself gave 
 a peculiar character to his earlier sphere of education, 
 and as such may best be described in the words of one 
 amongst those whom he most esteemed, Mr. Price, 
 who afterwards became one of his assistant-masters at 
 Rugby. 
 
 " Nearly eighteen years have passed away since I resided 
 at Laleham, and I had the misfortune of being but two months 
 as a pupil there. I am unable, therefore, to give you a com- 
 plete picture of the Laleham life of my late revered tutor ; I 
 can only impart to you such impressions as my brief sojourn 
 there has indelibly fixed in my recollection. 
 
 " The most remarkable thing which struck me at once on 
 joining the Laleham circle was, the wonderful healthiness of 
 tone and feeling which prevailed in it. Everything about me 
 I immediately found to be most real ; it was a place where a 
 new comer at once felt that a great and earnest work was 
 going forward. Dr. Arnold's great power as a private tutor 
 resided in this, that he gave such an intense earnestness to 
 life. Every pupil was made to feel that there was a work for 
 him to do, that his happiness as well as his duty lay in doing 
 that work well. Hence an indescribable zest was communi- 
 cated to a young man's feeling about life ; a strange joy came 
 over him on discovering that he had the means of being use- 
 ful, and thus of being happy ; and a deep respect and ardent 
 attachment sprang up towards him who had taught him thus 
 to value life and his own self, and his work and mission in 
 this world. All this was founded on the breadth and compre- 
 hensiveness of Arnold's character, as well as its striking truth 
 and reality ; on the unfeigned regard he had for work of all 
 kinds, and the sense he had of its value both for the complex 
 
 * I cannot allow Mr. Price's name to appear in these pages, without ex- 
 pressing how much I am indebted to him for the assistance which, amidst 
 his many pressing duties, he has rendered to this work, not only here but 
 throughout, and which in many cases, from his long knowledge and com- 
 plete understanding of Dr. Arnold's views and character, he alone could 
 nave rendered. Nothing, indeed, but the very fact of the perpetual recur- 
 rence of instances in which I have availed myself not only of his sugges- 
 tions, but of his words, would have prevented me from more frequently 
 acknowledging obligations, for which I here wish to return my thanka, 
 however inadequately, once for all.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 51 
 
 aggregate of society and the growth and perfection of the indi- 
 vidual. Thus, pupils of the most different natures were keenly 
 stimulated ; none felt that he was left out, or that, because he 
 was not endowed with large powers of mind, there was no 
 sphere open to him in the honorable pursuit of usefulness. 
 This wonderful power of making all his pupils respect them- 
 selves, and of awakening in them a consciousness of the duties 
 that God assigned to them personally, and of the consequent 
 reward each should have of his labors, was one of Arnold's 
 most characteristic features as a trainer of youth; he pos- 
 sessed it eminently at Rugby ; but, if I may trust my own 
 vivid recollections, he had it quite as remarkably at Laleham. 
 His hold over all his pupils I know perfectly astonished me. 
 It was not so much an enthusiastic admiration for his genius, 
 or learning, or eloquence which stirred within them ; it was a 
 sympathetic thrill, caught from a spirit that was earnestly at 
 work in the world, whose work was healthy, sustained, and 
 constantly carried forward in the fear of God, a work that 
 was founded on a deep sense of its duty and its value ; and 
 was coupled with such a true humility, such an unaffected 
 simplicity, that others could not help being invigorated by the 
 same feeling, and with the belief that they too in their meas- 
 ure could go and do likewise. 
 
 " In all this there was no excitement, no predilection for one 
 class of work above another ; no enthusiasm for any one-sided 
 object; but an humble, profound, and most religious con- 
 sciousness that work is the appointed calling of man on earth, 
 the end for which his various faculties were given, the element 
 in which his nature is ordained to develop itself, and in which 
 his progressive advance towards heaven is to lie. Hence, 
 each pupil felt assured of Arnold's sympathy in his own par- 
 ticular growth and character of talent ; in striving to cultivate 
 his own gifts, in whatever direction they might lead him, he 
 infallibly found Arnold not only approving, but positively and 
 sincerely valuing for themselves the results he had arrived at ; 
 and that approbation and esteem gave a dignity and a worth 
 both to himself and his labor. 
 
 ' His humility was very deeply seated ; his respect for all 
 knowledge sincere. A strange feeling passed over the pupil's 
 mind when he found great, and often undue, credit given him 
 for knowledge of which his tutor was ignorant. But this gen- 
 erated no conceit : the example before his eyes daily reminded 
 him that it was only as a means of usefulness, as an improve-
 
 52 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ment of talents for his own good and that of others, that 
 knowledge was valued. He could not find comfort, in the 
 presence of such reality, in any shallow knowledge. 
 
 " There was then, as afterwards, great simplicity in his 
 religious character. It was no isolated part of his nature, it 
 was a bright and genial light shining on every branch of his 
 life. He took very great pains with the Divinity lessons of 
 his pupils : and his lectures were admirable, and, I distinctly 
 remember, very highly prized for their depth and originality. 
 Neither generally in ordinary conversation, nor in his walks 
 with his pupils, was his style of speaking directly or mainly 
 religious ; but he was ever very ready to discuss any religious 
 question ; whilst the depth and truth of his nature, and the 
 earnestness of his religious convictions and feelings, were ever 
 bursting forth, so as to make it strongly felt that his life, both 
 outward and inward, was rooted in God. 
 
 " In the details of daily business, the quantity of time that 
 he devoted to his pupils was very remarkable. Lessons began 
 at seven, and with the interval of breakfast lasted till nearly 
 three ; then he would walk with his pupils, and dine at half- 
 past five. At seven he usually had some lesson on hand ; and 
 it was only when we ah 1 were gathered up in the drawing- 
 room after tea, amidst young men on all sides of him, that he 
 would commence work for himself, in writing his sermons or 
 Roman History. 
 
 " Who that ever had the happiness of being at Laleham, 
 does not remember the lightness and joyousness of heart with 
 which he would romp and play in the garden, or plunge with 
 a boy's delight into the Thames ; or the merry fun with which 
 he would battle with spears with his pupils ? Which of them 
 does not recollect how the tutor entered into his amusements 
 with scarcely less glee than himself? 
 
 " But I must conclude : I do not pretend to touch on every 
 point. I have told you what struck me most, and I have tried 
 to keep away all remembrance of what he was when I knew 
 him better. I have confined myself to the impression Laic- 
 ham left upon me. 
 
 B. PRICE." 
 
 The studies which most occupied his spare time at 
 Laleham were philology and history, and he employed 
 himself chiefly on a Lexicon of Thucydides, and also 
 on an edition of that author with Latin notes, subse-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 53 
 
 quently exchanged for English ones, a short History of 
 Greece, never finished or published, and on articles on 
 Roman History from the times of the Gracchi to that 
 of Trajan, written for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, 
 between 1821 and 1827. 
 
 It was in 1825 that, through the recommendation of 
 Archdeacon Hare, he first became acquainted with 
 Niebuhr's History of Rome. In the study of this 
 work, which was the first German book he ever read, 
 and for the sake of reading which he had learned that 
 language, a new intellectual world dawned upon him, 
 not only in the subject to which it related, but in the 
 disclosure to him of the depth and research of German 
 literature, which from that moment he learned more 
 and more to appreciate, and, as far as his own occupa- 
 tions would allow him, to emulate. 
 
 On his view of Roman History its effect was imme- 
 diate : " It is a work (he writes on first perusing it) 
 of such extraordinary ability and learning, that it 
 opened wide before my eyes the extent of my own 
 ignorance ; " and he at once resolved to delay any in- 
 dependent work of his own till he had more completely 
 studied the new field of inquiry suggested to him, in 
 addition to the doubts he had himself already ex- 
 pressed as to the authenticity of much of the early 
 Roman history in one of his first articles in the Ency- 
 clopaedia Metropolitana. In an article in the Quar- 
 terly Review of 1825, he was (to use Niebuhr's own 
 words of thanks to him in the second edition of his 
 first volume, Note 1053, i. p. 451, Engl. Transl.) " the 
 scholar who introduced the first edition of this history 
 to the English public ; " and the feeling which had 
 dictated this friendly notice of it grew with years. 
 The reluctance which he had at first entertained to 
 admit the whole of Niebuhr's conclusions, and which 
 remained even to 1832, when in regard to his views of 
 ancient history he was inclined to " charge him with 
 a tendency to excessive scepticism," (Pref. to 1st ed. 
 of 2d vol. of Thucyd. p. xiv.,) settled by degrees into 
 
 5*
 
 54 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 a determination "never to differ from him without 
 a full consciousness of the probability that further 
 inquiry might prove him to be right ; " (Pref. to Hist, 
 of Rome, vol. i. p. x. ;) and with this increasing adhe- 
 sion to his views, increased also a sentiment of some- 
 thing like personal veneration, which made him, as 
 he used to say, " at once enmlous and hopeless," ren- 
 dering him jealous for Niebuhr's reputation, as if for 
 his own, and anxious, amidst the pressure of his other 
 occupations, to undertake, or at least superintend, the 
 translation of the third volume when it was given up 
 by Hare and Thirlwall, from a " desire to have his 
 name connected with the translation of that great 
 work, which no one had studied more or admired 
 more entirely." But yet more than by his mere read- 
 ing, all these feelings towards Niebuhr, towards Ger- 
 many, and towards Roman history, were strengthened 
 by his visit to Rome in 1827, and by the friendship 
 which he there formed with Chevalier Bunsen, suc- 
 cessor to Niebuhr as minister at the Papal court. He 
 was at Rome only thirteen days, but the sight of the 
 city and of the neighborhood, to which he devoted 
 himself to the almost entire exclusion of the works of 
 art, gave him a living interest in Rome which he had 
 before wanted and which he never lost. The Cheva- 
 lier Bunsen he saw no more till 1838 ; but the conver- 
 sation which he had there enjoyed with him formed 
 the ground of an unbroken intercourse by letters be- 
 tween them : by his encouragement he was principally 
 induced in later years to resume the History of Rome, 
 which he eventually dedicated to him ; whilst dwell- 
 ing on the many points of resemblance between their 
 peculiar pursuits and general views, he used to turn 
 with enthusiastic delight to seek for his sympathy from 
 the isolation in which he often seemed to be placed in 
 his own country. 
 
 But now, as afterwards, he found himself most at- 
 tracted towards the Interpretation of Scripture and 
 the more practical aspect of Theology ; and he was
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 55 
 
 only restrained from entering upon the study of them 
 more directly, partly by diffidence in his own powers, 
 partly by a sense that more time was needed for their 
 investigation than he had at his command. His early 
 intimacy with the leading men of the then Oriel school, 
 remarkable as it was for exhibiting a union of relig- 
 ious earnestness with intellectual activity, and distinct 
 from any existing party amongst the English clergy, 
 contributed to foster the independence which charac- 
 terized his theological and ecclesiastical views from the 
 first time that he took any real interest in serious mat- 
 ters. And he used to look back to a visit to Dr. 
 Whatcly, then residing on his cure in Suffolk, as a 
 marked era in the formation of his views, especially as 
 opening to his mind, or impressing upon it more 
 strongly, some of the opinions on which he afterwards 
 laid so much stress with regard to the Christian Priest- 
 hood. 
 
 But although in the way of modification or confir- 
 mation his thoughts owed much to the influence of 
 others, there was always, even at this less stirring 
 period of his mind, an original spring within. The 
 words, " He that judgeth me is the Lord," as they stand 
 at the head of one of the most characteristic sermons of 
 this period,* are a true expression of his general views at 
 this time of his life. The distinctness and force with 
 which the words and acts recorded in the Gospel His- 
 tory came before him, seemed to have impressed him 
 early with a conviction that there was something in 
 them very different from what was implied in the 
 common mode of talking and acting on religious sub- 
 jects. The recollections of his conversations which 
 have been preserved from this period abound with ex- 
 pressions of his strong sense of the " want of Christian 
 principle in the literature of the day," and an anxious 
 foreboding of the possible results which might thence 
 ensue in the case of any change in existing notions 
 and circumstances. " I fear," he said, " the approach 
 
 * Serm. vol. i. p. 229
 
 56 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of a greater struggle between good and evil than the 
 world has yet seen, in which there may well happen 
 the greatest trial to the faith of good men that can be 
 imagined, if the greatest talent and ability are decid- 
 edly on the side of their adversaries, and they will 
 have nothing but faith and holiness to oppose to it." 
 " Something of this kind," he said, " may have been the 
 meaning or part of the meaning of the words, ' that by 
 signs and wonders they should deceive even the elect.' 
 What I should be afraid of would be, that good men, tak- 
 ing alarm at the prevailing spirit, would fear to yield 
 even points they could not maintain, instead of wisely 
 giving them up, and holding on where they could." 
 Hence one object of his early attempts at his Roman 
 History was the hope, as he said, that its tone might be 
 such " that the strictest of what is called the Evangelical 
 party would not object to putting it into the hands of 
 their children." Hence again he earnestly desired to 
 see some leading periodical taking a decidedly religious 
 tone, unconnected with any party feeling : 
 
 " It would be a most happy event," he writes in 1822, "if 
 a work which has so great a sale, and contains so much curi- 
 ous information, and has so much the tone of men of the 
 world, [as the Quarterly Review,] could be disciplined to a 
 uniformly Christian spirit, and appear to uphold good prin- 
 ciples for their own sake, and not merely as tending to the 
 maintenance of things as they are. It would be delightful to 
 see a work sincerely Christian, which should be neither High 
 Church, nor what is called Evangelical." 
 
 Out of this general sense of the extreme contrast be- 
 tween the high standard of the Christian religion and 
 the evils of the existing state of Christendom, espe- 
 cially in his own age and country, arose one by one 
 those views which, when afterwards formed into a col- 
 lected whole, became the animating principle of his 
 public life, but which it is not necessary to anticipate 
 here, except by indicating how rapidly they were in 
 the process of formation in his own mind. 
 
 It was now that his political views began to free
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 57 
 
 themselves alike from the mere childish Jacobinism of 
 his boyhood, and from the hardly less stable Toryism 
 which he had imbibed from the influence of his early 
 Oxford friends a change which is best to be seen in 
 his own words, in a letter to Mr Justice Coleridge 
 many years afterwards (Jan. 26, 1840). And though 
 his interest in public affairs was much less keen at this 
 period than in the subsequent stages of his life, his 
 letters contain, especially after 1826, indications of the 
 same lively sense of social evils, founded on his knowl- 
 edge of history, which became more and more a part 
 of his habitual thoughts. 
 
 " I think daily," he said, in speaking of the disturbances in 
 1819, "of Thucydides, and the Corcyrean sedition, and of 
 the story of the French Revolution, and of the Cassandra-like 
 fate of history, whose lessons are read in vain even to the 
 very next generation." 
 
 "I cannot tell you," he writes in 1826, "how the present 
 state of the country occupies my mind, and what a restless 
 desire I feel that it were in my power to do any good. My 
 chief fear is that when the actual suffering is a little abated, 
 people will go on as usual, and not probing to the bottom the 
 deep disease which is to my mind insuring no ordinary share 
 of misery in the country before many years are over. But 
 we know that it is our own fault if our greatest trials do not 
 turn out to be our greatest advantages." 
 
 In ecclesiastical matters in like manner he had al- 
 ready begun to conceive the necessity of great altera- 
 tions in the Church Establishment, a feeling which 
 at this period, when most persons seemed to acquiesce 
 in its existing state, was naturally stronger than in 
 the later years of his life, when the attacks to which 
 it was exposed from without and from within ap- 
 peared at times to endanger its existence. 
 
 " I hope to be allowed before I die, to accomplish some- 
 thing on Education, and also with regard to the Church," he 
 writes in 1826; "the last indeed even more than the other, 
 were not the task, humanly speaking, so hopeless. But the 
 more I think of the matter, and the more I read of the
 
 58 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Scriptures themselves, and of the history of the Church, the 
 more intense is my wonder at the language of admiration 
 with which some men speak of the Church of England, which 
 certainly retains the foundation sure as all other Christian 
 societies do, except the Unitarians, but has overlaid it with a 
 very sufficient quantity of hay and stubble, which I devoutly 
 hope to see burnt one day in the fire. I know that other 
 churches have their faults also, but what have I to do with 
 them ? It is idle to speculate in attend reputtica, but to re- 
 form one's own is a business which nearly concerns us." 
 
 His lively appreciation of the high standard of prac' 
 tical and social excellence, enjoined in the Christian 
 dispensation, was also guiding him to those principles 
 of interpretation of Scripture, which he applied so ex- 
 tensively in his later works. 
 
 u The tendency," he writes to Dr. Hawkins in 1827, " which 
 so many Christians have had and still have, to fancy that the 
 goodness of the old Patriarchs was absolute rather than rela- 
 tive, and that men who are spoken of as having had personal 
 communication with God, must have had as great knowledge 
 of a future state as ourselves, is expressed in one of G. Her- 
 bert's poems, in which he seems to look upon the revelations 
 of the patriarchal Church almost with envy, as if they had 
 nearer communion with God than Christians have. All 
 which seems to me to arise out of a forgetfulness or misap- 
 prehension of the privileges of Christians in their communion 
 with the Holy Spirit, and to originate partly in the trithe- 
 istic notions of the Trinity, which make men involuntarily 
 consider the Third Person as inferior in some degree to those 
 wh'o are called First and Second, whereas the Third relation 
 of the Deity to man is rather the most perfect of all ; as it is 
 that in which God communes with man, not ' as a man talketh 
 with his friend,' but as a Spirit holding discourse invisibly 
 and incomprehensibly, but more effectually than by any out- 
 ward address with the spirits only of his creatures. And 
 therefore it was expedient for the disciples that God should 
 be with their hearts as the Spirit, rather than speaking to 
 their ears as the Son. This will give you the clew to my N 
 view of the Old Testament, which I never can look upon as 
 addressed to men having a Faith in Christ such as Chris- 
 tians have, or looking forward to eternal life with any settled 
 and uniform hope."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 59 
 
 Lastly, the following extracts give his approaches 
 to his subsequent views on Church and State. 
 
 " What say you," he writes in 1827, to Dr. Whately, " to 
 a work on TroAmKi), in the old Greek sense of the word, in 
 which I should try to apply the principles of the Gospel to 
 the legislation and administration of a state ? It would begin 
 with a simple statement of the reXos of man according to 
 Christianity, and then would go on to show how the knowl- 
 edge of this reXof would affect all our views of national wealth, 
 and the whole question of political economy ; and also our 
 practice with regard to wars, oaths, and various other relics 
 of the crroi^fla TOW KOCT/XOU." 
 
 And to Mr. Blackstoiie in the same year : 
 
 " I have long had in my mind a work on Christian Politics, 
 or the application of the Gospel to the state of man as a 
 citizen, in which the whole question of a religious establish- 
 ment and of the education proper for Christian members of 
 a Christian Commonwealth would naturally find a place. It 
 would embrace also an historical sketch of the pretended con- 
 version of the kingdoms of the world to the kingdom of Christ 
 in the fourth and fifth centuries, which I look upon as one 
 of the greatest tours d'adresse that Satan ever played, except 
 his invention of Popery. I mean that by inducing kings and 
 nations to conform nominally to Christianity, and thus to get 
 into their hands the direction of Christian society, he has 
 in a great measure succeeded in keeping out the peculiar 
 principles of that society from any extended sphere of opera- 
 tion, and in insuring the ascendency of his own. One real 
 conversion there seems to have been, that of the Anglo- 
 Saxons ; but that he soon succeeded in corrupting ; and at 
 the Norman Conquest we had little I suppose to lose even 
 from the more direct introduction of Popery and worldly 
 religion which came in with the Conqueror." 
 
 All these floating visions, which were not realized 
 till long afterwards, are best represented in the first 
 volume of his Sermons, which were preached in the 
 parish church at Laleham, and form by far the most 
 characteristic record of this period. 
 
 " My object," he said in his Preface, " has been to bring
 
 60 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the great principles of the Gospel home to the hearts and 
 practices of my own countrymen in my own time and 
 particularly to those of my own station in society, with whose 
 sentiments and language I am naturally most familiar, and 
 for this purpose, I have tried to write in such a style as 
 might be used in real life, in serious conversation with our 
 friends, or with those who asked our advice ; in the language, 
 in short, of common life, and applied to the cases of common 
 life ; but ennobled and strengthened by those principles and 
 feelings which are to be found only in the Gospel." 
 
 Tliis volume is, not only in the time of its appear- 
 ance, but also in its style and substance, the best 
 introduction to all his later works ; the very absence 
 of any application to particular classes or states of 
 opinion, such as gives more interest to his subsequent 
 sermons, is the more fitted to exhibit his fundamental 
 views, often not developed in his own mind, in their 
 naked simplicity. And it is in itself worthy of notice, 
 as being the first or nearly the first attempt, since fol- 
 lowed in many other quarters, at breaking through the 
 conventional pliraseology with which English preach- 
 ing had been so long encumbered, and at uniting 
 the language of reality and practical sense with names 
 and words which, in the minds of so many of the 
 educated classes, had become closely associated with 
 notions of sectarianism or extravagance. 
 
 It was published in 1828, immediately after his re- 
 moval to Rugby, and had a rapid circulation. Many, 
 both then and long afterwards, who most differed from 
 some of his more peculiar opinions, rejoiced in the pos- 
 session of a volume which contained so much in which 
 they agreed, and so little from which they differed. 
 The objections to its style or substance may best be 
 gathered from the following extracts of his own letters. 
 
 1. u If the sermons are read, I do not care one farthing if 
 the readers think me the most unclassical writer in the 
 English language. It will only remove me to a greater 
 distance from the men of elegant minds with whom I shall 
 most loathe to be associated. But, however, I have looked
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 61 
 
 at the sermons again, with a view to correcting the baldness 
 which you complain of, and in some places I have endeav- 
 ored to correct it. And I again assure you, that I will not 
 knowingly leave unaltered anything violent, harsh, or dog- 
 matical. I am not conscious of the ex-cathedra tone of my 
 sermons at least not beyond what appears to me proper 
 in the pulpit, where one does in a manner speak ex cathedra. 
 But I think my decided tone is generally employed in putting 
 forward the sentiments of Scripture, not in drawing my own 
 conclusions from it." 
 
 2. In answer to a complaint that " they carry the standard 
 so high as to unchristianize half the community," he says, " I 
 do not see how the standard can be carried higher than Christ 
 or his Apostles carry it, and I do not think that we ought to 
 put it lower. I am sure that the habitually fixing it so much 
 lower, especially in all our institutions and public practice, 
 has been most mischievous." 
 
 3. " I am very much gratified by what you say of my ser- 
 mons ; yet pained to find that their tone is generally felt to 
 be so hard and severe. I believe the reason is, that I mostly 
 thought of my pupils in preaching, and almost always of the 
 higher classes, who I cannot but think have commonly very 
 little of the ' bruised reed ' about them. You must remem- 
 ber that I never had the regular care of a parish, and there- 
 fore have seen comparatively little of those cases of a troubled 
 spirit, and of a fearful and anxious conscience, which require 
 comfort far more than warning. But still, after all, I fear 
 that the intense mercy of the Gospel has not been so prom- 
 inently represented as it should have been, while I have been 
 laboring to express its purity." 
 
 . Meanwhile his friends had frequently represented to 
 him the desirableness of a situation which would se- 
 cure a more certain provision, and a greater sphere 
 of usefulness than that which he occupied at Lale- 
 ham ; and he had been urged, more than once, to 
 stand for the Mastership at Winchester, which he had 
 declined first from a distrust of his own fitness or in- 
 clination for the office, and afterwards from more 
 general reasons. But the expense of the neighbor- 
 hood of Laleham had already determined him to leave 
 it, and he was framing plans for a change of life, when, 
 
 TOL. I. 6
 
 62 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 in August, 1827, the head-mastership of Rugby be* 
 came vacant by the resignation of Dr. Wooll, who 
 had held it for twenty-one years. It was not till late 
 in the contest for the situation that he finally resolved 
 to offer himself as a candidate. When, therefore, his 
 testimonials were sent in to the twelve trustees, noble- 
 men and gentlemen of Warwickshire, in whom the 
 appointment rests, the canvass for the office had ad- 
 vanced so far as to leave him, in the opinion of him- 
 self and many of his friends, but little hope of success. 
 On the day of the decision, the testimonials of the 
 several candidates were read over in the order in 
 which they had been sent in ; his own were there- 
 fore among the last ; and whilst none of the trustees 
 were personally acquainted with him, few, if any of 
 them, owing to the lateness of his appearance, had 
 heard his name before. His testimonials were few 
 in number, and most of them couched in general lan- 
 guage, but all speaking strongly of his qualifications. 
 Amongst them was a letter from Dr. Hawkins, now 
 Provost of Oriel, in which it was predicted that, if Mr. 
 Arnold were elected to the head-mastership of Rugby, 
 he would change the face of education all through the 
 public schools of England. The trustees had deter- 
 mined to be guided entirely by the merits of the candi- 
 dates, and the impression produced upon them by this 
 letter, and by the general confidence in him expressed 
 in all the testimonials, was such, that he was elected 
 at once, in December, 1827. In June, 1828, he re- 
 ceived Priest's orders from Dr. Howley, then Bishop 
 of London ; in April and November of the same year 
 took his degree of B. D. and D. D. ; and in August 
 entered on his new office. 
 
 The following letters and extracts have been se- 
 lected, not so much as important in themselves, but 
 rather as illustrating the course of his thoughts and 
 general views at this period.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 63 
 
 LETTERS FROM 1817 TO 1828. 
 
 I. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Oxford, May 28, 1817. 
 
 I thank you very heartily for the kindness which 
 
 all your letter displays, and I cannot better show my sense 
 of it than by telling you without reserve my feelings and 
 arguments on both sides of the question. The study of the 
 law, in many respects, I think I should like, and certainly 
 it holds out better encouragement to any ambitious particles 
 which I may have in my nature than the Church does. But 
 I do not think, if I know myself, which perhaps is begging 
 an important question, that my sober inclinations would lead 
 me to the law so much as to the Church. I am sure the 
 church would be the best for me, for as I hope never to enter 
 it with light views, so the forming my mind to a proper sense 
 of the clerical duties and then an occasion and call for the 
 practice of them immediately succeeding, would I trust be 
 most beneficial to me. To effect this, I have great advan- 
 tages in the advice and example of many of my friends here 
 in Oxford, and whether I know myself or not is another ques- 
 tion, but I most sincerely feel that I could with most pleasure 
 devote myself to the employments of a clergyman ; and that 
 I never should for a moment put any prospects of ambition 
 or worldly honor in competition with the safe happiness which 
 I think a clergyman's life would grant me. Seriously, I am 
 afraid of the law ; I know how much even here I am led 
 away by various occupations from those studies and feelings 
 which are essential to every man ; and I dare not risk the 
 consequences of such a necessary diversion of mind from all 
 religious subjects, as would be caused by my attending to a 
 study so engrossing as that of law. To this I am sure in your 
 eyes nothing need be added ; but besides I doubt whether my 
 health would support so much reading and confinement to 
 the house ; and after all, knowing who are at this moment 
 contending for the prizes of the law, it would, I think, be 
 folly to stake much on the chance of my success. Again, my 
 present way of life enables me to be a great deal at home 
 with my mother, aunt, and sister, who are all so circumstanced 
 that I should not think myself justified in lightly choosing any 
 occupation that would separate me greatly from them. On
 
 64 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the other hand, if I find that I cannot conscientiously sub- 
 scribe to the articles of the Church, be assured I never will 
 go into orders, but even then I should doubt whether I could 
 support either the expense or labor of the law. I hope you 
 have overrated my " ambitious, disputatious, and democrat- 
 ical" propensities; if, indeed, I have not more of the two 
 first than of the last, I think J should not hesitate about my 
 fitness for the Church, as far as they are concerned. I think 
 you have not quite a correct notion of my political faith ; per- 
 haps I have not myself, but I do not think I am democratically 
 inclined, and God forbid I should ever be such a clergyman 
 as Home Tooke. 
 
 II. TO REV. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 
 Laleham, September 20, 1819. 
 
 Poor dear old Oxford ! if I live till I am eighty, 
 
 and were to enjoy all the happiness that the warmest wish 
 could desire, I should never forget, or cease to look back with 
 something of a painful feeling on the years we were together 
 there, and on all the delights that we have lost ; and I look 
 forward with extreme delight to my intended journey, down 
 to the audit in October, when I shall take a long and last 
 farewell of my old haunts, and will, if I possibly can, yet 
 take one more look at Bagley Wood, and the pretty field, 
 and the wild stream that flows down between Bullington and 
 Cowley Marsh, not forgetting even your old friend, "the 
 Lower London Road." Well, I must endeavor to get some 
 such associations to combine with Laleham and its neighbor- 
 hood ; but at present all is harsh, and ruffled, like woods in a 
 high wind, only I am beginning to love my own little study, 
 where I have a sofa full of books, as of old, and the two verse 
 books lying about on it, and a volume of Herodotus ; and 
 vrhere I sit up and read or write till twelve or one o'clock. 
 
 HI. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 (On a proposal of a Mastership nt Winchester.) 
 
 Laleham, October 2$, 1819. 
 
 I might defer any discussion of the prospects which you 
 recommend to me till we meet, were it a subject on which I 
 could feel any hesitation in making up my mind. But thank-
 
 LIFE OF DE. ARNOLD. 65 
 
 rng you as I do very sincerely for the kindness of your sug- 
 gestion, the situation which you advise me to try for, is one 
 which nothing but the most positive call of duty would ever 
 induce me to accept, were it even offered to me. It is one 
 which, in the first place, I know myself very ill qualified to 
 fill; and it would besides completely upset every scheme 
 which I have formed for my future comfort in life. I know 
 that success in my present undertaking is of course doubtful ; 
 still my chance is, I think, tolerably fair, not indeed of making 
 my fortune, but of earning such an income as shall enable me 
 to live with economy as a married man ; and, as far as I can 
 now foresee, I should wish to continue for many years at 
 Laleham, and the house, which I have got on a long lease, 
 is one which I already feel very well inclined to regard as my 
 settled and permanent home in this world. My present way 
 of life I have tried, and am perfectly contented with it ; and 
 I know pretty well what the life of a master of Winchester 
 would be, and feel equally certain that it would be to me 
 excessively disagreeable. I do hot think you could say any- 
 thing to shake me for an instant on this head ; still believe 
 me that I am very much obliged to you for the friendliness 
 of your recommendation, which I decline for reasons that in 
 all probability many people would think very empty and 
 ridiculous. 
 
 IV. TO KEY. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, November 20, 1819. 
 
 This day eight years, about this time, we were assembled 
 in the Junior Common Room, to celebrate the first founda- 
 tion of the room, and had been amused by hearing Bartholo- 
 mew's song about " Musical George," and " Political Tommy," 
 and now, of the party then assembled, you are the only one 
 still left in Oxford, and the rest of us are scattered over the 
 face of the earth to our several abodes. There is a " souvenir 
 interessant " for you, as a Frenchman would say, and one full 
 well fitted for a November evening. But do you know that 
 I am half disposed to quarrel with you, instead of giving you 
 " Souvenirs " for did you not covenant to write to me first ? 
 
 Indeed, in the pictures that I have to form of my 
 
 future life, my friends have always held a part ; and it has 
 been a great delight to me to think, that M. will feel doubly 
 and naturally bound to so many of them, that she will havo 
 6* E
 
 66 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 little trouble in learning to love them, and the benefits which 
 I have received from my Oxford friendships have been so 
 invaluable, as relating to points of the very highest impor- 
 tance, that it is impossible for me ever to forget them, or to 
 cease to look on them as the greatest blessings I have ever 
 yet enjoyed in life, and for which I have the deepest reason 
 to be most thankful. Being then separated from you all, I 
 am most anxious that absence should not be allowed to 
 weaken the regard we bear each other : and besides, I can- 
 not forego that advice and assistance which I have so long 
 been accustomed to rely on, and with which I cannot as yet 
 at least safely dispense ; for the management of my own mind 
 is a thing so difficult, and brings me into contact with much 
 that is so strangely mysterious, that I stand at times quite 
 bewildered, in a chaos where I can see no light either before 
 or behind. How much of all this is constitutional and phys- 
 ical I cannot tell, perhaps a great deal of it ; yet it is surely 
 dangerous to look upon all .the struggles of the mind as 
 arising from the state of the body or the weather, and so 
 resolve to bestow no attention upon them. Indeed, I think 
 I have far more reason to be annoyed at the extraordinary 
 apathy and abstraction from everything good, which the rou- 
 tine of the world's business brings with it ; there are whole 
 days in which ah 1 the feelings or principles of belief, or of 
 religion altogether, are in utter abeyance ; when one goes on 
 very comfortably, pleased with external and worldly comforts, 
 and yet would find it difficult, if told to inquire, to find a 
 particle of Christian principle in one's whole mind. It seems 
 all quite moved out bodily, and one retains no consciousness 
 of a belief in any one religious truth, but is living a life of 
 virtual Atheism. I suppose these things are equalized some- 
 how, but I am often inclined to wonder at and to envy those 
 who seem never to know what mental trouble is, and who 
 seem to have nothing else to disturb them than the common 
 petty annoyances of life, and when these let them alone, then 
 they are tv (viraddfia-i. But I would compound for all this, 
 if I could but find that I had any liking for what I ought to 
 like ; but there is the Sunday School here, for instance, which 
 I never visit without the strongest reluctance, and really the 
 thought of having this to do makes me quite dread the return 
 of the Sunday. I have got it now entirely into my own 
 hands, so attend it I must and will, if I can answer for my 
 perseverance, but it goes sadly against me.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 67 
 
 V. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Laleham, November 29, 1319. 
 
 At last I am going to redeem the promise which I made 
 so long ago, and to give you some account of our summa 
 rerum. I have had lately the additional work of a sermon 
 every week to write, and this has interfered very much with 
 my correspondence ; and I fear I have not yet acquired that 
 careful economy of time which men in your profession often 
 so well practise, and do not make the most of all the odd five 
 and ten minutes' spaces which I get in the course of the day. 
 However, I have at last begun my letter, and will first tell 
 you that I still like my business very well, and what is very 
 comfortable, I feel far more confidence in myself than I did 
 at first, and should not now dread having the sole manage- 
 ment of pupils, which at one time I should have shrunk from. 
 (After giving an account of the joint arrangemeht of the 
 school and the pupils with his brother-in-law ;) Buckland is 
 naturally fonder of the school, and is inclined to give it the 
 greatest part of his attention ; and I, from my Oxford habits, 
 as naturally like the other part of the business best ; and thus 
 I have extended my time of reading with our four pupils in 
 the morning before breakfast, from one hour to two. !Xot 
 that I dislike being in the school, but quite the contrary ; still, 
 however, I have not the experience in that sort of work, nor 
 the perfect familiarity with my grammar requisite to make a 
 good master, and I cannot teach Homer as well as my friends 
 Herodotus and Livy, whom I am now reading, I suppose, for 
 about the fiftieth time. 
 
 Nov. 30th. I was interrupted last night in the middle of 
 my letter, and as the evening is my only time for such occu- 
 pations, it cannot now go till to-morrow. You shall derive 
 this benefit, however, from the interruption, that I will 
 trouble you with no more details about the trade ; a subject 
 which I find growing upon me daily, from the retired life we 
 are leading, and from my being so much engrossed by it. 
 There are some very pleasant families settled in this place 
 besides ourselves ; they have been very civil to us, and in the 
 holidays I dare say we shall see much of them, but at present 
 I do not feel I have sufficient time to make an acquaintance, 
 and cannot readily submit to the needful sacrifice of formal 
 visits, fec., which must be the prelude to a more familiar 
 knowledge of any one. As it is, my garden claims a good
 
 68 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 portion of my spare time in the middle of the day, when I am 
 not engaged at home or taking a walk ; there is always some- 
 thing to interest me even in the very sight of the weeds and 
 litter, for then I think how much improved the place will be 
 when they are removed ; and it is very delightful to watch 
 the progress of any work of this sort, and observe the gradual 
 change from disorder and neglect to neatness and finish. In 
 the course of the autumn I have done much in planting and 
 altering, but these labors are now over, and I have now only 
 to hope for a mild winter as far as the shrubs are concerned, 
 that they may not all be dead when the spring comes. Of 
 the country about us, especially on the Surrey side, I have 
 explored much ; but not nearly so much as I could wish. It 
 is very beautiful, and some of the scenes at the junction of 
 the heath country with the rich valley of the Thames are 
 very striking. Or if I do not venture so far from home, I 
 have always a resource at hand in the bank of the river up to 
 Staines ; which, though it be perfectly flat, has yet a great 
 charm from its entire loneliness, there being not a house 
 anywhere near it ; and the river here has none of that stir of 
 boats and barges upon it, which makes it in many places as 
 
 public as the high road Of what is going on in the 
 
 world, or anywhere indeed out of Laleham, I know little or 
 nothing. I can get no letters from Oxford, the common 
 complaint I think of all who leave it ; and if Penrose did not 
 bring us sometimes a little news from Eton, and Hull from 
 London, I should really, when the holidays begin, find myself 
 
 six months behind the rest of the world 
 
 Don Juan has been with me for some weeks, but I am 
 determined not to read it, for I was so annoyed by some 
 specimens that I saw in glancing over the leaves, that I will 
 not worry myself with any more of it. I have read enough 
 of the debates since Parliament has met to make me marvel 
 at the nonsense talked on both sides, though I am afraid the 
 opposition have the palm out and out. The folly or the mis- 
 chievous obstinacy with which they persist in palliating the 
 excesses of the Jacobins is really scandalous, though I own I 
 do not wish to see Carlton House trimming up the constitu- 
 tion as if it were an hussar's uniform I feel, how 
 
 ever, growing less and less political.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 69 
 
 VI. TO KEY. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 
 Fledborough, January 3, 1820. 
 
 I conclude that Tucker is with you, so I will 
 
 begin by sending you both my heartiest wishes for a happy 
 new year ; and for you and yours, that you may long go on 
 as you have begun, and enjoy every succeeding New Year's 
 Day better and better, and have more solid grounds for the 
 enjoyment of it : and for Tucker, that he may taste equal 
 happiness even if it should not be precisely in the same way. 
 Well, here we are, almost at the extremities of the kingdom ; 
 Tucker and you at Sidmouth, and Trevenen and I at Fled- 
 borough We are snowed up all round, and shall be 
 
 drowned with the flood when it begins to thaw ; and as for 
 cold, at nine A. M. on Saturday the thermometer stood at 0. 
 Alas ! for my fingers. Good night " to both on ye," as the 
 poor crazy man used to say in Oxford I saw Cole- 
 ridge when I passed through town on the 22d, and also his 
 little girl, one of the nicest little children I ever saw. It 
 would have formed a strange contrast with past times, to have 
 seen us standing together in his drawing-room, he nursing the 
 baby in his arms, and dangling it very skilfully, and the little 
 animal in high spirits playing with my hair and clawing me, 
 and laughing very amusingly. 
 
 I found them all very well, and quite alone ; and since that 
 time I have not stirred beyond these parishes, and except on 
 Sundays have hardly gone further than the garden and the 
 great meadows on the Trent banks. These vast meadows 
 were flooded and frozen before the snow came, and being now 
 covered with snow, afford a very exact picture of those snowy 
 regions which Thalaba passed over on his way to consult the 
 great Simorg at Kaf. I never before saw so uninterrupted 
 and level a space covered with snow, and the effect of it, 
 when the sun is playing over it, is something remarkably 
 beautiful. The river, too, as I saw it in the intense frost of 
 Saturday morning, was uncommonly striking. It had sub- 
 sided to its natural bed before the snow came : but the frost 
 had set in so rapidly, that the water had been arrested in the 
 willows and thick bushes that overhang the stream, and was 
 forming on them icicles, and as it were fruits of crystal innu- 
 merable on every spray, while the snow formed besides a 
 wintry foliage exactly in character with such wintry fruit. 
 The river itself rolled dark and black between these glitter-
 
 70 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ing banks, full of floating masses of ice, which from time to 
 time dashed against each other, and as you looked up it in 
 the direction of the sun, it smoked like a furnace. So much 
 for description ! Well, now, I will tell you a marvel. I 
 wanted to bring down some presents for each of the sisters 
 here ; and for M I brought no other than George Her- 
 bert's Divine Songs, which I really bought out of my own 
 head, which " I like very much," which I endeavor to inter- 
 pret no easy matter in the hard parts and which I mean 
 to get for myself. Now do you not think I shall become 
 quite a right-thinking sort of person in good time? You 
 need not despair of hearing that I am a violent admirer of 
 Mr. Addison and Mr. Pope, and have given up " the Lord 
 Protector." 
 
 I owe Tucker many thanks for his letter altogeth- 
 er, and congratulate him on the Water-Eaton altar-piece, as I 
 condole with him on his abandonment of his ancient walks. 
 He ought to bind himself by vow to visit once a term each of 
 our old haunts, in mournful pilgrimage ; and as the spring 
 comes on, if the combined influence of wood-anemones, and 
 souvenirs, and nightingales, does not draw him to Bagley 
 Wood, I think the case must be desperate. I know I shall 
 myself cry once or twice in the course of the next half-year, 
 "Oubi Campi" 
 
 VII. TO REV. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 
 Lnleham, February 23, 1820. 
 
 ...... You must know that you are one of three persons 
 
 in the world to whom I hold it wrong to write short letters ; 
 that is to say, you are one of three on whom I can find it in 
 my heart to bestow all my tediousness ; and therefore, though 
 February 23d stands at the top of the page, I do not expect 
 that this sheet will be finished for some time to come. The 
 first thing I must say is to congratulate you on Charles's 
 appointment. If this letter reaches you amid the pain of 
 parting, congratulation will indeed seem a strange word ; yet 
 it is, I think, a matter of real joy after all; it is just what 
 Charles seems best fitted for ; his principles and character 
 you may fully depend on, and India is of all fields of honor- 
 able ambition that this world offers, to my mind the fairest. 
 You know I always had a sort of hankering after it myself
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 71 
 
 and but that I prefer teaching Greek to learning Hindoo- 
 stance, and fear there is no immediate hope of the conquest 
 of China, I should have liked to have seen the Ganges well. 
 To your family India must seem natural ground ; and for the 
 separation, painful as it must be, yet do we not all in reality 
 part almost as decisively with our friends when we once settle 
 in life, even though the ocean should not divide us ? How 
 little intercourse may I dare to anticipate in after days with 
 those who for so many years have been almost my constant 
 companions ; and how little have I seen for several years past 
 of my own brother ! But this is prosing. If Charles be still 
 with you, give him my kindest remembrances, with every wish 
 for his future happiness ; it already seems a dream to look 
 back on the time when he used to come to my rooms to read 
 Herodotus. Tell him I retain some of his scribbling on the 
 pages of my Hederic's Lexicon, which may many a time 
 remind me of him, when he is skirmishing perhaps with 
 Mahrattas or Chinese, and I am still going over the old 
 ground of to-Topfys diro&tgis f)8f. You talk to me of " cutting 
 blocks with a razor ; " indeed it does me no good to lead my 
 mind to such notions ; for to tell you a secret, I am quite 
 enough inclined of myself to feel above my work, which is 
 very wrong and very foolish. I believe I am usefully em- 
 ployed, and I am sure I am employed more safely for myself 
 than if I had more time for higher studies ; it does my mind 
 a marvellous deal of good, or ought to do, to be kept upon 
 bread and water. But be this as it may, and be the price 
 that I am paying much or little, I cannot forget for what I 
 am paying it. (After speaking of his future prospects.) 
 Here, indeed, I sympathize with you in the fear that this 
 earthly happiness may interest me too deeply. The hold 
 which a man's affections have on him is the more dangerous 
 because the less suspected ; and one may become an idolater 
 almost before one feels the least sense of danger. Then 
 comes the fear of losing the treasure, which one may love too 
 fondly ; and that fear is indeed terrible. The thought of 
 the instability of one's happiness comes in well to interrupt 
 its full indulgence ; and if often entertained must make a 
 man either an Epicurean or a Christian in good earnest. 
 Thank eleven o'clock for stopping my prosing ! Good night 
 and God bless you !
 
 72 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 VIII. TO THK SAME. 
 (On the Death of his Brother.) 
 
 Laleham, December 6, 1820. 
 
 It is really quite an alarming time since 1 wrote to you in 
 February ; for I cannot count as anything the two brief letters 
 that passed between us at the time of my marriage. I had 
 intended, however, to have written to you a good long one, so 
 
 soon as the holidays came ; but hearing from , a few 
 
 days ago, that you had been expressing a wish to hear from 
 me, I thought I would try to anticipate my intention, and 
 despatch an epistle to you forthwith. It has been an eventful 
 period for me in many ways, since February last, more so, 
 both for good and for evil, than I ever remember before. 
 The loss which we all sustained in May was the first great 
 affliction that ever befell me ; and it has been indeed a heavy 
 one. At first it came so suddenly that I could not feel it so 
 keenly ; and I had other thoughts besides upon me, which 
 would not then allow me to dwell so much upon it. But 
 time has rather made the loss more painful than less so ; and 
 now that I am married, and living here calmly and quietly, I 
 often think how he would have enjoyed to have come to 
 Laleham ; and all the circumstances of his death occur to 
 me like a frightful dream. It is very extraordinary how 
 often I dream that he is alive, and always with the con- 
 sciousness that he is alive after having been supposed dead ; 
 and this sometimes has gone so far, that I have in my dream 
 questioned the reality of his being alive, and doubted whether 
 it were not a dream, and have been convinced that it was not, 
 so strongly, that I could hardly shake off the impression on 
 waking. I have, since that, lost another relation, my uncle 
 Delafield, who died quite suddenly at Hastings, in September ; 
 his death fell less severely on my mother and aunt, from 
 following so near upon a loss still more distressing to them ; 
 but there was in both the same circumstance, which for the 
 time made the shock tenfold greater, that my mother was 
 expecting to see both my brother and my uncle within a few 
 days at JLaleham, when she heard of their respective deaths. 
 I attended my uncle's funeral at Kensington, and never did 
 I see greater affliction than that of his children, who were 
 all present. I ought not, however, to dwell only on the 
 painful events that have befallen us, when I have so much 
 of a different kind to be thankful for. My mother is settled,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 73 
 
 my aunt, and Susannah, in a more comfortable situation 
 than they have ever been in since we left the Isle of Wight, 
 My mother has got a very good garden, which is an amuse- 
 ment to her in many ways, but chiefly as it enables her to 
 send little presents, &c., to her children ; and Susannah's 
 crib lying in a room opening to the garden, she too can enjoy 
 it ; and she has been buying some flowering shrubs this 
 autumn, and planting them where they will show themselves 
 to her to the best advantage. My aunt is better, I think, 
 than she commonly is ; and she too enjoys her new dwelling, 
 and amuses herself in showing Martha pictures and telling 
 her stories, just as she used to do to me. Going on from 
 my mother's house to Buckland's, you will find Frances, with 
 two children more than you are acquainted with. ..... 
 
 From about a quarter before nine till ten o'clock every 
 evening, I am at liberty, and enjoy my wife's company fully ; 
 during this time I read out to her, (I am now reading to her 
 Herodotus, translating it as I go on,) or write my Sermons, 
 when it is my fortnight to preach ; or write letters, as I am 
 doing at this moment. And though the space of time that 
 I can thus enjoy be but short, yet perhaps I relish it more 
 keenly even on this very account ; and when I am engaged, 
 I ought to think how very many situations in life might have 
 separated me from my wife's society, not for hours only, but 
 for months or even years ; whereas now I have not slept 
 from home once since I have been married ; nor am I likely 
 for the greatest part of the year to do so. The garden is a 
 constant source of amusement to us both ; there are always 
 some little alterations to be made, some few spots where an 
 additional shrub or two would be ornamental, something 
 coming into blossom, or some crop for the more vulgar use of 
 the table coming into season ; so that I can always delight to 
 go round and see how things are going on. Our snowdrops 
 are now just thrusting their heads out of the ground, and I 
 to-day gathered a pink primrose. Trevenen comes over 
 generally about twice a week to see us, and often stays to dine 
 with us ; Whately and Blackstone have also at different times 
 paid us visits, and Mary was very much pleased 'with them 
 
 both "We set off for Fledborough so soon as the 
 
 holidays begin, which will be next Wednesday ' week, and 
 think of staying there almost to the end of them ; only 
 allowing time for a visit to dear old Oxford, when I will try 
 hard to get Mary to Bagley Wood, and show her the tree 
 VOL. i. 7
 
 74 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 where you and Tucker and I were once perched all together 
 
 I am now far better off than I formerly was in 
 
 point of lectures ; for I have one in Thucydides, and another 
 in Aristotle's Ethics ; if you dive in the former of these, 
 as I suppose you do, it will be worth your while to get 
 Poppo's " Observations Criticae in Thucydidem," a small 
 pamphlet published at Leipzig, in 1815, and by far the best 
 thing indeed one may say the only good one that has ever 
 yet been written on the subject. I have been very highly 
 delighted with it, and so I think would any one be, who has 
 as much interest in Thucydides as we have, who have been 
 acquainted with him so long. Another point concerning my 
 trade has puzzled me a good deal. It has been my wish to 
 avoid giving my pupils any Greek to do on a Sunday, so that 
 we do Greek Testament on other days ; but on the Sunday 
 always do some English book ; and they read so much, and 
 then I ask them questions in it. But I find it almost 
 impossible to make them read a mere English book with 
 sufficient attention to be able to answer questions out of it ; 
 or if they do cram themselves for the time, they are sure to 
 forget it directly after. I have been thinking, therefore, of 
 making them take notes of the sermon, after our Oriel fashion, 
 but this does not quite satisfy me ; and as you are a man of 
 experience, I should like to know what your plan is, and 
 whether you have found the same difficulty which I complain 
 of. I have a great deal to hear about you all, and I shall be 
 very glad to have tidings of you, and especially to know how 
 Charles is going on, if you have yet heard from him ; and 
 also how Hubert is faring, to whom I beg you will give my 
 love. It is idle to lay schemes for a time six months distant, 
 but I do hope to see you in Devonshire in the summer, if 
 you are at home, as we have something of a plan for going 
 into Cornwall to see my innumerable relations there. I heard 
 from Tucker about a week since perhaps his last letter from 
 Oxford ; it quite disturbs me to think of it. And so he will 
 set up at Mailing after all, and by-and-by perhaps we shall 
 see the problem solved, whether he has lost his heart or no. 
 I cannot make out when we are all to see one another, if we 
 all take pupils, and all leave home in the vacations. I think 
 we must fix some inn on some great road, as the place where 
 we may meet en passant once a year. How goes on poetry ? 
 With me it is gone, I suppose forever, and prose too, as far 
 as writing is concerned ; for I do nothing now in that way,
 
 LIFE OF PR. ARNOLD. 75 
 
 pave sermons and letters. But this matters little. Have 
 you seen or heard of Cramer's book about Hannibal's passage 
 of the Alps ? It is, I think, exceedingly good, and I rejoice 
 for the little club's sake. I have been this day to Egham, to 
 sign my name to a loyal address to the king from the gentle- 
 men and householders of this neighborhood, expressing our 
 confidence in the wisdom and vigor of the constituted authori- 
 ties. I hope this would please Dyson. I must now leave off 
 scribbling. Adieu, my dear Cornish ; Mary begs to join me 
 in all kind wishes and regards to you and yours ; and so 
 would all at the other two houses, if they were at hand. 
 
 IX. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 (In answer to criticisms on a review of Poppo's Observationes Criticse.) 
 
 Laleham Garden, April 25, 1821. 
 
 Now for your remarks on my Poppo. All clumsi- 
 ness in the sentences, and want of connection between the 
 parts, I will do my best to amend ; and the censure on ver- 
 bal criticism I will either soften or scratch out entirely, for 
 J. Keble objected to the same part. The translations also 
 I will try to improve, and indeed I am aware of their baldness. 
 The additions which you propose I can make readily ; but as 
 to the general plainness of the style, I do not think I clearly 
 see the fault which you allude to, and to say the truth, the 
 plainness, i. e. the absence of ornament and long words, is 
 the result of deliberate intention. At any rate, in my own 
 case, I am sure an attempt at ornament would make my style 
 so absurd that you would yourself laugh at it. I could not do 
 it naturally, for I have now so habituated myself to that 
 unambitious and plain way of writing, and absence of Latin 
 words as much as possible, that I could not write otherwise 
 without manifest affectation. Of course I do not mean to 
 justify awkwardnesses and clumsy sentences, of which I am 
 afraid my writings are too full, and all which I will do my 
 best to alter wherever you have marked them ; but anything 
 like puff, or verbal ornament, I cannot bring myself to. 
 Richness of style I admire heartily, but this I cannot attain 
 to for lack of power. All I could do would be to produce a 
 bad imitation of it, which seems to me very ridiculous. For 
 the same reason I know not how to make the review more 
 striking : I cannot make it so by its own real weight and
 
 76 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 eloquence, and therefore I think I should only make it 
 offensive by trying to make it fine. Do consider what you 
 recommend is dir\>s apurrov, but I must do what is upia-rov (pot. 
 You know you always told me I should never be a poet, and 
 in like manner I never could be really eloquent, for I have 
 not the imagination or fulness of mind needful to make 
 me so. 
 
 X. TO REV. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Lalehnm, October 21, 1S22. 
 
 I have not much to say in the way of news ; so 
 
 I will notice that part of your letter which speaks of my not 
 employing myself on something theological. You must re- 
 member that what I am doing in Greek and Roman History 
 is only my amusement during the single hour of the day that 
 I can employ on any occupation of my own, namely, between 
 nine and ten in the evening. With such limited time, it would 
 be ridiculous to attempt any work which required much 
 labor, and which could not be promoted by my common 
 occupations with my pupils. The Grecian History is just one 
 of the things I can do most easily ; my knowledge of it be- 
 forehand is pretty full, and my lectures are continually 
 keeping the subject before my mind ; so that to write about it 
 is really my recreation ; and the Roman History is the same 
 to me, though in a less degree. I could not name any other 
 subject equally familiar, or which, in my present circum- 
 stances, would be practicable, and certainly if I can complete 
 plain and popular histories of Greece and Rome, of a mod- 
 erate size, cleared of nonsense and unchristian principles, I 
 do not think I shall be amusing myself ill : for as I now am, 
 I could not do anything besides my proper work that was not 
 an amusement. For the last fortnight, during which I have 
 had two sermons to write, I have not been able to do a word 
 of my History ; and it will be the same this week, if I write 
 some letters which I wish to write : so that you see I am in 
 no condition to undertake anything of real labor. Be as- 
 sured there is nothing I would so gladly do as set about a 
 complete Ecclesiastical History ; and I love to fancy myself 
 BO engaged at some future time, if I live; but to begin such 
 a thing now would be utterly desperate. The want of books 
 alone, and my inability to consult libraries, would be a suffi- 
 cient hindrance. I have read a new book lately, which is
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 77 
 
 rather an event for me, Jowett's Christian Researches in the 
 Mediterranean. You know it of course, and I doubt not like 
 it as much as I do, which is very much indeed. It is a very 
 wonderful and a very beautiful thing to see the efforts made 
 on so large a scale, and with motives so pure, to diffuse all 
 good both temporal and spiritual ; and I suppose that the 
 world is gradually dividing more and more into two divided 
 parties of good and evil, the lukewarm and the formal 
 Christians are, I imagine, daily becoming less numerous. I 
 am puzzled beyond measure what to think about Ireland. 
 What good can be done permanently with a people who 
 literally do make man's life as cheap as beasts' ; and who are 
 content to multiply in idleness and in such beggary that the 
 first failure of a crop brings them to starvation ? I would 
 venture to say that luxury never did half so much harm as 
 the total indifference to comfort is doing in Ireland, by 
 leading to a propagation of the human species in a state of 
 brutality. I should think that no country in the world needs 
 missionaries so much, and in none would their success be so 
 desperate. 
 
 XI. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Laleham, March 3, 1823. 
 
 I do not know whether you have ever seen John 
 
 Keble's Hymns. He has written a great number for most of 
 the holidays and several of the Sundays in the year, and I 
 believe intends to complete the series. I live in hopes that 
 he will be induced to publish them ; and it is my firm opinion 
 that nothing equal to them exists in our language : the won- 
 derful knowledge of Scripture, the purity of heart, and the 
 richness of poetry which they exhibit, I never saw paralleled. 
 If they are not published, it will be a great neglect of doing 
 good. I wish you could see them ; the contemplation of them 
 would be a delightful employment for your walks between 
 
 Hadlow Street and the Temple Have you heard 
 
 anything more about r 's Roman History ? I am really 
 
 anxious to know what sort of a man he is, and whether he 
 will write like a Christian or no ; if he will I have not a wish 
 to interfere with him ; if not, I would labor very hard indeed 
 to anticipate him, and prevent an additional disgrace from 
 being heaped upon the historical part of our literature. 
 7*
 
 78 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 XII. TO REV. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, February 22, 1824. 
 
 My pupils all come up into the drawing-room a 
 
 little before tea, and stay for some time, some reading, others 
 talking, playing chess or backgammon, looking at pictures, 
 &c. a great improvement if it lasts ; and if this fair begin- 
 ning continues, I care not a straw for the labor of the half 
 year, for it is not labor but vexation which hurts a man, and 
 I find my comfort depends more and more on their good and 
 bad conduct. They are an awful charge, but still to me a 
 very interesting one, and one which I could cheerfully pursue 
 till my health or faculties fail me. Moreover, I have now 
 taken up the care of the Workhouse, i. e. as far as going 
 there once a week to read prayers and give a sort of lecture 
 upon some part of the Bible. I wanted to see more of the 
 poor people, and I found that unless I devoted a regular tune 
 to it, I should never do it, for the hunger for exercise on the 
 part of myself and my horses, used to send me out riding as 
 soon as my work was done ; whereas now I give up Thursday 
 to the village, and it will be my own fault if it does not do 
 me more good than the exercise would. You have heard 
 I suppose of Trevenen's tour with me to Scotland. Inde- 
 pendent of the bodily good which it did me, and which I 
 really wanted, I have derived from it the benefit of getting 
 rid of some prejudices, for I find myself often thinking of 
 Edinburgh quite affectionately, so great was the kindness 
 which we met with there, and so pleasant and friendly were 
 most of the people with whom we became acquainted. As to 
 the scenery, it far surpassed all my expectations : I shall 
 never forget the effect of the setting sun on the whole line of 
 the Grampians covered with snow, as we saw them from the 
 steamboat on the Forth between Alloa and Stirling. It was 
 so delightful also to renew my acquaintance with the English 
 
 lakes and with Wordsworth I could lucubrate largely 
 
 de omni scibili, but paper happily runs short. I am very 
 much delighted with the aspect of the Session of Parliament, 
 and see with hearty gratitude the real reforms and the purer 
 spirit of government which this happy rest from war is every 
 year I trust gradually encouraging. The West India ques- 
 tion is thorny : but I suppose the government may intrench 
 upon individual property for a great national benefit, giving 
 a fair compensation to the parties, just as is done in every
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 79 
 
 Canal Bill. Nay, I cannot see why the rights of the plant- 
 ers are more sacred than those of the old despotic kings and 
 feudal aristocracies who were made to part with many good 
 things which they had inherited from their ancestors because 
 the original tenure was founded on wrong ; and so is all slav- 
 ery, all West Indian slavery at least, most certainly. 
 
 XIII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Laleham, September 30, 1824. 
 
 I am now working at German in good earnest, 
 
 and have got a master who comes down here to me once a 
 week. I have read a good deal of Julius Hare's friend Nie- 
 buhr, and have found it abundantly overpay the labor of learn- 
 ing a new language, to say nothing of some other very valu- 
 able German books with which I am becoming acquainted, 
 all preparatory to my Roman History. I am going to set to 
 work at the " Coke upon Littleton " of Roman law, to make 
 myself acquainted, if possible, with the tenure of property; 
 and I think I shall apply to you for the loan of some of your 
 books touching the civil law, and specially Justinian's Insti- 
 tutes. As my knowledge increases, I only get a clearer 
 insight into my ignorance ; and this excites me to do my best 
 to remove it before I descend to the Avernus of the press. 
 But I am twice the man for labor that I have been lately, 
 for the last year or two, because the pupils, I thank God, are 
 going on well ; I have at this moment the pleasure of seeing 
 three of them sitting at the round table in the drawing-room, 
 all busily engaged about their themes ; and the general good 
 effect of their sitting with us all the evening is really very 
 surprising. 
 
 XIV. TO KEY. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, April 5, 1825. 
 
 I am getting pretty well to understand the his- 
 tory of the Roman kings, and to be ready to commence 
 writing. One of my most useful books is dear old Tottle's 
 [Aristotle's] Politics ; which give one so full a notion of the 
 state of society and opinions in old times, that by their aid 
 one can pick out the wheat from the chaff in Livy with great
 
 80 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 success. Mr. Penrose has lately mentioned a work by a 
 Mr. Cooper, in which he applies the prophecies in the elev- 
 enth chapter of Daniel to Buonaparte. Have you read the 
 work yourself? My own notion is, that people try to make 
 out from prophecy too much of a detailed history, and thus 
 I have never seen a single commentator who has not per- 
 verted the truth of history to make it fit the prophecy. I 
 think that, with the exception of those prophecies which re- 
 late to our Lord, the object of prophecy is rather to delineate 
 principles and states of opinion which shall come, than exter- 
 nal events. I grant that Daniel seems to furnish an excep- 
 tion, and I do not know how Mr. Cooper has done his work ; 
 but in general, commentaries or expositions of the prophe- 
 cies give me a painful sense of unfairness in their authors, in 
 straining the facts to agree with the imagined prediction of 
 them. Have you seen Cobbett's " History of the Protestant 
 Reformation," which he is publishing monthly in threepenny 
 numbers ? It is a queer compound of wickedness and igno- 
 rance with strong sense and the mention of divers truths 
 which have been too much disguised or kept in the back- 
 ground, but which ought to be generally known. Its object is 
 to represent the Reformation in England as a great national 
 evil, accomplished by all kinds of robbery and cruelty, and 
 tending to the impoverishment and misery of the poor, and to 
 the introduction of a careless clergy, and a spirit of igno- 
 rance and covetousness amongst everybody. It made me 
 groan, while reading it, to think that the real history and 
 effects of the Reformation are so little known, and the evils 
 of the worldly policy of Somerset's and Elizabeth's govern- 
 ment so little appreciated. As it is, Cobbett's book can do 
 nothing but harm, so bad is its spirit, and so evident its un- 
 fairness. 
 
 XV. TO REV. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 
 Florence, July 15, 1825. 
 
 I wish I could tell you something about the people, but 
 how is it possible, travelling at the rate that we are obliged 
 to do ? We see, of course, the very worst specimens, inn- 
 keepers, postilions, and beggars ; and one is thus in danger 
 of getting an unfavorable impression of the inhabitants in 
 fepitc of one's judgment. A matter of more serious thought,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 81 
 
 and on which I am vainly trying to procure information, is 
 the condition of the lower orders. I have long had a suspi- 
 cion that Cobbett's complaints of the degradation and suffer- 
 ings of the poor in England contained much truth, though 
 uttered by him in the worst possible spirit. It is certain that 
 the peasantry here are much more generally proprietors of 
 their own land than with us ; and I should believe them to 
 be much more independent and in easier circumstances. This 
 is, I believe, the grand reason why so many of the attempts 
 at revolution have failed in these countries. A revolution 
 would benefit the lawyers, the savans, the merchants, bankers, 
 and shopkeepers, but I do not see what the laboring classes 
 Avould gain by it. For them the work has been done already, 
 in the destruction of the feudal tyranny of the nobility and 
 great men; and, in my opinion, this blessing is enough to 
 compensate the evils of the French Revolution ; for the good 
 endures, while the effects of the massacres and devastations 
 are fast passing away. It is my delight everywhere to see 
 the feudal castles in ruins, never, I trust, to be rebuilt or re- 
 occupied ; and in this respect the watchword "Guerre aux cha- 
 teaux, Paix aux Chaumieres," was prophetic of the actual 
 result of the French Revolution. I am sure that we have too 
 much of the oligarchical spirit in England, both in Church 
 and State ; and I think that those one-eyed men, the political 
 economists, encourage this by their language about national 
 wealth, &c. Toutefois, there is much good in the oligarchical 
 spirit as it exists in England 
 
 XVI. TO REV. J. TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, August 22, 1825. 
 
 I got no books of any consequence, nor did I 
 
 learn anything except that general notion of the climate, 
 scenery, and manners of the country, which can only be gained 
 by actual observation. We crossed the Tiber a little beyond 
 Perugia, where it was a most miserable ditch with hardly 
 water enough to turn a mill ; indeed, most of the streams 
 which flow from the Apennines were altogether dried up, and 
 the dry and thirsty appearance of everything was truly 
 oriental. The flowers were a great delight to me, and it was 
 very beautiful to see the hedges full of the pomegranate in 
 full flower : the bright scarlet blossom is so exceedingly orna-
 
 82 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 mental, to say nothing of one's associations with the fruit 
 What we call the Spanish broom of our gardens is the com- 
 mon wild broom of the Apennines, but I do not think it so 
 beautiful as our own. The fig-trees were most luxuriant, but 
 not more so than in the Isle of Wight, and I got tired of the 
 continual occurrence of fruit-trees, chiefly olives, instead of 
 large forest-trees. The vale of Florence looks quite poor and 
 dull in comparison of our rich valleys, from the total want of 
 timber; and in Florence itself there is not a tree. How 
 miserably inferior to Oxford is Florence altogether, both 
 within and as seen from a distance ; in short, I never was so 
 disappointed in any place in my life. My favorite towns 
 were Genoa, Milan, and Verona. The situation of the latter 
 just at the foot of the Alps, and almost encircled, like Dur- 
 ham, by a full and rapid river, the Adige, was very delight- 
 ful. Tell me any news you can think of, remembering that 
 two months in the summer are a gap in my knowledge, as I 
 never saw a single newspaper during my absence. Specially 
 send me a full account of yourself and your sisters, and the 
 Kebles if you know aught of them. How pure and beauti- 
 ful was J. Keble's article on Sacred Poetry in the Quarterly, 
 and how glad am I that he was prevailed on to write it. It 
 seemed to me to sanctify in a manner the whole Number. 
 Mine on the early Roman History was slightly altered by 
 Coleridge here and there, so that I am not quite responsible 
 for all of it. 
 
 XVII. TO THE REV. G. CORNISH. 
 
 Laleham, October 18, 1825. 
 
 I have also seen some sermons, preached before 
 
 the University of Cambridge, by a Mr. Rose, directed against 
 the German theologians, in the advertisement to which he 
 attacks my article in the Quarterly with great vehemence. 
 
 He is apparently a good man, and his book is likely, 
 
 I think, to do good ; but it does grieve me to find persons of 
 his stamp quarrelling with their friends when there are more 
 than enough of enemies in the world for every Christian to 
 strive against. I met five Englishmen at the public table at 
 our inn at Milan, who gave me great matter for cogitation. 
 One was a clergyman, and just returned from Egypt ; the rest 
 were young men, i. e. between twenty-five and thirty, and 
 apparently of no profession. I may safely say, that since
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 83 
 
 I was an under-graduate, I never heard any conversation so 
 profligate as that which they all indulged in, the clergyman 
 particularly; indeed, it was not merely gross, but avowed 
 principles of wickedness such as I do not remember ever to 
 have heard in Oxford. But what struck me most was, that 
 with this sensuality there was united some intellectual activity, 
 they were not ignorant, but seemed bent on gaining a great 
 variety of solid information from their travels. Now this 
 union of vice and intellectual power and knowledge seems to 
 me rather a sign of the age ; and if it goes on, it threatens to 
 produce one of the most fearful forms of Antichrist which 
 has yet appeared. I am sure that the great prevalence of 
 travelling fosters this spirit, not that men learn mischief from 
 the French or Italians, but because they are removed from 
 the check of public opinion, and are, in fact, self-constituted 
 outlaws, neither belonging to the society which they have 
 left, nor taking a place in that of the countries where they 
 are travelling. What I saw also of the Pope's religion in 
 his own territories excited my attention a good deal. Monk- 
 ery seems nourishing there in great force, and the abomina- 
 tions of their systematic falsehoods seem as gross as ever. In 
 France, on the contrary, the Catholics seemed to me to be 
 Christians, and daily becoming more and more so. In Italy 
 they seem to me to have no more title to the name than if 
 the statues of Venus and Juno occupied the place of those 
 of the Virgin. It is just the old Heathenism, and, as I should 
 think, with a worse system of deceit. ' 
 
 XVIII. TO REV. J. TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, 1826. 
 
 It delighted me to hear speak decidedly of 
 
 the great need of reform in the Church, and from what I 
 have heard in other quarters, I am in hopes that these senti- 
 ments are gaining ground. But the difficulty will always be 
 practically, who is to reform it ? For the clergy have a horror 
 of the House of Commons, and Parliament and the country 
 will never trust the matter to the clei'gy. If we had our 
 General Assembly, there might be some chance ; but as it is, 
 I know no more hopeless prospect, and every year I live, this 
 is to me more painful. If half the energy and resources 
 which have been turned to Bible societies and missions, had 
 steadily been applied to the reform of our own institutions,
 
 84 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 and the enforcing the principles of the Gospel among our- 
 selves, I cannot but think that we should have been fulfilling 
 a higher duty, and with the blessing of God might have pro- 
 duced more satisfactory fruit. " These things ought ye to 
 have done, and not to have left the other undone."* Of 
 the German divines, if Mr. Rose is to be trusted, there can 
 be but one opinion : they exemplify the evils of knowledge 
 without a Christian watchfulness over the heart and practice ; 
 but I greatly fear that there are some here who would abuse 
 tliis example to the discouragement of impartial investigation 
 and independent thought ; as if ignorance and blind follow- 
 ing the opinions of others were the habits that best become 
 Christians. " He that is spiritual judgeth all things," if 
 cleared from fanaticism and presumption, and taken in con- 
 nection with "But yet I show unto you a more excellent 
 way," is at once, I think, our privilege and our duty. 
 
 XIX. TO REV. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, March 4, 1827. 
 
 I meant to have written almost immediately upon my 
 return home from Kent ; for delightful as is the recollection 
 of my short visit to you on every other ground, I was, and 
 have been ever since, a good deal annoyed by some part of 
 our conversation, i. e. by observing the impression produced 
 on your mind by some of the opinions which I expressed. It 
 is to me personally a very great pain that I should have 
 excited feelings of disapprobation in the mind of a man whom 
 I so entirely approve and love, and yet that I cannot feel the 
 disapprobation to be deserved, and therefore cannot remove 
 the cause of it. And on more general grounds it makes me 
 fear, that those engaged in the same great cause will never 
 heartily sink their little differences of opinion, when I find 
 that you, who have known me so long, cannot hear them 
 without thinking them not merely erroneous, but morally 
 wrong, and such, therefore, as give you pain when uttered. 
 I am not in the least going to renew the argument ; it is very 
 likely that I was wrong in it; and I am sure it would not 
 annoy me that you should think me so, just as I may think 
 you wrong in any point, or as I think J. Keble wrong in half 
 
 * The words of the English version are here substituted for the quot 
 tloua from the Greek.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 85 
 
 av hundred, yet without being grieved that he should hold 
 thv,m, that is, grieved as at a fault. You may say that a 
 great many erroneous opinions imply no moral fault at all, but 
 that mine did, namely, the fault of an unsubmissive under- 
 standing. But it seems to me that, of all faults, this is the most 
 difficult to define or to discern : for who shall say where the 
 understanding ought to submit itself, unless where it is in- 
 clined to advocate anything immoral ? We know that what 
 in one age has been called the spirit of rebellious reason, 
 has in another been allowed by all good men to have been 
 nothing but a sound judgment exempt from superstition. We 
 know that the Catholics look with as great horror on the con- 
 sequences of denying the infallibility of the Church as you 
 can do on those of denying the entire inspiration of the 
 Scriptures; and that, to come nearer to the point, the in- 
 spiration of the Scriptures in points of physical science was 
 once insisted on as stoutly as it is now maintained with re- 
 gard to matter of history. Now it may be correct to deny 
 their inspiration in one and not in the other ; but I think 
 it is hard to ascribe the one opinion to anything morally 
 faulty more than the other. I am far from thinking myself 
 so good a man by many degrees as you are. I am not so 
 advanced a Christian. But I am sure that my love for the 
 Gospel is as sincere, and my desire to bring every thought 
 into the obedience of Christ is one which I think I do not 
 deceive myself in believing that I honestly feel. It is very 
 painful, therefore, to be suspected of paying them only a 
 divided homage, or to be deficient in reverence to Him whom 
 every year that I live my whole soul and spirit own with a 
 more entire certainty and love. Let me again say, that I am 
 neither defending the truth of the particular opinions which I 
 expressed to you, nor yet disavowing them. I only think 
 that it is a pity that they should shock you ; as I think we 
 ought to know one another's principles well enough by this 
 time, not certainly to make us acquiesce in all each other's 
 opinions, but to be satisfied that they may be entertained in- 
 nocently, and that, therefore, we may differ from each other 
 without pain. But enough of this ; only it has annoyed me 
 a great deal, and has made nae doubt where I can find a 
 person to whom I may speak freely if I cannot do so even 
 to you. 
 VOL. i. &
 
 86 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 LETTERS RELATING TO THE ELECTION AT RUGBY. 
 
 XX. TO REV. E. HAWKINS. 
 
 Laleham, October 21, 1827. 
 
 I feel most sincerely obliged to you and my other friends 
 in Oxford for the kind interest which you show in my behalf, 
 in wishing to procure for me the head-mastership at Rugby. 
 Of its being a great deal more lucrative than my present em- 
 ployment I have no doubt ; nor of its being in itself a situa- 
 tion of more extensive usefulness ; but I do doubt whether 
 it would be so in my hands, and how far I am fitted for the 
 
 place of head-master of a large school I confess 
 
 that I should very much object to undertake a charge in which 
 I was not invested with pretty full discretion. According to 
 my notions of what large schools are, founded on all I know 
 and all I have ever heard of them, expulsion should be prac- 
 tised much oftener than it is. Now, I know that trustees, 
 in general, are averse to this plan, because it has a tendency 
 to lessen the numbers of the school, and they regard quantity 
 more than quality. In fact, my opinion on this point might, 
 perhaps, generally be considered as disqualifying me for the 
 situation of master of a great school ; yet I could not consent 
 to tolerate much that I know is tolerated generally, and, there- 
 fore, I should not like to enter on an office which I could not 
 discharge according to my own views of what is right. I do 
 not believe myself, that my system would be, in fact, a cruel 
 or a harsh one, and I believe that with much care on the 
 part of the masters, it would be seldom necessary to proceed 
 to the ratio ultima ; only I would have it clearly understood, 
 that I would most unscrupulously resort to it, at whatever 
 inconvenience, where there was a perseverance in any habit 
 inconsistent with a boy's duties. 
 
 XXI. TO REV. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 
 Laleham, November 30, 1827. 
 
 You have often wanted me to be master at Winchester, so 
 I think you will be glad to hear that I am actually a candi- 
 date for Rugby. I was strongly urged to stand, and money 
 tempted me, but I cannot in my heart be sorry to stay where 
 both M. and myself are so entirely happy. If I do get it, 1
 
 LIFE OF DK. ARNOLD. 87 
 
 feel as if I could set to work very heartily, and, with God's 
 blessing, I should like to try whether my notions of Christian 
 education are really impracticable, whether our system of 
 public schools has not in it some noble elements which, under 
 the blessing of the Spirit of all holiness and wisdom, might 
 produce fruit even to life eternal. When I think about it 
 thus, I really long to take rod in hand ; but when I think of 
 the Trpdf TO re/lof, the perfect vileness which I must daily con- 
 template, the certainty that this can at best be only partially 
 remedied, the irksomeness of " fortemque Gyam fortemque 
 Cloanthum," and the greater form and publicity of the life 
 which we should there lead, when I could no more bathe 
 daily in the clear Thames, nor wear old coats and Russia 
 duck trousers, nor hang on a gallows,* nor climb a pole, I 
 grieve to think of the possibility of a change ; but as there 
 are about thirty candidates, and I only applied very late, I 
 think I need not disquiet myself. I send you this brief 
 notice, because you ought to hear of my plans from myself 
 rather than from others ; but I have no time to write more. 
 Thucydides prospers. 
 
 XXII. TO EBV. J. TUCKER. 
 
 December 28, 1827. 
 
 Our united wannest thanks to you and to your sisters for 
 the joy you have felt about Rugby. For the labor I care 
 nothing, if God gives me health and strength as He has for 
 the last eight years. But whether I shall be able to make 
 the school what I wish to make it, I do not mean wholly 
 or perfectly, but in some degree, that is, an instrument of 
 God's glory, and of the everlasting good of those who come to 
 it, that indeed is an awful anxiety. 
 
 XXIII. TO REV. E. HAWKINS. 
 
 Laleham, December 28, 1827. 
 
 Your kind little note ought not to have remained thus long 
 unanswered, especially as you have a most particular claim on 
 my thanks for your active kindness in the whole business, and 
 
 * His gymnastic exercises.
 
 88 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 for your character of me to Sir H. Halford, that I was likely 
 to improve generally the system of public education, a state- 
 ment which Sir H. Halford told me had weighed most strongly 
 in my favor. You would not, I am sure, have recommended 
 me, if you had supposed that I should alter things violently, 
 or for the pleasure of altering ; but as I have at different 
 times expressed in conversation my disapprobation of much of 
 the existing system, I find that some people expect that I am 
 going to sweep away root and branch, quod absit ! I need not 
 tell you how wholly unexpected this result has been to us, and 
 I hope I need not say also what a solemn and almost over- 
 whelming responsibility I feel is imposed on me. I would 
 hope to have the prayers of my friends, together with my own, 
 for a supply of that true wisdom which is required for such a 
 business. To be sure, how small in comparison is the im- 
 portance of my teaching the boys to read Greek, and how 
 light would be a schoolmaster's duty if that were all of it. 
 Yet, if my health and strength continue as they have been for 
 the last eight years, I do not fear the labor, and really eujoy 
 the prospect of it. I am so glad that we are likely to meet 
 soon in Oxford 
 
 XXFV. TO REV. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, March 2. 
 
 With regard to reforms at Rugby, give me credit, I must 
 beg of you, for a most sincere desire to make it a place of 
 Christian education. At the same tune my object will be, if 
 possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can 
 scarcely hope to make ; I mean that, from the natural im- 
 perfect state of boyhood, they are not susceptible of Christian 
 principles in their full development upon their practice, and I 
 suspect that a low standard of morals in many respects must 
 be tolerated amongst them, as it was on a larger scale in what 
 I consider the boyhood of the human race.* But I believe 
 that a great deal may be done, and I should be most unwilling 
 to undertake the business, if I did not trust that much might 
 be done. Our impressions of the exterior of everything that 
 
 * See Sermons, vol. ii. p. 440. His later sermons and letters seem to 
 indicate that subsequently this opinion would not have been expressed 
 quite uo strongly.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 89 
 
 we saw during our visit to Dr. Wooll in January, were very 
 favorable ; as at the same time that I anticipate a great many 
 difficulties in the management of affairs, before they can be 
 brought into good train. But both M. and myself, I think, 
 are well inclined to commence our work, and if my health and 
 strength be spared me, I certainly feel that in no situation 
 could I have the prospect of employment so congenial to my 
 tastes and qualifications ; that is, supposing always that I find 
 that I can manage the change from older pupils to a school. 
 Your account of yourself was most delightful : my life for 
 some years has been one of great happiness, but I fear not of 
 happiness so safe and permitted. I am hurried on too fast in 
 the round of duties and of domestic enjoyments, and I greatly 
 feel the need, and shall do so even more at Rugby, unless I 
 take heed in time, of stopping to consider my ways, and to 
 recognize my own infinite weakness and unworthiness. I 
 have read the " Letters on the Church," and reviewed them 
 in the Edinburgh Review for September, 1826, if you care to 
 know what I think of them. I think that any discussion on 
 church matters must do good, if it is likely to lead to any 
 reform ; for any change, such as is within any human calcu- 
 lation, would be an improvement. What might not do, 
 
 if he would set himself to work in the House of Lords, not to 
 patch up this hole or that, but to recast the whole corrupt 
 system, which in many points stands just as it did in the 
 worst tunes of Popery, only reading -'King," or "Aristoc- 
 racy," in the place of " Pope." 
 
 XXV. TO KEY. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Laleham, March 14. 1828. 
 
 We are resigning private pupils, I imagine, with 
 
 very different feelings ; you looking forward to a life of less 
 distraction, and I to one of far greater, insomuch that all here 
 seems quietness itself in comparison with what I shall meet 
 with at Rugby. There will be a great deal to do, I suspect, 
 in every way, when I first enter on my situation ; but still, if 
 my health continues, I do not at all dread it, but on the con- 
 trary look forward to it with much pleasure. I have long since 
 looked upon education as my business in life ; and just before 
 I stood for Rugby, I had offered myself as a candidate for the 
 historical professorship at the London University ; and had 
 8*
 
 90 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 indulged in various dreams of attaching myself to that institu- 
 tion, and trying as far as possible to influence it. In Rugby 
 there is a fairer field, because I start with greater advantages. 
 You know that I never ran down public schools in the lump, 
 but grieved that their exceeding capabilities were not turned 
 to better account; and if I find myself unable in time to 
 mend what I consider faulty in them, it will at any rate be a 
 practical lesson to teach me to judge charitably of others who 
 do not reform public institutions as much as is desirable. I 
 suppose that you have not regarded all the public events of 
 the last few months without some interest. My views of 
 things certainly become daily more reforming ; and what I 
 above all other things wish to see, is a close union between 
 Christian reformers and those who are often, as I think, 
 falsely charged with being enemies of Christianity. It is a 
 part of the perfection of the Gospel that it is attractive to all 
 those who love truth and goodness, as soon as it is known in 
 its true nature, whilst it tends to clear away those erroneous 
 views and evil passions with which philanthropy and philos- 
 ophy, so long as they stand aloof from it, are ever in some 
 degree corrupted. My feelings toward men whom I believe 
 to be sincere lovers of truth and the happiness of their fellow- 
 creatures, while they seek these ends otherwise than through 
 the medium of the Gospel, is rather that they are not far 
 from the kingdom of God, and might be brought into it 
 altogether, than that they are enemies whose views are di- 
 rectly opposed to our own. That they are not brought into 
 it is, I think, to a considerable degree, chargeable upon the 
 professors of Christianity; the High Church party seeming 
 to think that the establishment in Church and State is all 
 in all, and that the Gospel principles must be accommodated 
 to our existing institutions, instead of offering a pattern by 
 which those institutions should be purified ; and the Evan- 
 gelicals by their ignorance and narrow-mindedness, and their 
 seeming wish to keep the world and the Church ever distinct, 
 instead of laboring to destroy the one by increasing the in- 
 fluence of the other, and making the kingdoms of the world 
 indeed the kingdoms of Christ.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 91 
 
 XXVI. TO AUGUSTUS HARE, ESQ. 
 
 Laleham, March 7, 1828. 
 
 I trust that you have recovered your accident at 
 
 Perugia, and that you are enabled to enjoy your stay at that 
 glorious Rome. I think that I have never written to you 
 since my return from it last spring, when I was so completely 
 overpowered with admiration and delight at the matchless 
 beauty and solemnity of Rome and its neighborhood. But I 
 think my greatest delight after all was in the society of Bun- 
 sen, the Prussian minister at Rome He reminded 
 
 me continually of you more than any other man whom I 
 know, and chiefly by his entire and enthusiastic admiration of 
 everything great and excellent and beautiful, not stopping to 
 see or care for minute faults ; and though I cannot rid myself 
 of that critical propensity, yet I can heartily admire and 
 
 almost envy those who are without it I have derived 
 
 great benefit from sources of information, that your brother 
 has at different times recommended to me, and the perusal of 
 some of his articles in the " Geusses at Truth " has made me 
 exceedingly desirous of becoming better acquainted with him, 
 as I am sure that his conversation would be really profitable 
 to me in the highest sense of the word, as well as delightful. 
 And I have a double pleasure in saying this, because I did 
 not do him justice formerly in my estimate of him, and am 
 anxious to do myself justice now by saying that I have learnt 
 to judge more truly. You will have heard of my changed 
 prospects in consequence of my election at Rugby. It will be 
 a severe pang to me to leave Laleham ; but otherwise I rejoice 
 in my appointment, and hope to be useful if life and health 
 
 are spared me I think of going to Leipsic, Dresden, 
 
 and Prague, to worship the Elbe and the country of John 
 Huss and Ziska. All here unite in kindest remembrances to 
 you. and I wish you would convey to the very stones and air 
 of Jioiuo the expression of my fond recollection for them. 
 
 XXVII. TO REV. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, May 25, 1828. 
 
 (After speaking of Mr. Tucker's proposed intention of 
 going as a missionary to India.) If you should go to India 
 before we have an opportunity of meeting again, I would
 
 92 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 earnestly beg of you not to go away with the notion, which 
 I sometimes fear that my oldest friends are getting of me, 
 that I am become a hard man, given up to literary and scho- 
 lastic pursuits, and full of worldly and political views of 
 things. It has given me very great pain to think that some 
 of those whom I most love, and with whom I would most fain 
 to be one in spirit, regard my views of things as jarring with 
 their own, and are losing towards me that feeling of Chris- 
 tian brotherhood which I think they once entertained. I am 
 not in the slightest degree speaking of any offence given or 
 received, or any personal decay of regard, but I fancy they 
 look upon me as not quite one with themselves, and as having 
 my affections fixed upon lower objects. Assuredly, I have 
 no right to regret that I should be thought deficient in points 
 in which I know I am deficient ; but I would most earnestly 
 protest against being thought wilfully and contentedlydeficient 
 in them, and not caring to be otherwise. And I cannot help 
 fearing that my conversation with you last winter twelvemonth 
 led you on to something, at least, of a similar impression. 
 
 XXVIII. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, EgQ. 
 
 Laleham, April 24, 1828. 
 
 It seems an age since I have seen you or written to you ; 
 and I hear that you are now again returned to London, and 
 that your eldest boy, I am grieved to find, is not so well and 
 strong as you could wish. I could really be half romantic, 
 yet I do not know that I ought to use any such equivocal 
 epithet. When I think how little intercourse I hold with my 
 most valued friends, it is almost awful to feel the tendencies 
 !>f life to pare down one's affections and feelings to the mini- 
 mum compatible with anything like humanity. There is 
 one's trade and one's family, and beyond it seems as if the 
 great demon of worldly-mindedness would hardly allow one 
 to bestow a thought or care. 
 
 But, if it please God, I will not sink into this state without 
 some struggles, at least, against it. I saw Dyson the other 
 day in Oxford, where I went to take my degree of B. D., and 
 he and his wife were enough to freshen one's spirit for some 
 time to come. I wish that you and I could meet of tener, and 
 instead of that, I fear that when I am at Rugby, we shall 
 meet even seldomer ; but I trust that we shall meet some
 
 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 93 
 
 times still. You know, perhaps, and yet how should you ? 
 that my sixth child, and fourth son, was born on the 7th of 
 April, and that his dear mother has been again preserved to 
 me. All the rest of my children are quite well, and they are 
 also tolerably well at the other houses, though the coming 
 parting is a sad cloud both to them and to us. Still, without 
 any affectation, I believe that John Keble is right, and that 
 it is good for us to leave Laleham, because I feel that we are 
 daily getting to regard it as too much of a home. I cannot 
 tell you how we both love it, and its perfect peace seems at 
 times an appalling contrast to the publicity of Rugby. I am 
 sure that nothing could stifle this regret, were it not for my 
 full consciousness that I have nothing to do with rest here, 
 but with labor ; and then I can aud do look forward to the 
 labor with nothing but satisfaction, if my health and faculties 
 be still spared to me. 
 
 .1 went down to Rugby, a fortnight since, to meet the 
 trustees. The terms of the school, which were far to low, 
 have been raised on my representation ; and there is some 
 possibility of my being put into the situation of the head- 
 masters of Eton and Westminster, that is, to have nothing 
 
 to do with any boarders I have got six maps for 
 
 Thucydides, all entirely original, and I have nearly finished 
 naif of the last book ; so that I hope I may say almost " Ita- 
 liam ! Italiam ! " 
 
 XXIX. TO THE REV. P. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Laleham, July 11, 1828. 
 
 It would be foolish to talk of the deep love that I 
 
 bear to Laleham, and the wrench which it will be to part from 
 it ; but this is quite consistent with a lively interest in Rugby, 
 
 and when I strolled with in the meadows there, during 
 
 our visit of last week, I thought that I already began to feel 
 it as my home There will be enough to do, I im- 
 agine, without any addition ; though I really feel very san- 
 guine as to my own relish for the work, and think that it will 
 come more naturally to me than I at first imagined. May 
 God grant that I may labor with an entire confidence in Him, 
 and with none in myself without Him.
 
 94 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 XXX. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Laleham, July 29, 1828. 
 
 I never would publish* without a considerable 
 
 revision of them. I well know their incompleteness, and 
 suspect much worse faults in them. Do not imagine that I 
 neglect your remarks ; far from it : I would attend to them 
 earnestly, and would soften gladly anything that was too 
 harsh, or that might give offence, and would alter the mere 
 inadvertencies of my hasty writing in point of style. But 
 certainly the character of the style I could not alter, because 
 no other would be natural to me ; and though I am far from 
 wishing other people to write as I do, yet for myself I hold 
 it best to follow my own fashion 
 
 I owe it to Rugby not to excite needless scandal by an 
 isolated and uncalled-for publication. I shall never be Mr. 
 Dean, nor do I wish it ; but having undertaken the office of 
 Dr. Wooll, with double / or single /, as best suits your fancy, 
 I do wish to do my utmost in it, and not to throw difficulties 
 in my own way by any imprudence. This, of course, would 
 apply either to minor points or to those on which I distrusted 
 my own competent knowledge. Where I am fully decided 
 on a matter of consequence, I would speak out as plainly and 
 boldly as your heart could wish. 
 
 We are all in the midst of confusion ; the books all packed, 
 and half the furniture ; and on Tuesday, if God will, we shall 
 leave this dear place, this nine years' home of such exceeding 
 happiness. But it boots not to look backwards. Forwards, 
 forwards, forwards, should be one's motto. I trust you will 
 see us in our new dwelling ere long ; I shall want to see my 
 old friends there to wear off the gloss of its newness. 
 
 XXXI. TO THE EEV. JOHN TUCKER. 
 
 Laleham, August, 1828. 
 
 I am inclined to write to you once again before we leave 
 Laleham, as a sort of farewell from this dear place ; and you 
 shall answer it with a welcome to Rugby. You fancy us 
 already at Rugby, and so does J. Keble, from whom I 
 
 In allusion to the first volume of his Sermons, which was now iu the 
 process of publication.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 95 
 
 received a very kind letter some time since, directed to me 
 there. But we do not move till Tuesday, when we go, 
 fourteen souls, to Oxford, having taken the whole coach ; and 
 on Wednesday we hope to reach Rugby, having in like 
 manner secured the whole Leicester coach from Oxford to 
 Rugby. Our goods and chattels, under convoy of our gardener, 
 are at this time somewhere on the Grand Junction Canal, and 
 will reach Rugby I hope this evening. The poor house here 
 is sadly desolate ; all the carpets up, half the furniture gone, 
 and signs of removal everywhere visible. And so ends the 
 first act of my life since I arrived at manhood. For the last 
 eight years it has been a period of as unruffled happiness as 
 
 I should think could ever be experienced by man. M 's 
 
 illness, in 1821, is almost its only dark spot; and how was 
 that softened and comforted ! It is almost a fearful consid- 
 eration ; and yet that is a superstitious notion, and an 
 unbelieving one, too, which cannot receive God's mercies as 
 his free gift, but will always be looking out for something 
 wherewith to purchase them. An humbling consideration 
 much rather it is and ought to be ; yet all life is humbling, if 
 we think upon it, and our greatest mercies, which we some- 
 times least think of, are the most humbling of all 
 
 The Rugby prospect I contemplate with a very strong inter- 
 est : the work I am not afraid of, if I can get my proper ex- 
 ercises ; but I want absolute play, like a boy, and neither riding 
 nor walking will make up for my leaping-pole and gallows, 
 and bathing, when the youths used to go with me, and I felt 
 completely for the time a boy as they were. It is this entire 
 relaxation, I think, at intervals, such again as my foreign 
 tours have afforded, that gives me so keen an appetite for my 
 work at other times, and has enabled me to go through it not 
 only with no fatigue, but with a sense of absolute pleasure. 
 I believe that I am going to publish a volume of Sermons. 
 You will think me crazed perhaps ; but I have two reasons 
 for it ; chiefly, the repeated exhortations of several individuals 
 for the last three or four years ; but these would not alone 
 have urged me to it, did I not wish to state for my own sake 
 what my opinions really are, on points where I know they 
 have been grievously misrepresented. Whilst I lived here in 
 Laleham my opinions mattered to nobody ; but I know that 
 while I was a candidate for Rugby, it was said in Oxford that 
 I did not preach the Gospel, nor even touch upon the great 
 doctrines of Christianity in my sermons, and if this same
 
 96 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 impression be prevalent now, it will be mischievous to the 
 school in a high degree. Now, if what I do really preach be 
 to any man's notions not the Gospel, I cannot help it, and 
 must be content to abide by the consequences of his opinion; 
 but I do not want to be misunderstood, and accused of omit- 
 ting things which I do not omit. 
 
 XXXII. TO THK REV. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 
 Rugby, August 16, 1828. 
 
 If I can do my work as I ought to do it, we shall 
 
 have every reason to be thankful for the change. I must 
 not, it is true, think of dear old Laleham, and all that we 
 have left there, or the perfect peace of our eight years of 
 wedded life passed there together. It is odd that both you 
 and I should now for the first time in our lives be moving 
 from our parents' neighborhood ; but in this respect our hap- 
 piness was very uncommon, and to me altogether Laleham 
 was so like a place of premature rest, that I believe I ought 
 to be sincerely thankful that I am called to a scene of harder 
 
 and more anxious labor The boys come back next 
 
 Saturday week. So here begins the second act of our lives. 
 May God bless it to us, and make it help forward the great 
 end of all. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHOOL LIFE AT RUGBY. 
 
 IT would be useless to give any chronological details 
 of a life so necessarily monotonous as that of the Head- 
 master of a public school ; and it is accordingly only 
 intended to describe the general system which Dr. Ar- 
 nold pursued during the fourteen years he was at 
 Rugby. Yet some apology may seem to be due for the 
 length of a chapter, which to the general reader must
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 97 
 
 be comparatively deficient in interest. Something 
 must, indeed, be forgiven to the natural inclination to 
 dwell on those recollections of his life, which to his 
 pupils are the most lively and the most recent some- 
 thing to the almost unconscious tendency to magnify 
 those scenes which are most nearly connected with 
 what is endeared to one's self. But independently of 
 any local or personal considerations, it has been felt 
 that if any part of Dr. Arnold's work deserved special 
 mention, it was his work at Rugby ; and that if it was 
 to be of any use to those of his own profession who 
 would take any interest in it, it could only be made 
 so by a full and minute account. 
 
 Those who look back upon the state of English ed- 
 ucation in the year 1827, must remember how the feel- 
 ing of dissatisfaction with existing institutions, which 
 had begun in many quarters to display itself, had 
 already directed considerable attention to the condi- 
 tion of public schools. The range of classical reading, 
 in itself confined, and with no admixture of other in- 
 formation, had been subject to vehement attacks from 
 the liberal party generally, on the ground of its alleged 
 narrowness and inutility. And the more undoubted 
 evil of the absence of systematic attempts to give a 
 more directly Christian character to what constituted 
 the education of the whole English gentry, was becom- 
 ing more and more a scandal in the eyes of religious 
 men, who at the close of the last century and the 
 beginning of this Wilberforce, for example, and 
 Bowdler had lifted up their voices against it. A 
 complete reformation, or a complete destruction of 
 the whole system, seemed to many persons sooner or 
 later to be inevitable. The difficulty, however, of 
 making the first step, where the alleged objection to 
 alteration was its impracticability, was not to be easily 
 surmounted. The mere resistance to change which 
 clings to old institutions, was in itself a considerable 
 obstacle, and, in the case of some of the public schools, 
 from the nature of their constitution, in the first in-
 
 98 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 stance almost insuperable; and whether amongst 
 those who were engaged in the existing system, or 
 those who were most vehemently opposed to it, for 
 opposite but obvious reason, it must have been ex- 
 tremely difficult to find a man who would attempt, 
 or if he attempted, carry through any extensive im- 
 provement. . 
 
 It was at this juncture that Dr. Arnold was elected 
 head-master of a school which, whilst it presented a 
 fair average specimen of the public schools at that time, 
 yet by its constitution imposed fewer shackles on its 
 head, and offered a more open field for alteration than 
 was the case at least with Eton or Winchester. The 
 post itself, in spite of the publicity, and to a certain 
 degree formality, which it entailed upon him, was in 
 many respects remarkably suited to his natural tastes ; 
 to his love of tuition, which had now grown so 
 strongly upon him, that he declared sometimes that he 
 could hardly live without such employment ; to the 
 vigor and spirits which fitted him rather to deal with 
 the young than the old ; to the desire of carrying out 
 his favorite ideas of uniting things secular with things 
 spiritual, and of introducing the highest principles of 
 action into regions comparatively uncongenial to their 
 reception. 
 
 Even his general interest in public matters was not 
 without its use in his new station. Many, indeed, both 
 of his admirers and of his opponents, used to lament 
 that a man with such views and pursuits should be 
 placed in such a situation. " What a pity," it was 
 said on the one hand, " that a man fit to be a states- 
 man should be employed in teaching school-boys." 
 " What a shame," it was said on the other hand, "that 
 the head-master of Rugby should be employed in writ- 
 ing essays and pamphlets." But, even had there been 
 no connection between the two spheres of his interest, 
 and had the inconvenience resulting from his public 
 prominence been far greater than it was, it would have 
 been the necessary price of having him at all in that
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 99 
 
 place. He would not have been himself, had he not 
 felt and written as he did ; and he could not have 
 endured to live under the grievance of remaining silent 
 on subjects, on which he believed it to be his most 
 sacred duty to speak what he thought. 
 
 As it was, however, the one sphere played into the 
 other. Whatever labor he -bestowed on his literary 
 works was only part of that constant progress of self- 
 education which he thought essential to the right dis- 
 charge of his duties as a teacher. Whatever interest 
 he felt in the struggles of the political and ecclesiasti- 
 cal world, reacted on his interest in the school, and 
 invested it in his eyes with a new importance. When 
 he thought of the social evils of the country, it awak- 
 ened a corresponding desire to check the thoughtless 
 waste and selfishness of school-boys ; a corresponding 
 sense of the aggravation of those evils by the insolence 
 and want of sympathy too frequently shown by the 
 children of the wealthier classes towards the lower 
 orders ; a corresponding desire that they should there 
 imbibe the first principles of reverence to law and 
 regard for the poor which the spirit of the age seemed 
 to him so little to encourage. When he thought of 
 the evils of the Church, he would "turn from the 
 thought of the general temple in ruins, and see wheth- 
 er they could not, within the walls of their own little 
 particular congregation," endeavor to realize what he 
 believed to be its true idea ; " what use they could 
 make of the vestiges of it still left amongst themselves 
 common reading of the Scriptures, common prayer, 
 and the communion." (Serm. vol. iv. pp. 266, 316.) 
 Thus, " whatever of striking good or evil happened in 
 any part of the wide range of English dominion " 
 brought to his thoughts " on what important scenes 
 some of his own scholars might be called upon to 
 enter ; " " whatever new and important things took 
 place in the world of thought," suggested the hope 
 " that they, when they went forth amidst the strifes 
 of tongues and of minds, might be endowed with the
 
 100 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 spirit of wisdom and power." (Senn. vol. v. p. 405.) 
 And even in the details of the school, it would be curi> 
 ous to trace how he recognized in the peculiar vices of 
 boys the same evils which, when full grown, became 
 the source of so much social mischief: how he gov- 
 erned the school precisely on the same principles as he 
 would have governed a great empire ; how constantly, 
 to his own mind or to his scholars, he exemplified 
 the highest truths of theology and philosophy in the 
 simplest relations of the boys* towards each other, or 
 towards him. 
 
 In entering upon his office he met with difficulties, 
 many of which have since passed away, but which 
 must be borne in mind, if points are here dwelt upon 
 that have now ceased to be important, but were by no 
 means insignificant or obvious when he came to Rugby. 
 Nor did his system at once attain its full maturity. He 
 was a long time feeling his way amongst the various in- 
 stitutions which he formed or invented : he was con- 
 stantly striving after an ideal standard of perfection, 
 which he was conscious that he had never attained ; to 
 the improvements which, in a short time, began to take, 
 place in other schools to those at Harrow, under his 
 friend Dr. Longley, and to those at Winchester, under 
 Dr. Moberley, to which he alluded in one of his later 
 sermons, (vol. v. p. 150,) he often looked as models 
 for himself ; to suggestions from persons very much 
 younger than himself, not unfrequently from his for- 
 mer pupils, with regard to the course of reading, or to 
 alterations in his manner of preaching, or to points of 
 discipline, he would often listen with the greatest def- 
 erence. His own mind was constantly devising new 
 measures for carrying out his several views. " The 
 school," he said, on first coming, " is quite enough to 
 employ any man's love of reform ; and it is much 
 pleasanter to think of evils, which you may yourself 
 hope to relieve, than those with regard to which you 
 can give nothing but vain wishes and opinions." 
 M There is enough of Toryism in my nature," he said
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 101 
 
 on evils being mentioned to him in the place, "to 
 make me very apt to sleep contentedly over things as 
 they are, and therefore I hold it to be most true kind- 
 ness when any one directs my attention to points in 
 the school which are alleged to be going on ill." 
 
 The perpetual succession of changes which resulted 
 from this was by many objected to as excessive, and 
 calculated to endanger the stability of his whole sys- 
 tem. " He wakes every morning," it was said of him, 
 " with the impression that everything is an open ques- 
 tion." But rapid as might be the alterations to which 
 the details of his system were subjected, the general 
 principles remained fixed. The unwillingness which 
 he had, even in common life, to act in any individual 
 case, without some general law to which he might refer 
 it, ran through everything, and at times it would almost 
 seem as if he invented universal rules with the express 
 object of meeting particular cases. Still, if in smaller 
 matters this gave an occasional impression of fanciful- 
 ness or inconsistency, it was, in greater matters, one 
 chief cause of the confidence which he inspired. 
 Amidst all the plans that came before him, he felt, 
 and he made others feel, that whatever might be the 
 merits of the particular question at issue, there were 
 principles behind which lay far more deeply seated 
 than any mere question of school government, which 
 he was ready to carry through at whatever cost, and 
 from which no argument or menace could move him. 
 
 Of the mere external administration of the school, 
 little need here be said. Many difficulties which he 
 encountered were alike provoked and subdued by the 
 peculiarities of his own character. The vehemence 
 with which he threw himself into a contest against 
 evil, and the confidence with which he assailed it, 
 though it carried him through perplexities to which a 
 more cautious man would have yielded, led him to dis- 
 regard interests and opinions which a less earnest or 
 a less sanguine reformer would have treated with 
 greater consideration. His consciousness of his own 
 
 9*
 
 102 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 integrity, and his contempt for worldly advantage, 
 sometimes led him to require from others more than 
 might be reasonably expected from them, and to adopt 
 measures which the world at large was sure to misin- 
 terpret ; yet these very qualities, in proportion as they 
 became more appreciated, ultimately secured for him 
 a confidence beyond what could have been gained by 
 the most deliberate circumspection. But whatever 
 were the temporary exasperations and excitements 
 thus produced in his dealings with others, they were 
 gradually removed by the increasing control over him- 
 self and his work which he acquired in later years. 
 The readiness which he showed to acknowledge a fault 
 when once convinced of it, as well as to persevere in 
 kindness even when he thought himself injured, suc- 
 ceeded in healing breaches which, with a less forgiving 
 or less honest temper, would have been irreparable. 
 His union of firmness with tenderness had the same 
 effect in the settlement of some of the perplexities of 
 his office, which in others would have resulted from 
 art and management ; and even his work as a school- 
 master cannot be properly appreciated without remem- 
 bering how, in the end of his career, he rallied round 
 him the public feeling, which in its beginning and 
 middle, as will appear further on, had been so widely 
 estranged from them. 
 
 With regard to the trustees of the school, entirely 
 amicable as were his usual relations with them, and 
 grateful as he felt to them for their active support and 
 personal friendliness, he from the first maintained that 
 in the actual working of the school he must be com- 
 pletely independent, and that their remedy, if they 
 were dissatisfied, was not interference, but dismissal. 
 On this condition he took the post, and any attempt to 
 control either his administration of the school, or his 
 own private occupations, he felt bound to resist " as a 
 duty," he said on one occasion, " not only to himself 
 but to the master of every foundation school in Eng- 
 land."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 103 
 
 Of his intercourse with the assistant-masters it is for 
 obvious reasons impossible to speak with that detail 
 which the subject deserves. But though the co-opera- 
 tion of his colleagues was necessarily thrown into the 
 shade by the activity and vigor of his own character, 
 it must not be lost sight of in the following account, 
 whether it be regarded as one of his most characteris- 
 tic means of administration, or as an instance of the 
 powerful influence he exercised over those with whom 
 he was brought into close contact. It was one of his 
 main objects to increase in all possible ways their im- 
 portance and their interest in the place. " Nothing 
 delights me more," he said, in speaking of the reputa- 
 tion enjoyed by one of his colleagues, " than to think 
 that boys are sent here for his sake rather than for 
 mine." In matters of school discipline he seldom or 
 never acted without consulting them. Every three 
 weeks a council was held, in which all school matters 
 were discussed, and in which every one was free to 
 express his opinion, or propose any measure not in 
 contradiction to any fundamental principle of school 
 administration, and in which it would not unfre- 
 quently happen that he was himself opposed and out- 
 voted. He was anxious that they, like himself, should 
 have time to read for their own improvement, and he 
 was also glad to encourage any occasional help that 
 they might render to the neighboring clergy. But 
 from the first he maintained that the school business 
 was to occupy their main and undivided interest. The 
 practice, which owing to their lower salaries had before 
 prevailed, of uniting some parochial cure with their 
 school duties, was entirely abolished, and the boarding- 
 houses, as they respectively became vacant, he placed 
 exclusively under their care. The connection thus 
 established between the masters and the boys in the 
 several houses he labored to strengthen by opening in 
 various ways means for friendly communication be- 
 tween them ; every house was thus to be as it were 
 an epitome of the whole school. On the one hand
 
 104 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 every master was to have, as he used to say, " each a 
 horse of his own to ride," independent of the " mere 
 phantasmagoria of boys" passing successively through 
 their respective forms ; and, on the other hand, the 
 boys would thus have some one at hand to consult in 
 difficulties, to explain their case if they got into trou- 
 ble with the head-master, or the other masters, to send 
 a report * of their characters home, to prepare them 
 for confirmation, and in general to stand to them in 
 the relation of a pastor to his flock. " No parochial 
 ministry," he would say to them, " can be more prop- 
 erly a cure of souls than yours ; " and though, where 
 it might happen that the masters were laymen, no dif- 
 ference was made between their duties to their boys 
 and those of others, yet he was anxious, as a general 
 rule, that they should be ordained as soon as possible, 
 and procured from the bishop of the diocese a recogni- 
 tion of their situations as titles for orders. Whatever, 
 in short, he was in his own department, he wished 
 them to be in theirs ; whatever he felt about his 
 superintendence of the whole school, he wished them 
 to feel about that part of it especially committed to 
 them. It was an increasing delight to him to inspire 
 them with general views of education and of life, by 
 which he was himself so fully possessed ; and the bond, 
 thus gradually formed, especially when in his later 
 time several of those who had been his pupils became 
 his colleagues, grew deeper and stronger with each 
 successive year that they passed in the place. Out of 
 his own family, there was no circle, of which he was 
 so completely the animating principle, as amongst 
 those who co-operated with him in the great practical 
 work of his life ; none in which his loss was more 
 keenly felt to be irreparable, or his example more in- 
 
 * This practice which he first introduced at the end of each half-year, 
 afterwards became monthly. He himself used latterly to write besides 
 every half-year to the parents of every boy in his own form; shortly, it 
 the boy's character was good at considerable length, if he had cause o/ 
 complaint.
 
 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 105 
 
 stinctively regarded as a living spring of action, and a 
 source of solemn responsibility, than amongst those 
 who were called to continue their labors in the sphere 
 and on the scene which had been ennobled to them by 
 his counsels and his presence.* 
 
 But whatever interest attaches to the more external 
 circumstances of his administration, and to his rela- 
 tions with others, who were concerned, it is of course 
 centred in his own personal government of the boys. 
 The natural effect of his concentration of interest on 
 what he used to call " our great self," the school, was 
 that the separate existence of the school was in return 
 
 * His views will perhaps be best explained by the two following let- 
 ters : 
 
 LETTER OF INQUIRY FOR A MASTER. 
 
 What I want is a man who is a Christian and a gentleman, an 
 
 active man, and one who has common sense and understands boys. I do 
 not so much care about scholarship, as he will have immediately under 
 him the lowest forms of the school ; but yet, on second thoughts, Ido care 
 about it very much, because his pupils may be in the highest forms ; and 
 besides, I think that even the elements are best taught by a man who has 
 a thorough knowledge of the matter. However, if one must give way, J 
 prefer activity of mind and an interest in his work to high scholarship : 
 for the one may be acquired far more easily than the other. I should wish 
 it also to be understood, that the new master may be called upon to take 
 boarders in his house, it being my intention for the future to require this 
 of all masters as I see occasion, that so in time the boarding-houses may 
 
 die a natural death With this to offer, I think I have a right to 
 
 look rather high for the man whom I fix upon, and it is my great object 
 to get here a society of intelligent, gentlemanly, and active men, who 
 may permanently keep up the character of the school, and make it " vile 
 damnuin," if I were to break my neck to-morrow 
 
 LETTER TO A MASTER ON HIS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 The qualifications which I deem essential to the due perform- 
 ance of a master's duties here, may in brief be expressed as the spirit of 
 a Christian and a gentleman, that a man should enter upon his business 
 not K Trapepyov, but as a substantive and most important duty ; that he 
 should devote himself to it as the especial branch of the ministerial call- 
 ing which he has chosen to follow that belonging to the great public 
 institution, and standing in a public and conspicuous situation, he should 
 study things " lovely and of good report; " that is, that he should be pub- 
 lic-spirited, liberal, and entering heartily into the interest, honor, and 
 general respectability and distinction of the society which he has joined ; 
 and that he should have sufficient vigor of mind and thirst for knowledge, 
 to persist in adding to his own stores without neglecting the full improve- 
 ment of those whom he is teaching. 1 think our masterships here offer 
 a noble field of duty, and I would not bestow them on any one whom I 
 thought would undertake them without entering into the spirit of our 
 .system heart and hand.
 
 106 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 almost merged in him. This was not indeed his own 
 intention, but it was precisely because he thought so 
 much of the institution and so little of himself, that, in 
 spite of his efforts to make it work independently of 
 any personal influence of his own, it became so thor- 
 oughly dependent upon him, and so thoroughly pene- 
 trated with his spirit. From one end of it to the other, 
 whatever defects it had were his defects, whatever ex- 
 cellences it had were his excellences. It was not the 
 master who was beloved or disliked for the sake of the 
 school, but the school was beloved or disliked for the 
 sake of the master. Whatever peculiarity of character 
 was impressed on the scholars whom it sent forth, was 
 derived not from the genius of the place, but from the 
 genius of the man. Throughout, whether in the 
 school itself, or in its after effects, the one image that 
 we have before us is not Rugby, but ARNOLD. 
 
 What was his great object has already appeared from 
 his letters ; namely, the hope of making the school a 
 place of really Christian education. These words in 
 his mouth meant something very different from the 
 general professions which every good teacher must be 
 supposed to make, and which no teacher even in the 
 worst times of English education could have openly 
 ventured to disclaim ; but it is exceedingly difficult so 
 to explain them, as that they shall not seem to exceed 
 or fall short of the truth. It was not an attempt 
 merely to give more theological instruction, or to in- 
 troduce sacred words into school admonitions ; there 
 may have been some occasions for religious advice that 
 might have been turned to more advantage, some 
 religious practices which might have been more con- 
 stantly or effectually encouraged. His design arose 
 out of the very nature of his office : the relation of an 
 instructor to his pupils was to him, like all the other 
 relations of human life, only in a healthy state, when 
 subordinate to their common relation to God. The 
 idea of a Christian school, again, was to him the natu- 
 ral result, so to speak, of the very idea of a school in
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 107 
 
 itself ; exactly as the idea of a Christian state seemed 
 to him to be involved in the very idea of a state itself. 
 The intellectual training was not for a moment under- 
 rated, and the machinery of the school was left to have 
 its own way. But he looked upon the whole as bear- 
 ing on the advancement of the one end of all instruction 
 and education ; the boys were still treated as school- 
 boys, but as schoolboys who must grow up to be Chris- 
 tian men ; whose age did not prevent their faults from 
 being sins, or their excellences from being noble and 
 Christian virtues ; whose situation did not of itself 
 make the application of Christian principles to their 
 daily lives an impracticable vision. 
 
 His education, in short, it was once observed amidst 
 the vehement outcry by which he used to be assailed, 
 "was not (according to the popular phrase) based 
 upon religion, but was itself religious" It was this 
 chiefly which gave a oneness to his work amidst a 
 great variety of means and occupations, and a steadi- 
 ness to the general system amidst its almost unceasing 
 change. It was this which makes it difficult to sepa- 
 rate one part of his work from another, and which often 
 made it impossible for his pupils to say in after life, of 
 much that had influenced them, whether they had 
 derived it from what was spoken in school, in the 
 pulpit, or in private. And, therefore, when either in 
 direct religious teaching, or on particular occasions, 
 Christian principles were expressly introduced by him, 
 they had not the appearance of a rhetorical flourish or 
 of a temporary appeal to the feelings ; they were 
 looked upon as the natural expression of what was 
 constantly implied : it was felt that he had the power, 
 in which so many teachers have been deficient, of say- 
 ing what he did mean, and of not paying what he did 
 not mean, the power of doing what was right, and 
 speaking what was true, and thinking what was good, 
 independently of any professional or conventional 
 notions that so to act, speak, or think, was becoming 
 or expedient.
 
 108 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 It was not merely an abstract school, but an English 
 public school, which he looked upon as the sphere in 
 which this was to be effected. There was something 
 to him at the very outset full of interest in a great 
 place of national education, such as he considered a 
 public school to be. 
 
 " There is," he said, " or there ought to be, something very 
 ennobling in being connected with an establishment at once 
 ancient and magnificent, where all about us, and all the asso- 
 ciations belonging to the objects around us, should be great, 
 splendid and elevating. What an individual ought and often 
 does derive from the feeling that he is born of an old and 
 illustrious race, from being familiar from his childhood with 
 the walls and trees which speak of the past no less than of 
 the present, and make both full of images of greatness ; this, 
 in an inferior degree, belongs to every member of an ancient 
 and celebrated place of education. In this respect every one 
 of us has a responsibility imposed upon him, which I wish 
 that we more considered." * (Serm. vol. iii. p. 210.) 
 
 This feeling of itself dictated the preservation of the 
 old school constitution as far as it was possible, and he 
 was very careful not to break through any customs 
 which connected the institution, however slightly, with 
 
 *It was one of his most cherished wishes at Rugby, to be enabled to leave 
 to the school some permanent rank or dignity, which should in some meas- 
 ure compensate for its total barrenness of all historical associations, which 
 he always felt painfully in contrast with his own early school, Winches- 
 ter. Thus, amongst other schemes, he exerted himself to procure a medal 
 or gome similar favor from the crown. " I can truly say," he wrote in 
 1840, ' ' that nothing which could have been given me in the way of pre- 
 ferment, would have been so gratifying tome as to have been the means 
 in any degree of obtaining what I think would be not more an honor than 
 a real and lasting benefit to the school." The general grounds on which 
 he thought this desirable, may best be stated in his own words: " I think 
 that it would be well, on public grounds, to confer what may be consid- 
 ered as analogous to a peerage conferred on some of the wealthiest corn- 
 oners, or to a silk gown bestowed on distinguished lawyers; that is, that 
 when schools had risen from a very humble origin to a considerable place 
 in the country, and had continued so for sometime, some royal gift, now- 
 ever small, should be bostowed upon them, merely as a sort of recognition, 
 or confirmation, on the part of the Crown, of the courtesy rank whicL 
 they had acquired already. I have always believed that one of the sim- 
 plest and most effectual means of improving the foundation schools 
 throughout the country would be to hold out the hope of some mark oi 
 encouragement from the Crown, as they might happen to deserve it.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 109 
 
 the past. But in this constitution there were pecu- 
 liarities of far greater importance in his eyes, for good 
 or evil, than any mere imaginative associations ; the 
 peculiarities which distinguish the English public 
 school system from almost every other system of edu- 
 cation in Europe, and which are all founded on the 
 fact that a large number of boys are left for a large 
 portion of their time to form an independent society 
 of their own, in which the influence that they exercise 
 over each other is far greater than can possibly be 
 exercised by the masters, even if multiplied greatly 
 beyond their present number. 
 
 How keenly he felt the evils resulting from this sys- 
 tem, and the difficulty of communicating to it a really 
 Christian character, will be evident to any one who 
 knows the twelfth Sermon in his second volume, in 
 which he unfolded, at the beginning of his career, the 
 causes which had led good men to declare that " pub- 
 lic schools are the seats and nurseries of vice ; " or the 
 three sermons on "Christian Schools," in his fifth 
 volume, in which, with the added experience of ten 
 years, he analyzed the six evils by which he " sup- 
 posed that great schools were likely to be corrupted, 
 and to be changed from the likeness of God's temple to 
 that of a den of thieves." (Vol. v. p. 74.) 
 
 Sometimes he would be led to doubt whether it were 
 really compatible with the highest principles of educa- 
 tion ; sometimes he would seem to have an earnest 
 and almost impatient desire to free himself from it. 
 Still, on the whole, it was always on a reformation, 
 not on an overthrow, of the existing constitution of 
 the school that he endeavored to act. "Another 
 system," he said, " may be better in itself, but I am 
 placed in this system, and am bound to try what I can 
 make of it." 
 
 With his usual and undoubting confidence in what 
 ne believed to be a general law of Providence, he based 
 his whole management of the school on his early- 
 formed and yearly-increasing conviction that what he 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 110 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 had to look for, both intellectually and morally, was 
 not performance but promise ; that the very freedom 
 and independence of school life, which in itself he 
 thought so dangerous, might be made the best prepa- 
 ration for Christian manhood ; and he did not hesitate 
 to apply to his scholars the principle which seemed to 
 him to have been adopted in the training of the child- 
 hood of the human race itself.* He shrunk from 
 pressing on the conscience of boys rules of action 
 which he felt they were not yet able to bear, and from 
 enforcing actions which, though right in themselves, 
 would in boys be performed from wrong motives. 
 Keenly as he felt the risk and fatal consequences of 
 the failure of this trial, still it was his great, sometimes 
 his only support to believe that "the character is 
 braced amid such scenes to a greater beauty and firm- 
 ness than it ever can attain without enduring and wit- 
 nessing them. Our work here would be absolutely 
 unendurable if we do not bear in mind that we should 
 look forward as well as backward if we did not 
 remember that the victory of fallen man lies not in 
 innocence but in tried virtue." (Serm. vol. iv. p. 7.) 
 "I hold fast," said he, "to the great truth, that 
 4 blessed is he that overcometh ; ' " and he writes in 
 1837: "Of all the painful things connected with 
 my employment, nothing is equal to the grief of seeing 
 a boy come to school innocent and promising, and 
 tracing the corruption of his character from the influ- 
 ence of the temptations around him, in the very place 
 which ought to have strengthened and improved it. 
 But in most cases those who come with a character of 
 positive good are benefited ; it is the neutral and inde- 
 cisive characters which are apt to be decided for evil 
 by schools, as they would be in fact by any other 
 temptation." 
 
 But this very feeling led him with the greater eager- 
 ness to catch at every means by which the trial might 
 
 * Sermons, yol. ii. p. 440.
 
 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. Ill 
 
 be shortened or alleviated. " Can the change from 
 childhood to manhood be hastened, without prema- 
 turely exhausting the faculties of body or mind?" 
 (Serm. vol. iv. p. 19) was one of the chief questions 
 on which his mind was constantly at work, and which 
 in the judgment of some he was disposed to answer 
 too readily in the affirmative. It was with the elder 
 boys, of course, that he chiefly acted on this principle, 
 but with all above the very young ones he trusted to 
 it more or less. Firmly as he believed that a time of 
 trial was inevitable, he believed no less firmly that it 
 might be passed at public schools sooner than under 
 other circumstances ; and, in proportion as he disliked 
 the assumption of a false manliness in boys, was his 
 desire to cultivate in them true manliness, as the only 
 step to something higher, and to dwell on earnest 
 principle and moral thoughtfulness, as the great and 
 distinguishing mark between good and evil.* Hence 
 his wish that as much as possible should be done by 
 the boys, and nothing for them ; hence arose his prac- 
 tice, in which his own delicacy of feeling and upright- 
 ness of purpose powerfully assisted him, of treating the 
 boys as gentlemen and reasonable beings, of making 
 them respect themselves by the mere respect he showed 
 to them ; of showing that he appealed and trusted to 
 their own common sense and conscience. Lying, for 
 example, to the masters, he made a great moral 
 offence : placing implicit confidence in a boy's asser- 
 tion, and then, if a falsehood was discovered, punish- 
 ing it severely, in the upper part of the school, when 
 persisted in, with expulsion. Even with the lower 
 forms he never seemed to be on the watch for boys ; 
 and in the higher forms any attempt at further proof 
 of an assertion was immediatety checked: "If you 
 say so, that is quite enough of course I believe your 
 word ; " and there grew up in consequence a general 
 feeling that "it was a shame to tell Arnold a He he 
 always believes one." 
 
 * See Sermons, vol. iv. p. 99.
 
 112 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Perhaps the liveliest representation of this general 
 spirit, as distinguished from its exemplification in par- 
 ticular parts of the discipline and instruction, would be 
 formed by recalling his manner, as he appeared in the 
 great school, where the boys used to meet when the 
 whole school was assembled collectively, and not in its 
 different forms or classes. Then, whether on his usual 
 entrance every morning to prayers before the first les- 
 son, or on the more special emergencies which might 
 require his presence, he seemed to stand before them, 
 not merely as the head-master, but as the representa- 
 tive of the school. There he spoke to them as mem- 
 bers together with himself of the same great institu- 
 tion, whose character and reputation they had to sus- 
 tain as well as he. He would dwell on the satisfaction 
 he had in being head of a society, where noble and 
 honorable feelings were encouraged, or on the disgrace 
 which he felt in hearing of acts of disorder or violence, 
 such as in the humbler ranks of life would render 
 them amenable to the law of their country ; or^ again, 
 on the trust which he placed in their honor as gentle- 
 men, and the baseness of any instance in which it was 
 abused. " Is this a Christian school ? " he indignantly 
 asked at the end of one of those addresses, in which he 
 had spoken of an extensive display of bad feeling 
 amongst the boys ; and then added, "I cannot re- 
 main here if all is to be carried on by constraint and 
 force ; if I am to be here as a jailer, I will resign my 
 office at once." And few scenes can be recorded more 
 characteristic of him than on one of these occasions, 
 when, in consequence of a disturbance, he had been 
 obliged to send away several boys, and when in the 
 midst of the general spirit of discontent which this ex- 
 cited, he stood in his place before the assembled school, 
 and said, "It is not necessary that this should be a 
 school of three hundred, or one hundred, or of fifty 
 boys ; but it is necessary that it should be a school of 
 Christian gentlemen." 
 
 The means of carrying out these principles were of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 113 
 
 course various ; they may, however, for the sake of 
 convenience, be viewed under the divisions of the gen- 
 eral discipline of the school, the system of instruction, 
 the chapel services, and his own personal intercourse 
 and influence. 
 
 I. In considering his general management of the 
 discipline of the school, it will only be possible to 
 touch on its leading features. 
 
 1. He at once made a great alteration in the whole 
 system of punishments in the higher part of the school, 
 " keeping it as much as possible in the background, and 
 by kindness and encouragement attracting the good 
 and noble feelings of those with whom he had to deal."* 
 As this appears more distinctly elsewhere, it is needless 
 to enlarge upon it here ; but a few words may be neces- 
 sary to explain the view with which, for the younger 
 part of the school, he made a point of maintaining, to 
 a certain extent, the old discipline of public schools. 
 
 " The beau ideal of school discipline with regard to young 
 boys would seem to be this, that, whilst corporal punishment 
 was retained on principle as fitly answering to and marking 
 the naturally inferior state of boyhood, and therefore as con- 
 veying no peculiar degradation to persons in such a state, we 
 should cherish and encourage to the utmost all attempts made 
 by the several boys, as individuals, to escape from the natural 
 punishment of their age by rising above its naturally low tone 
 of principle." 
 
 Flogging, therefore, for the younger part he re- 
 tained, but it was confined to moral offences, such as 
 lying, drinking, and habitual idleness, while his aver- 
 sion to inflicting it rendered it still less frequent in 
 practice than it would have been according to the rule 
 he had laid down for it. But in answer to the argu- 
 ment used in a liberal journal, that it was even for 
 these offences and for this age degrading, he replied 
 with characteristic emphasis 
 
 * Serin, vol. iv. p. 106. The whole sermon is a full exposition of his view. 
 10* H
 
 114 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 " I know well of what feeling this is the expression ; it 
 originates in that proud notion of personal independence 
 which is neither reasonable nor Christian but essentially 
 barbarism. ' It visited Europe with all the curses of the age 
 of chivalry, and is threatening us now with those of Jacobin- 
 ism At an age when it is almost impossible to h'nd a 
 
 true manly sense of the degradation of guilt or faults, where 
 is the wisdom of encouraging a fantastic sense of the degra- 
 dation of personal correction ? What can be more false, or 
 more adverse to the simplicity, sobriety, ?nd humbleness of 
 mind, which are the best ornament of youth, and the best 
 promise of a noble manhood ? "* 
 
 2. But his object was of course far higher than to 
 check particular vices. " What I want to see in the 
 school," he said, " and what I cannot find, is an abhor- 
 rence of evil : I always think of the psalm, * Neither 
 doth he abhor anything that is evil.' ' Amongst all 
 the causes, which in his judgment, contributed to the 
 absence of this feeling, and to the moral childishness, 
 which he considered the great curse of public schools, 
 the chief seemed to him to lie in the spirit which was 
 there encouraged of combination, of companionship, 
 of excessive deference to the public opinion prevalent 
 in the school. Peculiarly repugnant as this spirit was 
 at once to his own reference for lawful authority, and 
 to his dislike of servile submission to unlawful author- 
 ity ; fatal as he deemed it to all approach to sympathy 
 between himself and his scholars to all free and 
 manly feeling in individual boys to all real and per- 
 manent improvement of the institution itself it gave 
 him more pain when brought prominently before him, 
 than any other evil in the school. At the very sight 
 of a knot of vicious or careless boys gathered to- 
 gether round the great school-house fire, "It makes 
 me think," he would say, " that I see the Devil in the 
 midst of them." From first to last it was the great 
 subject to which all his anxiety converged. No half- 
 year ever passed without his preaching upon it he 
 
 * Miscellaneous Works, p. 365.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 115 
 
 turned it over and over in every possible point of view 
 he dwelt on it as the one master-fault of all. "If 
 the spirit of Elijah were to stand in the midst of us, 
 and we were to ask him, ' What shall we do then ? ' his 
 answer would be, w Fear not, nor heed one another's 
 voices, but fear and heed the voice of God only.' " 
 (MS. Serm. on Luke iii. 10. 1833.) 
 
 Against this evil he felt that no efforts of good indi- 
 vidual example, or of personal sympathy with individ- 
 ual masters, could act effectually, unless there were 
 something to counteract it constantly amongst the boys 
 themselves. 
 
 " He, therefore, who wishes " (to use his own words) 
 " really to improve public education would do well to direct 
 his attention to this point, and to consider how there can be 
 infused in to a society of boys such elements as, without being 
 too dissimilar to coalesce thoroughly with the rest, shall yet 
 be so superior as to raise the character of the whole. It 
 would be absurd to say that any school has as yet fully solved 
 this problem. I am convinced, however, that, in the peculiar 
 relation of the highest form to the rest of the boys, such as it 
 exists in our great public schools, there is to be found the 
 best means of answering it. This relation requires in many 
 respects to be improved in its character ; some of its features 
 should be softened, others elevated ; but here, and here only, 
 is the engine which can effect the end desired." (Jouru. 
 Ed. p. 292.) 
 
 In other words, he determined to use, and to im- 
 prove to the utmost, the existing machinery of the 
 Sixth Form, and of fagging ; understanding by the 
 Sixth Form the thirty boys who composed the highest 
 class " those who having risen to the highest form 
 in the school, will probably be at once the oldest and 
 the strongest, and the cleverest ; and if the school be 
 well ordered, the most respectable in application and 
 general character : " and by fagging, " the power given 
 by the supreme authorities of the school to the Sixth 
 Form, to be exercised by them over the lower boys, 
 for the sake of securing a regular government amongst
 
 116 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the boys themselves, and avoiding the evils of anarchy -, 
 in other words, of the lawless tyranny of physical 
 strength." (Journ. Ed. p. 287, 286.)* 
 
 In many points he took the institution as he found 
 it, and as he remembered it at Winchester. The re- 
 sponsibility of checking bad practices without the 
 intervention of the masters, the occasional settlement 
 of difficult cases of school government, the subjection 
 of brute force to some kind of order, involved in the 
 maintenance of such an authority, had been more or 
 less produced under the old system both at Rugby and 
 elsewhere. But his zeal in its defence, and his confi- 
 dent reliance upon it as the keystone of his whole 
 government, were eminently characteristic of himself. 
 It was a point moreover on which the spirit of the age 
 set strongly and increasingly against him, on which 
 there was a general tendency to yield to the popular 
 outcry, and on which the clamor, that at one time 
 assailed him, was ready to fasten, as a subject where 
 all parties could concur in their condemnation. But 
 he was immovable : and though, on his first coming, 
 he had felt himself called upon rather to restrain the 
 authority of the Sixth Form from abuses than to guard 
 it from encroachments, yet now that the whole system 
 was denounced as cruel and absurd, he delighted to 
 stand forth as its champion. The power, which was 
 most strongly condemned, of personal chastisement 
 vested in Praepostors over those who resisted their 
 authority, he firmly maintained as essential to the gen- 
 eral support of the good order of the place ; and there 
 was no obloquy which he would not undergo in the 
 protection of a boy who had by due exercise of this 
 discipline made himself obnoxious to the school, the 
 parents, or the public. 
 
 * It has not been thought necessary here to enter at length into his de- 
 fense of the general system of fagging, especially as it may he seen by 
 those who are interested in the subject in the article in the ninth volume 
 of the Quarterly Journal of Education, from which the above extracts 
 have been taken, and which is now inserted at length in the volume of 
 his Miscellaneous Works.
 
 LIFE OF DK. ARNOLD. 117 
 
 But the importance which he attached to it arose 
 from his regarding it not only as an efficient engine of 
 discipline, but as the chief means of creating a respect 
 for moral and intellectual excellence, and of diffusing 
 his own influence through the mass of the school. 
 Whilst he made the Praepostors rely upon his support 
 in all just use of their authority, as well as on his 
 severe judgment of all abuse of it, he endeavored also 
 to make them feel that they were actually fellow-work- 
 ers with him for the highest good of the school, upon 
 the highest principles and motives that they had, 
 with him, a moral responsibility and a deep interest in 
 the real welfare of the place. Occasionally during his 
 whole stay, and regularly at the beginning or end of 
 every half-year during his later years, he used to make 
 short addresses to them on their duties, or on the gen- 
 eral state of the school, one of which, as an illustra- 
 tion of his general mode of speaking and acting with 
 them, it has been thought worth while to give, as 
 nearly as his pupils could remember it, in the very 
 words he used. After making a few remarks to them 
 on their work in the lessons : " I will now," he pro- 
 ceeded, " say a few words to you as I promised. Speak- 
 ing to you as to young men who can enter into what I 
 say, I wish you to feel that you have another duty to 
 perform, holding the situation that you do in the 
 school ; of the importance of this I wish you all to feel 
 sensible, and of the enormous influence you possess, in 
 ways in which we cannot, for good or for evil, on all 
 below you ; and I wish you to see fully how many and 
 great are the opportunities offered to you here of do- 
 ing good good, too, of lasting benefit to yourselves 
 as well as to others ; there is no place where you will 
 find better opportunities for some time to come, and 
 you will then have reason to look back to your life 
 here with the greatest pleasure. You will soon find, 
 when you change your life here for that at the Univer- 
 sities, how very few in comparison they are there, 
 however willing you may then be, at any rate, dur-
 
 118 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ing the first part of your life there. That there is 
 good working in the school I most fully believe, and 
 we cannot feel too thankful for it ; in many individual 
 instances, in different parts of the school, I have seen 
 the change from evil to good to mention instances 
 would of course be wrong. The state of the school is 
 a subject of congratulation to us all, but only so far as 
 to encourage us to increased exertions; and I am sure 
 we ought all to feel it a subject of most sincere thank- 
 fulness to God ; but we must not stop here ; we must 
 exert ourselves with earnest prayer to God for its con- 
 tinuance. And what I have often said before I repeat 
 now : what we must look for here is, 1st, religious and 
 moral principles ; 2dly, gentlemanly conduct ; 3dly, 
 intellectual ability." 
 
 Nothing, accordingly, so shook his hopes of doing 
 good as weakness or misconduct in the Sixth. " You 
 should feel," he said, "like officers in the army or 
 navy, whose want of moral courage would, indeed, be 
 thought cowardice." "When I have confidence in 
 the Sixth," was the end of one of his farewell ad- 
 dresses, "there is no post in England which I would 
 exchange for this ; but if they do not support me, I 
 must go." 
 
 It may well be imagined how important this was as 
 an instrument of education, independently of the 
 weight of his own personal qualities. Exactly at the 
 age when boys begin to acquire some degree of self- 
 respect, and some desire for the respect of others, they 
 were treated with confidence by one whose confidence 
 they could not but regard as worth having ; and found 
 themselves in a station where their own dignity could 
 not be maintained, except by consistent good conduct. 
 And exactlyj at a time when manly aspirations begin to 
 expand,, they found themselves invested with functions 
 of government, great beyond their age, yet naturally 
 growing out of their position ; whilst the ground of 
 solemn responsibility, on which they were constantly 
 taught that their authority rested, had a general,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 119 
 
 though of course not universal, tendency to counteract 
 any notions of mere personal self-importance. 
 
 " I cannot deny that you have an anxious duty a duty 
 which some might suppose was too heavy for your years. 
 But it ,j3ems to me the nobler as well the truer ways 
 of stating the case to say, that it is the great privilege of this 
 and other such institutions, to anticipate the common time of 
 manhood ; that by their whole training they fit the character 
 for manly duties at an age when, under another system, such 
 duties would be impracticable ; that there is not imposed upon 
 you too heavy a burden but that you ara capable of bearing, 
 without injury, what to others might be a burden, and there- 
 fore to diminish your duties and lessen your responsibility 
 would be no kindness, but a degradation an effront to you 
 and to the school." (Serm. vol. v. p. 59.) 
 
 3. Whilst he looked to the Sixth Form, as the ordi- 
 nary corrective for the ordinary evils of a public school, 
 he still felt that these evils from time to time developed 
 themselves in a shape which demanded peculiar meth- 
 ods to meet them, and which may best be explained by 
 one of his letters. 
 
 " My own school experience has taught me the monstrous 
 evil of a state of low principle prevailing amongst those who 
 set the tone to the rest. I can neither theoretically nor prac- 
 tically defend our public school system, where the boys are 
 left so very much alone to form a distinct society of their own, 
 unless you assume that the upper class shall be capable of 
 being in a manner pec'irai between the masters and the mass 
 of the boys, that is, shall be capable of receiving and trans- 
 mitting to the rest, through their example and influence, right 
 principles of conduct, instead of those extremely low ones 
 which are natural to a society of boys left wholly to form 
 their own standard of right and wrong. Now, when I get 
 any in this part of the school who are not to be influenced 
 who have neither the will nor the power to influence others 
 not from being intentionally bad, but from very low wit, 
 and extreme childishness or coarseness of character the 
 evil is so great, not only negatively but positively, (for their 
 low and false views are greedily caught up by those below 
 them,) that I know not how to proceed, or how to hinder the
 
 120 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 school from becoming a place of education for evil rather 
 than for good, except by getting rid of such persons. And 
 then comes the difficulty, that the parents who see their sons 
 only at home that is just where the points of character 
 which are so injurious here are not called into action can 
 scarcely be brought to understand why they should remove 
 them ; and having, as most people have, only the most vague 
 ideas as to the real nature of a public school, they cannot 
 understand what harm they are receiving or doing to others, 
 if they do not get into some palpable scrape, which very 
 likely they never would do. More puzzling still it is when 
 you have many boys of this description, so that the evil influ- 
 ence is really very great, and yet there in not one of the set 
 whom you would set down as a really bad fellow if taken 
 alone ; but most of them would really do very well if they 
 were not together and in a situation where, unluckily, their 
 age and size leads them, unavoidably, to form the laws and 
 guide the opinion of their society ; whereas, they are wholly 
 unfit to lead others and are so slow at receiving good influ- 
 ences themselves, that they want to be almost exclusively 
 with older persons, instead of being principally with younger 
 ones." 
 
 The evil undoubtedly was great, and the difficulty, 
 which he describes in the way of its removal, tended to 
 aggravate the evil. When first he entered on his post 
 at Rugby there was a general feeling in the country, 
 that so long as a boy kept himself from offences suffi- 
 ciently enormous to justify expulsion, he had a kind of 
 right to remain in a public school ; that the worse and 
 more troublesome to parents were their sons, the more 
 did a public school seem the precise remedy for them ; 
 that the great end in a public school, in short, was to 
 flog their vices out of bad boys. Hence much indig- 
 nation was excited when boys were sent away for lesser 
 offences ; an unfailing supply of vicious sons was se- 
 cured, and scrupulous parents were naturally reluctant 
 to expose their boys to the influence of such associates. 
 
 His own determination had been fixed long before 
 he came to Rugby, and it was only after ascertaining 
 that his power in this respect would be absolute, that
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 121 
 
 he consented to become a candidate for the post.* The 
 retention of boys who were clearly incapable of deriv- 
 ing good from the system, or whose influence on others 
 was decidedly and extensively pernicious, seemed to 
 him not a necessary part of the trials of school, but 
 an inexcusable and intolerable aggravation of them. 
 " Till a man learns that the first, second, and third 
 duty of a schoolmaster is to get rid of unpromising 
 subjects, a great public school," he said, " will never 
 be what it might be, and what it ought to be." The 
 remonstrances which he encountered both on public 
 and private grounds were vehement and numerous. 
 But on these terms alone had he taken his office ; and 
 he solemnly and repeatedly declared, that on no other 
 terms could he hold it, or justify the existence of the 
 public school system in a Christian country. 
 
 The cases which fell under this rule included all shades 
 of character from the hopelessly bad up to the really 
 good, who yet from their peculiar circumstances might 
 be receiving great injury from the system of a public 
 school ; grave moral offences frequently repeated ; boys 
 banded together in sets to the great harm of individu- 
 als or of the school at large ; overgrown boys, whose 
 age and size gave them influence over others, and 
 made them unfit subjects for corporal punishment, 
 whilst the low place which, either from idleness or 
 dullness, they held in the school, encouraged all the 
 childish and low habits to which they were naturally 
 tempted.f He would retain boys after offences, which 
 considered in themselves would seem to many almost 
 deserving of expulsion ; he would request the removal 
 of others for offences which to many would seem venial. 
 In short, he was decided by the ultimate result on the 
 whole character of the individual, or on the general 
 state of the school. 
 
 * See Letter to Dr. Hawkins, in 1827. 
 
 t The admission of very young boys, e. g. under the age of ten, he ear- 
 nestly depreciated, as considering them incapable of profiting by the 
 discipline of the place. 
 
 VOL. i. 11
 
 122 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 It was on every account essential to the carrying 
 out of his principles, that he should mark in every way 
 the broad distinction between this kind of removal, and 
 what in the strict sense of the word used to be called 
 expulsion. The latter was intended by him as a pun- 
 ishment and lasting disgrace, was inflicted publicly and 
 with extreme solemnity, was of very rare occurrence, 
 and only for gross and overt offences. But he took 
 pains to show that removal, such as is here spoken of, 
 whether temporary or final, was not disgraceful or 
 penal, but intended chiefly, if not solely, for a protec- 
 tion of the boy himself or his schoolfellows. Often it 
 would be wholly unknown who were thus dismissed or 
 why ; latterly, he generally allowed such cases to re- 
 main till the end of the half-year, that their removal 
 might pass altogether unnoticed : the subjoined let- 
 ters also to the head of a college and a private tutor, 
 introducing such boys to their attention, are samples 
 of the spirit in which he acted on these occasions.* 
 
 This system was not pursued without difficulty ; the 
 inconvenience attendant upon such removals was oc- 
 casionally very great ; sometimes the character of the 
 boy may have been mistaken, the difficulty of explan- 
 ing the true nature of the transaction to parents was 
 
 * 1. To the Head of a college. "With regard to , if you had 
 
 asked me about him half a year ago, I should have spoken of him in the 
 highest terms in point of conduct and steady attention to his work ; there 
 has been nothing at all that has passed, beyond a great deal of party and 
 echoolboy feeling, wrong, as I think, and exceedingly mischievous to a 
 rchool, but from its peculiar character not likely to recur at college or in 
 after life, and not reflecting permanently on a boy's principles or dispo- 
 
 eition. I think you will have in A steady and gentlemanly man, 
 
 who will read fairly and give no disturbance, and one who would well re- 
 pay AU v interest taken in nim by his tutor to direct him either in his work 
 or conduct. He was one of those who would do a great deal better at col- 
 lege than at school; and of this sort there are many; as long us they are 
 among boys, and with no closer personal intercourse with older persons 
 than a public school affords, they are often wrong-headed and trouble- 
 some; but older society and the Habits of more advanced life set them to 
 rights again." 
 
 2 "Their conduct till they went away was as good as possible, 
 
 and I feel bound to gpeak strongly in their favor with regard to their 
 prospect at college; for there was more of foolishness than of vice in the 
 whole matter, and it was their peculiar situation in the school, and the 
 peculiar danger of their fault among us, that made us wish them to be 
 removed. was very much improved in his work, and did some of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 123 
 
 considerable ; an exaggerated notion was entertained 
 of the extent to which this view was carried. 
 
 To administer such a system required higher qual- 
 fications in a head-master than mere scholarship or 
 mere zeal. What enabled him to do so successfully 
 was, the force of his character ; his determination to 
 carry out his principles through a host of particular 
 obstacles ; his largeness of view, which endeavored to 
 catch the distinctive features of every case ; the con- 
 sciousness which he felt, and made others feel, of the 
 uprightness and purity of his intentions. The predic- 
 tions that boys who failed at school would turn out 
 well with private tutors, were often acknowledged to 
 be verified in cases where the removal had been most 
 complained of ; the diminution of corporal punishment 
 in the school was necessarily much facilitated ; a salu- 
 tary effect was produced on the boys by impressing 
 upon them, that even slight offences which came 
 under the head-master's eye, were swelling the sum 
 of misconduct which might end in removal ; whilst 
 many parents were displeased by the system, others 
 were induced to send "as many boys," he said, "and 
 more than he sent away;" lastly, he succeeded in 
 shaking the old notion of the conditions under which 
 boys must be allowed to remain at school, and in 
 
 his business very well : since he left us he has been with a private tutor, 
 and I shall be disappointed if he has not behaved there so as to obtain 
 from him a very favorable character." 
 
 3 " was not a bad fellow at all, but had overgrown school 
 
 in his body before he had outgrown it in wit; he was therefore the hero 
 of the younger boys for his strength and prowness ; and this sort of dis- 
 tinction was doing him harm, so that I advised his father to take him 
 away, and to get him entered at the University as soon as possible." 
 
 4. To a private tutor. "I am glad that you continue to like , 
 
 nor am I surprised at it, for I always thought that school brought out 
 the bad in his character, and repressed the good. There are some others 
 in the same way whom you would find, I think, very satisfactory pupils, 
 but who are not improving here." 
 
 C. "It is a good thing, I have no doubt, that has left us; his is 
 
 inst one of those characters which cannot bear a public school, and may 
 be saved and turned to great good by the humanities of private tuition." 
 
 "Ah!" he would say of a case of this kind, "If the Peninsular war 
 were going on now, one would know what to do with him a few years' 
 hardship would bring a very nice fellow out of him."
 
 124 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 impressing on others the standard of moral progress 
 which he endeavored himself to enforce. 
 
 The following letter to one of the assistant-masters 
 expresses his mode of meeting the attacks to which he 
 was exposed on the two subjects last mentioned. 
 
 " I do not choose to discuss the thickness of Praepostors' 
 sticks, or the greater or less blackness of a boy's bruises, for 
 the amusement of all the readers of the newspapers ; nor 
 do I care in the slighest degree about the attacks, if the 
 masters themselves treat them with indifference. If they 
 appear to mind them, or to fear their effect on the school, 
 the apprehension in this, as in many other instances, will be 
 likely to verify itself. For my own part, I confess that I will 
 not condescend to justify the school against attacks, when I 
 believe that it is going on not only not ill, but positively 
 well. Were it really otherwise, I think I should be as sensi- 
 tive as any one, and very soon give up the concern. But 
 these attacks are merely what I bargained for, so far as they 
 relate to my conduct in the school, because they are directed 
 against points on which my ' ideas ' were fixed before I came 
 to Rugby, and are only more fixed now ; e. g. that the author- 
 ity of the Sixth Form is essential to the good of the school, 
 and is to be upheld through all obstacles from within and 
 from without, and that sending away boys is a necessary and 
 regular part of a good system, not as a punishment to one, 
 but as a protection to others. Undoubtedly it would be a 
 better system if there was no evil ; but evil being unavoidable 
 we are not a jail to keep it in, but a place of education where 
 we must cast it out, to prevent its taint from spreading. 
 Meanwhile let us mind our own work, and try to perfect the 
 execution of our own ' ideas,' and we shall have enough to 
 do, and enough always to hinder us from being satisfied with 
 ourselves ; but when we are attacked we have some right to 
 answer with Scipio, who, scorning to reply to a charge of 
 corruption, said, ' Hoc die cum Hannibale bene et feliciter 
 pugnavi : ' we have done enough good and undone enough 
 evU, to allow us to hold our assailants cheap." 
 
 II. The spirit in which he entered on the instruc- 
 tion of the school, constituting as it did the main 
 business of the place, may perhaps best be understood
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 125 
 
 from a particular exemplification of it in the circum- 
 stances under which he introduced a prayer before 
 the first lesson in the Sixth Form, over and above the 
 general prayers read before the whole school. On 
 the morning on which he first used it he said that he 
 had been much troubled to find that the change from 
 attendance on the death-bed of one of the boys in his 
 house to his school-work had been very great: he 
 thought that there ought not to be such a contrast, 
 and that it was probably owing to the school-work not 
 being sufficiently sanctified to God's glory ; that if it 
 was made really a religious work, the transition to it 
 from a death-bed to it would be slight : he therefore in- 
 tended for the future to offer a prayer before the first 
 lesson, that the day's work might be undertaken and 
 carried on solely to the glory of God and their im- 
 provement, that he might be the better enabled to 
 do his work.* 
 
 Under this feeling all the lessons, in his eyes, and 
 not only those which were more distinctly religious, 
 were invested with a moral character ; and his desire 
 to raise the general standard of knowledge and appli- 
 cation in the school was as great, as if it had been his 
 sole object. 
 
 He introduced, with this view, a variety of new reg- 
 ulations ; contributed liberally himself to the founda- 
 tion of prizes and scholarships, as incentives to study, 
 and gave up much of his leisure to the extra labor 
 of new examinations for the various forms, and of a 
 yearly examination for the whole school. The spirit 
 of industry which his method excited in his better 
 scholars, and more or less in the school at large, was 
 considerable ; and it was often complained that their 
 minds and constitutions were over-worked by prema- 
 ture exertion. Whether this was the case more at 
 Rugby than in other schools, since the greater exer- 
 tions generally required in all parts of education, it is 
 
 * See Appendix A. 
 11*
 
 126 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 difficult to determine. He himself would never allow 
 the truth of it, though maintaining that it would be a 
 very great evil if it were so. The Greek union of the 
 
 iiperri yvfivaarm^ With the P"^ fwvoiKt), he thought inval- 
 
 uable in education, and he held that the freedom of 
 the sports of public schools was particularly favorable 
 to it ; and whenever he saw that boys were reading 
 too much, he always remonstrated with them, relaxed 
 their work, and if they were in the upper part of the 
 school, would invite them to his house in the half-year 
 or the holidays to refresh them. 
 
 He had a strong belief in the general union of moral 
 and intellectual excellence. " I have now had some 
 years' experience," he once said in preaching at Rug- 
 by, " I have known but too many of those who in 
 their utter folly have said in their heart, there was 
 no God ; but the sad sight for assuredly none can 
 be more sad of a powerful, an earnest, and an in- 
 quiring mind seeking truth, yet not finding it the 
 horrible sight of good deliberately rejected, and evil 
 deliberately chosen the grievous wreck of earthly 
 wisdom united with spiritual folly I believe that it 
 has been, that it is, that it may be Scripture speaks 
 of it ; the experience of others has witnessed it ; but I 
 thank God that in my own experience I have never 
 witnessed it yet ; I have still found that folly and 
 thoughtlessness have gone to evil ; that thought and 
 manliness have been united with faith and goodness." 
 And in the case of boys his experience led him, to use 
 his words in a letter to a friend, " more and more to 
 believe in this connection, for which divers reasons 
 may be given. One, and a very important one, is, 
 that ability puts a boy in sympathy with his teachers 
 in the matter of his work, and in their delight in the 
 works, of great minds ; whereas a dull boy has much 
 more sympathy with the uneducated, and others to 
 whom animal enjoyments are all in all." "I am 
 sure," he used to say, "that in the case of boys the 
 temptations of intellect are not comparable to the
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 127 
 
 temptations of dulness ;" and he often dwelt on "the 
 fruit which he above all things longed for, moral 
 thoughtfulness, the inquiring love of truth going 
 along with the devoted love of goodness." 
 
 But for mere cleverness, whether in boys or men, he 
 had no regard. "Mere intellectual acuteness," he 
 used to say, in speaking (for example) of lawyers, 
 " divested as it is, in too many cases, of all that is 
 comprehensive and great and good, is to me more 
 revolting than the most helpless imbecility, seeming to 
 be almost like the spirit of Mephistopheles." Often 
 when seen in union with moral depravity, he would be 
 inclined to deny its existence altogether ; the genera- 
 tion of his scholars, to which he looked back with the 
 greatest pleasure, was not that which contained most 
 instances of individual talent, but that which had alto- 
 gether worked steadily and industriously. The uni- 
 versity honors which his pupils obtained were very 
 considerable, and at one time unrivalled by any school 
 in England, and he was unfeignedly delighted when- 
 ever they occurred. But he never laid any stress upon 
 them, and strongly deprecated any system which would 
 encourage the notion of their being the chief end to 
 be answered by school education. He would often 
 dwell on the curious alternations of cleverness or dul- 
 ness in school generations, which seemed to baffle all 
 human calculation or exertion. " What we ought to 
 do is to send up boys who will not be plucked." A 
 mere plodding boy was above all others encouraged by 
 him. At Laleham he had once got out of patience, 
 and spoken sharply to a pupil of this kind, when the 
 pupil looked up in his face and said, " Why do you 
 speak angrily, sir ? indeed I am doing the best that 
 I can." Years afterward he used to tell the story to 
 his children, and said, " I never felt so much ashamed 
 in my life that look and that speech I have never 
 forgotten." And though it would of course happen 
 that clever boys, from a great sympathy with his un- 
 derstanding, would be brought into closer intercourse
 
 128 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 with him, this did not affect his feeling, not only of 
 respect, but of reverence to those who, without ability, 
 were distinguished for high principle and industry. 
 " If there be one thing on earth which is truly admi- 
 rable, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferiority 
 of natural powers, where they have been honestly, 
 truly, and zealously cultivated." In speaking of a 
 pupil of this character, he once said, " I would stand 
 to that man hat in hand; " and it was his feeling after 
 the departure of such an one that drew from him the 
 most personal, perhaps the only personal praise which 
 he ever bestowed on any boy in his sermons.* (See 
 Sermons, vol. iii. pp. 352, 353.) 
 
 This being his general view, it remains to unfold his 
 ideas of school-instruction in detail. 
 
 * The subjoined letters will best show the feeling with which he re- 
 garded the academical successes or failures of his pupils : 
 
 1. To a pupii who had failed in his examination at the University: 
 I hardly know whether you would like my writing to you ; yet 
 
 I feel strongly disposed so far to presume on the old relation which existed 
 between us, as to express my earnest hope that you will not attach too 
 much importance to your disappointment whatever it may have been, at 
 the recent examination. I believe that I attach quite as much value as is 
 reasonable to university distinctions ; but it would be a grievous evil if the 
 good of a man's reading for three years were all to depend on the result of 
 a single examination, affected as that result must ever in some degree be 
 by causes independent of a man's intellectual excellence. I am saying 
 nothing but what you know quite well already : still, the momentary feel- 
 ing of disappointment may tempt a man to'do himself great injustice, 
 and to think that his efforts have been attended bv no proportionate 
 fruit. I can only say, for one, that as far as the real nonor for Rugby is 
 concerned, it is the effort, an hundred times more than the issii3 of the 
 effort, that is in my judgment a credit to the school ; inasmuch as 
 it shows that the men who go from here to the University do their 
 duty there; and that is the real point, which alone to my mind reflects 
 honor either on individuals or on societies; and if such a fruit i* in any 
 way traceable to the influence of Rugby, then I am proud and thank- 
 ful to have had such a man as my pupil" I am almost afraid that you 
 will think me impertinent in writing to you ; but I must be allowed to feel 
 more than a passing interest in those whom I have known and valued here ; 
 and in your case this interest was renewed by having had the pleasure of 
 seeing you in Westmoreland more lately. I should DC extremely glad if 
 you can find an opportunity of paying us a visit ere long at Rugby." 
 
 2. To a pupil just before his examination at Oxford : 
 
 "I have no otner object in writing to you than merely to assure you of 
 my hearty interest about you at this time when I suppose that the pros- 
 pect of your examination is rising up closely before you. Yet I hope that 
 you know me better than to think that my interest arises merely from the 
 credit which the school may gain from your success, or that I should be 
 in a manner personally disappointed if our men were not to gain what
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 129 
 
 1. That classical studies should be the basis of intel- 
 lectual teaching, he maintained from the first. " The 
 study of language," he said, "seems to me as if it 
 was given for the very purpose of forming the human 
 mind in youth and the Greek and Latin languages, 
 in themselves so perfect, and at the same time freed 
 from the insuperable difficulty which must attend any 
 attempt to teach boys philology through the medium 
 of their own spoken language, seem the very instru- 
 ments, by which this is to be effected." But a com- 
 parison of his earlier and later letters will show how 
 much this opinion was strengthened in later years, and 
 how, in some respects, he returned to parts of the old 
 system, which on his first arrival at Rugby he had 
 altered or discarded. To the use of Latin verse, which 
 he had been accustomed to regard as " one of the most 
 contemptible prettinesses of the understanding," "I 
 am becoming," he said, "in my old age more and 
 more a convert." Greek and Latin grammars in Eng- 
 lish, which he introduced soon after he came, he found 
 
 they are trying for. On this score I am very hard, and I know too well 
 the uncertainties of examination to be much surprised at any result. I 
 am much more anxious, however, that you should not overwork yourself, 
 nor unnerve your mind for after exertion. Ani I wish to say that if you 
 would like change of air or scene for a single day, I should urge you to 
 come down here, and if I can be of any use to you, when here, in exam- 
 ining you, that you may not think that you would be utterly losing your 
 time in leaving Oxford, I shall be very glad to do it. I am a great believer 
 in the virtues of a journey for fifty miles, for giving tone to the system 
 where it has been overworked." 
 
 3. To a ptioil who had been unsuccessful in an examination for the 
 Ireland scholarship : 
 
 " I am more than satisfied with what you have done in the Ireland ; 
 as to getting it, I certainly never should have got it myself, so I have no 
 right to be surprised that my pupils do not." 
 
 4. To a pupil who had gained a first class at Oxford: 
 
 "Your letter has given all your friends here great joy, and most heart- 
 ily do I congratulate you upon It. Depend upon it, it is a gift of God not 
 to be gloried in, but deeply and thankfully to be prized, for it may be made 
 to minister to His glory and to the good of His Church, which never more 
 needed the aid of the Spirit of wisdom, as well as of the Spirit of love. " 
 
 5. To another, on the same : 
 
 "I must write you in one line my heartiest congratulations, for I 
 should not like not to write on an occasion which I verily believe is to no 
 one more welcome than it is to me. You, I know, will look onwards and 
 upwards and will feel that God's gifts and blessings bind us more 
 tlosely to his service."
 
 130 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 were attended with a disadvantage, because the rules 
 which in Latin fixed themselves in the boys' memories, 
 when learned in English, were forgotten. The changes 
 in his views resulted on the whole from his increasing 
 conviction, that " it was not knowledge, but the means 
 of gaining knowledge, which he had to teach ; " as 
 well as by increasing sense of the value of ancient 
 authors, as belonging really to a period of modern civ- 
 ilization like our own : the feeling that in them, " with 
 a perfect abstraction from those particular names and 
 associations, which are forever biasing our judgment 
 in modern and domestic instances, the great prin- 
 ciples of all political questions, whether civil or ec- 
 clesiastical, are perfectly discussed and illustrated with 
 entire freedom, with most attractive eloquence, and 
 with profoundest wisdom." (Serm. vol iii. Perf. 
 p. 13.) 
 
 From time to time, therefore, as in the journal of 
 Education, (vol. iii. p. 240,) where his reasons are 
 stated at length,* he raised his voice against the popu- 
 lar outcry, by which classical instruction was at that 
 time assailed. And it was, perhaps, not without a 
 share in producing the subsequent reaction in its 
 favor, that the one Head-master, who, from his politi- 
 cal connections and opinions, would have been sup- 
 posed most likely to yield to the clamor, was the one 
 who made the most deliberate and decided protest 
 against it. 
 
 2. But what was true of his union of new with old 
 elements in the moral government of the school, applies 
 no less to its intellectual management. He was the 
 first Englishman who drew attention in our public 
 schools to the historical, political, and philosophical 
 value of philology and of the ancient writers, as dis- 
 tinguished from the mere verbal criticism and elegant 
 scholarship of the last century. And besides the gen- 
 
 * This Essay also is inserted in the volume of his Miscellaneous Works, 
 p. 848.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 131 
 
 eral impulse which he gave to miscellaneous reading, 
 both in the regular examinations and by encouraging 
 the tastes of particular boys for geology or other like 
 pursuits, he incorporated the study of Modern History, 
 Modern Languages, and Mathematics into the work of 
 the school, which attempt, as it was the first of its 
 kind, so it was at one time the chief topic of blame 
 and praise in his system of instruction. The reading 
 of a considerable portion of modern history was ef- 
 fected without difficulty ; but the endeavor to teach 
 mathematics and modern languages, especially the lat- 
 ter, not as an optional appendage, but as a regular 
 part of the school business, was beset with obstacles, 
 which rendered his plan less successful than he had 
 anticipated ; though his wishes, especially for boys who 
 were unable to reap the full advantage of classical 
 studies, were, to a great extent, answered.* 
 
 * The instruction in modern languages passed through various stages, 
 of which the final result was that the several forms were taught by their 
 regular masters, French and German in the three higher forms, and 
 French in the forms below. How fully he was himself awake to the ob- 
 jections to this plan will appear from the subjoined letter in 1840; but still 
 he felt that it yet remained to be shown how, for a continuance, all the 
 boys of a large public school can be taught modern languages, except by 
 English masters, and those the masters of their respective classical forms. 
 
 Extract from a Letter to the Earl of Denbigh, Chairman of the Trus- 
 tees of the School : 
 
 " I assume it certainly, as the foundation of all my view of the case, 
 that boys at a public school never will learn to speak or pronounce French 
 well under any circumstances. But to most of our boys, to read it will be 
 of far more use than to speak it; and if they learn it grammatically as 
 a dead language, I am sure that whenever they have any occasion to 
 speak it, as in going abroad, for instance, they will be able" to do it very 
 rapidly. I think that if we can enable the boys to read French with facil- 
 ity, and to know the Grammar well, we shall do as much as can be done 
 at a public school, and should teach the boys something valuable. And, 
 in point of fact, I have heard men, who have left Rugby, speak with grat- 
 itude of what they had learnt with us in French and German. 
 
 " It is very true that our general practice here, as in other matters, does 
 not come up to our theory; and I know too well that most of the boys 
 would pass a very poor examination even in French Grammar. But so 
 it is with their mathematics; and so it will be with any branch of knowl- 
 edge that is taught but seldom, and is felt to be quite subordinate to the 
 boy's main study. Omy I am quite sure that if the boy's regular mas- 
 ters fail in this, a foreigner, be he who he may, would fail much more. 
 
 " I do not therefore see any way out of the difficulties of the question, 
 and I believe sincerely that our present plan is the least bad, I will not 
 say the best, that can be adopted ; discipline is not injured as it is with
 
 132 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 What has been said, relates rather to his system of 
 instruction, than to the instruction itself. His per- 
 sonal share in the teaching of the younger boys was 
 confined to the general examinations, in which he took 
 an active part, and to two lessons which he devoted in 
 every week to the hearing in succession every form in 
 the school. These visits were too transient for the 
 boys to become familiar with him ; but great interest 
 was always excited, and though the chief impression 
 was of extreme fear, they were also struck by the way 
 in which his examinations elicited from them whatever 
 they knew, as well as by the instruction which they 
 received merely from hearing his questions, or from 
 seeing the effect produced upon him by their answers. 
 But the chief source of his intellectual as of his moral 
 influence over the school, was through the Sixth Form. 
 To the rest of the bo}^s he appeared almost exclusively 
 as a master, to them he appeared almost exclusively as 
 an instructor. The library tower, which stands over 
 the great gateway of the school-buildings, and in which 
 he heard the lessons of his own form, is the place to 
 which his pupils will revert as the scene of their first 
 real acquaintance with his powers of teaching, and 
 with himself. 
 
 It has been attempted hitherto to represent his 
 principles of education as distinct from himself ; but 
 in proportion as we approach his individual teaching, 
 this becomes impracticable, the system is lost in the 
 man, the recollections of the Head-master of Rugby 
 are inseparable from the recollections of the personal 
 guide and friend of his scholars. They will at once 
 recall those little traits, which, however minute in 
 themselves, will to them suggest a lively image of his 
 whole manner. They will remember the glance, with 
 
 foreign masters, and I think that something is taught, though but little 
 With regard to German, I can speak more confidently ; and I am sure than 
 there we do facilitate a boy's after study of the language considerably, 
 and enable him, with much less trouble, to read those many German 
 books, which are so essential to his classical studies at the University."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 133 
 
 which he looked round in the few moments of silence 
 before the lesson began, and which seemed to speak 
 his sense of his own position and of theirs also, as the 
 heads of a great school ; the attitude in which he stood, 
 turning over the pages of Facciolati's Lexicon, or Pole's 
 Synopsis, with his eye fixed upon the boy who was 
 pausing to give an answer ; the well-known changes of 
 his voice and manner, so faithfully representing the 
 feeling within. They will recollect the pleased look 
 and the cheerful " Thank you," which followed upon 
 a successful answer or translation ; the fall of his coun- 
 tenance with its deepening severity, the stern elevation 
 of the eyebrows, the sudden " Sit down " which fol- 
 lowed upon the reverse ; the courtesy and almost def- 
 erence to the boys, as to his equals in society, so long 
 as there was nothing to disturb the friendliness of their 
 relation ; the startling earnestness with which he would 
 check in a moment the slightest approach to levity or 
 impertinence ; the confidence with which he addressed 
 them in his half-yearly exhortations ; the expressions ^ 
 of delight with which, when they had been doing well, 
 he would say that it was a constant pleasure to him to 
 come into the library. 
 
 His whole method was founded on the principle of 
 awakening the intellect of every individual boy. Hence 
 it was his practice to teach by questioning. As a gen- 
 eral rule, he never gave information, except as a kind 
 of reward for an answer, and often withheld it alto- 
 gether, or checked himself in the very act of uttering 
 it, from a sense that those whom he was addressing 
 had not sufficient interest or sympathy to entitle them 
 to receive it. His explanations were as short as possi- 
 ble enough to dispose of the difficulty and no more ; 
 and his questions were of a kind to call the attention 
 of the boys to the real point of every subject, and to 
 disclose to them the exact boundaries of what they 
 knew or did not know. With regard to younger boys, 
 he said, " It is a great mistake to think that they should 
 understand all they learn ; for God has ordered that in 
 
 VOL. I. 12 

 
 134 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 youth the memory should act vigorously, independent 
 of the understanding whereas a man cannot usually 
 recollect a thing unless he understands it." But in 
 proportion to their advance in the school he tried to 
 cultivate in them a habit not only of collecting facts, 
 but of expressing themselves with facility, and of un- 
 derstanding the principles on which their facts rested. 
 " You come here," he said, " not to read, but to learn 
 how to read ; " and thus the greater part of his in- 
 structions were interwoven with the process of their 
 own minds ; there was a continual reference to their 
 thoughts, an acknowledgment that, so far as their in- 
 formation and power of reasoning could take them, 
 they ought to have an opinion of their own. He was 
 evidently working not for, but with the form, as if they 
 were equally interested with himself in making out the 
 meaning of the passage before them. His object was 
 to set them right, not by correcting them at once, but 
 either by gradually helping them on to a true answer, 
 or by making the answers of the more advanced part of 
 the form serve as a medium, through which his instruc- 
 tions might be communicated to the less advanced. 
 Such a system he thought valuable alike to both classes 
 of boys. To those who by natural quickness or greater 
 experience of his teaching were more able to follow his 
 instructions, it confirmed the sense of the responsible 
 position which they held in the school, intellectually 
 as well as morally. To a boy less ready or less accus- 
 tomed to it, it gave precisely what he conceived that 
 such a character required. " He wants this," to use 
 his own words, " and he wants it daily not only to 
 interest and excite him, but to dispel what is very apt 
 to grow around a lonely reader not constantly ques- 
 tioned a haze of indistinctness as to a consciousness 
 of his own knowledge or ignorance ; he takes a vague 
 impression for a definite one, an imperfect notion for 
 one that is full and complete, and in this way he is 
 continually deceiving himself." 
 
 Hence, also, he not only laid great stress on original
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 135 
 
 vjompositions, but endeavored so to choose the subjects 
 or exercises as to oblige them to read and lead them 
 to think for themselves. He dealt at once a death- 
 blow to themes (as he expressed it) on " Virtus est 
 bona res," and gave instead historical or geographical 
 descriptions, imaginary speeches or letters, etymologi- 
 cal accounts of words, or criticisms of books, or put 
 religious and moral subjects in such a form as awak- 
 ened a new and real interest in them ; * as, for exam- 
 ple, not simply " carpe diem," or " procrastination is 
 the thief of time ; " but " carpere diem jubent Epicu- 
 rei, jubet hoc idem Christus." So, again, in selecting 
 passages for translation from English into Greek or 
 Latin, Instead of taking them at random from the 
 Spectator or other such works, he made a point of 
 giving extracts, remarkable in themselves, from such 
 English and foreign authors as he most admired, so as 
 indelibly to impress on the minds of his pupils some 
 of the most striking names and passages in modern 
 literature. " Ha, very good ! " was his well-known 
 exclamation of pleasure when he met with some origi- 
 nal thought ; " is that entirely your own, or do you 
 remember anything in your reading that suggested it 
 to you ? " Style, knowledge, correctness or incorrect- \ 
 ness of statement or expression, he always disregarded 
 in comparison with indication or promise of real ; 
 thought. " I call that the best theme," he said, j 
 " which shows that the boy has read and thought for 
 himself; that the next best which shows that he has 
 read several books, and digested what he has read ; 
 and that the worst which shows that he has followed 
 but one book, and followed that without reflection." 
 
 The interest in their work which this method excited 
 in the boys was considerably enhanced by the respect 
 which, even without regard to his general character, 
 was inspired by the qualities brought out prominently 
 in the ordinary course of lessons. They were con- 
 
 * See Appendix B.
 
 136 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 scious of (what was indeed implied in his method 
 itself) the absence of display, which made it clear that 
 what he said was to instruct them, not to exhibit his 
 own powers ; they could not but be struck by his never 
 concealing difficulties and always confessing ignorance ; 
 acknowledging mistakes in his edition of Thucydides, 
 and on Latin verses, mathematics, or foreign languages, 
 appealing for help or information to boys whom he 
 thought better qualified than himselfc to give it. Even 
 as an example, it was not without its use to witness 
 daily the power of combination and concentration on 
 his favorite subjects which had marked him even from 
 a boy, and which especially appeared in his illustrations 
 of ancient by modern, and modern by ancient history. 
 The wide discursiveness with which he brought the 
 several parts of their work to bear on each other ; the 
 readiness with which he referred them to the sources 
 and authorities of information, when himself ignorant 
 of it ; the eagerness with which he tracked them out 
 when unknown taught them how wide the field of 
 knowledge really was. In poetry it was almost impos- 
 sible not to catch something of the delight and almost 
 fervor with which, as he came to any striking pasrage, 
 he would hang over it, reading it over and over again, 
 and dwelling upon it for the mere pleasure which every 
 word seemed to give him. .In history or philosophy, 
 events, sayings, and authors, would, from the mere 
 fact that he had quoted them, become fixed in the 
 memory of his pupils, and give birth to thoughts and 
 inquiries long afterwards, which, had they been derived 
 through another medium, would have been forgotten 
 or remained unfruitful. The very scantiness with 
 which he' occasionally dealt out his knowledge, when 
 not satisfied that the boys could enter into it, whilst 
 it often provoked a half-angry feeling of disappoint- 
 ment in those who eagerly treasured up all that he 
 uttered, left an impression that the source from which 
 they drew was unexhausted and unfathoined, and to 
 all that he did say gave a double value.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 137 
 
 Intellectually, as well as morally, he felt that the 
 teacher ought himself to be perpetually learning, and 
 so constantly above the level of his scholars. " I am J 
 sure," he said, speaking of his pupils at Laleham, ; 
 " that I do not judge of them or expect of them, as I j 
 should, if I were not taking pains to improve my own 
 mind." For this reason he maintained that no school- 
 master ought to remain at his post much more than 
 fourteen or fifteen years, lest, by that tune, he should 
 have fallen behind the scholarship of the age ; and by 
 his own reading and literary works he endeavored con- 
 stantly to act upon this principle himself. " For nine- 
 teen out of twenty boys," he said once to Archbishop 
 Whately, in speaking of the importance not only of 
 information, but real ability in assistant-masters, (and 
 his remark of course applied still more to the station 
 which he occupied himself,) "ordinary men may be 
 quite sufficient ; but the twentieth, the boy of real tal- 
 ents, who is more important than the others, is liable 
 to suffer injury from not being early placed under the 
 training of one whom he can, on close inspection, look 
 up to as his superior in something besides mere knowl- 
 edge. The dangers," he observed, " were of various 
 kinds. One boy may acquire a contempt for the in- 
 formation itself, which he sees possessed by a man 
 whom he feels nevertheless to be far below him. An- 
 other will fancy himself as much above nearly all the 
 world as he feels he is above his own tutor, and will 
 become self-sufficient and scornful. A third will be- 
 lieve it to be his duty, as a point of humility, to bring 
 himself down intellectually to a level with one whom 
 he feels bound to reverence ; and thus there have been 
 instances where the veneration of a young man of 
 ability for a teacher of small powers has been like a 
 millstone round the neck of an eagle." 
 
 His practical talent as a scholar consisted in his in- 
 sight into the general structure of sentences and the 
 general principles of language, and in his determina- 
 tion to discard all those unmeaning phrases and forms 
 
 12*
 
 138 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 of expression, by which so many writers of the last 
 generation and boys of all generations endeavor to 
 conceal their ignorance. In Greek and Latin compo- 
 sition his exceeding indifference to mere excellence of 
 style, when unattended by anything better, made it 
 difficult for him to bestow that praise, which was neces- 
 sary to its due encouragement, as a part of the school 
 work, and he never was able to overcome the defi- 
 ciency which he always felt in composing or correcting 
 verse exercises, even after his increased conviction of 
 their use as a mental discipline. But to prose compo- 
 sition in both languages he had from the first attached 
 considerable importance, not only as the best means of 
 acquiring a sound knowledge of the ancient authors, 
 but of attaining a mastery over the English language 
 also, by the readiness and accuracy of expression which 
 it imparted. He retained too himself that happy facil- 
 ity for imitating the style of the Greek historians and 
 philosophers for which he was remarkable in youth, 
 whilst his Latin prose was peculiar for combining the 
 force of common Latinity with the vigor and simplicity 
 of his own style perfectly correct and idiomatic, yet 
 not the language of Cicero or Livy, but of himself. 
 
 In the common lessons, his scholarship was chiefly 
 displayed in his power of extempore translation into 
 English. This he had possessed in a remarkable de- 
 gree from the time that he was a boy at Winchester, 
 where the practice of reading the whole passage from 
 Greek or Latin into good English, without construing 
 each particular sentence word by word, had been much 
 encouraged by Dr. Gabell, and in his youthful vaca- 
 tions during his Oxford course he used to enliven the 
 sick-bed of his sister Susannah by the readiness with 
 which in the evenings he would sit by her side, and 
 translate book after book of the history of Herodotus. 
 So essential did he consider this method to a sound 
 study of the classics, that he published an elaborate 
 defence of it in the Quarterly Journal of Education, 
 and, when delivering his Modern History lectures at
 
 LIFE OF DR ARNOLD. 139 
 
 Oxford, where he much lamented the prevalence of the 
 opposite system, he could not resist the temptation of 
 protesting against it, with 110 other excuse for intro- 
 ducing the subject, than the mention of the Latin style 
 of the middle-age historians. In itself, he looked upon 
 it as the only means of really entering into the spirit 
 of the ancient authors ; and, requiring as he did be- 
 sides that the translation should be made into idio- 
 matic English, and, if possible, into that style of English 
 which most corresponded to the period or the subject 
 of the Greek or Latin writer in question, he considered 
 it further as an excellent exercise in the principles of 
 taste and in the knowledge and use of the English lan- 
 guage, no less than of those of Greece and Rome. No 
 one must suppose that these translations in the least 
 resembled the paraphrases in his notes to Thucydides, 
 which are avowedly not translations, but explanations ; 
 he was constantly on the watch for any inadequacy or 
 redundancy of expression, the version was to repre- 
 sent, and no more than represent, the exact words of 
 the original ; and those who, either as his colleagues 
 or his pupils, were present at his lessons or examina- 
 tions, well know the acciiracy with which every shade 
 of meaning would be reproduced in a different shape, 
 and the rapidity with which he would pounce on any 
 mistake of grammar or construction, however dexter- 
 ously concealed in the folds of a free translation. 
 
 In the subject of the lessons it was not only the lan- 
 guage, but the author and the age which rose before 
 him ; it was not merely a lesson to be got through and 
 explained, but a work which was to be understood, to 
 be condemned or to be admired. It was an old opinion 
 of his, which, though much modified, was never alto- 
 gether abandoned, that the mass of boys had not a 
 sufficient appreciation of poetry, to make it worth 
 while for them to read so much of the ancient poets, in 
 proportion to prose writers, as was usual when he came 
 to Rugby. But for some of them he had besides a per- 
 sonal distaste. The Greek tragedians, though reading
 
 140 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 them constantly, and portions of them with the liveliest 
 admiration, he thought on the whole greatly overrated ; 
 and still more, the second-rate Latin poets, but whom 
 he seldom used ; and some, such as Tibullus and Pro- 
 pcrtius, never. " I do really think," he said, speaking 
 of these last as late as 1842, " that any examiners in- 
 cur a serious responsibility who require or encourage 
 the reading of these books for scholarships ; of all use- 
 less reading, surely the reading of indifferent poets is 
 most useless." And to some of them he had a yet 
 deeper feeling of aversion. It was not till 1835 that 
 he himself read the plays of Aristophanes, and though 
 he was then much struck with the " Clouds," and 
 ultimately introduced the partial use of his Comedies 
 in the school, yet his strong moral disapprobation al- 
 ways interfered with his sense of the genius both of 
 that poet and Juvenal. 
 
 But of the classical lessons generally his enjoyment 
 was complete. When asked once whether he did not 
 find the repetition of the same lessons irksome to him, 
 li Xo," he said, " there is a constant freshness in them : 
 I find something new in them every time that I go 
 over them." The best proof of the pleasure which he 
 took in them is the distinct impression which his schol- 
 ars retained of the feeling, often rather implied than 
 expressed, with which he entered into the several 
 works ; the enthusiasm with which, both in the public 
 and private orations of Demosthenes, he would con- 
 template piece by piece " the luminous clearness " of 
 the sentences ; the affectionate familiarity which he 
 used to show towards Thucydides, knowing as he did 
 the substance of every single chapter by itself; the 
 revival of youthful interest with which he would recur 
 to portions of the works of Aristotle ; the keen sense 
 of a new world opening before him, with which in later 
 years, with ever-increasing pleasure, he entered into 
 the works of Plato; above all, his childlike enjoyment 
 of Herodotus, and that " fountain of beauty and delight 
 which no man," he said, " can ever drain dry," the
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 141 
 
 poetry of Homer. The simple language of that early 
 age was exactly what he was most able to reproduce 
 in his own simple and touching translations ; and his 
 eyes would fill with tears, when he came to the story 
 which told how Cleobis and Bito, as a reward for their 
 filial piety, lay down in the temple, and fell asleep and 
 died. 
 
 To his pupils, perhaps, of ordinary lessons, the most 
 attractive were the weekly ones on Modern History. 
 He had always a difficulty in finding any work which 
 he could use with satisfaction as a text-book. " Gib- 
 bon, which in many respects would answer the purpose 
 so well, I dare not use." Accordingly, the work, what- 
 ever it might be, was made the groundwork of his own 
 observations, and of other reading from such books as 
 the school library contained. Russell's Modern Eu- 
 rope, for example, which he estimated very low, 
 though, perhaps from his own early acquaintance with 
 it at Winchester, with less dislike than might have 
 been expected, served this purpose for several years. 
 On a chapter of this he would engraft, or cause the 
 boys to engraft, additional information from Hallam, 
 Guizot, or any other historian who happened to treat 
 of the same period, whilst he himself, with that famil- 
 iar interest which belonged to his favorite study of 
 history and of geography, which he always maintained 
 could only be taught in connection with it, would by 
 his searching and significant questions gather the 
 thoughts of his scholars round the peculiar charac- 
 teristics of the age or the country on which he wished 
 to fix their attention. Thus, for example, in the Seven 
 Years' War, he would illustrate the general connection 
 of military history with geography, by the simple in- 
 stance of the order of Hannibal's successive victories ; 
 and then, chalking roughly on a board the chief points 
 in the physical conformation of Germany, apply the 
 same principle to the more complicated campaigns of 
 Frederick the Great. Or ? again, in a more general 
 examination, he would ask for the chief events which
 
 142 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 occurred, for instance, in the year 15 of two or three 
 successive centuries, and, by making the boys contrast 
 or compare them together, bring before their minds 
 the differences and resemblances in the state of Eu- 
 rope in each of the periods in question. 
 
 Before entering on his instructions in theology, 
 which both for himself and his scholars had most 
 peculiar interest, it is right to notice the religious 
 character which more or less pervaded the rest of 
 the lessons. When his pupils heard him in preach- 
 ing recommend them " to note in any common work 
 that they read such judgments of men and things, 
 and such a tone in speaking of them as are manifestly 
 at variance with the Spirit of Christ," (Serm. vol. iii. 
 p. 116,) or when they heard him ask, " whether the 
 Christian ever feels more keenly awake to the purity 
 of the spirit of the Gospel, than when he reads the 
 history of crimes related with no true sense of their 
 evil," (Serm. vol. ii. p. 223,) instances would imme- 
 diately occur to them from his own practice, to prove 
 how truly he felt what he said. No direct instruction 
 could leave on their minds a livelier image of his dis- 
 gust at moral evil, than the black cloud of indigna- 
 tion which passed over his face when speaking of the 
 crimes of Napoleon, or of Ca3sar, and the dead pause 
 which followed, as if the acts had just been committed 
 in his very presence. No expression of his reverence 
 for a high standard of Christian excellence could have 
 been more striking than the almost involuntary ex- 
 pressions of admiration which broke from him when- 
 ever mention was made of St. Louis of France. No 
 general teaching of the providential government of 
 the world could have left a deeper impression, than 
 the casual allusions to it, which occurred as they 
 came to any of the critical moments in the history of 
 Greece and Rome. No more forcible contrast could 
 have been drawn between the value of Christianity 
 and of heathenism, than the manner with which, for 
 example, after reading in the earlier part of the lesson
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 143 
 
 of the Scripture descriptions of the Gentile world, 
 " Now," he said, as he opened the Satires of Horace, 
 " we shall see what it was." 
 
 Still it was in the Scripture * lessons that this found 
 most scope. In the lower forms it was rather that 
 more prominence was given to them, and that they 
 were placed under better regulations than that they 
 were increased in amount. In the Sixth Form, be- 
 sides the lectures on Sunday, he introduced two lec- 
 tures on the Old or New Testament in the course of 
 the week, so that a boy who remained there three 
 years would often have read through a great part of 
 the New Testament, much of the Old Testament, and 
 especially of the Psalms in the Septuagiiit version, 
 and also committed much of them to memory ; whilst 
 at times he would deliver lectures on the history of 
 the early Church, or of the English Reformation. In 
 these lessons on the Scriptures he would insist much 
 on the importance of familiarity with the very words 
 of the sacred writers, and of the exact place where 
 passages occurred ; on a thorough acquaintance with 
 the different parts of the story contained in the several 
 Gospels, that they might be referred to at once ; on 
 the knowledge of the times when, and the persons to 
 whom, the Epistles w T ere written. In translating the 
 New Testament, while he encouraged his pupils to 
 take the language of the authorized version as much 
 as possible, he was very particular in not allowing 
 them to use words which fail to convey the meaning 
 of the original, or which by frequent use have lost all 
 definite meaning of their own such as "edification," 
 or " the Gospel." Whatever dogmatical instruction he 
 gave was conveyed almost entirely in a practical or 
 exegetical shape ; and it was very rarely indeed that 
 he made any allusion to existing parties or controver- 
 sies within the Church of England. His own peculiar 
 views, which need not be noticed in this place, trans- 
 
 * For his own feeling about them, see Sermons, vol. iv. pp. 317, 321.
 
 144 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 pired more or less throughout ; but the great pro- 
 portion of his interpretations were such as most of 
 his pupils, of whatever opinions, eagerly collected and 
 preserved for their own use in after life. 
 
 But more important than any details was the union 
 of reverence and reality in his whole manner of treat- 
 ing the Scriptures, which so distinguished these les- 
 sons from such as may in themselves almost as little 
 deserve the name of religious instruction as many les- 
 sons commonly called secular. The same searching 
 questions, the same vividness which marked his his- 
 torical lessons, the same anxiety to bring all that 
 he said home to their own feelings, which made him, 
 in preparing them for confirmation, endeavor to make 
 them say, " Christ died for me," instead of the gen- 
 eral phrase, " Christ died for us," must often, when 
 applied to the natural vagueness of boys' notions on 
 religious subjects, have dispelled it forever. " He ap- 
 peared to me," writes a pupil, whose intercourse with 
 him never extended beyond these lessons, " to be re- 
 markable for his habit of realizing everything that we 
 are told in Scripture. You know how frequently we 
 can ourselves, and how constantly we hear others go 
 prosing on in a sort of religious cant or slang, which 
 is as easy to learn as any other technical jargon, 
 without seeing as it were by that faculty, which all 
 possess, of picturing to the mind, and acting as if 
 we really saw things unseen belonging to another 
 world. Now he seemed to have the freshest view of 
 our Lord's life and death that I ever knew a man to 
 possess. His rich mind filled up the naked outline of 
 the Gospel history ; it was to him the most interest- 
 ing fact that has ever happened as real, as exciting 
 (if 1 may use the expression) as any recent event in 
 modern history of which the actual effects are visible." 
 And all his comments, from whatever theory of inspi- 
 ration they were given, were always made in a tone 
 and manner that left an impression that from the 
 book which lay before him he was really seeking to
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 145 
 
 draw his rule of life, and, that whilst he examined 
 it in earnest to find what its meaning was, when he 
 had found it he intended to abide by it. 
 
 The effect of these instructions was naturally more 
 permanent (speaking merely in an intellectual point 
 of view) than the lessons themselves, and it was a 
 frequent topic of censure that his pupils were led to 
 take up his opinions before their minds were duly 
 prepared for them. What was true of his method 
 and intention in the simplest matters of instruction, 
 was true of it as applied to the highest matters. Un- 
 doubtedly it was his belief that the minds of young 
 men ought to be awakened to the greatness of things 
 around them ; and it was his earnest endeavor to give 
 them what he thought the best means of attaining a 
 firm hold upon truth. But it was always his wish 
 that his pupils should form their opinions for them- 
 selves, and not take them on trust from him. To 
 his particular political principles he carefully avoided 
 allusion, and it was rarely that his subjects for school 
 composition touched on any topics that could have 
 involved, even remotely, the disputed points of party 
 politics. In theological matters, partly from the na- 
 ture of the case, partly from the peculiar aspect under 
 which for the last six years of his life he regarded the 
 Oxford school, he bbth expressed his thoughts more 
 openly, and was more anxious to impress them upon 
 his pupils ; but this was almost entirely in the com- 
 paratively few sermons preached on what could be 
 called controversial topics. In his intercourse indeed 
 with his pupils after they had left the school, he natu- 
 rally spoke with greater freedom on political or theo- 
 logical subjects, yet it was usually when invited by 
 them, and, though he often deeply lamented their 
 adoption of what he held to be erroneous views, he 
 much disliked a merely unmeaning echo of his own 
 opinions. " It would be a great mistake," he said, 
 " if I were to try to make myself here into a Pope." 
 
 It was, however, an almost inevitable consequence 
 
 VOL. I. 13 J
 
 146 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of coming into contact with his teaching, and with the 
 new world which it opened, that his pupils would often, 
 on their very entrance into life, have acquired a famil- 
 iarity and encountered a conflict with some of the 
 most harassing questions of morals and religion. It 
 would also often happen, that the increasing reverence 
 which they felt for him would not only incline them to 
 receive with implicit trust all that he said in the les- 
 sons or in the pulpit, but also to include in their admi- 
 ration of the man all that they could gather of his 
 general views, either from report or from his published 
 works : whilst they would naturally look with distrust 
 on the opposite notions in religion and politics, brought 
 before them, as would often be the case, in close 
 connection with vehement attacks on him, which in 
 most cases they could hardly help regarding as un- 
 founded or unfair. Still the greater part of his pupils, 
 while at school, were, after the manner of English boys, 
 altogether unaffected by his political opinions : and of 
 those who most revered him, none in after life could 
 be found who followed his views implicitly, even on 
 the subjects on which they were most disposed to listen 
 to him. But though no particular school of opinion 
 grew up amongst them, the end of his teaching would 
 be answered far more truly, (and it may suggest to 
 those who know ancient history, similar results of simi- 
 lar methods in the hands of other eminent teachers,) 
 if his scholars learned to form an independent judg- 
 ment for themselves, and to carry out their opinions 
 to their legitimate consequences, to appreciate moral 
 agreement amidst much intellectual difference, not 
 only in each other or in him, but in the world at large ; 
 . and to adopt many, if not all of his principles, whilst 
 differing widely in their application of them to existing 
 persons and circumstances. 
 
 III. If there is any one place at Rugby more than 
 another which was especially the scene of Dr. Arnold's 
 labors, both as a teacher and as a master, it is the 
 School chapel. Even its outward forms, from " the
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 147 
 
 very cross at the top of the building," * on which he 
 loved to dwell as a visible symbol of the Christian end 
 of their education, to the vaults which he caused to be 
 opened underneath, for those who died in the school, 
 must always be associated with his name. " I envy 
 Winchester its antiquity," he said, " and am therefore 
 anxious to do all that can be done to give us something 
 of a venerable outside, if we have not the nobleness of 
 old associations to help us." The five painted win- 
 dows in the chapel were put up in great part at his 
 expense, altogether at his instigation. The subject 
 of the first of these, the great east window, he delight- 
 ed to regard as " strikingly appropriate to a place of 
 education," being " the Wise Men's Offering," and the 
 first time after its erection that the chapter describing 
 the Adoration of the Magi was read in the church 
 service he took occasion to preach upon it one of his 
 most remarkable sermons, that of " Christian Profes- 
 sions Offering Christ our best." (Serm. vol. iii. p. 
 112.) And as this is connected with the energy and 
 vigor of his life, so the subject of the last, which he 
 chose himself a short time before his death, is the con- 
 fession of St. Thomas, on which he dwelt with deep 
 solemnity in his last hours, as in his life he had dwelt 
 upon it as the great consolation of doubting but faith- 
 ful hearts, and as the great attestation of what was to 
 him the central truth of Christianity, our Lord's divin- 
 ity. Lastly, the monuments of those who died in the 
 school during his government, and whose graves were 
 the first ever made in the chapel ; above all, his own, 
 the monument and grave of the only head-master of 
 Rugby who is buried within its walls, give a melan- 
 choly interest to the words with which he closed a ser- 
 mon preached on the founder's day, in 1833, whilst as 
 yet the recently-opened vaults had received no dead 
 within them : 
 
 " This roof, under which we are now assembled, will hold, 
 * MS. Sermon.
 
 148 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 it is probable, our children and our children's children ; may 
 they be enabled to think, as they shall kneel perhaps over the 
 bones of some of us now here assembled, that they are pray- 
 ing where their fathers prayed; and let them not, if they 
 mock in their day the means of grace here offered to them, 
 encourage themselves with the thought that the place had 
 long ago been profaned with equal guilt ; that they are but 
 infected with the spirit of our ungodliness." * 
 
 But of him especially it need hardly be said, that his 
 chief interest in that place lay in the three hundred 
 boys who, Sunday after Sunday, were collected, morn- 
 ing and afternoon, within its walls. " The veriest 
 stranger," he said, " who ever attends divine service 
 in this chapel, does well to feel something more than 
 common interest in the sight of the congregation here 
 assembled. But if the sight so interests a mere 
 stranger, what should it be to ourselves, both to you 
 and to me ? " (Serm. vol. v. p. 403.) So he spoke 
 within a month of his death, and to him, certainly, the 
 interest was increased rather than lessened by its 
 familiarity. There was the fixed expression of coun- 
 tenance, exhibiting the earnest attention with which, 
 after the service was over, he, sat in his place looking 
 at the boys as they filed out one by one, in the orderly 
 and silent arrangement which succeeded, in the latter 
 part of his stay, to the public calling over of their 
 names in the chapel. There was the complete image 
 of his union of dignity and simplicity, of manliness and 
 devotion, as he performed the chapel service, especially 
 when at the communion table he would read or rather 
 repeat almost by heart the Gospel and Epistle of the 
 day, with the impressiveness of one who entered into 
 it equally with his whole spirit and also with his whole 
 understanding. There was the visible animation with 
 which, by force of long association he joined in the 
 musical parts of the service, to which he was by nature 
 wholly indifferent, as in the chanting of the Niceno 
 
 * Serm. vol. Hi. p. 211.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 149 
 
 Creed, which was adopted in accordance with his con- 
 viction that creeds in public worship (Serm. vol. iii. p. 
 310) ought to be used as triumphant hymns of thanks- 
 giving ; or still more in the Te Deum, which he loved 
 so dearly, and when his whole countenance would be 
 lit up at his favorite verse " When Thou hadst over- 
 come the sharpness of death, Thou didst open the king- 
 dom of heaven to all believers." 
 
 From his own interest in the service naturally flowed 
 his anxiety to impart it to his scholars : urging them 
 in his later sermons, or in his more private addresses, 
 to join in the responses, at times with such effect that 
 at least from all the older part of the school the re- 
 sponses were very general. The very course of the 
 ecclesiastical year would often be associated in their 
 minds with their remembrance of the peculiar feeling, 
 with which they saw that he regarded the greater fes- 
 tivals, and of the almost invariable connection of his 
 sermons with the services of the day. The touching 
 recollections of those amongst the living or the dead, 
 whom he loved or honored, which passed through 
 his mind as he spoke of All Saints' Day, and, when- 
 ever it was possible, of its accompanying feast, now 
 no longer observed, All Souls' Day ; and the sol- 
 emn thoughts of the advance of human life, and of 
 the progress of the human race, and of the Church, 
 which were awakened by the approach of Advent, 
 might have escaped a careless observer : but it must 
 have been difficult for any one not to have been struck 
 by the triumphant exultation of his whole manner on 
 the recurrence of Easter day. Lent was marked dur- 
 ing his last three years, by the putting up of boxes in 
 the chapel and the boarding-houses, to receive money 
 for the poor, a practice adopted not so much with the 
 view of relieving any actual want, as of affording the 
 boys an opportunity for self-denial and almsgiving.* 
 
 * He feared, however, to introduce more religious services than he 
 thought the boys would bear without a sense of tedium or formality, on 
 which principle' he dropped an existing practice of devoting all the lessons 
 
 13*
 
 150 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 He was anxious to secure the administration of the 
 rite of confirmation, if possible, once every two years ; 
 when the boys were prepared by himself and the other 
 masters in their different boarding-houses, who each 
 brought up his own division of pupils on the day of 
 the ceremony ; the interest of which was further en- 
 hanced, during his earlier years, by the presence of 
 the late Bishop Ryder,* for whom he entertained a 
 great respect, and latterly by the presence of his inti- 
 mate friend, Archbishop Whately. The Confirmation 
 Hymn of Dr. Hinds, which was used on these occa- 
 sions, became so endeared to his recollections, that 
 when travelling abroad late at night, he would have it 
 
 in Passion Week to the New Testament; and always hesitated to have a 
 chapel service on such festivals as did not fall on Sundays, though in the last 
 year of his life he made an exception with regard to Ascension Day. 
 
 * The following extract from a sermon, preached in consequence of the 
 delay of confirmation, may serve to illustrate as well his general feeling on 
 the subject as his respect for the individual. 
 
 " And while I say this, it is impossible not to remember to what 
 
 cause this disappointment has been owing, namely, to the long illness and 
 death of the late excellent Bishop of this diocese. This is neither the place 
 nor the congregation for a funeral eulogy on that excellent person ; we knew 
 him too little, and were too much removed out of the ordinary sphere of his 
 ministry, to be able to bear the best witness to him. Yet many here, I 
 think, will remember the manner in which he went through the rite of con- 
 firmation in this chapel three years ago ; the earnestness and kindness of his 
 manner, the manifest interest which he felt in the service in which he was 
 ministering. And though, as I said, we were comparatively strangers to 
 him, yet we had heard enough of him to receive, without one jarring feel- 
 ing, the full impression of his words and manner; we knew that as these 
 were solemn and touching, so they were consistent and sincere ; they were 
 not put on for the occasion, nor yet, which is a far more common case, did 
 they spring out of the occasion. It was not the mere natural and momen- 
 tary feeling which might have arisen even in a careless mind, while engaged 
 in a work so peculiarly striking; but it was truly the feeling not of the oc- 
 casion, but or the man. He but showed himself to us as he was, and thus 
 we might and may dwell with pleasure on the recollection, long after the 
 immediate effect was over ; and may think truly that, when he told us how 
 momentous were the interests involved in the promises and prayers of that 
 service, he told us no more than he himself most earnestly believed ; he 
 urged us to no other faith, to no other course of living, than that which by 
 God's grace he had long made his own. It is a great blessing to God's 
 church when they who are called to the higher offices of the ministry in it 
 thus give to their'ministry the weight, not of their words only, but 01 their 
 lives. Still we must remember that the care of our souls is our own, that 
 God's means of grace and warnings, furnished us by the ministry of his 
 church, are no way dependent upon the personal character of the minister: 
 that confirmation, with all its opportunities, is still the same point in oui 
 lives, by whomsoever it may be administered."
 
 LIFE OF DE. ARNOLD. 151 
 
 repeated or sung to him. One of the earliest public 
 addresses to the school was that made before the first 
 confirmation, and published in the second volume of 
 his sermons ; and he always had something of the kind 
 (over and above the Bishop's charge) either before or 
 after the regular chapel service. 
 
 The Communion was celebrated four times a year. 
 At first some of the Sixth-Form boys alone were in the 
 habit of attending ; but he took pains to invite to it 
 boys in all parts of the school who had any serious 
 thoughts, so that the number, out of two hundred and 
 ninety or three hundred boys, was occasionally a hun- 
 dred, and never less than seventy. To individual boys 
 he rarely spoke on the subject, from the fear of its 
 becoming a matter of form or favor ; but in his ser- 
 mons he dwelt upon it much, and would afterwards 
 speak with deep emotion of the pleasure and hope 
 which a larger attendance than usual would give him. 
 It was impossible to hear these exhortations or to see 
 him administer it, without being struck by the strong 
 and manifold interest which it awakened in him ; and 
 at Rugby it was of course more than usually touching 
 to him from its peculiar relation to the school. When 
 he spoke of it in his sermons, it was evident that 
 amongst all the feelings which it excited in himself, 
 and which he wished to impart to others, none was so 
 prominent as the sense that it was a communion not 
 only with God, but with one another, and that the 
 thoughts thus roused should act as a direct and espe- 
 cial counterpoise to that false communion and false 
 companionship which, as binding one another not to 
 good but to evil, he believed to be the great source of 
 mischief in the school at large. And when espe- 
 cially to the very young boys, who sometimes partook 
 of the Communion he bent himself down with looks 
 of fatherly tenderness, and glistening eyes, and trem- 
 bling voice, in the administration of the elements, it 
 was felt, perhaps more distinctly than at any other 
 tune, how great was the sympathy which he felt with 
 the earliest advances to good in every individual boy.
 
 152 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 That part of the chapel service, however, which, at 
 least to the world at large, is most connected with him, 
 as being the most frequent and most personal of his 
 ministrations, was his preaching. Sermons had occa- 
 sionally been preached by the head-master of this and 
 other public schools to their scholars before his coming 
 to Rugby ; but (in some cases from the peculiar con- 
 stitution or arrangement of the school) it had never 
 before been considered an essential part of the head- 
 master's office. The first half-year he confined himself 
 to delivering short addresses, of about five minutes' 
 length, to the boys of his own house. But from the 
 second half-year he began to preach frequently; and 
 from the autumn of 1831, when he took the chap- 
 laincy* which had then become vacant, he preached 
 almost every Sunday of the school year to the end of 
 his life. 
 
 It may be allowable to dwell for a few moments on 
 a practice which has since been followed, whenever it 
 was practicable, in the other great public schools, and 
 on sermons which, as they were the first of their kind, 
 will also be probably long looked upon as models of 
 their kind, in English preaching. They were preached 
 always in the afternoon, and lasted seldom more than 
 
 * Extract from a letter to the Trustees, applying for the situation : " I 
 had no knowledge nor so much as the slightest suspicion of the vacancy," 
 he writes, " till I was informed of it last night. But the importance of the 
 point is so great that I most respectfully crave the indulgence of the Trus- 
 tees to the request I venture to submit to them, namely, that if they see no 
 objection to it, I may myself be appointed to the chaplaincy, waiving, of 
 course, altogether the salary attached to the office. Whoever is chaplain, I 
 must ever feel myself, as head-master, the real and proper religious instructor 
 of the boys. No one else can feel the same interest in them, and no one else 
 (I am not speaking of myself personally, but merely by virtue of my situa- 
 tion ) can speak to them with so much influence. In fact it seems to me the 
 natural and fitting thing, and the great advantage of having a separate 
 chapel for the school that the master of the bovs should be officially as 
 well as really their pastor, and that he should not devolve on another, how- 
 ever well qualified, one of his own most peculiar and solemn duties. This, 
 however, is a general question, which I only venture so far to enter upon, in 
 explainiiig my motives in urging and requesting, in this present instance, 
 that the Trustees would present me to the Bishon to be licensed, allowing 
 me altogether to decline the salary, because I consider that I am paid for my 
 eervices already; and that, being head-master and clergyman, I am bound to 
 be the religious instructor of my pupils by virtue of my situation."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 153 
 
 twenty minutes, sometimes less : a new one almost 
 every time. " A man could hardly," he said, " preach 
 on the same subject, without writing a better sermon 
 than he had written a few years before." However 
 much they may have occupied his previous thoughts, 
 they were written almost invariably between the morn- 
 ing and afternoon service ; and though often under 
 such stress of time that the ink of the last sentence 
 was hardly dry when the chapel bell ceased to sound, 
 they contain hardly a single erasure, and the manu- 
 script volumes remain as accessible a treasure to their 
 possessors, as if they were printed. When he first 
 began to preach, he felt that his chief duty was to lay 
 bare, in the plainest language that he could use, the 
 sources of the evils of schools, and to contrast them 
 with the purity of the moral law of Christianity. 
 " The spirit of Elijah," he said, " must ever precede 
 the spirit of Christ." But as he advanced, there is a 
 marked contrast between the severe tone of his early 
 sermons in the second volume, when all was as yet 
 new to him, except the knowledge of the evil which 
 he had to combat, and the gentler tone which could 
 not but be inspired by his greater familiarity, both 
 with his work and his pupils, between the direct 
 attack on particular faults which marks the course 
 of Lent Sermons in 1830, and the wish to sink the 
 mention of particular faults in the general principle 
 of love to Christ and abhorrence of sin, which marks 
 the summary of his whole school experience in the 
 last sermon which he ever preached. When he be- 
 came the constant preacher, he made a point of 
 varying the more directly practical addresses with 
 sermons on the interpretation of Scripture, on the 
 general principles and evidences of Christianity, or 
 on the dangers of their after life, applicable chiefly 
 to the elder boys. Amongst these last should be 
 noticed those which contained more or less the ex- 
 pression of his sentiments on the principles to which 
 he conceived his pupils liable hereafter to be exposed
 
 154 LIFE OF DK. ARNOLD. 
 
 at Oxford, and most of which, as being of a more gen- 
 eral interest, he selected for publication in the third 
 and fourth volumes. That their proportion to those 
 that are published affords no measure of their pro- 
 portion to those that are unpublished, may be seen 
 at once by reference to the year's course in the fifth 
 volume, which out of thirty-four, contains only four, 
 which could possibly be included in this class. That 
 it was not his own intention to make them either per- 
 sonal or controversial, appears from an explanation to 
 a friend of a statement, which, in 1839, appeared in 
 the newspapers, that he " had been preaching a course 
 of sermons against the Oxford errors." " The origin 
 of the paragraph was simply this : that I preached two 
 in February, showing that the exercise of our own 
 judgment was not inconsistent with the instruction 
 and authority of the Church, or with individual mod- 
 esty and humility, [viz. the thirty-first and thirty- 
 second in vol. iv.] They were not in the least con- 
 troversial, and neither mentioned nor alluded to the 
 Oxford writers. And I have preached only these two 
 which could even be supposed to bear upon their doc- 
 trines. Indeed, I should not think it right, except 
 under very different circumstances from present ones, 
 to occupy the boys' time or thoughts with such con- 
 troversies." The general principles, accordingly, which 
 form the groundwork of all these sermons, are such as 
 are capable of a far wider application than to any par- 
 ticular school of English opinion, and often admit of 
 direct application to the moral condition of the school. 
 But the quick ears of boys no doubt were always ready 
 to give such sermons a more personal character than 
 he had intended, or perhaps had even in his mind at 
 the moment : and at times, when the fear of these 
 opinions was more forcibly impressed upon him, the 
 allusion and even mention of the writers in question 
 is so direct, that no one could mistake it. 
 
 But it was of course in their direct practical applica- 
 tion to the boys, that the chief novelty and excellence
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 155 
 
 of his sermons consisted. Though he spoke with 
 almost conversational plainness on the peculiar con- 
 dition of public schools, his language never left an 
 impression of familiarity, rarely of personal allusion. 
 In cases of notorious individual misconduct, he gen- 
 erally shrunk from any pointed mention of them, and 
 on one occasion when he wished to address the boys 
 011 an instance of untruthfulness which had deeply 
 grieved him, he had the sermon before the regular 
 service, in order to be alone in the Chapel with the 
 boys, without the presence even of the other masters.* 
 Earnest and even impassioned as his appeals were, 
 himself at times almost overcome with emotion, there 
 was yet nothing in them of excitement. In speaking 
 of the occasional deaths in the school, he would dwell 
 on the general solemnity of the event, rather than on 
 any individual or agitating details ; and the impression 
 thus produced, instead of belonging to the feeling of 
 the moment, has become part of an habitual rule for 
 the whole conduct of life. Often he would speak with 
 severity and bitter disappointment of the evils of the 
 place ; yet there was hardly ever a sermon which did 
 not contain some words of encouragement. " I have 
 never," he said in his last sermon, " wished to speak 
 with exaggeration ; it seems to me as unwise as it 
 is wrong to do so. I think that it is quite right to 
 observe what is hopeful in us as well as what is threat- 
 ening ; that general confessions of unmixed evil are 
 deceiving and hardening, rather than arousing ; that 
 our evil never looks so really dark as when we con- 
 trast it with anything which there may be in us of 
 good." (Serm. vol. v. p. 460.) 
 
 * On another occasion, the practice ef drinking having prevailed to a 
 great extent in the school, he addressed the boys at considerable length 
 from his place in the great school, saying that he should have spoken to 
 them from the pulpit, but that as there were others present in the Chapel, 
 he wished to hide their shame. And then, (savs one who was present,) 
 ' in a tone of the deepest feeling, as if it wnng Ttiis inmost heart to confess 
 the existence of such an evil amongst us," he dwelt upon the sin and the 
 folly of the habit, even where intoxication was not produced its evil 
 eifects both on body and mind the folly of fancying it to be manly its 
 general effect on the school.
 
 156 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Accordingly, even from the first, and much more in 
 after years, there was blended with his sterner tono 
 a strain of affectionate entreaty an appeal to prin- 
 ciples, which could be appreciated only by a few 
 exhortations to duties, such as self-denial, and visiting 
 the poor, which some at least might practise, whilst 
 none could deny their obligation. There also ap- 
 peared most evidently what indeed pervaded his 
 whole school life the more than admiration, with 
 which he regarded those who struggled against the 
 stream of school opinion, and the abiding comfort 
 which they afforded him. In them he saw not merely 
 good boys and obedient scholars, but the companions 
 of everything high and excellent, with which his 
 strong historical imagination peopled the past, or 
 which his lively sense of things unseen realized in 
 the invisible world. There were few present in the 
 chapel who were not at least for the moment touched, 
 when, in one of his earliest sermons, he closed one of 
 these earnest appeals with the lines from Milton which 
 always deeply moved him, the blessing on Abdiel. 
 
 But more than either matter or manner of his 
 preaching, was the impression of himself. Even the 
 mere readers of his sermons will derive from them 
 the history of his whole mind, and of his whole man- 
 agement of the school. But to his hearers it was 
 more than this. It was the man himself, there more 
 than in any other place, concentrating all his various 
 faculties and feelings on one sole object, combating 
 face to face the evil, with which directly or indirectly 
 he was elsewhere perpetually struggling. He was not 
 the preacher or the clergyman who had left behind all 
 his usual thoughts and occupations as soon as he had 
 ascended the pulpit. He was still the scholar, the 
 historian, and theologian, basing all that he said, not 
 indeed ostensibly, but consciously, and often visibly, 
 on the deepest principles of the past and present. 
 He was still the instructor and the schoolmaster, only 
 teaching and educating with increased solemnity and
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 157 
 
 energy. He was still the simple-hearted and earnest 
 man, laboring to win others to share in his own per- 
 sonal feelings of disgust at sin, and love of goodness, 
 and to trust to the same faith, in which he hoped to 
 live and die himself. 
 
 It is difficult to describe, without seeming to exag- 
 gerate, the attention with which he was heard by all 
 above the very young boys. Years have passed away, 
 and many of his pupils can look back to hardly any 
 greater interest than that with which, for those twenty 
 minutes, Sunday after Sunday, they sat beneath that 
 pulpit, with their eyes fixed upon him, and their atten- 
 tion strained to the utmost to catch every word that he 
 uttered. It is true, that, even to the best, there was 
 much, and to the mass of boys the greater part of 
 what he said, that must have passed away from them 
 as soon as they had heard it, without any corresponding 
 fruits. But they were struck, as boys naturally would 
 be, by the originality of his thoughts, and what always 
 impressed them as the beauty of his language ; and in 
 the substance of what he said, much that might have 
 seemed useless, because for the most part impracticable 
 to boys, was not without its effect in breaking com- 
 pletely through the corrupt atmosphere of school opin- 
 ion, and exhibiting before them once every week an 
 image of high principle and feeling, which they felt 
 was not put on for the occasion, but was constantly 
 living amongst them. And to all it must have been 
 an advantage, that, for once in their lives, they had 
 listened to sermons, which none of them could asso- 
 ciate with the thought of weariness, formality, or ex- 
 aggeration. On many there was left an impression to 
 which, though unheeded at the time, they recurred in 
 after life. Even the most careless boys would some- 
 times, during the course of the week, refer almost 
 involuntarily to the sermon of the past Sunday, as a 
 condemnation of what they were doing. Some, whilst 
 they wonder how it was that so little practical effect 
 was produced upon themselves at the time, yet retain 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 158 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the recollection, (to give the words of one who so de- 
 scribes himself,) that, " I used to listen to them from 
 first to last with a kind of awe, and over and over 
 again could not join my friends at the chapel door, but 
 would walk home to be alone ; and I remember the 
 same effects being produced by them, more or less, on 
 others whom I should have thought as hard as stones, 
 and on whom I should think Arnold looked as some of 
 the worst boys in the school." 
 
 IV. Although the chapel was the only place in 
 which, to the school at large, he necessarily appeared 
 in a purely pastoral and personal relation, yet this 
 relation extended in his view to his whole management 
 of his scholars ; and he conceived it to be his duty and 
 that of the other masters to throw themselves, as much 
 as possible, into the way of understanding and entering 
 into the feelings of the boys, not only in their official 
 intercourse, but always. When he was first appointed 
 at Rugby, his friends had feared that the indifference 
 which he felt towards characters and persons, with 
 whom he had no especial sympathy, would have inter- 
 fered with his usefulness as head-master. But in the 
 case of boys, a sense of duty supplied the want of that 
 interest in character, as such, of which, in the case of 
 men, he possessed but little. Much as there was in 
 the peculiar humor of boys which his own impatience 
 of moral thoughtlessness, or of treating serious or im- 
 portant subjects with anything like ridicule or irony, 
 prevented him from fully appreciating, yet he truly felt, 
 that the natural youthfulness and elasticity of his consti- 
 tution gave him a great advantage in dealing with them. 
 " When I find that I cannot run up the library stairs," 
 he said, " I shall know that it is time for me to go." 
 
 Thus traits and actions of boys, which to a stranger 
 would have told nothing, were to him highly signifi- 
 cant. His quick and far-sighted eye became familiar 
 with the face and manner of every boy in the school. 
 " Do you see," he said to an assistant-master who had 
 recently come, " those two boys walking together ? I
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 159 
 
 never saw them together before ; you should make an 
 especial point of observing the company they keep ; 
 nothing so tells the changes in a boy's character." 
 The insight which he thus acquired into the general 
 characteristics of boyhood, will not be doubted by any 
 reader of his sermons ; and his scholars used sometimes 
 to be startled by the knowledge of their own notions, 
 which his speeches to them implied. " Often and 
 often," says one of them, " have I said to myself, ' If 
 it was one of ourselves who had just spoken, he could 
 not more completely have known and understood our 
 thoughts and ideas.' ' And though it might happen 
 that his opinion of boys would, like his opinions of 
 men, be too much influenced by his disposition to 
 judge of the whole from some one prominent feature, 
 and though his fixed adherence to general rules might 
 sometimes prevent him from making exceptions where 
 the case required it ; yet few can have been long famil- 
 iar with him, without being struck by the distinctness, 
 the vividness, and, in spite of great occasional mistakes, 
 the very general truth and accuracy of his delineation 
 of their individual characters, or the readiness with 
 which, whilst speaking most severely of a mass of boys, 
 he would make allowances, and speak hopefully in any 
 particular instance that came before him. Often be- 
 fore any other eye had discerned it, he saw the germs 
 of coming good or evil, and pronounced confident de- 
 cisions, doubted at the time, but subsequently proved 
 to be correct; so that those who lived with him de- 
 scribed themselves as trusting to his opinions of boys 
 as to divinations, and feeling as if by an unfavorable 
 judgment their fate was sealed. 
 
 His relation to the boarders in his own house (called 
 by distinction the School-house, and containing be- 
 tween sixty and seventy boys) naturally afforded more 
 scope for communication than with the rest of the 
 school. Besides the opportunities which he took of 
 showing kindness and attention to them in his own 
 family, in cases of distress or sickness, he also made use
 
 160 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of the preparation for confirmation for private conversa- 
 tion with them ; and during the later years of his life was 
 accustomed to devote an hour or more in the evening 
 to seeing each of them alone by turns, and talking on 
 such topics as presented themselves, leading them, if 
 possible, to more serious subjects. The general man- 
 agement of the house, both from his strong dislike to 
 intruding on the privacy even of the youngest, and 
 from the usual principles of trust on which he pro- 
 ceeded, he left as much as possible to the Praepostors. 
 Still his presence and manner when he appeared offi- 
 cially, either on special calls, or on the stated occa- 
 sions of calling over their names twice a day, was not 
 without its effect. One of the scenes that most lives 
 in the memory of his school-house pupils is their night- 
 muster in the rudely-lighted hall, his tall figure at 
 the head of the files of boys ranged on each side of the 
 long tables, whilst the prayers were read by one of 
 the Praepostors, and a portion of Scripture by himself. 
 This last was a practice which he introduced soon after 
 his arrival, when, on one of these occasions, he spoke 
 strongly to the boys on the necessity of each reading 
 some part of the Bible every day, and then added, that 
 as he feared that many would not make the rule for 
 themselves, he should for the future always read a 
 passage every evening at this time. He usually brought 
 in his Greek Testament, and read about half a chapter 
 in English, most frequently from the close of St. John's 
 Gospel ; then from the Old Testament, especially his 
 favorite Psalms, the 19th, for example, and the 107th, 
 and the others relating to the beauty of the natural 
 world. He never made any comment ; but his manner 
 of reading impressed the boys considerably, and it was 
 observed by some of them, shortly after the practice 
 was commenced, that they had never understood the 
 Psalms before. On Sunday nights he read a prayer of 
 his own, and before he began to preach regularly in 
 the chapel, delivered the short addresses which havo 
 been before mentioned, and which he resumed, iu
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 161 
 
 addition to his other work on Sundays, during the last 
 year and a half of his life. 
 
 With the boys in the Sixth Form his private inter- 
 course was comparatively frequent, whether in the les- 
 sons, or in questions of school government, or in the 
 more familiar relation in which they were brought to 
 him in their calls before and after the holidays, their 
 dinners with him during the half-year, and the visits 
 which one or more used by turns to pay to him in West- 
 moreland, during part of the vacation. But with the 
 greater part of the school it was almost entirely con- 
 fined to such opportunities as arose out of the regular 
 course of school discipline or instruction, and the occa- 
 sional invitations to his house of such amongst the 
 younger boys as he could find any reason or excuse 
 for asking. 
 
 It would thus often happen, in so large a number, 
 that a boy would leave Rugby without any personal 
 communication with him at all ; and even in the 
 higher part of the school, those who most respected 
 him would sometimes complain, even with bitterness, 
 that he did not give them greater opportunities of ask- 
 ing his advice, or himself offer more frequently to 
 direct their studies and guide their inquiries. Lat- 
 terly, indeed, he communicated with them more fre- 
 quently, and expressed himself more freely both in 
 public and private on the highest subjects. But he 
 was always restrained from speaking much or often, 
 both from the extreme difficulty which he felt in say- 
 ing anything without a real occasion for it, and also 
 from his principle of leaving as much as possible to be 
 filled up by the judgment of the boys themselves, and 
 from his deep conviction that, in the most important 
 matters of all, the movement must come not from with- 
 out but from within. And it certainly was the case 
 that, whenever he did make exceptions to this rule, 
 and spoke rather as their friend than their master, the 
 simplicity of his words, the rareness of their occur- 
 rence, and the stern background of his ordinary 
 
 14* K
 
 162 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 administration gave a double force to all that was 
 said. 
 
 Such, for example, would be the effect of his speak- 
 ing of swearing to a boy, not so much in anger or re- 
 proof, as assuring him how every year he would learn 
 to see more and more how foolish and disgusting such 
 language was; or again, the distinction he would 
 point out to them between mere amusement and such 
 as encroached on the next day's duties, when, as he 
 said, " it immediately becomes what St. Paul calls 
 revelling." Such also would be the impression of his 
 severe rebukes for individual faults, showing by their 
 very shortness and abruptness his loathing and abhor- 
 rence of evil. " Nowhere," he said, in speaking to 
 some boys on bad behavior during prayers at their 
 boarding-house, " nowhere is Satan's work more evi- 
 dently manifest than in turning holy things to ridi- 
 cule." Such also were the cases, in which boys, who 
 were tormented while at school with sceptical doubts, 
 took courage at last to unfold them to him, and were 
 almost startled to find the ready sympathy with which, 
 instead of denouncing them as profane, he entered into 
 their difficulties, and applied his whole mind to as- 
 suage them. So again, when dealing with the worst 
 class of boys, in whom he saw indications of improve- 
 ment, he would grant indulgences which on ordinary 
 occasions he would have denied, with a view of en- 
 couraging them by signs of his confidence in them ; 
 and at times, on discovering cases of vice, he would, 
 instead of treating them with contempt or extreme 
 severity, tenderly allow the force of the temptation, 
 and urge it upon them as a proof brought home to 
 their own minds, how surely they must look for help 
 out of themselves. 
 
 In his preparation of boys for confirmation he fol- 
 lowed the same principle. The printed questions 
 which he issued for them were intended rather as 
 guides to their thoughts than as necessary to be for- 
 mally answered ; and his own interviews with them
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 163 
 
 were very brief. But the few words which he then 
 spoke the simple repetition, for example, of the 
 promise made to prayer, with his earnest assurance, 
 that if that was not true, nothing was true ; if any- 
 thing in the Bible could be relied upon, it was that - 
 have become the turning point of a boy's character, 
 and graven on his memory as a law for life. 
 
 But, independently of particular occasions of inter- 
 course, there was a deep under current of sympathy 
 which extended to almost all, and which from time to 
 time broke through the reserve of his outward manner. 
 In cases where it might have been thought that ten- 
 derness would have been extinguished by indignation, 
 he was sometimes so deeply affected in pronouncing 
 sentence of punishment on offenders, as to be hardly 
 able to speak. " I felt," he said once of some great 
 fault of which he had heard in one of the Sixth Form 
 
 and his eyes filled with tears as he spoke, " as if it 
 had been one of my own children, and, till I had ascer- 
 tained that it was really true, I mentioned it to no one, 
 not even to any of the masters." And this feeling be- 
 gan before he could have had any personal knowledge 
 of them. " If he should turn out ill," he said of a 
 young boy of promise to one of the assistant-masters, 
 and his voice trembled with emotion as he spoke, " I 
 think it would break my heart." Nor were any 
 thoughts so bitter to him, as those suggested by the 
 innocent faces of little boys as they first came from 
 home, nor any expressions of his moral indignation . 
 deeper, than when he heard of their being tormented 
 or tempted into evil by their companions. " It is a 
 most touching thing to me," he said once in the hear- 
 ing of one of his former pupils, on the mention of some 
 new comers, " to receive a new fellow from his father 
 
 when I think what an influence there is in this 
 place for evil as well as for good. I do not know any- 
 thing which affects me more." His pupil, who had, 
 on his own first coming, been impressed chiefly by the 
 severity of his manner, expressed some surprise, add-
 
 164 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD 
 
 ing, that he should have expected this to wear away 
 with the succession of fresh arrivals. " No," he said, 
 " if ever I could receive a new boy from his father 
 without emotion, I should think it was high time to 
 be off." 
 
 What he felt thus on ordinary occasions, was height- 
 ened of course when anything brought strongly before 
 him any evil in the school. " If this goes on," he 
 wrote to a former pupil on some such occasion, " it 
 will end either my life at Rugby, or my life altogeth- 
 er." " How can I go on," he said, " with my Roman 
 History ? There all is noble and high-minded, and 
 here I find nothing but the reverse." The following 
 extract from a letter to his friend, Sir T. Pasley, de- 
 scribes this feeling. 
 
 " Since I began this letter, I have had some of the troubles 
 of school-keeping, and one of those specimens of the evil of 
 boy-nature, which makes me always unwilling to undergo the 
 responsibility of advising any man to send his son to a public 
 school. There has been a system of persecution carried on 
 by the bad against the good, and then, when complaint was 
 made to me, there came fresh persecution on that very account, 
 and divers instances of boys joining in it out of pure coward- 
 ice, both physical and moral, when if left to themselves they 
 would have rather shunned it. And the exceedingly small 
 number of boys who can be relied on for active and steady 
 good on these occasions, and the way in which the decent and 
 respectable of ordinary life (Carlyle's ' Shams ') are sure on 
 these occasions to swim with the stream and take part with 
 
 . the evil, makes me strongly feel exemplified what the Scrip- 
 tures say about the strait gate and the wide one, a view of 
 human nature which, when looking on human h'fe in its full 
 dress of decencies and civilizations, we are apt, I imagine, to 
 find it hard to realize. But here, in the nakedness of boy- 
 
 ' nature, one is quite able to understand how there could not be 
 found so many as even ten righteous in a whole city. And 
 how to meet this evil I really do not know ; but to find it thus 
 rife after I have been [so many] years fighting against it, is 
 so sickening, that it is very hard not to throw up the cards in 
 despair and upset the table. But then the stars of nobleness, 
 which I see amidst the darkness, in the case of the few
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 165 
 
 good, are so cheering that one is inclined to stick to the ship 
 again, and have another good try at getting her about." 
 
 V. As, on the one hand, his interest and sympathy 
 with the boys far exceeded any direct manifestation of 
 it towards them, so, on the other hand, the impression 
 which he produced upon them was derived, not so 
 much from any immediate intercourse or conversation 
 with him, as from the general influence of his whole 
 character, displayed consistently whenever he appeared 
 before them. This influence, with its consequent ef- 
 fects, was gradually on the increase during the whole 
 of his stay. From the earliest period, indeed, the boys 
 were conscious of something unlike what they had 
 been taught to imagine of a schoolmaster, and by 
 many a lasting regard was contracted for him ; but it 
 was not till he had been in his post some years that 
 there arose that close bond of union which character- 
 ized his relation to his elder pupils ; and it was, again, 
 not till later still that this feeling extended itself, more 
 or less, through the mass of the school, so that, in the 
 higher forms at least, it became the fashion (so to 
 speak) to think and talk of him with pride and affec- 
 tion. 
 
 The liveliness and simplicity of his whole behavior 
 must always have divested his earnestness of any ap- 
 pearance of moroseness and affectation. " He calls us 
 fellows" was the astonished expression of the boys 
 when, soon after his first coming, they heard him 
 speak of them by the familiar name in use amongst 
 themselves ; and in his later years, they observed with 
 pleasure the unaffected interest with which, in the 
 long autumn afternoons, he would often stand in the 
 school-field and watch the issue of their favorite games 
 of football. But his ascendency was, generally speak- 
 ing, not gained, at least in the first instance, by the 
 effect of his outward manner. There was a shortness, 
 at times something of an awkwardness, in his address, 
 occasioned partly by his natural shyness, partly by his 
 dislike of wasting words on trivial occasions, which to
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 boys must have been often repulsive rather than con- 
 ciliating ; something also of extreme severity in his 
 voice and countenance, beyond what he was himself 
 at all aware of. With the very little boys, indeed, his 
 manner partook of that playful kindness and tender- 
 ness which always marked his intercourse with chil- 
 dren ; in examining them in the lower forms, he 
 would sometimes take them on his knee, and go 
 through picture-books of the Bible or of English his- 
 tory, covering the text of the narrative with his hand, 
 and making them explain to him the subject of the 
 several prints. But in those above this early age, and 
 yet below the rank in the school which brought them 
 into closer contact with him, the sternness of his char- 
 acter was the first thing that impressed them. In 
 many, no doubt, this feeling was one of mere dread, 
 which, if not subsequently removed or modified, only 
 served to repel those who felt it to a greater distance 
 from him. But in many also, this was, even in the 
 earlier period of their stay, mingled with an involun- 
 tary and, perhaps, an unconscious respect inspired by 
 the sense of the manliness and straightforwardness of 
 his dealings, and still more by the sense of the general 
 force of his moral character ; by the belief (to use the 
 words of different pupils) in " his extraordinary knack, 
 for I can call it nothing else, of showing that his object 
 in punishing or reproving was not his own good or 
 pleasure, but that of the boy," " in a truthfulness 
 an (JXiKpivfia a sort of moral transparency;" in the 
 fixedness of his purpose, and " the searchingness of 
 his practical insight into boys," by a consciousness, 
 almost amounting to solemnity, that " when his eye 
 was upon you, he looked into your inmost heart ; " 
 that there was something in his very tone and outward 
 aspect, before which anything low, or false, or cruel, 
 instinctively quailed and cowered. 
 
 And the defect of occasional over-hastiness and ve- 
 hemence of expression, which during the earlier period 
 of his stay at times involved him in some trouble, did
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 107 
 
 materially interfere with their general notion of 
 his character. However mistaken it might be in the 
 individual case, it was evident to those who took any 
 thought about it, that that ashy paleness and that 
 awful frown were almost always the expression not of 
 personal resentment, but of deep, ineffable scorn and 
 indignation at the sight of vice and sin : and it was 
 not without its effect to observe that it was a fault 
 against which he himself was constantly on the watch 
 and which, in fact, was in later years so nearly sub- 
 dued, that most of those who had only known him 
 during that time can recall no instance of it during 
 their stay. 
 
 But as boys advanced in the school, out of this feel- 
 ing of fear " grew up a deep admiration, partaking 
 largely of the nature of awe, and this softened into a 
 sort of loyalty, which remained even in the closer and 
 more affectionate sympathy of later years." "lam 
 sure," writes a pupil who had no personal communica- 
 tions with him whilst at school, and but little after- 
 wards, and who never was in the Sixth Form, " that I 
 do not exaggerate my feelings when I say, that I felt a 
 love and reverence for him as one of quite awful great- 
 ness and goodness, for whom I well remember that I 
 used to think I would gladly lay down my life ; " add- 
 ing, with reference to the thoughtless companions with 
 whom he had associated, " I used to believe that I too 
 had a work to do for him in the school, and I did for 
 his sake labor to raise the tone of the set I lived in, 
 particularly as regarded himself." It was in boys im- 
 mediately below the highest form that this new feeling 
 would usually rise for the first time, and awaken a 
 strong wish to know more of him. Then, as they 
 came into personal contact with him, their general 
 sense of his ability became fixed, in the proud belief 
 that they were scholars of a man who would be not 
 less remarkable to the world than he was to them- 
 selves ; and their increasing consciousness of his own 
 sincerity of purpose, and of the interest which he took
 
 168 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 in them, often awakened, even in the careless and in- 
 different, an outward respect for goodness, and au 
 animation in their work before unknown to them. 
 And when they left school, they felt that they had 
 been in an atmosphere unlike that of the world about 
 them ; some of those who lamented not having made 
 more use of his teaching whilst with him, felt that " a 
 better thought than ordinary often reminded them how 
 he first led to it ; and in matters of literature almost 
 invariably found that when any idea of seeming origi- 
 nality occurred to them, that its germ was first sug- 
 gested by some remark of Arnold " that " still to 
 this day, in reading the Scriptures or other things, 
 they could constantly trace back a line of thought that 
 came originally from him, as from a great parent 
 mind." And when they heard of his death they be- 
 came conscious often for the first time of the 
 large place which he had occupied in their thoughts, 
 if not in their affections. 
 
 Such was the case with almost all who were in the 
 Sixth Form with him during the last ten years of his 
 life ; but with some who, from peculiar circumstances 
 of greater sympathy with him, came into more perma- 
 nent communication with him, there was a yet stronger 
 bond of union. His interest in his elder pupils, unlike 
 a mere professional interest, seemed to increase after 
 they had left the school. No sermons were so full of 
 feeling and instruction, as those which he preached on 
 the eve of their departure for the Universities. It was 
 now that the intercourse which at school had been so 
 broken, and as it were stolen by snatches, was at last 
 enjoyed between them to its full extent. It was some- 
 times in a few parting words, the earnest blessing 
 which he then bestowed upon them, that they be- 
 came for the first time conscious of his real care and 
 love for them. The same anxiety for their good which 
 lie had felt in their passage through school, he now 
 showed, without the necessity of official caution and 
 reserve, in their passage through li/e. To any pupil
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 169 
 
 who ever showed any desire to continue his connection 
 with him, his house was always open, and his advice 
 and sympathy ready. No half-year, after the first four 
 years of his stay at Rugby, passed without a visit from 
 his former scholars : some of them would come three 
 or four times a year ; some would stay in his house for 
 weeks. He would offer to prepare them for their uni- 
 versity examinations by previous examinations of his 
 own ; he never shrunk from adding any of them to his 
 already numerous correspondents, encouraging them 
 to write to him in all perplexities. To any who were 
 in narrow circumstances, not in one case, but in sev- 
 eral, he would at once offer assistance, sometimes 
 making them large presents of books on their entrance 
 at the University, sometimes tendering them large pe- 
 cuniary aid, and urging to them that his power of doing 
 so was exactly one of those advantages of his position 
 which he was most bound to use. In writing for the 
 world at large, they were in his thoughts, " in whose 
 welfare," he said, " I naturally have the deepest inter- 
 est, and in whom old impressions may be supposed to 
 have still so much force, that I may claim from them 
 at least a patient hearing." (Serm. vol. iv. Pref. p. Iv.) 
 And when annoyed by distractions from within the 
 school or opposition from without, he turned, he used 
 to say, to their visits, as " to one of the freshest springs 
 of his life." 
 
 They on their side now learned to admire those parts 
 of his character which, whilst at school, they had either 
 not known or only imperfectly understood. Pupils 
 with characters most different from each other's, and 
 from his own, often with opinions diverging more 
 and more widely from his as they advanced in life, 
 looked upon him with a love and reverence which 
 made his gratification one of the brightest rewards of 
 their academical studies, his good or evil fame, a 
 constant source of interest and anxiety to them, his 
 approbation and censure, amongst their most prac- 
 tical motives of action, his example, one of their 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 170 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 most habitual rules of life. To him they turned for 
 advice in every emergency of life, not so much for the 
 sake of the advice itself, as because they felt that no 
 important step ought to be taken without consulting 
 him. An additional zest was imparted to whatever 
 work they were engaged in by a consciousness of the 
 interest which he felt in the progress of their under- 
 taking, and the importance which he attached to its 
 result. They now felt the privilege of being able to 
 ask him questions on the many points which his school 
 teaching had suggested without fully developing, but 
 yet more, perhaps, they prized the sense of his sympa- 
 thy and familiar kindness, which made them feel that 
 they were not only his pupils, but his companions. 
 That youthfulness of temperament which has been be- 
 fore noticed in his relation to boys, was still more im- 
 portant in his relation to young men. All the new 
 influences which so strongly divide the students of the 
 nineteenth century from those of the last, had hardly 
 less interest for himself than for them ; and, after the 
 dulness or vexation of business or of controversy, a 
 visit of a few days to Rugby would remind them, (to 
 apply a favorite image of his own,) " how refreshing it 
 is in the depth of winter, when the ground is covered 
 with snow, and all is dead and lifeless, to walk by the 
 sea-shore, and enjoy the eternal freshness and liveliness 
 of ocean." His very presence seemed to create a new 
 spring of health and vigor within them, and to give to 
 life an interest and an elevation which remained with 
 them long after they had left him again, and dwelt so 
 habitually in their thoughts, as a living image, that, 
 when death had taken him away, the bond appeared to 
 be still unbroken, and the sense of separation almost 
 lost in the still deeper sense of a life and an union 
 indestructible. 
 
 What were the permanent effects of this system and 
 influence, is a question which cannot yet admit of an 
 adequate answer, least of all from his pupils. The
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 171 
 
 of boys are, doubtless, like the mass of men, in- 
 capable of receiving a deep and lasting impression from 
 any individual character, however remarkable ; and it 
 must also be borne in mind, that hardly any of his 
 scholars were called by rank or station to take a leading 
 place in English society, where the effect of his teach- 
 ing and character, whatever it might be in itself, would 
 have been far more conspicuous to the world at large. 
 
 He himself, though never concealing from himself 
 the importance of his work, would constantly dwell 
 on the scantiness of its results. " I came to Rugby," 
 he said, " full of plans for school reform ; but I soon 
 found that the reform of a public school was a much 
 more difficult thing than I had imagined." And 
 again, " I dread to hear this called a religious school. 
 I know how much there is to be done before it can 
 really be called so." " With regard to one's work," 
 he said, " be it school or parish, I suppose the desira- 
 ble feeling to entertain, is always to expect to succeed, 
 and never think that you have succeeded." He hardly 
 ever seems to have indulged in any sense of superiority 
 to the other public schools. Eton, for example, he 
 would often defend against the attacks to which it was 
 exposed, and the invidious comparisons which some 
 persons would draw between that school and Rugby. 
 What were his feelings towards the improvements 
 taking place there and elsewhere, after his coming to 
 Rugby, have been mentioned already ; even between 
 the old system and his own, he rarely drew a strong 
 distinction, conscious though he must have been of the 
 totally new elements which he was introducing. The 
 earliest letters from Rugby express an unfeigned pleas- 
 ure in what he found existing, and there is no one 
 disparaging mention of his predecessor in all the cor- 
 respondence, published or unpublished, that has been 
 collected for this work. 
 
 If, however, the prediction of Dr. Hawkins at his 
 election, has been in any way fulfilled, the result of his 
 work need not depend on the rank, however eminent, 
 to which he raised Rugby School ; or the influence,
 
 172 LIFE OF DR. ABNOLD. 
 
 however powerful, which he exercised over his Rugby 
 scholars. And, if there be any truth in the following 
 letter from Dr. Moberly, to whose testimony additional 
 weight is given, as well by his very wide difference of 
 political and ecclesiastical opinion as by his personal 
 experience, first as a scholar at Winchester, and an 
 undergraduate at Oxford, then as the tutor of the most 
 flourishing college in that University, and lastly, in his 
 present position as head-master of Winchester, it will 
 be felt that, not so much amongst his own pupils, nor 
 in the scene of his actual labors, as in every Public 
 School throughout England, is to be sought the chief 
 and enduring monument of Dr. Arnold's head-master- 
 ship at Rugby. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OP DR. MOBERLY, HEAD-MASTER 
 OF WINCHESTER. 
 
 " Possibly," he writes, after describing his own recollections 
 as a schoolboy, " other schools may have been less deep in 
 these delinquencies than Winchester ; I believe that in many 
 respects they were. But I did not find, on going to the Uni- 
 versity, that I was under disadvantages as compared with 
 those who came from other places ; on the contrary, the tone 
 of young men at the University, whether they came from 
 Winchester, Eton, Rugby, Harrow, or wherever else, was 
 universally irreligious. A religious undergraduate was very 
 rare, very much laughed at when he appeared ; and I think I 
 may confidently say, hardly to be found among public-school 
 men ; or, if this be too strongly said, hardly to be found ex- 
 cept in cases where private and domestic training, or good 
 dispositions had prevailed over the school habits and tenden- 
 cies. A most singular and striking change has come upon 
 our public schools, a change too great for any person to ap- 
 preciate adequately, who has not known them in both these 
 times. This change is undoubtedly part of a general improve- 
 ment of our generation in respect of piety and reverence, but 
 I am sure that to Dr. Arnold's personal earnest simplicity of 
 purpose, strength of character, power of influence, and piety, 
 which none who ever came near him could mistake or ques- 
 tion, the carrying of this improvement into our schools is 
 mainly attributable. He was the first. It soon began to be
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 173 
 
 matter of observation to us in the University that his pupils 
 brought quite a different character with them to Oxford than 
 that which we knew elsewhere. I do not speak of opinions ; 
 but his pupils were thoughtful, manly-minded, conscious of 
 duty and obligation, when they first came to college ; we re- 
 gretted, indeed, that they were often deeply imbued with 
 principles which we disapproved, but we cordially acknowl- 
 edged the immense improvement in their characters in re- 
 spect of morality and personal piety, and looked on Dr. 
 Arnold as exercising an influence for good, which (for how 
 many years I know not) had been absolutely unknown to our 
 public schools. 
 
 " I knew personally but little of him. You remember the 
 first occasion on which I ever had the pleasure of seeing him : 
 but I have always felt and acknowledged that I owe more to 
 a few casual remarks of his in respect of the government of 
 a public school, than to any advice or example of any other 
 person. If there be improvement in the important points of 
 which I have been speaking, at Winchester, (and from the 
 bottom of my heart I testify with great thankfulness that 
 the improvement is real and great,) I do declare, in justice, 
 that his example encouraged me to hope that it might 
 be effected, and his hints suggested to me the way of effect- 
 ing it. 
 
 " I fear that the reply, which I have been able to make to 
 your question, will hardly be so satisfactory as you expected, 
 as it proceeds so entirely upon my own observations and in- 
 ferences. At the same time I have had, perhaps, unusual op- 
 portunity for forming an opinion, having been six years at a 
 public school at the time of their being at the lowest, hav- 
 ing then mingled with young men from other schools at the 
 University, having had many pupils from different schools, 
 and among them several of Dr. Arnold's most distinguished 
 ones ; and at last, having had near eight years' experience as 
 the master of a school which has undergone, in great measure, 
 the very alteration which I have been speaking of. More- 
 over, I have often said the very things which I have here 
 written, in the hearing of men of all sorts, and have never 
 found anybody disposed to contradict them. 
 
 * Believe me, my dear Stanley, 
 
 " Yours most faithfully, 
 
 " GEORGE MOBERLY." 
 
 15*
 
 174 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GENERAL LIFE AT RUGBY. 
 
 IT was natural that with the wider range of duty, 
 and the more commanding position which Dr. Arnold's 
 new station gave him, there should have been a new 
 stage in his character and views, hardly less marked 
 intellectually, than that which accompanied his change 
 from Oxford to Laleham had been morally. The sev- 
 eral subjects of thought, which more or less he had 
 already entertained, especially during the two or three 
 preceding years, now fell rapidly one by one into their 
 proper places. Ready as he still was to take the ad- 
 vice of his friends in practice, his opinions now took a 
 more independent course : and whatever subsequent 
 modification they underwent, came not from without, 
 but from within. Whilst he became more and more 
 careful to reconcile his own views with those, whom, 
 in ages past or present, he reverenced as really great 
 men, the circle within which he bestowed his venera- 
 tion became far more exclusive. The purely practical 
 clement sank into greater subordination to the more 
 imaginative and philosophical tendencies of his mind ; 
 in works of poetical or speculative genius, which at 
 an earlier period he had been inclined to depreciate, he 
 now, looking at them from another point of view, took 
 an increasing delight. Within the letters of the very 
 first year there is a marked alteration visible even in the 
 mere form of his handwriting, and the mode of address- 
 ing his friends. The character which has already been 
 given of his boyish verses at Oxford, becomes less and 
 less applicable to the simple and touching fragments of 
 poetry in which from time to time he expressed the 
 feelings of his later years. The change of style in his 
 published writings, from the baldness of his earlier
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 175 
 
 works to the vigorous English of his mature age, indi- 
 cates the corresponding impulse given to his powers, 
 and the greater freedom and variety of his new range 
 of thought. 
 
 With his entrance, therefore, on his work at Rugby, 
 his public life, (if it may so be called,) no less than his 
 professional life, properly begins. But what was true 
 of the effect of his own character in his sphere as a 
 teacher, is hardly less true of it in his sphere as an au- 
 thor. His works were not merely the inculcations of 
 particular truths, but the expression of his whole 
 mind ; and excited in those who read them a senti- 
 ment almost of personal regard or of personal dislike, 
 as the case might be, over and above the approbation 
 or disapprobation of the opinions which they contained. 
 Like himself, they partook at once of a practical and 
 speculative character, which exposed them, like him- 
 self, to considerable misapprehension. On the one 
 hand, even the most permanent of them seemed to ex- 
 press the feeling of the hour which dictated them. On 
 the other hand, even the most transitory seemed to 
 express no less the fixed ideas, by which his whole life 
 was regulated : and it may be worth while, therefore, 
 iri regard to both these aspects, without descending 
 into the details and circumstances of each particular 
 work, which the ensuing correspondence will of itself 
 sufficiently describe, to offer briefly a few remarks 
 which may serve as a preface to all of them. 
 
 I. Greatly as his practical turn of mind was modified 
 in his later years, and averse as he always was to what 
 are technically called " practical men," yet, in the 
 sense of having no views, however high, which he did 
 not labor to bring into practice sooner or later, he re- 
 mained eminently practical to the end of his life. " I 
 always think," he used to say, " of that magnificent 
 sentence of Bacon, ' In this world, God only and the 
 angels may be spectators.' ' " Stand still, and see the 
 salvation of God," he observed in allusion to Dr. 
 Pusey's celebrated sermon on that passage, " was truo
 
 176 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 advice to the Israelites on the shores of the Red Sea ; 
 but it was not the advice which is needed in ordinary 
 circumstances ; it would have been false advice when 
 they were to conquer Canaan." " I cannot," he said, 
 " enter fully into these lines of Wordsworth 
 
 ' To me the meanest flower that breathes can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.' 
 
 There is to me something in them of a morbid feeling 
 life is not long enough to take such intense interest 
 in objects themselves so little." Secluded as he was, 
 both by his occupations and his domestic habits, from 
 contact with the world, even more than most men in 
 his station, yet the interest with which, now more than 
 ever, he entered into public affairs, was such as can 
 rarely be felt by men not actually engaged in the gov- 
 ernment of the country. The life of a nation, he said, 
 was to him almost as distinct as that of an individual ; 
 and whatever might be his habitual subjects of public 
 interest, the advance of political and social reform, 
 the questions of peace and war, the sufferings of 
 the poorer classes, the growth of those rising com- 
 monwealths in the Australian colonies, where, from 
 time to time, he entertained an ardent desire to pass 
 the close of his life, in the hope of influencing, if pos- 
 sible, what he conceived to be the germs of the future 
 destinies of England and of the world, came before 
 him with a vividness, which seemed to belong rather 
 to a citizen of Greece or Rome, than to the compara- 
 tive apathy and retirement of the members of modern 
 states. 
 
 It was of course only or chiefly through his writings 
 that he could hope to act on the country at large : and 
 they accordingly, almost all, became inseparably bound 
 up with the course of public events. They were not, 
 in fact, so much words as deeds ; not so much the 
 result of an intention to instruct, as of an incontrolla* 
 ble desire to give vent to the thoughts that were strug- 
 gling within him. " I have a testimony to deliver," 
 was the motive which dictated almost all of them. " ]
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 177 
 
 must write or die," was an expression which he used 
 more than once in times of great public interest, and 
 which was hardly too strong to describe what he felt. 
 If he was editing Thucydides, it was with the thought 
 that he was engaged, " not on an idle inquiry about 
 remote ages and forgotten institutions, but a living 
 picture of things present, fitted not so much for the 
 curiosity of the scholar, as for the instruction of the 
 statesman and the citizen." (Pref. vol. iii. p. xxii.) 
 If he felt himself called iipon to write the history of 
 Rome, one chief reason was, because it " could be un- 
 derstood by none so well as by those who have grown 
 up under the laws, who have been engaged in the par- 
 ties, who are themselves citizens of our kingly com- 
 monwealth of England." (Pref. vol. i. p. vii.) If he 
 was anxious to set on foot a Commentary of the Scrip- 
 tures, it was mostly at times when he was struck by 
 the reluctance or incapacity of the men of his own gen- 
 eration to apply to their own social state the warnings 
 of the Apostles and Prophets. If he was desirous of 
 maintaining against the Oxford school his own views of 
 the Church, it was that, " when he looked at the social 
 condition of his countrymen," he " could not doubt 
 that here was the work for the Church of Christ to do, 
 that none else could do it, and that, with the blessing 
 of her Almighty Head, she could." (Serm. vol. iv. 
 Pref. p. cxv.) 
 
 It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, if that impa- 
 tience of present evil, which belonged aliko to his prin- 
 ciples and his disposition, appeared in his writings, and 
 imparted to them often, probably, unknown to him- 
 self something, if not of a polemical aspect, at least 
 of an attitude of opposition and attack, averse though 
 he was himself to controversy, and carefully avoiding 
 it with those whom he knew personally, even when fre- 
 quently challenged to 1 enter upon it. " The wisdom of 
 winter is the folly of spring," was a maxim with him, 
 which would often explain changes of feeling and ex- 
 pression that to too many might seem inconsistencies.
 
 178 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 " If I were living in London," he said, " I should not 
 talk against the evil tendencies of the clergy, any more 
 than if I were living in Oxford I should talk against 
 the evil tendencies of the political economists. It is 
 my nature always to attack that evil which seems to 
 me most present." It was thus a favorite topic, in his 
 exposition of Scripture, to remark how the particular 
 sins of the occasion were denounced, the particular 
 forms of Antichrist indicated often without the qualifi- 
 cation, which would have been required by the pres- 
 ence of the opposite danger. " Contrast," he used to 
 say, " the language of the first chapter of Isaiah, when 
 the hierarchy of Judah was in its full pride and power, 
 with the language of the second chapter of Malachi, 
 when it was in a state of decline and neglect." 
 
 Connected with this, was the peculiar vehemence 
 of language which he often used, in speaking of the 
 subjects and events of the day. This was indeed 
 partly to be accounted for by his eagerness to speak 
 out whatever was in his mind, especially when moved 
 by his keen sense of what he thought evil partly by 
 the natural simplicity of his mode of speech, which 
 led him to adopt phrases in their simplest sense, with- 
 out stopping to explain them, or suspecting that they 
 would be misunderstood. But with regard to public 
 principles and parties, it was often more than this. 
 With every wish to be impartial, yet his natural tem- 
 perament, as he used himself to acknowledge, made 
 it difficult for him to place himself completely in 
 another's point of view ; and thus he had a tendency 
 to judge individuals, with whom he had no personal 
 acquaintance, from his conception of the party to 
 which they belonged, and to look at both through the 
 medium of that strong power of association, which in- 
 fluenced materially his judgment, not only of events, 
 but of men, and even of places-. Living individuals, 
 therefore, and existing principles, became lost to his 
 view in the long line of images, past and future, in 
 which they only formed one link. Every political or
 
 LIFE OF DR. AENOLD. 179 
 
 ecclesiastical movement suggested to him the recollec- 
 tion of its historical representative in past times, 
 and yet more, as by an instinct, half religious and half 
 historical, the thought of what he conceived to be the 
 prototypes of the various forms of error and wicked- 
 ness denounced by the Prophets in the Old Testament, 
 or by our Lord and his Apostles in the New. And 
 looking not backwards only, but forwards, to their 
 remotest consequences, and again guiding himself, 
 as he thought, by the example of the language of 
 St. Paul, who " seemed to have had his eye fixed in 
 vision rather upon the full-grown evil of later times, 
 than upon the first imperfect show the faint indica- 
 tions of it in his own time," (Serm. vol. v. p. 346,) 
 he saw in them the germs of mischief yet to come, 
 not only the mischief of their actual triumph, but the 
 mischief of the reaction against them. 
 
 There was besides a peculiar importance attaching, 
 in his view, to political questions, with which every 
 reader of his works must be familiar. The life of the 
 commonwealth is to him the main subject of history 
 the laws of political science the main lesson of history 
 "the desire of taking an active share in the great 
 work of government, the highest earthly desire of the 
 ripened mind." And those who read his letters will 
 be startled at times by the interest with which he 
 watches the changes of administration, where to many 
 the real difference would seem to be comparatively 
 trifling. Thus he would speak of a ministry advo- 
 cating even good measures inconsistently with their 
 position or principles, " as a daily painfulness a 
 moral east wind, which made him feel uncomfort- 
 able, without any particular ailment " or lament 
 the ascendency of false political views, as tending 
 " to the sure moral degradation of the whole com- 
 munity, and the ultimate social disorganization of our 
 system," " not from reading the Morning Chronicle or 
 the Edinburgh Review, but from reading the Bibla 
 and Aristotle, and all history."
 
 180 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Such expressions as these must indeed be taken 
 with the necessary qualifications .which belong to all 
 words spoken to intimate friends in a period of great 
 excitement. But they may serve to illustrate at least 
 the occasional strength of feeling which it is the object 
 of these remarks to explain. It arose, no doubt, in 
 part from his tendency to view all things in a practical 
 and concrete form, and in part from his belief of the 
 large power possessed by the supreme governors of 
 society over the social and moral condition of those 
 intrusted to them. But there were also real prin- 
 ciples present to his mind whenever he thus spoke, 
 which seemed to him so certain, that " daily expe- 
 rience could hardly remove his wonder at finding 
 that they did not appear so to others." (Mod. Hist. 
 Lect. p. 391.) What these principles were in detail, 
 his own letters will sufficiently show. But it must be 
 borne in mind how, whilst he certainly believed that 
 they were exemplified to a great degree in the actual 
 state of English politics, the meaning which he at- 
 tached to them rose so far above their meaning as 
 commonly used, that it could hardly be thought that 
 the same subject was spoken of. Conservatism in his 
 mouth was not merely the watchword of an English 
 party, but the symbol of an evil, against which his 
 whole life, public and private, was one continued 
 struggle, which he dreaded in his own heart no less 
 than in the institutions of his country, and his abhor- 
 rence of which will be found to pervade not only the 
 pamphlets which have been most condemned, but the 
 sermons which have been most admired, namely, the 
 spirit of resistance to all change. Jacobinism, again, 
 in his use of the word, included not only the extreme 
 movement party in France or England, to which he 
 usually applied it, but all the natural tendencies of 
 mankind, whether " democratical, priestly, or chival- 
 rous," to oppose the authority of Law, divine and 
 human, which he regarded with so deep a reverence. 
 Popular principles and democracy (when he used
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 181 
 
 these words in a good sense) were not the opposi- 
 tion to an hereditary monarchy or peerage, which he 
 always valued as precious elements of national life, 
 but were inseparably blended with his strong belief in 
 the injustice and want of sympathy generally shown 
 by the higher to the lower orders, a belief which 
 he often declared had been first brought home to him, 
 when, after having as a young man at Oxford held 
 the opposite view, he first began seriously to study the 
 language used with regard to it by St. James and the 
 Old Testament Prophets. Liberal principles were not 
 merely the expression of his adherence to a Whig min- 
 istry, but of his belief in the constant necessity of ap- 
 plying those principles of advance and reform, which, 
 in their most perfect development, he conceived to 
 be identical with Christianity itself. Even in their 
 lower exemplifications, and in every age of the world 
 except that before the Fall of man from Paradise, he 
 maintained them to have been, by the very constitu- 
 tion of human society, the representatives of the cause 
 of wisdom and goodness. And this truth, no less cer- 
 tain in his judgment than the ordinary deductions of 
 natural theology, he believed to have been placed on 
 a still firmer basis by the higher standard held out in 
 the Christian religion, and the revelation of a moral 
 law, which no intermixture of races or change of na- 
 tional customs could possibly endanger. 
 
 That he was not, in the common sense of the word, 
 a member of any party, is best shown by the readiness 
 with which all parties alike, according to the fashion 
 of the time, claimed or renounced him as an associate. 
 Ecclesiastically, he neither belonged, nor felt himself 
 to belong, to any of the existing sections of the Eng- 
 lish clergy ; and from the so-called High Church, Low 
 Church, and Evangelical bodies he always stood, not 
 perhaps equally, but yet decidedly aloof. Politically, 
 indeed, he held himself to be a strong Whig : but as a 
 matter of fact, he found that in cases of practical co- 
 operation with that party, he differed almost as much 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 182 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 from them as from their opponents ; and would often 
 confess with sorrow, that there were none among th<>m 
 who realized what seemed to him their true principles.* 
 And whilst in later years his feelings and language ou 
 these subjects were somewhat modified, he at all times, 
 even when most tenaciously holding to his opinions, 
 maintained the principle, that " political truths are 
 not, like moral truths, to be held as absolutely cer- 
 tain, nor ever wholly identical with the professions or 
 practice of any party or individual." (Pref. to Hist. 
 of Rome, vol. i. p. 11.) There were few warnings to 
 his pupils on the entrance into life more solemn, tlmn 
 those against party spirit, against giving to any human 
 party, sect, society, or cause, that undivided sympathy 
 and service which he held to be due only to the one 
 party, and cause of all good men under their Divine 
 Head.f There were few more fervent aspirations for 
 his children, than that with which he closes a letter 
 in 1833 : " May God grant to my sons, if they live to 
 manhood, an unshaken love of truth, and a firm reso- 
 lution to follow it for themselves, with an intense ab- 
 horrence of all party ties, save that one tie, which 
 binds them to the party of Christ against wickedness." 
 II. But no temporary interest or excitement was 
 allowed to infringe on the loftiness or the unity of his 
 ultimate ends, to which every particular plan that he 
 took up, and every particular line of thought which 
 he followed, were completely subordinate. However 
 open to objection may have been many of his practical 
 
 # The interest which in his earlier life he took in the lending questions 
 of political economy, though it was always kept alive by his general sym- 
 patny with all subjects relating to the social state of the country, was yet 
 in his later years considerably abated, by growing consciousness of his igno- 
 rance of the subject. On some points, however, he always felt and spoke 
 strongly. The corn law?, for example, he always regarded, though not as 
 the chief cause of national distress, yet as a great evil, the removal of which 
 was imperatively demanded by sound economical principles; and of the 
 practice of accumulating national debts, he said, in tne last year of his life, 
 that he rejoiced in few things more in his professorial lectures at Oxford, 
 than in the protest which he had there made against it " Woe be to that 
 generation mat is living in England," he used to say, " when the coal-miiiei 
 are exhausted and the national debt not paid off." 
 
 t Se Sermon on " Who are partakers in our hope V " vol. iii.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 183 
 
 suggestions, it must bo remembered that they were 
 never the result of accidental fancies, but of fixed and 
 ruling ideas. However fertile he might be in supply- 
 ing details when called for, it was never on them, but 
 on principles, that he rested his claim to be heard ; 
 often and often he declared that if these could be re- 
 ceived and acted upon, he cared nothing for the par- 
 ticular applications of them, which he might have 
 proposed, and nothing for the failure of particular 
 schemes, if he could hope that his example would 
 excite others to execute them better. 
 
 Striving to fulfil in his measure the definition of 
 man, in which he took especial pleasure, " a being of 
 large discourse, looking before and after," he learned 
 more and more, whilst never losing his hold on the 
 present, to live also habitually in the past and for the 
 future. Vehement as he was in assailing evil, his 
 whole mind was essentially not destructive but con- 
 structive ; his love of reform was in exact proportion 
 to his love of the institutions which he wished to re- 
 form ; his hatred of shadows in exact proportion to 
 his love of realities. " He was an idoloclast," says 
 Archdeacon Hare, " at once zealous and fearless in 
 demolishing the reigning idols, and at the same time 
 animated with a reverent love for the ideas which 
 those idols carnalize and stifle." Impatient as he was, 
 even to restlessness, of evils which seemed to him 
 capable of remedy, he yet was ready, as some have 
 thought even to excess, to repose with the most un- 
 doubting confidence on what he held to be a general 
 law. " Ah," he said, speaking to a friend of the par- 
 able of the " earth, of herself, bringing forth first the 
 blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear," 
 " how much there is in those words : I hope some day 
 to be able to work at them thoroughly." " We walk 
 by faith and not by sight," was a truth on which in its 
 widest sense he endeavored to dwell alike in his pri- 
 vate and public relations, - alike in practice and in 
 speculation. " You know you dc what God does,"
 
 184 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 was his answer to an expression of a painful sense of 
 the increase of a child's responsibility by an early 
 Christian education. " We may be content, I think, 
 to share the responsibility with Christ." 'And on more 
 general subjects, " We must brace our minds," he 
 said, in an unpublished sermon, " we must brace our 
 minds to the full extent of that great truth that 
 * no man hath seen God at any time ; ' still amidst 
 outward darkness and inward, amidst a world going 
 on, as it seems, its own course, with no other laws than 
 those which God has given to nature ; amidst all 
 the doubts and perplexities of our own hearts the 
 deepest difficulties sitting hard beside the most blessed 
 truths still we must seek after the Lord with un- 
 abated faith if so be that we may find him." It was 
 not that he was not conscious of difficulties, but that 
 (to apply his own words) " before a confessed and un- 
 conquerable difficulty his mind reposed as quietly as 
 in possession of a discovered truth." 
 
 His time for reading at Laleham and Rugby was 
 necessarily limited by his constant engagements ; but 
 his peculiar habits and turn of mind enabled him to 
 accomplish much, which to others in similar circum- 
 stances would have been impossible. He had a re- 
 markable facility for turning to account spare frag- 
 ments of time for appropriating what he casually 
 heard, and for mastering the contents of a book by a 
 very rapid perusal. His memory was exceedingly 
 retentive of all subjects in which lie took any interest ; 
 and the studies of his youth especially of what he 
 used to call the " golden time '' between his degree 
 and his leaving Oxford were perpetually supplying 
 him with materials for his later labors. The custom 
 which he then began, of referring at once to the 
 sources and original documents of history, as in Ry- 
 mer, Moiitfaucon, and the Summa Conciliorum, gave 
 a lasting freshness and solidity to his knowledge ; and, 
 instead of merely exchanging his later for his earlier 
 acquisitions, the one seemed to be a natural develop- 
 ment of the other.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 185 
 
 Whenever a new line of study was opened to him, 
 he fearlessly followed it ; a single question would often 
 cost him much research in books for which he nat- 
 urally cared but little; for philological purposes he 
 was endeavoring even in his latest years to acquire a 
 knowledge of the Sanscrit and Sclavonic languages ; 
 he was constantly engaged in correspondence with 
 scientific men or scholars on minute points of history 
 or geography ; in theology he had almost always on 
 hand one of the early Christian writers, with a view to 
 the ultimate completion of his great work on Church 
 and State. He had a great respect for learning, 
 though impatient of the pretensions to the name often 
 made by a mere amount of reading ; and the standard 
 of what was required in order to treat of any subject 
 fully, was perpetually rising before him. It would 
 often happen, from the necessity of the case, that his 
 works were written in haste, and were therefore some- 
 times expressed nakedly and abruptly. But it would 
 be wrong to infer from the unblotted, unrevised manu- 
 script, which went to the press as it came from his pen, 
 that it was not the result of much thought and reading ; 
 although he hardly ever corrected what he had once 
 written, yet he often approached the same subject in 
 various forms ; the substance of every paragraph had, 
 as he often said, been in his mind for years, and some- 
 times had been actually written at greater length or in 
 another shape ; his sense of deficient knowledge often 
 deterred him from publishing on subjects of the great- 
 est interest to him ; he always made it a point to read 
 far more than he expressed in writing, and to write 
 much which he never gave to the world. 
 
 What he actually achieved in his works falls so far 
 short of what he intended to achieve, that it seems 
 almost like an injustice to judge of his aims and views 
 by them. Yet, even in what he had already published 
 in his lifetime, he was often the first to delineate in 
 outline what others may hereafter fill up ; the first to 
 give expression in England to views which, on the con- 
 
 16*
 
 186 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tinent, had been already attained ; the first to propose, 
 amidst obloquy or indifference, measures and princi- 
 ples which the rapid advance of public opinion has so 
 generally adopted, as almost to obliterate the remem- 
 brance of who first gave utterance to them. And 
 those who know the intentions which were interrupted 
 by his premature death will form their notion of what 
 he was as an historian, philosopher, and theologian, 
 not so much from the actual writings which he lived 
 to complete, as from the design of the three great 
 works, to which he looked forward as the labors of his 
 latest years, and which, as belonging not more to one 
 period of his life than another, and as forming, even in 
 his mere conception of them, the centres of all that he 
 thought or wrote on whatever subject, would have fur- 
 nished the key to all his views a History of Rome, 
 a Commentary on the New Testament, and, in some 
 sense including both of these within itself, a Treatise 
 on Church and State, or Christian Politics. 
 
 1. His early fondness for history grew constantly 
 upon him ; he delighted in it, as feeling it to be " sim- 
 ply a search after truth, where, by daily becoming 
 more familiar with it, truth seems forevermore within 
 your grasp : " the images of the past were habitually 
 in his mind, and haunted him even in sleep with a 
 vividness which would bring before hinl some of the 
 most striking passages in ancient history, as if pres- 
 ent at the assassination of Caesar, remembering dis- 
 tinctly his conversation with Decimus Brutus, and all 
 the tumult of the scene in the Capitol, or again at the 
 siege of Jerusalem in the army of Titus, or walking 
 round the walls of Syracuse with Alcibiades ; or watch- 
 ing the events of the civil wars of Rome, crowded by 
 the vagaries of a dream into the space of twenty-four 
 hours, with all their different characters, Sylla es- 
 pecially with the livid spots upon his face, but yet with 
 the air and manner of Walter Scott's Claverhouse. 
 What objects he put before him, as an historian, may 
 best be judged from his own view of the province of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 187 
 
 history. It was, indeed, altogether imperfect, in his 
 judgment, unless it was " not only a plan, but a pic- 
 ture ; " unless it represented " what men thought, what 
 they hated, and what they loved ; " unless it pointed 
 the way to that higher region within which she her- 
 self is not permitted to enter ; * and in the details of 
 geographical or military descriptions he took especial 
 pleasure, and himself remarkably excelled in them. 
 Still, it was in the dramatic faculty on the one hand, 
 and the metaphysical faculty on the other hand, that 
 he felt himself deficient ; and it is accordingly in the 
 political rather than the philosophical or biographical 
 department of history, in giving a combined view of 
 different states or of different periods, in analyzing 
 laws, parties, and institutions, that his chief merit con- 
 sists. 
 
 What were his views of Modern History will appear 
 in the mention of his Oxford Professorship. But it 
 was in ancient history that he naturally felt the great- 
 est delight. " I linger round a subject, which nothing 
 could tempt me to quit but the consciousness of treat- 
 ing it too unworthily," were his expressions of regret 
 when he had finished his edition of Thucydides ; " the 
 subject of what is miscalled ancient history, the really 
 modern history of the civilization of Greece and Rome, 
 which has for years interested me so deeply, that it is 
 painful to feel myself, after all, so unable to paint it 
 fully." His earliest labors had been devoted not to 
 Roman, but to Greek history ; and there still remains 
 amongst his MSS. a short sketch of the rise of the 
 Greek nation, written between 1820 and 1823, and 
 carried down to the time of the Persian wars. And 
 in later years, his edition of Thucydides, undertaken 
 originally with the ^sign of illustrating that author 
 rather historically than philologically, contains in its 
 notes and appendices, the most systematic remains of 
 his studies in this direction, and at one time promised 
 
 * History of Rome, vo!. i. p. 98; vol. ii. p. 173.
 
 188 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 to embody his thoughts on the most striking periods of 
 Athenian history. Nor, after he had abandoned this 
 design, did he ever lose his interest in the subject ; his 
 real sympathies (if one may venture to say so) were 
 always with Athens rather than with Rome ; some of 
 the most characteristic points of his mind were Greek 
 rather than Roman ; from the vacancy of the early 
 Roman annals he was forever turning to the contempo- 
 rary records of the Greek commonwealths to pay " an 
 involuntary tribute of respect and affection to old asso- 
 ciations and immortal names on which we can scarcely 
 dwell too long or too often ; " the falsehood and empti- 
 ness of the Latin historians were forever suggesting the 
 contrast of their Grecian rivals ; the two opposite poles 
 in which he seemed to realize his ideals of the worst 
 and the best qualities of an historian, with feelings of 
 personal antipathy and sympathy towards each, were 
 Livy and Thucydides. 
 
 Even these scattered notices of what he had once 
 hoped to have worked out more fully, will often fur- 
 nish the student of Greek history with the means of 
 entering upon its most remarkable epochs under his 
 guidance. Those who have carefully read his works, 
 or shared his instructions, can still enjoy the light 
 which lie has thrown on the rise and progress of the 
 Greek commonwealths, and their analogy with the 
 States of modern Europe ; and apply in their manifold 
 relations, the principles which he has laid down with 
 regard to the peculiar ideas attached in the Greek 
 world to race, to citizenship, and to law. They oan 
 still catch the glow of almost passionate enthusiasm, 
 with which he threw himself into the age of Pericles, 
 and the depth of emotion with which he watched, like 
 an eye-witness, the failure of the Syracusan expedition. 
 They can still trace the almost personal sympathy with 
 which he entered into the great crisis of Greek society 
 when " Socrates, the faithful servant of truth and vir- 
 tue, fell a victim to the hatred alike of the demo- 
 cratical and aristocratical vulgar ; " when, " all that
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 189 
 
 audacity can dare, or subtlety contrive, to make the 
 words of ' good ' and ' evil ' change their meaning, was 
 tried in the days of Plato, and by his eloquence, and 
 wisdom, and faith unshaken was put to shame." They 
 can well imagine the intense admiration with which 
 he would have dwelt, in detail, on what he has now 
 left only in faint outline : Alexander at Babylon 
 impressed him as one of the most solemn scenes in all 
 history : the vision of Alexander's career, even to the 
 lively image which he entertained of his youthful and 
 godlike beauty, rose constantly before him as the most 
 signal instance of the effects of a good education against 
 the temptations of power ; as being, beyond anything i 
 recorded in Roman history, the career of " the greatest 
 man of the ancient world ; " and even after the period, 
 when Greece ceased to possess any real interest for 
 him, he loved to hang with a melancholy pleasure over 
 the last decay of Greek genius and wisdom, "the 
 worn-out and cast-off skin, from which the living ser- 
 pent had gone forth to carry his youth and vigor to 
 other lands." 
 
 But, deep as was his interest in Grecian history, and 
 though in some respects no other part of ancient litera- 
 ture derived so great a light from his researches, it was 
 to his History of Rome that he looked as the chief 
 monument of his historical fame. Led to it partly by 
 his personal feeling of regard towards Niebuhr and 
 Chevalier Bunsen, and by the sense of their encourage- 
 ment, there was, moreover, something in the subject 
 itself peculiarly attractive to him, whether in the mag- 
 nificence of the field which it embraced, (" the His- 
 tory of Rome," he said, " must be in some sort the 
 History of the World,") or in the congenial element 
 which he naturally found in the character of a people, 
 "whose distinguishing quality was their, love of insti- 
 tutions and order, and their reverence for law." Ac- 
 cordingly, after approaching it in various forms, he at 
 last conceived the design of the work, of which the 
 three published volumes are the result, but which he
 
 190 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 had intended to carry down, in successive periods, to 
 what seemed to him its natural termination in the 
 coronation of Charlemagne. (Pref. vol. i. p. vii.) 
 
 The two earlier volumes occupy a place in the His- 
 tory of Rome, and of the ancient world generally, 
 which in England had not and has not been otherwise 
 filled up. Yet in the subjects of which they treat, his 
 peculiar talents had hardly a fair field for their exer- 
 cise. The want of personal characters and of distinct 
 events, which Niebuhr was to a certain extent able to 
 supply from the richness of his learning and the felicity 
 of his conjectures, was necessarily a disadvantage to 
 an historian whose strength lay in combining what was 
 already known, rather than in deciphering what was 
 unknown, and whose veneration for his predecessor 
 made him distrustful not only of dissenting from his 
 judgment, but even of seeing or discovering, more, 
 than had been by him seen or discovered before. " No 
 man," as he said, " can step gracefully or boldly when 
 he is groping his way in the dark," (Hist. Rome, i. p. 
 133,) and it is with a melancholy interest that we read 
 his complaint of the obscurity of the subject : " I can 
 but encourage myself, whilst painfully feeling my way 
 in such thick darkness, with the hope of arriving at 
 last at the light, and enjoying all the freshness and 
 fulness of a detailed contemporary history." (Hist. 
 Rome, ii. p. 447.) But the narrative of the second 
 Punic war, which occupies the third and posthumous 
 volume, both as being comparatively unbroken ground, 
 and as affording so full a scope for his talents in mili- 
 tary and geographical descriptions, may well be taken 
 as a measure of his historical powers, and has been 
 pronounced by his editor, Archdeacon Hare, to be the 
 first history which " has given anything like an ade- 
 quate representation of the wonderful genius and noble 
 character of Hannibal." With this volume the work 
 was broken off ; but it is impossible not to dwell for 
 a moment on what it would have been had he lived to 
 complete it.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 191 
 
 The outline in his early articles in the Encyclopae- 
 dia Metropolitana, of the later history of the Civil 
 Wars, " a subject so glorious," he writes in 1824, 
 " that I groan beforehand when I think how certainly 
 I shall fail in doing it justice," provokes of itself the 
 desire to see how he would have gone over the same 
 ground again with his added knowledge and experi- 
 ence how the characters of the time, which even in 
 this rougli sketch stand out more clearly than in any 
 other English work on the same period, would have 
 been reproduced how he would have represented the 
 pure* character and military genius of his favorite 
 hero, Pompey or expressed his mingled admiration 
 and abhorrence of the intellectual power and moral 
 degradation of Caesar ; how he would have done 
 justice to the coarseness and 'cruelty of Marius, " the 
 lowest of democrats," or, amidst all his crimes, to 
 the views of " the most sincere of aristocrats," Sylla. 
 And in advancing to the further times of the Empire, 
 his scattered hints exhibit his strong desire to reach 
 those events, to which all the intervening volumes 
 seemed to him only a prelude. " I would not over- 
 strain my eyes or my faculties," he writes in 1840, 
 " but whilst eyesight and strength are yet undecayed, 
 I want to get through the earlier Roman History, to 
 come down to the Imperial and Christian times, which 
 form a subject of such deep interest." What his gen- 
 eral admiration for Niebuhr was as a practical motive 
 
 * It may be necessary, (especially since the recent publication of Niebuhr's 
 Lectures, where a very different opinion is advocated,) to refer to Dr. Ar- 
 nold's own estimate of the moral character of Pompey, which it is believed 
 he retained unaltered, in the Encyc. Metrop. ii. 252. (Later Roman Com- 
 monwealth, vol. i. 542.) The following extract from a letter of General 
 Napier mav not be without interest in confirmation of an opinion which he 
 had himseff formed independently of it. " Tell Dr. Arnold to beware of fall- 
 ing into the error of Pompey being a bad general ; he was a very great one, 
 perhaps in a purely military sense greater than Caesar." At the same time 
 it should be observed, that his admiration of Caesar's intellectual greatness 
 was always very strong, and it was almost with an indignant animation that, 
 on the starting of an objection that Caesar's victories were only gained over 
 inferior enemies, he at once denied the inference, and instantly recounted 
 campaign after campaign in refutation.
 
 192 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 in the earlier part of his work, that his deep aversion 
 to Gibbon as a man, was in the latter part. " My 
 highest ambition," he said, as early as 1826, " and 
 what I hope to do as far as I can, is to make my his- 
 tory the very reverse of Gibbon in this respect, that 
 whereas the 'whole spirit of his work, from its low 
 morality, is hostile to religion, without speaking di- 
 rectly against it ; so my greatest desire would be, in 
 my History, by its high morals and its general tone, to 
 be of use to the cause, without actually bringing it 
 forward." 
 
 There would have been the place for his unfolding 
 the rise of the Christian Church, not in a distinct eccle- 
 siastical history, but as he thought it ought to be written 
 in conjunction with the history of the world. " The 
 period from Augustus to Aurelian," he writes, as far 
 back as 1824, " I will not willingly give up to any one, 
 because I have a particular object, namely, to blend 
 the civil and religious history together more than has 
 ever yet been done." There he would, on the one 
 hand, have expressed his view of the external influ- 
 ences, which checked the free growth of the early 
 Church the gradual revival of Judaic principles un- 
 der a Christian form the gradual extinction of indi- 
 vidual responsibility, under the system of government, 
 Roman and Gentile in its origin, which, according to 
 his latest opinion, took possession of the Church rulers 
 from the time of Cyprian. There, on the other hand, 
 he would have dwelt on the self-denying zeal and de- 
 votion to truth, which peculiarly endeared to him the 
 very name of Martyr, and on the bond of Christian 
 brotherhood, which he delighted to feel with such men 
 as Athanasius and Augustine, discerning, even in what 
 he thought their weaknesses, a signal testimony to the 
 triumph of Christianity, unaided by other means, than 
 its intrinsic excellence and holiness. Lastly, with that 
 analytical method, which he delighted to pursue in 
 his historical researches, he would have traced to their 
 source, " those evil currents of neglect, of uiicharita
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 193 
 
 bleness, and of ignorance, whose full streams we now 
 find so pestilent," first, " in the social helplessness and 
 intellectual frivolousness " of the close of the Roman 
 empire ; and then, in that event which had attracted 
 his earliest interest, " the nominal conversion of the 
 northern nations to Christianity a vast subject, and 
 one of the greatest importance both to the spiritual 
 and temporal advancement of the nations of Europe, 
 (Serin, vol. i. p. 88,) as explaining the more confirmed 
 separation of clergy and laity in later times, and in the 
 incomplete influence which Christianity has exercised 
 upon the institutions even of Christian countries." 
 (Serm. vol. iii. Pref. p. xiv.) 
 
 2. Strong as was his natural taste for History, it 
 was to Theology that he looked as the highest sphere 
 of his exertions, and as the province which most need- 
 ed them. The chief object which he here proposed to 
 himself in fact, the object which he conceived as the 
 proper end of Theology itself was the interpretation 
 and application of the Scriptures. From the time of 
 his early studies at Oxford, when he analyzed and 
 commented on the Epistles of St. Paul, with Chrysos- 
 tom's Homilies, down to the last year of his life, when 
 he was endeavoring to set on foot a Rugby edition of 
 them, under his own superintendence, he never lost 
 sight of this design. In the scattered notices of it in 
 his Sermons, published and unpublished, there is 
 enough to enable us to combine his principles into a 
 distinct whole ; and to conceive them, not in the po- 
 lemical form, which in his later years they sometimes 
 presented in their external aspect, but as the declara- 
 tion of his positive views of the Scriptures themselves, 
 wholly independent of any temporary controversy ; and 
 as the most complete reflex, not only of his capaci- 
 ties as an interpreter, but also, on the one hand, of 
 his powers of historical discernment, on the other, of 
 the reality of his religious feelings. 
 
 Impossible as it is to enter here into any detailed 
 exposition of his views, it has been felt that the live- 
 
 VOL. i. 17 M
 
 194 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 liest image of what ho was in this department will be 
 given by presenting their main features, as they were 
 impressed on the mind of the same earlier pupil and 
 later friend, whose name has before occurred in these 
 pages, and whose personal recollections of the sphere 
 in which he most admired him, will probably convey a 
 truer and more distinct conception than would be left 
 by a representation of the same facts in general lan- 
 guage, or from a more distant point of view. 
 
 MY DEAR STANLEY, 
 
 You ask me to describe Dr. Arnold as an Exegetical 
 Divine : I feel myself altogether unequal to such a task ; 
 indeed, I have no other excuse for writing at all on such a 
 subject, than the fact that I early appreciated his greatness 
 as a Theologian, and for many years had the happiness of 
 discussing frequently with him his general views on scientific 
 Divinity. It was one of my earliest convictions respecting 
 him, that, distinguished as he was in many departments of 
 literature and practical philosophy, he was most distinguished 
 as an interpreter of Scripture ; and the lapse of years and an 
 intimate knowledge of his mind and character, have but con- 
 firmed this conviction. As an expounder of the word of God, 
 Arnold always has seemed to me to be truly and emphatically 
 great. I do not say this on account of the extent and im- 
 portance of what he actually achieved in this department ; 
 for, unfortunately, he never gave himself up fully to it ; he 
 never worked at it, as the great business of his literary life. 
 I shall ever deplorB his not having done so ; and I well re- 
 member how sharp was the struggle, when he had to choose 
 between the interpretation of Scripture and the Roman His- 
 tory; and how the choice was determined, not by the con- 
 sideration of what his peculiar talent was most calculated for 
 performing successfully, but by regard to extrinsic matters, 
 the prejudice of the clergy against him, the unripeness of 
 England for a free and unfettered discussion of Scriptural 
 Exegesis, and the injury which he might be likely to do to 
 his general usefulness. And, as I then did my utmost to de- 
 termine his labors to the field of Theology, so now I must 
 deeply regret the heavy loss which I cannot but think that 
 the cause of sound interpretation and, as founded upon 
 it, of doctrinal theology has sustained in England. The
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 195 
 
 amount, then, of interpretation which he has published to the 
 world, though not inconsiderable, is still small in respect of 
 what there remained to be done by him ; but Arnold has fur- 
 nished a method has established principles and rules for 
 interpreting Scripture, which, with God's blessing, will be the 
 guide of many a future laborer, and promise to produce fruit 
 of inestimable value. In his writings the student will find a 
 path opened before him a manner of handling the word of 
 God a pointing out of the end to be held in view and a 
 light thrown on the road that leads to it, that will amply repay 
 the deepest meditation on them, and will (if I may say so 
 without presumption) furnish results full of the richest truth, 
 and destined to exercise a commanding influence on the con- 
 duct and determination of religious controversy hereafter. 
 
 It must be carefully borne in mind, that there are two 
 methods of reading Scripture, perfectly distinct in their ob- 
 jects and nature : the one is practical, the other scientific ; 
 the one aims at the edification of the reader, the other at the 
 enlightenment of his understanding ; the one seeks the re- 
 ligious truth of Scripture as bearing on the inquirer's heart 
 and personal feelings, the other the right comprehension of 
 the literary and intellectual portions of the Bible. That Ar- 
 nold read and meditated on the word of God as a disciple of 
 Christ for his soul's daily edification ; that it was to him the 
 word of life, the fountain of his deepest feelings, the rule of 
 his life ; that he dwelt in the humblest, most reverential, 
 most prayerful study of its simplest truths, and under the 
 abiding influence of their power, as they were assimilated 
 into his spiritual being by faith ; that Arnold felt and did all 
 this, the whole tenor of his life and every page of your biog- 
 raphy amply attest. Those who were most intimate with 
 him will readily recall the mingled feelings of reverence and 
 devotion with which he would, in his lonelier hours, repeat to 
 himself passages from the Gospels. " Nothing," he said, thus 
 speaking of one of them in his earlier life at Laleham, " is 
 more striking to me than our Lord's own description of the 
 judgment. It is so inexpressibly forcible, coming from His 
 very own lips, as descriptive of what He Himself would do." 
 So also the account of the raising of Lazarus, or the close of 
 the eleventh chapter of St. Matthew, " first touching on His 
 greatness, and the incommunicable nature of His union with 
 God ; and then directly the words, ' Come unto me,' as if 
 He must not for a moment depart from the character of tho
 
 196 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 man of sorrows the Saviour and Mediator." So, too, in 
 his later life at Rugby, it was impossible to forget the deep 
 emotion with which he was agitated, when, on a comparison 
 having been made in his family circle, which seemed to place 
 St. Paul above St. John, the tears rushed to his eyes, and in 
 his own earnest and loving tone, he repeated one of the verses 
 from St. John, and begged that the comparison might never 
 again be made. It would be easy to multiply illustrations of 
 this feeling ; but one more will suffice. Finding that one of 
 his children had been greatly shocked and overcome by the 
 first sight of death, he tenderly endeavored to remove the 
 feeling which had been awakened, and opening a Bible, 
 pointed to the words, " Then cometh Simon Peter following 
 him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes 
 lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with 
 the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself." 
 Nothing, he said, to his mind, afforded us such comfort when 
 shrinking from the outward accompaniments of death, the 
 grave, the grave-clothes, the loneliness, as the thought that 
 all these had been around our Lord Himself, round him who 
 died, and is now alive forevermore. 
 
 But I am here concerned with the other and strictly in- 
 tellectual process ; the scientific exposition of the Scriptures 
 as a collection of ancient books, full of the mightiest intel- 
 lectual truths ; as the record of God's dealings with man : 
 and the historical monument of the most wonderful facts in 
 the history of the world. For the office of such an inter- 
 preter, Arnold possessed rare and eminent qualifications ; 
 learning, piety, judgment, historical tact, sagacity. The ex- 
 cellence of his method may be considered under two heads : 
 I. He had a very remarkable, I should rather say (if I might) 
 wonderful discernment for the divine, as incorporated in the 
 human element of Scripture ; and the recognition of these 
 two separate and most distinct elements, the careful sepa- 
 ration of the two, so that each shall be subject to its own laws, 
 and determined on its own principles, was the foundation, 
 the grand characteristic principle of his Exegesis. Our Lord's 
 words, that we must " render to Caesar the things which are 
 Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's," seemed to 
 him to be of universal application, and nowhere more so, than 
 in the interpretation of Scripture. And his object was not, 
 according to the usual practice, to establish by its means cer- 
 tain religious truths, but to study its contents themselves
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 197 
 
 to end, in short, instead of beginning with doctrine. Indeed, 
 doctrine in the strict sense, doctrine as pure 'religious theory, 
 such as it is exhibited in scientific articles and creeds, never 
 was his object. Doctrine, in its practical and religious side, 
 as bearing on religious feeling and character, not doctrine, in 
 the sense of a direct disclosure of spiritual or material es- 
 sences, as they are in themselves, was all that he endeavored 
 to find, and all that he believed could be found, in the teach- 
 ing of Scripture. 
 
 First of all he approached the human side of the Bible in 
 the same real historical spirit, with the same methods, rules, 
 and principles as he did Thucydides. He recognized in the 
 writers of the Scriptures the use of a human instrument 
 language ; and this he would ascertain and fix, as in any other 
 authors, by the same philological rules. Further too, the Bible 
 presents an assemblage of historical events, it announces an 
 historical religion ; and the historical element Arnold judged 
 of historically by the established rules of history, substantiat- 
 ing the general veracity of Scripture even amidst occasional 
 inaccuracies of detail, and proposing to himself, for his special 
 end here, the reproduction, in the language and forms belong- 
 ing to our own age, and therefore familiar to us, of the exact 
 mode of thinking, feeling, and acting which prevailed in the 
 days gone by. 
 
 But was this all ? Is the Bible but a common book, record- 
 ing, indeed, more remarkable occurrences, but in itself pos- 
 sessed of no higher authority than a faithful and trustworthy 
 historian like Thucydides? Nothing could be further from 
 Dr. Arnold's feeling. In the Bible, he found and acknowl- 
 edged an oracle of God a positive and supernatural reve- 
 lation made to man, an immediate inspiration of the Spirit. 
 No conviction was more deeply seated hi his nature ; and this 
 conviction placed an impassable gulf between him and all 
 rationalizing divines. Only it is very important to observe 
 how this fact, in respect of scientific order, presented itself to 
 his mind. He came upon it historically ; he did not start with 
 any preconceived theory of inspiration ; but rather, in study- 
 ing the writings of those who were commissioned by God to 
 preach His Gospel to the world, he met with the fact, that 
 they claimed to be sent from God, to have a message from 
 Him, to be filled with His Spirit. Any accurate, precise, and 
 sharply-defined theory of inspiration, to the best of my knowl- 
 edge, Arnold had not ; and, if he had been asked to give one, 
 17*
 
 198 L1FF OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 I think he would have answered that the subject did not ad- 
 mit of one. I think he would have been content to realize 
 the feelings of those who heard the Apostles; he would luive 
 been sure, on one side, that there was a voice of God in them ; 
 whilst, on the other, he would have believed that probably no 
 one in the apostolic age could have defined the exact limits of 
 that inspiration. And this I am sure I may affirm with cer- 
 tainty, that never did a student feel his positive faith, his sure 
 confidence that the Bible was the word of God, more inde- 
 structible, than in Arnold's hands. He was conscious that, 
 whilst Arnold interpreted Scripture as a scholar, an anti- 
 quarian, and an historian, and that in the spirit and with the 
 development of modern science, he had also placed the super- 
 natural inspiration of the sacred writers on an imperishable 
 historical basis, a basis that would be proof against any attack 
 which the most refined modern learning could direct against 
 it. Those only who are fully aware of the importance of 
 harmonizing the progress of knowledge with Christianity, or 
 rather, of asserting, amidst every possible form of civilization, 
 the objective truths of Christianity and its life-giving power, 
 can duly appreciate the value of the confidence inspired by 
 the firm faith of a man, at once liberal, unprejudiced, and, 
 in the estimation of even the most worldly men, possessed of 
 high historical ability. 
 
 II. But I have not yet mentioned the greatest merit of 
 Arnold's Exegesis ; it took a still higher range. It was not 
 confined to a mere reproduction of a faithful image of the 
 words and deeds recorded in the Bible, such as they were 
 spoken, done, and understood at the times when they severally 
 occurred. It was a great matter to perceive what Christian- 
 ity was, such as it was felt and understood to be by the hear- 
 ers of the Apostles. But the Christian prophet and interpreter 
 tad in his eyes a still more exalted office. God's dealings with 
 any particular generation of men are but the application of 
 the eternal truths of his Providence to their particular cir- 
 cumstances, and the form of that application has at different 
 times greatly varied. Here it was that Arnold's most charac- 
 teristic eminence lay. He seemed to me to possess the true 
 Xpo7ia, the very spiritual gift, of yvwo-tr, having an insight 
 not only into the actual form of the religion of any single age, 
 but into the meaning and substance of God's moral govern- 
 ment generally ; a vision of the eternal principles by which 
 it is guided; and such a profound understanding of their
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 199 
 
 application, as to be able to set forth God's manifold wisdom, 
 as manifested at divers times, and under circumstances of the 
 most opposite kind ; nay, still more, to reconcile with his un- 
 changeable attributes those passages in Holy Writ at which 
 infidels had scoffed, and which pious men had read in rever- 
 ential silence. Thus, he vindicated God's command to Abra- 
 ham to sacrifice his son, and to the Jews to exterminate the 
 nations of Canaan, by explaining the principles on which 
 these commands were given, and their reference to the moral 
 state of those to whom they were addressed ; thereby educing 
 light out of darkness, unravelling the thread of God's re- 
 ligious education of the human race, from its earliest infancy 
 down to the fulness of times, and holding up God's marvel- 
 lous counsels to the devout wonder and meditation of the 
 thoughtful believer. As I said at first, Arnold has rather 
 pointed out the path than followed it to any extent himself; 
 the student will find in his writings the principles of his 
 method rather than its development. They are scattered, 
 more or less, throughout all his writings, but more especially 
 in the Appendix to vol. ii. of the Sermons, the Preface to the 
 third, the Notes to the fourth, and the Two Sermons on 
 Prophecy.* These last furnish to the student a very instruc- 
 tive instance of his method ; for whilst he will recognize there 
 the double sense of Prophecy, and much besides that was held 
 by the old commentators, he will also perceive how different 
 an import they assume, as treated by Arnold ; and how his 
 wide and elevated view could find in Prophecy a firm founda- 
 tion for a Christian's hope and faith, without their being 
 coupled with that extravagance with which the study of the 
 Prophecies has been so often united. His sermons, also, gen- 
 erally exhibit very striking illustrations of his faculty to dis- 
 cern general truth under particular circumstances, and his 
 power to apply it in a very altered, nay, often opposite form 
 to cases of a different nature ; thus making God's word an 
 ever-living oracle, furnishing to every age those precise rules, 
 principles, and laws of conduct which its actual circumstances 
 may require. 
 
 I must not forget to add, that his principles of interpreta- 
 tion were of slow and matured growth ; he arrived at them 
 gradually, and, in some instances, even reluctantly ; and one 
 
 * To these may be added tne posthumous volume of " Sermons, mostly 
 9Q Interpretation of Scripture."
 
 200 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of the most elaborate of his early sermons, which he had in- 
 tended to have preached before the University, was in defence 
 of what is called the verbal inspiration of Scripture. But, 
 since I became acquainted with him, I have never known him 
 to maintain anything but what I have here tried to set forth. 
 It is very possible that much of what I have here said may 
 appear to many to be exaggerated ; but I know not how else 
 to express adequately my firm confidence that the more the 
 principles which guided Arnold's interpretation of Scripture 
 are studied in his writings, the more will their power to thro\t 
 light on the depths of God's wisdom be appreciated. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 B. PRICE. 
 
 3. Lastly, his letters will have already shown how 
 early he had conceived the idea of the work,* to which 
 he chiefly looked forward as that of his old age, on 
 Christian Politics, or Church and State. But it is only 
 a wider survey of his general views that will show how 
 completely this was the centre round which were gath- 
 ered not only all his writings, but all his thoughts and 
 actions on social subjects, and which gave him a dis- 
 tinct position amongst English divines, not only of the 
 present, but of almost all preceding generations. We 
 must remember how the Greek science, iroAmio), of 
 which the English word " politics," or even political 
 science, is so inadequate a translation society in its 
 connection with the highest welfare of men exhib- 
 ited to him the great problem which every educated 
 man was called upon to solve. We must conceive 
 how lofty were the aspirations which he entertained of 
 what Christianity was intended to effect, and what, if 
 rightly applied, it might yet effect, far beyond anything 
 which has yet been seen, or is ordinarily conceived, for 
 the moral and social restoration of the world. We 
 must enter into the keen sense of the startling diffi- 
 
 * This work he approached at four different times: 1, in a sketch drawn 
 up in 1827; 2, in two fragments in 1833, '34; 3, in a series of Letters to 
 Chevalier Bunsen, 1839; 4, in an historical fragment, 1838-1841. These 
 have all been since published in the " Fragment on the Church."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 201 
 
 culty which he felt to be presented by its comparative 
 failure. " The influence of Christianity no doubt has 
 made itself felt in all those countries which have pro- 
 fessed it ; but ought not its effects," he urged, " to 
 have been far more perceptible than they are, now that 
 nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since the 
 kingdom of God was first proclaimed ? Is it, in fact, 
 the kingdom of God in which we are now living ? Are 
 we at this hour living under the law or under grace ? " 
 Everything, in short, which he thought or said on this 
 subject, was in answer to what he used to call " the 
 very question of questions ; " the question which oc- 
 curs in the earliest of all his works, and which he con- 
 tinued to ask of himself and of others as long as he 
 lived. " Why, amongst us in this very country, is the 
 mighty work of raising up God's kingdom stopped ; 
 the work of bringing every thought and word and 
 deed to the obedience of Christ ? " (Serm. vol. i. 
 p. 115.) 
 
 The great cause of this hindrance to the triumph of 
 Christianity, he believed to lie (to adopt his own dis- 
 tinction) in the corruption not of the Religion of 
 Christ, but of the Church of Christ. The former he 
 felt had on the whole done its work " its truths," he 
 said, " are to be sought in the Scriptures alone, and 
 are the same at all times and in all countries." But 
 " the Church, which is not a revelation concerning the 
 eternal and unchangeable God, but an institution to 
 enable changeable man to apprehend the unchange- 
 able," had, he maintained, been virtually destroyed; 
 and thus, " Christianity being intended to remedy the 
 intensity of the evil of the Fall by its Religion, and 
 the universality of the evil by its Church, has suc- 
 ceeded in the first, because its religion has been re- 
 tained as God gave it, but has failed in the second, 
 because its Church has been greatly corrupted." 
 (Serm. vol. iv. Pref. p. xliv.) 
 
 What he meant by this corruption, and why he 
 thought it fatal to the full development of Christianity,
 
 202 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 will best appear by explaining his idea of the Church, 
 both with regard to its true end and its true nature. 
 Its end he maintained to be " the putting down of 
 moral evil." " And if this idea," he asks, " seem 
 strange to any one, let him consider whether he will 
 not find this notion of Christianity everywhere promi- 
 nent in the Scriptures, and whether the most peculiar 
 ordinances of the Christian Religion are not founded 
 upon it ; or again, if it seem natural to him, let him 
 ask himself whether he has well considered the legiti- 
 mate consequences of such a definition, and whether, 
 in fact, it is not practically forgotten ? " Its true 
 nature he believed to be not an institution of the 
 clergy, but a living society of all Christians. " When 
 I hear men talk of the Church," he used to say, " I 
 cannot help recalling how Abbd SiSyes replied to the 
 question, ' What is the Tiers Etat ? ' by saying, ' La 
 nation moins la noblesse et le clerg6 ; ' and so I, if I 
 were asked, What are the laity ? would answer, The 
 Church minus the clergy." " This," he said, " is the 
 view taken of the Church in the New Testament ; can 
 it be said that it is the view held amongst ourselves, 
 and if not, is not the difference incalculable ? " It 
 was as frustrating the union of all Christians, in ac- 
 complishing what he believed to be the true end 
 enjoined by their common Master, that he felt so 
 strongly against the desire for uniformity of opinion or 
 worship, which he used to denounce under the name 
 of sectarianism ; it was as annihilating what he be- 
 lieved to be the Apostolical idea of a Church, that he 
 felt so strongly against that principle of separation 
 between the clergy and laity, which he used to de- 
 nounce under the name of priestcraft. " As far as 
 the principle on which Archbishop Laud and his fol- 
 lowers acted went to reactuate the idea of the Church, 
 as a co-ordinate and living power by virtue of Christ's 
 institution and express promise, I go along with them ; 
 but I soon discover that by the Church they meant the 
 clergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and there I fly ofi
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 203 
 
 'jrom them at a tangent. For it is this very interpre- 
 tation of the Church that, according to my conviction, 
 constituted the first and fundamental apostasy." Such 
 was the motto from Coleridge's Remains which he 
 selected as the full expression of his own views, and it 
 was as realizing this idea that he turned eagerly to all 
 institutions which seemed likely to impress on all 
 Christians the moral, as distinct from the ceremonial, 
 character of their religion, the equal responsibility 
 and power which they possessed, not " as friends or 
 honorary members " of the Church, but as its most 
 essential parts. 
 
 Such (to make intelligible, by a few instances, what 
 in general language must be obscure) was his desire 
 to revive the order of deacons, as a link between the 
 clergy and laity, his defence of the union of laymen 
 with clerical synods, of clergy with the civil legisla- 
 ture, his belief that an authoritative permission to 
 administer the Eucharist, as well as Baptism, might 
 be beneficially granted to civil or military officers, in 
 congregations where it was impossible to procure the 
 presence of clergy, his wish for the restoration of 
 Church discipline, " which never can and never ought 
 to be restored, till the Church puts an end to the usur- 
 pation of her powers by the clergy ; and which, though 
 it must be vain when opposed to public opinion, yet, 
 when it is the expression of that opinion, can achieve 
 anything." (Serm. vol. iv. pp. liii. 416.) Such was 
 his suggestion of the revival of many " good practices, 
 which belong to the true Church no less than to the 
 corrupt Church, and would there be purely beneficial ; 
 daily church services, frequent communions, memo- 
 rials of our Christian calling, presented to our notice 
 in crosses and wayside oratories ; commemorations to 
 holy men of all times and countries ; the doctrine of 
 the communion of saints practically taught ; religious 
 orders, especially of women, of different kinds, and 
 under different rules, delivered only from the snare 
 and sin of perpetual vows." (Serm. vol. iv. Pref. 
 P Ivi.)
 
 204 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 A society organized on these principles, and with 
 such or similar institutions, was, in his judgment, the 
 " true sign from heaven " meant to be " the living wit- 
 ness of the reality of Christ's salvation, which should 
 remind us daily of God, and work upon the habits of 
 our life as insensibly as the air we breathe," (Serm. 
 vol. iv. p. 307,) which would not " rest satisfied with 
 the lesser and imperfect good, which strikes thrice and 
 stays," (ibid. Pref. p. liv.,) which would be " some- 
 thing truer and deeper than satisfied not only the last 
 century, but the last seventeen centuries." (Ibid. Pref. 
 p. liii.) 
 
 But it was almost impossible for his speculations to 
 have stopped short of the most tangible shape which 
 they assumed, viz. his idea, not of an alliance or 
 union, but of the absolute identity of the Church with 
 the State. In other words, his belief that the object of 
 the State and the Church was alike the highest welfare 
 of man, and that, as the State could not accomplish 
 this, unless it acted with the wisdom and goodness of 
 the Church, nor the Church, unless it was invested 
 with the sovereign power of the State, the State and 
 the Church in their ideal form were not two societies, 
 but one ; and that it is only in proportion as this iden- 
 tity is realized in each particular country that man's 
 perfection and God's glory can be established on earth. 
 This theory had, indeed, already been sanctioned by 
 some of the greatest names in English theology and 
 philosophy, by Hooker in his Ecclesiastical Polity, and 
 in later times by Burke, and in part by Coleridge. 
 But (if a negative may be universally asserted on such 
 a subject) it had never before, at least in England, 
 been so completely the expression of a man's whole 
 mind, or the basis of a whole system, political as well 
 as religious, positive as well as negative. 
 
 The peculiar line of his historical studies, the ad- 
 miration which he felt for the Greek and Roman com- 
 monwealths, his intensely political and national turn 
 of mind, - - his reverence for the authority of law,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 205 
 
 nis abhorrence of what he used to consider the anar- 
 chical spirit of dissent on the one hand, and the secta- 
 rianism of a clerical government on the other all 
 tended to the same result. His detestation, on the 
 one hand, of what he used to call the secular or Jaco- 
 binical notion of a State, as providing only for physical 
 ends, on the other hand, of what he used to call 
 the superstitious or antichristian view of the Church, 
 as claiming to be ruled, not by national laws, but by a 
 divinely-appointed succession of priests or governors, 
 both combined to make him look to the nation or com- 
 monwealth as the fit sphere for the full realization of 
 Christianity ; to the perfect identification of Christian 
 with political society, as the only mode of harmonizing 
 the truths which, in the opposite systems of Archbishop 
 Whately and Mr. Gladstone, he lamented to see " each 
 divorced from its proper mate." 
 
 Accordingly, no full development of the Church, no 
 full Christianization of the State, could in his judgment 
 take place, until the Church should have become, not 
 a subordinate, but a sovereign society ; not acting in- 
 directly on the world, through inferior instruments, 
 but directly through its own government, the supreme 
 legislature. Then at last all public officers of the 
 State, feeling themselves to be necessarily officers of the 
 Church, would endeavor " each in his vocation and 
 ministry," to serve its great cause " not with a subject's 
 indifference, but with a citizen's zeal." Then the jeal- 
 ousy, with which the clergy and laity at present regard 
 each other's interference, would, as he hoped, be lost 
 in the sense that their spheres were in fact the same ; 
 that nothing was too secular to claim exemption from 
 the enforcement of Christian duty, nothing too spirit- 
 ual to claim exemption from the control of the govern- 
 ment of a Christian State. Then the whole nation, 
 amidst much variety of form, ceremonial, and opinion, 
 would at last feel that the great ends of Christian and 
 national society, now for the first time realized to their 
 view, were a far stronger bond of union between Chris- 
 
 TOL. I. 18
 
 206 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tians, and a far deeper division from those who were 
 not Christians, than any subordinate principle either of 
 agreement or separation. 
 
 It was thus only, that he figured to himself the per- 
 fect consummation of earthly things, the triumph of 
 what he used emphatically to call the Kingdom of God. 
 Other good institutions, indeed, he regarded as so 
 many steps towards this end. The establishment of a 
 parochial clergy, even in its present state, seemed to 
 him one of the highest national blessings, much 
 more the revival of the Church, as he would have 
 wished to see it revived. Still the work of Christianity 
 itself was not accomplished, so long as political and 
 social institutions were exempt from its influence, so 
 long as the highest power of human society professed 
 to act on other principles than those declared in the 
 Gospel. But, whenever it should come to pass that 
 the strongest earthly bond should be identical with the 
 bond of Christian fellowship, that the highest earthly 
 power should avowedly minister to the advancement 
 of Christian holiness that crimes should be regarded 
 as sins that Christianity should be the acknowledged 
 basis of citizenship, that the region of political and 
 national questions, war and peace, oaths and punish- 
 ments, economy and education, so long considered by 
 good and bad alike as worldly and profane, should be 
 looked upon as the very sphere to which Christian prin- 
 ciples are most applicable, then he felt that Chris- 
 tianity would at last have gained a position, where it 
 could cope for the first time, front to front, with the 
 power of evil ; that the unfulfilled promises of the older 
 prophecies, so long delayed, would have received their 
 accomplishment ; that the kingdoms of this world would 
 have indeed becpme the kingdoms of the Lord and of 
 his Christ. 
 
 No one felt more keenly than himself how impossible 
 It was to apply this view directly to existing circum- 
 stances ; how the whole framework of society must be 
 reconstructed before it could be brought into action ;
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 207 
 
 how far in the remote future its accomplishment must 
 necessarily lie. " So deeply," he said, " is the distinc- 
 tion between the Church and the State seated in our 
 laws, our language, and our very notions, that noth- 
 ing less than a miraculous interposition of God's Prov- 
 idence seems capable within any definite time of erad- 
 icating it." * 
 
 Still, it was not in his nature to postpone, even in 
 thought, the fulfilment of his desires to a remote Mil- 
 lennium or Utopia, such as in the minds of many men 
 acts rather as a reason for acquiescence in the existing 
 order of the world, than as a motive for rising above 
 it. The wisdom of Hesiod's famous paradox, " He is 
 a fool who does not know how much the half is better 
 than the whole," was often in his mouth ; in answer 
 t6 the frequent allegation that because the complete 
 fulfilment of the theory was impracticable, therefore 
 no part of it could be made available. " I cannot 
 answer all your objections fully," he writes to Arch- 
 bishop Whately, " because if I could, it were to sup- 
 pose that the hardest of all human questions contained 
 no great difficulties ; but I think on the whole, that 
 the objections to my scheme are less than to any other, 
 and that on the positive side it is in theory perfect : 
 and though it never will be wholly realized, yet if men 
 can be brought to look at it as the true theory, the 
 practical approximations to it may in the course of 
 time be indefinitely great." 
 
 It was still the thought which animated all his 
 exertions in behalf of his country, where he felt that 
 " the means were still in our hands, which it seems 
 far better to use even at the eleventh hour, than des- 
 perately to throw them away." f And, convinced as 
 he was, that the founders of our present constitution 
 in Church and State did " truly consider them to be 
 identical, the Christian nation of England to be the 
 Church of England, the head of that nation to be for 
 
 * Pref. to Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. ix. f Senn. vol. ii. Pref. p. vi
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 that very reason the head of the Church," he asked 
 with an indignant sorrow, " whether it were indeed 
 indifference or latitudinarianism, to wish most de- 
 voutly that this nohle, this divine theory might be 
 fully and forever realized." * It was still the vision 
 which closed the vista of all his speculations ; tho 
 ideal whole, .which might be incorporated part by part 
 into the existing order of society ; the ideal end which 
 each successive age might approacli more closely, 
 its very remoteness only impressing him more deeply 
 with the conviction of the enormous efforts which 
 must be made to bring all social institutions nearer to 
 that perfection which Christianity designed for them, 
 of the enormous mass of evil which lay undisturbed 
 because so few dared to acknowledge the identity of 
 the cause of reform with the cause of Christianity. 
 It was still, in its more practical form, the great idea 
 of which the several parts of his life were so many dis- 
 tinct exemplifications ; his sermons his teaching 
 his government of the school his public acts his 
 own personal character ; and to which all his dreams 
 of wider usefulness instinctively turned, from the first 
 faint outline of his hopes in his earliest letters down 
 to the last evening of his life, when the last thought 
 which he bestowed on the future, was of " that great 
 work, if he might be permitted to take part in it." 
 
 The general view of Dr. Arnold's life at Rugby 
 must not be closed, without touching, however briefly 
 and imperfectly, on that aspect of it which naturally 
 gave the truest view of his mind and character, whilst 
 to those at a distance it was comparatively but little 
 known. 
 
 Perhaps the scene which, to those who knew him 
 best, would bring together the recollections of his 
 public and private life in the most lively way, was 
 
 * Church Reform, Postscript, p. 24. Misc. Works, p. 335.
 
 LIFE OF DE. ARNOLD. 209 
 
 his study at Rugby. There he sat at his work, with 
 no attempt at seclusion, conversation going on around 
 him his children playing in the room his frequent 
 guests, whether friends or former pupils, coming in or 
 out at will ready at once to break off his occupa- 
 tions to answer a question, or to attend to the many 
 interruptions to which he was liable ; and from these 
 interruptions, or from his regular avocations, at the 
 few odd hours or minutes which he could command, 
 would he there return and recommence his writing, as 
 if it had not been broken off. " Instead of feeling my 
 head exhausted," he would sometimes say after the 
 day's business was over, " it seems to have quite an 
 eagerness to set to work." " I feel as if I could dic- 
 tate to twenty secretaries at once." " Unhasting, un- 
 resting diligence," was the strong impression which a 
 one day's visit at Rugby left on one of the keenest 
 observers amongst English authors and he was one 
 of a class, who, however engaged, whether in business, 
 in writing, or in travelling, was emphatically never in 
 a hurry. 
 
 Still he would often wish for something more like 
 leisure and repose. " We sometimes feel," he said, 
 "as if we should like to run our heads into a hole 
 to be quiet for a little time from the stir of so many 
 human beings which greets us from morning to even- 
 ing." And it was from amidst this chaos of employ- 
 ments that he turned, with all the delight of which his 
 nature was capable, to what he often dwelt upon as 
 the rare, the unbroken, the almost awful happiness of 
 his domestic life. It is impossible adequately to de- 
 scribe the union of the whole family round him, who 
 was not only the father and guide, but the elder 
 brother and playfellow of his children ; the first feel- 
 ings of enthusiastic love and watchful care, carried 
 through twenty-two years of wedded life, - the gen- 
 tleness and devotion which marked his whole feeling 
 and manner in the privacy of his domestic intercourse. 
 Those who had known him only in the school, can 
 
 18* X
 
 210 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 remember the kind of surprise with which they first 
 witnessed his tenderness and playfulness. Those who 
 had known him only in the bosom of his family, found 
 it difficult to conceive how his pupils or the world at 
 large should have formed to themselves so stern an 
 image of one in himself so loving. Yet both were 
 alike natural to him ; the severity and the playfulness 
 expressing each in their turn the earnestness with 
 which he entered into the business of life, and the 
 enjoyment with which he entered into its rest ; whilst 
 the common principle, which linked both together, 
 made every closer approach to him in his private life 
 a means for better understanding him in his public 
 relations. 
 
 Enough, however, may perhaps be said to recall 
 something at least of its outward aspect. There were 
 his hours of thorough relaxation, when he would throw 
 off all thoughts of the school and of public matters 
 his quiet walks by the side of his wife's pony, when he 
 would enter into the full enjoyment of air and exer- 
 cise, and the outward face of nature, observing with 
 distinct pleasure each symptom of the burst of spring 
 or of the richness of summer " feeling like a horse 
 pawing the ground, impatient to be off," - " as if the 
 very act of existence was an hourly pleasure to him." 
 There was the cheerful voice that used to go sounding 
 through the house in the early morning, as he went 
 round to call his children ; the new spirits which he 
 seemed to gather from the mere glimpses of them in 
 the midst of his occupations the increased merri- 
 ment of all in any game in which he joined the 
 happy walks on which he would take them in the 
 fields and hedges, hunting for flowers the yearly 
 excursion to look in the neighboring clay-pit for the 
 earliest coltsfoot, with the mock siege that followed. 
 Nor, again, was the sense of his authority as a father 
 ever lost in his playfulness as a companion. His per- 
 sonal superintendence of their ordinary instructions 
 was necessarily limited by his other engagements, but
 
 LIFE OF DR ARNOLD. 211 
 
 it was never wholly laid aside ; in the later years of 
 his life it was his custom to read the Psalms and Les- 
 sons of the day with his family every morning ; and 
 the common reading of a chapter in the Bible every 
 Sunday evening, with repetition of hymns or parts of 
 Scripture by every member of the family the devo- 
 tion with which he would himself repeat his favorite 
 poems from the Christian Year, or his favorite pas- 
 sages from the Gospels the same attitude of deep 
 attention in listening to the questions of his youngest 
 children, the same reverence in answering their diffi- 
 culties that he would have shown to the most advanced 
 of his friends or his scholars form a picture not 
 soon to pass away from the mind of any one who was 
 ever present. But his teaching in his family was nat- 
 urally not confined to any particular occasions ; they 
 looked to him for information and advice at all times ; 
 and a word of authority from him was a law not to be 
 questioned for a moment. And with the tenderness 
 which seemed to be alive to all their wants and wishes, 
 there was united that peculiar sense of solemnity, with 
 which in his eyes the very idea of a family life was 
 invested. " I do not wonder," he said, " that it was 
 thought a great misfortune to die childless in old 
 times, when they had not fuller light it seems so 
 completely wiping a man out of existence." The 
 anniversaries of domestic events the passing away 
 of successive generations the entrance of his sons 
 on the several stages of their education, struck on 
 the deepest chords of his nature, and made him blend 
 with every prospect of the future, the keen sense of 
 the continuance (so to speak) of his own existence 
 in the good and evil fortunes of his children, and to 
 unite the thought of them with the yet more solemn 
 feeling, with which he was at all times wont to regard 
 " the blessing " of " a whole house transplanted entire 
 from earth to heaven, without one failure." 
 
 In his own domestic happiness he never lost sight of 
 his early friends. " He was attached to his family," it
 
 212 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 was truly said of him by Archbishop Whately, " as if 
 he had no friends ; to his friends, as if he had no fam- 
 ily ; and," he adds, " to his country as if he had no 
 friends or relations." Debarred as he was from fre- 
 quent intercourse with most of them by his and their 
 occupations, he made it part of the regular business of 
 his life to keep up a correspondence with them. " I 
 never do," he said, " and I trust I never shall excuse my- 
 self for not writing to old and dear friends, for it is really 
 a duty which it is mere indolence and thoughtlessness to 
 neglect." The very aspect of their several homes lived as 
 distinct images in his mind, and seemed to have an equal 
 claim on his interest. To men of such variety of opin- 
 ion and character, that the very names of some of them 
 are identified with measures and views the most oppo- 
 site that good men can entertain, he retained to the end 
 a strong and almost equal affection. The absence of 
 greater mutual sympathy was to him almost the only 
 shadow thrown over his happy life ; no difference of 
 opinion ever destroyed his desire for intercourse with 
 them ; and where, in spite of his own efforts to con- 
 tinue it, it was so interrupted, the subject was so pain- 
 ful to him, that even with those most intimate with 
 him, he could hardly bear to allude to it. 
 
 How lively was his interest in the state of England 
 generally, and especially of the lower orders, will ap- 
 pear elsewhere. But the picture of his ordinary life 
 would be incomplete without mention of his inter- 
 course with the poor. He purposely abstained, as will 
 be seen, from mixing much in the affairs of the town 
 and neighborhood of Rugby. But he was always ready 
 to assist in matters of local charity or usefulness, giv- 
 ing lectures, for example, before the Mechanic's Insti- 
 tutes at Rugby and Lutterworth, writing tracts on the 
 appearance of the cholera in the vicinity, and, after the 
 establishment of the railway station at half a mile from 
 the town, procuring the sanction of the Bishop for the 
 performance of a short service there on Sundays by 
 himself and the assistant masters in turn. In preach-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 213 
 
 ing to parochial congregations, as he did occasionally 
 at Rugby and at Rydal, he always, he said, found a 
 difficulty from " the consideration,* not only of what 
 was fit for them to hear, but also fit for him to say," 
 and accordingly they were usually on " some particu- 
 lar point not of the very deepest character, but yet im- 
 portant and capable of being sufficiently discussed at 
 one time," such as that on " Christian Conviction," 
 preached at Carfax Church in Oxford, or on Wills, at 
 Rydal, or again, on some of the great social questions 
 which concerned the country generally, such as those 
 published at the close of the second volume, preached 
 in 1831. At other times, however, both at Rugby and 
 in Westmoreland, and always at the above-mentioned 
 service at the railway station, his addresses were 
 spoken and not written, and rather after the manner 
 of one talking seriously to his neighbors, or explaining 
 parts of Scripture which occurred in the service, than 
 would be commonly called preaching. His style seems 
 to have been too simple to be generally popular 
 amongst the poorer classes ; but cases often occurred 
 of its having made a deep impression. A passing trav- 
 eller, shortly after his death, was struck with the un- 
 feigned regret expressed by the men at the railway 
 station for the loss of his visits to them, and at Har- 
 row, where he once spent a Sunday with Dr. Longley, 
 there were found amongst the few papers of a poor 
 servant-maid, who died some time afterwards, notes of 
 a sermon which he preached there in the parish church, 
 and to which she was known to have recurred fre- 
 quently afterwards. 
 
 The poor of the place, as might be expected, shared 
 largely in that liberality which marked both his public 
 and his private dealings, and which, in fact, from the 
 impression it made on the naturally suspicious senses 
 of boys, ought not to be overlooked ; even in the man- 
 agement of the school his direct intercourse with the 
 
 * Serm. v. 31.
 
 214 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 poor was, of course, much more limited than it had 
 been in the village of Laleham ; yet with some few, 
 chiefly aged persons in the almshouses of the town, he 
 made a point of keeping up a frequent and familiar 
 acquaintance. In this intercourse, sometimes in con- 
 versations with them as he met or overtook them alone 
 on the road, usually in such visits as he could pay to 
 them in his spare moments of relaxation, he assumed 
 less of the character of a teacher than most clergymen 
 would have thought right, reading to them occasion- 
 ally, but generally talking to them with the manner of 
 a friend and an equal. This resulted partly from the 
 natural reserve and shyness which made him shrink 
 from entering on sacred subjects with comparative 
 strangers, and which, though he latterly somewhat 
 overcame it, almost disqualified him, in his own judg- 
 ment, from taking charge of a parish. But it was also 
 the effect of his reluctance to address them in a more 
 authoritative or professional tone than he would have 
 used towards persons of his own rank. Feeling keenly 
 what seemed to him at once the wrong and the mis- 
 chief done by the too wide separation between the 
 higher and lower orders, he wished to visit them " as 
 neighbors, without always seeming bent on relieving 
 or instructing them ; " * and could not bear to use 
 language which to any one in a higher station would 
 have been thought an interference. With the servants 
 of his household, for the same reasons, he was in 
 the habit, whether in travelling or in his own house, of 
 consulting their accommodation and speaking to them 
 familiarly as to so many members of the domestic cir- 
 cle. And in all this, writes one who knew well his 
 manner to the poor, " there was no affectation of con- 
 descension ; it was a manly address to his fellow-men, 
 as man addressing man." " I never knew such a 
 humble man as the Doctor," said the parish clerk at 
 Laleham, after he had revisited it from Rugby ; " he 
 
 * Sermons, vol. ii. p. 411.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 215 
 
 comes and shakes us by tho hand as if he was one of 
 us." " He used to come into my house," said an old 
 woman near his place in Westmoreland, " and talk to 
 me as if I was a lady." Often, no doubt, this was not 
 appreciated by the poor, and might, at times, be em- 
 barrassing to himself, and it is said that he was liable 
 to be imposed upon by them, and greatly to overrate 
 their proficiency in moral and religious excellence. 
 But he felt this intercourse to be peculiarly needful 
 for one engaged in occupations such as his ; to the re- 
 membrance of the good poor, whom he" visited at Rug- 
 by, he often recurred when absent from them ; and 
 nothing can exceed the regret which they testify at his 
 loss, and the grateful affection with which they still 
 speak of him, pointing with delight to the seat which 
 he used to occupy by their firesides : one of them es- 
 pecially, an old almswoman, who died a few months 
 after his own decease, up to the last moment of con- 
 sciousness never ceasing to think of his visits to her, 
 and of the hope with which she looked forward now 
 to seeing his face once more again. 
 
 Closely as he was bound to Rugby by these and simi- 
 lar bonds of social and familiar life, and yet more 
 closely by the charm with which its mere outward 
 aspect and localities were invested by his interest in the 
 school, both as an independent institution and as his 
 own sphere of duty, yet the place in itself never had 
 the same strong hold on his affections as Oxford or 
 Laleham, and his holidays were almost always spent 
 away from Rugby, either in short tours, or in later 
 years at his Westmoreland home, Fox How, a small 
 estate between Rydal and Ambleside, which lie pur- 
 chased in 1832, with the view of providing for himself 
 a retreat, in case of his retirement from the school, or 
 for his family in case of his death. The monotonous 
 character of the midland scenery of Warwickshire was 
 to him, with his strong love of natural beauty and 
 variety, absolutely repulsive ; there was something 
 almost touching in the eagerness with which, amidst
 
 216 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 that " endless succession of fields and hedgerows," he 
 would make the most of any features of a higher or- 
 der ; in the pleasure with which he would cherish the 
 few places where the current of the Avon was percep- 
 tible, or where a glimpse of the horizon could be dis- 
 cerned ; in the humorous despair with which he would 
 gaze on the dull expanse of fields eastward from Rug- 
 by. " It is no wonder we do not like looking that 
 way, when one considers that there is nothing fine be- 
 tween us and the Ural Mountains. Conceive what 
 you look over, for you just miss Sweden, and look over 
 Holland, the north of Germany, and the centre of 
 Russia." With this absence of local attraction in the 
 place, and with the conviction that his occupations and 
 official station must make him look for his future home 
 elsewhere, " I feel," he said, " that I love Middlesex 
 and Westmoreland, but I care nothing for Warwick- 
 shire, and am in it like a plant sunk in the ground in 
 a pot ; my roots never strike beyond the pot, and I 
 could be transplanted at any minute without tearing 
 or severing of my fibres. To the pot itself, which is 
 the school, I could cling very lovingly, were it not that 
 the laborious nature of the employment makes me feel 
 that it can be only temporary, and that, if I live to 
 old age, my age could not be spent in my present situ- 
 ation. 
 
 Fox How accordingly became more and more the 
 centre of all his local and domestic affections. " It is 
 with a mixed feeling of solemnity and tenderness," he 
 said, " that I regard our mountain nest, whose surpass- 
 ing sweetness, I think I may safely say, adds a positive 
 happiness to every one of my waking hours passed in 
 it." " When absent from it," it still, he said, " dwelt in 
 his memory as a vision of beauty from one vacation to 
 another," and when present at it he felt that "no hasty 
 or excited admiration of a tourist could be compared 
 with the quiet and hourly delight of having the moun- 
 tains and streams as familiar objects, connected with 
 all the enjoyments of home, one's family, one's books,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 217 
 
 and one's friends," "associated with our work-day 
 thoughts as well as our gala-day ones." 
 
 Then it was that, as he sat working in the midst of 
 his family, " never raising his eyes from the paper to 
 the window without an influx of ever-new delights," 
 he found that leisure for writing, which he so much 
 craved at Rugby. Then it was that he enjoyed the 
 entire relaxation, which he so much needed after his 
 school occupations, whether in the journeys of coming 
 and returning, those long journeys, which, before they 
 were shortened by railway travelling, were to him, he 
 used to say, the twelve most restful days of the whole 
 year ; or in the birthday festivities of his children, 
 and the cheerful evenings when all subjects were dis- 
 cussed, from the gravest to the lightest, and when he 
 would read to them his favorite stories from Herodo- 
 tus, or his favorite English poets. Most of all, perhaps, 
 was to be observed his delight in those long mountain 
 walks, when they would start with their provisions for 
 the day, himself the guide and life of the party, always 
 on the look-out how best to break the ascent by gentle 
 stages, comforting the little ones in their falls, and 
 helping forward those who were tired, himself always 
 keeping with the laggers, that none might strain their 
 strength by trying to be in front with him, and then, 
 when his assistance was not wanted, the liveliest of all ; 
 his step so light, his eye so quick in finding flowers to 
 take home to those who were not of the party. 
 
 Year by year bound him with closer ties to his new 
 home ; not only Fox How itself with each particular 
 tree, the growth of which he had watched, and each 
 particular spot in the grounds, associated by him with 
 the playful names of his nine children ; but also the 
 whole valley in which it lay became consecrated with 
 something of a domestic feeling. Rydal Chapel, with 
 the congregation to which he had so often preached 
 the new circle of friends and acquaintance with whom 
 he kept up so familiar an intercourse the gorges and 
 rocky pools which in many instances owed their no- 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 218 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 menclature to him, all became part of his habit mil 
 thoughts. He delighted to derive his imagery from 
 the hills and lakes of Westmoreland, and to trace in 
 them the likenesses of his favorite scenes in poetry and 
 history ; even their minutest features were of a kind 
 that were most attractive to him ; " the running 
 streams," which were to him " the most beautiful ob- 
 jects in nature ; " the wild flowers on the mountain 
 sides, which were to him, he said, " his music ; " and 
 which, whether in their scarcity at Rugby, or their 
 profusion in Westmoreland, " loving them," as he used 
 to say, " as a child loves them," he could not bear to 
 see removed from their natural places by the wayside, 
 where others might enjoy them as well as himself. 
 The very peacefulness of all the historical and moral 
 associations of the scenery free alike from the re- 
 mains of feudal ages in the past, and suggesting com- 
 paratively so little of suffering or of evil in the present, 
 rendered doubly grateful to him the refreshment 
 which he there found from the rough world in the 
 school, or the sad feelings awakened in his mind by 
 the thoughts of his Church and country. There he 
 hoped, when the time should have come for his retreat 
 from Rugby, to spend his declining years. Other 
 visions, indeed, of a more practical and laborious life, 
 from time to time passed before him, but Fox How 
 was the image, which most constantly presented itself 
 to him in all prospects for the future ; there he in- 
 tended to have lived in peace, maintaining his connec- 
 tion with the rising generation by receiving pupils from 
 the Universities ; there, under the shade of the trees 
 of his own planting, he hoped in his old age to give to 
 the world the fruits of his former experience and la- 
 bors, by executing those works for which at Rugby 
 he felt himself able only to prepare the way, or lay the 
 first foundations, and never again leave his retirement 
 till (to use his own expression) " his bones should go 
 to Grasmere churchyard, to lie under the yews which 
 Wordsworth planted, and to have the Rotha with its 
 deep and silent pools passing by."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 21 9 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, AUGUST, 1828, TO AUGUST, 1830. 
 
 THE first two years of Dr. Arnold's life at Rugby 
 remarkably exhibit the natural sanguineness of his 
 character, whether in the feeling with which he en- 
 tered on the business of the school, or in the hopeful- 
 ness with which he regarded public affairs, and which, 
 more or less, pervaded all that he wrote at this time. 
 
 The first volume of sermons, and the first volume of 
 his edition of Thucydides, containing, as they did in 
 many respects, the basis of his theological and histori- 
 cal views, were published in February, 1829, and May, 
 1830 ; and little need be added to what has already 
 been said of them. To the latter, indeed, an addi- 
 tional interest is imparted from its being the first 
 attempt in English philology to investigate not merely 
 the phrases and formulae, but the general principles 
 of the Greek language, and to illustrate not merely 
 the words, but the history and geography of a Greek 
 historian. And in the Essay on the different periods 
 of national existence appended to this first volume, 
 but, in fact, belonging more to his general views of 
 history and politics than to any particular illustration 
 of Thucydides, is brought out, more forcibly than in 
 any other of his writings, his belief in the progress 
 and inherent excellence of popular principles ; in the 
 distinct stages of civilization through which nations 
 have to pass ; and in the philosophical divisions of 
 ancient and modern history, of which he made so 
 much use in treating of either of them. But the 
 work which naturally excited most public attention 
 was a pamphlet on " the Christian Duty of Conceding 
 the Claims of the Roman Catholics," published in 
 February, 1829. To those who knew him in later life,
 
 220 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 it may appear strange that he should have treated at 
 length of the question of Ireland, which he was accus- 
 tomed to shun as a problem of inextricable difficulty, 
 and on which nothing but a sense of justice could ever 
 prevail upon him to enter. But this sense of justice 
 was, at this time, quickened by the deep conviction 
 which, for some years past, he had entertained of the 
 alarming state of the Irish nation. " There is more 
 to be done there," he writes, in 1828, from Laleham, 
 " than in any corner of the world. I had, at one time, 
 a notion of going over there and taking Irish pupils, 
 to try what one man could do towards civilizing the 
 people, by trying to civilize and Christianize their gen- 
 try." And the particular crisis of the Roman Catholic 
 Relief Act was exactly one of those occasions which 
 brought him into direct collision both with the tone of 
 the Liberal party, who assumed that, as being a politi- 
 cal measure, it could not be argued on religious 
 grounds ; and of the Tory party, who assumed that, as 
 being a religious question, it was one on which the 
 almost united authority of the English clergy ought to 
 have decisive weight : whereas, his own views of course 
 led him to maintain that, being a great national ques- 
 tion of right and wrong, it must, on the one hand, 
 be argued on Christian grounds, and yet, on the other 
 hand, that the clergy would not be the best judges of 
 it, because " the origin, rights, and successive revolu- 
 tions of society were subjects which they avowedly 
 neglected to study." The pamphlet was published at 
 so late a stage of the controversy, that it had not time 
 to reach a second edition before the Act was passed. 
 But the grounds of solemn duty on which his vindica- 
 tion of the Relief Act was based, as the best mode of 
 repairing the sin and mischief, never yet effaced, of 
 the original conquest of Ireland, and as a right, which, 
 as being still a distinct national society, the Irish peo- 
 ple justly claimed, attracted considerable attention. 
 Other parts, such as that in which he denied the 
 competence of the clergy to pronounce upon historical
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 221 
 
 questions^ created an impression against him in the 
 great body of his profession, which, perhaps, was never 
 wholly removed. Its intrinsic interest, independent of 
 the particular controversy, consists in its being his first 
 and most emphatic protest against the divorce of re- 
 ligion and politics, and the most complete statement of 
 his abstract views of .political science, as his Appendix 
 to Thucydides furnished his statement of their histori- 
 cal development. 
 
 I. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, August 29, 1828. 
 
 Here we are actually at Rugby, and the school 
 
 will open to-morrow. I cannot tell you with what deep regret 
 we left Laleham, where we had been so peaceful and so happy, 
 and left my mother, aunt, and sisters for the first time in 
 my life, except during my school and college absences. It 
 was quite " feror exul in altum," &c., but then we both looked 
 upon Rugby as on our Italy, and entered it, I think, with 
 
 hope and with thankfulness But the things which 
 
 I have had to settle, and the people whom I have had to see 
 on business, have been almost endless ; to me, unused as 
 I was to business, it seemed quite a chaos ; but, thank God, 
 being in high health and spirits, and gaining daily more 
 knowledge of the state of affairs, I get on tolerably well. 
 Next week, however, will be the grand experiment ; and I 
 look to it naturally with great anxiety. I trust, I feel how 
 great and solemn a duty I have to fulfil, and that I shall be 
 enabled to fulfil it by that help which can alone give the 
 " spirit of power and love, and of a sound mind ; " the three 
 great requisites, I imagine, in a schoolmaster. 
 
 You need not fear my reforming furiously ; there, I think, 
 I can assure you ; but, of my success in introducing a relig- 
 ious principle into education, I must be doubtful ; it is my 
 most earnest wish, and I pray God that it may be my con- 
 stant labor and prayer ; but to do this would be to succeed 
 beyond all my hopes ; it would be a happiness so great, that, 
 I think, the world would yield me nothing comparable to it. 
 To do it, however imperfectly, would far more than repay 
 twenty years of labor and anxiety. 
 19*
 
 222 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Saturday, August 30th. I have been receiving, this morn- 
 ing, a constant succession of visitors, and now, before I go out 
 
 to return . August 31st. I was again interrupted, and 
 
 now, I think that I had better at once finish my letter. 
 I have entered twenty-nine new boys, and have got four more 
 to enter : and I have to-day commenced my business by call- 
 ing over names and going into chapel, where I was glad to 
 see that the boys behaved very well. I cannot tell you how 
 odd it seems to me, recalling, at once, my school-days more 
 vividly than I could have thought possible. 
 
 II. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Rugby, September 28, 1828. 
 
 It is, indeed, a long time since I wrote to you, and there 
 has been much of intense interest in the period which has 
 elapsed since I did write. But it has been quite an engross- 
 ing occupation ; and Thucydides and everything else have gone 
 to sleep while I have been attending to it. Now it is becom- 
 ing more familiar to me, but still the actual employment of 
 time is very great, and the matters for thought which it af- 
 fords are almost endless. Still I get my daily exercise and 
 bathing very happily, so that I have been, and am perfectly 
 
 well, and equal in strength and spirits to the work 
 
 For myself, I like it hitherto beyond my expectation, but, of 
 course, a month is a very short time to judge from. [After 
 speaking of the details of the school, and expressing his 
 generally favorable impression of it.] I am trying to estab- 
 lish something of a friendly intercourse with the Sixth Form, 
 by asking them in succession, in parties of four, to dinner 
 with us, and I have them each separately up into my room to 
 look over their exercises I mean to bring in some- 
 thing like " gatherings "* before it is long, for they understand 
 that I have not done with my alterations, nor probably ever 
 shall have ; and I am going to have an Examination for every 
 form in the school, at the end of the short half-year, in all 
 the business of the half-year, Divinity, Greek and Latin, 
 Arithmetic, History, Geography, and Chronology, with first 
 and second classes, and prize books for those who do well. 
 I find that my power is perfectly absolute, so that I have no 
 
 * A \Viuchester phrase for exercises in criticism.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 223 
 
 excuse if I do not try to make the school something like my 
 beau ideal, it is sure to fall far enough short in reality. 
 There has been no flogging yet, (and I hope that there will 
 be none,) and surprisingly few irregularities. I chastise at 
 first, by very gentle impositions, which are raised for a repe- 
 tition of offences flogging will be only my ratio ultima 
 and talking I shall try to the utmost. I believe that boys 
 may be governed a great deal by gentle methods and kind- 
 ness, and appealing to their better feelings, if you show that 
 you are not afraid of them ; I have seen great boys, six feet 
 high, shed tears when I have sent for them up into my room 
 and spoken to them quietly, in private, for not knowing their 
 lesson, and I have found that this treatment produced its . 
 effects afterwards in making them do better. But, of course, 
 deeds must second words when needful, or words will soon be 
 laughed at. 
 
 III. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Laleham, Dec. 19, 1828. 
 
 I should have greatly enjoyed seeing you again 
 
 and seeing you with your wife, and at your own home, to say 
 nothing of resuming some of the matters we discussed a little 
 in the summer. The constitutional tone of different minds 
 naturally gives a different complexion to their view of things, 
 even when they may agree in the main ; and in discussing 
 matters besides, one, or at least I, am apt to dwell on my 
 points of difference with a man rather than on my points of 
 agreement with him, because, in one case, I may get my own 
 opinions modified and modify his in the other, we only end 
 where we began. I confess that it does pain me when I find 
 my friends shocked at the expression of my sentiments, be- 
 cause if a man had entered on the same particular inquiry 
 himself, although he should have come to a wholly different 
 conclusion at last, still, if he gave me credit for sincerity, he 
 ought not to be shocked at my not having as yet come to the 
 same conclusion with himself, and would rather quietly try to 
 bring me there and if he had not inquired into the subject, 
 then he certainly ought not to be shocked ; as giving me 
 credit for the same fundamental principles with himself, he 
 ought not to think that non-inquiry would lead to truth, and 
 inquiry to error. In your case, I know that your mind is en-
 
 224 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tirely candid ; and that no man will conduct an inquiry with 
 more perfect fairness ; you have, therefore, the less reason for 
 abstaining from inquiry altogether. I can assure you, that 
 I never remember to have held a conversation such as those 
 which we had last summer, without deriving benefit in some 
 way or other from the remarks urged in opposition to my own 
 views ; very often they have modified my opinions, sometimes 
 entirely changed them and when they have done neither, 
 they have yet led me to consider myself and my own state of 
 mind ; lest even whilst holding the truth, I might have bought 
 the possession of it too dearly (I mean, of course, in lesser 
 matters) by exercising the understanding too much, and the 
 affections too little. 
 
 IV. TO MRS. EVELYN. 
 (On the death of her husband.) 
 
 Rugby, February 22, 1829. 
 
 I need not, I trust, say how deeply I was shocked and 
 grieved 'by the intelligence contained in your letter. I was 
 totally ignorant of your most heavy loss, and it was one of 
 the hopes in which I have often fondly indulged, that I might 
 some time or other again meet one who I believe was my 
 earliest friend, and for whom I had never ceased to retain a 
 strong admiration and regard. I heard of him last winter 
 from a common friend who had been indebted to his kind- 
 ness, and whom I have also lost within the last few months, 
 Mr. Lawes, of Marlborough ; and since that time I had again 
 lost sight of him, till I received from you the account of his 
 death. He must indeed be an irreparable loss to all his 
 family ; for I well remember the extraordinary promise which 
 he gave as a boy, of mingled nobleness and gentleness of 
 heart, as well as of very great powers of understanding. 
 These were visible to me even at an earlier period of his life 
 than you are perhaps aware of; for it was not at Harrow that 
 I knew him, but at Warminster, when we were both very 
 young, and since the year 1806 I have never seen him ; but 
 the impression of his character has remained strongly marked 
 on my memory ever since, for I never knew so bright a prom- 
 ise in any other boy ; I never knew any spirit at that age so 
 pure and generous, and so free from the ordinary meannesses, 
 coarsenesses, and littlenesses of boyhood. It will give me
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 225 
 
 great pleasure to comply with your wishes with regard to an 
 inscription to his memory, if you will be kind enough to fur- 
 nish me with some particulars of his life and character in 
 later years ; for mine is but a knowledge of his boyhood, and 
 I am sure that his manhood must have been even still better 
 worth knowing. You will, however, I am sure, allow me to 
 state in perfect sincerity, that I feel very ill qualified to write 
 anything of this nature, and that it requires a peculiar talent 
 which I feel myself wholly to want. I should give you, I fear, 
 but a very bad inscription ; but if you really wish me to at- 
 tempt it, I will do the best I can to express at least my sincere 
 regard and respect for the memory of my earliest friend.* 
 
 Let me thank you sincerely for all the particulars which 
 you have been kind enough to give me in your letter. 
 
 V. TO THE REV. J. LOWE. 
 
 Rugby, March 16, 1830. 
 
 I have been feeding the press sheet by sheet with a pam- 
 phlet or booklet on the Catholic Question. You will say 
 there was no need ; but I wanted to show that to do national 
 injustice is a sin, and that the clergy, whilst they urge the 
 continuance of this injustice, are making themselves indi- 
 vidually guilty of it. And I have written at any rate very 
 peaceably: though you know you used to say that I was "vio- 
 lent on both sides." I saw Milman at Oxford, (where I went 
 not as you may suppose to vote for Sir R. Inglis,) and I was 
 sorry to hear from him rather an indifferent account of you. 
 But from your own letter since, I am hoping that I may augur 
 
 * The following was the inscription which he sent : 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 GEORGE EVELYN, ESQ., 
 
 ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 HIS EARLY YEARS GAVE A BEAUTIFUL PROMISE 
 
 OF VIGOR OF UNDERSTANDING, KINDNESS OF HEART 
 
 AND CHRISTIAN NOBLENESS OF PRINCIPLE: 
 
 HIS MANHOOD ABUNDANTLY FULFILLED IT. 
 
 LIVING AND DYING IN THE FAITH. OF CHRIST, 
 
 HE HAS LEFT TO HIS FAMILY A HUMBLE BUT LIVELY HOPE 
 
 THAT, AS HE WAS RESPECTED AND LOVED BY MEN, 
 
 HE HAS BEEN FORGIVEN AND ACCEPTED BY GOD. 
 
 O
 
 226 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 more favorably. I do rejoice that you have got Hilton, and 
 that you are thus released from the prospect of pupils. Much 
 as I enjoy the work of education in health, for it is at once 
 |tf irpaKTucr/ and (is iroirjriKr), I think it would press heavily 
 upon me if I were not quite well and strong. I should much 
 like to see you in your new quarters, but my difficulty is that, 
 when I can move at all, I like to move so far ; and thus, in 
 the summer, if all goes well I hope to see the Alps, and swim 
 in the Mediterranean once again. Your cousin, little Jack- 
 son, is a nice boy, and reminds me much of his poor eldest 
 brother ; but I do not and cannot see much individually of the 
 boys in the lower part of the school, although I know pretty 
 nearly how each is going on. Reform is a great and difficult 
 work : I can readily allow of the difficulties, but not of the 
 dishonest spirit which makes when it cannot find them, and 
 exaggerates them when it can. " Where there is a will there 
 is a way," is true I believe politically as well as spiritually, 
 and you know that mine is a commonwealth, or rather one of 
 Aristotle's or Plato's perfect kingdoms, where the king is supe- 
 rior by nature to all his subjects, propter defectum aetatis. 
 But if the king of Prussia was as sincere a lover of liberty as 
 I am, he would give his people a constitution, for my great 
 desire is to teach my boys to govern themselves, a much 
 better thing than to govern them well myself. Only in their 
 case, " propter defectum aetatis," as aforesaid, they never can 
 be quite able to govern themselves, and will need some of my 
 government. You would be amused to see how the gentlemen 
 in this neighborhood are coming round about the Catholics. 
 The worst part I think of the whole business is the effectual 
 manner in which the clergy generally, and of Oxford espe- 
 cially, have cut their own throats in the judgment of all en- 
 lightened public men, an evil more dangerous to their inter- 
 ests than twenty Catholic Emancipation bills, and which, as in 
 France, may extend to more than their worldly interests, for 
 an ignorant and selfish clergy is one of the greatest stumbling- 
 blocks in the way of able and liberal-minded statesmen em- 
 bracing Christianity thoroughly. They will compliment it 
 generally, but they will not heartily act upon its principles so 
 long as they who are supposed to represent its spirit best, are 
 such unfaithful mirrors of it. I had no conception how much 
 of the worst Puritanism still subsisted, and now stript even 
 of that which once palliated its evils, the love of civil 
 liberty.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 227 
 
 VI. TO THE REV. JULIUS HARE. 
 
 Rugby, March 30, 1829. 
 
 I am much obliged to you for sending me your 
 
 Defence of Niebuhr; and still more for the most kind and 
 gratifying manner in which you have mentioned me in it ; 
 there are few things more delightful than to be so spoken of 
 by those whom we entirely respect, and whose good opinion 
 and regard we have wished to gain. 
 
 I should not have troubled you with my pamphlet on the 
 Catholic question, had it not involved points beyond the mere 
 question, now at issue, and on which I was desirous to offer 
 you some explanation, as I think our opinions respecting them 
 are widely different. From what you say in the Guesses at 
 Truth, and again in your Defence of Niebuhr, you appear to 
 me to look upon the past with feelings of reverence, in which 
 I cannot participate. It is not that I think we are better 
 than our fathers in proportion to our lights, or that our powers 
 are at all greater ; on the contrary, they deserve more admira- 
 tion, considering the difficulties they had to struggle with; yet 
 still I cannot but think, that the habit of looking back upon 
 them as models, and more especially in all political institu- 
 tions, is the surest way to fetter our own progress, and to de- 
 prive us of the advantages of our own superior experience, 
 which, it is no boast to say, that we possess, but rather, a most 
 disgraceful reproach, since we use them so little. The error 
 of the last century appears to me to have been this, that they 
 undervalued their ancestors without duly studying antiquity ; 
 thus they naturally did not gain the experience which they 
 ought to have done, and were confident even whilst digging 
 from under their feet the ground on which their confidence 
 might have rested justly. Yet still, even in this respect, the 
 16th and 17th centuries have little cause, I think, to insult 
 the 18th. The great writers of those times read, indeed, 
 enormously, but surely their critical spirit was in no propor- 
 tion to their reading, and thus the true experience to be 
 gained from the study of antiquity was not gained, because 
 antiquity was not fully understood. It is not, I believe, that 
 I estimate our actual doings more highly than you do ; but, 
 I believe, I estimate those of our fathers less highly ; and 
 instead of looking upon them as in any degree a standard, I 
 turn instinctively to that picture of entire perfection which 
 the Gospel holds out, and from which I cannot but think that
 
 228 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the state of things in times past was further removed even 
 than ours is now, although our little may be more inexcus:i!il<- 
 than their less was in them. And, in particular, I confess, 
 that if I were called upon to name what spirit of evil predom- 
 inantly deserved the name of Antichrist, I should name the 
 spirit of chivalry,* the more detestable for the very guise 
 of the " Archangel ruined," which has made it so seductive 
 to the most generous spirits, but to me so hateful, because 
 it is in direct opposition to the impartial justice of the Gospel, 
 'and its comprehensive feeling of equal brotherhood, and be- 
 cause it so fostered a sense of honor rather than a sense of 
 duty. 
 
 VII. TO KEV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 May 29, 1829. 
 
 [After refusing to reprint the pamphlet on the Roman 
 Catholic claims, and expressing his belief that the school has 
 not and will not sustain any injury from what he has done.] 
 I claim a full right to use my own discretion in writing upon 
 any subject I choose, provided I do not neglect my duties as 
 master in order to find time for it. But those who know me 
 will be aware that, to say nothing of duty, my interest in the 
 school far exceeds what I feel in any sort of composition of 
 my own ; and that neither here nor at Laleham, have I ever 
 allowed my own writings to encroach upon the time, or on 
 the spirits and vigor of mind and body, which I hold that 
 my pupils have a paramount claim upon. 
 
 As to the principles in the pamphlet, it is a matter of un- 
 feigned astonishment to me, that any man calling himself a 
 Christian, should think them bad, or should not recognize in 
 them the very principles of Christianity itself. If my prin- 
 ciples are bad, I only wish that those who think them so 
 would state their own in opposition to them. It is all very 
 
 * " Chivalry," or (as he used more frequently to call the element in the 
 middle ages which he thus condemned) "feudality, is especially Keltic and 
 barbarian, incompatible with the highest virtue'of which man is capable, 
 and the last at which he arrives, a sense of justice. It sets up the per- 
 sonal allegiance to the chief above allegiance to God and law." And in like 
 manner he maintained that the great excellence of the 18th century was 
 the development of the idea of justice, even amidst the excesses to which 
 it was carried in some of the iiotious then prevalent oil what was called 
 civil and religious liberty.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 229 
 
 well to call certain principles mischievous and democratical ; 
 but I believe very few of those, who do so call them, would 
 be able to bear the monstrous nature of their own, if they 
 were obliged fully to devolop them. I mean that they would 
 then be seen to involve what in their daily language about 
 things of common life their very holders laugh at as absurd- 
 ity and mischief. For instance, about continual reforms, or 
 the wisdom of our ancestors, I have heard Tories laugh at 
 the farmers in their parish, for opposing the mending of the 
 roads, because, as they said, what had been good enough for 
 their fathers was good enough for them ; and yet these farmers 
 were not an atom more silly than the people who laughed at 
 them, but only more consistent. And as to the arrogance of 
 tone in the pamphlet, I do not consider it to be arrogance to 
 assume that I know more of a particular subject, which I 
 have studied eagerly from a child, than those do who notori- 
 ously do not study it at all. The very men who think it hard 
 to be taxed with ignorance of modern history, and of the laws 
 and literature of foreign nations, are men who, till this ques- 
 tion came on, never pretended to know anything about them : 
 and, in the case of the Evangelicals, professed to shun such 
 studies as profane. I should consider no man arrogant, who, 
 if I were to talk about some mathematical or scientific ques- 
 tion which he had studied habitually, and on which all scien- 
 tific men were agreed, should tell me that I did not and could 
 not understand the subject, because I had never liked mathemat- 
 ics, and had never pretended to work at them. Those only who 
 have studied history with that fondness that I have done all 
 my life can fully appreciate the pain which it gives me to see 
 the most mischievous principles supported, as they have been 
 on this question, with an ignorance truly audacious. I will 
 only instance Mr. C.'s appeal to English History in proof that 
 God's judgments will visit us if we grant any favor to the 
 
 Catholics On the point of Episcopacy, I can only 
 
 say, that my notions, whether right or wrong, have been 
 drawn solely from the New Testament itself, according to 
 what appears to me its true meaning and spirit. I do not 
 know that I ever read any Low Church or No Church argu- 
 ment in my life. But I should like to develop my notions on 
 this point more fully hereafter. I have some thoughts of 
 publishing a volume of essays on various points connected 
 with Christian doctrine and practice : I do not mean now, 
 but if I live, and can woi'k out some points, on which I have 
 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 230 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 not yet got far enough to authorize me to address others, yet 
 I think I see my way to some useful truths. Meantime I 
 trust I shall not give just cause of offence to any good and 
 wise man, or of personal offence to any man. 
 
 VIII. TO A PARENT HOLDING UNITARIAN OPINIONS. 
 
 Rugby, June 16, 1829. 
 
 I had occasion to speak to your son this evening on the 
 subject of the approaching confirmation ; and, as I had under- 
 stood that his friends were not members of the Established 
 Church, my object was not so much to persuade him to be 
 confirmed, as to avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded 
 me to speak with him generally on the subject of his state as 
 a Christian, and the peculiar temptations to which he was 
 now peculiarly exposed, and the nature of that hope and 
 faith which he would require as his best defence. But, on 
 inquiring to what persuasion his friends belonged, I found 
 that they were Unitarians. I felt myself therefore unable to 
 proceed, because, as nothing would be more repugnant to my 
 notions of fair dealing, than to avail myself indirectly of my 
 opportunities of influencing a boy's mind contrary .to the re- 
 ligious belief of his parents, without giving them the fullest 
 notice, so, on the other hand, when the differences of belief 
 are so great and so many, I feel that I could not at all enter 
 into the subject, without enforcing principles wholly contrary 
 to those in which your son has been brought up. This dif- 
 ficulty will increase with every half-year that he remains at 
 the school, as he will be gradually coming more and more 
 under my immediate care ; and I can neither suffer any of 
 those boys with whom I am more immediately connected, to 
 be left without religious instruction, nor can I give it in his 
 case, without unavoidably imparting views, wholly different 
 from those entertained by the persons whom he is naturally 
 most disposed to love and honor. Under these circumstances, 
 I think it fair to state to you, what line I snail feel bound to 
 follow, after the knowledge which I have gained of your 
 son's religious belief. In everything I should say to him on 
 the subject, I should use every possible pains and delicacy to 
 avoid hurting his feelings with regard to his relations ; but 
 at the same time, I cannot avoid laboring to impress on him, 
 what is my belief on the most valuable truths in Christianity,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 231 
 
 and which, I fear, must be sadly at variance with the tenets 
 in which he has been brought up. I should not do this con- 
 troversially, and in the case of any other form of dissent from 
 the Establishment, I would avoid dwelling on the differences 
 between us, because I could teach ail that I conceive to be 
 essential in Christianity, without at all touching upon them. 
 But in this instance, it is impossible to avoid interfering with 
 the very points most at issue. I have a very good opinion 
 of your son, both as to his conduct and abilities, and I should 
 be very sorry to lose him from the school. I think, also, 
 that any one who knows me, would give you ample assurance 
 that I have not the slightest feeling against Dissenters as 
 such, or any desire, but rather very much the contrary, to 
 make this school exclusive. My difficulty with your son is 
 not one which I feel as a Churchman, but as a Christian ; 
 and goes only on this simple principle, that I feel bound to 
 teach the essentials of Christianity to all those committed to 
 my care and with these the tenets of the Unitarians alone, 
 among all the Dissenters in the kingdom, are in my judgment 
 irreconcilable. I trust that you will forgive me for having 
 troubled you thus at length on this subject. 
 
 IX. TO THE REV. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 (After the death, of his father-in-law.) 
 
 Rugby, September 2, 1829. 
 
 I, too, had been meditating a letter to you for some time 
 past, when the sight of yours roused me to make a vigorous 
 effort, and here I have regularly begun a sheet of paper to 
 you. You will perhaps have heard already that all our 
 anxiety for Mr. Penrose was speedily and mercifully termi- 
 nated, by as blessed a death as I suppose ever was witnessed. 
 Although we were naturally anxious about him, because his 
 attacks, though very slight and transient, had rather increased 
 in frequency, yet he was perfectly able to perform all his 
 usual duties, and enjoy his usual comforts in his family, and 
 even his amusements in attending to his garden. On the 
 Thursday before his death he was standing on his ladder, and 
 pruning his vine for some tune, and he went to bed perfectly 
 well. The next morning he was seized with a more violent 
 attack, but still without pain, or without affecting his senses, 
 and all he said indicated perfect Christian peace. A second
 
 232 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 attack the same morning made him speechless, and he soon 
 sank into a lethargic slumber, in which he remained till Sun- 
 day night, when he expired in the arms of his children with- 
 out a struggle. We arrived in time to see him alive, although 
 he was then insensible, and M. followed him to his grave on 
 the Thursday following, with her aunts, brothers and sisters, 
 
 and John Keble to read the funeral service When 
 
 I dwell on the entire happiness that we are tasting day al'.rr 
 day and year after year, it really seems startling ; and the 
 sense of so much and such continued temporal mercy, is even 
 more than humbling, it is at times even fearful to me when 
 I look within, and know how little truly grateful I am for it. 
 All the children are well, and all, I trust, improving in char- 
 acter thanks to their dear mother's care for them, who, 
 under God, has been their constant corrector and guide. As 
 for myself, I think of Wordsworth's lines : 
 
 " Yes ! they can make who fail to find 
 Brief leisure e'en in busiest days," &c., 
 
 and I know how much need I have to make such moments of 
 leisure : for else one goes on still employed, till all makes 
 progress, except our spiritual life, and that, I fear, goes back- 
 ward. The very dealing, as I do, with beings in the highest 
 state of bodily health and spirits, is apt to give a correspond- 
 ing carelessness to my own mind. I must be all alive and 
 vigorous to manage them, and to do my work ; very different 
 from the contemplations of sickness and sorrow, which so 
 often present themselves to a man who has the care of a 
 parish. And, indeed, my spirits in themselves are a great 
 blessing, for without them, the work would weigh me down, 
 whereas now I seem to throw it off like the fleas from a dog's 
 back when he shakes himself. May I only learn daily and 
 hourly cru<ppov(u>. 
 
 I am very much delighted with what you say of my pamphlet 
 
 [on the Roman Catholic claims]. I know it gave pain, 
 
 and I fear it has , and others of my friends. Yet, I 
 
 know that I did not write it with one atom of unkindness or 
 violence of feeling nor do I think that the language or tone 
 is violent ; and what I said of the clergy, I said in the very 
 simplicity of my heart, no more imagining that it would give 
 offence, than if I had said that they were unacquainted gen- 
 erally with military tactics or fortification. The part which 
 you object to was not put in unthinkingly but I wished very
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 233 
 
 much to bring the matter of schism to an issue ; and if any 
 respectable man were to notice that part of the pamphlet, I 
 should like to enter more fully into the subject. My own 
 notions upon it have grown up wholly out of the New Testa- 
 ment, and because I never have thought, that what people 
 call the Primitive Church, and much less the Ante-Nicene 
 Church more generally, was any better authority per se, than 
 the Church of Rome, or the Greek Church. But I do not 
 know that what I have said in the pamphlet goes at all be- 
 yond the fair conclusions to be drawn from our own Article,* 
 which gives to any national Church an authority to manage 
 its own concerns, where God has not laid down any fixed 
 rule ; and, besides, what resemblance is there between the 
 government of the most ancient Episcopal Churches, and 
 that of the Church of England, to those who regard resem- 
 blances or differences of government to consist in things more 
 than in names ? I think, that what I have said in my pam- 
 phlet merely goes so far as to assert, that there is no schism 
 in the Church of England, having nothing to do with th 
 Bishop of Rome, or in the Kirk of Scotland, having nothing to 
 do with any Archbishops and Bishops at all, but that I have not 
 at all treated of the question of different ecclesiastical societies 
 existing in one and the same civil society like our English 
 Dissenters, whatever my own opinions may be about the mat- 
 ter. I find people continually misunderstanding the strong 
 distinction which I draw between individuals and societies, 
 insomuch that Faber charges me with saying, that every 
 individual has a right to govern himself, which I have specially 
 disclaimed in divers places ; being, in fact, a firm believer in 
 the duty of absolute passive obedience in all cases between 
 an individual and the government but not when the in- 
 dividual is acting as a member of the society, and their con- 
 currence with him tells him that obedience is now a misplaced 
 term because there is no authority in a rebellious govern- 
 ment rebellious against society to claim obedience. I 
 am sure that my views in this matter are neither seditious 
 nor turbulent and I think I stated them clearly, but it seems 
 they were not clear to everybody. 
 
 * Article 34. 
 20*
 
 234 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 X. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Rugby, October 14, 1829. 
 
 I never felt more strongly the desire of keeping 
 
 up my old friendships, and it often grieves me to think how 
 little I see or hear of many of those for whom I feel the 
 strongest regard. I do not mean that this is their fault rather 
 than mine, or that it is a fuult at all ; but it is a tendency of 
 middle life and settled occupation, which I think we ought to 
 struggle against, or else it grows with a fearful rapidity. I 
 am very anxious to express my repentance of that passage in 
 my pamphlet, which you allude to, " raving about idolatry," 
 &c. I mean my repentance of its tone and language, for the 
 substance of it I think correct, and that men whose most 
 ignorant, and worse than ignorant, application of English 
 history had, to say the truth, made me angry, are likely to 
 do a great deal of mischief in Ireland. But the expression 
 was unkind, and too sweeping, and I certainly ought not, nor 
 would I, speak of all those as " raving about idolatry," whose 
 opinions as to the guilt of the Romish Church differ from my 
 own. With regard to the apparent inconsistency between 
 the sermons and the pamphlet, you will find the term " prac- 
 tically idolatry " applied to the Roman Catholic system in 
 some countries, even in the pamphlet. I never wish to mince 
 the matter with their practices, but still, in principle, I cannot 
 call the Romish Church an idolatrous Church in that strong 
 sense as to warrant Faber's conclusions, even putting aside 
 the difference of Christian times from Jewish. I should 
 compare their superstitions to the worship of the brazen 
 serpent, which Hezekiah did away with, which appears to 
 have been long in existence, and which, in many of its wor- 
 shippers, at any rate, was practically idolatry ; but I should 
 not have called the Jewish Church idolatrous so long as this 
 worship was encouraged, nor applied to it the language of 
 " Come out of her, my people," &c. 
 
 Of the moral state of the boys, for which of course I care 
 infinitely the most, I can judge the least ; our advantages 
 in that respect are great, at least in the absence of many 
 temptations to gross vice ; but to cultivate a good spirit in the 
 highest sense is a far different thing from .-hutting out one or 
 two gross evils from want of opportunity.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD 235 
 
 XI. TO REV. J. TUCKER. 
 
 Rugby, October 23, 1829. 
 
 If we are alive fifteen years hence, I think I 
 
 would go with you gladly to Swan River, if they will make 
 me schoolmaster there, and lay my bones in the land of 
 kangaroos and opossums. I laugh about it ; yet if my wife 
 were alive, and able to go, I should think it a very great 
 benefit to the good cause to go out with all my family, and 
 become a Swan-River man ; and I should try to get others of 
 our friends to go out with us. My notion is, that no mis- 
 sionaryzing is half so beneficial, as to try to pour sound and 
 healthy blood into a young civilized society ; to make one 
 colony, if possible, like the ancient colonies, or like New 
 England a living sucker from the mother country, bearing 
 the same blossoms and the same fruits, not a reproduction of 
 its vilest excrescences, its ignorance, and its wickedness, 
 while all its good elements are left behind in the process. 
 No words can tell the evil of such colonies as we have 
 hitherto planted, where the best parts of the new society 
 have been men too poor to carry with them or to gain much 
 of the higher branches of knowledge ; or else mere official 
 functionaries from England, whose hearts and minds have 
 been always half at home, and who have never identified 
 themselves with the land in which they were working. But 
 if you and your sisters were to go out, with half Southborough 
 after you, apothecary, lawyers, butchers, bakers, tailors, 
 carpenters, and laborers, and if we were to join with a 
 similar draught from Rugby and Laleham, I think we should 
 deserve to be dvaypairrol vtpyerai both here and in Swan 
 River. Such are my notions about it; and I am not clear 
 that I shall not devote my first 1,000 that I make here to 
 the purchase of land in Swan River, that I may have my 
 estate and the school buildings got into due order, before I 
 shut up shop at Rugby. Meantime, I hope you will not 
 think I ought to shut up shop forthwith, and adjourn to the 
 next asylum for daft people, because I am thus wildly dream- 
 ing about Swan River, instead of talking soberly about Rug- 
 by. But Rugby is a very nice place all the same, and I wish 
 you would come and form your own judgment of it, or that 
 some of your sisters would, if you cannot or will not.
 
 236 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 XII. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 4, 1829. 
 
 What a time it is since I wrote to you ! And how much 
 has occurred and is continually occurring, on which I should 
 like to write to you. You have heard perhaps of Mr. Pen- 
 rose's death in September last, when, from the enjoyment 
 of full health and vigor of mind and body, he was called 
 away in three days with no intermediate pain or struggle, 
 but by a gentle lethargic sleep, which lasted uninterrupted to 
 his very last moment. Coupled with his holy and Christian 
 life, which made him require no long time to go and renew 
 his exhausted oil, his end was a most complete fvdava<ria, so 
 rare a blessing, that one dares not hope or pray for a similar 
 mercy in one's own case 
 
 We are going on comfortably, and I trust, thrivingly, with 
 the school. We are above 200, and still looking upwards ; 
 but I neither expect, and much less desire, any great addition 
 to our numbers. The school cannot, I think, regularly expect 
 more than 200 or 250 ; it may ascend higher with a strong 
 flood, but there will be surely a corresponding ebb after it. 
 You may imagine that I ponder over, often enough, the va* 
 rious discussions that I have had with you about education, 
 and verse-making, and reading the Poets. I find the natural 
 leaning of a schoolmaster is so much to your view of the 
 question, that my reason is more than ever led to think my 
 own notions strongly required in the present state of classical 
 education, if it were only on the principle of the bent stick. 
 There is something so beautiful in good Latin verses, and in 
 hearing fine poetry well construed, and something so attrac- 
 tive altogether in good scholarship, that I do not wonder at 
 masters directing an undue [>ortion of their attention to a crop 
 so brilliant. I feel it growing in myself daily ; and, if I feel 
 it, with prejudices all on the other side, I do not wonder at its 
 being felt generally. But my deliberate conviction is stronger 
 and stronger, that all this system is wholly wrong for the 
 greater number of boys. Those who have talents and natural 
 taste, and fondness for poetry, find the poetry lessons very 
 useful ; the mass do not feel one tittle about the matter, and, 
 I speak advisedly, do not, in my belief, benefit from them one 
 grain. I am not sure that other things would answer better, 
 though I have very little doubt of it ; but at any rate, the 
 present plan is so entire a failure, that nothing can be risked
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 237 
 
 by changing it More than half my boys never saw 
 
 the sea, and never were in London, and it is surprising how 
 the first of these disadvantages interferes with their under- 
 standing much of the ancient poetry, while the other keeps 
 the range of their ideas in an exceedingly narrow compass. 
 Brought up myself in the Isle of Wight, amidst the bustle of 
 soldiers and sailors, and familiar from a child with boats and 
 ships, and the flags of half Europe, which gave me an instinc- 
 tive acquaintance with geography, I quite marvel to find in 
 what a state of ignorance boys are at seventeen or eighteen, 
 who have lived all their days in inland country parishes, or 
 
 small country towns For your comfort, I think I am 
 
 succeeding in making them write very fair Latin prose, and 
 to observe and understand some of the differences between 
 the Latin and English idioms. On the other hand, what our 
 boys want in one way they get in another ; from the very 
 circumstance of their being the sons of quieter parents, they 
 have far less v/3pi? and more eijjtfeto, than the boys of any 
 other school I ever knew. Thus, to say the least, they have 
 less of a most odious and unchristian quality, and are thus 
 more open to instruction, and have less repugnance to be 
 
 good, because their master wishes them to be so I 
 
 have almost filled my paper, and can only add that Thucy- 
 dides is getting on slowly, but I think that it will be a much 
 less defective book than it was likely to have been had I re- 
 mained at Laleham ; for though I have still an enormous deal 
 to learn, yet my scholarship has mended considerably within 
 the last year at Rugby. I suppose you will think at any rate 
 that it will be better to publish Thucydides, however imper- 
 fectly, than to write another pamphlet. Poor dear pamphlet ! 
 I seem to feel the greater tenderness for it, because it has 
 excited so much odium ; and now I hear that it is reported at 
 Oxford that I wish to suppress it ; which is wholly untrue. I 
 would not print a second edition, because the question was 
 settled, and controversy about it was become absurd ; but I 
 never have repented of it in any degree, or wished it unwrit- 
 ten, " pace tua dixerim," and I only regret that I did not print 
 a larger impression.
 
 238 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 XIII. TO REV. H. JENKINS. 
 
 Rugby, November 11, 1829. 
 
 I thank you heartily for two very kind letters, and am very 
 anxious to be favored with some more of your friend's com- 
 ments [on Thucydides] I hope I am not too old or 
 
 too lazy or too obstinate to be taught better. I do 
 
 thank you very much for your kindness in taking so much 
 trouble in my behalf ; and I earnestly beg of you to send me 
 
 more And can you tell me, or, if not, will you ask 
 
 Amicus Doct., where is to be found a summary of the 
 opinions of English scholars about orrwr and 6na>s pf), and 
 the moods which they require : and further, do you or he 
 hold their doctrine good for anything ? Dawes, and all men 
 who endeavor to establish general rules, are of great use in 
 directing one's attention to points which one might other- 
 wise have neglected ; and labor and acuteness often discover 
 a rule, where indolence and carelessness fancied it was all 
 haphazard. But larger induction and sounder judgment 
 (which I think exist in Hermann in an infinite degree be- 
 yond any of our English scholars) teach us to distinguish 
 again between a principle and .an usage ; the latter may be 
 general, but if it be merely usage, grounded on no intelligi- 
 ble principle, it seems to me foolish to insist on its being 
 universal, and to alter texts right and left, to make them 
 all conformable to the Canon. Equidem, both in Greek 
 and in other matters, I think liberty a far better thing 
 than uniformity of form merely, where no principle is con- 
 cerned. Voila the cloven foot. 
 
 XIV. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 (In allusion to a libel in the John Bull.) 
 
 Rugby, May 11, 1830. 
 
 I thank you for another very kind letter. In a matter of 
 this sort, I willingly resign my own opinion to that of a man 
 like yourself, at once my friend and legal adviser. I think, 
 too, that I am almost bound to attend to the opinion of the 
 Bishop of London ; for his judgment of the inexpediency of 
 prosecuting must rest on the scandal which he thinks it will 
 bring upon religion and the Church, and of this he is a far 
 better judge than I am ; nor, to say the truth, should I much
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 239 
 
 like to act in a doubtful matter in opposition to the decided 
 advice of a Bishop in a case that concerned the Church. 
 I say this in sober earnest, in spite of what you call my 
 Whiggery and Radicalism 
 
 XV. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, May 12, 1830. 
 
 The authorities which are arrayed against pro- 
 ceeding are quite decisive, and I heartily agree with you that 
 clergymen must not go to law, when lawyers say they should 
 not. Still, as I had no thought of gam or of vengeance, but 
 simply of procuring a public justification of my character 
 not my opinions I feel that it would have been no lack of 
 charity to proceed, though I am heartily glad to be spared the 
 necessity of doing so by so many and such powerful represen- 
 tations. But I trust that you and all my friends will give me 
 credit for being perfectly tolerant of all attacks upon my writ- 
 ings or general abuse of my opinions Believe me, I 
 
 am heartily glad of the final result of this discussion, for I had 
 no wish to go to law ; but I thought that my known, or rather 
 my misrepresented opinions on politics, ought to make me par- 
 ticularly anxious to deny any charge respecting religious mat- 
 ters. But I am perfectly willing to take the judgment of my 
 friends and of impartial persons in what rests wholly on opin- 
 ion ; and besides, if the attack or loss to my own character 
 were ever so great, I should quite agree with you that it was 
 better to bear it, than to bring sacred things into discussion in 
 places and through disputants wholly unfitted for them. But 
 this I at first did not contemplate as the likely result. 
 
 XVI. TO F. HARTWELL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, June 28, 1830. 
 
 I have just published one volume of Thucydides ; 
 
 when the others will follow, it is hard to say, for the work here 
 is more and more engrossing continually ; but I like it better 
 and better ; it has all the interest of a great game of chess, 
 with living creatures for pawns and pieces, and your adver- 
 sary, in plain English, the Devil : truly he plays a very tough 
 game, and is very hard to beat, if I ever do beat him. It is
 
 240 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 quite surprising to see the wickedness of young boys ; or 
 would be surprising, if I had not had my own school experi- 
 ence and a good deal since to enlighten me. 
 
 XVII. TO THE REV. GEORGE CORNISH. 
 
 Rugby, August 24, 1830. 
 
 Your letter was a most welcome sight to me the first morn- 
 ing of my arrival at home, amidst the host of strange hand- 
 writings and letters of business which now greet me every 
 morning. It rejoices me to think that we are going to have 
 a cousin of yours at Rugby, and I suppose we shall see him 
 here on Saturday, when the great coach starts. You know 
 that it is licensed to carry not exceeding 260 passengers, be- 
 sides the foundationers. I agreed with the Pythagoreans that 
 TO aopurrov was one of the number of Kaiea, and so I applied to 
 the Trustees, and got the limit set. We are not near it yet, 
 being not quite 260, including foundationers, and perhaps 
 may never reach it ; but that I shall not at all regret, and all 
 I wanted was never to go beyond it. We have got a Cam- 
 bridge man, a Fellow of Trinity, who was most highly recom- 
 mended to me as a new master : and I hope we shall pull 
 hard and all together during the next half-year ; there is 
 plenty to be done, I can assure you ; but thank God, I con- 
 tinue to enjoy the work, and am now in excellent condition 
 
 for setting to it. You may see M 's name and mine 
 
 amongst the subscribers for the sufferers at Paris. It seems 
 to me a most blessed revolution, spotless beyond all example 
 in history, and the most glorious instance of a royal rebellion 
 against society, promptly and energetically repressed, that the 
 world has yet seen. It magnificently vindicates the cause of 
 knowledge and liberty, showing how humanizing to all classes 
 of society are the spread of thought and information, and im- 
 proved political institutions ; and it lays the crimes of the last 
 revolution just in the right place, the wicked aristocracy, that 
 had so brutalized the people by its long iniquities that they 
 were like slaves broken loose when they first bestirred them- 
 selves. 
 
 Before all these events took place, on my way out through 
 France, I was reading Guizot's History of the Progress of 
 Civilization in France from the earliest times. You know he 
 is now Minister of the Interior, and one of the ablest writers
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 241 
 
 in France. In his book he gives a history of the Pelagian 
 controversy, a most marvellous contrast with the Liberals 
 of a former day, or with our Westminster Reviewers now. 
 Guizot sides with St. Augustine ; but the whole chapter is 
 most worthy of notice ; the freedom of the will, so far as to 
 leave a consciousness of guilt when we have not done our 
 duty, the corruption of our nature, which never lets us in 
 fact come up to what we know we ought to do, and the help 
 derived from prayers to God, are stated as incontrovertible 
 philosophical facts, of which every man's experience may 
 convince him ; and Guizot blames Pelagius for so exaggerating 
 the notion of human freedom as to lose sight of our need of 
 external assistance. And there is another chapter on the 
 unity of the Church no less remarkable. Now Guizot is 
 Professor of History in the University of Paris, and a most 
 eminent Liberal ; and it seems to me worthy of all notice to 
 observe his language with regard to religion. And I saw 
 Niebuhr at Bonn, on my way home, and talked with him for 
 three hours ; and I am satisfied from my own ears, if I had 
 any doubts before, of the grossness of the slander which called 
 him an unbeliever. I was every way delighted with him, and 
 liked very much what I saw of his wife and children. Trev- 
 enen and his wife enjoyed the journey exceedingly, and are 
 all the better for it. Amongst other things, I visited the Grand 
 Chartreuse, which is certainly enough to make a man ro- 
 mantic, and the Church of Madonna del Monte ; from whence, 
 or rather from a mountain above it, I counted twelve moun- 
 tain outlines between me and the horizon, the last, the 
 ridge of the highest Alps upon a sky so glowing with the 
 sunset, that instead of looking white from their snow, they 
 were like the teeth of a saw upon a plate of red-hot iron, all 
 deep and black. I was delighted also with Venice ; most of 
 all delighted to see the secret prisons of the old aristocracy 
 converted into lumber-rooms, and to see German soldiers 
 exercising authority in that place, which was once the very 
 focus of the moral degradation of the Italian race, the seat of 
 falsehood and ignorance and cruelty. They talk of building 
 a bridge to Venice over the Lagune ; if so, I am glad that I 
 have seen it first. I like Padua also, more than I thought 
 I could have liked the birthplace of Titus Livius. The in- 
 fluence of the clergy must be gre'at there, and most beneficially 
 exercised ; for a large institution for the poor of Padua, pro- 
 viding for those who are out of work, as well as for the old 
 VOL. i. 21 p
 
 242 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 and infirm, derives its main support from legacies ; the clergy 
 never failing to urge every man who can at all afford it to 
 leave something at his death for this object We came home 
 through the Tyrol, and through Wurtemberg and Baden, coun- 
 tries apparently as peaceful and prosperous and simple man- 
 nered as I ever saw ; it is quite economical travelling there. 
 And now, when shall I travel to Kenwyn ? I hope one of 
 these days ; but whether in the next winter or not is hard to 
 say ; I only know that there are few things which I should 
 enjoy better. I was so sorry to miss old Tucker, who came 
 here for one day when I was abroad ; he was at Leamington 
 with his sister to consult our great oracle, Jephson. Charles, 
 I suppose, is only coming home upon leave, and will go out 
 again ; I should be very glad to see him, and to show him 
 his marks on my Hederic's Lexicon when he was at Wyatt's. 
 I wish I may be able to do anything for you as to a curate, 
 but I am very much out of the world in those matters, and I 
 have no regular correspondence with Oxford. I am afraid I 
 am sadly in disgrace with all parties, between my Pamphlet 
 and Sermons, and I am afraid that Thucydides will not mend 
 the matter. As for the Pamphlet, that is all natural enough, 
 but I really did not think there was any cloven foot in the 
 Sermons, nor did I wish to show any ; not, I hope, from time- 
 serving, but because, what you said about the schism ques- 
 tion, I wished to do with that and divers other points, i. e. 
 reserve them for a separate volume, which I hope I may be 
 able to publish before I die. There are some points on which 
 J feel almost as if I had a testimony to deliver, which I ought 
 not to withhold. And Milman's History of the Jews made 
 me more and more eager to deliver myself of my conceptions. 
 But how to do it without interfering with other and even 
 more pressing duties, I cannot tell. Last half-year, I 
 preached every Sunday in Lent, and for the last five Sundays 
 of the half-year also, besides other times ; and I had to write 
 new sermons for all these, for I cannot bear to preach to the 
 boys anything but what is quite fresh, and suggested by their 
 particular condition. I never like preaching anywhere else 
 so well i for one's boys are even more than a parish, inasmuch 
 as one knows more of them all individually, than can easily 
 be the case in a parish, and has a double authority over them, 
 temporal as well as spiritual Though, to speak seri- 
 ously, it is quite awful to watch the strength of evil in such 
 young minds, and how powerless is every effort against it. It
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 243 
 
 would give the vainest man alive a very fair notion of his own 
 insufficiency, to see how little he can do, and how his most 
 earnest addresses are as a cannon-ball on a bolster ; thorough 
 careless unimpressibleness beats one all to pieces. And so it 
 is, and so it will be ; and, as far as I am concerned, I can 
 quite say that it is much better that it should be so ; for it 
 would be too kindling, could one perceive these young minds 
 really led from evil by one's own efforts ; one would be sorely 
 tempted to bow down to one's own net. As it is, the net is so 
 palpably ragged, that one sees perforce how sorry an idol it 
 would make. But I must go to bed, and spare your eyes and 
 your patience. 
 
 XYIII. TO REV. DK. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, November, 1830. 
 
 I am always glad to write to you, but I have now two 
 especial causes for doing so ; one to thank you for your Visi- 
 tation sermon, and another to explain to you why I do not 
 think it right to comply with your wishes touching the tricolor 
 work-bag. For your sermon, I thank you for it ; I believe 
 I agree with it almost entirely, waiving some expressions, 
 which I hold one never should cavil about, where one agrees 
 in substance. But have you ever clearly defined to yourself 
 what you mean by "one society," as applied to the whole 
 Christian Church upon earth ? It seems to me that most of 
 what I consider the errors about " the Church," turn upon an 
 imperfect understanding of this point. In one sense, and that 
 a very important one, all Christians belong to one society ; 
 but then it is more like Cicero's sense of " societas," than 
 what we mean by a society. There is a "societas generis 
 humani," and a " societas hominum Christianorum ; " but 
 there is not one " respublica " or " civitas " of either, but a 
 great many. The Roman Catholics say there is but one 
 "respublica," and therefore, with perfect consistency, they 
 say that there must be one central government : our Article, 
 if I mistake not its sense, says, and with great truth, that the 
 Christian Respublica depends on the political Respublica ; 
 that is, that there may be at least as many Christian societies 
 as there are political societies, and that there may be, and in 
 our own kingdom are, even more.* If there be one Christian 
 
 * See Appendix II. \d) to Fragment on the Church.
 
 244 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 society, in the common sense of the word, there must be one 
 government: whereas, in point of fact, the Scotch Church, 
 the English Church, and the French Church, have all sepa- 
 rate and perfectly independent governments ; and conse- 
 quently can only be in an unusual and peculiar sense " one 
 society ; " that is, spiritually one, as having the same objects 
 and the same principles, and the same supports, and the 
 same enemies. You therefore seem to me right, in saying 
 that a Roman Catholic should be addressed in England as a 
 Dissenter ; but all this appears to me to lead necessarily to 
 tliis conclusion, that the constitution and government of 
 every Church is a political institution, and that conformity 
 and nonconformity are so far matters of civil law, that, where 
 nonconformity, as in England, is strictly legal, it is no offence, 
 except in so far as it may be accompanied with heretical 
 opinions, which is merely KOTO. a-v^f^Kos. For the State 
 says that there may be any given number of religious socie- 
 ties within its jurisdiction societies, that is, in .the common 
 sense of the term, as bodies governing themselves ; and it is 
 clear that the State may lawfully say this, for, if the Church 
 were one society, in this sense, by Christ's institution, then 
 the Romanist doctrine would be true, and, I do not say the 
 Pope, but certainly a General Council would possess an 
 authority paramount in ecclesiastical matters, payment of 
 tithes, &c., to any local and human authority of Kings or 
 Parliaments of this or that political division of the human 
 race. I have thought not a little upon all this matter in my 
 time, and I fancy that I see my own way straight ; whether 
 other people will think so, is a different question. 
 
 (After explaining a false report about a tricolored cockade 
 and work-bag.) It is worse than obnoxious to apply this to 
 English politics, and if any man seriously considers me to 
 wish for a revolution here, with my seven children and good 
 house to lose, (to put it on no other ground,) why he must 
 even continue to think so. But I do admire the Revolution 
 in France admire it as heartily and entirely, as any event 
 recorded in history ; and I think that it becomes every individ- 
 ual, still more every clergyman, and most of all, every clergy- 
 man in a public situation, to express this opinion publicly and 
 decidedly. I have not forgotten the twenty years' war into 
 which the English aristocracy and clergy drove Mr. Pitt in 
 1793, and which the Quarterly Review and other such writers 
 are now seeking to repeat. I hold it to be of incalculable
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 245 
 
 importance, that, while the conduct of France has been beyond 
 all example pure and heroic, there should be so manifest a 
 display of sympathy on the part of England, as to lead to a 
 real mutual confidence and friendship between the two coun- 
 tries. Our government, I believe, is heartily disposed to do 
 this, and I will not, for one, shrink from avowing a noble 
 cause and a noble nation, because a party in England, joined 
 through timidity by a number of men who have really no 
 sympathy with it, choose to try to excommunicate all who will 
 not join them. I have myself heard them expressing hearty 
 approbation of the French Revolution, and yet shrink from 
 avowing it, lest they should appear to join the Radicals. And 
 thus they leave the Radicals in exclusive possession of senti- 
 ments, which they themselves join in, just as they would 
 leave the Useful Knowledge Society to the Benthamites. I 
 quarrel with no man for disapproving of the revolution, except 
 he does it in such a manner as to excite national animosities, 
 and so tend to provoke a war ; but in a case so flagrant a 
 case of as clear right as the abolition of the slave-trade it is 
 clearly not for the friends of France to suppress or conceal 
 their sentiments. About Belgium the case is wholly different : 
 there, the merits of the quarrel are far more doubtful, and 
 the conduct of the popular party far less pure ; and there I 
 have no sympathy with the Belgians. But France, if it were 
 only for the contrast to the first revolution, deserves, I think, 
 the warmest admiration, and the most cordial expression of it. 
 I have written now more upon this subject than I have either 
 written or spoken upon it before to any one; for indeed I 
 have very little time, and no inclination for disputes on such 
 matters. But if I am questioned about my opinions, and 
 required to conceal them, as if I were ashamed of them, I 
 think it right then to avow them plainly, and to explain my 
 reasons for them. There is not a man in England who is less 
 a party man thau I am, for in fact no party would own me ; 
 
 and when I was at 's in the summer, he looked upon 
 
 me to be quite illiberal. But those who hold their own 
 opinions in a string, will suppose that their neighbors do the 
 same.
 
 246 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, SEPTEMBER, 1830, TO 
 DECEMBER, 1832. 
 
 PERHAPS no more striking instance of his deep inter- 
 est in the state of the country could be found, than in 
 the gloom with which his correspondence is suddenly 
 overcast in the autumn of 1830. The alarming aspect 
 of English society brought to view in the rural disturb- 
 ances in the winter of 1830, and additionally darkened 
 in 1831 - 32, by the visitation of the Cholera, and the 
 political agitations of the Reform Bill, little as it came 
 within his own experience, gave a color to his whole 
 mind. Of his state of feeling at this time, no better 
 example can be given than the five sermons appended 
 to the opening course of his practical school sermons, 
 in his second volume, especially the last of them, which 
 was preached in the chapel on the Sunday when the 
 news of the arrival of the Cholera in England first 
 reached Rugby. There are those amongst his pupils 
 who can never forget the moment when, on that dark 
 November afternoon, after the simple preface, stating 
 in what sense worldly thoughts were or were not to be 
 brought into that place, he at once began with that 
 solemnity which marked his voice and manner when 
 speaking of what deeply moved him : " I need not tell 
 you that this is a marked time a time such as neither 
 we, nor our fathers for many generations before us, 
 have experienced ; and to those who know what the 
 past has been, it is no doubt awful to think of the 
 change which we are now about to encounter." 
 (Serm. vol. ii. p. 413.) But in him the sight of evil, 
 and the endeavor to remove it, were hardly ever dis- 
 joined ; and whilst everything which he felt partook 
 of the despondency with which that sermon opens,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 247 
 
 everything which, he did partakes of that cheerful ac- 
 tivity with which the same sermon closes, in urging 
 the example of the Apostle's " wise and manly con- 
 duct amidst the dangers of storm and shipwreck." 
 
 The alarm which he felt was shared by many of the 
 most opposite opinions to his own; but there could 
 have been few whom it touched at once on so many 
 points. The disturbances of the time were to him the 
 very evils which he had anticipated even as far back 
 as 1819 ; they struck on some of the most sensitive of 
 his natural feelings his sense of justice, and his im- 
 patience of the sight of suffering : they seemed to him 
 symptoms of a deep-seated disease in all the relations 
 of English society the results of a long series of 
 evils from the neglect of the eighteenth century of 
 the lawlessness of the feudal system of the oppres- 
 sions of the Norman conquest of the dissoluteness 
 of the Roman empire of the growth of those social 
 and national sins which the Hebrew Prophets had de- 
 nounced, and which Christianity in its full practical 
 development was designed to check.* 
 
 Hence arose his anxiety to see the clergy take it up, 
 as he had himself endeavored to do in the sermons 
 already noticed. 
 
 " I almost despair," he said, " of anything that any private 
 or local efforts can do. I think that the clergy as a body 
 might do much, if they were steadily to observe the evils of 
 the times, and preach fearlessly against them. I cannot 
 understand what is the good of a national Church if it be not 
 to Christianize the nation, and introduce the principles of 
 Christianity into men's social and civil relations, and expose 
 the wickedness of that spirit which maintains the game-laws, 
 and in agriculture and trade seems to think that there is no 
 such sin as covetousness, and that if a man is not dishonest, 
 he has nothing to do but to make all the profit of his capital 
 that he can." 
 
 Hence, again, his anxiety to impart or see imparted 
 
 Se Miscell. Works, pp. 176, 192, 276. Hist, of Rome, I. 266.
 
 248 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 to the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of 
 Useful Knowledge, then in the first burst of their 
 reputation, and promising to exercise a really exten- 
 sive influence on the country at large, something of 
 the religious spirit, in which they seemed to him to be 
 deficient. 
 
 " I am not wishing to see the Society's tracts turned into 
 sermons, far less to see them intermeddle in what are 
 strictly theological controversies; but I am sure that, with 
 the exception of the Unitarians, all Christians have a common 
 ground in all that is essential in Christianity, and beyond 
 that I never wish to go ; and it does seem to me as forced 
 and unnatural in us now to dismiss the principles of the 
 Gospel and its great motives from our consideration, as is 
 done habitually, for example, in Miss Edgeworth's books, 
 as it is to fill our pages with Hebraisms, and to write and 
 speak in the words and style of the Bible. The slightest 
 touches of Christian principle and Christian hope in the 
 Society's biographical and historical articles would be a sort 
 of living salt to the whole ; and would exhibit that union 
 which I never will consent to think unattainable, between 
 goodness and wisdom ; between everything that is manly, 
 sensible, and free, and everything that is pure and self-deny- 
 ing, and humble, and heavenly." 
 
 His communications with the Society, made, how- 
 ever, from the nature of the case, rather through indi- 
 viduals than officially, were at one time frequent ; and 
 though, from the different view which it took of its 
 proper province, he was finally induced to discontinue 
 them, he felt great reluctance in abandoning his hope 
 of being able to co-operate with a body which he " be- 
 lieved might, with God's blessing, do more good of all 
 kinds, political, intellectual, and spiritual, than any 
 other society in existence." 
 
 "There was a show of reason," he said, "in excluding 
 Christianity from the plan of the Society's works, so long as 
 they avowedly confined themselves to science or to intellectual 
 instruction : but in a paper intended to improve its readers 
 morally, to make men better and happier, as well as better 
 informed, surely neutrality with regard to Christianity is,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 249 
 
 virtually, hostility." "For myself," he adds, "I am well 
 aware of my own insignificance, but if there were no other 
 objection to the Penny Magazine assuming a decidedly 
 Christian tone, than mere difficulties of execution, I would 
 most readily offer my best services, such as they are, to the 
 Society, and would endeavor to furnish them regularly with 
 articles of the kind that I desire. My occupations here are 
 so engrossing, that it would be personally very inconvenient 
 to me to do so ; and I am not so absurd as to think my offer 
 of any value, except in the single case of a practical difficulty 
 existing as to finding a writer, should the principle itself be 
 approved of. I am fully convinced that if the Penny Maga- 
 zine were decidedly and avowedly Christian, many of the 
 clergy throughout the kingdom would be most delighted to 
 assist its circulation by every means in their power. For 
 myself, I should think that I could not do too much to con- 
 tribute to the support of what would then be so great a 
 national blessing ; and I should beg to be allowed to offer 
 50 annually towards it, so long as my remaining in my 
 present situation enabled me to gratify my inclinations to 
 that extent" 
 
 The most practical attempt at the realization of 
 these views, was his own endeavor to set up a weekly 
 newspaper, the Englishman's Register, which he under- 
 took in 1831, " more to relieve his own conscience 
 than with any sanguine hope of doing good," but 
 " earnestly desiring to speak to the people the words 
 of truth and soberness to tell them plainly the evils 
 that exist, and lead them, if I can, to their causes and 
 their remedies." He was the proprietor, though not 
 the sole editor, and he contributed the chief articles in ' 
 it (signed A.), consisting chiefly of explanations of 
 Scripture, and of comments on the political events of 
 the day. It died a natural death in a few weeks, 
 partly from his want of leisure to control it properly, 
 and from the great expenses which it entailed upon 
 him partly from the want of cordial sympathy in 
 any of the existing parties of the country. Finding, 
 however, that some of his articles had been copied into 
 the Sheffield Couraut, by its editor, Mr. Platt, he
 
 250 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 opened a communication with him in July, 1831, 
 which he maintained ever afterwards, and commenced 
 writing a series of Letters in that paper, which, to the 
 number of thirteen, were afterwards published sepa- 
 rately, and constitute the best exposition of his views 
 on the main causes of social distress in England. 
 
 It was now that, with " the thirst for a lodge in 
 some vast wilderness, which in these times of excite- 
 ment," he writes to a friend, " is almost irresistible," 
 he began to turn his thoughts to what ultimately be- 
 came his home in Westmoreland. It was now, also, 
 that as he came more into contact with public affairs, 
 he began to feel the want of sympathy and the oppo- 
 sition which he subsequently experienced on a larger 
 scale. " I have no man like-minded with me," he 
 writes to Archbishop Whately, " none with whom I 
 can cordially sympathize ; there are many good men 
 to be found, and many clever men, some, too, who are 
 both good and clever ; but yet there is a want of some 
 greatness of mind, or singleness of purpose, or deli- 
 cacy of feeling, which makes them grate against the 
 edge of one's inner man." This was the period when 
 he felt most keenly his differences with the so-called 
 Evangelical party, to which, on the one hand, he natu- 
 rally looked for co-operation, as the body which at that 
 time was placed at the head of the religious convic- 
 tions of the country, but from which, on the other 
 hand, he was constantly repelled by his strong sense of 
 the obstacles which (as he thought) their narrow 
 views and technical phraseology, were forever oppos- 
 ing to the real and practical application of the Old and 
 New Testament, as the remedy of the great wants of 
 the age, social, moral, and intellectual.* 
 
 # In' illustration of this view as represented in the present chapter, it may 
 be well to refer to Introd. to Serm. vol. iv. p. xxv., and to give the following 
 extract from a MS. Preface to a volume of Sermons in 1829. " Their 
 peculiarities as a party seem to me to arise simply from these causes, a 
 good Christian, with a low understanding, a bad education, and ignorance 
 of the world, becomes an Evangelical, whilst, on the other hand, if you 
 were to enlarge the understanding of an Evangelical, if you could remedy
 
 LIFE OF DK. ARNOLD. 251 
 
 It was his own conviction of these wants which now 
 more than ever awakened his desire for a commentary 
 on the Scriptures which should explain their true ref- 
 erence to the present state of England and of the 
 world, as well as remove some of the intellectual diffi- 
 culties, especially in the Old Testament, to which 
 men's minds seemed to be growing more and more 
 awake. And this, for the time, he endeavored to ac- 
 complish by the statement of some of his general prin- 
 ciples of interpretation in the Essay on that subject, 
 which he affixed to his second volume of sermons pub- 
 lished in December, 1831. The objections which this 
 Essay excited at the time in various quarters were 
 very great, and according to his own belief it exposed 
 him to more misunderstanding than any other of his 
 writings. But he never wavered in the conviction 
 that its publication had been an imperative duty it 
 was written, as he said, " professionally, from his hav- 
 ing had so much to do with young men, and from 
 knowing what they wanted ; " even in the last year of 
 his life, he said that he looked upon it as the most 
 important thing he had ever written. " I thought it 
 likely," he writes at the time to a friend, " with God's 
 blessing, to be so beneficial, that I published it at the 
 end of this volume, rather than wait for another op- 
 portunity, because under that sense of the great un- 
 certainty of human life which the present state of 
 things brings especially home to my mind, I should be 
 sorry to die without having circulated what I believe 
 will be to many most useful and most satisfactory." 
 " I am sure," he writes, in answer to the objections of 
 another friend, " that the more the subject is consid- 
 ered, men will find that they have been afraid of a 
 groundless danger, and the further I follow up my 
 own views, the more they appear to me to harmonize 
 with the whole system of God's revelations, and not 
 
 the defects of his education, and supply him with abupdant knowledge of 
 men and things, he would then become a most complete specimen of a true 
 Christian.
 
 252 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 only absolutely to do away with all the difficulties of 
 the Scriptures, but to turn many of them into valuable 
 instructions." * 
 
 XIX. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 1, 1830. 
 
 It is quite high time that I should write to you, for weeks 
 and months go by, and it is quite startling to think how little 
 communication I hold with many of those whom I love most 
 dearly. And yet these are times when I am least of all dis- 
 posed to loosen the links which bind me to my oldest and 
 dearest friends, for I imagine we shall all want the union of 
 all the good men we can get together ; and the want of sym- 
 pathy which I cannot but feel towards so many of those whom 
 I meet with, makes me think how delightful it would be to 
 have daily intercourse with those with whom I ever feel it 
 thoroughly. What men do in middle life without a wife and 
 children to turn to I cannot imagine ; for I think the affections 
 must be sadly checked and chilled, even in the best men, by 
 their intercourse with people, such as one usually finds them 
 in the world. I do not mean that one does not meet with 
 good and sensible people ; but then their minds are set, and 
 our minds are set, and they will not, in mature age, grow into 
 each other. But with a home filled with those whom we 
 entirely love and sympathize with, and with some old friends, 
 to whom one can open one's heart fully from time to time, the 
 world's society has rather a bracing influence to make one 
 shake off mere dreams of delight. You must not think me 
 bilious or low-spirited ; I never felt better or more inclined 
 to work ; but one gets pathetic with thinking of the present 
 and the past, and of the days and the people that you and I 
 have seen together, and of the progress which we have all 
 made towards eternity ; for I, who am nearly the youngest of 
 our old set, have completed half my threescore and ten years. 
 Besides, the aspect of the times is really to my mind awful : 
 on one side a party profaning the holiest names by the 
 lowest principles, and the grossest selfishness and ignorance, 
 
 * Some of the points touched upon in this Essay are enlarged upon in 
 his Sermons that on "the Lord's Day." in the third volume, and those on 
 H Phinehas," " Jael," and " the Disobedient Prophet," in the sixth.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 on the other, a party who seem likely KOKOV icana Ia<r6cu, who 
 disclaim and renounce even the very name of that, whose 
 spirit their adversaries have long renounced equally. If I 
 had two necks, 1 should think that I had a very good chance 
 of being hanged by both sides, as I think I shall now by 
 whichever gets the better, if it really does come to a fight. 
 I read now, with the deepest sympathy, those magnificent 
 lines of your uncle's, on the departed year, and am myself, in 
 fact, experiencing some portion of the abuse which he met 
 with from the same party ; while, like him, I feel utterly 
 unable to shelter myself in the opposite party, whose hopes 
 and principles are such as I shrink from with abhorrence. 
 So what Thucydides says of TO. pea-a T>V iro\ira>v often rises 
 upon my mind as a promising augury of my future exaltation, 
 rj TTOV irpb NeaTrvXTjf aimprjdevTos, fj epovye irpb Povy/3etas. 
 
 November 3d. I wrote these two sides in school on Mon- 
 day, and I hope to finish the rest of my letter this evening, 
 while my boys are translating into Latin from my English 
 that magnificent part in the De Oratore about the death of 
 Crassus. I see I have given you enough of discourse on 
 things in general I will only add one thing more ; that I 
 know there are reports in Oxford of my teaching the boys 
 my politics, and setting revolutionary themes. If you hear 
 these reports, will you contradict them flatly ? I never dis- 
 guise or suppress my opinions, but I have been and am most 
 religiously careful not to influence my boys with them ; and I 
 have just now made them begin Russell's Modern Europe 
 again, because we were come to the period of the French 
 Revolution, and I did not choose to enter upon that subject 
 with them. As to the revolutionary themes, I cannot even 
 imagine the origin of so absurd a falsehood, except it be that 
 one of my subjects last half-year was " the particular evils 
 which civilized society is exposed to, as opposed to savage 
 life," which I gave for the purpose of clearing their notions 
 about luxury, and the old declamations about Scythian sim- 
 plicity, &c. ; but I suppose that I am thought to have a long- 
 ing for the woods, and an impatience of the restraint of 
 breeches. It is really too great a folly to be talked of as a 
 revolutionist, with a family of seven young children, and a 
 house and income that I should be rather puzzled to match 
 in America, if I were obliged to change my quarters. My 
 quarrel with the anti-liberal party is, that they are going the 
 way to force my children to America, and to deprive me and 
 
 VOL. i. 22
 
 254 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 every one else of property, station, and all the inestimable 
 benefits of society in England. There is nothing so revolu- 
 tionary, because there is nothing so unnatural and so convul- 
 sive to society as the strain to keep things fixed, when all the 
 world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress ; 
 and the cause of all the evils of the world may be traced to 
 that natural but most deadly error of human indolence and 
 corruption, that our business is to preserve and not to improve. 
 It is the ruin of us all alike, individuals, schools, and nations. 
 
 XX. TO HIS SISTER SUSANNAH ARNOLD. 
 
 Rugby, November, 1830. 
 
 The paramount interest of public affairs outweighs with me 
 even the school itself; and I think not unreasonably, for 
 school and all would go to the dogs, if the convulsion which 
 I dread really comes to pass. I must write a pamphlet in 
 the holidays, or I shall burst. 
 
 No one seems to me to understand our dangers, or at least 
 to speak them out manfully. One good man, who sent a 
 letter to the Times the other day, recommends that the clergy 
 should preach subordination and obedience. I seriously say, 
 God forbid they should ; for, if any earthly thing could ruin 
 Christianity in England, it would be this. If they read Isaiah 
 and Jeremiah and Amos and Habakkuk, they will find that 
 the Prophets, in a similar state of society in Judea, did not 
 preach subordination only or chiefly, but they denounced 
 oppression, and amassing overgrown properties, and grinding 
 the laborers to the smallest possible pittance ; and they de- 
 nounced the Jewish high-church party for countenancing all 
 these iniquities, and prophesying smooth things to please the 
 aristocracy. If the clergy would come forward as one man 
 from Cumberland to Cornwall, exhorting peaceableness on 
 the one side, and justice on the other, denouncing the high 
 rents and the game laws, and the carelessness which keeps 
 the poor ignorant, and then wonders that they are brutal, I 
 verily believe they might yet save themselves and the state. 
 But the truth is that we are living amongst a population 
 whom we treat with all the haughtiness and indifference that 
 we could treat slaves, whom we allow to be slaves in igno- 
 rance, without having them chained and watched to prevent 
 them from hurting us. I only wish you could read Arthur
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 255 
 
 Young's Travels in France in 1789 and 1790, and see what 
 he says of the general outbreak then of the peasantry, when 
 they burnt the chateaux all over France, and ill-used the 
 families of the proprietors, and then compare the orderliness 
 of the French populace now. It speaks volumes for small 
 subdivided properties, general intelligence, and an absence 
 of aristocratical manners and distinctions. We know that, in 
 the first revolution, to be seen in decent clothes was at one 
 time a sure road to the guillotine ; so bitter was the hatred 
 engendered in a brute population against those who had gone 
 on in luxury and refinement, leaving their poorer neighbors 
 to remain in the ignorance and wretchedness of savages, and 
 therefore with the ferocity of savages also. The dissolution 
 of the ministry may do something; but the evil exists in 
 every parish in England ; and there should be a reform in 
 the ways and manners of every parish to cure it. We have 
 got up a dispensary here, and I am thinking of circulating 
 small tracts a la Cobbett in point of style, to show the people 
 the real state of things and their causes. Half the truth 
 might be of little use, but ignorance of all the truth is something 
 fearful, and a knowledge of the whole truth would, I am con- 
 vinced, do nothing but pacify, because the fault of the rich 
 has been a sin of ignorance and thoughtlessness ; they have 
 only done what the poor would have done in their places, 
 because few men's morality rises higher than to take care of 
 themselves, abstaining from actual wrong to others. So you 
 
 have got a long sermon. showed me a copy of the 
 
 Record newspaper, a true specimen of the party, with their 
 infinitely little minds, disputing about anise and cummin, when 
 heaven and earth are coming together around them ; with 
 much of Christian harmlessness, I do not deny, but with 
 nothing of Christian wisdom ; and these are times when the 
 dove can ill spare the addition of the serpent The state of 
 affairs, therefore, keeps me doubtful about going from home 
 in the holidays, because, if there is likely to be any opening 
 for organizing any attempts at general reform, I should not 
 like to be away from my post. But the interest is too in- 
 tense, and makes me live ten lives in one every day. How- 
 ever, I am very well, and perfectly comfortable as far as 
 regards family and school.
 
 256 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 XXI. TO REV. AUGUSTUS HAKE. 
 
 December 24, 1830. 
 
 I have longed very much to see you, over and 
 
 above my general wish that we could meet oftener, ever since 
 this fearful state of our poor has announced itself even to the 
 blindest. My dread is, that when the special Commissions 
 shall have done their work, (necessary and just I most cor- 
 dially agree with you that it is,) the richer classes will again 
 re!r.nsc into their old callousness, and the seeds be sown of 
 a far more deadly and irremediable quarrel hereafter. If 
 you can get Arthur Young's Travels in France, I think you 
 will be greatly struck with their applicability to our own 
 times and country. He shows how deadly was the hatred of 
 the peasantry towards the lords, and how in 1789 the cha- 
 teaux were destroyed, and the families of the gentry insulted, 
 from a common feeling of hatred to all who had made them- 
 selves and the poor two orders, and who were now to pay the 
 penalty of having put asunder what God had joined. At this 
 moment Carlisle tells the poor that they and the rich are 
 enemies, and that to destroy the property of an enemy, whether 
 by fire or otherwise, is always lawful in war a Devil's 
 doctrine, certainly, and devilishly applied ; but unquestionably 
 our aristocratical manners and habits have made us and the 
 poor two distinct and unsympathizing bodies ; and from want 
 of sympathy, I fear the transition to enmity is but too easy 
 when distress embitters the feelings, and the sight of others 
 in luxury makes that distress still more intolerable. This is 
 the plague-spot to my mind in our whole state of society, 
 which must be removed, or the whole must perish. And 
 under God it is for the clergy to come forward boldly, and 
 begin to combat it. If you read Isaiah, chap. v. iii. xxxii. ; 
 Jeremiah, chap. v. xxii. xxx.; Amos, iv. ; Habakkuk, ii. ; and 
 the Epistle of St. James, written to the same people a little 
 before the second destruction of Jerusalem, you will be struck, 
 I think, with the close resemblance of our own state to that 
 of the Jews ; while the state of the Greek Churches to whom 
 St. Paul wrote is wholly different, because from their thin 
 population and better political circumstances, poverty among 
 them is hardly noticed, and our duties to the poor are conse- 
 quently much less prominently brought forward. And un- 
 luckily our Evangelicals read St. Paul more than any other 
 part of the Scriptures, and think very little of consulting most
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 257 
 
 fho<?e parts of Scriptures which are addressed to persons 
 circumstanced most like ourselves. I want to get up a real 
 Poor Man's Magazine, which should not bolster up abuses 
 and veil iniquities, nor prose to the poor as to children ; but 
 should address them in the style of Cobbett, plainly, boldly, 
 and in sincerity, excusing nothing concealing nothing and 
 misrepresenting nothing but speaking the very whole truth 
 in love Cobbett-like in style but Christian in spirit. Now 
 you are the man I think to join with me in such a work, and 
 
 most earnestly do I wish that you would think of it 
 
 I should be for putting my name to whatever I wrote of this 
 nature, for I think it is of great importance that our addresses 
 should be those of substantive and tangible persons, not of 
 anonymous shadows. 
 
 XXII. TO REV. H. MASSINGBEKD. 
 
 Rugby, February, 1831. 
 
 This is my constant defence of a liberal govern- 
 ment The high wisdom and purity of their principles are 
 overwhelming to their human infirmity, and amidst such a 
 mass of external obstacles : but what do we gain by getting 
 in exchange men who cannot fall short of their principles only 
 because their principles are zero ? As to the budget, I liked 
 it in its first state, although the Faex Romuli, i. e. the fund- 
 holders, made such an outcry about it. What between the 
 landed aristocracy and the moneyed aristocracy, the interests 
 of the productive classes are generally sure to go to the wall ; 
 and this goes on for a time, till at last the squeeze gets 
 intolerable, and then productive classes put up their backs, 
 and push in their turn so vigorously, that rank and property 
 get squeezed in their turn against the wall opposite. O 
 utinam ! that they would leave each other their fair share of 
 the road ; for I honor aristocracy in its proper place, and in 
 France should try to raise it with all my might, for there it 
 is now too low, simply because it was once too high. Dii 
 omen avertant, and may the Tories who are hoping to defeat 
 the Ministers on the Reform question, remember how bitterly 
 the French aristocracy had cause to repent their triumph 
 over Turgot. " Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta, move- 
 bo," is the cry of Reform when, long repulsed and scorned, 
 she is on the point of changing her visage to that of Revolu- 
 tion. What you say about the progress of a people towards 
 22* Q
 
 258 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 liberty, and their unfitness for it at an earlier stage, I fully 
 agree in. If ever my Thucydides falls in your way, you 
 will find in the Appendix, No. 1, a full dissertation on this 
 matter. 
 
 XXIII. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OP DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, March 7, 1881. 
 
 I am most truly obliged to you for all your advice and 
 collected opinions about the Register. Now, certainly, I 
 never should embark in such a scheme for my own amuse- 
 ment I have enough to do in all reason. I am not so 
 craving after the honor of appearing in print, as to wish to 
 turn newspaper writer on that account I should most wish 
 that the thing were not needed at all ; next, that it might be 
 done by somebody else, without my taking part in it But 
 all seem to agree that it is needed, grievously needed, and 
 will anybody else undertake it ? That is to my mind the 
 real question. For if not, I think there is a great call for 
 much to be risked, and much to be braved, and the thing 
 done imperfectly is better than not done at all. So much for 
 
 the principle The aid of liberal Tories I should be 
 
 most thankful for, and I earnestly crave it ; but never will I 
 join with the High-Church party It would be ex- 
 posing myself to the fate of Amphiareus with a vengeance, 
 for such co-operation would sink anything into the earth, or 
 
 else render it such that it had better be sunk Most 
 
 earnestly would I be Conservative ; but defend me from the 
 Conservative party i. e. from those who call themselves so 
 par excellence. Above all, I cannot understand why a failure 
 should be injurious to future efforts. A bad history of any 
 one particular period may doubtless hinder sensible men from 
 writing upon the same period ; but I cannot see how a foolish 
 newspaper, dying in 1831, should affect a wise one in 1832 ; 
 and if the thing is impracticable rei natura, then, neither 
 mine, nor any other with the same views, will ever answer. 
 Certainly our failure is very conceivable very probable if 
 you will ; but something must be risked, and I think the ex- 
 perimentum will be made " in corpore vili ; " for all the damage 
 will be the expense which it will cost me, and that of course 
 I shall not stand beyond a certain point Ergo, I shall try 
 a first number In the opinions I have already re- 
 ceived, I have been enough reminded of Gaffer Grist, Gaffer's
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 259 
 
 eon, and a little jackass, &c., but I have learned this good 
 from it, i. e. to follow my own judgment, adopting from the 
 opinions of others just what I approve of, and no more. One 
 thing you may depend on, that nothing shall ever interfere 
 with my attention to the school. Thucydides, Register and 
 all, should soon go to the dogs if they were likely to do that. 
 I have got a gallows at last, and am quite happy ; it is like 
 getting a new twenty-horse power in my capacities for work. 
 I could laugh like Democritus himself at the notion of my 
 being thought a dangerous person, when I hang happily on 
 my gallows, or make it serve as a target to spear at. 
 
 XXIV. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, March 20, 1831. 
 
 . . . '. . I was reminded of you when I heard of the great 
 loss that all Europe has sustained in the sudden death of 
 Niebuhr. I know your personal admiration and regard for 
 him, and that you would feel his loss privately as well as 
 publicly. Besides all this, the exceedingly anxious state of 
 public affairs has naturally made me think of you, whose 
 views on those matters I have found to be so entirely in 
 agreement with my own. Our accounts of Italy are very im- 
 perfect, but there have been reports of disturbances in Rome 
 itself, which made me wish that you and your family were in 
 a more tranquil country, or at least in one, where, if their 
 were any commotions, you might be able to be of more ser- 
 vice than you could be amongst foreigners and Italians. 
 
 I was again in Italy this last summer We were 
 
 at Venice during the Revolution at Paris, and the first intel- 
 ligence I heard of it was from the postmaster at the little 
 town of Bludenz in the Vorarlberg. The circumstances under 
 which I first heard of it, will never, I think, depart from my 
 memory. We had been enjoying the most delightful summer 
 weather throughout our tour, and particularly in all the early 
 part of that very day ; when just as we arrived at Bludenz, 
 about four or five in the afternoon, the whole sky was sud- 
 denly overcast, the wind arose violently, and everything an- 
 nounced the approach of a complete Alpine storm. We were 
 in the very act of putting up the head of the carriage and 
 preparing for the coming rain, when the postmaster, in answer 
 to an observation of mine about the weather when I had 
 passed through France a few weeks before, seemed to relieve
 
 260 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 himself by telling me of all the troubles that were then raging. 
 His expression was, " Alles ist iibel in Frankreich," the mere 
 tumult and violence of political quarrels seeming to the in- 
 habitant of a Tyrolese valley, as something shocking, because 
 it was so unpeaceful. Hearing only indistinct accounts of 
 what was going on, we resolved not to enter France immedi- 
 ately, but to go round by the Rhine through Wirtemberg and 
 Baden ; a plan which I shall now ever think of with pleasure, 
 as otherwise I never should have seen Niebuhr. I was very 
 glad, too, to see something more of Germany, only it was 
 rather vexatious to be obliged to pass on so quickly, for I 
 could not wait at Heidelberg long enough to see Creuzer, and 
 my stay even at Bonn was only one afternoon. I had the 
 happiness of sitting three hours with Niebuhr, and he intro- 
 duced me to his poor wife and children. His conversation 
 completely verified the impression which you had given me of 
 his character, and has left me with no recollections but such 
 as are satisfactory to think of now. The news* of the Duke 
 of Orleans' accession to the French throne reached Bonn 
 while I was with Niebuhr, and I was struck with the enthu- 
 siastic joy which he displayed on hearing it. I fully expected 
 that the Revolution in France would lead to one in Belgium ; 
 and indeed, we passed through Brussels scarcely ten days 
 before the insurrection broke out. You are so well acquainted 
 with English politics, that you will take a deep interest in the 
 fate of the Reform Bill, now before Parliament. I believe, 
 that, if it passes now, " Felix saeclorum nascitur ordo ; " that 
 the aristocracy still retain a strong hold on the respect and 
 regard of England, and if their excessive influence is curtailed, 
 they will be driven to try to gain a more legitimate influence, 
 to be obtained by the exercise of those great and good 
 qualities which so many of them possess. At present this may 
 be done ; but five years hence the democratical spirit may have 
 gained such a height, that the utmost virtue on the part of 
 the aristocracy will be unable to save it. And I think nearly 
 the same with regard to the Church. Reform would now, I 
 fully believe, prevent destruction ; but every year of delayed 
 reform strengthens those who wish not to amend, but to 
 destroy. Meanwhile, the moral state of France is to me most 
 awful ; I sympathized fully with the Revolution in July, 
 but, if this detestable warlike spirit gets head amongst the 
 
 * See Extracts from Journals, in 1830, in the Appendix.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 261 
 
 French people, I hope, and earnestly believe, that we shall see 
 another and more effectual coalition of 1815 to put it down. 
 Nothing can be more opposite than Liberalism and Bona- 
 partism ; and, I fear, the mass of the French people are more 
 thirsting to renew the old career of spoliation and conquest 
 than to establish or promote true liberty ; " for who loves that 
 must first be wise and good." My hope is that, whatever 
 domestic abuses may exist, Germany will never forget the 
 glorious struggle of 1813, and will know that the tread of a 
 Frenchman on the right bank of the Rhine is the worst of 
 all pollutions to her soil. And I trust and think, that the 
 general feeling in England is strong on this point, and that 
 the whole power of the nation would be heartily put forth to 
 strangle in the birth the first symptoms of Napoleonism. I 
 
 was at a party at in the summer at Geneva, where I 
 
 met Thierry, the historian of " Les Gaulois," and the warlike 
 spirit which I perceived, even then, in the French liberals, 
 made a deep impression upon me. 
 
 XXV. TO JOHN WARD, ESQ. 
 
 (Co-editor with him of the Englishman's Register.) 
 
 Rugby, April 27, 1831. 
 
 Your own articles I have carefully read over ; and, in style, 
 they more than answer all my expectations. Still, as we are 
 beginning a work which must take its character chiefly from 
 us two, I will fairly say that, considering for whom we are 
 principally writing, I think the spirit too polemical. When 
 I speak of the aristocracy of England bearing hard upon the 
 poor, I always mean the whole class of gentlemen, and not the 
 nobility or great landed and commercial proprietors. I can- 
 not think that you or I suffer from any aristocracy above us, 
 but we ourselves belong to a part of society which has not 
 done its duty to the poor, although with no intention to the 
 contrary, but much the reverse. Again, I regard the Minis- 
 terial Reform Bill as a safe and a necessary measure, and I 
 should, above all things, dread its rejection ; but I cannot be 
 so sanguine as you are about its good effects ; because I think 
 that the people are quite as likely to choose men who will 
 commit blunders and injustice as the boroughmongers are, 
 though not exactly of the same sort, Above all, in writing to 
 the lower people my object is much more to improve them 
 morally than politically ; and I would, therefore, carefully
 
 262 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 avoid exciting political violence in them Now so far 
 
 as the Register is concerned, I care comparatively little about 
 the Reform Bill, but I should wish to explain, as you have 
 done most excellently, the baseness of corruption on one hand, 
 and as I think you might do, the mischief of party and popu- 
 lar excitement on the other. I should urge the duty of trying 
 to learn the merits of the case, and that an ignorant vote is 
 little better than a corrupt one, where the ignorance could in 
 any degree be helped. But in such an address I would not 
 assume that the Reform Bill would do all sorts of good, and 
 that every honest man must be in favor of it : because such 
 assertions, addressed to ignorant men, are doing the very 
 thing I deprecate, i. e. trying rather to get their vote, than to 
 make that vote, whether it be given for us or against us, really 
 independent and respectable. Again, with the debt. It is 
 surely a matter of importance to show that the greatest part 
 of our burthens is owing to this, and not to present extrava- 
 gance. It affords a memorable lesson against foolish and un- 
 just wars, and the selfish carelessness with which they were 
 waged. This you have put very well, and have properly put 
 down the nonsense of the " Debt being no harm." Urge all 
 this as strongly as you will, to prevent any repetition of the 
 loan system for the tune to come. But the fundholders are 
 not to blame for the Debt ; they lent their money : and if the 
 money was wasted, that was no fault of theirs. Pay the debt 
 off, if you will and can, or make a fair adjustment of the ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages of different sorts of property, with 
 a view of putting them all on equal terms ; but surely the 
 fundholder's dividends are as much his lawful property as a 
 landholder's estate, or a merchant's or manufacturer's capital, 
 liable justly, like all other property, to the claims of severe 
 national distress ; but only together with other property, and 
 by no means as if it were more just in the nation to lay hands 
 on the fundholder's dividends than on the profits of your law 
 or of my school. Nor can the fundholders be fairly said to 
 be living in idleness at the expense of the nation in any in- 
 vidious sense, any more than your clients who borrowed my 
 money could say it of me, if they had borrowed 10,000 of 
 me instead of 300, and then chose to go and fool it away 
 in fireworks and illuminations. If they had spent the prin- 
 cipal, no doubt they would find it a nuisance to pay the 
 interest, but still, am I to be the loser, or can I fairly be 
 said, if I get my interest duly paid, to be living at their ex-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 263 
 
 pense? Besides, as a mere matter of policy, we should be 
 ejected at once from most of the quarters where we might 
 otherwise circulate, if we are thought to countenance in any 
 degree the notion of a " sponge." * 
 
 The "tea monopoly," as you call it, involves the whole 
 question of the Indian charter, and in fact of the Indian 
 empire. The " timber monopoly " involves far more questions 
 than I can answer, about Canada, and the shipping interest, 
 and whether the economical principle of buying where you 
 can buy cheapest, is always to be acted upon by a nation 
 merely because it is economically expedient. Even about the 
 Corn Laws, there are difficulties connected with the question, 
 that are not to be despised, and 1 would rather not cut the 
 
 knot so abruptly I wish to distinguish the Register 
 
 from all other papers by two things : that politics should hold 
 in it just that place which they should do in a well-regulated 
 mind ; that is, as one field of duty, but by no means the most 
 important one ; and that with respect to this field, our duty 
 should rather be to soothe than to excite, rather to furnish 
 facts, and to point out the difficulties of political questions, 
 than to press forward our own conclusions. There are pub- 
 lications enough to excite the people to political reform ; my 
 object is moral and intellectual reform, which will be sure 
 enough to work out political reform in the best way, and my 
 writing on politics would have for its end, not the forwarding 
 any political measure, but the so purifying, enlightening, so- 
 bering, and, in one word, Christianizing men's notions and 
 feelings on political matters, that from the improved tree may 
 come hereafter a better fruit. With any lower views, or for 
 the sake of furthering any political measures, or advocating 
 a political patty, I should think it wrong to engage in the 
 Register at all, and certainly would not risk my money in the 
 attempt to set it afloat 
 
 XXVI. TO HIS SISTER SUSANNAH ARNOLD. 
 
 Rugby, April, 1831. 
 
 I should like you to see 's letter to me about 
 
 the Register ; the letter of a really good man and a thinking 
 one, and a really liberal one. I wrote to him to thank him, 
 
 * The proposal alluded to was the taxation of the funds distinctly from 
 other property, as in the plan proposed by Lord Althorp's first budget.
 
 264 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 and got the kindest of answers in return, in which he con- 
 cludes by saying that he cannot help taking in the Register 
 after all when it does make its appearance. Those are the 
 men whom I would do everything in my power to conciliate, 
 because I honor and esteem them ; but for the common 
 Church and King Tories, I never would go one hair's breadth 
 to please them ; for their notions, principles they are not, 
 require at all times and at all places to be denounced as 
 founded on ignorance and selfishness, and as having been in- 
 variably opposed to truth and goodness from the days of the 
 Jewish aristocracy downwards. It is therefore nothing but 
 what I should most wish, that such opinions and mine should 
 
 be diametrically opposite Not that I anticipate with 
 
 much confidence any great benefits to result from the Reform 
 Bill ; but the truth is, that we are arrived at one of those 
 periods in the progress of society when the constitution natu- 
 rally undergoes a change, just as it did two centuries ago. It 
 was impossible then for the king to keep down the higher 
 part of the middle classes ; it is impossible now to keep down 
 the middle and lower parts of them. All that resistance to 
 these natural changes can effect is to derange their operation, 
 and make them act violently and mischievously, instead of 
 healthfully or at least harmlessly. The old state of things is 
 gone past recall, and all the efforts of all the Tories cannot 
 save it, but they may by their folly, as they did in France, 
 get us a wild democracy, or a military despotism in the room 
 of it, instead of letting it change quietly into what is merely 
 a new modification of the old state. One would think that 
 people who talk against change were literally as well as meta- 
 phorically blind, and really did not see that everything in 
 themselves and around them is changing every hour by the 
 necessary laws of its being. 
 
 XXVII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, May 2, 1831. 
 
 Every selfish motive would deter me from the 
 
 Register ; it will be a pecuniary loss, it will bring me no 
 credit, but much trouble and probably some abuse, and some 
 of my dearest friends look on it not only coldly, but with aver- 
 sion. But I do think it a most solemn duty to make the at- 
 tempt. I feel our weakness, and that what I can hope to do 
 is very little, and perhaps will be nothing ; but if I can but
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 265 
 
 excite others to follow the same plan, I shall rejoice to be su- 
 perseded by them, if they will do the thing more effectually. 
 I have this morning been over to Coventry to make the re- 
 quired affidavit of Proprietorship, and to sign the bond for 
 the payment of the advertisement duty. And No. 1 will 
 really appear on Saturday with an opening article of mine, 
 and a religious one. The difficulty of the undertaking is in- 
 deed most serious ; all the Tories turn from me as a Liberal, 
 whilst the strong Reformers think me timid and half corrupt, 
 because I will not go along with them or turn the Register 
 into a new " Examiner " or " Ballot." So that I dare say my 
 fate will be that of TO peaa r>v TTO\IT>V from the days of Thu- 
 cydides downwards. 
 
 I wrote to Parker immediately on the receipt of your let- 
 ter, proposing to him either to give up [Thucydides] altogether 
 except the Appendices, putting all my materials of every sort 
 into his hands freely to dispose of, or else to share with him 
 all the expenses of the next volume, and to refund at once 
 what I have already received for the first. I have told him 
 often before, and now have told him again, that I cannot do 
 it quickly : and that I never meant or would consent to de- 
 vote to it every spare moment of my time, so as to leave my- 
 self no liberty for any other writing. I have written nothing 
 for two years but Thucydides and Sermons for the boys ; but 
 though I will readily give up writing merely for my own 
 amusement, or fame, or profit, I cannot abandon what I think 
 is a positive duty, such as the attempting at least the Register. 
 Parker wrote immediately a very kind letter, begging me to 
 continue the editorship as at present, and stating in express 
 words " that though advantage might arise from the early com- 
 pletion of the book, no injury whatever has been sustained by 
 him, or is likely to be sustained." 
 
 I am proprietor of the Register, and will be answerable for 
 it up to a certain point ; but I cannot pretend to say that I 
 shall see everything that is inserted in it, or that I should ex- 
 punge everything with which I did not agree, although I cer- 
 tainly should, if the disagreement were great, or the opinions 
 so differing seemed to me likely to be mischievous. I have 
 no wish to conceal anything about it, and if I cannot control 
 it to my mind, or find the thing to be a failure, I will instantly 
 withdraw it. Sed Dii meliora piis. 
 
 VOL. i. 23
 
 266 LIFE OF DR. ABNOLD. 
 
 XX VIII. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, June 11, 1831. 
 
 I confess that your last letter a good deal grieved me, not 
 at all personally, but as it seemed to me to give the death- 
 blow to my hopes of finding co-operators for the Register. 
 That very article upon the Tories has been objected to as 
 being too favorable to them, so what is a man to do ? You 
 will see by No. 5, that I do not think the Bill perfect, but 
 still I like it as far as it goes, and especially in its disfran- 
 chisement clauses. But my great object in the Register was 
 to enlighten the poor generally in the best sense of the term ; 
 as it is, no one joins me, and of course my nephew and I can- 
 not do it alone. " What is everybody's business is nobody's," 
 is true from the days of the Peloponnesian confederacy down- 
 wards. Unless a great change in our prospects takes place, 
 the Register will therefore undergo transmigration when the 
 holidays begin ; whether into a set of penny papers, or into a 
 monthly magazine I cannot tell. But I cannot sit still with- 
 out trying to do something for a state of things which often 
 and often, far oftener I believe than any one knows of, comes 
 with a real pang of sorrow to trouble my own private happi- 
 ness. I know it is good to have these sobering reminders, 
 and it may be my impatience, that I do not take them merely 
 as awakeners and reminders to myself. Still, ought we not to 
 fight against evil, and is not moral ignorance, such as now so 
 sadly prevails, one of the worst kinds of evil ? 
 
 XXIX. TO W. TOOKE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, June 18, 1831. 
 
 I must take the earliest opportunity of thanking you most 
 heartily for your active kindness towards me, to which I am 
 indebted for the most gratifying offer* announced to me in 
 your letter of yesterday. I feel doubly obliged to you both 
 for your good opinion of me, and for your kind recollection of 
 me I trust that you will not think me the less grate- 
 ful to you, because I felt that I ought not to avail myself of 
 the Chancellor's offer. Engaged as I am here, I could not 
 reside upon a living, and I would not be satisfied to hold one 
 
 * Viz. of a stall in Bristol Cathedral, with a living attached to it,-, 
 offered to him by Lord Brougham.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 267 
 
 without residence. I have always strenuously maintained that 
 the clergy engaged in education skould have nothing to do 
 with church benefices, and I should be very unwilling to let 
 my own practice contradict what I really believe to be a very 
 wholesome doctrine. But I am sure that I value the offer 
 quite as much, and feel as heartily obliged both to the Chan- 
 cellor and to you for it, as if I had accepted it. 
 
 In this day's number of the Register there is a 
 
 letter on the " Cottage Evenings," condemning very decidedly 
 their unchristian tone. It is not written by me, but I confess 
 that I heartily agree with it. You know of old how earnestly 
 I have wished to join your Useful Knowledge Society ; and 
 how heartily on many points I sympathize with them. This 
 very work, the " Cottage Evenings," might be made everything 
 that I wish, if it were but decidedly Christian. I delight in 
 its plain and sensible tone, and it might be made the channel 
 of all sorts of information, useful and entertaining ; but, as it 
 is, so far from co-operating with it, I must feel utterly averse 
 to it. To enter into the deeper matters of conduct and prin- 
 ciple, to talk of our main hopes and fears, and yet not to speak 
 of Christ, is absolutely, to my mind, to circulate poison. In 
 such points as this, " He that is not with us is against us." 
 
 It has occurred to me that the circumstance of some of the 
 principal members of the Useful Knowledge Society being 
 now in the government, is in itself a strong reason why the 
 Society should take a more decided tone on matters of religion. 
 Undoubtedly their support of that Society, as it now stands, 
 is a matter of deep grief and disapprobation to a large pro- 
 portion of the best men in this kingdom, while it encourages 
 the hopes of some of the very worst. And it would be, I do 
 verily think, one of the greatest possible public blessings, if, 
 as they are honest, fearless, and enlightened against political 
 corruption, and, as I hope they will prove, against ecclesiasti- 
 cal abuses also, so they would be no less honest and fearless 
 and truly wise in laboring to Christianize the people, in spite 
 of the sneers and opposition of those who understand full well 
 that, if men do * not worship God, they at once by that very 
 omission worship most surely the power of evil. 
 
 You will smile at my earnestness or simplicity ; but it does 
 
 * " There is something to me almost awful," he used to say, speaking of 
 Lord Byron's Cain, " in meeting suddenly in the works of such a man, so 
 great and solemn a truth as is expressed in that speech of Lucifer, ' He who 
 bows not to God hath bowed to me.' "
 
 268 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 strongly excite me to see so great an engine as your Society, 
 and one whose efforts I would so gladly co-operate with, and 
 which could effect so easily what I alone am vainly struggling 
 at, to see this engine at the very least neutralizing its power 
 of doing good, and, I fear, doing in some respects absolute 
 evil. On the other side, the Tories would not have my assist- 
 ance in religious matters, because they so disapprove of my 
 politics ; and in the mean time the people, in this hour of their 
 utmost need, get either the cold deism of the Cottage Even- 
 ings, or the folly of the Cottager's Monthly Visitor. Would 
 the Committee accept my assistance for those " Cottage Even- 
 ings " ? I would give a larger sum than I should be thought 
 sane to mention, if I might but once see this great point 
 effected.* 
 
 XXX. TO MRS. FLETCHER. 
 (After the death of her son.) 
 
 Rugby, August, 1831. 
 
 I know that you are rich in friends, and it seems 
 
 b'ke presumption in me to say it ; but I entreat you earnestly 
 
 to remember that M and myself regard you and yours 
 
 with such cordial respect and affection, that it would give us 
 real pleasure, if either now or hereafter we can be of any use 
 whatever in any arrangements to be made for your grand- 
 children. I feel that it would be a delight to me to be of any 
 service to fatherless children, contemplating, as I often do, 
 the possibih'ty of myself or their dear mother being taken 
 away from our own little ones. And I feel it the more, be- 
 cause I confess that I think evil days are threatening, insomuch 
 that, whenever I hear of the death of any one that is dear to 
 me, there mixes with my sense of my own loss a sort of joy 
 tfiat he is safe from the evil to come. Still more strong is 
 my desire that all Christ's servants who are left should draw 
 nearer every day to him, and to one another, in every feeling 
 and every work of love. 
 
 * From, a later letter to the same. "I cannot tell yon how much I was 
 delighted by the conclusion of the article on Mirabeau, in the Penny Maga- 
 zine of May 12. That article is exactly a specimen of what I wished to 
 see, but done far better than I could do it. I never wanted articles on 
 religious subjects half so much as articles on common subjects written 
 with a decidedly Christian tone. History and Biography are far better 
 vehicles of good, I think, than any direct comments on Scripture, or Essays 
 on Evidences." (The article in question was by Mr. Charles Knight)
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 269 
 
 XXXI. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Skipton, July 11, 1831. 
 
 The Register is now dead, to revive however in 
 
 another shape ; but I could not afford at once to pay all, and 
 to write all, and my nephew's own business hindered him from 
 attending to it sufficiently, and it thus devolved on the mere 
 publisher, who put in things of which I utterly disapproved. 
 But the thing has excited attention in some quarters, just as 
 I wished ; all the articles on the laborers were copied at 
 length into one of the Sheffield papers, and, when the Regis- 
 ter died, the Sheffield proprietor wrote up to our editor, wish- 
 ing to engage the writer of those articles to continue them 
 for his own paper. By a strange coincidence I happened to 
 walk into the office of this very paper, at Sheffield, to look at 
 the division on the Reform Bill, knowing nothing of the ap- 
 plication made to our editor in town. I saw the long quota- 
 tion from the Register, and as the proprietor of the paper 
 happened to be in the shop, I talked to him about it, and 
 finally told him who I was, and what were my objects in the 
 Register. He spoke of those articles on the laborers being 
 read with great interest by the mechanics and people of that 
 class, and I have promised to send him a letter or two in 
 continuation. 
 
 XXXII. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 August 12, 1831. 
 Touching the Magazine, I think it Sfiirepov TT\OVV 
 
 in comparison with a weekly paper; but ir\fov rjfj.i<ru TTUVTOS. 
 I will join in it gladly, and, if required, try to undertake even 
 the editorship, only let something be done. I found all the 
 articles about the laborers in my Register had been copied 
 into the Sheffield Courant, and the proprietor told me that 
 they had excited some interest. Thus even a little seed may 
 be scattered about, and produce more effect than we might 
 calculate on ; by all means let us sow while we can. 
 
 What do Mayo and you say to the cholera ? Have you 
 read the accounts of the great fifty years' pestilence of the 6th 
 century, or of that of the 14th, both of which seem gradually 
 io have travelled like the cholera ? How much we have to 
 learn about the state of the atmosphere and the causes that 
 effect it ! It seems to me that there must be a " morbus creli," 
 
 23*
 
 270 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 which at particular periods favors the spread of disorders, 
 and thus, although the cholera is contagious, yet it also origi- 
 nates in certain constitutions under a certain state of atmos- 
 phere, and then is communicated by contagion to many who 
 would not have originated it themselves ; while many again 
 are so antipathetic to it, that neither contagion nor infection 
 will give it them. Agathias says that the old Persian and 
 Egyptian philosophers held that there were certain periodical 
 revolutions of time, fraught with evil to the human race, and 
 others during which they were exempt from the worst sort of 
 visitations. This is mysticism ; yet, from Thucydides down- 
 wards, men have remarked that these visitations do not come 
 single ; and, although the connection between plague and fam- 
 ine is obvious, yet that between plague and volcanic phenom- 
 ena is not so ; and yet these have been coincident in the most 
 famous instances of long travelling pestilences hitherto on 
 record. Nor is there much natural connection between the 
 ravages of epidemic disease, and the moral and political crisis 
 in men's minds, such as we now seem to be witnessing. 
 
 XXXIII. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONK. 
 
 (In answer to a question about Irvlngism at Port Glasgow. ) 
 
 Rugby, October 25, 1831. 
 
 If the thing be real, I should take it merely as 
 
 a sign of the coming of the day of the Lord, the only u^e, 
 as far as I can make out, that ever was derived from the gift 
 of tongues. I do not see that it was ever made a vehicle of 
 instruction, or ever superseded the study of tongues, but that 
 it was merely a sign of the power of God, a man being for the 
 time transformed into a mere instrument to utter sounds which 
 he himself understood not. ..... However, whether this 
 
 be a real sign or no, I believe that " the day of the Lord " is 
 coming, i. e. the termination of one of the great ai&vfs of the 
 human race ; whether the final one of all or not, that I be- 
 lieve no created being knows or can know. The termination 
 of the Jewish mow in the first century, and of the Roman aluv 
 in the fifth and sixth, were each marked by the same concur- 
 rence of calamities, wars, tumults, pestilences, earthquakes, 
 &c., all marking the time of one of God's peculiar seasons of 
 visitation.* And society in Europe seems going on fast for a 
 
 * For the same belief in the connection of physical with moral convul.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 271 
 
 similar revolution, out of which Christ's Church will emerge 
 in a new position, purified, I trust, and strengthened by the 
 destruction of various earthly and evil mixtures that have 
 corrupted it. But I have not the slightest expectation of 
 what is commonly meant by the Millennium, and I wonder 
 more and more that any one can so understand Scripture as 
 to look for it. As for the signs of the times in England, I 
 look nowhere with confidence : politically speaking, I respect 
 and admire the present government. The ministry, I sin- 
 cerely believe, would preserve ah 1 our institutions by reforming 
 them ; but still I cannot pretend to say that they would do 
 this on the highest principles, or that they keep their eye on 
 the true polar star, how skilfully soever they may observe 
 their charts, and work their vessel. But even in this I think 
 
 them far better than the Tories We talk, as much 
 
 as we dare talk of anything two months distant, of going to 
 the Lakes in the winter, that I may get on in peace with 
 Thucydides, and enjoy the mountains besides. 
 
 XXXIV. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, October 26, 1831. 
 
 I spear daily, as the Lydians used to play in the 
 
 famine, that I may at least steal some portion of the day from 
 thought. My family, the school, and, thank God, the town 
 also, are all full of restful and delightful thoughts and images. 
 All there is but the scene of wholesome and happy labor, 
 and as much to refresh the inward man, with as little to dis- 
 turb him as this earth, since Paradise, could, I believe, ever 
 present to any one individual. But my sense of the evils of 
 the times, and to what prospects I am bringing up my children, 
 is overwhelmingly bitter. All in the moral and physical world 
 appears so exactly to announce the coming of the " great day 
 of the Lord," i. e. a period of fearful visitation to terminate 
 the existing state of things, whether to terminate the whole 
 existence of the human race, neither man nor angel knows, 
 that no entireness of private happiness can possibly close my 
 mind against the sense of it. Meantime it makes me very 
 anxious to do what work I can, more especially as I think the 
 
 sions, see Niebuhr, Lebens-nachrichten, ii. p. 167. It may be as well to add. 
 that the view above expressed of the apostolical gift of tongues, was founded 
 on a deliberate study of the passages which relate to it, especially 1 Cor. 
 xiv. 14, 13, 28, 2L
 
 272 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 prospect of the cholera makes life even more than ordinarily 
 uncertain ; and I am inclined to think, from my own peculiar 
 constitution, that I should be very likely to be attacked by 
 
 it. 
 
 I believe I told you that I am preparing for the press a 
 new volume of Sermons, and I wish a small book on the Evi- 
 dences * to accompany them ; not a book to get up like Paley, 
 but taking the real way in which the difficulties present them- 
 selves, half moral, half intellectual, to the mind of an intel- 
 ligent and well-educated young man ; a book which, by God's 
 blessing, may be a real stay in that state of mind when neither 
 an address to the intellect alone, nor one to the moral feel- 
 ings, is alone most likely to answer. And I wish to make the 
 main point not the truth of Christianity per se, as a theorem 
 to be proved, but the wisdom of our abiding by it, and whether 
 there is anything else for it but the life of beast or of devil. 
 I should like to do this if I could before I die ; for I think 
 that tunes are coming when the Devil will fight his best in 
 good earnest. I must not write any more, for work rises on 
 every side open-mouthed upon me. 
 
 XXXV. TO REV. JULIUS HARE. 
 
 November 9, 1831. 
 
 (After thanking him for the first number of the Philologi- 
 cal Museum, and wishing him success.) For myself, I am 
 afraid Thucydides will have shown you that I am a very poor 
 philologist, and my knowledge is too superficial on almost 
 every point to enable me to produce anything worth your 
 having ; and to say the truth, every moment of spare time I 
 wish to devote to writing on Religion or TroXtTucij. I use the 
 Greek word, because " politics " is commonly taken in a much 
 baser sense. I know I can do but little, perhaps nothing, 
 but the " Liberavi animam meam " is a consolation ; and I 
 would fain not see everything good and beautiful sink in ruin 
 without making a single effort to lessen the mischief. Since 
 the death of the Register, I am writing constantly in one of 
 the Sheffield papers, the proprietor of which I earnestly be- 
 lieve sincerely wishes to do good. 
 
 I heartily sympathize with the feeling of your concluding 
 
 * This he partially accomplished in the 17th Sermon in the second vol. 
 nine, and the llth aud 19th in the third. Th*> work itself was begun, buf 
 never finished.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 273 
 
 paragraph in your note, I mean but who dare look for- 
 ward now to anything ? 
 
 XXXVI. TO THE AKCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, November 8, 1831. 
 
 You must not go to Ireland without a few lines from me. 
 I cannot yet be reconciled to your being on the other side of 
 St. George's Channel, or to thinking of Oxford as being with- 
 out you. I do not know where to look for the Mezentius 
 who should " succedat pugnae," when Turnus is gone away. 
 My great ignorance about Ireland is also very inconvenient to 
 me in thinking about your future operations, as I do not know 
 what most wants mending there, or what is likely to be the 
 disposition to mend it in those with whom you will be sur- 
 rounded. But you must not go out with words of evil omen ; 
 and, indeed, I do anticipate much happiness for you, seeing 
 that happiness consists, according to our dear old friend, 
 
 ev fvepyia, and of that you are likely to have enough 
 
 I am a coward about schools, and yet I have not the satis- 
 faction of being a coward Kara irpoaipf<riv ; for I am inclined 
 to think that the trials of a school are useful to a boy's after 
 character, and thus I dread not to expose my boys to it ; while, 
 on the other hand, the immediate effect of it is so ugly, that, 
 like washing one's hands with earth, one shrinks from dirting 
 
 them so grievously in the first stage of the process 
 
 I cannot get over my sense of the fearful state of public 
 affairs : is it clean hopeless that the Church will come for- 
 ward and crave to be allowed to reform itself? I 
 
 can have no confidence in what would be in men like , 
 
 but a death-bed repentance. It can only be done effectually 
 by those who have not, through many a year of fair weather, 
 turned a deaf ear to the voice of reform, and will now be 
 thought only to obey it, because they cannot help it. If I 
 were indeed a radical, and hated the Church, and longed for 
 a democracy, I should be jolly enough, and think that all was 
 plain sailing ; but as it is, I verily think that neither my 
 spirits nor my occupation, nor even spearing itself, will enable 
 me to be cheerful under such an awful prospect of public 
 evils.
 
 274 LIFE OF DR. ABNOLD. 
 
 XXXVII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Knutsford, December 16, 1831. 
 
 I want to write an Essay on the true use of 
 
 Scripture ; i. e. that it is a direct guide so far forth as we are 
 circumstanced exactly like the persons to whom it was origi- 
 nally addressed ; that where the differences are great, there 
 it is a guide by analogy ; i. e. if so and so was the duty of men 
 so circumstanced, ergo, so and so is the duty of men cir- 
 cumstanced thus otherwise ; and that thus we shall keep the 
 spirit of God's revelation even whilst utterly disregarding the 
 letter, when the circumstances are totally different. E. g. the 
 second commandment is in the letter utterly done away with 
 by the fact of the Incarnation. To refuse them the benefit 
 which we might derive from the frequent use of the crucifix, 
 under pretence of the Second Commandment, is a folly, 
 because God has sanctioned one conceivable similitude of 
 Himself when He declared Himself in the person of Christ 
 The spirit of the commandment not to think unworthily of 
 the Divine nature, nor to lower it, after our own devices, is 
 violated by all unscriptural notions of God's attributes and 
 dealings with men, such as we see and hear broached daily, 
 and, though in a less important degree, by those representa- 
 tions of God the Father which one sees in Catholic pictures, 
 and by what Whately calls peristerolatry, the foolish way in 
 which people allow themselves to talk about God the Holy 
 Ghost, as of a dove. The applications of this principle are 
 very numerous, and embrace, I think, all the principal errors 
 both of the High Church and of the Evangelical party. 
 
 XXXVIH. TO KEV. G. CORNISH. 
 
 RYDAL! ! ! December 23, 1881. 
 
 We are actually here, and going up Nabb's Scar presently, 
 if the morning holds clear : the said Nabb's Scar being the 
 mountain at whose foot our house stands ; but you must not 
 suppose that we are at Rydal Hall ; it is only a house by the 
 road-side, just at the corner of the lane that leads up to 
 Wordsworth's house, with the road on one side of the garden, 
 and the Rotha on the other, which goes brawling away under 
 our windows with its perpetual music. The higher mountains 
 that bound our view are all snow-capped, but it is all snug, 
 and warm and green in the valley, nowhere on earth have
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 275 
 
 I ever seen a spot of more perfect and enjoyable beauty, with 
 not a single object out of tune with it, look which way I will. 
 In another cottage, about twenty yards from us, Capt. Hamil- 
 ton, the author of Cyril Thornton, has taken up his abode for 
 the winter ; close above us are the Wordsworths ; and we are 
 in our own house a party of fifteen souls, so that we are in no 
 danger of being dull. And I think it would be hard to say 
 which of us all enjoys our quarters the most. We arrived 
 here on Monday, and hope to stay here about a month from 
 the present tune. 
 
 It is indeed a long time since I have written to you, and 
 these are times to furnish ample matter to write or to talk 
 about. How earnestly do I wish that I could see you ; it is 
 the only ungratified wish as to earthly happiness of my most 
 happy life, that I am so parted from so many of my dearest 
 
 friends [After speaking of objections which he had 
 
 heard made to the appointment of Dr. Whately to the Arch- 
 bishopric of Dublin.] Now I am sure that in point of real 
 essential holiness, so far as man can judge of man, there does 
 not live a truer Christian than Whately ; and it does grieve 
 me most deeply to hear people speak of him as of a dangerous 
 and latitudinarian character, because in him the intellectual 
 part of his nature keeps pace with the spiritual instead of 
 being left, as the Evangelicals leave it, a fallow field for all 
 unsightly weeds to flourish in. He is a truly great man in 
 the highest sense of the word, and if the safety and welfare 
 of the Protestant Church in Ireland depend in any degree on 
 human instruments, none could be found, I verily believe, in 
 
 the whole empire, so likely to maintain it I am again 
 
 publishing Sermons, with an essay at the tail, on the Interpre- 
 tation of Scripture, embodying things that I have been think- 
 ing over for the last six or seven years ; and which I hope will 
 be useful to a class whose spiritual wants I am apt to think 
 are sadly provided for young men bringing up for other 
 professions than the church, who share deeply in the intellect- 
 ual activity of the day, and require better satisfaction to the 
 working of their minds than I think is commonly given them. 
 
 XXXIX. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, February 15, 1832. 
 
 A letter from Tucker has this morning informed me of the 
 heavy trial which has fallen upon you. I write because I
 
 276 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 should wish to hear from you under similar circumstances, 
 and because it is unnatural not to assure you at such a mo- 
 ment how dearly your friends at Rugby love you and your 
 dear wife, and how truly they sympathize with your sorrow. 
 Tucker's letter leaves us anxious both for your wife and for 
 little Robert especially for the latter ; it would be a great 
 comfort to hear favorable accounts of them, if you could give 
 them. I will not add one word more. May God strengthen 
 and support you, my dear friend, and bless all his dispensa- 
 tions towards us both, through Jesus Christ. 
 
 XL. TO THE LADY FRANCIS LGERTON. 
 (On the subject of the conversion of a person with atheistical opinions.) 
 
 Rugby, February 15, 1832. 
 
 The subject of the letter which I have had the honor of 
 receiving from you has so high a claim upon the best exer- 
 tions of every Christian, that I can only regret my inability 
 to do it justice. But in cases of moral or intellectual disorder, 
 no less than of bodily, it is difficult to prescribe at a distance ; 
 so much must always depend on the particular constitution of 
 the individual, and the peculiarly weak points in his character. 
 Nor am I quite sure whether the case you mention is one of 
 absolute Atheism, or of Epicurism ; that is to say, whether 
 it be a denial of God's existence altogether, or only of his moral 
 government, the latter doctrine being, I believe, a favorite 
 resource with those who cannot evade the force of the evidences 
 of design in the works of Creation, and yet cannot bear to 
 entertain that strong and constant sense of personal responsi- 
 bility, which follows from the notion of God as a moral 
 governor. At any rate, the great thing to ascertain is, what 
 led to his present state of opinions ; for the actual arguments 
 by which he would now justify them, are of much less con- 
 sequence. The proofs of an intelligent and benevolent Creator 
 are given in my opinion more clearly in Paley's Natural 
 Theology, than in any other book that I know, and the 
 necessity of faith arising from the absurdity of scepticism on 
 the one hand, and of dogmatism on the other, is shown with 
 great power and eloquence in the first article of the second 
 part of Pascal's " Pensees," a book of which there is an English 
 translation by no means difficult to meet with. In many cases 
 the real origin of a man's irreligion is, I believe, ]>oiitical. He
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 277 
 
 dislikes the actual state of society, hates the Church as con- 
 nected with it, and, in his notions, supporting its abuses, and 
 then hates Christianity because it is taught by the Church. 
 Another case is, when a man's religious practice is degenerated, 
 when he has been less watchful of himself and less constant 
 and earnest in his devotions. The consequence is, that his 
 impression of God's real existence, which is kept up by 
 practical experience, becomes fainter and fainter ; and in 
 this state of things it is merely an accident that he remains 
 nominally a Christian ; if he happens to fall in with an anti- 
 christian book, he will have nothing in his own experience to 
 set against the difficulties there presented to him, and so he 
 will be apt to yield to them. For it must be always under- 
 stood that there are difficulties in the way of all religion, 
 such, for instance, as the existence of evil, which can never 
 be fairly solved by human powers ; all that can be done intel- 
 lectually is to point out the equal or greater difficulties of 
 atheism or scepticism ; and this is enough to justify a good 
 man's understanding in being a believer. But the real proof 
 is the practical one ; that is, let a man live on the hypothesis 
 of its falsehood, the practical result will be bad ; that is, a 
 man's besetting and constitutional faults will not be checked ; 
 and some of his noblest feelings will be unexercised, so that 
 if he be right in his opinions, truth and goodness are at vari- 
 ance with one another, and falsehood is more favorable to 
 our moral perfection than truth ; which seems the most 
 monstrous conclusion which the human mind can possibly 
 arrive at It follows from this, that if I were talking with an 
 Atheist, I should lay a great deal of stress on faith as a 
 necessary condition of our nature, and as a gift of God to be 
 earnestly sought for in the way which God has appointed, that 
 is, by striving to do His will. For faith does no violence to 
 our understanding ; but the intellectual difficulties being 
 balanced, and it being necessary to act on the one side or the 
 other, faith determines a man to embrace that side which 
 leads to moral and practical perfection ; and unbelief leads 
 him to embrace the opposite, or what I may call the Devil's 
 religion, which is, after all, quite as much beset with intel- 
 lectual difficulties as God's religion is, and morally is nothing 
 but one mass of difficulties and monstrosities. You may say 
 that the individual in question is a moral man, and you think 
 not unwilling to be convinced of his errors ; that is, he sees 
 the moral truth of Christianity, but cannot be persuaded of it 
 VOL. i. 24
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 intellectually. I should say that such a state of mind is one 
 of very painful trial, and should be treated as such ; that it is 
 a state of mental disease, which like many others is aggra- 
 vated by talking about it, and that he is in great danger of 
 losing his perception of moral truth as well as of intellectual, 
 of wishing Christianity to be false as well as of being unable 
 to be convinced that it is true. There are thousands of 
 Christians who see the difficulties which he sees quite as 
 clearly as he does, and who long as eagerly as he can do 
 for that time when they shall know, even as they are known. 
 But then they see clearly the difficulties of unbelief, and 
 know that even intellectually they are far greater. And in 
 the mean while they are contented to live by faith, and find 
 that in so doing, their course is practically one of perfect light ; 
 the moral result of the experiment is so abundantly satisfac- 
 tory, that they are sure that they have truth on their side. 
 
 I have written a sermon rather than a letter, and perhaps 
 hardly made myself intelligible after all. But the main point 
 is, that we cannot and do not pretend to remove all the intel- 
 lectual difficulties of religion ; we only contend that even in- 
 tellectually unbelief is the more unreasonable of the two, and 
 that practically unbelief is folly, and faith is wisdom. 
 
 If I can be of any further assistance to you in your chari- 
 table labor, I shall be most happy to do my best 
 
 XLI. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, March 7, 1832. 
 
 I thank you for your last letter, and beg to assure you 
 very sincerely, that I shall have great pleasure in placing 
 myself under your directions with regard to this unhappy 
 man ; and as he would probably regard me with suspicion, 
 on account of my profession, I think that you would act with 
 the best judgment hi alluding to me only in general terms, 
 as you propose to do, without mentioning my name. But I 
 say this merely with a view to the man's own feelings towards 
 the clergy, and not from the slightest wish to have my name 
 kept back from him, if you think that it would be better for 
 him to be made acquainted with it. With respect to your 
 concluding question, I confess that I believe conscientious 
 atheism not to exist Weakness of faith is partly constitu- 
 tional, and partly the result of education, and other circum- 
 stances; and this may go intellectually almost as far as
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 279 
 
 scepticism ; that is to say, a man may be perfectly unable to 
 acquire a firm and undoubting belief of the great truths of 
 religion, whether natural or revealed. He may be perplexed 
 with doubts all his days; nay, his fears lest the Gospel should 
 not be true, may be stronger than his hopes that it will. 
 And this is a state of great pain, and of most severe trial, 
 to be pitied heartily, but not to be condemned. I am satisfied 
 that a good man can never get further than this ; for his 
 goodness will save him from unbelief, though not from the 
 misery of scanty faith. I call it unbelief, when a man delib- 
 erately renounces his obedience to God, and his sense of 
 responsibility to Him : and this never can be without some- 
 thing of an evil heart rebelling against a yoke which it does 
 not like to bear. The man you have been trying to convert, 
 stands in this predicament : he says that he cannot find out 
 God, and that he does not believe in Him; therefore he 
 renounces His service, and chooses to make a god of himself. 
 Now, the idea of God being no other than a combination of 
 all the highest excellences that we can conceive, it is so 
 delightful to a good and sound mind, that it is misery to part 
 with it; and such a mind, if it cannot discern God clearly, 
 concludes that the fault is in itself, that it cannot yet reach 
 to God, not that God does not exist. You see there must be 
 an assumption in either case, for the thing does not admit of 
 demonstration, and the assumption that God is, or is not, 
 depends on the degree of moral pain, which a man feels in 
 relinquishing the idea of God. And here, I think, is the 
 moral fault of unbelief: that a man can bear to make so 
 great a moral sacrifice, as is implied in renouncing God. He 
 makes the greatest moral sacrifice to obtain partial satisfaction 
 to his intellect : a believer insures the greatest moral perfec- 
 tion, with partial satisfaction to his intellect also ; entire 
 satisfaction to the intellect is, and can be, attained by neither. 
 Thus, then, I believe, generally, that he who has rejected 
 God, must be morally faulty, and therefore justly liable to 
 punishment. But of course no man can dare to apply this 
 to any particular case, because our moral faults themselves 
 are so lessened or aggravated by circumstances to be known 
 only by Him who sees the heart, that the judgment of those 
 who see the outward conduct only, must ever be given in 
 ignorance.
 
 280 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 XL1I. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, April 6, 1832. 
 
 I could still rave about Rydal, it was a period 
 
 of five weeks of almost awful happiness, absolutely without a 
 cloud ; and we all enjoyed it I think equally, mother, father, 
 and fry. Our intercourse with the Wordsworths was one of 
 the brightest spots of all ; nothing could exceed their friend- 
 liness, and my almost daily walks with him were things not 
 to be forgotten. Once and once only, we had a good fight 
 nbout the Reform Bill during a walk up Greenhead Ghyll to 
 see " the unfinished sheepfold " recorded in " Michael." But 
 I am sure that our political disagreement did not at all inter- 
 fere with our enjoyment of each other's society ; for I think 
 that in the great principles of things we agreed very en- 
 tirely, and only differed as to the TO naff aora. We are 
 thinking of buying or renting a place at Grasmere or Rydal, 
 to spend our holidays at constantly; for not only are the 
 Wordsworths and the scenery a veiy great attraction, but as 
 I had the chapel at Rydal all the time of our last visit, I got 
 acquainted with the poorer people besides, and you cannot 
 tell what a home-like feeling all of us entertain towards the 
 valley of the Rotha, I found that the newspapers so dis- 
 turbed me, that we have given them up, and only take one 
 once a week ; it only vexes me to read, especially when I 
 cannot do anything in the way of writing. But I cannot 
 understand how you, appreciating so fully the dangers of the 
 times, can blame me for doing the little which I can to coun- 
 teract the evil. No one feels more than I do the little fruit 
 which I am likely to produce ; still, I know that the letters 
 have been read and liked by some of the class of men whom 
 I most wish to influence ; and, besides, what do I sacrifice, or 
 what do I risk ? If things go as we fear, it will make very 
 little difference whether I wrote in the Sheffield Courant or 
 no ; whereas, if God yet saves us, I may be abused, as I have 
 been long since, by a certain party ; but it is a mistake to 
 
 suppose that either I or the school suffer by that. I 
 
 quite think that a great deal will depend on the next three 
 or four years, as to the permanent success of Rugby ; we are 
 still living on credit, but of course credit will not last forever, 
 unless there is something to warrant it. Our general style of 
 composition is still bad, and where the fault is, I cannot say ; 
 some of our boys, however, do beautifully ; and one copy of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 281 
 
 Greek verses (Iambic?) on Clitumnus, which was sent in to 
 me about a month ago, was one of the most beautiful school 
 copies I ever saw. I should like to show it to you, or even 
 io your brother Edward ; for I do not think any of his pupils 
 could write better, TOVTO 8e, t>s eiKos, anrdviov. 
 
 XLIII. TO REV. G. COENISH. 
 
 Rugby, June 9, 1832. 
 
 We are again, I believe, going to the Lakes in 
 
 the holidays ; to a great house near the head of Winander- 
 mere, Brathay Hall ; because our dear old house at Rydal is 
 let for a twelvemonth. We all look with delight to our 
 migration, though the half-year has gone on very happily as 
 far as the school is concerned, and I am myself perfectly 
 well ; but in these times of excitement the thirst for a " lodge 
 in some vast wilderness," is almost irresistible. We are 
 going to have a dinner here for all the town on passing the 
 Reform Bill : the thing was to be, and I have been labor- 
 ing to alter its name, and to divest it of everything political, 
 in order that everybody might join in it ; but of all difficult 
 offices, that of a peacemaker seems to me to be one of the 
 hardest. What a delightful man we have in Grenfell, so 
 lively and so warm-hearted. I thought of you and of Bagley 
 Wood, and old times, when I walked with him the other day 
 in the rain to a wood about four miles from here, dug up 
 orchis-roots, and then bathed on our way home, hanging our 
 clothes on a stick under a tree, to save them from being wet 
 
 in the interval I do not wonder at what you say 
 
 about the civility and comph'ance of the people with your 
 instructions, as Rural Dean. I think it is so still, and the 
 game is yet in our hands if we would play it ; but I suppose 
 we shall not play it, and five or ten years hence it will be no 
 longer ours to play. 120,000 copies of the Penny Magazine 
 circulate weekly! We join in kindest love and regards to 
 you all. Would that we might ever meet, before perhaps we 
 meet in America or at sea after the Revolution. 
 
 XLIV. TO REV. J. E. TYLER. 
 
 Rugby, June 10, 1832. 
 
 Your letter interested me exceedingly. I have had some 
 correspondence with the Useful Knowledge people about 
 24*
 
 282 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 their Penny Magazine, and have sent them some things 
 which I am waiting to see whether they will publish. I 
 want to give their Magazine a decidedly Christian character, 
 and then I think it would suit my notions better than any 
 other ; but of course what I have been doing, or may do for 
 them, does not hinder me from doing what I can for you. 
 I only suspect I should wish to liberalize your Magazine, as 
 I wish to Christianize theirs ; and probably your Committee 
 would recalcitrate against any such operation, as theirs may 
 do. - The Christian Knowledge Society has a bad name for 
 the dulness of its publications ; and their contributions to 
 the cause of general knowledge, and enlightening the people 
 in earnest, may seem a little tardy and reluctant. This, 
 however, touches you, as an individual member of the So- 
 ciety, no more than it does myself: only the name of the 
 Society is not in good odor. As for the thing itself, it is 
 one on which I am half wild, and am not sure that I shall 
 not start one at my own expense down here, and call it the 
 Warwickshire Magazine ; and I believe that it would answer 
 in the long run, if there were funds to keep it up for a time ; 
 but " experto crede," it is an expensive work to push an 
 infant journal up hill. The objection to a magazine is its 
 desultoriness and vagueness it is all scraps ; whereas a 
 newspaper has a regular subject, and follows it up con- 
 tinuously. I would try to do this as much as I could in a 
 magazine. I would have in every number one portion of the 
 paper for miscellanies, but I think that in another portion 
 there should be some subjects followed up regularly : e.'g. 
 the history of our present state of society traced backwards ; 
 the history of agriculture, including that of inclosures ; the 
 statistics of different countries, &c., &c. I suppose the 
 object is to instruct those who have few books and a little 
 education ; but all instruction must be systematic, and it is 
 this which the people want : they want to have dpxai before 
 them, and comprehensive outlines of what follows from those 
 apxal ; not a parcel of detached stories about natural his- 
 tory, or this place, or that man, all entertaining enough, 
 but not instructive to minds wholly destitute of anything like 
 a frame, in which to arrange miscellaneous information. 
 And I believe, if done spiritedly, that systematic information 
 would be even more attractive than the present hodge-podge 
 of odds and ends. Above all, be afraid of teaching nothing; 
 it is vain now to say that questions of religion and politics
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 283 
 
 are above the understanding of the poorer classes so they 
 may be, but they are not above their misunderstanding, and 
 they will think and talk about them, so that they had best 
 be taught to think and talk rightly. It is worth while to 
 look at Owen's paper, "The Crisis," or at the "Midland 
 Representative," the great paper of the Birmingham opera- 
 tives. The most abstract points are discussed in them, and 
 the very foundations of all things are daily being probed, 
 as much as by the sophists, whom it was the labor of 
 Socrates' life to combat. Phrases which did well enough 
 formerly, now only excite a sneer ; it does not do to talk to 
 the operatives about our " pure and apostolical church," and 
 " our glorious constitution ; " they have no respect for either ; 
 but one must take higher ground, and show that our object is 
 not to preserve particular institutions, so much as to uphold 
 eternal principles, which are in great danger of falling into 
 disrepute, because of the vices of the institutions which 
 profess to exemplify them. The Church, as it now stands, 
 no human power can save ; my fear is, that, if we do not 
 mind, we shall come to the American fashion, and have no 
 provision made for the teaching Christianity at all. But it 
 is late, and I must go to bed ; and I have prosed to you 
 enough ; but I am as bad about these things as Don Quixote 
 with his knight-errantry, and when once I begin, I do not 
 readily stop. 
 
 XLV. TO HIS NEPHEW, J. WARD, ESQ., ON HIS MARRIAGE. 
 
 Brathay Hall, July 7, 1832. 
 
 A man's life in London, while he is single, may 
 
 be very stirring, and very intellectual, but I imagine that it 
 must have a hardening effect, and that this effect will be 
 more felt every year as the counter tendencies of youth 
 become less powerful. The most certain softeners of a man's 
 moral skin, and sweeteners of his blood, are, I am sure, 
 domestic intercourse in a happy marriage, and intercourse 
 with the poor. It is very hard, I imagine, in our present 
 state of society, to keep up intercourse with God without one 
 or both of these aids to foster it. Romantic and fantastic 
 indolence was the fault of other times and other countries ; 
 here I crave more and more every day to find men unfevered 
 by the constant excitement of the world, whether literary, 
 political, commercial, or fashionable ; men who, while they
 
 284 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 are alive to all that is around them, feel also who is above 
 them. I would give more than I can say, if your Useful 
 Knowledge Society Committee had this last feeling, as 
 strongly as they have the other purely and beneficently. 
 
 I care not for one party or the other, but I do 
 
 care for the country, and for interests even more precious 
 than that of the country, which the present disordered state of 
 the human mind seems threatening. But this mixes strangely 
 with your present prospects, and I hope we may both manage 
 to live in peace with our families in the land of our fathers, 
 without crossing the Atlantic. 
 
 XLVI. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Brathay Hall, July 8, 1882. 
 
 This place is complete rest, such as I wish you could 
 
 enjoy after your far more anxious occupations As 
 
 *o the state of the country, I find my great concern about it 
 omes by accesses, sometimes weighing upon me heavily, and 
 
 then again laid aside as if it were nothing I wish 
 
 that your old notion of editing a family Bible could be re- 
 vived. I do not know anything which more needs to be 
 done, and it would be a very delightful thing if it could be 
 accompanied with really good maps and engravings, which 
 might be done if a large sale could be reckoned upon. Il 
 might be published in penny numbers, not beginning with 
 Genesis, but with some of the most important parts of the 
 New Testament, e. g. St. John's Gospel or the Epistle to 
 the Romans. Some of the historical books of the Old Testa- 
 ment, I should be inclined to publish last of all, as being the 
 least important, whilst the Psalms and some of the Prophets 
 should appear very early. I am even grand enough to aspire 
 after a new, or rather a corrected translation, for I would 
 only alter manifest faults or obscurities, and even then pre- 
 serving as closely as possible the style of the old translation. 
 Many could do this for the New Testament, but where is the 
 man, in England at least, who could do it for the Old ? 
 
 But alas ! for your being at Dublin instead of at 
 
 Canterbury.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 285 
 
 XL VII. TO REV. J. E. TYLER. 
 
 Manchester, July 28, 1832. 
 
 I am on my way to Laleham from the Lakes, to see my 
 poor sister, whose long illness seems now at last on the point 
 of being happily ended. And whilst waiting here for a coach, 
 I have just bought four of the numbers of the Saturday Maga- 
 zine, and think this a good opportunity to answer your last 
 kind letter. The difficulty which occurs to me in your Ser- 
 mon project, is, how to make the work sufficiently systematic, 
 or sufficiently particular. I mean this, a real sermon has very 
 often no sort of connection with its last week's predecessor, or 
 next week's successor ; but then it is appropriate either to 
 something in the service of the day, or else to something in 
 the circumstances of the hearers, which makes it fitting for 
 that especial season. And if it be nothing of any of these, 
 but a mere sermon which might as well be preached on any 
 other day, and in any other place as when and where it is 
 actually preached, then I hold it to be, with rare exceptions, 
 a very dull thing, and a very useless one. Now in a monthly 
 publication of Sermons, you lose all the advantages of local 
 and personal applicability : you have only the applicability 
 of time, or of matter ; that is, your month's sermons may be 
 written on the lessons for the month, or the part of Scripture 
 then read, or on the season of the year, whether natural or 
 ecclesiastical ; or else they may form successive parts of one 
 great whole, to be completed in any given time, and to be 
 announced in the first of the series. But if you publish a 
 mere collection of miscellaneous sermons, I think that you 
 will be wasting your labor. 
 
 Now then practically to the point. Fix on your plan, 
 whether your arrangement be of time or of matter, or of both ; 
 and let me know what part you would like me to take : e. g. 
 whether sermons on any given book of Scripture, or on the 
 Lessons for the Sundays in Advent, or in Lent, or at any other 
 given period ; or sermons for Spring or Winter, &c., adapted 
 either to an agricultural or manufacturing population ; or, if 
 you like the arrangement of matter, give me any subject that 
 you choose, whether of evidence, history, or exhortation upon 
 doctrine, and I will do my best for you : but I cannot write 
 sermons in the abstract. I like to have my own portion of 
 any work to be kept to myself, and you would not thank me
 
 286 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 for copying out for you some of my old sermons out of my 
 paper case. 
 
 I am sorry for what you say about my not writing anything 
 startling ; because it shows how long we have been absent 
 from one another, and that you are beginning to judge me 
 in part upon the reports of others. There are some people 
 whom I must startle, if I am to do any good : and so you 
 think too, I am sure. But to startle the majority of good 
 and sensible men, or to startle so as to disgust at once a 
 majority of any sort, are things which I most earnestly 
 should wish to avoid. At the same time, I do strongly object, 
 on principle, to the use of that glozing, unnatural, and silly 
 language, (for so it is hi us now,) which men use one after 
 another, till it becomes as worn as one of the old shil- 
 lings 
 
 I wish your Saturday Magazine all success ; I do not 
 quite like the introductory article, but I think it improves 
 as it goes along. The print of the departure of the Israelites 
 was a good notion, and well executed ; and I like some of 
 your poetry. I could only do you good by sending you some- 
 thing very radical ; for you will have enough of what is right 
 and proper. But seriously, if I can persuade the Penny 
 Magazine to receive things more in your tone, I think I shall 
 do more good than by writing for you if, as I fear, I cannot 
 do both. In fact, I have for some time past done neither, and 
 I know not how or when I can mend. 
 
 XI/VTII. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, September 6, 1832. 
 
 Have you heard that the Useful Knowledge So- 
 ciety have resolved to publish a Bible, and asked to be 
 
 editor ? Hac tamen lege, that, where doctrine is introduced, 
 the opinions of the different sects of Christians should be fairly 
 stated. Now Evans's Dictionary of all Religions is a useful 
 book, but I do not want exactly to see it made a rider upon 
 the Scriptures. We want something better than this plan. 
 
 I told that I must write to you before I gave 
 
 him any promise of assistance. ! for your Bible plan, or, 
 at least, for the sanction of your name : I think I see the 
 possibility of a true comprehensive Christian Commentary, 
 keeping back none of the counsel of *God, lowering no truth, 
 chilling no lofty or spiritual sentiment, yet neither silly,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD 287 
 
 fanatical, nor sectarian. Your book on Romanism shows 
 how this may be done, and it applies to all sects alike. They 
 are not all error, nor we all truth ; e. g. the Quakers reject 
 the communion of the Lord's Supper, thereby losing a great 
 means of grace ; but are they not tempted to do so by the 
 superstitions which other Christians have heaped upon the 
 institution, and is there not some taint of these in the exhor- 
 tation even in our own Communion Service? And with 
 regard to the greatest truths of all, you know how Pelagianism 
 and Calvinism have encouraged each other, and how the 
 Athanasian Creed, at this day, confirms and aggravates the 
 evils of Unitarianism. I heard some time since, as a matter 
 of fact, that, in the United States, where the Episcopal Church 
 has expelled this creed, the character of Unitarianism is very 
 different from what it is in England, and is returning toward 
 high Arianism, just as here it has gone a downward course 
 to the very verge of utter unbelief. I know how much you 
 have on your hands and on your mind ; I, too, have my 
 hobbies, but I know of nothing more urgent than to circulate 
 such an edition of the Scriptures, as might labor, with God's 
 help, to give their very express image without human addi- 
 tion or omission, striving to state clearly what is God's will 
 with regard to us now ; for this seems to me to be one great 
 use of a commentary, to make people understand where God 
 spoke to their fathers, and where He speaks to them; or 
 rather since in all He speaks to them, though not after the 
 same manner to teach them to distinguish where they are 
 to follow the letter, and where the spirit. 
 
 I have promised to send Tyler some sermons for his Maga- 
 zine, though the abstract idea of a sermon is rather a puzzle 
 to my faculties, accustomed as they are to cling to things in 
 the concrete. But I am vexed to find how much of hopeless 
 bigotry lingers in minds, of? fjKia-Ta exP^l- -"- am sure 
 
 is personally cooled towards me, by the Essay attached to the 
 Sermons, and the Sheffield Courant Letters. And another 
 very old and dear friend wrote to me about my grievous errors 
 and yours, praying *' that I may be delivered from such false 
 doctrines, and restrained from promulgating them." These 
 men have the advantage over us, Xe'-yw KUT avdpamov, which 
 the Catholics had over the Protestants : they taxed them with 
 damnable heresy, and pronounced their salvation impossible ; 
 the Protestants in return only charged them with error and 
 superstition, till some of the hotter sort, impatient of such an
 
 288 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 unequal rejoinder, bethought themselves of retorting with the 
 charge of damnable idolatry. But still I think that we have 
 the best of it, in not letting what we firmly believe to be 
 error and ignorance shake our sense of that mightier bond of 
 union, which exists between all those who love the Lord 
 Jesus Christ in sincerity ; perhaps I should say, in not letting 
 our sense of the magnitude of the error lead us to question 
 the sincerity of the love. 
 
 I must conclude with a more delightful subject my most 
 dear and blessed sister.* I never saw a more perfect instance 
 of the spirit of power and of love, and of a sound mind ; intense 
 love, almost to the annihilation of selfishness a daily martyr- 
 dom for twenty years, during which she adhered to her early- 
 formed resolution of never talking about herself; thoughtful 
 about the very pins and ribands of my wife's dress, about the 
 making of a doll's cap for a child, but of herself, save only 
 as regarded her ripening in all goodness, wholly thoughtless, 
 enjoying everything lovely, graceful, beautiful, high-minded, 
 whether in God's works or man's, with the keenest relish ; 
 inheriting the earth to the very fuhless of the promise, though 
 never leaving her crib, nor changing her posture ; and pre- 
 served through the very valley of the shadow of death, from 
 all fear or impatience, or from every cloud of impaired reason, 
 which might mar the beauty of Christ's Spirit's glorious work. 
 May God grant that I might come but within one hundred 
 degrees of her place in glory. God bless you all. 
 
 XLIX. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, September 17, 1832. 
 
 Much has happened since April, but nothing to 
 
 me of so much interest as the death of my dear sister Susan- 
 nah, after twenty-one years of suffering. We were called up 
 hastily to Laleham in June, hardly expecting then to find 
 her alive ; but she rallied again and we went down with 
 all our family to the Lakes for the holidays, intending to re- 
 turn to Laleham for a short time before the end of the vaca- 
 tion. But the accounts became worse, and we went up to 
 her, leaving the children at the Lakes, towards the end of 
 July. We spent more than a fortnight at Laleham, and 
 
 * Susannah Arnold died at Lnleham, August 20, 1832, after a complaint 
 in the spine of twenty years' duration.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 289 
 
 returned to Rugby on the 18th of August, expecting, or at 
 least not despairing of seeing her again in the winter. On 
 the 23d, we heard from Mrs. Buckland, to say that all was 
 over; she had died on the night of the 21st, so suddenly 
 that the Bucklands could not be called from the next house 
 in time. The last months, I may say indeed the last twenty 
 years of her life, had been a constant preparation, and she 
 was only spared the nervous fear which none probably can 
 wholly overcome, of expecting the approach of death within 
 a definite time. I never saw nor ever heard of a more com- 
 plete triumph over selfishness, a more glorious daily renewing 
 of soul and spirit amidst the decays and sufferings of the 
 body, than was displayed throughout her twenty years' martyr- 
 dom. My poor aunt, well comparatively speaking in body, 
 but decayed sadly in her mind, still lives in the same house, 
 close to the Bucklands ; the only remaining survivor of what 
 I call the family of my childhood. I attach a very peculiar 
 value to the common articles of furniture, the mere pictures, 
 and china, and books, and candlesticks, &c., which I have 
 seen grouped together in my infancy, and whilst my aunt still 
 keeps them, it seems to me as if my father's house were not 
 quite broken up. 
 
 You may have heard, perhaps, that great as is the loss of 
 this dear sister, I was threatened with one still heavier in 
 May last. My wife was seized with a most virulent sore 
 throat, which brought on a premature confinement, and for 
 some time my distress was greater than it has been since her 
 dangerous illness in 1821. But she was mercifully recovered, 
 not however without the loss of our little baby, a beautiful 
 little girl, who just lived for seven days, and then drooped 
 away and died of no other disorder than her premature birth. 
 We had nothing but illness in our house during the whole 
 spring ; wife, children, servants, all were laid up one after the 
 other, and for some time I never got up in the morning with- 
 out hearing of some new case, either amongst my own family 
 or amongst the boys. Then came the cholera at Newbold : 
 and I thought that, beat as we were by such a succession of 
 illnesses, we were in no condition to encounter this new 
 trouble ; and therefore, with the advice of our medical men, 
 I hastily dispersed the school. We went down bodily to the 
 Lakes, and took possession of Brathay Hall, a large house 
 *nd large domain, just on the head of Winandermere. It 
 was like Tinian to Anson's crew ; never was there such a 
 VOL. i. 25 s
 
 290 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 renewal of strength and spirits as our children experienced 
 from their six weeks' sojourn in this Paradise. And for their 
 mamma and papa, the month that we spent there was not less 
 delightful. Our intimacy with the Wordsworths was cemented, 
 and scenery and society together made the time a period of 
 enjoyment, which it seemed almost wholesome for us not to 
 have longer continued, pf) VOOTOIO XadupfOa. 
 
 And now we are all at work again, the school very full, 
 very healthy, and I think in a most beautiful temper ; the 
 Sixth Form working /uiXiora nor (VXTJV, and all things at 
 present promising. I am quite well, and enjoying my work 
 exceedingly. May I only remember that, after all, the true 
 work is to have a daily living faith in Him whom God sent. 
 Send me a letter to tell me fully about you and yours ; it is 
 sad that we can never meet, but we must write oftener. 
 Business ought not so to master us as not to leave time for a 
 better business, and one which I trust will last longer, for I 
 iove to think that Christian friendships may be part of the 
 business of eternity. God ever bless you. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. JANUARY, 1833, TO SEP- 
 TEMBER, 1835. 
 
 His alarm about the state of the poor naturally sub- 
 sided with the tranquillization of the disturbances 
 amongst the rural population, but was succeeded by 
 an alarm almost as great, lest the political agitation 
 which, in 1832, took the form of the cry for Church 
 Reform, should end in destroying what, with all its 
 defects, seemed to him the greatest instrument of social 
 and moral good existing in the country. It was this 
 strong conviction, which, in 1833, originated his pam- 
 phlet on " the Principles of Church Reform." " 1 
 hung back," he said, " as long as I could, till the want 
 was so urgent that I sat down to write, because I could 
 not help it." But with him preservation was only
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 291 
 
 another word for reform ; and here the reform pro- 
 posed was great in proportion r as he thought the stake 
 at issue was dear, and the danger formidable. " Most 
 earnestly do I wish to see the Establishment reformed," 
 was the closing sentence of his Postscript, " at once, 
 for the sake of its greater security, and its greater per- 
 fection : but, whether reformed or not, may God in 
 his mercy save us from the calamity of seeing it de- 
 stroyed ! " As much of the misunderstanding of his 
 character arose from a partial knowledge of this pam- 
 phlet, and of his object in writing it, it may be as well 
 to give, in his own words, the answer which he made to 
 a friend, in 1840, to a general charge of indiscretion 
 brought against him. 
 
 " It seems to me that the charge of ' Indiscretion,' apart 
 of course from the truth or error of the opinions expressed, 
 belongs only to my Church Reform Pamphlet. Now, I am 
 quite ready to allow, that to publish such a pamphlet in 1840, 
 or indeed at any period since 1834, would have been the 
 height of indiscretion. But I wrote that pamphlet in 1833, 
 when most men myself among the number had an exag- 
 gerated impression of the strength of the movement party, 
 and of the changes which it was likely to effect. My 
 pamphlet was written on the supposition not implied, but 
 expressed repeatedly that the Church Establishment was in 
 extreme danger ; and therefore I proposed remedies, which, 
 although I do still sincerely believe them to be in themselves 
 right and good, yet would be manifestly chimerical, and to 
 advise them might well be called indiscreet, had not the 
 danger and alarm, as I supposed, been imminent. I mistook, 
 undoubtedly, both the strength and intenseness of the move- 
 ment, and the weakness of the party opposed to it ; but I do 
 not think that I was singular in my error many persisted in 
 it ; Lord Stanley, for example, even hi 1834 and the subse- 
 quent years many even hold it still, when experience has 
 proved its fallacy. But the startling nature of my proposals, 
 which I suppose constitutes what is called their indiscretion, 
 is to be judged by the state of things in 1832-3, and not by 
 that of times present. Jephson finds that his patients will 
 adopt a very strict diet, when they believe themselves to be 
 in danger ; but he would be very indiscreet if he prescribed
 
 292 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 it to a man who felt no symptoms of indisposition, for the 
 man would certainly laugh at him, although perhaps the 
 diet would do him great good, if he could be induced to 
 adopt it." 
 
 The plan of the pamphlet itself is threefold ; a de- 
 fence of the national Establishment, a statement of the 
 extreme danger to which it was exposed, and a propo- 
 sal of what seemed to him the only means of averting 
 this danger : first, by a design for comprehending 
 the Dissenters within the pale of the Establishment, 
 without compromise of principle on either side ; sec- 
 ondly, by various details intended to increase its actual 
 efficiency. The sensation created by the appearance 
 of this pamphlet was considerable. Within six months 
 of its publication it passed through four editions. It 
 was quoted with approbation and condemnation by 
 men of the most opposite parties, though with far more 
 of condemnation than of approbation. Dissenters ob- 
 jected to its attacks on what he conceived to be their 
 sectarian narrowness, the Clergy of the Establish- 
 ment to its supposed latitudinarianism : its advocacy 
 of large reforms repelled the sympathy of many Con- 
 servatives its advocacy of the importance of religious 
 institutions repelled the sympathy of many Liberals. 
 
 Yet still it was impossible not to see, that it stood 
 apart from all the rest of the publications for and 
 against Church Reform, then issuing in such numbers 
 from the press. There were many, both at the time 
 and since, who, whilst they objected to its details, yet 
 believed its statement of general principles to be true, 
 and only to be deprecated because the time was not yet 
 come for their application. There were many again, 
 who, whilst they objected to its general principles, yet 
 admired the beauty of particular passages, or the wis- 
 dom of some of the details. Such were the statement 
 of the advantages of a national and of a Christian E&- 
 tablishment, his defence of the Bishop's seats in Par* 
 liament, and of the high duties of the Legislature. 
 Such, again, were the suggestion of a multiplication o/
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 293 
 
 Bishoprics, the creation of suffragan or subordinate 
 Bishops the revival of an inferior order of ministers 
 or deacons in the Establishment the use of churches 
 on week days the want of greater variety in our 
 forms of worship than is afforded by the ordinary 
 course of morning and evening prayer all of them 
 points which, being then proposed nearly for the first 
 time, have since received the sanction of a large part 
 of public opinion, if not of public practice. 
 
 One point of detail, so little connected with his gen- 
 eral views as not to be worth mentioning on its own 
 account, yet deserves to be recorded, as a curious 
 instance of the disproportionate attention which may 
 sometimes be attracted to one unimportant passage ; 
 namely, the suggestion that if Dissenters were compre- 
 hended within the Establishment, the use of different 
 forms of worship at different hours of the Sunday in 
 the parish church, might tend to unite the worshippers 
 more closely to the Church of their fathers and to one 
 another. This suggestion, torn from the context and 
 represented in language which it is not necessary here 
 to specify, is the one sole idea which many have con- 
 ceived of the whole pamphlet, which many also have 
 conceived of his whole theological teaching, which not 
 a few have 'conceived even of his whole character. Yet 
 this suggestion is a mere detail, only recommended con- 
 ditionally, a detail occupying two pages in a pamphlet 
 of eighty-eight ; a detail, indeed, which in other coun- 
 tries has been adopted without difficulty amongst Prot- 
 estants, Greeks, and Roman Catholics, and which, in 
 principle, at least, has since been sanctioned, and the 
 alternate use in one instance of the Prussian and Eng- 
 lish Liturgies, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and 
 the Bishop of London ; but a detail on which he 
 himself laid no stress either then or afterwards, of 
 which no mention occurs again in any one of his writ- 
 ings, and of which, in common with all the other de- 
 tails in the pamphlet, he expressly declared that he 
 was far from proposing anything with " equal confi- 
 
 25*
 
 294 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 dence to that with which he maintained the princi- 
 ples themselves ; " and that " he was not anxious about 
 any particular measure which he may have ventured 
 to recommend, if anything could be suggested by 
 others, which would effect the same great object of 
 comprehension more completely." (Preface to Prin- 
 ciples of Church Reform, p. iv.) 
 
 But, independently of the actual matter of the 
 pamphlet, its publication was the signal for the general 
 explosion of the large amount of apprehension or sus- 
 picion, which had been in so many minds contracted 
 against him since he became known to the public 
 amongst ordinary men, from his Pamphlet on the 
 Roman Catholic claims amongst more thinking men, 
 from his Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture 
 amongst men in general, from the union of undefined 
 fear and dislike which is almost sure to be inspired by 
 the unwelcome presence of a man who has resolution 
 to propose, earnestness to attempt, and energy to effect, 
 any great change either in public opinion or in exist- 
 ing institutions. The storm, which had thus been 
 gathering for some time past, now burst upon him, 
 beginning in theological and political opposition, but 
 gradually including within its sweep every topic, per- 
 sonal or professional, which could expose him to oblo- 
 quy, and continued to rage for the next four years 
 of his life. The neighboring county paper maintained 
 an almost weekly attack upon him ; the more extreme 
 of the London Conservative newspapers echoed these 
 attacks with additions of their own ; the official dinner 
 which usually accompanied the Easter speeches at 
 Rugby, was, on one occasion, turned into a scene of 
 uproar by the endeavor to introduce into it political 
 toasts ; in tile University pulpit at Oxford he was de- 
 nounced almost by name ; every incautious act or 
 word in the management of the school, almost every 
 sickness amongst the boys, was eagerly used as a 
 handle against him. Charges which, in ordinary cases, 
 would have passed by unnoticed, fell with double force
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 295 
 
 on a man already marked out for public odium ; per- 
 sons, who naturally would have been the last to sus- 
 pect him, took up and repeated almost involuntarily 
 the invectives which they heard reverberated around 
 them in all directions ; the opponents of any new sys- 
 tem of education were ready to assail every change 
 which he had introduced ; the opponents of the old 
 discipline of public schools were ready to assail every 
 support which he gave to it ; the general sale of his 
 Sermons was almost stopped ; even his personal ac- 
 quaintance began to look upon him with alarm, some 
 dropped their intercourse with him altogether, hardly 
 any were able fully to sympathize with him, and almost 
 ah 1 remonstrated. 
 
 He was himself startled, but not moved by this con- 
 tinued outcry. It was indeed " nearly the worst pain 
 which he had ever felt, to see the impression which 
 either his writings, or his supposed opinions, produced 
 on those whom he most dearly valued ; " it was " a 
 trying thing to one who held his own opinions as 
 strongly as he did, to be taxed continually with indif- 
 ference to truth ; " and at times even his vigorous 
 health and spirits seemed to fail under the sense of the 
 estrangement of friends, or yet more, under his aver- 
 sion to the approbation of some who were induced by 
 the clamor against him to claim him as their own ally. 
 But the public attacks upon himself he treated with 
 indifference. Those which related to the school he 
 was in one or two instances at their outset induced 
 to notice ; but he soon formed a determination, which 
 he maintained till they died away altogether, never to 
 offer any reply, or even explanation, except to his own 
 personal friends. " My resolution is fixed," he said, 
 " to let them alone, and on no account to condescend 
 to answer them in the newspapers. All that is wanted 
 is to inspire firmness into the minds of those engaged 
 in the conduct of the school, lest their own confidence 
 should be impaired by a succession of attacks, which I 
 suppose is unparalleled in the experience of schools."
 
 296 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Nor was he turned in the slightest degree from hia 
 principles. Knowing, from the example of those who 
 presided over other schools, that, had he been on the 
 opposite side of the questions at issue, he might have 
 taken a far more active part in public matters without 
 provoking any censure, and conscious that his exertions 
 in the school were as efficient as ever, he felt it due 
 alike to himself, his principles, and his position, never 
 to concede that he had acted inconsistently with the 
 duties of his situation ; and therefore in the critical 
 election of the winter of 1834, when the outcry against 
 him was at its height, he did not shrink from coming 
 up from Westmoreland to Warwickshire to vote for 
 the Liberal candidate, foreseeing, as he must have 
 done, the burst of indignation which followed. 
 
 And, whilst the clamor against his pamphlet may 
 have increased his original diffidence in the practica- 
 bility of its details, it only drove him to a more deter- 
 minate examination and development of its principles, 
 which from this time forward assumed that coherent 
 form which was the basis of all his future writings. 
 What he now conceived and expressed in a systematic 
 shape, had indeed always floated before him in a ruder 
 and more practical form, and in his later life it re- 
 ceived various enlargements and modifications. But 
 in substance, his opinions, which up to this time had 
 been forming, were, after it, formed ; he had now 
 reached that period of life after which any change of 
 view is proverbially difficult ; he had now arrived at 
 that stage in the progress of his mind, to which all his 
 previous inquiries had contributed, and from which all 
 his subsequent inquiries naturally resulted. His views 
 of national education became fixed in the principles, 
 which he expressed in his favorite watchwords at 
 this time, " Christianity without Sectarianism," and 
 " Comprehension without Compromise ; " and which 
 he developed at some length in an (unpublished) 
 " Letter on the Admission of Dissenters to the Uni- 
 rersities," written in 1834. His long-cherished views
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 297 
 
 of the identity of Church and State, he now first un- 
 folded in his Postscript to the pamphlet on " Church 
 Reform," and in the first of his fragments on that 
 subject, written in 1834-35. Against what he con- 
 ceived to be the profane and secular view of the State, 
 he protested in the Preface to his third volume of 
 Thucydides, and against the practical measure of ad- 
 mitting Jews to a share in the supreme legislature, he 
 was at this time more than once on the point of peti- 
 tioning, in his own sole name. Against what he con- 
 ceived to be the ceremonial view of the Church, and 
 the technical and formal view of Christian Theology, 
 he protested in the Preface and First Appendix to his 
 third volume of Sermons ; whilst against the then 
 incipient school of Oxford Divinity, he was anxious to 
 circulate tracts vindicating the King's Supremacy, and 
 tracing in its opinions the Judaizing principles which 
 prevailed in the apostolical age. And he still " dreamt 
 of something like a Magazine for the poor; feeling 
 sure, from the abuse lavished upon him, that a man of 
 no party, as he has no chance of being listened to by 
 the half-informed, is the very person who is wanted 
 to speak to the honest uninformed." 
 
 From the fermentation against him, of which the 
 Midland Counties were the focus, he turned with a new 
 and increasing delight to his place in Westmoreland, 
 now doubly endeared to him as his natural home, by 
 its contrast with the atmosphere of excitement with 
 which he was surrounded in the neighborhood of 
 Rugby. His more strictly professional pursuits also 
 went on undisturbed ; the last and best volume of 
 his edition of Thucydides appeared in 1835, and in 
 1833 he resumed his Roman History, which he had 
 long laid aside. It might seem strange that he should 
 undertake a work of such magnitude, at a tune when 
 his chief interest was more than ever fixed on the 
 great questions of political and theological philosophy. 
 His love for ancient history was doubtless in itself a 
 great inducement to continue his connection with it
 
 298 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 after his completion of the edition of Thucydides. 
 But besides, and perhaps even more than this, was 
 the strong impression that on those subjects, which 
 he himself had most at heart, it was impossible for 
 him to bear up against the tide of misunderstanding 
 and prejudice with which he was met, and that all 
 hope for the present of direct influence over his coun- 
 trymen was cut off. His only choice, therefore, lay in 
 devoting himself to some work, which, whilst it was 
 more or less connected with his professional pursuits, 
 would afford him in the past a refuge from the excite- 
 ment and confusion of the present. What Fox How 
 was to Rugby, that the Roman History was to the 
 painful and conflicting thoughts roused by his writings 
 on political and theological subjects. 
 
 But besides the refreshment of Westmoreland scenery 
 and of ancient greatness, he must have derived a yet 
 deeper comfort from his increasing influence on the 
 school. Greater as it probably was at a later period 
 over the school generally, yet over individual boys it 
 never was so great as at the period when the clamor 
 to which he was exposed from without had reached its 
 highest pitch. Then, when the institution seemed 
 most likely to suffer from the unexampled vehemence 
 with which it was assailed through him, began a series 
 of the greatest successes at both Universities which it 
 had ever known ; then when he was most accused of mis- 
 government of the place, he laid that firm hold on the 
 esteem and affections of the elder boys, which he never 
 afterwards lost. Then, more than at any other tune, 
 when his old friends and acquaintance were falling 
 back from him in alarm, he saw those growing up 
 under his charge of whom it may be truly said, that 
 they would have been willing to die for his sake. 
 
 Here, again, the course of his sermons in the third 
 volume gives us a faithful transcript of his feelings ; 
 whilst his increased confidence in the school appears 
 throughout in the increased affection of their tone, the 
 general subjects which he then chose for publication,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 299 
 
 indicate no less the points forced upon him by the con- 
 troversy of the last two years, the evils of sectarian- 
 ism, the necessity of asserting the authority of " Law, 
 which Jacobinism and Fanaticism are alike combining 
 to destroy," Christianity, as being the sovereign 
 science of life in all its branches, and especially in its 
 aspect of presenting emphatically the Revelation of 
 God in Christ. And in other parts, it is impossible to 
 mistake the deep personal experience with which he 
 spoke of the pain of severance from sympathy and of 
 the evil of party spirit ; of " the reproach and suspicion 
 of cold friendship and zealous enmity," which is the 
 portion of those who strive to follow no party but 
 Christ's of the prospect that if " we oppose any pre- 
 vailing opinion or habit of the day, the fruits of a life's 
 labor, as far as earth is concerned, are presently sacri- 
 ficed," and ' ; we are reviled instead of respected," and 
 " every word and action of our lives misrepresented 
 and condemned," of the manner in which " the 
 blessed Apostle, St. Paul, whose name is now loved 
 and reverenced from one end of the Church of Christ 
 to the other, was treated by his fellow-Christians at 
 Rome, as no better than a latitudinarian and a 
 heretic." * 
 
 L. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Rydal, January 1, 1833. 
 
 New Year's Day is in this part of the country 
 
 regarded as a great festival, and we have had prayers this 
 morning, even in our village chapel at Rydal. May God 
 bless us in all our doings in the year that is now begun, 
 and make us increase more and more in the knowledge and 
 love of Himself and of His Son ; that it may be blessed to us, 
 whether we live to see the end of it on earth or no. 
 
 I owe you very much for the great kindness of your letters, 
 and thank you earnestly for your prayers. Mine is a busy 
 life, so busy that I have great need of not losing my intervals 
 of sacred rest ; so taken up hi teaching others, that I have 
 
 * Sermons, vol. iii. pp. 263, 363, 360.
 
 300 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 need of especial prayer and labor, lest I live with my own 
 
 spirit untaught in the wisdom of God It grieves 
 
 me more than I can say, to find so much intolerance ; by 
 which I mean over-estimating our points of difference, and 
 under-estimating our points of agreement I am by no means 
 indifferent to truth and error, and hold my own opinions as 
 decidedly as any man ; which of course implies a conviction 
 that the opposite opinions are erroneous. In many cases, 
 I think them not only erroneous, but mischievous ; still they 
 exist in men, whom I know to be thoroughly in earnest, 
 fearing God and loving Christ, and it seems to me to be a 
 waste of time, which we can ill afford, and a sort of quarrel 
 " by the way," which our Christian vow of enmity against 
 moral evil makes utterly unseasonable, when Christians 
 suspend their great business and loosen the bond of their 
 union with each other by venting fruitless regrets and con- 
 plaints against one another's errors, instead of laboring to 
 lessen one another's sins. For coldness of spirit and negli- 
 gence of our duty, and growing worldliness, are things which 
 we should thank our friends for warning us against; but 
 when they quarrel with our opinions, which we conscien- 
 tiously hold, it merely provokes us to justify ourselves, and 
 to insist that we are right and they wrong. 
 
 We arrived here on Saturday, and on Sunday night there 
 fell a deep snow, which is now however melting ; otherwise 
 it would do more than anything else to spoil this unspoilable 
 country. We are living in a little nook under one of the 
 mountains, as snug and sheltered as can be, and I have got 
 plenty of work to do within doors, let the snow last as long 
 as it will. 
 
 LI. TO W. K. HAMILTON, ESQ. 
 
 Rydal, January 16, 1883. 
 
 After speaking of his going to Rome.] It stirs up many 
 thoughts to fancy you at Rome. I never saw any place 
 which so interested me, and next to it, but, longissimo inter- 
 vallo, Venice then of the towns of Italy, Genoa and 
 then Pisa and Verona. I cannot care for Florence or for 
 
 Milan or for Turin For me this country contains 
 
 all that I wish or want, and no travelling, even in Italy, 
 could give me the delight of thus living amidst the moun- 
 tains, and seeing and loving them in all their moods and in
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 301 
 
 all mine. I have been writing on Church Reform, and 
 urging an union with the Dissenters as the only thing that 
 can procure to us the blessing of an established Christianity ; 
 for the Dissenters are strong enough to turn the scale either 
 for an establishment or against one ; and at present they are 
 leagued with the antichristian party against one, and will 
 destroy it utterly if they are not taken into the camp in the 
 defence of it. And if we sacrifice that phantom Uniformity, 
 which has been our curse ever since the Reformation, I am 
 fully persuaded that an union might be effected without 
 difficulty. But God knows what will come to pass, and none 
 besides, for we all seem groping about in the dark together. 
 I trust, however, that we shall be spared the worst evil of 
 all, war. 
 
 LII. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rydal, January 17, 1833. 
 
 As my pamphlet will probably reach you next 
 
 week, I wish you to hear something from me on the subject 
 beforehand. My reasons for writing it were chiefly because 
 the reform proposed by Lord Henley and others seemed to 
 me not only insufficient, but of a wrong kind ; and because I 
 have heard the American doctrine of every man paying his 
 minister as he would his lawyer, advanced and supported in 
 high quarters, where it sounded alarming. I was also struck 
 by the great vehemence displayed by the Dissenters at the 
 late elections, and by the refusal to pay Church-rates at Bir- 
 mingham. Nothing, as it seems to me, can save the Church, 
 but an union with the Dissenters ; now they are leagued 
 with the antichristian party, and no merely internal reforms 
 in the administration of the actual system will, I think, or 
 can satisfy them. Further, Lord Henley's notion about a 
 convocation, and Bishops not sitting in Parliament, and 
 laymen not meddling with Church doctrine, seemed to me 
 so dangerous a compound of the worst errors of Popery and 
 Evangelicalism combined, and one so suited to the interests 
 of the Devil and his numerous party, that I was very desir- 
 ous of protesting against it. However, the pamphlet will 
 tell its own story, and I think it can do no harm, even if it 
 does no good. 
 
 VOL. i. 26
 
 302 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 LIII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 February 1, 1833. 
 
 As for my coming down into Westmoreland, I 
 
 may almost say that it is to satisfy a physical want in my 
 nature which craves after the enjoyment of nature, and for 
 nine months in the year can find nothing to satisfy it. I 
 agree with old Keble,* that one does not need mountains and 
 lakes for this ; the Thames at Laleham Bagley Wood, and 
 Shotover at Oxford were quite enough for it. I only know 
 of five counties in England, which cannot supply it ; and I 
 am unluckily perched down in one of them. These five are 
 Warwick, Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Bed- 
 ford. I should add, perhaps, Rutland, and you cannot name 
 a seventh ; for Suffolk, which is otherwise just as bad, has its 
 bit of sea-coast But Halesworth, so fer as I remember it, 
 would be just as bad as Rugby. We have no hills no plains 
 not a single wood, and but one single copse : no heath 
 no down no rock no river no clear stream scarcely 
 any flowers, for the lias is particularly poor in them nothing 
 but one endless monotony of inclosed fields and hedge-row 
 trees. This is to me a daily privation ; it robs me of what 
 is naturally my anti-attrition ; and as I grow older, I begin 
 to feel it. My constitution is sound, but not strong ; and I 
 feel any little pressure or annoyance more than I used to 
 do; and the positive dulness of the country about Rugby 
 makes it to me a mere working-place ; I cannot expatiate 
 there even in my walks. So, in the holidays, I have an 
 absolute craving for the enjoyment of nature, and this country 
 suits me better than anything else, because we can be all 
 together, because we can enjoy the society, and because I 
 can do something in the way of work besides 
 
 Two things press upon me unabatedly my wish for a 
 Bible, such as I have spoken of before ; and my wish for 
 something systematic for the instruction of the poor. In my 
 particular case, undoubtedly, -the stamp-duties are an evil ; 
 for I still think, that a newspaper alone can help to cure the 
 evil which newspapers have done and are doing ; the events 
 of the day are a definite subject to which instruction can be 
 attached in the best possible manner ; the Penny and Satur- 
 day Magazines are all ramble-scramble. I think often of a 
 
 * Christian Year, First Sunday after Epiphany.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 303 
 
 Warwickshire Magazine, to appear monthly, and so escape 
 the stamp-duties, whilst events at a month's end are still 
 fresh enough to interest. We ought to have, in Birmingham 
 and Coventry, good and able men enough, and with sufficient 
 variety of knowledge, for such a work. But between the 
 want of will and the want of power, the ten who were vainly 
 sought to save Sodom, will be as vainly sought for now. 
 
 LIV. TO REV. J. TUCKER. 
 (On his leaving England for India, as a Missionary.) 
 
 February, 1833. 
 
 [After speaking of the differences of tastes and habits 
 which had interfered with their having common subjects of 
 
 interest.] It is my joy to think that there will be 
 
 a day when these things will all vanish in the intense con- 
 sciousness of what we both have in common. I owe you 
 much more than I can well pay, indeed, for your influence on 
 my mind and character in early life. The freshness of our 
 Oxford life is continually present with me, and especially of 
 the latter part of it. How well I recollect when you and 
 Cornish did duty for your first time at Begbrook and Yarn- 
 ton, and when we had one of our last skirmishes together in 
 a walk to Garsington in March, 1819. All that period was 
 working for me constant good, and how delightful is it to 
 have our University recollections so free from the fever of 
 intellectual competition or parties or jealousies of any kind 
 whatever. I love also to think of our happy meeting in later 
 life, when Cornish and I, with our wives and children, were 
 with you at Mailing, in 1823. 
 
 Meantime, even in a temporal point of view, you 
 
 are going from what bids fair, I fear, to deserve the name of 
 a City of Destruction. The state of Europe is indeed fear- 
 ful ; and that of England, I verily think, worst of ah". What 
 is coming, none can foresee, but every symptom is alarming ; 
 above all, the extraordinary dearth of men professing to act 
 in the fear of God, and not being fanatics ; as parties, the 
 High Churchmen, the Evangelicals, and the Dissenters, seem 
 to me almost equally bad, and how many good men can be 
 found who do not belong to one of them ? 
 
 Your godson is now turned of ten years old, and I think 
 of keeping him at home for some time to familiarize him 
 with home feelings I am sure that we shall have
 
 304 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 your prayers for his bringing forth fruit unto life eternal. 
 
 And now farewell, my dear friend; may God be 
 
 with you always through Jesus Christ, and may He bless all 
 your works to His glory and your own salvation. You will 
 carry with you, as long as you live, my most affectionate and 
 grateful remembrances, and my earnest wishes for all good to 
 you, temporal and spiritual. 
 
 LV. TO AN OLD PUPIL AT OXFORD. (A.) * 
 
 February 25, 1833. 
 
 It always grieves me to hear that a man does not like 
 Oxford. I was so happy there myself, and above all so happy 
 in my friends, that its associations to my mind are purely 
 delightful. But, of course, in this respect, everything de- 
 pends upon the society you fall into. If this be uncongenial, 
 the place can have no other attractions than those of a town 
 full of good libraries. 
 
 The more we are destitute of opportunities for 
 
 indulging our feelings, as is the case when we live in uncon- 
 genial society, the more we are apt to crisp and harden our 
 outward manner to save our real feelings from exposure. 
 Thus I believe that some of the most delicate-minded men 
 get to appear actually coarse from their unsuccessful efforts 
 to mask their real nature. And I have known men disagree- 
 ably forward from their shyness. But I doubt whether a man 
 does not suffer from a habit of self-constraint, and whether 
 his feelings do not become really, as well as apparently, 
 chilled. It is an immense blessing to be perfectly callous to 
 ridicule ; or, which comes to the same thing, to be conscious 
 thoroughly that what we have in us of noble and delicate is 
 not ridiculous to any but fools, and that, if fools will laugh, 
 wise men will do well to let them. 
 
 I shall really be very glad to hear from you at any time, 
 and I will write to the best of my power on any subject on 
 which you want to know my opinion. As for anything more, 
 I believe that the one great lesson for us all is, that we 
 should daily pray for an " increase of faith." There is 
 enough of iniquity abounding to make our love in danger of 
 waxing cold ; it is well said, therefore, u Let not your heart 
 
 * The letters of the alphabet thus affixed are intended to distinguish 
 between the different pupils so addresstd.
 
 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 305 
 
 be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also m Me? By 
 which I understand that it is not so much general notions of 
 Providence which are our best support, but a sense of the 
 personal interest, if I may so speak, taken in our welfare by 
 Him who died for us and rose again. May his Spirit strength- 
 en us to do his will, and to bear it, in power, in love, and in 
 wisdom. God bless you. 
 
 LVI. TO THE KEY. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, March 5, 1833. 
 
 [After speaking of a parcel sent to him.] I will not con- 
 ceal, however, that my motive in writing to you immediately 
 is to notice what you say of my pamphlet on Church Reform. 
 I did not send it you for two reasons ; first, because I feared 
 that you would not like it ; secondly, because a pamphlet in 
 general is not worth the carriage. And I should be ashamed 
 of myself if I were annoyed by your expressing your total 
 disagreement with its principles or with its conclusions. But 
 I do protest most strongly against your charge of writing 
 " with haste and without consideration ; " of writing " on sub- 
 jects which I have not studied and do not understand," and 
 " which are not within my proper province." You cannot 
 possibly know that I wrote in haste, or that I have not 
 studied the question ; and I think, however much I might 
 differ from any opinion of yours, I should scarcely venture to 
 say that you had written on what you did not understand. I 
 regret exceedingly the use of this kind of language in Oxford, 
 
 (for wrote me exactly in the same strain,) because it 
 
 seems to me to indicate a temper, not the best suited either 
 to the state of knowledge or of feeling in other parts of the 
 kingdom. It so happens that the subject of conformity, of 
 communion, of the relations of Church and State, of Church 
 Government, &c., is one which I have studied more than any 
 other which I could name. I have read very largely about 
 it, and thought about it habitually for several years, and I 
 must say, that, sixteen or seventeen years ago, I had read 
 enough of what were called orthodox books upon such matters, 
 to be satisfied of their shallowness and confusion. I do not 
 quarrel with you for coming to a different conclusion, but I 
 do utterly deny that you are entitled to tax me with not 
 being just as qualified as yourself to form a conclusion. I do 
 not know that it gives me much pain, when my friends write 
 26* T
 
 306 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 what I do not like ; for so long as I believe them to be honest, 
 I do not think that they will be the worse for it ; but as- 
 suredly my convictions of the utter falsehood and mischievous 
 tendency of their opinions are quite as strong as theirs can be 
 of mine ; though I do not expect to convert them to my own 
 views for many reasons. As to the pamphlet, I am now writ- 
 ing a Postscript for the fourth edition of it, with some quota- 
 tions in justification of some of my positions. [After mention- 
 ing a pamphlet by a person of junior standing to himself.] 
 If any respectable man of my own age chooses to attack my 
 principles, I am perfectly ready to meet him, and he shall see 
 at any rate whether I have studied the question or no. I wish 
 that I knew as much about Thucydides, which you think that 
 I do understand. 
 
 I hope that I have expressed myself clearly. I complain 
 merely of the charge of writing hastily on a subject which I 
 have not studied. As a matter of fact, it is most opposite to 
 the truth. But if you say that you think I have studied it 
 to very bad purpose, and am all wrong about it, I have only 
 to say that I think differently ; but I should not in the least 
 complain of your giving me your own opinion in the plainest 
 terms that you chose. 
 
 LVII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, March 10, 1883. 
 
 I thank you entirely for your last letter ; it is at once kind 
 and manly, and I much value your notice of particular points 
 in the pamphlet which you think wrong. It is very true 
 that it was written hastily, i. e. penned, for the time was short ; 
 but it is no less true that the matter of it, as far as its general 
 principles are concerned, had been thought over in my mind 
 again and again. In fact, my difficulty was how to write 
 sufficiently briefly, for I have matter enough to fill a volume ; 
 and some of the propositions, which I have heard objected to, 
 as thrown out at random, are to my own mind the results of 
 a very full consideration of the case ; although I have con- 
 tented myself with putting down the conclusion and omitting 
 the premises. [After answering a question of history.] I fear, 
 indeed, that our differences of opinion on many points of 
 which I have written must be exceedingly wide. I am con- 
 scious that I have a great deal to learn ; and, if I live ten 
 years more, I hope I shall be wiser than I am now. Still, I
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 307 
 
 am not a boy, nor do I believe that any one of my friends 
 has arrived at his opinions with more deliberation and deeper 
 thought than I have at mine. And you should remember, 
 that if many of my notions indicate in your judgment an im- 
 perfect acquaintance with the subject, this is exactly the im- 
 pression which the opposite notions leave on my mind ; and, 
 as I know it to be quite possible that a conclusion, which 
 seems to me mere folly and ignorance, may really rest on 
 some proof, of which I am wholly ignorant, and which to the 
 writer's mind may have been so familiar from long habit as 
 to seem quite superfluous to be stated so it is equally possi- 
 ble, that what appears folly or ignorance to you, may also be 
 justified by a view of the question which has escaped your 
 notice, and Avhich I may happen to have hit upon. 
 
 Undoubtedly I should think it wrong to write on any sub- 
 ject, and much more such a subject as the Church, without 
 having considered it. It can hardly be an honest opinion, if 
 it be expressed confidently, without a consciousness of having 
 sufficient reason for it. And though on subjects within the 
 reach of our faculties, sufficient consideration, in the strict 
 sense, must preclude error, (for all error must arise either 
 from some premises being unknown, or from some faulty con- 
 clusion being derived from those which we do know,) yet of 
 course, for our moral justification, it is sufficient that we have 
 considered it as well as we could, and so, that we seem to have 
 a competent understanding of it compared with other men 
 to be able to communicate some truth to others, while we re- 
 ceive truths from them in return. 
 
 But my main object in writing was to thank you for your 
 letter, and to assure you that my feeling of anger is quite 
 subsided, if anger it could be called. Yet I think I had a 
 right to complain of the tone of decided condemnation which 
 ran through your first letter, assuming that I had written 
 without reflection and without study, because my notions 
 were different from yours ; and I think that, had I applied 
 similar expressions to any work of yours, you would have 
 been annoyed as much as I was, and have thought that I had 
 judged you rather unfairly. But enough of this ; and I will 
 only hope that my next work, if ever I live to write another, 
 may please you better.
 
 308 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 LVIII. TO WM. SMITH, ESQ., FORMERLY M.P. FOR NORWICH. 
 
 (In answer to a letter on the subject of his pamphlet, particularly objecting 
 to his making it essential to those included in his scheme of comprehension, 
 that they should address Christ as an object of worship.) 
 
 Rugby, March 9, 1833. 
 
 I trust you will not ascribe it to neglect that I have not 
 returned an earlier answer to your letter. My time has been 
 very much occupied, and I did not wish to write, till I could 
 command leisure to write as fully as the purport and tone of 
 your letter required. 
 
 I cannot be mistaken, I think, in concluding that I have 
 the honor of addressing Mr. Smith, who was so long the 
 Member for Norwich, and whose name must be perfectly 
 familiar to any one who has been accustomed to follow the 
 proceedings of Parliament 
 
 The passage in my pamphlet to which you allude is ex- 
 pressly limited to the case of " the Unitarians preserving 
 exactly their present character;" that is, as appears by a 
 comparison with what follows, (p. 36,) their including many 
 who " call themselves Unitarians, because the name of unbe- 
 liever is not yet thought creditable." And these persons are 
 expressly distinguished from those other Unitarians whom I 
 speak of " as really Christians." In giving or withholding the 
 title of Christian, I was much more influenced by the spirit 
 and temper of the parties alluded to than by their doctrinal 
 opinions. For instance, my dislike to the works of the late 
 Mr. Belsham arises more from what appears to me their 
 totally unchristian tone, meaning particularly their want of 
 that devotion, reverence, love of holiness, and dread of sin, 
 which breathes through the Apostolical writings, than from 
 the mere opinions contained in them, utterly erroneous as I 
 believe them to be. And this was my reason for laying 
 particular stress on the worship of Christ ; because it appears 
 to me that the feelings with which we regard Him are of 
 much greater importance, than such metaphysical questions 
 as those between Homoousians and Homoiousians, or even 
 than the question of His humanity or proper divinity. 
 
 My great objection to Unitarianism in its present form in 
 England, where it is professed sincerely, is that it makes 
 Christ virtually dead. Our relation to Him is past instead of 
 present ; and the result is notorious, that instead of doing 
 everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, the language of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 309 
 
 Unitarians loses this peculiarly Christian character, and assim- 
 ilates to that of mere Deists ; " Providence," the " Supreme 
 Being," and other such expressions taking the place of " God, 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," " the Lord," &c., which 
 other Christians, like the Apostles, have found at once most 
 natural to them, and most delightful. For my own part, con- 
 sidering one great object of God's revealing himself in the 
 Person of Christ to be the furnishing us with an object of 
 worship which we could at once love and understand ; or, in 
 other words, the supplying safely and wholesomely that want 
 in human nature, which has shown itself in false religions, in 
 '.' making gods after our own devices," it does seem to me to 
 be forfeiting the peculiar benefits thus offered, if we persist in 
 attempting to approach to God in His own incomprehensible 
 essence, which as no man hath seen or can see, so no man 
 can conceive it. And, while I am most ready to allow the 
 provoking and most ill-judged language in which the truth, as 
 I hold it to be, respecting God has been expressed by Trin- 
 itarians, so, on the other hand, I am inclined to think that 
 Unitarians have deceived themselves by fancying that they 
 could understand the notion of one God any better than that 
 of God in Christ : whereas, it seems to me, that it is only of 
 God in Christ that I can in my present state of being conceive 
 anything at all. To know God the Father, that is, God as 
 He is in Himself, in His to us incomprehensible essence, 
 seems the great and most blessed promise reserved for us 
 when this mortal shall have put on immortality. 
 
 You will forgive me for writing in this language ; but I 
 could not otherwise well express what it was, which I con- 
 sider such a departure from the spirit of Christianity in 
 modern Unitarianism. Will you forgive me also for express- 
 ing my belief and fervent hope, that if we could get rid of 
 the Athanasian Creed, and of some other instances of what 
 I would call the technical language of Trinitarianism, many 
 good Unitarians would have a stumbling-block removed out 
 of their path, and would join their fellow-Christians in bowing 
 the knee to Him who is Lord both of the dead and the living. 
 But whatever they may think of His nature, I never meant 
 to deny the name of Christian to those who truly love and 
 fear Him ; and though I think it is the tendency of Unitarian- 
 ism to lessen this love and fear, yet I doubt not that many 
 Unitarians feel it, notwithstanding, and then He is their Sav- 
 iour, and they are His people.
 
 310 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 LIX. TO THE CHEVALIER BTTNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, Mny 6, 1833. 
 
 T thank you most heartily for two most delightful letters. 
 They both make me feel more ardently the wish that I could 
 see you once again, and talk over instead of write the many 
 important subjects which interest us both, and not us only, 
 but all the world 
 
 First, as to our politics. I detest as cordially as you can 
 do the party of the " Movement," both in France and Eng- 
 land. I detest Jacobinism in its root and in its branches, 
 with all that godless Utilitarianism which is its favorite aspect 
 at this moment in England. Nothing within my knowledge 
 
 is more utterly wicked than the party of men, who, 
 
 fairly and literally, as I fear, blaspheme not the Son of Man, 
 but the Spirit of God ; they hate Christ, because He is of 
 heaven and they are of evil. 
 
 For the more vulgar form of our popular party, the total 
 ignorance of, and indifference to, all principle ; the mere 
 money-getting and money-saving selfishness which cries aloud 
 for cheap government, making, as it were, a\rri T ayaQbv to 
 consist in cheapness my feeling is one of extreme contempt 
 and disgust. My only difference from you, so far as I see, 
 regards our anti-reformers, or rather the Tory party in gen- 
 eral in England. Now, undoubtedly, some of the very best 
 and wisest men in the country have on the Reform question 
 joined this party, but they ar as Falkland was at Oxford 
 had their party triumphed, they would have been the first to 
 lament the victory ; for, not they would have influenced the 
 measures carried into effect but the worst and most selfish 
 part of our aristocracy, with the coarsest and most profligate 
 of their dependents, men like the Hortensii, and Lentuli, and 
 Claudii of the Roman civil wars, who thwarted Pompey, 
 insulted Cicero, and ground down the provinces with their 
 insolence and tyranny ; men so hateful and so contemptible, 
 that I verily believe that the victory of Caesar, nay even of 
 Augustus, was a less evil to the human race than would have 
 resulted from the triumph of the aristocracy. 
 
 And, as I feel that, of the two besetting sins of human 
 nature, selfish neglect and selfish agitation, the former is the 
 more common, and has in the long run done far more harm 
 than the latter, although the outbreaks of the latter, while 
 they last, are of a far more atrocious character ; so I have in
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 311 
 
 a manner vowed to myself, and prayed that with God's 
 blessing, no excesses of popular wickedness, though I should 
 be myself, as I expect, the victim of them, no temporary evils 
 produced by revolution, shall ever make me forget the wicked- 
 ness of Toryism, of that spirit which crucified Christ Himself, 
 which has throughout the long experience of all history con- 
 tinually thwarted the cause of God and goodness, and has 
 gone on abusing its opportunities, and heaping up wrath by a 
 long series of selfish neglect against the day of wrath and 
 judgment. 
 
 Again, I feel that while I agree with you wholly and most 
 heartily in my abhorrence of the spirit of 1789, of the Amer- 
 ican war, of the French Economi.-tes, and of the English 
 Whigs of the latter part of the seventeenth century and be- 
 ginning of the eighteenth, yet I have always been unable to 
 sympathize with what you call " the historical liberty " which 
 grew out of the system of the middle ages. For, not to speak 
 of the unhappy extinction of that liberty in many countries of 
 Europe, even in England it showed itself to have been more 
 the child of accident than of principle ; and throughout the 
 momentous period of the eighteenth century, this character of 
 it was fatally developed. For, not ascending to general prin- 
 ciples, it foresaw not the evil, till it became too mature to be 
 remedied, and the state of the poor and that of the Church 
 are melancholy proofs of the folly of what is called " letting 
 well alone ; " which, not watching for symptoms, nor endeav- 
 oring to meet the coming danger, allows the fuel of disease 
 to accumulate in the unhealthy body, till, at last, the sickness 
 strikes it with the suddenness and malignity of an incurable 
 pestilence. But, when the cup is nearly full, and revolutions 
 are abroad, it is a sign infallible that the old state of things 
 is ready to vanish away. Its race is run, and no human 
 power can preserve it. But, by attempting to preserve it, 
 you derange the process of the new birth which must succeed 
 it ; and whilst the old perishes in spite of your efforts, you 
 get a monstrous and misshapen creature in its place ; when, 
 had the birth been " quietly effected, its proportions might 
 have been better, and its imvard constitution sounder and 
 less irritable. 
 
 What our birth in England is likely to end in, is indeed a 
 hard question. I believe that our only chance is in the sta- 
 bility of the present ministers. I am well aware of their 
 faults ; but still they keep out the Tories and the Radicals,
 
 312 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the Red Jacobins of 1794, and the White Jacobins of 1795, 
 or of Naples in 1799, alike detestable. I do not think that 
 you can fully judge of what the ascendency of the Tories is ; 
 it is not the Duke of Wellington or Sir R. Peel who would 
 do harm, but the base party that they would bring in in their 
 
 train, and all the tribe of selfish and ignorant lords 
 
 and country squires and clergymen, who would irritate the 
 feeling of the people to madness. 
 
 If you see my pamphlet and Postscript, you will 
 
 see that I have kept clear of the mere secular questions of 
 tithes and pluralities, and have argued for a comprehension 
 on higher grounds. I dislike Articles because they represent 
 truth untruly, that is, in an unedifying manner, and thus 
 robbed of its living truth, whilst it retains its mere literal 
 form ; whereas the same truth, embodied in prayers, or con- 
 fessions, or even in catechisms, becomes more Christian, just 
 in proportion as it is less theological. But I fear that our 
 reforms, instead of laboring to unite the Dissenters with the 
 Church, will confirm their separate existence by relieving 
 them from all which they now complain of as a burden. And 
 continuing distinct from the Church, will they not labor to 
 effect its overthrow, till they bring us quite to the American 
 platform ? 
 
 LX. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, May 21, 1833. 
 
 It is painful to think that these exaggerations, in ' 
 
 too many instances, cannot be innocent ; in Oxford there is 
 an absolute (pyaarfjptov ^ev8a)i>, whose activity is surprising. 
 
 I do hope that we shall see you all next month. 
 
 When I am not so strong as usual, I feel the vexation of the 
 
 school more than I could wish to do And I have 
 
 also been annoyed at the feeling excited in some of my old 
 friends by my pamphlet, and by the constant and persevering 
 falsehoods which are circulated concerning my opinions and 
 
 my practice Thucydides creeps on slowly, and 
 
 nothing else, save my school work, gets on at all. I do 
 confess, that I feel now more anxious than I used to do to 
 get time to write, and especially to write history. But this 
 will not be.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 313 
 
 LXI. TO REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Rugby, May 29, 1833. 
 
 I do not know whether you have ever felt the 
 
 intense difficulty of expressing in any other language the im- 
 pression, which the Scripture statement of any great doctrine 
 has left on your own mind.* It has grieved me much to find 
 that some of my own friends, whilst they acquit me of any 
 such intention, consider the tendency of my Church Reform 
 plan as latitudinarian in point of doctrine. Now my belief is, 
 that it would have precisely the contrary effect, and would 
 tend ultimately to a much greater unity and strictness in true 
 doctrine ; that is to say, in those views of God's dealings and 
 dispositions towards us, and of our consequent duties towards 
 Him, which constitute, I imagine, the essence of the Gospel 
 Revelation. Now, what I want is, to abstract from what is 
 commonly called doctrine everything which is not of this 
 kind; and secondly, for what is of this kind, to present it 
 only so far forth as it is so, dropping all deductions which we 
 conceive may be drawn from it, regarded as a naked truth, 
 but which cannot be drawn from it, when regarded as a 
 divine practical lesson. 
 
 For instance, it is common to derive from our Lord's words 
 to Nicodemus, " Except a man be born of water," &c., an 
 universal proposition, " No being can be saved ordinarily with- 
 out baptism ; " and then to prove the fitness of baptizing in- 
 fants, for this reason, as necessary, out of charity to them ; 
 whereas our Lord's words are surely only for those who can 
 understand them. Take any person with the use of his facul- 
 
 * He often expressed this feeling with regard to the truths of Revelation. 
 " They are placed before us in Scripture," he said, " as very vivid images 
 are sometimes presented to us in dreams. It is like that point in Mousehold 
 Heath," (in the neighborhood of Norwich, where he had just been,) " where, 
 when we stood in one particular spot, all human habitations were shut out 
 from our view, but by a single step we came again within sight of them, 
 and lost the image of perfect solitude. So it is in the scriptural statements 
 of the Atonement, as long as we can place ourselves exactly hi their point 
 of view, and catch it as it is presented to us in this dreamlike fashion, none 
 of the false views which so often beset it can come- across us: the highest 
 act of love is the sacrifice of self, the highest act of God's infinite love to 
 man was in the Redemption, but from the ineffable mysterv which hangs 
 over the Godhead, God could not be said to sacrifice Himself; and there- 
 fore He sacrificed His only Son, that object which was so near and so 
 dear to Hun, that nothing could be nearer and dearer." Compare Serm. 
 on Rom. v. 7, in vol. vi. So again in a conversation in 1842, with regard to 
 <he controversy on justification. 
 
 VOL. I. 27
 
 314 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 ties, and therefore the consciousness of sin in his own heart, 
 and say to him, that " Except he be born again," &c. and then 
 you apply Christ's word in its true meaning, to arouse men's 
 consciences, and make them see that their evil and corrupt 
 nature can of itself end only in evil. But when we apply it 
 universally as an abstract truth, and form conclusions from it, 
 those conclusions are frequently either uncharitable or super- 
 stitious, or both. It was uncharitable when men argued, 
 though correctly enough as to logic, that, if no man could be 
 saved without baptism, all the heathen must have perished ; 
 and it was uncharitable and superstitious too, to argue, as 
 Cranmer, that unbaptized infants must perish ; but that, if 
 baptized, they were instantly safe. Now, I hold it to be a 
 most certain rule of interpreting Scripture, that it never 
 speaks of persons, when there is a physical impossibility of its 
 speaking to them ; but as soon as the mind opens and under- 
 stands the word, then the word belongs to it, and then the 
 truth is his in all its fulness ; that " Except he be born again, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God." So the heathen who 
 died before the word was spoken, and in whose land it has 
 never been preached, are dead to the word, it concerns not 
 them at all ; but the moment it can reach them, then it is 
 theirs and for them ; and we are bound to spread it, not from 
 general considerations of their fate without it, but because 
 Christ has commanded us to spread it, and because we see 
 that Christianity has the promise of both worlds, raising 
 men's nature, and fitting them for communion with God here- 
 after, revealing Him in His Son. Now, apply this rule to 
 all the Scriptures, and ask at every passage, not "What 
 follows from this as a general truth ? " but " What is the 
 exact lesson or impression which it was intended to convey ? 
 what faults was it designed to correct ? what good feel- 
 ings to encourage ? " Our Lord says, " God is a Spirit : " now 
 if we make conclusions from this metaphysically, we may, for 
 aught I know, run into all kinds of extravagance because we 
 neither know what God is, nor what Spirit is ; but if we take 
 our Lord's conclusion, " Therefore we should worship Him in 
 spirit and in truth ; " i. e. not with outward forms, and still 
 less with evil passions and practices, then it is full of truth, 
 and wisdom, and goodness. I have filled my paper, and yet 
 perhaps have not fully developed my meaning ; but you will 
 connect it perhaps with my dislike of Articles, because there 
 truth is always expressed abstractedly and theoretically, and
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 315 
 
 my preference of a Liturgy as a bond of union, because there 
 it assumes a practical shape, as it is meant in Scripture to be 
 taken. 
 
 LXII. TO HIS SISTER, THE COUNTESS OF CAVAN. 
 \La answer to a question on Dr. Whately's " Thoughts on the Sabbath.") 
 
 Rugby, June 11, 1833. 
 
 My own notions about the matter would take up 
 
 rather too much room, I fear, to come in at the end of my 
 paper. But my conclusion is, that whilst St. Paul, on the one 
 hand, would have been utterly shocked, could he have fore- 
 seen that eighteen hundred years after Christianity had been 
 in the world, such an institution as the Sabbath would have 
 been still needed ; yet, seeing that it is still needed, the obli- 
 gation of the old commandment is still binding in the spirit 
 of it : that is, that we should use one day in seven, as a sort 
 of especial reminder of our duties, and a relieving ourselves 
 from the over-pressure of worldly things, which daily life 
 brings with it. But our Sunday is the beginning of the week, 
 not the end a day of preparation and strengthening for the 
 week to come, and not of rest for the past ; and in this sense 
 the old Christians kept it, because it was the day on which 
 God began his work of creation ; so little did they think that 
 they had anything to do with the old Jewish Sabbath. You 
 will see, also, by our common Catechism, that " the duty 
 towards God," which is expressly given as a summary of the 
 four first commandments to us, as Christians, says not one 
 word about the Sabbath, but simply about loving God, 
 worshipping him, and serving him truly all the days of our 
 life. It is not that we may pick and choose what command- 
 ments we like to obey, but as all the commandments have no 
 force upon us as such, that is, as positive and literal com- 
 mands addressed to ourselves, it is only a question how far 
 each commandment is applicable to us, that is, how far we 
 are in the same circumstances with those to whom it was 
 given. Now, in respect to the great moral commands of 
 worshipping and honoring God, honoring parents, abstain- 
 ing from murder, &c., as these are equally applicable to all 
 times and all states of society, they are equally binding upon 
 all men, not as having been some of the commandments given 
 to the Jews, but as being part of God's eternal and universal 
 law, for all his reasonable creatures to obey. And here, no
 
 316 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 doubt, there is a serious responsibility for every one to deter- 
 mine how far what he reads in the Bible concerns himself; 
 and no doubt, also, that if a man chooses to cheat his con- 
 science in such a matter, he might do it easily ; but the re- 
 sponsibility is one which we cannot get rid of, because we see 
 that parts of the Bible are not addressed directly to us ; and 
 thus we must decide what is addressed to us and what is not ; 
 and if we decide dishonestly, for the sake of indulging any 
 evil inclination, we do but double our guilt.* 
 
 I. XIII. TO MR. SERJEANT COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, June 12, 1833. 
 
 Our Westmoreland house is rising from its 
 
 foundations, and, I hope, rearing itself tolerably "in auras 
 aethereas." It looks right into the bosom of Fairfield, a 
 noble mountain, which sends down two long arms into the 
 valley, and keeps the clouds reposing between them, while he 
 looks down on them composedly with his quiet brow ; and the 
 Rotha, "purior electro," winds round our fields, just under 
 the house. Behind, we run up to the top of Loughrigg, and 
 we have a mountain pasture, in a basin on the summit of the 
 ridge, the very image of those " Saltus " on Cithaeron, where 
 CEdipus was found by the Corinthian shepherd. The "Words- 
 worths' friendship, for so I may call it, is certainly one of the 
 greatest delights of Fox How, the name of my xeopiov, and 
 their kindness in arranging everything in our absence has 
 
 * The principle here laid down, is given more at length in the Essay on 
 the Right Interpretation of Scripture, at the end of the second volume of 
 his Sermons; and also in the Sermon on the Lord's Day, in the third volume. 
 It may be well to insert in this place a letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge, in 
 1830, relating to a libel in a newspaper, charging him with violation of the 
 observance of Sunday. 
 
 " Surely I can deny the charge stoutly and in toto ; for, although I think 
 that the whole law is done away with, so far as it is the law given on Mount 
 Sinai; yet so far as it is the Law of the Spirit, I hold it to DC all binding; 
 nnd believing that our need of a Lord's day is as great as ever it was, and 
 that therefore its observance is God's will, and is likely, so far as we see. 
 to be so to the end of time, I should think it most mischievous to weaken the 
 respect paid to it. I believe all that I have ever published about it is to be 
 found at the end of my twentieth Sermon [of the first volume] ; and as for 
 my practice, I am bus'y every Sunday from morning till evening, in lecturing 
 the boys, or preaching to them, or writing sermons for them. One feels 
 ashamed to mention such things, but the fact is, that I have doubled my 
 own work on Sunday, to give the boys more religious instruction; and that 
 I can, I hope, deny the charge of the libel in as strong terms as you would 
 wish."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 317 
 
 been very great. Meantime, till our own house is ready, 
 which cannot be till next summer, we have taken a furnished 
 house at the head of Grasmere, on a little shoulder of the 
 mountain of Silver How, between the lake on one side, and 
 JEasedale, the most delicious of vales, on the other. 
 
 LXIV. TO A PUPIL. 
 
 (Who had -written, with much anxiety, to know whether he had offended 
 him, as he had thought his manner changed towards him.) 
 
 Grasmere, July 15, 1833. 
 
 The other part of your letter at once gratified and 
 
 pained me. I was not aware of anything hi my manner to 
 you that could imply disapprobation ; and certainly it was 
 not intended to do so. Yet it is true that I had observed, 
 with some pain, what seemed to me indications of a want of 
 enthusiasm, in the good sense of the word, of a moral sense 
 and feeling corresponding to what I knew was your intellectual 
 activity, I did not observe anything amounting to a sneering 
 spirit ; but there seemed to me a coldness on religious matters, 
 which made me fear lest it should change to sneering, as your 
 understanding became more vigorous : for this is the natural 
 fault of the undue predominance of the mere intellect, un- 
 accompanied by a corresponding growth and liveliness of the 
 moral affections, particularly that of admiration and love of 
 moral excellence, just as superstition arises, where it is 
 honest, from the undue predominance of the affections, with- 
 out the strengthening power of the intellect advancing in 
 proportion. This was the whole amount of my feeling with 
 respect to you, and which has nothing to do with your con- 
 duct in school matters. I should have taken an opportunity 
 of speaking to you about the state of your mind, had you not 
 led me now to mention it. Possibly my impression may be 
 wrong, and indeed it has been created by very trifling circum- 
 stances; but I am always keenly alive on this point to the 
 slightest indications, because it is the besetting danger of an 
 active mind a much more serious one, I think, than the 
 temptation to mere personal vanity. 
 
 I must again say, most expressly, that I observed nothing 
 more, than an apparent want of lively moral susceptibility. 
 Your answers on religious subjects were always serious and 
 sensible, and seemed to me quite sincere : I only feared that 
 they proceeded, perhaps too exclusively, from an intellectual 
 
 27*
 
 :'.1S LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 perception of truth, without a sufficient love and admiration 
 for goodness. I hold the lines, " nil admirari," &c., to be as 
 utterly false as any moral sentiment ever uttered. Intense 
 admiration is necessary to our highest perfection, and we have 
 an object in the Gospel, for which it may be felt to the utmost, 
 without any fear lest the most critical intellect should tax us 
 justly with unworthy idolatry. But I am as little inclined as 
 any one to make an idol out of any human virtue, or human 
 wisdom. 
 
 LXV. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, June 24, 1833. 
 
 An ordinary letter, written to me when yours was, would 
 have been answered some time since, but I do not like to 
 write to you when I have no leisure to write at length. Most 
 truly do I thank you for your affectionate recollection of 
 my birthday, and for coupling it in your mind with the 4th of 
 April.* May my second birthday be as blessed to me, as the 
 
 20th of August, I doubt not, has been to her All 
 
 writings which state the truth, must contain things which, 
 taken nakedly and without their balancing truths, may serve 
 the purposes of either party, because no party is altogether 
 wrong. But I have no reason to think that my Church 
 Reform pamphlet has served the purposes of the antichristian 
 party in any way, it being hardly possible to extract a passage 
 which they would like. The High-Church party are offended 
 enough, and so are the Unitarians, but I do not see that 
 
 either make a cat's paw of me The Bishop confirms 
 
 here on Saturday, and I have had and have still a great deal 
 to do in examining the boys for it. Indeed, the work is full 
 heavy just now, but the fry are learning cricket, and we play 
 
 nice matches sometimes to my great refreshment 
 
 God bless you and yours. 
 
 LXVI. TO REV. AUGUSTUS HARE. 
 (In answer to objections to his pamphlet.) 
 
 Grasmere, August 3, 1833. 
 
 And now I feel that to reply to your letter as I 
 
 could wish, would require a volume. You will say why was 
 
 * Alluding to a sister's birthday and death.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 319 
 
 not the volume published before, or with the pamphlet ? To 
 which I answer that, first, it would probably not have been 
 read, and secondly, I was not prepared to find men so startled 
 at principles, which have long appeared to me to follow neces- 
 sarily from a careful study of the New Testament. Be 
 assured, however, that, whether mistakenly or not, I fully 
 believe that such a plan as I have proposed, taken altogether, 
 would lead to a more complete representation of Scripture 
 truth in our forms of worship and preaching than we have 
 ever yet attained to ; not, certainly, if we were only to cut 
 away articles, and alter the Liturgy then the effect might 
 be latitudinarian but if, whilst relaxing the theoretical bond, 
 we were to tighten the practical one by amending the govern- 
 ment and constitution of the Church, then I do believe that 
 the fruit would be Christian union, by which I certainly do 
 not mean an agreement in believing nothing, or as little as 
 we can. Meantime, I wish to remind you that one of St. 
 Paul's favorite notions of heresy is, " a doting about strifes of 
 words." One side may be right in such a strife, and the 
 other wrong, but both are heretical as to Christianity, because 
 they lead men's minds away from the love of God and of 
 Christ, to questions essentially tempting to the intellect, and 
 which tend to no profit towards godliness. And again, I 
 think* you will find that all the " false doctrines " spoken of 
 by the Apostles, are doctrines of sheer wickedness ; that their 
 counterpart in modern tunes is to be found in the Anabaptists 
 of Munster, or the Fifth Monarchy Men, or in mere secular 
 High Churchmen, or hypocritical Evangelicals, in those who 
 make Christianity minister to lust, or to covetousness, or to 
 ambition ; not hi those who interpret Scripture to the best of 
 their conscience and ability, be their interpretation ever so 
 erroneous. 
 
 * This is illustrated by his language in conversation on another subject. 
 " Excommunication ought to be the expression of the public opinion of 
 Christian society ; and the line of offences to be censured seems to me very- 
 much marked out by the distinction between sins against the Son of 
 Man, and sins against the Holy Ghost. Obscene publications are of the 
 latter character, and are actually under the ban of Christian public opinion ; 
 and in proportion as the Church became more perfect, errors of opinion and 
 unbelief, which are now only sins against the Son of Man, would then be- 
 come sins against the Holy Ghost, because then the outward profession of 
 Christianity would have become identical with moral goodness."
 
 320 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 TO REV. G. CORNISH. 
 
 Allan Bank, Grasmere, August 18, 1833. 
 
 ..... I have had a good deal of worry from ..... the 
 
 party spirit of the neighborhood, who in the first place have 
 no notion of what my opinions are, and in the next place can- 
 not believe that I do not teach the boys Junius and the Edin- 
 burgh Review, at the least, if not Cobbett and the Examiner. 
 But this is an evil which flesh is heir to, if flesh, at least, will 
 write as I have done. I am sorry that you do not like the 
 pamphlet, for I am myself daily more and more convinced of 
 its truth. I will not answer for its practicability ; when the 
 patient is at his last gasp, the dose may come too late, but still 
 it is his only chance ; he may die of the doctor ; he must die 
 of the disease. I fear that nothing can save us from falling 
 into the American system, which will well show us the in- 
 herent evil of our Protestantism, each man quarrelling with his 
 neighbor for a word, and all discarding so much of the beauty 
 and solemnity, and visible power of the Gospel, that in com- 
 imon minds, where its spiritual power is not very great, the re- 
 sult is like the savorless salt, the vilest thing hi the world. I 
 would join with all those who love Christ and pray to Him ; who 
 regard Him not as dead, but as living. [This part of the letter 
 has been accidentally torn away ; the substance of it seems to 
 have been the same as that of Letters LVIII. and LXVL] 
 ..... Make the [Church a] living and active society, like 
 
 that of the first Christians, [and then] differences of opinion 
 will either cease or will signify nothing. [Look] through the 
 Epistles, and you will find nothing there condemned as 
 [heresy] but what was mere wickedness ; if you consider the 
 real nature and connection of the tenets condemned. For 
 such differences of opinion as exist amongst Christians now, 
 the 14th chapter of the Romans is the applicable lesson not 
 such passages as Titus iii. 10, or 2 John 10, 11, or Jude 3, 
 (that much-abused verse!) or 19 or 23. There is one anath- 
 ema, which is indeed holy and just, and most profitable for 
 ourselves as well as for others, (1 Corinth, xvi. 22,) but this 
 is not the. anathema of a fond theology ...... Lo ! I have 
 
 written you almost another pamphlet, instead of telling you of 
 my wife and the fry, who for more than five weeks have been 
 revelling amongst the mountains. But as far as scenery goes, 
 I would rather have heath and blue hills all the year, than 
 mountains for three months, and Warwickshire for nine, with
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 321 
 
 no hills, either blue or brown, no heath, no woods, no clear 
 streams, no wide plains for lights and shades to play over, nay, 
 no banks for flowers to grow upon, but one monotonous undu- 
 lation of green fields and hedges, and very fat cattle. But 
 we have each our own work, and our own enjoyments, and I 
 am sure that I have more than I can ever be sufficiently 
 thankful for. 
 
 LXVIII. TO REV. JULIUS HARE. 
 
 Rugby, October 7, 1833. 
 
 In Italy you met Bunsen, and can now sympa- 
 thize with the all but idolatry with which I regard him. So 
 beautifully good, so wise, and so noble-minded ! I do not 
 believe that any man can have a deeper interest in Rome than 
 I have, yet I envy you nothing so much in your last winter's 
 stay there, as your continued intercourse with Bunsen. It is 
 since I saw you that I have been devouring with the most 
 intense admiration the third volume of Niebuhr. The clear- 
 ness and comprehensiveness of all his military details is a 
 new feature hi that wonderful mind, and how inimitably beau- 
 tiful is that brief account of Terni. You will not, I trust, 
 misinterpret me, when I say that this third volume set me at 
 work again in earnest, on the Roman History, last summer. 
 As to any man's being a fit continuator of Niebuhr, that is 
 absurd ; but I have at least the qualification of an unbounded 
 veneration for what he has done, and, as my name is men- 
 tioned in his book, I should like to try to embody, in a con- 
 tinuation of the Roman History, the thoughts and notions 
 which I have learnt from him. Perhaps I may trouble you 
 with a letter on this subject, asking, as I have often done be- 
 fore, for information.* 
 
 LXIX. TO MR. SERGEANT COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, October 23, 1833. 
 
 I love your letters dearly, and thank you for them greatly ; 
 your last was a great treat, though I may seem not to have 
 shown my sense of it by answering it so leisurely. First of 
 all, you will be glad to hear of the birth of my eighth living 
 child, a little girl, to whom we mean to give an unreasonable 
 number of names, Frances Bunsen Trevenen Whately ; the 
 
 * This alludes to a plan he at first entertained of beginning his own 
 Roman History with the Punic wars. 
 
 u
 
 322 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 second after my valued friend, the Prussian Minister at Rome, 
 of whom, as I know not whether I shall ever see him again, 
 I wished to have a daily present recollection in the person of 
 one of my children. I wish I could show you his two letters, 
 one to me on the political state of Europe, and one to Dr. Nott 
 on the perfect notion of a Christian Liturgy. I am sure that 
 you would love and admire with me, the extraordinary com- 
 bination of piety and wisdom and profound knowledge and 
 large experience which breathes through every line of both. 
 
 I go all lengths with you in deprecating any in- 
 crease of political excitement, anything that shall tend to 
 make politics enter into a man's daily thoughts and daily 
 practice. When I first projected the Englishman's Register, 
 I wrote to my nephew my sentiments about it in full ; a letter 
 which I keep, and may one day find it convenient to publish 
 as my confession of faith ; in this letter I protested strongly 
 against making the Register exclusively political, and entered 
 at large into my reasons for doing so. Undoubtedly I fear 
 that the Government lend an ear too readily to the Utilitarians 
 and others of that coarse and hard stamp, whose influence can 
 be nothing but evil. In church matters they have got 
 Whately, and a signal blessing it is that they have him and 
 listen to him ; a man so good and so great that no folly or 
 wickedness of the most vile of factions will move him from 
 his own purposes, or provoke him in disgust to forsake the 
 defence of the Temple 
 
 I cannot say how I am annoyed, both on public and private 
 grounds, by these extravagances, [at Oxford ;] on private 
 grounds, from the gross breaches of charity to which they lead 
 good men ; and on public, because if these things do produce 
 any effect on the clergy, the evil consequences to the nation 
 are not to be calculated ; for what is to become of the Church, 
 if the clergy begin to exhibit an aggravation of the worst 
 superstitions of the Roman Catholics, only stripped of that 
 consistency, which stamps even the errors of the Romish 
 system with something of a character of greatness. It seems 
 presumption in me to press any point upon your consideration, 
 seeing in how many things I have learned to think from you. 
 But it has always seemed to me that an extreme fondness for 
 our "dear mother the panther,"* is a snare, to which the 
 noblest minds are most liable. It seems to me that all, abso- 
 lutely all, of our religious affections and veneration should go 
 
 * Dryden's " Hind and Panther."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 323 
 
 to Christ Himself, and that Protestantism, Catholicism, and 
 every other name, which expresses Christianity and some 
 differentia or proprium besides, is so far an evil, and, when 
 made an object of attachment, leads to superstition and error. 
 Then, descending from religious grounds to human, I think 
 that one's natural and patriotic sympathies can hardly be too 
 strong ; but historically, the Church of England is surely of 
 a motley complexion, with much of good about it, and much 
 of evil, no more a fit subject for enthusiastic admiration than 
 for violent obloquy. I honor and sympathize entirely with 
 the feelings entertained ; I only think that they might all of 
 them select a worthier object ; that whether they be pious and 
 devout, or patriotic, or romantic, or of whatever class soever, 
 there is for each and all of these a true object on Avhich they 
 may fasten without danger and with infinite benefit ; for surely 
 the feeling of entire love and admiration is one, which we 
 cannot safely part with, and there are provided, by God's good- 
 ness, worthy and perfect objects of it ; but these can never be 
 human institutions, which, being necessarily full of imperfec- 
 tion, required to be viewed with an impartial judgment, not 
 idolized by an uncritical affection. And that common meta- 
 phor about our " Mother the Church," is unscriptural and mis- 
 chievous, because the feeling of entire filial reverence and 
 love which we owe to a parent, we do not owe to our fellow- 
 Christians ; we owe them brotherly love, meekness, readiness 
 to bear, &c., but not filial reverence, " to them I give place by 
 subjection, no not for an hour." Now, if I were a Utilitarian, 
 I should not care for what I think a misappli cation of the 
 noblest feelings ; for then I should not care for the danger to 
 which this misapplication exposes the feelings themselves ; 
 but as it is, I dread to see the evils of the Reformation of 
 the sixteenth century repeated over again ; superstition pro- 
 voking profaneness, and ignorance and violence on one side 
 leading to equal ignorance and violence on the other, to the 
 equal injury of both truth and love. I should feel greatly 
 obliged to you, if you could tell me anything that seems to 
 you a flaw in the reasoning of those pages of the Postscript 
 of my pamphlet which speak of Episcopacy, and of what is 
 commonly called the "alliance between Church and State." 
 In the last point I am far more orthodox, according to the 
 standard of our reformers, than either the Toleration* men or 
 
 * " I should like," he said, " to see the Toleration Act and the Act of 
 Uniformity burnt side by side."
 
 824 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the High-Church men, but those notions are now out of 
 fashion, and what between religious bigotry and civil licen- 
 tiousness, all, I suppose, will go. But I will have compassion 
 on your patience. 
 
 It was delightful to hear of you and yours in Devonshire. 
 I wish they would put you on a commission of some sort or 
 other that might take you into Westmoreland some summer 
 or winter. When our house is quite finished, do you not 
 think that the temptation will be great to me to go and live 
 there, and return to my old Laleham way of life on the Rotha, 
 instead of on the Thames ? But independent of more worldly 
 considerations, my great experiment here is in much too in- 
 teresting a situation to abandon lightly. You will be amused 
 when I tell you that I am becoming more and more a convert 
 to the advantages of Latin and Greek verse, and more sus~ 
 picious of the mere fact system, that would cram with knowl- 
 edge of particular things, and call it information. My own 
 lessons with the Sixth Form are directed now to the best of 
 my power to the furnishing rules or formulae for them to 
 work with, e. g. rules to be observed in translation, prin- 
 ciples of taste as to the choice of English words, as to the 
 keeping or varying idioms and metaphors, &c., or in history, 
 rules of evidence or general forms for the dissection of cam- 
 paigns, or the estimating the importance of wars, revolutions, 
 &c. This, together with the opening as it were the sources 
 of knowledge, by telling them where they can find such and 
 such things, and giving them a notion of criticism, not to 
 swallow things whole, as the scholars of an earlier period too 
 often did, is what I am laboring at, much more than at 
 giving information. And the composition is mending de- 
 cidedly; though speaking to an Etonian, I am well aware 
 that our amended state would be with you a very degenerate 
 one. But we are looking up, certainly, and pains are taking 
 in the lower Forms, of which we shall I think soon see the 
 fruit. 
 
 I am getting on with Thucydides myself, and am nearly in 
 the middle of the seventh book ; at Allan Bank in the sum- 
 mer I worked on the Roman History, and hope to do so 
 again in the winter. It is very inspiring to write with such 
 a view before one's eyes as that from our drawing-room at 
 Allan Bank, where the trees of the shrubbery gradually run 
 np into the trees of the cliff, and the mountain-side, with its 
 infinite variety of rocky peaks and points on which the cattle
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 325 
 
 expatiate, rises over the tops of the trees. Trevenen Penrose 
 and his wife were with us for nearly a month in Westmore- 
 land, and enjoyed the country as much as we did. He is 
 laboring most admirably and effectually at Coleby. I saw 
 Southey once at Keswick, and had a very friendly interview : 
 he asked me to go over and stay with him for a day or two 
 in the winter, which I think I should like much. His cousin, 
 Herbert Hill, is now the tutor to my own boys. He lives in 
 Rugby, and the boys go to him every day to their great ben- 
 efit. He is a Fellow of New College, and it rejoices me to 
 talk over Winchester recollections together. Your little 
 
 goddaughter is my pupil twice a week hi Delectus 
 
 Her elder sister is my pupil three tunes a week in Virgil, and 
 once in the Greek Testament, and promises to do very well 
 hi both. I have yet a great many things to say, but I will 
 not keep my letter ; how glad I should be if you could ever 
 come down to us for even a single Sunday, but I suppose I 
 must not ask it. 
 
 LXX. TO JACOB ABBOTT. 
 
 (Author of" The Young Christian," &c.) 
 
 Rugby, November 1, 1833. 
 
 Although I have not the honor of being personally known 
 to you, yet my great admiration of your little book, " The 
 Young Christian," and the circumstance of my being engaged, 
 like yourself, in the work of education, induce me to hope, 
 that you will forgive the liberty I am taking hi now address- 
 ing you. A third consideration weighs with me, and in this I 
 feel sure that you will sympathize; that it is desirable on 
 every occasion to enlarge the friendly communication of our 
 country with yours. The publication of a work like yours 
 in America was far more delightful to me than its publication 
 in England could have been. Nothing can be more important 
 to the future welfare of mankind, than that God's people, 
 serving Hun in power and in love, and hi a sound mind, 
 should deeply influence the national character of the United 
 States, which in many parts of the Union is undoubtedly ex- 
 posed to influences of a very different description, owing to 
 circumstances apparently beyond the control of human power 
 and wisdom. 
 
 I request your acceptance of a volume of Sermons, most of 
 which, as you will see, were addressed to boys or very young 
 
 VOL. I. 28
 
 326 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 men, and which therefore coincide in intention with your own 
 admirable book.* And at the same time I venture to send 
 you a little work of mine on a different subject, for no other 
 reason, I believe, than the pleasure of submitting my views 
 upon a great question to the judgment of a mind furnished 
 morally and intellectually as yours must be. 
 
 I have been for five years head of this school. [After de- 
 scribing the manner of its foundation and growth.] You may 
 imagine, then, that I am engaged in a great and anxious 
 labor, and must have considerable experience of the difficulty 
 of turning the young mind to know and love God in Christ 
 
 I have understood that Unitarianism is becoming very 
 prevalent in Boston, and I am anxious to know what the 
 complexion of Unitarianism amongst you is. I mean whether 
 it is Arian or Socinian, and whether its disciples are for the 
 most part men of hard minds and indifferent to religion, or 
 whether they are zealous in the service of Christ, according 
 to their own notions of His claims upon their gratitude and 
 love. It has long been my firm belief that a great proportion 
 of Unitarianism might be cured by a wiser and more chari- 
 table treatment on the part of their adversaries, if these 
 would but consider what is the main thing in the Gospel, and 
 that even truth is not always to be insisted upon, if by forcing 
 it upon the reception of those who are not prepared for it, 
 they are thereby tempted to renounce what is not only true, 
 but essential a character which assuredly does not belong 
 to all true propositions, whether about things human or things 
 divine. 
 
 I XXI. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, November 8, 1833. 
 
 Would any good be likely to come of it, if I were 
 
 one day to send you a specimen of such corrections in our 
 authorized version of the Scriptures, such as seem to me de- 
 sirable, and such as could shock no one ? I have had, and 
 am having daily, so much practice in translation, and am 
 taking so much pains to make the boys vary their language 
 and their phraseology, according to the age and style of the 
 writer whom they are translating, that I think I may be 
 
 * His opinion of the Corner-Stone is given in a note to the second Appen- 
 dix of his third volume of Sermons, p. 440.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 327 
 
 trusted for introducing no words or idiom unsuited to the 
 general style of the present translation, nothing to lessen the 
 purity of its Saxon, or to betray a modern interpolation. My 
 object would be to alter in the very language, as far as I could 
 guess it, which the translators themselves would have used, 
 had they only had our present knowledge of Greek. I think 
 also that the results of modern criticism should so far be no- 
 ticed, as that some little clauses, omitted in all the best MSS., 
 should be printed in italics, and important various readings of 
 equal or better authority than the received text, should be 
 noticed in the margin. Above all, it is most important that 
 the division into chapters should be mended, especially as 
 regards the public reading in the Church, and that the choice 
 of lessons from the Old Testament should be improved, which 
 really could hardly have been worse, unless it had been done 
 on purpose. 
 
 It is almost inconceivable to me that you should misunder- 
 stand any book that you read : and, if such a thing does hap- 
 pen, I am afraid that it must be the writer's fault But 
 I cannot remember that I have altered my opinions since my 
 pamphlet (on the Catholic claims), nor do I see anything 
 there inconsistent with my doctrine (of Church and State) in 
 the Postscript to the pamphlet on Church Reform. I always 
 grounded the right to emancipation on the principle that Ire- 
 land was a distinct nation, entitled to govern itself. I know 
 full well that my principles would lead to the establishment 
 of the Roman Catholic religion in three fourths of Ireland ; 
 but this conclusion was not wanted then, and the right to 
 emancipation followed a fortiori from the right to govern 
 themselves as a nation, without entering upon the question of 
 the Establishment. Those who think that Catholicism is 
 idolatry ought, on their own principles, to move heaven and 
 earth for the repeal of the Union, and to let O'Connell rule 
 his Kelts their own way. I think that a Catholic is a mem- 
 ber of Christ's Church just as much as I am ; and I could 
 well endure one form of that Church in Ireland, and another 
 in England. And if you look (it is to be found in the second 
 volume of Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV.) for the four Arti- 
 cles resolved on by the Gallican Church in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century, you will see a precedent and a means 
 pointed out, whereby every Roman Catholic national Church 
 may be led to reform itself; and I only hope that when they 
 do they will reform themselves so far as to be thorough Chris'
 
 328 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tians, and avoid, as they would a dog or a viper, the errors 
 which marred the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth 
 century, destroying things most noble and most purifying, as 
 well as things superstitious and hurtful. 
 
 [After speaking of a reported calumny against himself in 
 Oxford.] I will trust no man when he turns fanatic ; and 
 really these High Churchmen are far more fanatical and 
 much more foolish than Irving himself. Irving appealed to 
 the gifts of tongues and of healing, which he alleged to exist 
 in his congregation, as proofs that the Holy Spirit was with 
 them ; but the High Churchmen abandon reason, and impute 
 motives, and claim to be Christ's only Church, and where 
 are the " signs of an apostle " to be seen among them, or 
 where do they pretend to show them ? 
 
 I. XXI I. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, February 24, 1834. 
 
 I have, as usual, many things on hand, or rather 
 
 in meditation ; but time fails me sadly, and my physical con- 
 stitution seems to require more sleep than it did, which 
 abridges my time still more. Yet I was never better or 
 stronger than I was in "Westmoreland during the winter, or 
 indeed than I am now. But I feel, more and more, that, 
 though my constitution is perfectly sound, yet it is not strong ; 
 and my nervous system would soon wear me out if I lived in 
 a state of much excitement. Body and mind alike seem to 
 repose greedily in delicious quiet without dulness, which we 
 enjoy in Westmoreland. 
 
 It is easier to speak of body and mind than of that which is 
 of more worth than either. I doubt whether we have enough 
 of Christian Confession amongst us ; * the superstition of 
 Popery in this, as in other matters, doubly injured the good 
 which it corrupted ; first by corrupting it, and then, " traitor 
 like, by betraying it to the axe " of too hasty reformation. Yet 
 surely one object of the Christian Church was to enable us to 
 aid in bearing one another's burthens ; not to enable a minis- 
 ter to pretend to bear those of all his neighbors. One is so 
 hindered from speaking of one's spiritual state, that one is led 
 even to think of it less frequently than is wholesome. I am 
 learning to think more and more how unbelief is at the bot- 
 
 * See Sermons, vol. iii. p. 313.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 329 
 
 torn of all our evil ; how our one prayer should be " Increase 
 our faith." And we do fearfully live, as it were, out of God's 
 atmosphere : we do not keep that continual consciousness of 
 His reality which I conceive we ought to have, and which 
 should make Him more manifest to our souls, than the She- 
 chinah was to the eyes of the Israelites. I have many fresh 
 sermons ; and my wife wants another volume printed ; but I 
 do not think there would be enough of systematic matter to 
 make a volume, and mere specimens of my general preaching 
 I have given already. I trust you will come next week ; life 
 is too uncertain to admit of passing over opportunities. You 
 have heard, probably, that Augustus Hare is likely soon to 
 follow poor Lowe, and to lay his bones in Rome ; he is far 
 gone, they say, in a consumption. May God bless you, my 
 dear Hull, in Jesus Christ, both you and yours forever. 
 
 LXXin. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Rugby, February 26, 1834. 
 
 I often think what may be your views of the 
 
 various aspects of things in general to what notions you are 
 more and more becoming wedded ; for, though I think that 
 men, who are lovers of truth, become less and less attached 
 to any mere party as they advance in life, and certainly be- 
 come, in the best sense of the word, more tolerant, yet their 
 views also acquire greater range and consistency, and what 
 they once saw as scattered truths, they learn to combine with 
 one another, so as to make each throw light on the other ; so 
 that their principles become more fixed, while their likings 
 or dislikings of particular persons or parties become more 
 moderate 
 
 Our residence in Westmoreland attaches us all to it more 
 and more ; the refreshment which it affords me is wonderful ; 
 and it is especially so in the winter, when the country is 
 quieter, and actually, as I think, more beautiful than in sum- 
 mer. I was often reminded, as I used to come home to Gras- 
 mere of an evening, and seemed to be quite shut in by the 
 surrounding mountains, of the comparison of the hills standing 
 about Jerusalem, with God standing about his people. The 
 impression which the mountains gave me, was never one of 
 bleakness or wildness, but of a sort of paternal shelter and 
 protection to the valley ; and in those violent storms which 
 were so frequent this winter, our house lay snug beneath its 
 28*
 
 830 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 cliff, and felt comparatively nothing of the wind. We had no 
 snow in the valleys, but frequently a thick powdering on the 
 higher mountains, while all below was green and warm. The 
 School goes on very fairly ; with its natural proportion of in- 
 terest and of annoyance. I am daily more and more struck 
 with the very low average of intellectual power, and of the 
 difficulty of meeting those various temptations, both intellect- 
 ual and moral, which stand in boys' way ; a school shows as 
 undisguisedly as any place the corruption of human nature, 
 and the monstrous advantage with which evil starts, if I may 
 so speak, in its contest with good. 
 
 LXXIV. TO REV. JULIUS BABE. 
 
 (On the death of his brother Augustus Hare.) 
 
 Rugby, March 10, 1834. 
 
 I will not trouble you with many words ; but it seemed un- 
 natural to me not to write, after the account from Rome, 
 which Arthur Stanley this morning communicated to me. I 
 do not attempt to condole, or to say anything further than 
 that, having known your brother for more than twenty-five 
 years, and having experienced unvaried kindness from him 
 since I first knew him, I hope that I can in some degree ap- 
 preciate what you have lost. Of all men whom I ever knew, 
 he was the one of whom Bunsen most strongly reminded me, 
 so that he seemed like Bunsen in England, as Bunsen had 
 seemed like him in Italy. God grant that I may try to re- 
 semble them both hi all the nobleness and beauty of their 
 goodness. 
 
 LXXV. TO EEV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 (With regard to tracts which he had intended to circulate in opposition to 
 the early Numbers of the " Tracts for the Times.") 
 
 Rugby, April 14, 1834. 
 
 The concluding part of your letter is a very good reason for 
 my not asking you to trouble yourself any further about my 
 papers. If the Tracts in question are not much circulated, 
 then, of course, it would be a pity to make them known by 
 answering them ; but this is a matter of fact which I know 
 not how to ascertain. They are strenuously puffed by the
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 331 
 
 British Magazine, and strenuously circulated amongst the 
 clergy ; of course I do not suppose that any living man out of 
 the clergy is in the slightest danger of being influenced by 
 them, except so far as they may lead him to despise the clergy 
 for countenancing them. 
 
 You do not seem to me to apprehend the drift of these 
 Tracts, nor the point of comparison between these and St. 
 Paul's adversaries. If they merely broached one opinion and 
 I combated it, it might be doubted which of us most disturbed 
 the peace of the Church. But they are not defending the 
 lawfulness or expediency of Episcopacy, which certainly I am 
 very far from doubting, but its necessity ; a doctrine in ordi- 
 nary times gratuitous, and at the same time harmless, save as 
 a folly. But now the object is to provoke the clergy to resist 
 the Government Church Reforms, and if, for so resisting, 
 they get turned out of their livings, to maintain that they are 
 the true clergy, and their successors schismatics; above all, 
 if the Bishops were deprived, as in King William's time, to 
 deny the authority of the Bishops who may succeed them, 
 though appointed according to the law of the land. All this 
 is essentially schismatical and anarchical : in Elizabeth's time 
 it would have been reckoned treasonable ; and in answering it, 
 I am not attacking Episcopacy, or the present constitution of 
 the English Church, but simply defending the common peace 
 and order of the Church against a new outbreak of Puritan- 
 ism, which will endure nothing but its own platform. 
 
 Now to insist on the necessity of Episcopacy, is exactly like 
 insisting on the necessity of circumcision ; both are and were 
 lawful, but to insist on either as necessary, is unchristian, and 
 binding the Church with a yoke of carnal ordinances ; and the 
 reason why circumcision, although expressly commanded once, 
 was declared not binding upon Christians, is much stronger 
 against the binding nature of Episcopacy, which never was 
 commanded at all ; the reason being, that all forms of govern- 
 ment and ritual are in the Christian Church indifferent and 
 to be decided by the Church itself, pro temporum et locorum 
 ratione, " the Church " not being the clergy, but the congre- 
 gation of Christians. 
 
 If you will refer me to any book which contains what you 
 think the truth, put sensibly, on the subject of the Apostolical 
 Succession, I shall really be greatly obliged to you to men- 
 tion it. I went over the matter again in the holidays with 
 Warburton and Hooker ; and the result was a complete con-
 
 332 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 firraation of the views, which I have entertained for years, 
 and a more complete appreciation of the confusions on which 
 the High-Church doctrines rest, and of the causes which have 
 led to its growth at different times. 
 
 By the way, I never accused Keble or Newman of saying, 
 that to belong to a true Church would save a bad man ; but 
 of what is equally unchristian, that a good man was not safe 
 unless he belonged to an Episcopal Church ; which is exactly 
 not allowing God's seal without it be countersigned by one of 
 their own forging. Nor did I say they were bad men, but 
 much the contrary ; though I think that their doctrine, which 
 they believe, I doubt not, to be true, is in itself schismatical, 
 profane, and unchristian. And I think it highly important 
 that the evils of the doctrine should be shown in the strongest 
 terms ; but no word of mine has impeached the sincerity or 
 general character of the men ; and, in this respect, I will care- 
 fully avoid every expression that may be thought uncharitable. 
 
 LXXVI. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, April 30, 1834. 
 
 I have indeed written a large part of a volume 
 
 on Church and State, but it had better be broken up into 
 smaller portions to be published at first separately, though 
 afterwards it may be altogether. My outline of the whole 
 question is this : I. That the State, being the only power 
 sovereign over human life, has for its legitimate object the 
 happiness of its people, their highest happiness, not physi- 
 cal only, but intellectual and moral; in short, the highest 
 happiness of which it has a conception. This was held, I 
 believe, nearly unanimously till the eighteenth century. War- 
 burton, the Utilitarians, and I fear Whately,* maintain, on 
 the contrary, that the State's only object is " the conservation 
 of body and goods." They thus play, though unintentionally, 
 into the hands of the upholders of ecclesiastical power, by 
 destroying the highest duty and prerogative of the Common- 
 wealth. JI. Ecclesiastical officers may be regarded in two 
 lights only, as sovereign or independent ; if they are priests, 
 or if they are rulers. A. Priests are independent, as deriv- 
 ing either from supposed holiness of race or person, or from 
 
 * The views of Archbishop Whately on this subject were afterwards fullj 
 et forth in the fourth and fifth volumes of his Essays.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 333 
 
 their exclusive knowledge of the Divine Will, a title to exe- 
 cute certain functions, which none but themselves can perform ; 
 and therefore these functions, being of prime necessity, enable 
 them to treat with the State not as members or subjects of it, 
 but as foreigners conferring on it a benefit, and selling this 
 on their own terms. B. Rulers, of course, are independent 
 and sovereign, ipsa vi termini. III. But the ecclesiastical 
 officers of Christianity, are by God's appointment neither 
 priests nor rulers. A. Not Priests, for there is one only Priest, 
 and all the rest are brethren ; none has any holiness of person 
 or race more than another, none has any exclusive possession 
 of divine knowledge. B. Not Rulers, for Christianity not 
 being a Oprja-Kfia or ritual service, but extending to every part 
 of human life, the rules of Christians, qua Christians, must 
 rule them in all matters of principle and practice; and, if 
 this power be given to Bishops, Priests, and Deacons by 
 divine appointment, Innocent the Third was right, and every 
 Christian country should be like Paraguay. You shall have 
 the rest by and by ; meantime, I send you up a paper about 
 the Universities. If you like it, sign it, and try to get others 
 to do so ; if you do not, burn it. 
 
 LXXVII. TO REV. JULIUS HAKE. 
 
 Rugby, May 12, 1834. 
 
 I would admit Unitarians, like all other Christians, 
 
 if the University system were restored, and they might have 
 halls of their own. Nay, I would admit them at the colleges 
 if they would attend chapel and the Divinity Lectures, which 
 some of them, I think, would do. But everything seems to 
 me falling into confusion between two parties, whose ignorance 
 and badness I believe I shrink from with the most perfect 
 impartiality of dislike. I must petition against the Jew Bill, 
 and wish that you or some man like you would expose that 
 low Jacobinical notion of citizenship, that a man acquires 
 a right to it by the accident of his being littered inter quatuor 
 maria, or because he pays taxes.* I wish I had the knowl- 
 
 * Extract from a letter to Mr. Sergeant Coleridge. " The correlative to 
 taxation, in my opinion, is not citizenship, but protection. Taxation may 
 imply representation quoad hoc, and I should have no objection to let the 
 Jews tax themselves in a Jewish House of Assembly, like a colony or like 
 the clergy of old ; but to confound the right of taxing one's self with the right 
 of general legislation, is one of the Jacobinical confusions of later days, 
 arising from those low Warburtonian notions of the ends of political soci- 
 ety." See also Preface to his Edition, of Thucydides, vol. iii. p. xv. now 
 published in Miscellaneous Works.
 
 834 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 edge and the time to state fully the ancient system of 
 fu'roucoi, &c., and the principle on which it rested ; that differ- 
 ent races have different i/o/u/ia, and that an indiscriminate 
 mixture breeds a perfect "colluvio omnium rerum." Now 
 Christianity gives us that bond perfectly, which race in the 
 ancient world gave illiberally and narrowly, for it gives a com- 
 mon standard of PO/U/KI, without observing distinctions, which 
 are, in fact, better blended. 
 
 [This letter, as well as the preceding, alludes to the sub- 
 joined Declaration, circulated by him for signature.] 
 
 " The undersigned members of the Universities of Oxford 
 and Cambridge, many of them being engaged in education, 
 entertaining a strong sense of the peculiar benefits to be 
 derived from studying at the Universities, cannot but consider 
 it as a national evil, that these benefits should be inaccessible 
 to a large proportion of their countrymen. 
 
 " While they feel most strongly that the foundation of all 
 education must be laid in the great truths of Christianity, and 
 would on no account consent to omit these, or to teach them 
 imperfectly, yet they cannot but acknowledge, that these truths 
 are believed and valued by the great majority of Dissenters, no 
 less than by the Church of England ; and that every essential 
 point of Christian instruction may be communicated without 
 touching on those particular questions on which the Church 
 and the mass of Dissenters are at issue. 
 
 " And, while they are not prepared to admit such Dissenters 
 as differ from the Church of England on the most essential 
 points of Christian truth, such as the modern Unitarians of 
 Great Britain, they are of opinion, that all other Dissenters 
 may be admitted into the Universities, and allowed to take 
 degrees there with great benefit to the country, and to the 
 probable advancement of Christian truth and Christian charity 
 amongst members of all persuasions." 
 
 LXXVIII. *TO H. BALSTON,* ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, May 19, 1884. 
 
 ..... I am very glad that you continue to practise com- 
 position, but above all I would advise you to make an abstract 
 of one or two standard works. One, I should say, in philoso- 
 
 * For the sake of convenience, an asterisk has been prefixed to the names 
 of those correspondents who had been his pupils at Rugby.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 335 
 
 phy ; the other in history. I would not be in a hurry to 
 finish them, but keep them constantly going, with one page 
 always clear for Notes. The abstract itself practises you in 
 condensing and giving in your own words what another man 
 has said ; a habit of great value, as it forces one to think 
 about it, which extracting merely does not. It further gives 
 a brevity and simplicity to your language, two of the greatest 
 merits which style can have, and the notes give you an op- 
 portunity of a great deal of original composition, besides a 
 constant place to which to refer anything that you may read 
 in other books ; for having such an abstract on hand, you will 
 be often thinking when reading other books, of what there 
 may be in them which will bear upon your abstract. 
 
 The latter part of your letter I very heartily thank you for : 
 it is a great over-payment of any exertions of mine when what 
 it would be a breach of duty in me to omit is received so 
 kindly and gratefully. At the same time I have always 
 thought that it was quite impossible in my situation to avoid 
 feeling a strong personal interest in most of those whom I 
 have had to do with, independently of professional duty. 
 
 I shall be always glad to see you or to hear from you. 
 
 LXXIX. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, June 11, 1834. 
 
 The political matters on which you touch, are to 
 
 me of such intense interest, that I think they would kill me 
 if I lived more in the midst of them ; unless, as was said to 
 be the case with the Cholera, they would be less disturbing 
 when near, than when at a distance. I grieve most deeply 
 at this ill-timed schism in the ministry, and, as men, who have 
 no familiarity with the practice of politics, may yet fancy that 
 they understand their principles, so it seems to me that both 
 Lord Grey and the seceders are wrong. We are suffering 
 here, as in a thousand other instances, from that accursed 
 division between Christians, of which I think the very Arch- 
 fiend must be KO.T e'lox 7 ?" the author. The good Protestants 
 and bad Christians have talked nonsense, and worse than non- 
 sense, so long about Popery, and the Beast, and Antichrist, 
 and Babylon,* that the simple, just, and Christian measure of 
 
 * " The Babylon of the Revelations is chiefly taken from the Babylon of 
 the Old Testament, which it resembles in pride of power, whilst the images 
 of wealth are from Tyre. Pagan Rome, no doubt, was the immediate ob-
 
 336 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 establishing the Roman Catholic Church in three fifths of 
 Ireland, seems renounced by common consent. The Protes- 
 tant clergy ought not to have their present revenues in Ireland 
 so far I agree with Lord Grey but not on a low econom- 
 ical view of their pay being over-proportioned to their work ; 
 but because Church property is one of the most sacred trusts, 
 of which the sovereign power in the Church, (i. e. the King 
 and Parliament, not the Bishops and Clergy,) is appointed by 
 God trustee. It is a property set apart for the advancement 
 of direct Christian purposes, first by furnishing religious in- 
 struction and comfort to the grown-up part of the population ; 
 next by furnishing the same to the young in the shape of 
 religious education. Now the Christian people of Ireland, i. e. 
 in my sense of the word the Church of Ireland, have a right 
 to have the full benefit of their Church property, which now 
 they cannot have, because Protestant clergymen they will not 
 listen to. I think, then, that it ought to furnish them with 
 Catholic clergymen, and the general local separation of the 
 Catholic and Protestant districts would render this as easy to 
 effect in Ireland as it was in Switzerland, where, after their 
 bloody religious wars of the sixteenth century, certain parishes 
 in some of the Cantons, where the religions were intermixed, 
 were declared Protestant and others Catholic ; and, if a man 
 turned Catholic in a Protestant parish, he was to migrate to a 
 Catholic parish, and vice versa. If this cannot be done yet, 
 then religious grammar-schools, Catholic and Protestant, such 
 as were founded in England so numerously after the Reforma- 
 tion, would be the next best thing ; but, whilst Ireland con- 
 tinues in its present low state of knowledge and religion, I 
 cannot think that one penny of its Church property ought to 
 be applied to the merely physical or ordinary objects of govern- 
 ment I have one great principle, which I never lose sight 
 of; to insist strongly on the difference between Christian and 
 nonchristian, and to sink into nothing the differences between 
 
 ject as it is said, ' the city on the seven hills,' then answering in power 
 and wealth to the city here described. But in the higher sense it is the 
 word 6 Ki'xrfjLos ; and wherever a worldly spirit prevails, there, in some 
 sense, is Babylon. Thus, Rev. xviii. 4, is another mode of expressing Rom. 
 xii. 2, and Rev. xviii. 24, of 1 John iii. 13, John xv. 19." Note on Rev. 
 xviii. " The great secret," he said, "of interpreting the Revelations is, to 
 trace the images back to their first appearance in the Old Testament Proph- 
 ets." What to me is a decisive proof of the falsehood of the usual commen- 
 taries on the Apocalypse is, that the history which they present of the 
 middle ages, and of Europe generally, is such as no one in his senses fairly 
 reading that history would find there."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 337 
 
 Christian and Christian. I am sure that this is in the spirit 
 of the Scriptures : I think it is also most philosophical and 
 liberal ; but all the world quarrels either with one half of my 
 principle or with the other, whereas I think they stand and 
 fall together. I know not whether Mr. Spring Rice takes a 
 strong interest in questions concerning education, but I am 
 very anxious the more so from the confusions prevailing 
 about the nature of the Universities that the Universities 
 should be restored, that is, that the usurpations of the Heads 
 of the colleges should be put down, according to those excel- 
 lent articles of Sir W. Hamilton's which appeared in the 
 Edinburgh Review some time since. I think that this is 
 even more important than the admission of the Dissenters. 
 And also, if ever the question of National education comes 
 definitely before the government, I am very desirous of their 
 not " centralizing " too much, but availing themselves of the 
 existing machinery, which might be done to a great extent, 
 with very little expense, and none of that interference with 
 private institutions, or even with foundations, of which there 
 is so great, and I think in some respects, a reasonable fear. 
 But I will conclude and release you. 
 
 LXXX. TO REV. DR. LONGLEY. 
 
 Rugby, June 25, 1834. 
 
 Though sorry that you did not concur with my views, yet 
 I was not much surprised, being long since used to find my- 
 self in a minority on those matters. Yet I do not see how 
 any man can avoid the impression that Dissent cannot exist 
 much longer in this country, as it does now ; either it must 
 be comprehended within the Church, or it will cease in another 
 way, by there being no Establishment left to dissent from. 
 And, as I think that men will never be wise and good enough 
 for the first, so I see everything tending towards the second ; 
 and this fancied reaction in favor of the High-Church party 
 seems to me the merest illusion of the world ; it is like that 
 phantom which Minerva sent to Hector to tempt him to his 
 fate, by making him believe that Deiphobus was at hand to 
 help him. 
 
 Meantime, our little commonwealth here goes on very 
 
 quietly, and I think satisfactorily. I have happily more 
 
 power than Lord Grey's government, and neither Radicals to 
 
 call for more nor Tories to call for less, and so I can reform 
 
 VOL. i. 29 v
 
 338 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 or forbear at my own discretion I find Westmore- 
 land very convenient in giving me an opportunity of having 
 some of the Sixth Form with me in the holidays ; not to read 
 of course, but to refresh their health when they get knocked 
 up by the work, and to show them mountains and dales ; a 
 great point in education, and a great desideratum to those 
 who only know the central or southern counties of England. 
 I must ask your congratulations on having finished Thucydides, 
 of which the last volume will appear, I hope, in October. I 
 have just completed the Eighth Book, and hope now to set 
 vigorously to work about the Roman History. 
 
 l.\\ \ I. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, July 2, 1834. 
 
 I must write to thank you for your Charge, which delighted 
 
 me It is delightful to read a Charge without any 
 
 folly in it, and written so heartily in the spirit of a Christian 
 Episcopacy, for which I have always had a great respect, 
 though not exactly after the fashion of Keble and Newman. 
 I trust, if it please God, that we shall meet this summer; 
 and it is truly kind in you to try to make your arrangements 
 
 suit ours I shall bring over to you my beginning of 
 
 "the State and the Church," which I shall like to talk over 
 
 with you The other day slept at our house, and 
 
 fairly asked me for my opinion about the connection of Church 
 and State, which I gave him at some length ; and I found, as 
 indeed he confessed, that the subject was one, on which his 
 ideas were all at sea ; and he expressed a great earnestness 
 that mething should be written on the subject before the 
 next session of Parliament He did not know (and I think 
 it is a common complaint) the Statutes passed about the 
 Church in Henry the Eighth's and Edward the Sixth's reigns, 
 and which are still the Spxcu of its constitution ; if that may 
 be said to have a constitution which never was constituted, but 
 was left as avowedly unfinished as Cologne Cathedral, where 
 they left a crane standing on one of the half-built towers three 
 hundred years ago, and have renewed the crane from time to 
 time, as it wore out, as a sign not only that the building was 
 incomplete, but that the friends of the Church hoped to finish 
 the work whenever they could. Had it been in England, the 
 crane would have been speedily destroyed, and the friends of 
 the Church would have said that the Church was finished per-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 339 
 
 fectly already, and that none but its enemies would dare to 
 suggest that it wanted anything to complete its symmetry and 
 usefulness. 
 
 I have been writing two sermons on the evidences, 1st 
 of Natural Religion, and 2d, of Christianity, intended for 
 the use of those of my boys who are now leaving us for Col- 
 lege. I mean, if I live, to preach a third next Sunday on the 
 differences between Christians and Christians, which, as oar 
 two Examiners will hear it, both of whom have published 
 pamphlets against the Dissenters, will not, I suspect, be very 
 agreeable to them. We are all very well, and rather desire 
 our mountains, though all things have gone on very pleasantly 
 so far; but the half-year is a long one, certainly. Do you 
 know that we have got a sort of Mechanics' or Tradesmen's 
 Institution in Rugby ; where I have been lecturing twice upon 
 History, and drawing two great charts, and coloring them to 
 illustrate my lecture. I drew one chart of the History of 
 England and France for the last 350 years, coloring red the 
 periods of the wars of each country, black the periods of civil 
 war, and a bright yellow line at the side, to show the periods 
 of constitutional government, with patches of brown to indi- 
 cate seasons of great distress, &c. I have some thoughts of 
 having them lithographed for general use 
 
 LXXXII. TO A PERSON WHO HAD ONCE BEEN HIS LANDLORD, 
 
 And was ill of a painful disorder, but refused to see the clergyman of the 
 parish, or allow his friends to address him on religious subjects. 
 
 I was very sorry to see you in such a state of suffering, and 
 to hear from your friends, that you were so generally. I do 
 not know that I have any title to write to you ; but you once 
 let me speak to you, when I was your tenant, about a subject 
 on which I took it very kind that you heard me patiently, and 
 trusting to that, I am venturing to write to you again. 
 
 I have myself been blessed with very constant health ; yet 
 T have been led to think from tune to time, what would be my 
 greatest support and comfort, if it should please God to visit 
 me either with a very painful or a very dangerous illness ; and 
 I have always thought, that in both, nothing would do me so 
 much good, as to read over and over again, the account of the 
 sufferings and death of Christ, as given in the different Gos- 
 pels. For, if it be a painful complaint, we shall find that, in 
 mere pain, He suffered most severely and in a great variety
 
 840 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of ways ; and, if it be a dangerous complaint, then we shall see 
 that Christ suffered very greatly from the fear of death, and 
 was very sorely troubled in His mind up to the very time 
 almost of His actually dying. And one gfreat reason why He 
 bore all this, was that we might be supported and comforted 
 when we have to bear the same. 
 
 But when I have thought how this would comfort me, it is 
 very true that one cannot help thinking of the great difference 
 between Christ and one's self, that He was so good, and that 
 we are so full of faults and bad passions of one kind or another. 
 So that if He feared death, we must have much greater reason 
 to fear it : and so indeed we have were it not for Hun. But 
 He bore all His sufferings, that God might receive us after 
 our death, as surely as He received Christ himself. And 
 surely it is a comfort above all comfort, that we are not only 
 Suffering no more than Christ suffered, but that we shall be 
 happy after our sufferings are over, as truly as He is happy. 
 
 Dear Mr. , there is nothing in the world which hinders 
 
 you or me from having this comfort, but the badness and hard- 
 ness of our hearts, which will not let us open ourselves heart- 
 ily to God's love towards us. He desires to love us and to 
 keep us, but we shut up ourselves from Him, and keep our- 
 selves in fear and misery, because we will not receive His 
 goodness. Oh ! how heartily we should pray for one another, 
 and for ourselves, that God would teach us to love Him, and 
 be thankful to Him, as He loves us. We cannot, indeed, love 
 God, if we keep any evil or angry passion within us. If we 
 do not forgive all who may have wronged or affronted us, 
 God has declared most solemnly that He will not forgive us. 
 There is no concealing this, or getting away from it. If we 
 cannot forgive we cannot be forgiven. But when I think of 
 God's willingness to forgive me every day, though every 
 day I offend Him many times over it makes me more dis- 
 posed than anything else in the world to forgive those who 
 have offended me : and this I think is natural ; unless our 
 hearts are more hard, than with our faults they commonly are. 
 If you think me taking a liberty in writing this, I can only 
 beg you to remember, that as I hope Christ will pave me, so 
 He bids me try to bring my neighbors to Him also ; and espe- 
 cially those whom I have known, and from whom I have 
 received kindness. May Christ save us both, and turn our 
 hearts to love Him and our neighbors, even as He has loved 
 Us, and has died for us.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 341 
 
 LXXXIII. TO HIS AUNT, MRS. FRANCIS DELAFIELD. 
 
 ( On her 77th birthday.) 
 
 Rugby, September 10, 1834. 
 
 This is your birthday, on which I have thought of you, and 
 loved you, for as many years past as I can remember. No 
 10th of September will ever pass without my thinking of you 
 and loving you. I pray that God will keep you through 
 Jesus Christ, with all blessing, under every trial, which your 
 age may bring upon you ; and if, through Christ, we meet 
 together after the Resurrection, there will then be nothing of 
 old or young of healthy or sickly of clear memory, or of 
 confused but we shall be all one in Christ Jesus. 
 
 LXXXIV. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, September 29, 1834. 
 
 Your encouragement of my Roman History is the 
 
 most cheering thing I have ever had to excite me to work 
 upon it. I am working a little on the materials, and have got 
 Orelli's " Inscriptiones," and Haubold's " Monumenta Lega- 
 lia," which seem both very useful works. But I am stopped 
 at every turn by my ignorance, for instance what is known of 
 the Illyrians, the great people that were spread from the bor- 
 ders of Greece to the Danube ? what were their race and 
 language ? and what is known of all their country at this 
 moment ? I imagine that even the Austrian provinces of Dal- 
 matia are imperfectly known ; and who has explored the de- 
 tails of Moesia ? It seems to me that a Roman History should 
 embrace the history of every people with whom the Romans 
 were successively concerned ; not so as to go into all the de- 
 tails, which are generally worthless, but yet so as to give some- 
 thing of a notion of the great changes, both physical and 
 moral, which the different parts of the world have under- 
 gone. How earnestly one desires to present to one's mind a 
 peopled landscape of Gaul, or Germany, or Britain, before 
 Rome encountered them ; to picture the freshness of the 
 scenery, when all the earth's resources were as yet untouched, 
 as well as the peculiar form of the human species in that par- 
 ticular country, its language, its habits, its institutions. And 
 yet, these indulgences of our intellectual faculties match 
 strangely with the fever of our times, and the pressure for life 
 and death which is going on all around us. The disorders in 
 29*
 
 342 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 our social state appear to me to continue unabated : and you 
 know what trifles mere political grievances are, when com- 
 pared with these. Education is wanted to improve the physi- 
 cal condition of the people, and yet their physical condition 
 must be improved before they can be susceptible of education. 
 I hear that the Roman Catholics are increasing fast amongst 
 us : Lord Shrewsbury and other wealthy Catholics are devot- 
 ing their whole incomes to the cause, while the tremendous 
 influx of Irish laborers into Lancashire and the west of Scot- 
 land is tainting the whole population with a worse than bar- 
 barian element You have heard also, I doubt not, of the 
 Trades' Unions, a fearful engine of mischief, ready to riot or 
 to assassinate, with all the wickedness that has in all ages and 
 in all countries characterized associations not recognized by 
 the law, the iraipuu of Athens, the clubs of Paris ; and I 
 
 see no counteracting power 
 
 I shall look forward with the greatest interest to your 
 " Kirchen-und-Haus Buch ; " I never cease to feel the benefit 
 which I have derived from your letter to Dr. Knott ; the view 
 there contained of Christian Worship and of Christian Sacri- 
 fice as the consummation of that worship is to my mind 
 quite perfect. What would I give to see our Liturgy amended 
 on that model ! But our Bishops cry, " Touch not, meddle 
 not," till indeed it will be too late to do either. I have been 
 much delighted with two American works which have had a 
 large circulation in England ; " The Young Christian," and 
 "The Corner-Stone," by a New-Englander, Jacob Abbott 
 They are very original and powerful, and the American illus- 
 trations, whether borrowed from the scenery or the manners 
 of the people, are very striking. And I hear, both from 
 India and the Mediterranean, the most delightful accounts 
 of the zeal and resources of the American missionaries, that 
 none are doing so much in the cause of Christ as they are. 
 They will take our place in the world, I think not unworthily, 
 though with far less advantages in many respects, than those 
 which we have so fatally wasted. It is a contrast most deeply 
 humiliating to compare what we might have been with what 
 we are, with almost Israel's privileges, and with all Israel's 
 abuse of them. I could write on without limit, if my time 
 were as unlimited as my inclinations ; it is vain to say what 
 I would give to talk with you on a great many points, though 
 your letters have done more than I should have thought pos- 
 sible towards enabling me in a manner to talk with you. I
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 343 
 
 feel no doubt of our agreement ; indeed it would make me 
 very unhappy to doubt it, for I am sure our principles are the 
 same, and they ought to lead to the same conclusions. And 
 so I think they do. God bless you, my dear friend; I do 
 trust to see you again ere very long. 
 
 LXXXV. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (A.) 
 
 Rugby, October 29, 1834. 
 
 I thank you very much for your letter ; I need not tell you 
 that it greatly interested me, at the same time that it also in 
 some respects has pained me. I do grieve that you do not 
 enjoy Oxford ; it is not, as you well know, that I admire the 
 present tone of the majority of its members, or greatly re- 
 spect their judgment, still there is much that is noble and 
 good about the place, and you, I should have hoped, might 
 have benefited by the good, and escaped the folly. If you 
 have got your views for your course of life into a definite 
 shape, so as to see your way clear before you, and this course 
 is wholly at variance with the studies of a University, then 
 there is nothing to be said, except that I am sorry and sur- 
 prised, and should be very anxious to learn what your views 
 are. But if you look forward to any of what are called the 
 learned professions, and wish still to carry on the studies of a 
 well-educated man, depend upon it that you are in the right 
 place where you are, and have greater means within your 
 reach there, than you can readily obtain elsewhere. Univer- 
 sity distinctions are a great starting-point in life ; they intro- 
 duce a man well, nay, they even add to his influence after- 
 wards. At this moment, when I write what is against the 
 common opinion of people at Oxford, they would be too happy 
 to say, that I objected to their system, because I had not tried 
 it, or had not succeeded in it. Consider that a young man 
 has no means of becoming independent of the society about 
 him. If you wish to exercise influence hereafter, begin by 
 distinguishing yourself in the regular way, not by seeming to 
 prefer a separate way of your own. It is not the natural order 
 of things, nor, I think, the sound one. I knew a man at 
 Oxford sixteen years ago, very clever, but one who railed 
 against the place and its institutions, and would not read for 
 a class. And this man, I am told, is now a zealous Conserva- 
 tive, and writes in the British Magazine. 
 
 As to your disappointment in society, I really am afraid to
 
 344 TIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 touch on the subject without clearer knowledge. But you 
 should, I am sure, make an effort to speak out, as I am really 
 grateful for your having written out to me. Reserve and fear 
 of committing one's self are, beyond a certain point, positive 
 evils ; a man had better expose himself half-a-dozen times, 
 than be shut up always ; and after all, it is not exposing 
 yourself, for no one can help valuing and loving what seems 
 an abandonment to feelings of sympathy, especially when from 
 the character of him who thus opens his heart, the effort is 
 known to be considerable. I am afraid that I may be writing 
 at random ; only believe me that I feel very deeply interested 
 about you, and perhaps have more sympathy with your case, 
 than many a younger man ; for the circumstances of my life 
 have kept me young in feelings, and the period of twenty 
 years ago is as vividly present to my mind, as though it were 
 a thing of yesterday. 
 
 LXXXVI. TO T. F. ELLIS, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 21, 1834. 
 
 I was very glad to see your handwriting once again, and 
 shall be very ready to answer your question to the best of my 
 power, although I am well aware of its difficulty. It so 
 happens that I have said something on this very subject hi 
 the Introduction to the new volume of my Sermons, which is 
 just published, so that it has been much in my thoughts 
 lately, though I am afraid it is easier here, as in other things, 
 to point out what is of no use, than to recommend what is. 
 
 The preparation for ordination, so far as passing the 
 Bishop's examination is concerned, must vary according to the 
 notions of the different Bishops, gome requiring one thing, 
 and some another. I like no book on the Articles altogether, 
 but Hey's Divinity Lectures at Cambridge seem to me the 
 best and fairest of any that I know of. 
 
 But with regard to the much higher question, " What line 
 of study is to be recommended for a clergyman ? " my own no- 
 tions are very decided, though I am afraid they are somewhat 
 singular. A clergyman's profession is the knowledge and 
 practice of Christianity, with no more particular profession to 
 distract his attention from it. While all men, therefore, 
 should study the Scriptures, he should study them thoroughly : 
 because from them only is the knowledge of Christianity to be 
 obtained. And they are to be studied with the help of philo-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 345 
 
 logical works and antiquarian, not of dogmatical theology. 
 But then for the application of the Scriptures, for preach- 
 ing, &c., a man requires, first, the general cultivation of his 
 mind, by constantly reading the works of the very greatest 
 writers, philosophers, orators, and poets ; and, next, an under- 
 standing of the actual state of society of our own and of 
 general history, as affecting and explaining the existing differ- 
 ences amongst us, both social and religious, and of political 
 economy, as teaching him how to deal with the poor, and how 
 to remove many of the natural delusions which embitter their 
 minds against the actual frame of society. Further, I should 
 advise a constant use of the biography of good men ; their 
 inward feelings, prayers, &c., and of devotional and practical 
 works, like Taylor's Holy Living, Doddridge's Rise and Pro- 
 gress of Religion in the Soul, &c., &c. About Ecclesiastical 
 History, there is a great difficulty. I do not know Wadding- 
 ton's book well, but the common histories, Mosheim, Milner, 
 Dupin, &c., are all bad ; so is Fleury, except the Disserta- 
 tions prefixed to several of his volumes, and which ought to 
 be published separately. For our own Church again, the 
 truth lies in a well ; Strype, with all his accuracy, is so weak 
 and so totally destitute of all sound views of government, that 
 it is positively injurious to a man's understanding to be long 
 engaged in so bad an atmosphere. Burnet is much better in 
 every way, yet he is not a great man ; and I suppose that 
 the Catholic and Puritan writers are as bad or worse. As 
 commentators on the Scriptures, I should recommend Light- 
 foot and Grotius ; the former, from his great Rabbinical 
 learning, is often a most admirable illustrator of allusions and 
 obscure passages in both the Old and New Testament ; the 
 latter, alike learned and able and honest, is always worth 
 reading. But I like Pole's Synopsis Criticorum altogether, 
 and the fairness of the collection is admirable. For Hebrew, 
 Gesenius's Lexicon and Stuart's Grammar are recommended 
 to me, but I cannot judge of them myself. Schleusner's 
 well-known Lexicons for the Septuagint and New Testament 
 are exceedingly valuable as an index verborum, but his inter- 
 pretations are not to be relied on, and he did not belong to 
 the really great school of German philology
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 LXXXVII. *TO H. HIGHTON, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 26, 1834. 
 
 I have not time to send you a regular letter in answer, but 
 you wish to hear my opinion about the Rugby Magazine be- 
 fore Lake leaves Oxford. I told him that what I wanted to 
 know, was, in whose hands the conduct of the work would be 
 placed. Everything depends on this ; and as, on the one 
 hand, if the Editors are discreet and inexorable in rejecting 
 trash, I should be delighted to have such a work established, 
 so, on the other hand, if they do admit trash, or worse still, 
 anything like local or personal scandal or gossip, the Maga- 
 zine would be a serious disgrace to us alL And I think men 
 owe it to the name of a school not to risk it lightly, as of 
 course a Magazine called by the name of " Rugby " would 
 risk it. Again, I should most deprecate it, if it were political, 
 for many reasons which you can- easily conceive yourself. I 
 do not wish to encourage the false notion of my making or 
 trying to make the school political. This would be done were 
 the Magazine liberal : if otherwise, I should regret it on other 
 grounds. If the Editors are good, and the plan well laid 
 down and steadily kept to, I shall think the Magazine a most 
 excellent thing, both for the credit of the school, and for its 
 real benefit Only remember that the result of such an 
 attempt cannot be neutral ; it must either do us great good or 
 great harm. 
 
 LXXXVIII. TO REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Fox How, December 81, 1884. 
 
 It delights me to find that so good a man as Mr. 
 
 H. thinks very well of the new Poor Law, and anticipates 
 very favorable results from it, but I cannot think that this or 
 any other single measure can do much towards the cure of 
 evils so complicated. I groan over the divisions of the 
 Church, of all our evils I think the greatest of Christ's 
 Church I mean, that men should call themselves Roman 
 Catholics, Church of England men, Baptists, Quakers, all 
 sorts of various appellations, forgetting that only glorious name 
 of CHRISTIAN, which is common to all, and a true bond of 
 union. I begin now to think that things must be worse before 
 they are better, and that nothing but some great pressure 
 from without will make Christians cast away their idols of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 347 
 
 Sectarianism ; the worst and most mischievous by which 
 Christ's Church has ever been plagued. 
 
 ^.XXXIX. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, January 24, 1835. 
 
 I do not know when I have been so much delighted as by 
 a paragraph in the Globe of this morning, which announced 
 your elevation to the Bench. Your late letters, while they in 
 some 'measure prepared me for it, have made me still more 
 rejoice in it, because they told me how acceptable it would be 
 to yourself. I do heartily and entirely rejoice at it, on public 
 grounds no less than on private ; as an appointment honorable 
 to the Government, beneficial to the public service, and hon- 
 orable and desirable for yourself; and I have some selfish 
 pleasure about it also, inasmuch as I hope that I shall have 
 some better chance of seeing you now than I have had hither- 
 to, either in Warwickshire or in Westmoreland. For myself, 
 when I am here in this perfection of beauty, with the place 
 just coming into shape, and the young plantations naturally 
 leading one to anticipate the future, I am inclined to feel 
 nothing but joy that the late change of Government has de- 
 stroyed all chance of my being ever called away from West- 
 moreland. At least I can say this, that I should only have 
 valued a Bishopric as giving me some prospect of effecting 
 that Church Reform which I so earnestly long for, the 
 commencement of an union with all Christians, and of a true 
 Church government as distinguished from a Clergy govern- 
 ment, or from none at all. For this I would sacrifice any- 
 thing ; but as for a Bishopric on the actual system, and with 
 no chance of mending it, it would only make me feel more 
 strongly than I do at present the fxditrrrjv odvvrjv jroXXa <f>pove- 
 ovra, (ir)8evbs Kpareetv. 
 
 Wordsworth is very well ; postponing his new volume of 
 poems till the political ferment is somewhat abated. " At ille 
 labitur et labetur," so far as I can foresee, notwithstanding 
 what the Tories have gained at the late elections. 
 
 Have you seen your uncle's " Letters on Inspiration," 
 which I believe are to be published ? They are well fitted to 
 break ground in the approaches to that momentous question 
 which involves in it so great a shock to existing notions ; the 
 greatest, probably, that has ever been given since the discov- 
 ery of the falsehood of the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility.
 
 348 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Yet it must come, and will end, in spite of the fears and 
 clamors of the weak and bigoted, in the higher exalting and 
 more sure establishing of Christian truth. 
 
 XC. TO REV JULIUS HARE. 
 
 Fox How, January 26, 1835. 
 
 I cordially enter into your views about a Theological Re- 
 view, and I think the only difficulty would be to find an 
 Editor ; I do not think that Whately would have time to 
 write, but I can ask him ; and undoubtedly he would approve 
 of the scheme. Hampden occurs to me as a more likely man 
 to join such a thing than Pusey, and I think I know one or 
 two of the Younger Masters of Arts who would be very use- 
 ful. My notion of the main objects of the work would be 
 this ; 1st To give really fair accounts and analyses of the 
 works of the early Christian Writers ; giving also, so far as 
 possible, a correct view of the critical questions relating to 
 them, as to their genuineness, and the more or less corrupted 
 state of the text. 2d. To make some beginnings of Biblical 
 Criticism, which as far as relates to the Old Testament, is in 
 England almost non-existent. 3d. To illustrate in a really 
 impartial spirit, with no object but the advancement of the 
 Church of Christ, and the welfare of the Commonwealth of 
 England, the rise and progress of Dissent ; to show what 
 Christ's Church and this nation have owed to the Establish- 
 ment and to the Dissenters ; and, on the other hand, what 
 injury they have received from each ; with a view of pro- 
 moting a real union between them. These are matters par- 
 ticular, but all bearing upon the great philosophical and 
 Christian truth, which seems to me the very truth of 
 truths, that Christian unity and the perfection of Christ's 
 Church are independent of theological Articles of opinion ; 
 consisting in a certain moral state and moral and religious 
 affections, which have existed in good Christians of all ages 
 and all communions, along with an infinitely-varying propor- 
 tion of .truth and error ; that thus Christ's Church has stood 
 on a rock and never failed ; yet has always been marred with 
 much of intellectual error, and also of practical resulting from 
 the intellectual ; that to talk of Popery as the great Apostasy, 
 and to look for Christ's Church only amongst the remnant of 
 the Vaudois, is as absurd as to look to what is called the 
 Primitive Church or the Fathers for pure models of faith in
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 349 
 
 the sense of opinion or of government ; that Ignatius and 
 Innocent III. are to be held as men of the same stamp, 
 zealous and earnest Christians both of them, but both of them 
 overbearing and fond of power ; the one advancing the power 
 of Bishops, the other that of the Pope, with equal honesty, 
 it may be, for their respective times, with equal benefit, 
 but with as little claim the one as the other to be an authority 
 for Christians, and with equally little impartial perception of 
 universal truth. But then for the Editor ; if he must live in 
 London or in the Universities, I cannot think of the man 
 
 XCI. TO KEV. DR. LONGLEY. 
 
 Fox How, January 28, 1835. 
 
 I suppose, as you have an Easter vacation, that you have 
 by this time returned or are returning to Harrow. Next 
 week we shall be also beginning work at Rugby, with the 
 prospect of one-and-twenty weeks before us ; too long a 
 period, I think, either for boys or masters. In the mean time 
 we have been here for nearly six weeks, enjoying ourselves 
 as much as possible, though we have had much more snow, I 
 imagine, than you have had in the south. But we have had 
 a large and cheerful party within doors, and sufficient variety 
 of weather to allow of a great deal of enjoyment of scenery ; 
 besides the perpetual beauty and interest of this particular 
 place and the delight of watching the progress of all our im- 
 provements. We have done, however, at last, with workmen, 
 and have now only to wait for Nature's work in bringing on 
 our shrubs and trees to their maturity ; though many people 
 tell me that every additional tree will rather injure the beauty 
 of this place than improve it. 
 
 I have tried the experiment which I mentioned to you 
 about the Fifth Form with some modifications. I have not 
 given the Fifth the power of fagging, but by reducing their 
 number to about three or four and twenty, we have made 
 them much more respectable both 'in conduct and scholar- 
 ship, and more like boys at the head of the school. I do not 
 think that we have at present a large proportion of clever 
 boys at Rugby, and there are many great evils which I have 
 to contend with, more than are generally known. I think, 
 also, that we are now beginning to outlive that desire of 
 novelty which made so many people send their sons to Rugby 
 when I fir^t went there. I knew that that feeling would ebb, 
 
 VOL. i. 30
 
 350 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 and therefore got the school limited; or else as the flood 
 would have risen higher, so its ebb would have been more 
 marked ; but as it was, the limit was set too high, and I do 
 not think that we shall keep up to it, especially as other found- 
 ation schools are every day becoming reformed, and there- 
 fore entering into competition with us. But I say this without 
 the least uneasiness, for the school is really mending in itself; 
 and its credit at the Universities increasing rather than falling 
 off; and, so long as this is the case, I shall be perfectly satis- 
 fied ; if we were really to go down hi efficiency, either from my 
 fault, or from faults which I could not remedy, I should soon 
 establish myself at f"ox How. 
 
 I wrote to Hawtrey to congratulate him on his appoint- 
 ment, and I took that opportunity to ask him what he thought 
 of the expediency of getting up good grammars, both Latin 
 and Greek, which, being used in all or most of the great public 
 schools, would so become, in fact, the national grammars. I 
 should propose to adopt something of the plan followed by 
 our translators of the Bible ; i. e. that a certain portion of 
 each grammar should be assigned to the master or masters of 
 each of the great schools ; e. g. the accidence to one, syntax 
 to another, prosody to a third ; or probably with greater sub- 
 divisions ; that then the parts so drawn up should be sub- 
 mitted to the revision of the other schools, and the whole 
 thus brought into shape. Hawtrey exclaims strongly against 
 the faults of the Eton grammars, and I am not satisfied with 
 Matthias, which seems to me too difficult, and almost impossi- 
 ble to be learnt by heart. Hawtrey said he would write to 
 me again, when he found himself more settled, and I have not 
 heard from him since. I should like to know what your sen- 
 timents are about it ; it would be ftaXurra KO.T ev^" to have a 
 common grammar jointly concocted ; but if I cannot get other 
 men to join me, I think we must try our hands on one for our 
 own use at Rugby ; I shall not, however, think of this till all 
 hope of something better * is out of the question. 
 
 It seems to me that we* have not enough of co-operation in 
 our system of public education, including both the great schools 
 and Universities. I do not like the centralizing plan of com- 
 pulsory uniformity under the government ; but I do not see 
 why we should all be acting without the least reference to one 
 
 * The necessity for such a plan was eventually obviated by his adoptioa 
 of the Rav. C. Wordsworth's Greek Grammar.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 351 
 
 another. Something of this kind is wanted, particularly I 
 think with regard to expulsion. Under actual circumstances 
 it is often no penalty at all in reality, while it is consid- 
 ered ignorantly to be the excess of severity, and the rum of a 
 boy's prospects. And until the Universities have an exami- 
 nation upon admission as a University, not a college regula- 
 tion, the standard of the college lecture-rooms will be so low, 
 that a young man going from the top of a public school will 
 be nearly losing his time, and tempted to go back in his 
 scholarship by attending them. This is an old grievance at 
 Oxford, as I can bear witness, when I myself was an under- 
 graduate just come from Winchester. 
 
 XCII. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Fox How, January 29, 1835. 
 
 "We have now been here nearly six weeks, enjoying this 
 country to the full, in spite of the snow, of which, we have 
 had more than our usual portion. Now, however, it is all 
 gone, and the spring lights and gentle airs of the last few 
 days have made the beauty of the scenery at its very highest. 
 We have so large a party in the house, that we are very inde- 
 pendent of any other society ; my wife's two sisters and one 
 of my nieces, besides one of our Sixth Form at Rugby, in 
 addition to our own children. I was much annoyed at being 
 called away into Warwickshire to vote at the election, a 
 long and hurried and expensive journey, with no very great 
 interest in the contest, only as having a vote, I thought it 
 right to go, and deliver my testimony. We were at one time 
 likely to have a contest in Westmoreland, but that blew over. 
 I wish that in thinking of you with a pupil, I could think of 
 you as enjoying the employment, whereas I am afraid you 
 will feel it to be a burden. It is, perhaps, too exclusively my 
 business at Rugby ; at least I fancy that I should be glad to 
 have a little more time for other things ; but I have not 
 yet learnt to alter my feelings of intense interest in the occu- 
 pation. I feel, perhaps, the more interest in it, because I 
 seem to find it more and more hopeless to get men to think 
 and inquire freely and fairly, after they have once taken their 
 side in life. The only hope is with the young, if by any 
 means they can be led to think for themselves without follow- 
 ing a party, and to love what is good and true, let them find 
 it where they will
 
 852 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 The Church question remains more uncertain than ever; 
 we have got a respite, I trust, from the Jew Bill for some 
 time ; but in other matters, I fear, Reform, according to my 
 views, is as far off as ever ; I care not in the least about the 
 pluralities and equalizing revenues ; let us have a real Church 
 Government and not a pretended one ; and this government 
 vested in the Church, and not in the clergy, and we may 
 have hopes yet. But I dread above all things the notion 
 either of the convocation or of any convocation, in which the 
 Laity had not at least an equal voice. As for the Irish 
 Church, that I think will baffle any man's wits to settle as it 
 should be settled. 
 
 XCHI. TO CHEVALIER BTJNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, February 10, 1835. 
 
 I know not how adequately to answer your last delightful 
 and most kind letter, so interesting to me in all its parts, so 
 full of matter for the expression of so many thoughts and so 
 many feelings. I think you can hardly tell, how I prize 
 such true sympathy of heart and mind as I am sure to find 
 in your letters ; because I hope and believe that it is not so 
 
 rare to you as it is to me I find in you that exact 
 
 combination of tastes, which I have in myself, for philological, 
 historical, and philosophical pursuits, centering in moral and 
 spiritual truths ; the exact Greek uoXtrwcr/, if we understand, 
 with St. Paul, where the a<m> of our iroXirfia is to be sought 
 for. Your Hymn Book reached me before the holidays, and 
 I fed upon it with unceasing delight in Westmoreland. It is 
 indeed a treasure ; and how I delighted in recognizing the 
 principles of the Letter to Dr. Knott in the first Appendix to 
 the volume. As to the Hymns, I have not yet read a single 
 one, which I have not thought good. I should like to know 
 some of your favorites ; for myself, I am especially fond of 
 the Hymn 24, " Seele, du musst munter werden," &c. ; of 
 G97, " Der Mond ist aufgegangen ; " of 824, " O liebe Seele, 
 konntst du werden ; " of 622, " Erhebt euch frohe Jubellie- 
 der;" of 839, "O Ewigkeit! O Ewigkeit;" and of 933 and 
 934. I have tried to translate some of them, but have been 
 sadly disappointed with my own attempts. But I must give 
 you one or two stanzas of the Morning Hymn, as a token of 
 my love to it, and to show you also, for your satisfaction, 
 how much our language is inferior to yours in flexibility and
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 353 
 
 power, by having lost so much of its native character, and 
 become such a jumble of French and Latin exotics with the 
 original Saxon I shall send you, almost immedi- 
 ately, the third volume of Thucydides, and the third volume 
 of Sermons. The Appendix to the latter is directed against 
 an error, which is deeply mischievous in our Church, by pre- 
 senting so great an obstacle to Christian union, as Avell as to 
 Christian Church Reform. Still, as in Catholic countries, 
 " the Church," with us, means, in many persons' mouths, and 
 constantly in Parliament, only " the Clergy ; " and this feel- 
 ing operates, of course, both to produce superstition and pro- 
 faneness, in both respects exactly opposed to Christianity. 
 Church Reform, in any high sense of the word, we shall not 
 have ; the High-Church party idolize things as they are ; the 
 Evangelicals idolize the early Reformers ; their notion at the 
 best would be to carry into full effect the intentions of Cran- 
 mer and Ridley ; neither party are prepared to acknowledge 
 that there is much more to be done than this ; and that 
 Popery and narrow dogmatical intolerance tainted the Church 
 as early as the days of Ignatius ; while, on the other hand, 
 Christ's true Church lived through the worst of times, and is 
 not to be confined to the small congregations of the Vaudois. 
 The state of parties in England, and that ignorance of and 
 indifference to general principles, which is so characteristic of 
 Englishmen, is enough to break one's heart. I do not think 
 that you do justice to the late government ; you must com- 
 pare them not with the government of a perfect Common- 
 wealth, but with that worse than " Faex Romuli," the Tory 
 system that preceded them, and which is now threatening us 
 
 again under a new aspect It strikes me that a noble 
 
 work might be written on the Philosophy of Parties and Rev- 
 olutions, showing what are the essential points of division 
 in all civil contests, and what are but accidents. For the 
 want of this, history as a collection of facts is of no use at 
 all to many persons ; they mistake essential resemblances, 
 and dwell upon accidental differences, especially when those 
 accidental differences are in themselves matters of great im- 
 portance, such as differences in religion, or, more or less, of 
 civil liberty and equality. Whereas it seems to me that the 
 real parties in human nature are the Conservatives and the 
 Advancers ; those who look to the past or present, and those 
 who look to the future, whether knowingly and deliberately, 
 or by an instinct of their nature, indolent in one case and 
 30* \v
 
 854 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 restless in the other, which they themselves do not analyze. 
 Thus Conservatism may sometimes be ultra democracy, (see 
 Cleon's speech in Thucydides, III.,) sometimes aristocracy, 
 as in the civil wars of Rome, or in the English constitution 
 now ; and the Advance may be sometimes despotism, some- 
 times aristocracy, but always keeping its essential character 
 of advance, of taking off bonds, removing prejudices, altering 
 what is existing. The Advance in its perfect form is Chris- 
 tianity, and in a corrupted world must always be the true 
 principle, although it has in many instances been so clogged 
 with evil of various kinds, that the conservative principle, 
 although essentially false since man fell into sin, has yet 
 commended itself to good men while they looked on the his- 
 tory of mankind only partially, and did not consider it as a 
 whole.* 
 
 How you astonish and shame me by what you are 
 
 yourself continually effecting and proposing to effect amidst 
 all your official and domestic engagements. I do not know 
 how you can contrive it, or how your strength and spirits can 
 support it. how heartily do I sympathize in your feeling 
 as to the union of philological, historical, and philosophical re- 
 search, all to minister to divine truth ; and how gladly would 
 I devote my time and powers to such pursuits, did I not feel 
 as much another thing in your letter, that we should abide in 
 that calling which God has set before us. And it is delight- 
 ful, if at any time I may hope to send out into the world any 
 young man willing and trained to do Christ's work, rich in 
 the combined and indivisible love of truth and of goodness. 
 
 It is one of my most delightful prospects to bring 
 
 * " Cobbett is an anti-advance man to the backbone, he is sometimes 
 Jacobin, sometimes Conservative, but never liberal; and the same may be 
 said of most of the partv writers on both sides, of which there is a good proof 
 in their joint abuse of the French government, which is, I think, the most 
 truly liberal and 'advancing' that exists in Europe, next perhaps to the 
 Prussian, which is one of the most advancing ever known." Extract from 
 a Letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge in the same year. 
 
 The doctrine alluded to in these Letters was one to which he often re- 
 curred, arid which he believed to be peculiarly applicable to modern Europe. 
 "A volume," he said, "might be written on those words of Harrington, 
 'that we are living in the dregs of the Gothic empire.' It is that the 
 beginnings of tilings are bad and when they have not been altered, you 
 may safely ay that they want altering, fiut then comes the question 
 whether our fate is not fixed, and whether you could not as well make the 
 muscles and sinews of a full-grown man perform the feats of an Indian jug- 
 gler; great changes require great docility, and you can only expect that 
 from perfect knowledge or perfect ignorance."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 355 
 
 my two elder boys, and I hope their dear mother also, to see 
 you and Mrs. Bunsen, whether it be at Rome or at Berlin. I 
 only wait for the boys being old enough to derive some last- 
 ing benefit from what they would see and hear on the Conti- 
 nent They are too young now, for the eldest is but just 
 twelve years old, the second just eleven. Your little name- 
 sake is the smallest creature of her age that I ever saw, a 
 mere doll walking about the room ; but full of life and in- 
 telligence and the merriest of the merry. 
 
 I have been trying to begin Hebrew, but am discouraged 
 by my notions of the uncertainty of the best knowledge hith- 
 erto gained about it. Do you think it possible to understand 
 Hebrew well, that is, as we understand Greek, where the lan- 
 guage is more precise and more clear than even our own 
 could be ? Conceive the luminous clearness of Demosthenes, 
 owing to his perfect use of an almost perfect language, and 
 our complete understanding of it ; but the interpretation of the 
 Hebrew Prophets * seems to me, judging from the different 
 Commentaries, to be almost guess-work ; and I doubt whether 
 it can ever be otherwise. Then the criticism of the Old Tes- 
 tament, the dates of the several books, their origin, &c., all 
 seem to me undecided, and what Wolf and Isiebuhr have 
 done for Greece and Rome seems sadly wanted for Judaea. 
 
 XCIV. *TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, February 25, 1835. 
 
 You must not think that I had forgotten you, though your 
 kind letter has remained so long unanswered. I was always 
 .Conscious of my debt to you, and resolved to pay it ; but 
 though I can write letters of business at any time, yet it is 
 not so with letters to friends, which I neither like to leave 
 unfinished in the middle, nor, to say the truth, do I always 
 feel equal to writing them, for they require a greater fresh- 
 ness and abstractedness of mind from other matters than I am 
 always able to command. I have been greatly delighted with 
 all I have heard of you since you have been at Cambridge ; 
 it is vexatious to me, however, that from -want of familiarity 
 with the system, I cannot bring your life and pursuits there 
 ?o vividly before my mind, as I can those of an under- 
 
 * This opinion was greatly modified by his later study of the Prophets. 
 The general coincidence of two men so different as Lowfh and Gesenius in 
 their interpretation of Isaiah, he used to instance as a satisfactory proof that 
 the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures could be really ascertained.
 
 856 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 graduate in Oxford ; otherwise, to say nothing of my personal 
 interest for individuals, I think that I am as much concerned 
 about one university as the other. Lake will have told you, 
 I dare say, all our vacation news, and probably all that has 
 happened worth relating since our return to Rugby. In fact, 
 news of all sorts you will be sure to hear from your other 
 correspondents earlier and more fully than from me. 
 
 I was obliged to you for a hint in your letter to Price, 
 about our reading more Greek poetry, and accordingly we 
 have begun the Harrow " Musa Grseca," and are doing some 
 Pindar. You may be sure that I wish to consult the line of 
 reading at both Universities, so far as this can be done with- 
 out a system of direct cramming, or without sacrificing some- 
 thing which I may believe to be of paramount importance. 
 Aristophanes, however, I had purposely left for Lee to do 
 with the Fifth Form, as it is a book which he had studied 
 well, and can do much better than I can. 
 
 I am doing nothing, but thinking of many things. I for- 
 get whether you learnt any German here, but I think it 
 would be well worth your while to learn it without loss of 
 time. Every additional language gained, is like an addi- 
 tional power, none more so than German. I have been rev- 
 elling in my friend Bunsen's collection of hymns, and have 
 lately got a periodical work on Divinity, published by some 
 of the best German divines, " Theologische Studien und 
 Kritiken." I mention these, because they are both so utterly 
 unlike what is called Rationalism, and at the same time so 
 unlike our High-Church or Evangelical writings ; they seem 
 to me to be a most pure transcript of the New Testament, 
 combining in a most extraordinary degree the spirit of love 
 with the spirit of wisdom. 
 
 It is a very hard thing, I suppose, to read at once pas- 
 sionately and critically, by no means to be cold, captious, 
 sneering, or scoffing ; to admire greatness and goodness with 
 an intense love and veneration, yet to judge all things ; to be 
 the slave neither of names nor of parties, and to sacrifice even 
 the most beautiful associations for the sake of truth. I would 
 say, as a' good general rule, never read the works of any 
 ordinary man, except on scientific matters, or when they con- 
 tain simple matters of fact. Even on matters of fact, silly and 
 ignorant men, however honest and industrious in their par- 
 ticular subject, require to be read with constant watchfulness 
 and suspicion ; whereas great men are always instructive,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 357 
 
 even amidst much of error on particular points. In general, 
 however, I hold it to be certain, that the truth is to be found 
 in the great men, and the error in the little ones. 
 
 XGV. *TO A. P. STANLEY, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 4, 1835. 
 
 I am delighted that you like Oxford, nor am I 
 
 the least afraid of your liking it too much. It does not follow 
 because one admires and loves the surpassing beauty of the 
 place and its associations, or because one forms in it the most 
 valuable and most delightful friendships, that therefore one 
 is to uphold its foolishness, and to try to perpetuate its faults. 
 My love for any place or person, or institution, is exactly the 
 measure of my desire to reform them ; a doctrine which seems 
 to me as natural now, as it seemed strange when I was a 
 child, when I could not make out how, if my mother loved 
 me more than strange children, she should find fault with me 
 and not with them. But I do not think this ought to be a 
 difficulty to any one who is more than six years old. I sup- 
 pose that the reading necessary for the schools is now so 
 great that you can scarcely have time for anything else. 
 Your German will be kept up naturally enough in your mere 
 classical reading, and ancient history and philosophy will be 
 constantly recalling modern events and parties to your mind, 
 and improving in fact, in the best way, your familiarity with 
 and understanding of them. But I hope that you will be at 
 Oxford long enough to have one year at least of reading 
 directly on the middle ages or modern times, and of revel- 
 ling in the stores of the Oxford libraries. I have never lost 
 the benefit of what I enjoyed in this respect, though I have 
 often cause to regret that it is no longer within my reach. 
 
 I do not know why my Thucydides is not out ; I sent off 
 the last corrected sheet three weeks ago. I am amused with 
 thinking of what will be said of the latter part of the Preface, 
 which is very conservative, insomuch that I am rather afraid 
 of being suspected of ratting ; a suspicion which, notwith- 
 standing, would be quite unfounded, as you will probably 
 believe without any more solemn assurance on my part. Nor 
 do I feel that I am in any greater danger of becoming a 
 Radical, if by that term be meant one who follows popular 
 principles, as opposed to or distinct from liberal ones. But 
 iberal principles are more or less popular, and more or
 
 358 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 less aristocratical, according to circumstances, and thus in the 
 application of precisely the same principles which I held two 
 years ago, and ten years ago, I should write and act as to 
 
 particular persons and parties somewhat differently 
 
 In other words, the late extraordinary revolution has shown 
 the enormous strength of the aristocracy and of the corrupt and 
 low Tory party ; one sees clearly what hard blows they will not 
 only stand, but require, and that the fear of depressing them 
 too much is chimerical. A deeper fear is behind ; that, like 
 the vermin on the jacket in Sylla's apologue, they will stick 
 BO tight to the form of the constitution, that the constitution 
 itself will at last be thrown into the fire, and a military 
 
 monarchy succeed But of one thing I am clear, 
 
 that if ever this constitution be destroyed, it will be only when 
 it ought to be destroyed ; when evils long neglected, and good 
 long omitted, will have brought things to such a state, that 
 the constitution must fall to save the commonwealth, and the 
 Church of England perish for the sake of the Church of 
 Christ. Search and look whether you can find that any con- 
 stitution was ever destroyed from within by factions or dis- 
 content, without its destruction having been either just 
 penally, or necessary, because it could not any longer answer 
 its proper purposes. And this ripeness for destruction is the 
 sure consequence of Toryism and Conservatism, or of that 
 base system which joins the hand of a Reformer to the heart 
 of a Tory, reforms not upon principle, but upon clamor ; 
 and therefore both changes amiss, and preserves amiss, alike 
 blind and low-principled in what it gives and what it withholds. 
 And therefore I would oppose to the utmost any government 
 predominantly Tory, much more one exclusively Tory, and 
 most of all a government, at once exclusively Tory in heart, 
 and in word and action simulating reform. Conceive the 
 Duke of Ormond and Bolingbroke, and Atterbury, and Sir 
 "W. Wyndham, intrusted with the administration of the Act 
 of Settlement. So have I filled my paper ; but it is idle to 
 write upon things of this kind, as no letter will hold all that 
 is to be said, much less answer objections on the other side. 
 "Write to me when you can, and tell me about yourself fully.* 
 
 * The latter part of this letter was occasioned by a regret expressed at 
 his vote in the Warwickshire election. For the distinction between " Liberal 
 and Popular principles," see his article in the Quarterly Journal of Educst 
 lion, vol. ix. p. 281.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 359 
 
 XCVI. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OP DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, March 22, 1835. 
 I have been thinking of what you say as to a 
 
 book on the origin of Civilization, and considering whether 
 I could furnish anything towards it. But history, I think, 
 can furnish little to the purpose, because all history properly 
 so called belongs to an age of at least partial civilization ; and 
 the poetical or mythical traditions, which refer to the origin 
 of this civilization, cannot be made use of to prove anything, 
 till their character has undergone a more complete analysis. 
 I believe with you that savages could never civilize them- 
 selves, but barbarians I think might ; and there are some 
 races, e. g. the Keltic, the Teutonic, and the Hellenic, that 
 we cannot trace back to a savage state, nor does it appear 
 that they ever were savages. .With regard to such races as 
 have been found in a savage state, if it be admitted that all 
 mankind are originally one race, then I should say that they 
 must have degenerated ; but, if the physiological question be 
 not settled yet, and there is any reason to suppose that the 
 New Hollander and the Greek never had one common 
 ancestor, then you would have the races of mankind divided 
 into those improvable by themselves, and those improvable 
 only by others ; the first created originally with such means 
 in their possession, that out of these they could work indefi- 
 nitely their own improvement, the TTOV orw being in a manner 
 given to them ; the second without the irov orw, and intended 
 to receive it in time, through the instrumentality of their 
 fellow-creatures. And this would be sufficiently analogous to 
 the course of Providence in other known cases, e. g. the 
 communicating all religious knowledge to mankind through 
 the Jewish people, and all intellectual civilization through 
 the Greeks ; no people having ever yet possessed that activity 
 of mind, and that power of reflection and questioning of 
 things, which are the marks of intellectual advancement, with- 
 out having derived them mediately or immediately from 
 Greece. I had occasion in the winter to observe this in a 
 Jew, of whom I took a few lessons in Hebrew, and who was 
 learned in the writings of the Rabbis, but totally ignorant of 
 all the literature of the West, ancient and modern. He Avas 
 consequently just like a child, his mind being entirely with- 
 out the habit of criticism or analysis, whether as applied to 
 words or to things ; wholly ignorant, for instance, of the
 
 360 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 analysis of language, whether grammatical or logical ; or of 
 the analysis of a narrative of facts, according to any rules of 
 probability external or internal. I never so felt the debt 
 which the human race owes to Pythagoras, or whoever it was 
 that was the first founder of Greek philosophy. 
 
 The interest of present questions, involving as 
 
 they do great and eternal principles, hinders me from fixing 
 contentedly upon a work of past history ; while the hopeless- 
 ness of persuading men, and the inevitable odium which at- 
 tends anything written on the topics of the day, hinder me on 
 the other hand from writing much about the present How 
 great this odium is, I really could have hardly conceived, even 
 with all my former experience. [The rest of the letter is 
 lost.] 
 
 XCVH. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (A.) 
 
 Rugby, March 30, 1835. 
 
 Just as I have begun to write, the clock has struck five, 
 which you know announces the end of Fourth lesson, so that 
 I fear I shall not make much progress now ; I shall let the 
 Sixth Form, however, have the pleasure of contemplating a 
 very beautiful passage out of Coleridge for a few minutes 
 longer, while I write on a few lines to you. It gave me great 
 
 pleasure to find that you enjoy 's society so much, and I 
 
 hope that it makes Oxford seem at any rate more endurable 
 
 to you. I was very much interested by your story of '& 
 
 comment upon a little burst of yours about Switzerland. I 
 suppose that Pococuranteism (excuse the word) is much the 
 order of the day amongst young men. I observe symptoms 
 of it here, and am always dreading its ascendency, though we 
 have some who struggle nobly against it. I believe that " Nil 
 admirari," in this sense is the Devil's favorite text; and he 
 could not choose a better to introduce his pupils into the more 
 esoteric parts of his doctrine. And therefore I have always 
 looked upon a man infected with this disorder of anti-romance, 
 as on one, who has lost the finest part of his nature, and his 
 best protection against everything low and foolish. Such a 
 man may well call me mad, but his party are not yet strong 
 enough to get me fairly shut up, and till they are, I shall 
 take the liberty of insisting that their tail is the longest, and 
 the more boldly I assume this, the more readily will the world 
 ^believe me. I have lived now for many years, indeed, since
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 361 
 
 I was a very young man, in a very entire indifference as to 
 the opinion of people, unless I have reason to think them good 
 and wise ; and I wish that some of my friends would share 
 this indifference, at least as far as I am concerned. The only 
 thing which gives me the slightest concern in the attacks which 
 have been lately made on me, is the idea of their in any de- 
 gree disturbing my friends. I am afraid that is not as 
 
 indifferent as I could wish either to the attacks in newspapers, 
 or to the gossip of Oxford about Rugby, of which last I have 
 now had some years' experience, and I should pay it a very 
 undeserved compliment, if I were to set any higher value on it 
 than I do on my friend Theodore Hook and his correspondents 
 in John Bull. It is a mere idleness to attend to this sort 
 of talking, and as to trying to act so as to avoid its attacks, 
 a man would have enough to do, and would lead a strange 
 life, if he were to be shaping his conduct to propitiate gossip. 
 I hold it also equally vain to attempt to explain or to contra- 
 dict any reports that may be in circulation ; in order to do so, 
 it would be necessary to write a weekly despatch at the least ; 
 and even then it would do little good, while it would greatly 
 encourage the utterers of scandal, as it would show that their 
 
 attacks were thought worth noticing You will be 
 
 glad to hear that the English Essays are again very good, and 
 so I think are some of the Latin Essays ; the verse we have 
 not yet received. On the other hand, there is constantly suf- 
 ficient occasion to remember our humanity, without any slave 
 to prompt us. 
 
 XCVIII. TO SIR THOMAS SABINE PASLET, BAKT. 
 
 (In answer to a question about Public and Private Schools.) 
 
 Rugby, April 15, 1835. 
 
 The difficulties of education stare me in the face, 
 
 whenever I look at my own four boys. I think by and by that 
 I shall put them into the school here, but I shall do it with 
 trembling. Experience seems to point out no one plan of edu- 
 cation as decidedly the best ; it only says, I think, that public 
 education is the best where it answers. But then the question 
 is, will it answer with one's own boy ? and if it fails, is not the 
 failure complete ? It becomes a question of particulars : a 
 very good private tutor would tempt me to try private educa- 
 tion, or a very good public school, with connections amongst 
 VOL. i. 31
 
 862 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the boys at it, might induce me to venture upon public. Still 
 there is much chance in the matter ; for a school may change 
 its character greatly, even with the same master, by the preva- 
 lence of a good or bad set of boys ; and this no caution can 
 guard against. But I should certainly advise anything rather 
 than a private school of above thirty boys. Large private 
 schools, I think, are the worst possible system : the choice lies 
 between public schools, and an education, whose character may 
 be strictly private and domestic. This, I fear, is but an un- 
 satisfactory opinion ; but I shall be most happy to give you all 
 the advice that I can upon any particular case that you may 
 have to propose, when I have the pleasure of seeing you in 
 Westmoreland. We are just going to embark on our time of 
 gayety, or rather, I may say, of bustle ; for we shall not dine 
 alone again for the next fortnight. I am going south- 
 wards instead of northwards, to my old home at Laleham, 
 which I can reach in twelve hours instead of twenty-four. You 
 may imagine that we often think of Fox How, and I sighed 
 to see the wood anemones on the rock, when on Tuesday I 
 went with all the children, except Fan, to the only place within 
 four miles of us, where there is a little copse and wood flowers. 
 
 XCIX. TO H. STRICKLAND, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, May 18, 1835. 
 
 I congratulate you on your prospects of exploring Asia 
 Minor, and I should be most happy to give you any assistance 
 in my power towards furthering your objects. You know, I 
 dare say, a map of Asia Minor published a few years since, by 
 Colonel Leake, and showing all that was then known of that 
 country. The Geographical Society will give you all informa- 
 tion, which you may need as to more recent journeys ; but I 
 imagine little has been done of any account. What is to be 
 done, may be divided naturally into two heads, physical re- 
 search, and moral, in the widest sense of the term. As to the 
 former you can need no suggestions from me. I am curious 
 to know about the geology whether the salt lakes of the in- 
 terior belong to the red marl formation, and whether there are 
 any traces of coal. With regard to the botany, every observation, 
 I suppose, will be valuable, what trees and shrubs appear to 
 be the weeds of the soil ; and whether there is any appearance 
 or tradition that these have changed within historical memory ; 
 whether there are any traces of destroyed forests, and whether
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 363 
 
 the sands have encroached or are encroaching on the available 
 soil, either in the valleys or elsewhere. Again, all meteoro- 
 logical observations will be precious : variations of tempera- 
 ture at different levels or distances from the sea ; suddenness 
 of changes of temperature ; prevailing winds, quantity of rain 
 that falls, &c. All facts that may throw any light upon the 
 phenomena of malaria are highly important ; and I think it is 
 worth while to bear in mind the possible, if not probable, con- 
 nection between epidemic disorders and the outbreak of vol- 
 canic agency and electrical phenomena. The return of crops 
 how many fold the seed yields in average seasons, is also, 
 I think, a fact always worth getting at 
 
 Now for matters relating to man. Asia Minor has little 
 historical interest, except as to its coasts : you will not find any 
 places of note, but you may find inscriptions, and of course 
 coins, which may be valuable. The point for inquiry, as far 
 as it may be possible, seems to me to be the languages and 
 dialects of the country. The existence of the Basque lan- 
 guage, as well as of the Breton and Welsh, shows how aborig- 
 inal dialects will linger on through successive conquests in 
 remote districts. Turkish can hardly be the universal lan- 
 guage, or, if it is, it must be more or less corrupting with a 
 foreign intermixture ; and then, any of these corrupting words 
 may be very curious, as relics of the original languages ; and 
 Phrygian, we know, had, even amongst the Greeks, a charac- 
 ter of high antiquity. If you find any unexplored libraries, 
 look out for palimpsests ; in these lies our only chance of re- 
 covering anything of great value ; and though you will not 
 have time to spell them out, yet a cursory glance may give 
 you some hints as to what they are, and may enable you to 
 direct the inquiries of others. All old or actual lines of road 
 are worth attending to, and of course, all statistical informa- 
 tion. If possible, I would take a Strabo with me, and an 
 Herodotus ; also, if you go to Trebizond, the Anabasis. I 
 should like to explore the valley of the Halys, which, I sup- 
 pose, must be one of the finest parts of the whole country ; 
 but the greatest part of it, I imagine, will be sadly tiresome. 
 
 C. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, May 20, 1835. 
 
 I have just been setting my boys a passage out of your 
 edition of Blackstone, to translate into Latin prose, and while
 
 364 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 they are doing it, I will begin a letter to you.' I have had 
 unmixed satisfaction in all I have heard said of you since your 
 elevation. So entirely do I rejoice in it, both publicly and 
 privately, that I could almost forgive Sir R. Peel's ministry 
 their five months of office for the sake of that one good deed. 
 I do hope I shall see you ere long, for I yearn sadly after my 
 
 old friends I live alone, so far as men friends are 
 
 concerned, and am obliged more and more to act and think by 
 myself and for myself. It was therefore very delightful to me 
 to get your little bit of counsel touching the delay of my book, 
 and I am gladly complying with it. But I have read more 
 about it, and for a longer period than perhaps you are aware 
 of; and in history, after having reached a certain point of 
 knowledge, the after progress increases in a very rapid ratio, 
 because the particular facts group under their general principle, 
 and gain a clearness and instructiveness from the comparison 
 with other analogous facts, which in their solitary state they 
 could not have. 
 
 Your uncle said, many years ago, that, "it could not be 
 wondered at if good men were slow to join Mr. Pitt's party, 
 seeing that it dealt in such atrocious personal calumnies." I 
 think I have had within the last three or four months ample 
 reason to repeat his observation. Had you not been on the 
 Bench, I should have consulted you as to the expediency of 
 noticing some of them legally; and now, as far as you can 
 with propriety, I should much like to hear what you would 
 say. The attacks go on weekly, charging me with corrupting 
 the boys' religious principles, and intending, if they can, to 
 injure me in my trade. I am assured that many copies of the 
 paper in which most of these libels appear, are sent gratu- 
 itously to persons in Ireland, who have been supposed likely to 
 send their sons here ; and the same tone of abuse was followed 
 for some weeks in the John Bull. I think that this spirit of 
 libel is peculiar to the Tories, from L'Estrange and Swift 
 downwards ; just ask yourself, if you have known any Tory 
 not more engaged in public life than I am, and having given 
 as little ground for attack by personalities on my part, who 
 was abused by the Liberal papers as I have been by the 
 Tories. I often think of the rancorous abuse which the same 
 party heaped upon Burnett, and how that Exposition of the 
 Articles, which Bishops and Divinity Professors and Tutors 
 now recommend, was censured by the Lower House of Con- 
 vocation as latitudinarian.
 
 tlFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 366 
 
 I hope you saw Wordsworth when -he was in Lon- 
 don, and that you enjoy his new volume. I have been read- 
 ing a good deal of Pindar and of Aristophanes lately, Pindar 
 after twenty years' interval, and how much more interesting 
 he is to the man than to the boy. As for Homer, it is my 
 weekly feast to get better and better acquainted with him. In 
 English I read scarcely anything, and I know not when I 
 shall be able to do it. We go on here very comfortably, and 
 the school is in a very satisfactory state. I had the pleasure 
 of seeing some of the best of my Rugby pupils here at Easter, 
 and one of the best of my Laleham ones was here a little 
 before. It is the great happiness of my profession to have 
 these relations so dear and so enduring. I had intended to 
 go to Oxford to-day, to have voted in favor of the Declaration, 
 instead of the Subscription to the Articles, but I could not 
 well manage it, and it was of little consequence, as we were 
 sure to be beaten. It makes me half daft to think of Oxford 
 and the London University, as bad as one another in their 
 ^opposite ways, and perpetuating their badness by remaining 
 distinct, instead of mixing. 
 
 CI. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, May 27, 1835. 
 
 ..... I sincerely congratulate you on being honored with 
 the abuse of my friend the Northampton Herald, in company 
 with Whately, Hampden, and myself; and perhaps I feel 
 some malicious satisfaction that you should be thus in a man- 
 ner forced into the boat with us, while you perhaps are think- 
 ing us not very desirable companions. It was found, I believe, 
 at the Council of Trent, that the younger clergy were far 
 more averse to reform than the older ; just as the Juniores 
 Patrum at Rome, were the hottest supporters of the abuses' 
 of the aristocracy ; and so the Convocation has shown itself 
 far more violent and obstinate against improvement than the 
 Heads of Houses. It is a great evil a national evil, I think, 
 of very great magnitude ; for the Charter must be, and ought 
 to be, granted to the London University, if you will persist in 
 keeping out Dissenters ; and then there will be two party places 
 instead of one, to perpetuate narrow views, and disunion to 
 our children's children. For it is vain to deny, that the 
 Church of England clergy have politically been a party in 
 r the country, from Elizabeth's time downwards, and a party 
 31*
 
 366 .LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 opposed to the- cause, which in'lhe main has been the cause of 
 improvement. There have been at all times noble individual 
 exceptions, and, for very considerable periods ; in the reign of 
 George the Second, and in the early part of George the 
 Third's reign, for instance, the spirit of the body has been 
 temperate and conciliatory; but in Charles the First and 
 Second's reigns, and in the period following the revolution, 
 they deserved so ill of their country, that the Dissenters have 
 at no time deserved worse ; and, therefore, it will not do for 
 the Church party to identify themselves with the nation, which 
 they are not, nor with the constitution, which they did their 
 best to hinder from ever coming into existence. I grant that 
 the Dissenters are, politically speaking, nearly as bad, and as 
 narrow-minded ; but then they have more excuse in belonging 
 generally to a lower class in society, and not having been 
 taught Aristotle and Thucydides. June 1st. I was inter- 
 rupted, for which you will not be sorry, and I will not return 
 to the subject I was much obliged to you for your letter, 
 and pamphlet ; but though I approve of the proposed change, 
 yet of course it does not touch the great question. 
 
 C1I. TO A PERSON DISTRESSED BY SCEPTICAL DOUBTS. 
 
 Rugby, June 21, 1836. 
 
 I have been very far from forgetting you, or my promise to 
 write down something on the subject of our conversation, 
 though I have some fears of doing more harm than good, by 
 not meeting your case satisfactorily. However, I shall ven- 
 ture, hoping that God may bless the attempt to your comfort 
 and benefit. 
 
 The more I think of the matter the more I am satisfied 
 that all speculations of the kind in question are to be re- 
 pressed by the will, and if they haunt us, notwithstanding the 
 efforts of our will, that then they are to be prayed against, and 
 silently endured as a trial. I mean speculations turning upon 
 things wholly beyond our reach, and where the utmost con- 
 ceivable result cannot be truth, but additional perplexity. Such 
 must be the question as to the origin and continued existence 
 of moral evil ; which is a question utterly out of our reach, as 
 we know and can know ndthing of the system of the universe, 
 and which can never bring us to truth, because if we adopt 
 one hypothesis as certain, and come to a conclusion upon one 
 theory, we shall be met by difficulties quite as insuperable on
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 367 
 
 the other side, which would oblige us in fairness to go over 
 the process again, and to reject our new conclusion, as we had 
 done our old one ; because in our total ignorance of the matter, 
 there will always be difficulties in the way of any hypothesis 
 which we cannot answer, and which will effectually preclude 
 our ever arriving at a state of intellectual satisfaction, such as 
 consists in having a clear view of a whole question, from first 
 to last, and seeing that the premises are true, the conclusion 
 fairly drawn, and that all objections to either may be satis- 
 factorily answered. This state, which alone I suppose de- 
 serves to be called knowledge, is one which, if we can ever 
 attain it, is attainable only in matters merely human, and only 
 within the range of our understanding and experience. It is 
 manifest that the sole difficulty in the subject of your per- 
 plexity is merely the origin of moral evil, and it is manifest 
 also that this difficulty equally affects things actually existing 
 around us. Yet if the sight of wickedness in ourselves or 
 others were to lead us to perplex ourselves as to its origin, 
 instead of struggling against it and attempting to put an end 
 to it, we know that we should be wrong, and that evil would 
 thrive and multiply on such a system of conduct. 
 
 This would have been the language of a heathen Stoic or 
 Academician, when an Epicurean beset him with the difficulty 
 of accounting for evil without impugning the power or the 
 goodness of the gods. And I think that this language was 
 sound and practically convincing, quite enough so to show 
 that the Epicurean objection sets one upon an error, because 
 it leads to practical absurdity and wickedness. But I think 
 that with us the authority of Christ puts things on a different 
 footing. I know nothing about the origin of evil, but I believe 
 that Christ did know ; and as our common sense tells us, that 
 we can strive against evil and sympathize in punishment here, 
 although we cannot tell how there comes to be evil, so Christ 
 tells us that we may continue these same feelings to the state 
 beyond this life, although the origin of evil is still a secret to 
 us. And I know Christ to have been so wise and so loving 
 to men, that I am sure I may trust His word, and that what 
 was entirely agreeable to His sense of justice and goodness, 
 cannot, unless through my own defect, be otherwise than 
 agreeable to mine. 
 
 Further, when I find Him repelling all questions of curi- 
 osity, and reproving in particular such as had a tendency to 
 lead men away from their great business, the doing good to
 
 368 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 themselves and others, I am sure that if I stood before 
 Him, and said to Him, " Lord, what can I do ? for I cannot 
 understand how God can allow any to be wicked, or why 
 He should not destroy them, rather than let them exist to 
 suffer ; " that His mildest answer would be, " What is that to 
 thee follow thou me." But if He, who can read the heart, 
 knew that there was in the doubt so expressed anything of 
 an evil heart of unbelief of unbelief that had grown out of 
 carelessness and from my not having walked watchfully after 
 Him, loving Him, and doing His will, then I should expect 
 that He would tell me that this thought had come to me, 
 because I neither knew Him nor His Father, but had neg- 
 lected and been indifferent to both ; and then I should be sure 
 that He would give me no explanation or light at all, but 
 would rather make the darkness thicker upon me, till I came 
 before Him not with a speculative doubt, but with an earnest 
 prayer for His mercy and His help, and with a desire to walk 
 humbly before Hun, and to do His will, and promote His king- 
 dom. This, I believe, is the only way to deal with those dis- 
 turbances of mind which cannot lead to truth, but only to 
 perplexity. Many persons, I am inclined to think, endure 
 some of these to their dying day, well aware of their nature, 
 and not sanctioning them by their will, but unable to shake 
 them off, and enduring them as a real thorn in the flesh, as 
 they would endure the far lighter trials of sickness or out- 
 ward affliction. But they should be kept, I think, to ourselves, 
 and not talked of even to our nearest friends, when we once 
 understand their true nature. Talking about them gives them 
 a sort of reality which otherwise they would not have ; just 
 like talking about our dreams. We should act and speak, and 
 try to feel as if they had no existence, and then in most cases 
 they do cease to exist after a time ; when they do not, they 
 are harmless to our spiritual nature, although I fully believe, 
 that they are the most grievous affliction with which human 
 nature is visited. 
 
 Of course, what I have here said relates only to such 
 questions as cannot possibly be so answered as to produce 
 even entire intellectual satisfaction, much less moral advan- 
 tage. I hold that Atheism and pure scepticism are both 
 systems of absurdity; which involves the condemnation of 
 hypotheses leading to either of them as conclusions. For 
 Atheism separates truth from goodness, and Scepticism de- 
 stroys truth altogether ; both of which are monstrosities, from
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 369 
 
 which we should revolt as from real madness. With my ear- 
 nest hopes and prayers that you may be relieved from what I 
 know to be the greatest of earthly trials, but with a no less 
 earnest advice that, if it does continue, you will treat it as 
 a trial, and only cling the closer, as it were, to that perfect 
 Saviour, in the entire love and truth of whose nature all doubt 
 seems to melt away, and who, if kept steadily before our minds, 
 is, I believe, most literally our Bread of Life, giving strength 
 and peace to our weakness and distractions. 
 
 CIII. TO ONE OP THE SIXTH FORM, THREATENED WITH 
 CONSUMPTION. 
 
 Fox How, July 31, 1835. 
 
 I fear that you will have found your patience 
 
 much tried by the return of pain in your side, and the lassi- 
 tude produced by the heat ; it must also be a great trial not to 
 be able to bear reading. I can say but little of such a state 
 from my own experience, but I have seen much of it, and 
 have known how easy and even happy it has become, partly 
 by time, but more from a better support, which I believe is 
 never denied when it is honestly sought. And I have always 
 supposed that the first struggle in such a case would be the 
 hardest ; that is, the struggle in youth or middle age of recon- 
 ciling ourselves to the loss of the active powers of life, and to 
 the necessity of serving God by suffering rather than by doing. 
 Afterwards, I should imagine the mind would feel a great 
 peace in such a state, in the relief afforded from a great deal 
 of temptation and responsibility, and the course of duty lying 
 before it so plain and so simple. 
 
 CIV. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Fox How, July 28, 1835. 
 
 Next week we probably shall return to "Warwick- 
 shire, and I expect the unusual circumstance of being at 
 Rugby for a fortnight in the holidays, a thing which in itself 
 I shall be far from regretting, though I certainly am not 
 anxious to hasten away from Westmoreland. But I often 
 look at the backs of my books with such a forlorn glance 
 during the half-year, it being difficult then to read consec- 
 utively, that I rather hail the prospect of being able to 
 employ a few mornings in some employment of my own.
 
 370 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 The school will become more and more engrossing, and so it 
 ought to be, for it is impossible ever to do enough in it. Yet 
 I think it essential that I should not give up my ov^n reading, 
 as I always find any addition of knowledge always to turn to 
 account for the school in some way or other. I fear, however, 
 that I am growing less active ; and I find myself often more 
 inclined to read to the children, or to amuse myself with some 
 light book after my day's work at Rugby, than to enter on any 
 regular employment. 
 
 My volume of Sermons connected with Prophecy is still 
 waiting, but I hope that it may come out before the winter. 
 It is a great joy to me to think that it will not give offence to 
 any one, but will at any rate, I trust, be considered as safe, 
 and as far as it goes useful. I have no pleasure in writing 
 what is unacceptable, though I confess, that, the more I study 
 any subject, the more it seems to me to require to be treated 
 differently from the way in which it has been treated. It is 
 grievous to think, how much has been written about things 
 with such imperfect knowledge, or with such narrow views, as 
 leaves the whole thing to be done again. Not that I mean 
 that it can be so done in our time, as to leave nothing for pos- 
 terity, on the contrary, we know how imperfect our own 
 knowledge is, and how much requires yet to be learned. Still 
 in this generation an immense step has been made, both in 
 knowledge and in large and critical views ; and this makes the 
 writings of a former age so unsatisfactory. In reading them 
 I never can feel satisfied that we have got to the bottom of a 
 question. 
 
 I was very much delighted to have staying 
 
 at Rugby for nearly a week with us in the spring. I had not 
 had any talk with him since he was my pupil at Laleham. I 
 was struck with the recoil of his opinions towards Toryism, 
 or at any rate half-Toryism, a result, which I have seen 
 in other instances where the original anti-Tory feeling was 
 what I call " popular " rather than " liberal," and took up the 
 notion of liberty rather than of improvement. I do not think 
 that Liberty can well be the idol of a good and sensible mind 
 after a certain age. My abhorrence of Conservatism is not 
 because it checks liberty, in an established democracy it 
 would favor liberty ; but because it checks the growth of man- 
 kind in wisdom, goodness, and happiness, by striving to main- 
 tain institutions which are of necessity temporary, and thus 
 never hindering change, but often depriving the change of 
 half its value.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 371 
 
 CV. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, July 1, 1835. 
 
 1 thank you most heartily for both your affectionate letters. 
 When I suspect you of unkindness, or feel offended with 
 anything that you say or write to me, I must have cast off 
 my nature indeed very sadly. Be assured that there was 
 nothing in your first letter which you could wish unwritten, 
 nothing that was not written in the true spirit of friendship. 
 I was vexed only thus far, that I could not explain many 
 points to you, which I think would have altered your judg- 
 ment as to the facts of the case. 
 
 My dear friend, I know and feel the many great 
 
 faults of my life and practice ; and grieve more than I can 
 say not to have more intercourse with those friends who used 
 to reprove me, I think, to my great benefit I am sure with- 
 out ever giving me offence. But I cannot allow that those 
 opinions, which I earnestly believe, after many years' thought 
 and study, to be entirely according to Christ's mind, and most 
 tending to His glory, and the good of His Church, shall be 
 summarily called heretical ; and it is something of a trial to 
 be taxed with perverting my boys' religious principles, when I 
 am laboring, though most imperfectly, to lead them to Christ 
 in true and devoted faith ; and when I hold all the scholarship 
 that ever man had, to be infinitely worthless in comparison 
 with even a very humble degree of spiritual advancement. 
 And I think that I have seen my work in some instances 
 blessed ; not, I trust, to make me proud of it, or think that 
 I have anything to be satisfied with, yet so far as to make 
 it very painful to be looked upon as an enemy by those whose 
 Master I would serve as heartily, and whom, if I dare say it, 
 I love with as sincere an affection as they do. 
 
 God bless you, and thank you for all your kindness to me 
 always. 
 
 CVI. TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, September 9, 1835. 
 
 It is very hard to know what to say of Hatch as 
 
 to his bodily health, because, though appearances are unfa- 
 vorable, Dr. Jephson still speaks confidently of his recovery ; 
 but it is not hard to know what to say of his mind, which I 
 believe is quite what we could wish it to be. He always
 
 372 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 seemed to me a most guileless person when in health, 
 guileless and living in the fear of God, in such circum- 
 stances sickness does but feed and purify the flame which was 
 before burning strong and brightly. He will be delighted to 
 hear from you, and would be interested by any Cambridge 
 news that you could send him, for I think he must find him- 
 self often in want of amusement, and of something to vary 
 the day. I am glad that you have made acquaintance with 
 some of the good poor. I quite agree with you that it is most 
 instructive to visit them, and I think that you are right in 
 what you say of their more lively faith. We hold to earth 
 and earthly things by so many more links of thought, if not 
 of affection, that it is far harder to keep our view of heaven 
 clear and strong ; when this life is so busy, and therefore so 
 full of reality to us, another life seems by comparison unreal. 
 This is our condition, and its peculiar temptations ; but we 
 must endure it, and strive to overcome them, for J think we 
 may not try to flee from it. 
 
 I have begun the Phaedo of Plato with the Sixth, 
 
 which will be a great delight to me. There is an actual 
 pleasure in contemplating so perfect a management of so per- 
 fect an instrument as is exhibited in Plato's language, even if 
 the matter were as worthless as the words of Italian music ; 
 whereas the sense is only less admirable in many places than 
 the language. I am still in distress for a Latin book, and 
 wish that there were a cheap edition of Bacon's Instauratio 
 Magna. I would use it, and make it useful in point of Latin- 
 ity, by setting the fellows to correct the style where it is 
 cumbrous or incorrect. As to Livy, the use of reading him 
 is almost like that of the drunken Helot. It shows what his- 
 tory should not be in a very striking manner ; and, though 
 the value to us of much of ancient literature is greatly out of 
 proportion to its intrinsic merit, yet the books of Livy, which 
 we have, relate to a time so uninteresting, that it is hard even 
 to extract a value from them by the most complete distillation ; 
 so many gallons of vapid water scarcely hold in combination 
 a particle of spirit. 
 
 CVII. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, September 21, 1835. 
 
 I have been and am working at two main things, 
 
 the Roman History and the nature and interpretation of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 373 
 
 Prophecy. For the first I have been working at Hannibal's 
 passage of the Alps. How bad a geographer is Polybius, 
 and how strange that he should be thought a good one ! 
 Compare him with any man who is really a geographer, with 
 Herodotus, with Napoleon, whose sketches of Italy, Egypt, 
 and Syria, in his Memoirs, are to me unrivalled, or with 
 Niebuhr, and how striking is the difference ! The dulness of 
 Polybius's fancy made it impossible for him to conceive or 
 paint scenery clearly, and how can a man be a geographer 
 without lively images of the formation and features of the 
 country which he describes ? How different are the several 
 Alpine valleys, and how would a few simple touches of the 
 scenery which he seems actually to have visited, yet could 
 neither understand nor feel it, have decided forever the 
 question of the route ! Now the account suits no valley well, 
 and therefore it may be applied to many ; but I believe the 
 real line was by the little St. Bernard, although I cannot 
 trace those particular spots, which De Luc and Cramer fancy 
 they could recognize. I thought so on the spot, (i. e. that 
 the spots could not be traced,) when I crossed the Little St. 
 Bernard, in 1825, with Polybius in my hand, and I think so 
 still. How much we want a physical history of countries, 
 tracing the changes which they have undergone, either by 
 such violent revolutions as volcanic phenomena, or by the 
 slower but not less complete change produced by ordinary 
 causes ; such as alterations of climate occasioned by inclosing 
 and draining; alteration in the course of rivers, and in the 
 level of their beds ; alteration in the animal and vegetable 
 productions of the soil, and in the supply of metals and min- 
 erals ; noticing also the advance or retreat of the sea, and the 
 origin and successive increase in the number and variation in 
 the line of roads, together with the changes in the extent and 
 character of the woodlands. How much might be done by 
 our Society at Rome if some of its attention were directed to 
 these points : for instance, drainage and an alteration in the 
 course of the waters have produced great changes in Tus- 
 cany ; and there is also the interesting question as to the 
 
 spread of malaria in the Maremme I read with the 
 
 greatest interest all that you say about Hebrew and the Old 
 Testament, and your researches into the chronology and com- 
 position of the books of the New. It is strange to see how 
 much of ancient history consists apparently of patches put 
 VOL. i. 32
 
 74 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 together from various quarters without any redaction.* Is 
 not this largely the case in the books of Samuel, Kings, and 
 Chronicles ? For instance, are not chapters xxiv. and xxvi. 
 of 1 Samuel, merely different versions of the same event, 
 just as we have two accounts of the creation in the early 
 chapters of Genesis ? And must not chapters xvi. and xvii. 
 of the same book be also from different sources, the account 
 of David in the one being quite inconsistent with that in the 
 other ? So, again, in 2 Chronicles xi. 20, and xiii. 2, there 
 is a decided difference in the parentage of Abijah's mother, 
 which is curious on any supposition. Do you agree with 
 Schleiermacher in denying Paul to be the author of the 
 Epistles to Timothy and Titus ? I own it seems to me that 
 they are as certainly Paul's as the Epistle to the Romans ; 
 nor can I understand the reason for any doubt about the 
 matter. And yet Schleiermacher could not write anything, I 
 should suppose, without some good reasons for it.f 
 
 CVIII. *TO. J. P. CELL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, September 30, 1835. 
 
 My situation here, if it has its anxieties, has also many 
 great pleasures, amongst the highest of which are such letters 
 as that which you have had the kindness to write to me. I 
 value it indeed very greatly, and sincerely thank you for it. 
 I had been often told that I should know you much more 
 after you had left Rugby, than I had ever done before, and 
 your letter encourages me to hope that it will be so. You 
 will not think that it is a mere form of civil words, when I 
 say we shall be very glad to see you here, if you can take us 
 in your way to Cambridge, or in Westmoreland in the whiter, 
 
 * For his full view of the apparent discrepancies of Scripture, see Serm. 
 vol. iv. 481, 491. 
 
 t " One of the greatest of modern critics. Schleiermacher, doubted the 
 genuineness of the Epistles to Timothy. This arose from his habit, which 
 many Germans have, (though Niebuhr and Bunsen are entirely free from 
 it.) of taking a one-sided view of such questions, and suffering small objec- 
 tions to prevail over greater confirmations. The difference of language is 
 merely that some expressions are used such as wo mav well understand a 
 man to get into the habit of using at one time of his Hie and not at another, 
 and it is absurd to let these prevail over the strong internal evidence. The 
 fact of Timothy being spoken of as young in bom Epistles, has been made 
 an objection to considering these Epistles as later in date than the others; 
 but it is probable that Timothy was very young when he first became known 
 to St. Paul perhaps not more than sixteen or seventeen. St. Paul seem? 
 to have known his grandmother." [Note of a conversation in 1840.]
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 375 
 
 if you do not start at the thought of a Christmas among the 
 mountains. But I can assure you that you will find them 
 most beautiful in their winter dress, and the valleys very hu- 
 manized. I have just seen, but not read, the second number 
 of the Rugby Magazine. I have an unmixed pleasure in its 
 going on, perhaps, just under actual circumstances, more 
 than at some former time, because I think it is more wanted. 
 We shall soon lose Lake and Simpkinson and the others, who 
 go up this year to the University. There is always a melan- 
 choly feeling in seeing the last sheaf carried of a good harvest; 
 for who knows what may be the crop of the next year ? But 
 this, happily for us, is, both in the natural and in the moral 
 harvest, in the hands of Him who can make disappointment 
 and scarcity do his work, no less than success and plenty. 
 
 CIX. *TO A. P. STANLEY, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, October 7, 1835. 
 
 I am delighted to find that you are coming to Rugby ; in 
 fact, I was going to write to you to try whether we could not 
 get you here either in your way to or from Oxford, as I 
 suppose that, even after all the length of the long vacation, 
 you will be at liberty before us at Christmas. Thank you 
 for your congratulations on my little boy's birth : he grows 
 so much and Fan so little, that I think he will soon overtake 
 her ; though it will be well if ever he rivals her in quickness 
 and liveliness. 
 
 I think it probable that about the time when his old com- 
 panions are beginning their new course of earthly life at the 
 Universities, Hatch will be entering upon the beginning of 
 his eternal life. He grows so much worse, that yesterday he 
 was hardly expected to outlive the day. I think myself that 
 his trial will be somewhat longer ; but I believe that his work 
 is over, and am no less persuaded that his rest in Christ is 
 sure. 
 
 I shall be glad to talk over all things with you when we 
 meet ; be sure that you cannot come here too often : I never 
 was less disposed than I am at this moment to let drop or to 
 intermit my intercourse with my old pupils ; which is to me 
 ne of the freshest springs of my life.
 
 876 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 CX. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (fi.) 
 
 Rugby, October 80, 183*. 
 
 I am a little disturbed by*what you tell me of 
 
 your health, and can readily understand that it makes you 
 look at all things with a less cheerful eye than I could wish. 
 Besides, all great changes in life are solemn things, when we 
 think of them, and have naturally their grave side as well as 
 their merely happy one. This is in itself only wholesome, 
 but the grave side may be unduly darkened if we who look on 
 it are ourselves out of tune. I am glad that you have written 
 again to Thomson : his report of you to me was very satisfac- 
 tory, and I have great faith in his skilL Remember, how- 
 ever, that exercise must not be wearisome, and especially not 
 wearisome to the mind, if it is to be really beneficial. I 
 never have regarded a regular walk along a road, talking the 
 while on subjects of interest, as exercise in the true sense of 
 the term. A skirmish over the country is a very different 
 thing, and so is all that partakes of the character of play or 
 sport. 
 
 Believe me that it is a great pleasure to me 
 
 to hear from you, and you must not think that any parts of 
 your letters are unnoticed by me, or uninteresting, if I do not 
 especially reply to them. I value very much the expression 
 of your feelings, and I think have a very true sympathy with 
 them. 
 
 CXL TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, October 12, 1885. 
 
 Our visit to Westmoreland was short, for we 
 
 returned home early in August, to be ready for my wife's 
 confinement. But I could not have enjoyed three weeks 
 more ; for the first week we had so much rain that the Rotha 
 flooded a part of our grass. Afterwards we had the most bril- 
 liant weather, which brought our flowers out in the greatest 
 beauty ; but the preceding rain kept us quite green, and the 
 contrast was grievous in that respect when we came back to 
 the brown fields of Warwickshire. But I cannot tell you 
 how I enjoyed our fortnight at Rugby before the school 
 
 opened. It quite reminded me of Oxford, when M and 
 
 I used to sit out in the garden under the enormous elms of 
 the School-field, which almost overhang the house, and saw
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 377 
 
 the line of our battlemented roofs and the pinnacles and cross 
 of our chapel cutting the unclouded sky. And I had divers 
 happy little matches at cricket with my own boys in the 
 School-field, on the very cricket-ground of the " eleven," 
 that is, of the best players in the school, on which, when the 
 school is assembled, no profane person may encroach. Then 
 came my wife's happy confinement, before which we had had 
 a very happy visit of a day from the whole family of Hulls, 
 and which was succeeded by a no less happy visit from the 
 whole family of Whatelys. 
 
 Have you seen our Rugby Magazine, of which the second 
 number has just made its appearance ? It is written wholly 
 either by boys actually at the school, or by undergraduates 
 within their first year. I delight in the spirit of it, and 
 think there is much ability in many of the articles. I think 
 also that it is likely to do good to the school. 
 
 We have lost this year more than half of our Sixth Form, 
 so that the influx of new elements has been rather dispro- 
 portionately great ; and unluckily the average of talent just 
 in this part of the school is not high. We have a very good 
 promise below, but at present we shall have great difficulty 
 in maintaining our ground ; and then I always fear that, 
 where the intellect is low, the animal part will predominate ; 
 and that moral evils will increase, as well as intellectual 
 proficiency decline, under such a state of things. At present 
 I think that the boys seem very well disposed, and I trust 
 that, in this far more important matter, we shall work through 
 our time of less bright sunshine without material injury. It 
 would overpay me for far greater uneasiness and labor than 
 I have ever had at Rugby ; to see the feeling both towards the 
 school and towards myself personally, with which some of our 
 boys have been lately leaving us. One stayed with us in the 
 house for his last week at Rugby, dreading the approach of 
 the day which should take him to Oxford, although he was 
 going up to a most delightful society of old friends ; and, 
 when he actually came to take leave, I really think that the 
 parting was like that of a father and his son. And it is de- 
 lightful to me to find how glad all the better boys are to come 
 back here after they have left it, and how much they seem 
 to enjoy staying with me ; while a sure instinct keeps at a 
 distance all whose recollections of the place are connected 
 with no comfortable reflections. Meantime I write nothing, 
 and read barely enough to keep my mind in the state of a
 
 378 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 running stream, which I think it ought to be if it would form 
 or feed other minds ; for it is ill drinking out of a pond, 
 whose stock of water is merely the remains of the long-past 
 rains of the winter and spring, evaporating and diminishing 
 every successive day of drought. We are reading now Plato's 
 Phaedo, which I suppose must be nearly the perfection of 
 human language. The admirable precision of the great Attic 
 writers is to me very striking. When you get a thorough 
 knowledge of the language, they are clearer than I think an 
 English writer can be, from the inferiority of his instrument. 
 I often think that I could have understood your uncle better 
 if he had written in Platonic Greek. His Table-Talk marks 
 
 him, in my judgment, as a very great man indeed, 
 
 whose equal I know not where to find in England. It amused 
 me to recognize, in your contributions to the book, divers 
 anecdotes which used to excite the open-mouthed admiration 
 of the C.C.C. Junior Common Room in the Easter and Act 
 Terms of 1811, after your Easter vacation spent with Mr. 
 May at Richmond. My paper is at an end, but not mj 
 matter Perhaps I may see you in the winter in town. 
 
 END OF VOL. J.
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 OP 
 
 LATE HEAD-MASTER OF RUGBY SCHOOL, AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF 
 MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, SEPTEMBER, 1835, TO 
 NOVEMBER, 1838. 
 
 THERE is little to distinguish the next three years of 
 Dr. Arnold's life from those which precede. The strong 
 feeling against him, though with some abatement of its 
 vehemence, still continued ; the effect of it was perhaps 
 visible in the slight falling off in the numbers of the 
 school in 1837-38, at the time of the very height of its 
 reputation at the Universities ; and in his own profes- 
 sion it appeared so generally to prevail, that, on occa- 
 sion of a proposal to him from the Bishop of Norwich, 
 to preach his Consecration sermon at Lambeth, the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury thought it his duty to with- 
 hold his permission, solely on the ground of the unfa- 
 vorable reception which he supposed it would meet 
 among the clergy. But his letters, and some of the 
 Sermons in the fourth volume, preached at this time, 
 show how this period of comparative silence was yet, 
 both in thought and action, most emphatically his 
 period of battle ; when, as if tired of acting on the 
 defensive, he was at last roused to attack in return. 
 The vehemence of the outcry by which he had been 
 assailed, drove him into a more controversial atmos- 
 phere. The fact of the more positive formation of his
 
 14 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 own opinions brought him more immediately into col- 
 lision with the positive opinions of others. The view 
 with which he thus entered on his chief actual con- 
 tests with what he conceived to be the two great evils 
 of the age, is expressed in the twentieth Sermon in the 
 fourth volume, preached September, 1836, on the oppo- 
 site idols of unbelief and superstition, and on the only 
 mode by which, in his judgment, either could be coun- 
 teracted. These two contests were, on the one hand, 
 against the school then dominant in the London Uni- 
 versity ; on the other hand, against the school then 
 dominant in Oxford. 
 
 I. And first, with regard to Oxford. From the ear- 
 liest formation of his opinions he had looked upon (so- 
 called) High-Church Doctrines as a great obstruction 
 to the full development of national Christianity. But, 
 up to the time here spoken of, these doctrines were 
 held in a form too vague and impalpable to come into 
 immediate collision with any of his own views. When 
 he wrote the pamphlet on the Roman Catholic ques- 
 tion in 1829, he could refer to a sermon of the Rev. 
 W. F. Hook, on the Apostolical Succession, as a rare 
 exception to the general tone of English Clergymen. 
 When he wrote his pamphlet on Church Reform in 
 1833, he could still, as if mentioning a strange phe- 
 nomenon, speak of " those extraordinary persons who 
 gravely maintain that primitive episcopacy, and epis- 
 copacy as it now exists in England, are essentially the 
 same." (Postscript, p. 13.) No definite system seemed 
 to stand in the way of what he conceived to be the 
 best method of saving the English Church and nation ; 
 and if, in any instances, deeper principles than those of 
 the old High-Church party were at work, his sense of 
 disagreement seemed almost lost in the affectionate 
 reverence witli which he regarded the friends of his 
 youth who held them. His foremost thought in speak- 
 ing of them was of " men at once pious, high-minded, 
 intelligent, and full of all kindly feelings ; whose intense 
 love for the forms of the Church, fostered as it has been
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 15 
 
 by all the best associations of their pure and holy lives, 
 has absolutely engrossed their whole nature, so that 
 they have neither eyes to see of themselves any defect 
 in the Liturgy and Articles, nor ears to hear of such, 
 when alleged by others." His statement of his own 
 opinions was blended with the bitter regret that " they 
 will not be willing to believe how deeply painful it is 
 to my mind -to know that I am regarded by them as 
 an adversary, still more to feel that I am associated in 
 their judgment with principles and with a party which 
 I abhor as deeply as they do." (Church Reform, 
 p. 83.) 
 
 But in 1834, 35, 36, he found his path crossed sud- 
 denly, and for the first time, by a compact body, round 
 which all the floating elements of High-Church opin- 
 ions seemed to crystallize as round a natural centre : 
 and to him, seeing, as he did from the very first, the 
 unexpected revival of what he conceived to be the 
 worst evils of Roman Catholicism, the mere shock of 
 astonishment was such as can hardly be imagined by 
 those who (Md not share with him the sense either of 
 the suddenness of the first appearance of this new 
 Oxford school, or of the consequences contained in it. 
 And further, this first impression was of a kind pecu- 
 liarly offensive to all the tendencies of his nature, pos- 
 itive as well as negative. Almost the only subject 
 insisted upon in the first two volumes of " The Tracts 
 for the Times," 1833-36, (so far as they consisted of 
 original papers,) was the importance of ".the Apostol- 
 ical Succession" of the clergy, and the consequent 
 exclusive claims of the Church of England to be regard- 
 ed as the only true Church in England, if not in the 
 world. In other words, the one doctrine which was 
 then put forward as the cure for the moral and social 
 evils of the Country, which he felt so keenly, was the 
 one point in their system which he always regarded as 
 morally powerless and intellectually indefensible ; as 
 Incompatible with all sound notions of law and govern- 
 ment ; and as tending above all things to substitute a
 
 16 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ceremonial for a spiritual Christianity ; whilst of the 
 many later developments of the system,* which had 
 been objects of his admiration and aspirations, long 
 before or altogether independent of the Tracts in ques- 
 tion, little was said at all, and hardly anything urged 
 prominently. 
 
 On this new portent, as he deemed it, thus brought 
 before his notice, the dislike, which he naturally enter- 
 tained towards the principles embodied in its appear- 
 ance, became at once concentrated. For individual 
 members of the party he often testified his respect ; 
 and towards those whom he had known personally, he 
 never lost his affection, or relinquished his endeavors 
 to maintain a friendly intercourse with them. Still, he 
 looked henceforward upon the body itself, not, as for- 
 merly, through the medium of its constituent members, 
 but of its principles ; the almost imploring appeal to 
 their sympathy, which has been quoted from the close 
 of the Pamphlet of 1833, was never repeated. He no 
 longer dwelt on the reflection that " in the Church of 
 England even bigotry often wears a softer and a nobler 
 aspect," and that " it could be no ordinary Church to 
 have inspired such devoted adoration in such men, nor 
 they ordinary men, over whom a sense of high moral 
 beauty should have obtained so complete a mastery." 
 (Ib. p. 83.) He rather felt himself called to insist on 
 what he regarded as the dark side of the picture ; " on 
 the fanaticism which has been the peculiar disgrace of 
 the Church of England," " a dress, a ritual, a name, 
 a ceremony, a technical phraseology, the superstition 
 of a priesthood without its power, the form of Epis- 
 copal government without its substance, a system 
 imperfect and paralyzed, not independent, not sover- 
 eign, afraid to cast off the subjection against which 
 it was perpetually murmuring, objects so pitiful, 
 that, if gained ever so completely, they would make 
 no man the wiser, or the better ; they would lead to no 
 
 * As one out of many instances, may be mentioned the views already 
 quoted in p. 192, vol. i.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 17 
 
 good, intellectual, moral, or spiritual." (Ed. Rev. 
 vol. Ixiii. p. 235.) 
 
 And all his feelings of local and historical associa- 
 tions combined to aggravate the unfavorable aspect 
 under which this school presented itself to him. Those 
 only who knew his love for Oxford, as he thought it 
 ought to be, can understand his indignation against it, 
 as he thought it was ; nor were the passionate sympa- 
 thies and antipathies of the exiled Italian poet more 
 sharpened by conflicting feelings towards the ideal and 
 actual Florence, than were those of the English theolo- 
 gian and citizen towards Oxford, the " ancient and 
 magnificent University " on the banks of the Thames, 
 alike beloved as the scene of his early friendships, and 
 longed for as the scene of his dreams of future useful- 
 ness ; and Oxford, the home of the Tory and High- 
 Church clergy, the strong-hold of those tendencies in 
 England which seemed to make him their peculiar 
 victim. And again, those only who knew how long 
 and deeply he had dreaded the principles, which he 
 now seemed to himself to see represented in bodily 
 shape before him, will understand the severity with 
 which, when strongly moved, he attacked this class of 
 opinions. " I doubt," he said, in a letter of 1888, in 
 vindication of the absolute repulsion which he felt at 
 that time to any one professing admiration for them, 
 " I doubt whether I should be a good person to deal 
 with anybody who is inclined to Newmanism. Not 
 living in Oxford, and seeing only the books of the New- 
 manites,* and considering only their system, any mind 
 
 * Lest the occurrence of this phrase here and elsewhere in the correspon- 
 dence, in speaking colloquially of the opinions in question, should bear a 
 more personal allusion to living individuals than was in his mind, it is right 
 to give from the preface to his fourth volume of Sermons, his own deliberate 
 notice of a similar use of the name. " In naming Mr. Newman as the chief 
 author of the system which I have been considering, I have in no degree 
 wished to make the question personal, but Mr. Perceval's letter authorizes 
 us to consider him as one of the authors of it ; and, as I have never had any 
 personal acquaintance with him, I could mention his name with no shock to 
 any private feelings either in him or in myself. But I have spoken of him 
 simply as the maintainer of certain doctrines, not as maintaining them in 
 any particular manner, far less as actuated by any particular motives." 
 
 2* B
 
 18 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 that can turn towards them, i. e. their books and their 
 system, with anything less than unmixed aversion, 
 appears to be already diseased ; and do what I will, I 
 cannot make allowance enough for the peculiar circum- 
 stances of Oxford, because I cannot present them to my 
 mind distinctly. You must remember that their doc- 
 trines are not to me like a new thing, which, never 
 having crossed my mind before, requires now a full 
 and impartial examination ; all their notions and their 
 arguments in defence of them, (bating some surpassing 
 extravagances which the intoxication of success has 
 given birth to,) have been familiar to my mind for 
 years. They are the very errors which, in studying 
 moral and religious truth, I have continually had to 
 observe and to eschew ; the very essence of one of the 
 two great divisions of human falsehood, against which 
 the wisdom of God and man has most earnestly com- 
 bated, in which man's folly and wickedness has ever 
 found its favorite nourishment." 
 
 To these general feelings, which, though expressed at 
 times more strongly than usual, he never altogether 
 lost, were added occasional bursts of indignation at 
 particular developments of what he conceived to be the 
 natural tendency of the school to grave moral faults. 
 These occasions will appear in his letters as they occur ; 
 of which the first and most memorable was the contro- 
 versy relating to the appointment of Dr. Hampden to 
 the Regius Professorship of Divinity, at Oxford, in the 
 spring of 1836. 
 
 His feelings at this juncture were shared in some 
 respects by many others. Many on the one hand who, 
 in general opinion, widely differed from him, were yet 
 equally with himself persuaded that there was great 
 unfairness in the extracts then made from Dr. Hamp- 
 den's writings ; and on the other hand it is no less 
 certain that the most eminent of those who made and 
 circulated the extracts had almost as little sympathy 
 as himself with the general conduct and feeling of those 
 who supported them in the columns of newspapers,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 19 
 
 and in the tumultuous assemblies called together to 
 the Oxford Convocation. But there were several points 
 which combined to make it peculiarly exasperating to 
 one with his views and in his position. The very fact of 
 an opposition to an appointment, which on public 
 grounds he had so much desired, was in itself irritat- 
 ing, the accusations, which, whether just or unjust, 
 were based on subtle distinctions, alien alike to his 
 taste and his character, and especially calculated to 
 offend and astonish him, the general gathering of the 
 Clergy, both of those whom he regarded as fanatics, 
 and those whom he emphatically denounced as the 
 party of Hoplmi and Phinehas, to condemn, in his 
 judgment, on false grounds, by an irregular tribunal, 
 an innocent individual, provoked in equal measure 
 his anger and his scorn ; his sense of truth and justice, 
 and his natural impetuosity in behalf of what he 
 deemed to be right. 
 
 Whatever feelings had been long smouldering in his 
 mind against the spirit of the Conservative and High- 
 Church party, which for the last three years had been 
 engaged with him in such extreme hostility, took fire 
 at last at the sight of that spirit, displaying itself in 
 that place, on such an occasion, and under such a form, 
 with such tremendous strength and vehemence. And, 
 as usual, the whole scene was invested in his eyes with 
 a tenfold interest by the general principles which it 
 seemed to involve. In the place of the Oxford Con- 
 vocation there rose before him the image, which he 
 declared that he could not put away from him, of the 
 Nonjurors reviling Burnet, of the Council of Con- 
 stance condemning Huss, of the Judaizers banded 
 together against St. Paul. 
 
 That the object of attack was not himself, but 
 another, and that other barely known to him, only 
 made it the more impossible for him to keep silence ; 
 and accordingly, under the influence of these com- 
 bined feelings, and with his usual rapidity of composi- 
 tion, he gave vent to his indignation in an article in
 
 20 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the Edinburgh Review, of April, 1836, entitled by tho 
 Editor, "The Oxford Malignants." It is painful to 
 dwell on a subject of which the immediate interest is 
 passed away, and of which the mention must give pain 
 to many concerned. But, though only a temporary 
 production, it forms a feature in his life too strongly 
 marked to be passed over without notice. On the one 
 hand it completely represents his own deep feeling at 
 the time, and in impassioned earnestness, force of ex- 
 pression, and power of narrative, is perhaps equal to 
 anything he ever wrote ; on the other hand it contains 
 the most startling and vehement, because the most per- 
 sonal, language which he ever allowed himself deliber- 
 ately to use. The offence caused by it, even amongst 
 his friends, was very great ; and whatever feeling, politi- 
 cal or theological, existed against him was for. the time 
 considerably aggravated by it. It was his only pub 
 lished notice of the Oxford School between his third 
 and fourth volumes of Sermons ; but though he never 
 again expressed himself with equal vehemence, these 
 proceedings at Oxford left an impression upon his 
 mind which he never entirely lost, and which showed 
 itself long afterwards in the stronger language of 
 moral condemnation, which he used in speaking of the 
 views in question. 
 
 II. The office of a Fellowship in the Senate of the 
 new London University was offered to him by Mr. 
 Spring Rice, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 
 September, 1835 ; and he resolved to accept it, with 
 the same views with which he had some years before 
 thought of becoming a Professor in the older institu- 
 tion of the same name, in the hope of giving a relig- 
 ious influence to its proceedings, and of realizing the 
 visions which he had long fondly entertained, of a 
 great institution of national education, which (to use 
 his own words) should be Christian, yet not sectarian. 
 He at first consented to "join it, without insisting on 
 a Scriptural examination ; on the alleged ground of 
 fact, that such an examination was not practicable on
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 21 
 
 account of the objections of different classes of Chris- 
 tians ; and on the hope which he distinctly expressed, 
 that the Christian character of the University might 
 be secured without it." But " when," he adds, " on 
 coming to think and talk more on the subject, I was 
 more and more convinced that the Scriptural exami- 
 nation was both practical and all but indispensable," 
 " when Whately assured me of its proved practicabil- 
 ity in Ireland, when Yates, the Unitarian, to whom 
 I wrote on the subject, agreed with me also, and 
 when I found that there was a very great necessity for 
 avowing the Christian principle strongly, because Un- 
 belief was evidently making a cat's paw of Dissent," 
 he gave notice of his intention of recommending the 
 introduction of the Scriptures as a part of the classical 
 examinations for every degree. 
 
 The suggestion of his views was, even to those of his 
 colleagues who were most disposed to co-operate with 
 him, more or less unexpected ; whilst the majority of 
 the Senate was either hostile or indifferent to them. 
 But he pressed them with all his natural eagerness and 
 earnestness : "I do not understand," was his char- 
 acteristic answer to the argument, that, though the 
 measure was in itself right, the times would not bear 
 it, "I do not understand how the times can help 
 bearing what an honest man has the resolution to do. 
 They may hinder his views from .gaining full success, 
 but they cannot destroy the moral force of his protest 
 against them, and at any rate they cannot make him 
 do their work without his own co-operation." Accord- 
 ingly, though debarred by his occupations at Rugby 
 from making more than two or three short visits to 
 London, and from communicating with his colleagues 
 except by letter, and in spite of the want, of which he 
 was now painfully conscious, of the art of managing 
 bodies of men, with whom he was not acquainted, he 
 so far succeeded, as on December 2, 1837, to carry a 
 resolution, " That, as a general rule, the candidates for 
 the Degree of Bachelor of Arts shall pass an exami-
 
 22 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 nation either in one of the four Gospels, or the Acts of 
 the Apostles in the original Greek, and also in Scrip- 
 ture History." This measure roused great objections, 
 chiefly on the ground that it was supposed to infringe 
 on the original principle of the Charter ; which, whilst 
 it spoke of intending the University to promote " re- 
 ligion," spoke also of its comprehension of all denom- 
 inations. Partly, in consequence of remonstrances 
 from various bodies of Dissenters, and from the Coun- 
 cil of University College, partly, on the strong rep- 
 resentation of the Secretary of State, through whom 
 an appeal had been made by the remonstrants to the 
 Law Officers of tfce Crown, a larger meeting was 
 summoned on February 7th, 1838, in which the for- 
 mer motion was overruled, and in its place it was re- 
 solved, " That examination in the Hebrew text of the 
 Old Testament, and in the Greek text of the New, and 
 in Scripture History, shall be instituted in this Univer- 
 sity ; to be followed by certificates of proficiency ; and 
 that all candidates for Degrees in Arts may, if they 
 think proper, undergo such Examination." 
 
 Although feeling that the principle for which he 
 contended had been abandoned, he was unwilling for a 
 time to leave the Senate ; partly from reluctance to 
 take a step as a private individual, which might seem 
 like a censure of those Bishops who still felt it their 
 duty to remain on the Board ; but chiefly with a hope 
 of rendering this Scriptural Examination as efficient 
 as possible, and of making it evident that the Degree 
 in Arts was considered incomplete without it. Failing 
 in this, partly from the want of co-operation in the 
 members of King's College, and other institutions 
 subordinate to the London University, partly from the 
 active opposition in the Board itself, which succeeded 
 in disuniting the Scriptural Examination altogether 
 from the Degree, ho finally withdrew from the Senate 
 in November, 1838. 
 
 The only permanent result of his efforts was the 
 establishment of the voluntary Scriptural Examina*
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 23 
 
 tion. But the whole contest, which is so fully de- 
 scribed in the ensuing letters as not to need further 
 comments here, was one of the most characteristic 
 passages of his life. It was the only occasion on which 
 he was brought into direct collision with the extreme 
 section of the Liberal party ; and with the tendency to 
 keep the principles of the Christian Religion distinct 
 from national literature and education, which he had 
 long regarded as a great and growing evil in English 
 society. Nor was it the less interesting at this time 
 from its connection with his longer contest with the 
 Oxford School, as showing how his antipathy to one 
 extreme had only made his antipathy to its opposite 
 more intense ; how strongly he felt his isolation from 
 both parties, when he was almost equally condemned, 
 in London as a bigot, and in Oxford as a latitudinariaii. 
 On either side his public and private experience con- 
 verged into the deep feeling expressed in one of his 
 letters : " When I look round upon boys or men, 
 there seems to me some one point or quality, which 
 distinguishes really noble persons from ordinary ones ; 
 it is not religious feeling, it is not honesty or kind- 
 ness ; but it seems to me to be moral thoughtful- 
 ness ; which is at once strengthening and softening 
 and elevating ; which makes a man love Christ instead 
 of being a fanatic, and love truth without being cold 
 or hard. 
 
 CXII. TO MB. JUSTICE COLEEIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, November 18, 1835 
 
 You are by this time, I suppose, returned to London ; and 
 perhaps you may wonder what induces me to write to you 
 again so soon. My reason is, that, if I find that you have 
 tune to do it, I meditate a yet farther encroachment on your 
 leisure, on a matter of public interest, as I think, as well as 
 one which concerns me personally. The " Idea " of my life, 
 to which I think every thought of my mind more or less tends, 
 is the perfecting the " idea " of the Edward the Sixth Reform- 
 ers, the constructing a truly national and Christian Church, 
 and a truly national and Christian system of education. The
 
 24 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 more immediate question now is, with regard to the latter. 
 The Address of the House of Commons about the London 
 University, is to be answered by appointing a body of Exam- 
 iners by Royal Charter, with power to confer Degrees in Arts, 
 Law, and Medicine, on students of the London University 
 and of King's College, and of such other places of education 
 as the Crown from time to tune may name. I have accepted 
 the office of one of the Examiners in Arts, not without 
 much hesitation, and many doubts of the success of the plan, 
 but desirous, if possible, to exercise some influence on a meas- 
 ure which seems to me full of very important consequences 
 for good or for evil. Before I knew anything about this, I 
 had written a pamphlet on the Admission of Dissenters into 
 the Universities ; not meaning to publish it directly, if at all ; 
 but wishing to embody my view of the whole question, in 
 which, of course, I take the deepest interest. Now, if I act 
 with this new Board, I am more disposed to publish my own 
 views for my own justification, lest any man should think me 
 an advocate for the plan of National Education without Chris- 
 tianity ; which I utterly abhor. But I am well-nigh driven 
 beside myself, when I think that to this monstrosity we are 
 likely to come ; because the zealots of different sects (includ- 
 ing in this term the Establishment, pace Archiepiscopi Can- 
 tuarensis,) will have no Christianity without Sectarianism. 
 
 Now, if you have time to look at it, I should like to send 
 you up my MS. for your full and free comments, including 
 also your opinion as to the expediency of publication or no. 
 Tell me also, particularly, what points need fuller develop- 
 ment I have so thought over the whole question, and believe 
 that I see my way in it so clearly, that I may perhaps state, 
 as self-evident propositions, things which to others may be 
 startling. Our Church now has a strict bond in matters of 
 opinion, and none at all in matters of practice ; which seems 
 to me a double error. The Apostles began with the most 
 general of all bonds in point of opinion the simple confes- 
 sion that Jesus was the Son of God not that they meant to 
 rest there ; but that, if you organize and improve the Church 
 morally, you will improve its tone theoretically ; till you get 
 an agreement in what is essential Christian principle, and a 
 perfect tolerance of differences in unessential opinions. But 
 now, the true and grand idea of a Church, that is, a society 
 for the purpose of making men like Christ, earth like 
 heaven, the kingdoms of the world the kingdom of Christ,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 25 
 
 ~ is all lost ; and men look upon it as " an institution for re 
 ligious instruction and religious worship," thus robbing it of 
 its life and universality, making it an affair of clergy, not of 
 people, of preaching and ceremonies, not of living, of 
 Sundays and synagogues, instead of one of all days and all 
 places, houses, streets, towns, and country. I believe that the 
 Government are well disposed, and I wish at any rate to "try 
 them. I know at least what I mean myself, and have a defi- 
 nite object before me, which, if I cannot reach, I would at 
 least come as near to it as I can. 
 
 CXIII. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, November 4, 1835. 
 
 [After stating his acceptance of the office in the London 
 University.] I hold myself bound to influence, so far as I 
 may be able, the working of a great experiment, which will 
 probably in the end affect the whole education of the country. 
 I hold myself bound to prevent, so far as in me lies, the es- 
 tablishment of more sectarian places of education, which will 
 be the case if you have regular colleges for Dissenters ; and 
 yet Dissenters must and ought to have Degrees ; and you 
 shut them out from Oxford and Cambridge. No man can 
 feel more strongly than I do the necessary imperfection of the 
 proposed system, and its certain inferiority to what the old 
 Universities might be made, or even to what they are, I sup- 
 pose, actually. No man can more dread the co-operators with 
 whom I may possibly have to work, or the principle which an 
 active party are endeavoring to carry into education, that it 
 shall or can exist independent of Christianity. But the ex- 
 cuse of these men, and their probable success, arises out of 
 the Oxford sectarianism. You have identified Christianity 
 with the Church of England, and as there are many who 
 will not bear the latter indifferent men, or unbelievers, be- 
 lieve that it must follow that they cannot be taught the for> 
 mer. The question goes through the whole frame of our 
 society. Nothing more reasonable than that national educa- 
 tion should be in accordance with the national religion ; 
 nothing more noble or more wise in my judgment than the 
 whole theory of the Reformers on this point. But the Estab- 
 lished Church is only the religion of a part of the nation, and 
 there is the whole difficulty. The Reformers, or rather their 
 successors in Elizabeth's time, wished to root out Dissent by 
 
 VOL. II. 3
 
 26 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the strong hand. This was wicked, as I think, as well as 
 foolish : but then, if we do not root out Dissent, and so keep 
 the Establishment coextensive with the nation, we must ex- 
 tend the Establishment, or else in the end there will and 
 ought to be no Establishment at all, which I consider as one 
 of the greatest of all evils. But I see everything tending to 
 sectarianism; and I heard a very good man speaking with 
 complacency of this state of things in America, where the 
 different sects, it seems, are becoming more and more sepa- 
 rated from each other. And this is a natural and sure con- 
 sequence of having no Establishment, because then the narrow- 
 mindedness of every sect plays out its own play, and there is 
 no great external reason for union. But on the present Ox- 
 ford system or spirit, the Establishment is merely identified 
 with a party, and makes half the nation regard it as a nuisance. 
 I believe that that party and the party of the Dissenters are 
 alike detestable, alike ignorant, narrow-minded, and unchris- 
 tian ; only the Church party are the least excusable, because 
 they sin against far greater opportunities and means of light. 
 My own firm belief is, that every difference of opinion amongst 
 Christians is either remediable by time and mutual fairness, 
 or else is indifferent ; and this, I believe, would be greatly 
 furthered, if we would get rid entirely of the false traditional 
 standard of interpretation, and interpret Scripture solely by 
 itself. I think that in your Sermon on Unauthoritative 
 Tradition, you have unawares served the cause of error and 
 schism ; for I should just reverse that argument, and 
 instead of saying that we should bring in tradition to teach 
 certain doctrines, which Scripture appears to recognize, but 
 does not clearly develop I should say, that, because Scrip- 
 ture does not clearly develop them, therefore they ought not to 
 be taught as essential, nor with any greater degree of precision 
 than is to be found in Scripture : and then I believe that we 
 should have Christian truth exactly in its own proper propor- 
 tions ; what is plain, and what is essential, being in effect 
 convertible terms ; whereas, I am satisfied, that Church 
 authority, whether early or late, is as rotten a staff as ever 
 was Pharaoh king of Egypt's, it will go into a man's hand 
 to pierce him.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 27 
 
 CXIV. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Rugby, November 11, 1835. 
 
 My attention has been drawn lately, by one or two 
 
 circumstances, to the spread of Henry Drummond's party, 
 who claim to possess a renewal of the spiritual gifts of the 
 Apostolic age, and as a consequence, call themselves the only 
 true Church. I should like to know whether you have lately 
 heard any more of the question, or have seen any reason 
 to alter your views about it. The intolerance of their pre- 
 sumption in calling themselves the only true Church, would, 
 to my mind, go very near to decide against them ; but in all 
 respects they seem to me to resemble those fanatical sects, 
 which have from time to time arisen, and will do so to the end 
 of the world. But with regard to the cessation of the mirac- 
 ulous powers in the Church, which I think at first sight is 
 startling, I am inclined to believe that it is truly accounted 
 for by the supposition that none but the Apostles ever con- 
 ferred these gifts, and that therefore they ceased of course 
 after one generation. I do not think that the state of the 
 Apostolical Churches was so pure, or that of the Churches in 
 the next century so degenerate, as to account for the with- 
 drawal of the gifts as a sign of God's displeasure, seeing that 
 the graces of the Spirit were then and ever have been vouch- 
 safed abundantly, which is inconsistent with the notion of 
 God's abandonment. Nor do I see that the Church of Christ 
 has at any time plainly apostatized, although it has been 
 greatly unworthy of its privileges ; nor that the doctrine of 
 Christ crucified and Christ risen, has been so forsaken, as 
 that the very standard of Christianity should need to be 
 planted afresh. But, if so, then the parallel with the Jewish 
 Church fails ; for the final guilt of the Jewish Church con- 
 sisted in refusing to admit of the full development of its 
 system, as wrought in Christ ; and therefore, without aposta- 
 tizing from the old, they fell because they refused the new. 
 But ours being the dispensation of the fulness of times, a new 
 system is with us not to be looked for ; and, if we hold fast 
 the principles of the Gospel, we have no other object to look 
 to than that great one, which indeed has been enough neg- 
 lected, the working out and carrying into all earthly insti- 
 tutions the practical fruits of these principles.* I have always 
 
 * See Appendix 1. to " Fragment on the Church."
 
 28 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 thought that the Quakers stand nobly distinguished from the 
 multitude of fanatics, by seizing the true point of Christian 
 advancement, the development of the principles of the 
 Gospel in the moral improvement of mankind. It is a griev- 
 ous pity that some foolishnesses should have so marred their 
 efficiency, or their efforts against wars and oaths would surely 
 ere this have been more successful. 
 
 CXV. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, December 16, 1835. 
 
 It is ill answering your long and kind letter between nine 
 and ten o'clock at night, when I am liable to be interrupted 
 every moment by calls from my boys who are going home, and 
 when I am going myself to start with a patriarchal party of 
 seventeen souls at seven o'clock to-morrow for Westmoreland. 
 I think that there runs through your letter, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, a constant assumption that the Conservative party is 
 the orthodox one ; a very natural assumption in the friends of 
 an existing system, or, as I think, in any one who has not sat- 
 isfied himself, as I have, that Conservatism is always wrong ; 
 so thoroughly wrong in principle, that, even when the partic- 
 ular reform proposed may be by no means the best possible, 
 yet it is good as a triumph over Conservatism; the said 
 Conservatism being the worst extreme, according to both of 
 Aristotle's definitions, first, as most opposed to the mean in 
 itself, since man became corrupt ; and secondly, as being the 
 evil that we are all most prone to I myself being conserva- 
 tive in all my instincts, and only being otherwise by an effort 
 of my reason or principle, as one overcomes all one's other 
 bad propensities. I think Conservatism far worse than Tory- 
 ism, if by Toryism be meant a fondness for monarchical or 
 even despotic government t for despotism may often further the 
 advance of a nation, and a good dictatorship may be a very 
 excellent thing, as I believe of Louis Philippe's government 
 at this moment, thinking Guizot to be a great and good man 
 who is looking steadily forwards ; but Conservatism always 
 looks backwards, and therefore, under whatever form of gov- 
 ernment, I think it the enemy of all good. And if you ask me 
 how I can act with the present Ministers, with many of whom 
 I am far from sympathizing, I answer, that I would act with 
 them against the Conservatives as Cranmer and Ridley acted 
 with Somerset and Northumberland and the Russells of that
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 29 
 
 day, not as thinking them the best or wisest of men, but as 
 men who were helping forward the cause of Reform against 
 Conservatism, and who therefore were serving the cause of 
 their country and of mankind, when Fisher and More and 
 Tonstall, better men individually, would have grievously in- 
 jured both. This I should say, even if I judged of the two 
 
 parties as you do But I am running on unreasonably, 
 
 and time is precious ; my meaning is, that had I been a Con- 
 servative, I* am quite sure that no act of mine would have 
 ever been considered as going out of my way into politics ; 
 but on the other side, " defendit numerus ; " and that is called 
 zeal for the Church, which in me is called political violence. 
 We are all well, and I am marvellously untired by our five 
 weeks' examination ; but I still expect to rejoice in the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 CXVI. TO. W. EMPSON, ESQ. 
 
 January 8, 1836. 
 
 I find even in private life, and amongst men of the 
 
 Tory party who are most favorable specimens of it, a tone 
 of increased virulence, interfering even with private relations, 
 which really seems almost like the harbinger of civil war. lu 
 London, I have no doubt all this, externally at least, is soft- 
 ened ; but in the country, where men live more apart, their 
 passion seems to me to be daily exasperating, and any inter- 
 ruption of the present commercial prosperity would find, I 
 fear, a bitter temper already existing to receive the increased 
 embittering of private distress. My great fear is, that the 
 English are indifferent to justice when it is not on their own 
 side, and that therefore in this Irish Church question the Min- 
 isters will fare as Lord Chatham did in the beginning of the 
 American war, be outvoted, overruled, and driven from power. 
 And then what is the " Avenir " which any Tory can image to 
 himself within the very limits of possibility ? For whether 
 Ireland remain in its present barbarism, or grow in health and 
 civilization, in either case the downfall of the present Estab- 
 lishment is certain ; a savage people will not endure the insult 
 of a hostile religion ; a civilized one will reasonably insist on 
 having their own. 
 
 3*
 
 80 LIFE OF DR. ABNOLD. 
 
 CXVII. TO CHEVALIER BUN8EN. 
 
 Fox How, February 1, 1836. 
 
 Let me thank you again and again for your dedi- 
 cation of the Article on the Sabine cities, for it roused me to 
 go to work in good earnest, and I can now tell you that, having 
 begun with ^Eneas, I have fairly brought down the history to 
 the institution of the Tribuneship. I believe I have never 
 written without thinking of you, and wishing to be able to ask 
 you questions ; you must expect, therefore, presently to have 
 a string of interrogatories, after I have first told you the plan 
 
 and contents of what I have hitherto done I need 
 
 not tell you how entirely I have fed upon Niebuhr ; in fact, I 
 have done little more than put his first volume into a shape 
 more fit for general, or at least for English readers, assuming 
 his conclusions as proved, where he was obliged to give the 
 proof in detail. I suppose that he must have shared so much of 
 human infirmity as to have fallen sometimes into error ; but I 
 confess that I do not yet know a single point on which I have 
 ventured to differ from him ; and my respect for him so in- 
 creases the more I study him, that I am likely to grow even 
 superstitious in my veneration, and to be afraid of expressing 
 
 my dissent even if I believe him to be wrong 
 
 Though I deeply feel my own want of knowledge, yet I know 
 of no one in England who can help me ; so little are we on a 
 level with you in Germany in our attention to such points. 
 What would I give to recover the History of Sisenna, or any 
 contemporary account of the war of Marius and Sylla ! Once 
 more, is anything doing about deciphering the Etruscan or 
 Oscan languages, and what authority is there for making the 
 Oscan and Sabellian tribes distinct? whereas I cannot but 
 think they all belong to one stock, distinct from the Latins on 
 one hand, and from the Etruscans on the other. 
 
 I will now release you from the Roman History. I am also 
 engaged upon the three Pastoral Epistles, as I believe I told 
 you. Do not all the three Epistles appear to belong to a pe- 
 riod in Paul's life later than that recorded in the Acts ; and 
 must they not have been written nearly at the same time ? In 
 the 1st Timothy iii. 15, do you approve of Griesbach's stop- 
 ping of the passage when he joins the words orvXoff ical f8paio>fj.a 
 njs d\T]0(iits with the following verse ? I cannot well make 
 up my mind, whether to agree with it or no ; but it is certain, 
 that if the words are to be applied to the Church, they do not
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD 31 
 
 describe what it is de facto, but what it ought to be. " Take 
 care that no error through thy fault creep into that Church 
 which was designed by God to be nothing but a pillar and 
 basis of truth." Then fjLvcrrrjpiov rfjs tva-epfias may fitly be trans- 
 lated, I suppose, the "Revelation of Christianity, the secret 
 which Christianity has to impart to its own initiated." The 
 
 /ivcrrijptoi' TT)s evcrepdas is Christ, as the /iuorjjpioi/ TTJS avo^ias is 
 
 Antichrist. Here again I must stop, though I have much 
 more to say. I look forward with great pleasure to your 
 son's * joining us in June, and seeing this delicious country 
 with us in July. But five long months of work intervene be- 
 tween this present time and our summer holidays. May 
 Christ's Spirit enable me to turn them to profit, if I am per- 
 mitted to live through them. 
 
 CXVIII. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, February 5, 1836. 
 
 I was very much pleased with the pamphlet of 
 
 Dr. Lieber about Education, and thought him the more worthy 
 of having had so much intercourse with Niebuhr. I entirely 
 agree with what Dr. Lieber says, and wish that people were 
 more aware of the truth of it in England. We are going, 
 however, to have a very important experiment begun here, 
 in the new London University ; of which, as you may have 
 perhaps heard, I am likely, if the present Government stands, 
 to become one of the members. There will then probably 
 be brought to issue this great question, whether the people 
 of England have any value whatever for Christianity without 
 sectarianism ; for, as it seems to me, most of those who are 
 above sectarianism are quite as indifferent to Christianity; 
 while almost all who profess to value Christianity seem, when 
 they are brought to the test, to care only for their own sect. 
 Now it is manifest to me that all our education must be 
 Christian, and not be sectarian ; I would ask no questions as 
 to what denomination of Christians any student belonged ; or, 
 if I did, I should only do it for the express purpose of avoid- 
 ing in my examination all those particular points, in which I 
 might happen to differ from him. But I should as certainly 
 
 * Henry, the eldest son of the Chevalier Bunsen, was for two years an 
 inmate of Dr. Arnold's house at Rugby, preparatory to his entering on the 
 studies of Oxford, and taking orders in the Church of England.
 
 32 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 assume him to be a Christian, and both in examining him in 
 the Scriptures, as well as in the philosophy and history of 
 other writers, I should proceed on the supposition that Ins 
 views of life were Christian, and should think it quite right 
 to inquire what was his knowledge of the evidences and 
 nature of the Christian scheme. I see that a Jew has just 
 been elected a governor of Christ's Hospital ; the very name 
 shows the monstrousness of this ; but what shall we say of 
 the wisdom of those who say that a Roman Catholic or an 
 Unitarian is as bad as a Jew, and who thus drive other men 
 to say that, as some pretended religious distinctions are no 
 real moral distinctions, so all religious distinctions are unim- 
 portant ; and Jew, Mahometan, Hindoo, or Benthamite, may 
 all be educated together? No doubt they may be taught 
 physical science together ; but physical science is not educa- 
 tion ; and how they can be instructed in moral science 
 together, when their views of life are so different^ is a thing 
 
 that I cannot understand I am satisfied that the 
 
 real good must be done through something in the form of a 
 Newspaper or Historical Magazine. You must begin with 
 teaching people to understand, if you can, what they will feel 
 an interest in and talk about ; it is of no use to attempt to 
 create an interest for indifferent things, natural history, or 
 general literature, which every sensible man feels to be the 
 play of life and not its business. I hold with Algernon 
 Sidney, that there are but two things of vital importance, 
 those which he calls Religion and Politics, but which I would 
 rather call our duties and affections towards God, and our 
 duties and feelings towards men ; science and literature are 
 but a poor make up for the want of these. 
 
 I have been at work on the Roman History with very great 
 delight, and also with a part of the New Testament. I have 
 begun the Roman History from the beginning, and I could 
 not have any work which I should more enjoy ; if I live, I 
 hope to carry on the History till the sixth century, and end 
 it with the foundation of the modern kingdoms out of the 
 wreck of the Western Empire. Pray let me hear of you 
 when you can, and believe me that I shall always feel a very 
 lively interest in your proceedings.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 33 
 
 CXIX. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, March 2, 1836. 
 
 I erred in sending you my manuscript ; not that I do not 
 heartily thank you for your comments, which as to the good 
 of the work itself were more useful than if you had more 
 agreed with me ; but I would not for the sake of an hypo- 
 thetical publication have caused you to dwell on page after 
 page of matter in which you could not sympathize, and which 
 I fear grated harshly upon your notions and tastes. I did it 
 in ignorance ; for I really fancied, without any authority, I 
 believe but still I fancied that you agreed with me as to the 
 desirableness of opening the Universities, and would sympa- 
 thize, therefore, in the general drift of what I had written. 
 Otherwise I should not have thought it fair to trouble you 
 with it. 
 
 But the whole thing makes me most earnest that we should 
 soon meet, not to argue, but rather to feel the many points of 
 true sympathy between us, and to get our notions of each 
 other refreshed, so to speak, in all their totality. You get 
 from me two or three letters a year ; in these I cannot repre- 
 sent what is really my life's business and state of mind, for 
 school affairs would not interest you, nor will the quiet 
 scenes of mere family life bear description. I therefore write 
 naturally of public matters, of questions of general interest ; 
 and I write upon them as I feel, that is, decidedly and deeply. 
 But this produces a false impression upon your mind, as if 
 these feelings occupied me predominantly, and you express a 
 wish that I would concentrate my energies upon the school, 
 my own business. Why you cannot surely think that Hawtrey 
 or your brother Edward or any man in England does so more 
 than I do? I should feel it the greatest possible reproach, 
 if I were conscious of doing otherwise. But although a 
 school, like a parish or any other occupation in which our 
 business is to act morally upon our neighbors, affords in 
 fact infinite employment, and no man can ever say that he 
 has done all that he might do, still, in the common sense of 
 the term, I can truly say, that I live for the school ; that 
 very pamphlet which I sent you was written almost entirely 
 at Fox How, and my own employment here has been all of 
 a kind to bear directly upon the school work ; first Thucydides, 
 and now the Roman History, and subjects more or less con- 
 nected with the Scriptures, or else my Sermons. Undoubtedly,
 
 34 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 I do not wish ray mind to feel less or to think less upon 
 public matters ; ere it does so, its powers must be paralyzed ; 
 and I am sure that the more active my own mind is, and the 
 more it works upon great moral and political points, the 
 better for the school ; not, of course, for the folly of pros- 
 elytizing the boys, but because education is a dynamical, 
 not a mechanical process, and the more powerful and vigorous 
 the mind of the teacher, the more clearly and readily he can 
 grasp things, the better fitted he is to cultivate the mind of 
 another. And to this I find myself coming more and more : 
 I care less and less for information, more and more for the 
 pure exercise of the mind ; for answering a question con- 
 cisely and comprehensively, for showing a command of lan- 
 guage, a delicacy of taste, and a comprehensiveness of thought 
 and power of combination. 
 
 We had a most delightful winter at Fox How 
 
 I went over to Keswick for one day, and called on Southey 
 and saw him and his daughters Kate and Bertha. Southey is 
 much altered from his heavy domestic trial, and perhaps from 
 his constant occupations. He reads as he walks, which I 
 told him I would not venture to do, though so much younger 
 than he was ; it is so constant a strain, that I do not wonder 
 
 that his hah* is gray What a great man your 
 
 uncle was, that is, intellectually ! for something I suppose 
 must have been wanting to hinder us from calling him a great 
 man dir\>s . But where has he left his equal ? 
 
 CXX. *TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ. 
 
 (On his success at Cambridge.) 
 
 Rugby, March 7, 1836. 
 
 I gave myself the pleasure of writing to Mrs. Vaughan a 
 few lines on Friday evening, which I thought you would 
 prefer to my writing to yourself. But you know how heartily 
 I should rejoice at your success, and I thank you very much 
 for your kind letter to inform me of it. 
 
 I am truly glad indeed and thankful that you have done so 
 well, and I thank you for the credit which you have conferred 
 upon Rugby. I am very glad that you are coming to us in 
 June, a time when I hope to enjoy your company far more 
 than in the Babel at Easter. It will be a great pleasure to 
 me to have some conversation with you again after the lapse 
 of a year, a period which brings such clianges in all our minds,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 35 
 
 and, till our faculties decay, changes surely for the better, 
 unless we wilfully let the ground lie fallow, or plant it with 
 weeds. And it is to me a matter of intense interest to ob- 
 serve the ripening manhood of those minds, in whose earlier 
 opening I felt so deep and affectionate a sympathy. My wife 
 and all the children rejoice in your success, and unite in 
 kindest regards. 
 
 CXXI. TO AN OLD PTTPIL. (B.) 
 
 Rugby, March 9, 1836. 
 
 I am far more pleased than disappointed about the scholar- 
 ship ; I am very much pleased that both you and have 
 
 done so well. I am not disappointed, because I always think 
 that in every election the chances must be against any one 
 
 candidate. I wish you would impress this on , from me ; 
 
 for I am a little afraid that Vaughan's success at Cambridge 
 will make him over anxious, and that he will fancy that he is 
 the more expected to get it, in order to complete the triumph 
 of Rugby. This is not my feeling, and I cannot bear that he 
 should be oppressed with the weight of our unreasonable ex- 
 pectations when I know how much anxiety he has of his own. 
 Come to us whenever you can, and find it most convenient : 
 we shall be equally glad to see you at any time. 
 
 And now for your Oxford agitators. If I were really as 
 anxious to make proselytes as some fancy, I should be much 
 grieved at what I should then call your defection ; but as it 
 is I am well content that you should so love Oxford at present, 
 as to feel sympathy even for her extravagances : it is such a 
 symptom as I hail with very great satisfaction, and I exhib- 
 ited it myself when I was in your situation. I should there- 
 fore be well enough inclined to let this right itself by and by ; 
 only in such turbulent times you must be aware lest you are 
 tempted, not only <rvp.<j>i\flv rois o^wiavois dXXa Kal <rvpiJii(Tfiv, 
 and that I think would be an injustice. I think also that the 
 habit of making a man an offender for a word is most injuri- 
 ous to ourselves, remember the calumnies and insinuations 
 against Niebuhr. Again, no man's mind can be fairly judged 
 of by such a specimen as Newman has given of Hampden's. 
 He lia- in several places omitted sentences in his quotations, 
 which give exactly the soft and Christian effect to what with- 
 out them sounds hard and cold Again, it will never 
 
 do to judge a man, not for the opinions which he holds, but
 
 86 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 for the degree of condemnation which he passes on the oppo- 
 site opinions, 6 ntv xa\cnaiva>v TTiorof ad 6 8' avriXtyuv avry 
 viroirros.* But to whom are they iricrrot and vrrvrrroi ? Not 
 to the wise and good, but to the unprincipled or fanatical par- 
 tisan, who knows not what truth and goodness are. Poor 
 Jeremy Taylor understood well this intolerance of toleration, 
 when he thought it necessary to append to his Liberty of 
 Prophesying a long argument against the truth of the Baptist 
 opinions, because he had been earnestly arguing that, although 
 untrue, they were neither punishable nor damnable. You 
 have always heard me, and I hope I shall always be heard, to 
 insist upon the Divinity of Christ as the great point of Chris- 
 tianity ; but it is because I think that the Scholastic Theology 
 has obscured and excited a prejudice against it, that I am 
 rather thankful myself for having been enabled to receive 
 Scripture truth in spite of the wrapping which has been put 
 round it, than I can condemn those who throw, away the 
 wrapping, and cannot conceive that beneath a shell so worth- 
 less there can lurk so divine a kernel. Then as to " danger- 
 ousness." There is an immense danger in folly, or in the 
 careless tone of a man who never seemed in earnest ; or in 
 the trash of a fanatic. Hampden is a good man, and an able 
 one ; a lover of truth and fairness ; and I should think that 
 the wholesome air of such a man's lectures would tend to 
 freshen men's faith, and assure them that it had a foundation 
 to rest upon, when the infinite dishonesty and foolery of such 
 divinity as I remember in the lecture-rooms and pulpits in 
 times past, would be enough to drive a man of sound mind 
 
 into any extravagances of unbelief. Hampden's Bamp- 
 
 ton Lectures are a great work, entirely true in their main 
 
 points, and I think most useful But it is merely like 
 
 the cry of Oxford a hundred and twenty years ago, when the 
 lower House of Convocation condemned Burnet's Exposition 
 of the Articles. So always in the course of human things, 
 the tail labors to sting the head. 
 
 CXXII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 17, 1836. 
 
 The question about Hampden seems to me simple. If he 
 has preached or published heresy, let him be tried by the 
 proj>er judge or judges, either the Bishop or, as Hawkins 
 
 * Tlmcyd. III. 82.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 37 
 
 says, the Vice-Chancellor, assisted by six Doctors of Divinity. 
 What they are now doing is merely Lynch law ; and they 
 might just as well run down any other man who is unpopular 
 with the dominant party in Oxford, and say that they have no 
 confidence in him, and therefore pass a privilegium against 
 him without giving him any trial. It is making the legislative 
 power encroach on the judicial with a vengeance, and there- 
 fore I would go up to vote for Pusey, NeWman,* Vaughan 
 Thomas, or any other whom I deem the most unfit man in 
 Oxford, if a Tory ministry had appointed them, and a Whig 
 majority in Convocation were to press for a similar stigma 
 against them on a charge which has never been tried, and 
 which Convocation is not competent to try. I will add, how- 
 ever, that I agree for the most part with Hampden's views. 
 
 Hawkins has stood the storm nobly by Hampden's 
 
 side. 
 
 CXXIII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, June 11, 1836. 
 
 No man can object more than I do to the quoting Scripture 
 language irreverently or lightly ; but I see no impropriety in 
 referring to Scripture examples, whether of sets of men or of 
 individuals. Hophni and Phinehas are recorded as speci- 
 mens of the worst class of ministers of an established religion. 
 The Judaizers of the New Testament exhibit in the germ all 
 the evils which have since most corrupted the Christian 
 Church. I cannot but think it legitimate and right to refer 
 to these examples, when the same evils are flaming hi the 
 
 face of day before our eyes. I do not say or think that 
 
 and are bad men. I do not think that John Gerson 
 
 was a bad man ; yet he was a principal party in the foul 
 treachery and murder committed against John Huss at the 
 Council of Constance. 
 
 CXXIV. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 (In congratulation on his appointment to a living.) 
 
 Rugby, April 12, 1836. 
 
 I covet rest neither for my friends nor yet for my- 
 self so long as we are able to work ; but, when age or weak- 
 ness comes on, and hard labor becomes an unendurable burthen, 
 
 * In 1841 he expressed his intention of fulfilling this resolution, had a 
 condemnation of Tract 90 been proposed to Convocation. 
 
 VOL. II. 4
 
 38 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 then the necessity of work is deeply painful, and it seems to 
 me to imply an evil state of society wherever such a necessity 
 generally exists. One's age should be tranquil as one's child- 
 hood should be playful : hard work at either extremity of 
 human existence seems to me out of place ; the morning and 
 the evening should be alike cool and peaceful ; at mid-day the 
 
 sun may burn, and men may labor under it. [After 
 
 speaking of the Hampden controversy.] It is a curious case, 
 and is completely, to my mind, a repetition of the scenes of 
 the Reformation. When Peter Martyr went down as Divinity 
 Professor to Oxford in Edward the Sixth's time, he was re- 
 ceived by the Catholics with precisely the same outcry with 
 which Hampden has been received by the High Churchmen, 
 and on the same grounds. I think that the Evangelicals have 
 in some instances been led to join in the clamor against him, 
 from their foolish fondness for their particular phraseology, 
 and from their want of ability to recognize the real features 
 of any movement of opinion.* 
 
 About fifty or sixty years ago, when there was really a 
 leaven of Socinianism in the Church, it showed itself in pe- 
 titions to be relieved from the Articles, and in the absence 
 of a strongly-marked Christian character in the writings of 
 the petitioning party. But Hampden is doing what real 
 Christian reformers have ever done ; what the Protestants 
 did with Catholicism, and the Apostles with Judaism. He 
 upholds the Articles as true in substance, he maintains their 
 usefulness, and the truth and importance of their doctrines ; 
 but he sees that the time is come when their phraseology re- 
 quires to be protested against, as having, in fact, obstructed 
 and embarrassed the reception of the very truths which they 
 intend to inculcate. He is engaged in that same battle against 
 technical theological language, to which you and I have, I 
 believe, an equal dislike ; while he would join us thoroughly in 
 condemning the errors against which the Articles were direct- 
 ed, and holds exactly the language and sentiments which Cran- 
 mer and Ridley, I believe, would hold if they were alive now. 
 
 * " They urge," ho said, " that Hampden has a tendency to Socinianism. 
 Of course he may have an element of Socinianism. Every great mind must 
 of necessity have the germ of that which, earned to excess, becomes Socin- 
 ianism; but to enter into the ouestion of how it is to be combined with other 
 qualities of the opposite kind, and where it ceases to be sound, and begins 
 to be mischievous, is to enter on the great question of the two great philo- 
 sophical divisions of the human race; and then conceive the Oxford Con- 
 Vocation deciding ou the principles of Idealism and Sensualism! "
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 3'J 
 
 CXXV. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, April 27, 1836. 
 
 Objections to my statement do not bring us to the 
 
 point ; my view stands on four legs, and I think meets all the 
 difficulties of the case. If you say otherwise, I want to see 
 another view that shall also stand on four legs, and those legs 
 good ones, I think the Roman Catholic system has the legs 
 right in number, the system is consistent ; but it is based on 
 one or two great falsehoods. The English High-Church sys- 
 tem I think both false and inconsistent But I turn 
 
 more gladly to a point in which I think we heartily agree. I 
 want to petition against the Jew Bill, but I believe I must 
 petition alone ; for you would not sign my preamble, nor 
 would many others who will petition doubtless against the 
 measure. I want to take my stand on my favorite principle, 
 that the world is made up of Christians and non-Christians ; 
 with all the former we should be one, with none of the latter. 
 I would thank the Parliament for having done away with 
 distinctions between Christian and Christian ; I would pray 
 that distinctions be kept up between Christians and non-Chris- 
 tians. Then I think that the Jews have no claim whatever 
 of political right. If I thought of Roman Catholicism as you 
 do, I would petition for the repeal of the Union to-morrow, 
 because I think Ireland ought to have its own Church estab- 
 lished in it ; and if I thought that Church anti-Christian, I 
 should object to living in political union with a people belong- 
 ing to it. But the Jews are strangers in England, and have 
 no more claim to legislate for it than a lodger has to share 
 with the landlord in the management of his house. If we 
 had brought them here by violence, and then kept them in an 
 inferior condition, they would have just cause to complain ; 
 though even then, I think, we might lawfully deal with them 
 on the Liberia system, and remove them to a land where they 
 might live by themselves independent ; for England is the 
 land of Englishmen, not of Jews. And in this my German 
 friends agree with me as fully as they do in my dislike to the 
 Protestant Establishment in Ireland, which is the land of 
 Irishmen ; and from which we ought to go, and not the Irish, 
 tf our consciences clamor against living with them according 
 to justice. So now here is agreement with you and disa- 
 greement.
 
 40 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CXXVI. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, May 4, 1836, 
 
 Your opinion of the Edinburgh Review gave me, as you 
 may believe, very great pleasure ; but I did not think that it 
 would be worth while to print it in a separate shape, because 
 Ihe more I saw of the temper of the Judaizers, the less did 
 it seem likely to persuade any of them from their evil deeds 
 before to-morrow's Convocation ; and because having written 
 once agonistically, I wish next to write in another manner, 
 and to go deeper to work with the root of error, from which 
 all this Judaizing springs. And here I feel sadly my distance 
 from all who might advise and co-operate in such a work. I 
 want to get out a series of " Church of England Tracts," 
 which, after establishing again the supreme authority of 
 Scripture and reason, against Tradition, Councils, and Fathers, 
 and showing that reason is not rationalism, should then take 
 two lines, the one negative, the other positive ; the negative 
 one, showing that the pretended unity, which has always been 
 the idol of Judaizers, is worthless, impracticable, and the 
 pursuit of it has split Christ's Church into a thousand sects, 
 and will keep it so split forever : the other positive, showing 
 that the true unity is most precious, practicable, and has in 
 fact been never lost; that at all times and in all countries 
 there has been a succession of men, enjoying the blessings 
 and showing forth the fruits of Christ's spirit ; that in their 
 lives and in what is truly their religion i. e. in their prayers 
 and hymns there has been a wonderful unity ; that all sects 
 have had amongst them the marks of Christ's Catholic 
 Church, in the graces of His Spirit, and the Confession of 
 His name ; for which purpose it might be useful to give, 
 side by side, the martyrdoms, missionary labors, &c., of 
 Catholics and Arians, Romanists and Protestants, Church- 
 men and Dissenters. Here is a grand field, giving room for 
 learning, for eloquence, for acuteness, for judgment, and for 
 a true love of Christ, in those who took part in it, and 
 capable, I think, of doing much good. And the good is 
 wanted ; because it is plain that the Judaizers have infected 
 
 even those who still profess to disclaim them I shall 
 
 talk this matter over with Hawkins, who has behaved nobly 
 in this matter, but who still, I think, contributed to their 
 mischief by his unhappy sermon on Tradition. I am well 
 satisfied, that if you let in but one little finger of Tradition
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 41 
 
 you will have in the whole monster horns, and tail, and alL 
 I teach my children the Catechism and the Creed, not for 
 any tradition's sake, but because the Church of England has 
 adopted them. Each particular Church is an authority to 
 members of that Church ; but for any general tradition 
 having authority from universality or antiquity, I do not 
 believe that there is any such ; and what are called such, 
 are, I think, only corruptions, more or less ancient, and more 
 or less mischievous, of the true Christianity of the Scriptures. 
 I have received your volume of Charges, &c., for which I 
 am very much obliged to you. I have read your additional 
 remarks on the Jew Bill, and grieve that there should be so 
 much difference between us. In my Catholic Pamphlet, or 
 rather in one place in the Postscript, there is one paragraph 
 which I should now cancel, that which applies St. Paul's 
 rule about husbands and wives of different religions to men 
 of different religions in a commonwealth. The general 
 argument of the pamphlet I should perfectly maintain now, 
 that the Irish being a Catholic people, they have a right 
 to perfect independence, or to a perfectly equal union : if our 
 conscience objects to the latter, it is bound to concede the 
 former. But for the Jews I see no plea of justice whatever ; 
 they are voluntary strangers here, and have no claim to 
 become citizens, but by conforming to our moral law, which 
 is the Gospel. Had we brought them here as captives, I 
 should think that we ought to take them back again, and 
 I should think myself bound to subscribe for that purpose. 
 I would give the Jews the honorary citizenship which was so 
 often given by the Romans i. e. the private rights of citi- 
 zens, jus commercii et jus connubii, but not the public 
 rights, jus suffragii and jus honorum. But then, according 
 to our barbarian feudal notions, the jus commercii involves 
 the jus suffragii ; because land, forsooth, is to be represented 
 in Parliament, just as it used to confer jurisdiction. Then, 
 again, I cannot but think that you overestimate the dif- 
 ference between Christian and Christian. Every member of 
 Christ's Catholic Church is one with whom I may lawfully 
 join in legislation, and whose ministry I may lawfully use, as 
 a judge or a magistrate ; but a Jew or heathen I cannot 
 apply to voluntarily, but only obey him passively if he has 
 the rule over me. A Jew judge ought to drive all Chris- 
 tians from pleading before him, according to St. Paul, 
 I Cor. vi. 1. 
 
 4*
 
 42 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CXXVII. TO SIR THOMAS S. PASLET, BAKT. 
 
 Rugby, May 11, 1836. 
 
 I have been waiting week after week in the hope of being 
 able to tell you of something about the New University ; but I 
 begin to think that if I wait till the Government plans are 
 decided, I shall not write to you at all before we meet ; and I 
 would rather send you a letter with nothing in it, than appear 
 indifferent to the pleasure of keeping up some communication 
 with you, a privilege which, I can truly say, I value more 
 and more after every fresh meeting with you. I meet with a 
 great many persons in the course of the year, and with many 
 whom I admire and like ; but what I feel daily more and 
 more to need, as life every year rises more and more before 
 me in its true reality, is to have intercourse with those who 
 take life in earnest. It is very painful to me to be always on 
 the surface of things ; and I think that literature, science, poli- 
 tics many topics of far greater interest than mere gossip or 
 talking about the weather are yet, as they are generally 
 talked about, still on the surface ; they do not touch the real 
 depths of life. It is not that I want much of what is called 
 religious conversation, that, I believe, is often on the surface, 
 like other conversation ; but I want a sign, which one 
 catches as by a sort of masonry, that a man knows what he is 
 about in life, whither tending, and in what cause engaged ; 
 and when I find this, it seems to open my heart as thoroughly, 
 and with as fresh a sympathy, as when I was twenty years 
 younger. I feel this in talking to you, and in writing to you ; 
 and I feel that you will neither laugh at me, nor be offended 
 with me for saying it. 
 
 CXXVIII. *TO DB. GREENHILL. 
 
 Rugby, May 9, 1836. 
 
 At last I hope to redeem my credit with you, though indeed 
 it may well be almost irretrievable. I must go back over our 
 hurried meeting of Thursday last, to your two kind letters, 
 and the report which they give of your medical studies, in 
 which I rejoice, as in everything else, and even more than 
 in most things that I am acquainted with. What our fathers 
 have done, still leaves an enormous deal for us to do. The 
 philosophy of medicine, I imagine, is almost at zero : our 
 practice is empirical, and seems hardly more than a course of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 43 
 
 guessing, more or less happy. The theory of life itself lies 
 probably beyond our knowledge ; so, probably, is that of the 
 origin of thought and perception. We talk of nerves, and we 
 perceive their connection with operations of the mind ; but we 
 cannot understand a thinking, or a seeing, or a hearing nerve, 
 nor do electricity or galvanic action bring us nearer to the 
 point. But coming down to a far lower point, how ignorant 
 are we of the causes of disorder, of the real influence of air, 
 and of its component parts as affecting health, of infection, 
 and of that strange phenomenon of diseases incident generally 
 to the human frame, but for the most part incident once only, 
 such as measles, small-pox, and the old Athenian plague, 
 or incident only after a certain period, as the vaccine infection. 
 Here, and in a thousand other points, there is room for infi- 
 nite discoveries ; to say nothing of the wonderful phenomena 
 of animal magnetism, which only Englishmen, with their ac- 
 customed ignorance, venture to laugh at, but which no one 
 yet has either thoroughly ascertained or explained. 
 
 If one might wish for impossibilities, I might then 
 
 wish that my children might be well versed in physical science, 
 but in due subordination to the fulness and freshness of their 
 knowledge on moral subjects. This, however, I believe can- 
 not be ; and physical science, if studied at all, seems too great 
 to be studied eV 7rapepya> : wherefore, rather than have it the 
 principal thing in my son's mind, I would gladly have him 
 think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars 
 were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament. 
 Surely the one thing needful for a Christian and an English- 
 man to study is Christian and moral and political philosophy, 
 and then we should see our way a little more clearly without 
 falling into Judaism, or Toryism, or Jacobinism, or any other 
 ism whatever. All here is going on comfortably, with much 
 actually good, and much in promise ; with much also to make 
 one anxious, according to the unavoidable course of human 
 things. My mind expatiates sometimes upon Fox How, when 
 I see the utter dulness of the country about Rugby, which 
 certainly is beyond the reach of railways to spoil. On Satur- 
 day we went, a party of twenty, to Nuneham Wood ; Mrs. 
 Arnold and myself, with eight children, and twelve persons 
 besides.
 
 44 I-IFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 \ \ IX. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OP DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, May 16, 183. 
 
 I have no thought of writing anything about the 
 
 Jew Bill or Church Reform at present. If the Jew Bill 
 comes forward. I shall perhaps petition against it, either in 
 common with the clergy of the neighborhood, whom I could 
 on that question join, though not probably in my reasons for 
 opposing it ; or else singly, to state my own views as a Lib- 
 eral in being unfavorable to any measure of the present 
 Government. Undoubtedly, I think that up to 1795 or '6, 
 whenever the elective franchise was granted to the Catholics, 
 the Protestants were de facto the only citizens of Ireland ; 
 and that the Catholic claims could not then be urged on the 
 same ground that they are now. Till that time one must 
 have appealed to a higher law, and asked by what right the 
 Protestants had become the only citizens of Ireland ; it was 
 then a question of the Jus Gentium, now it is merely one of 
 Jus Civile. I never have justified the practice of one race in 
 wresting another's country from it ; I only say that every 
 people in that country which is rightfully theirs, may establish 
 their owu institutions and their own ideas; and that no 
 stranger has any title whatever to become a member of that 
 nation, unless he adopts their institutions and ideas. It is 
 not what a government may impose upon its subjects, but 
 what a people may agree upon for themselves ; and, though 
 England does not belong to the king, yet it belongs to the 
 English ; and the English may most justly say that they will 
 admit no stranger to be one of their society. If they say that 
 they will admit him, that is, if Parliament pass the Jew Bill, 
 I do not at all dispute their right as Englishmen to do so, and 
 as an Englishman I owe obedience to their decision ; but I 
 think they make England cease to be the iro\is of a Christian, 
 and we, like the old Christians, shall then become in our turn 
 ndpoiKoi. Politically, if we are the minority, I see no injus- 
 tice in this, but I think that we may wonder a little at those 
 of the majority, who are Christians ; seeing that we as Eng- 
 lishmen have a nearer claim to English citizenship than the 
 Jews can have ; and Christians being the majority, ought, I 
 think, to establish their own ideas in their own land. 
 
 Meanwhile, I think that I shall fulfil my intention of pub- 
 lishing the three Pastoral Epistles, (Timothy and Titus.) 
 with Notes and Dissertations. I should print in parallel col-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 45 
 
 umns, the Greek text, as correctly as I could give it ; the 
 Latin Vulgate ; and the English authorized version corrected, 
 noticing every correction by printing it in a smaller type, and 
 marking with obeli such words or expressions in our trans- 
 lation as I think require amendment, but which I cannot 
 amend to my satisfaction. The Dissertations would embrace 
 naturally every point on which the Oxford Judaizers have set 
 up their heresy; the priesthood, sacraments, apostolical suc- 
 cession, tradition, the church, and above all would contain 
 the positive opposite to all their idolatries, the doctrine of the 
 Person of Christ ; not His Church, not His sacraments, not 
 His teaching, not even the truths about Him, nor the virtues 
 which He most enforces, but Himself; that only object which 
 bars fanaticism and idolatry on the one hand, and gives life 
 and power to all morality on the other. And this is what St 
 Paul constantly opposes to the several idolatries of the Juda- 
 izers, see Colossians ii. and 1 Timothy iv., connecting with 
 it the last verse of chapter iii., which has been so strangely 
 severed from its context. 
 
 I never yet in my life made any application for preferment, 
 nor have I desired it. But I confess, if Hampden is to be 
 made a Bishop, I wish that they would put me in his place at 
 Oxford. I should be a very great loser in point of income by 
 the change, and till lately, I have never fancied that I could 
 be more useful anywhere else than at Rugby. But I think 
 under present circumstances that I could do more good at 
 Oxford. I could not supply your place, but I could supply it 
 better than it is supplied now. I should have a large body of 
 very promising young men disposed to listen to me for old 
 affection's sake, and my fondness* for young men's society 
 would soon bring others about me whom I might influence. 
 I should be of weight from my classical knowledge, and I am 
 old enough now to set down many of the men who are fore- 
 most in spreading their mischief, and to give some sanction 
 of authority to those who think as I do, but who at present 
 want a man to lean upon. And, though the Judaizers hate 
 me, I believe, worse than they hate Hampden, yet they could 
 not get up the same clamor against me, for the bugbear of 
 Apostolical succession would not do, and it would puzzle even 
 
 to get up a charge of Socinianism against me out of my 
 
 Sermons. Furthermore, my spirit of pugnaciousness would 
 rejoice in fighting out the battle with the Judaizers, a^ it were 
 in a saw-pit ; and, as my skin is tough, my wife's tougher, and
 
 46 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 < 
 
 the children's toughest of all, I am satisfied that we should 
 live in Oxford amidst any quantity of abuse unhurt in health 
 or spirits, and I should expatiate as heretofore in Bagley 
 Wood and on Shotover. Do not understand this as implying 
 any weariness with Rugby ; far from it ; I have got a 
 very effective position here, which I would only quit for one 
 which seems even more effective ; but I keep one great place 
 of education sound and free, and unavoidably gain an influ- 
 ence with many young men, and endeavor to make them see 
 that they ought to think on and understand a subject, before 
 they take up a party view about it. I hunger sometimes for 
 more time for writing ; but I do not indulge the feeling ; and 
 on the other hand, I think my love of tuition rather grows 
 upon me. 
 
 GXXX. * TO A. P. STANLEY, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, May 24, 1836. 
 
 Now with regard to the Newmanites. I do not 
 
 call them bad men, nor would I deny their many good quali- 
 ties ; I judge of them as I do commonly of mixed 
 
 characters, where the noble and the base, the good and the 
 bad, are strangely mixed up together. There is an ascending 
 scale from the grossest personal selfishness, such as that of 
 Caesar or Napoleon, to party selfishness, such as that of Sylla, 
 or fanatical selfishness, that is, the idolatry of an idea or a 
 principle, such as that of Robespierre* and Dominic, and 
 some of the Covenanters. In all these, except perhaps the 
 first, we feel a sympathy more or less, because there is some- 
 thing of personal self-devotion and sincerity ; but fanaticism 
 is idolatry, and it has the moral evil of idolatry in it ; that is, 
 a fanatic worships something which is the creature of his own 
 devices, and thus even his self-devotion in support of it is only 
 an apparent self-sacrifice, for it is in fact making the parts of 
 
 * Robespierre he used to distinguish from Danton, and others of the revo- 
 lutionary leaders, as being a sincere fanatic in the cause of Republicanism. 
 " The life and character of Robespierre has to me a most important lesson," 
 he said once to a former pupil, with the emphasis of one who had studied it 
 for his own profit; " it snows the frightful consequences of making every- 
 thing give way to a favorite notion. The man was a just man, and humane 
 naturally, but he would narrow everything to meet his own views, and 
 nothing could check him at last. It is a most solemn warning to us of what 
 fanaticism may lead to in God's world." To Dominic, in allusion to his 
 supposed share in the Albigensian crusade, and the foundation of the Inqui- 
 sition, he used to apply St Paul's words, 1 Cor. iii. 15.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 47 
 
 his nature or his mind, which he least values, offer sacrifice to 
 that which he most values. The moral fault, as it appears to 
 me, is in the idolatry, the setting up some idea which is 
 most kindred to our own minds, and then putting it in the 
 place of Christ, who alone cannot be made an idol, and cannot 
 inspire fanaticism, because He combines all ideas of perfec- 
 tion, and exhibits them in their just harmony and combination. 
 Now to my own mind, by its natural tendency, that is, 
 taking my mind at its best, truth and justice would be the 
 idols that I should follow ; and they would be idols, for they 
 would not supply all the food that the mind wants, and whilst 
 worshipping them, reverence and humility and tenderness 
 might very likely be forgotten. But Christ Himself includes 
 at once truth and justice, and all these other qualities too. 
 In other men I cannot trace exactly the origin of the idolatry, 
 except by accident in some particular cases. But it is clear 
 to me that Newman and his party are idolaters; they put 
 Christ's Church and Christ's Sacraments, and Christ's minis- 
 ters, in the place of Christ Himself; and these being only 
 imperfect ideas, the unreserved worship of them unavoidably 
 tends to the neglect of other ideas no less important ; and 
 thence some passion or other loses its proper and intended 
 check, and the moral evil follows. Thus it is that narrow- 
 mindedness tends to wickedness, because it does not extend 
 its watchfulness to every part of our moral nature, for then it 
 would not be narrow-mindedness ; and this neglect fosters the 
 growth of evil in the parts that are so neglected. Thus a man 
 may " give all his goods to feed the poor, and yet be nothing ; " 
 where I do not understand it of giving out of mere ostenta- 
 tion, or with a view to gam influence, but that a man may 
 have one or more virtues, such as are according to his favorite 
 ideas, in very great perfection, and still be nothing ; because 
 these ideas are his idols, and worshipping them with all his 
 heart, there is a portion of his heart, more or less considerable, 
 left without its proper object, guide, and nourishment, and so 
 this portion is left to the dominion of evil. Other men, and 
 these the mass of mankind, go wrong either from having no 
 favorite ideas at all, and living wholly at random, or npbs f]8ov^v, 
 or else from having ideas but indistinctly, and paying them 
 but little worship, so that here too the common world about 
 them gives the impression to their minds, and thus they are 
 evil. But the best men, I think, are those who, worshipping 
 Christ and no idol, and thus having got hold of the true idea,
 
 48 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 yet from want of faith cannot always realize it, and so have 
 parts of their lives more or less out of that influence which 
 should keep them right, and thus they also fall into evil ; 
 but they are the best, because they have set before them 
 Christ and no idol, and thus having nothing to cast away, but 
 need only to impress themselves with their ideas more con- 
 stantly ; " they need not save to wash the feet, and are then 
 
 clean every whit." I have been looking through the 
 
 Tracts,* which are to me a memorable proof of their idolatry ; 
 some of the idols are better than others, some being indeed 
 as very a " Truncus ficulnus " as ever the most degraded su- 
 perstition worshipped ; but as to Christianity, there is more of 
 it in any one of Mrs. Sherwood's or Mrs. Cameron's or indeed 
 of any of the Tract Society's than in all the two Oxford octa- 
 vos. And these men would exclude John Bunyan, and Mrs. 
 Fry, and John Howard, from Christ's Church, while they 
 exalt the Non-jurors into confessors, and Laud into a martyr ! 
 
 CXXXI. TO THE EARL HOWE. 
 
 (In reply to a letter, requesting, as one of the Trustees of Rujrby School, 
 that Dr. Arnold would declare if he was the author of the article on Dr. 
 Hampden in the Edinburgh Review attributed to him, and stating that his 
 conduct would be guided by Dr. Arnold's answer.) t 
 
 Rugby, June 22, 1836. 
 MY LORD, 
 
 The answer which your lordship has asked for, I have 
 given several times to many of my friends ; and I am well 
 known to be very little apt to disavow or conceal my author- 
 ship of anything, that I may at any time have written. 
 
 Still, as I conceive your lordship's question to be one which 
 none but a personal friend has the slightest right to put to 
 me or to any man, I feel it due to myself to decline giving any 
 answer to it 
 
 * From a letter to Dr. Hawkins. "I have been reading the Pusey and 
 Newman Tracts, with no small astonishment ; they surpass all mv expecta- 
 tions in point of extravagance, and in their complete opposition to the 
 Christianity of the New Testament. But there are some beautiful things in 
 Pusev's Tracts on Baptism, much that is holy and pure, and truly Christian; 
 till, like Don Quixote's good sense in ordinary matters, it all gets upset by 
 some outbreak of his particular superstition. 
 
 t This correspondence ended in a resolution of censure moved at the 
 Board of Trustees, which would probably have occasioned Dr. Arnold's re 
 ignation, had it not been lost. See Letter cxxxv.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 49 
 
 CXXXII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 (In reply to a second letter, urging compliance with his request, on the 
 grounds that he might feel constrained by official duty to take some step la 
 the matter in case the report were true.) 
 
 June 27, 1836. 
 MY LORD, 
 
 I am extremely sorry that you should have considered my 
 letter as uncourteous ; it was certainly not intended to be so ; 
 but I did not feel that I could answer your lordship's letter at 
 greater length without going into greater details by way of ex- 
 planation than its own shortness appeared to me to warrant. 
 Your lordship addressed me in a tone purely formal and 
 official, and at the same time asked a question which the 
 common usage of society regards as one of delicacy, justi- 
 fied, I do not say, only by personal friendship, but at least by 
 some familiarity of acquaintance. It was because no such 
 ground could exist in the present case, and because I cannot 
 and do not acknowledge your right officially, as a trustee of 
 Rugby School, to question me on the subject of my real or 
 supposed writings on matters wholly unconnected with the 
 school, that I felt it my duty to decline answering your lord- 
 ship's question. 
 
 It is very painful to be placed in a situation where I must 
 either appear to seek concealment wholly foreign to my 
 wishes, or else must acknowledge a right which I owe it, not 
 only to myself, but to the master of every endowed school in 
 England, absolutely to deny. But in the present case, I 
 think I can hardly be suspected of seeking concealment. I 
 have spoken on the subject of the article in the Edinburgh 
 Review freely in the hearing of many, with no request for 
 secrecy on their part expressed or implied. Officially, how- 
 ever, I cannot return an answer, not from the slightest 
 feeling of disrespect to your lordship, but because my answer- 
 ing would allow a principle which I can on no account admit 
 to be just or reasonable. 
 
 CXXXIII. TO THE SAME. 
 (In reply to a letter of thanks for the last.) 
 
 June 30, 1836 
 MT LORD, 
 
 I trust that you will not think me intrusive, if I trouble 
 you once again with these few lines, to express to you my
 
 50 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 sincere thanks for the last letter which I have had the honor 
 of receiving from you. It is a matter of sincere regret to 
 me, that any part of my conduct should fail to meet your 
 lordship's approbation. If I feel it the less on the present 
 subject than on any other, it is because I have been long com- 
 pelled to differ from many of my friends whom I esteem most 
 highly ; and I fear, considering the vehemence of party feeling 
 at present, to incur their disapprobation also. In such cases, 
 one is obliged to bear the pain without repining, when a 
 man is thoroughly convinced, as I am, that the opinions which 
 he holds, and the manner in which he upholds them, are in 
 the highest degree agreeable to truth, and in conformity with 
 the highest principles of Christian duty. 
 
 CXXXIV. TO HIS SISTER MRS. BUCKLAND. 
 (After a visit to the Isle of Wight.) 
 
 Fox How, July 28, 1836. 
 
 I certainly was agreeably surprised rather than 
 
 disappointed by all the scenery. I admired the interior of 
 the island, which people affect to sneer at, but which I think 
 is very superior to most of the scenery of common countries. 
 As for the Sandrock Hotel, it was most beautiful, and Bon- 
 church is the most beautiful thing I ever saw on the sea-coast 
 on this side of Genoa. Slatwoods was deeply interesting; I 
 thought of what Fox How might be to my children forty 
 years hence, and of the growth of the trees in that interval ; 
 but Fox How cannot be to them what Slatwoods is to me, 
 the only home of my childhood, while with them Laleham 
 and Rugby will divide their affections. I had also a great 
 interest in going over the College at Winchester, but I cer- 
 tainly did not desire to change houses with Moberly ; no, nor 
 situation, although I envy him the downs and the clear streams, 
 and the southern instead of the midland country, and the 
 associations of Alfred's capital with the tombs of Kings and 
 Prelates, as compared with Rugby and its thirteen horse and 
 cattle fairs. . . - . . But when I look at the last number of 
 the Rugby Magazine, or at Vauglmn or Simpkinson at Thorn- 
 ley How, I envy neither him nor any man, thinking that there 
 is a good in Rugby which no place can surpass in its quality, 
 be the quantity of it much or little.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 51 
 
 CXXXV. TO REV. DR. HAAVKINS. 
 
 Fox How, Ambleside, July 31, 1836. 
 
 It is nearly a month since you left Rugby, and yet I have 
 not written to you nor given you any account of the result 
 of the Trustees' meeting. The result, however, was nothing. 
 Lord Howe brought forward some motion, and they divided 
 on it, four and four ; but as there is no casting vote, an equal 
 division causes the failure of any proposal, and accordingly I 
 should have known nothing about it, had it not been for pri- 
 vate information. In all that passed publicly, they were all 
 as civil as usual, and did all that I wanted about the school. 
 So that the meeting went off peaceably, and the exhibitions 
 also went to those whom I could most have wished to have 
 them. 
 
 [After describing his journeys and plans in the holidays.] 
 It gave me the greatest pleasure to hear you say, when you 
 left Rugby, that you hoped to repeat your visit, and bring 
 Mrs. Hawkins with you. It is indeed a long time since I have 
 seen you in so much quiet, and life is not long enough to af- 
 ford such long interruptions of intercourse. And I have also 
 had great pleasure in thinking that the result of your visit 
 confirmed what I had hoped, and has shown that, if we differ 
 on some points, we agree in many more, and that the amount 
 of difference was not so great as both, perhaps, during a long 
 
 absence had been led to fancy I was amused to see 
 
 the names of Pusey and some other strong High Churchmen 
 attached to a petition against one of the Bills drawn on the 
 Church Commissioners' Report. It will be difficult to legis- 
 late where the most opposite extremes of parties seem united 
 against the Government. There are few men with whom I 
 differ more than the Bishop of Exeter ; but I cordially ap- 
 prove of his Amendment on the Marriage Act so far as it 
 goes ; only I wish that he had added to the words " in the 
 presence of God," the true sign and mark of a Christian act, 
 " and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." I do not be- 
 lieve that any Unitarian would have objected to it, nor any 
 one else except those who seem to me to be utterly puzzled 
 with the notions of a " civil act," and a " religious act"
 
 62 LIFE OF DK. ARNOLD. 
 
 CXXXVI. TO SIR J. FRANKLIN, K. C. B. 
 (Then appointed Governor of Van Diemen's Land.) 
 
 Fox How, July 20, 1836. 
 
 I sometimes think that if the Government wouM 
 
 make me a Bishop, or principal of a college or school, or 
 both together, in such a place as Van Diemen's Land, and 
 during your government, I could be tempted to emigrate with 
 all my family for good and all. There can be, I think, no 
 more useful or more sacred task, than assisting in forming 
 the moral and intellectual character of a new society ; it is 
 the surest and best kind of missionary labor. But our colo- 
 nial society has been in general so Jacobinical in the truest 
 sense of the word ; every man has lived so much to and for 
 himself, and the bonds of law and religion have been so little, 
 acknowledged as the great sanctions and securities of society 
 that one shrinks from bringing up one's children where 
 they must in all human probability become lowered, not in 
 rank or fortune, but in what is infinitely more important, in 
 the intellectual and moral and religious standard by which 
 their lives would be guided. 
 
 Feeling this, and holding our West Indian colonies to be 
 one of the worst stains in the moral history of mankind, a 
 convict colony seems to me to be even more shocking and 
 more monstrous in its very conception. I do not know to 
 what extent Van Diemen's Land is so ; but I am sure that 
 no such evil can be done to mankind as by thus sowing with 
 rotten seed, and raising up a nation morally tainted in its 
 very origin. Compared with this, the bloodiest extermina- 
 tions ever effected by conquest were useful and good actions. 
 If they will colonize with convicts, I am satisfied that the 
 stain should last, not only for one whole life, but for more than 
 one generation ; that no convict or convict's child should ever 
 be a free citizen ; and that, even in the third generation, the 
 offspring should be excluded from all offices of honor or 
 authority in the colony. This would be complained of as 
 unjust or invidious, but I am sure that distinctions of moral 
 breed are as natural and as just as those of skin or of ar- 
 bitrary caste are wrong and mischievous ; it is a law of 
 God's Providence which we cannot alter, that the sins of the 
 father are really visited upon the child in the corruption of hid 
 breed, and in the rendering impossible many of the feelings 
 which are the greatest security to a child against evil.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 53 
 
 Forgive me for all this ; but it really is a happiness to me 
 to think of you in Van Diemen's Land, wtere you will be, I 
 know, not in name nor in form, but in deed and in spirit, the 
 best and chief missionary. 
 
 CXXXVII. TO THE REV. JAMES HEARN. 
 
 Rugby, September 14, 1S36. 
 
 I know now not when I have been more delighted by any 
 letter, than by that which I lately received from you. It 
 contains a picture of your present state which is truly a cause 
 for thankfulness, and, speaking after the manner of men, it is 
 an intense gratification to my sense of justice, as well as to my 
 personal regard for you, to see a life of hard and insufficiently 
 paid labor well performed, now, before its decline, rewarded 
 with comparative rest and with comfort. I rejoiced in the 
 picture which you gave of your house and fields and neigh- 
 borhood ; there was a freshness and a quietness about it which 
 always goes very much to my heart, and which at times, if I 
 indulged the feeling, could half make me discontented with 
 the perpetual turmoil of my own life. For Westmoreland 
 itself has not to me the perfect peacefulness of the idea of a 
 country parsonage ; the house is too new, the trees too young 
 and small, the neighborhood too numerous, and our stay is too 
 short and too busily engaged, to allow of anything like entire 
 repose at it. It is a most delightful tonic to brace me for the 
 coming half-year; but it does not admit of a full abandon- 
 ment to its enjoyments, and it is well that it does not. I 
 sometimes look at the mountains which bound our valley, and 
 think how content I could be never to wander beyond them 
 any more, and to take rest in a place which I love so dearly. 
 But whilst my health is so entire, and I feel my spirits still so 
 youthful, I feel ashamed of the wish, and I trust that I can 
 sincerely rejoice in being engaged in so active -a life, and in 
 having such constant intercourse with others. Still, I can 
 heartily and lawfully rejoice that you are permitted to rest 
 whilst your age and spirits are also yet unbroken, and that 
 the hurry of your journey is somewhat abating, and allows 
 you more steadily to contemplate its close. 
 
 Our own two boys are gone to Winchester, and 
 
 have taken a very good place in the school, and seem very 
 comfortable there ; I am sure you will give them your prayers, 
 that they may be defended amidst the manifold temptations of
 
 54 . LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 their change of life; I feel as if I could draw the remaining 
 children yet closer around me, and as if I could not enough 
 prize the short period which passes before they go out into 
 life, never again to feel their father's house their abiding home. 
 I turn from public affairs almost in despair, as I think that it 
 will be a long time before what I most long for will be ac- 
 complished. Yet I still wish entirely well to the Government, 
 and regard with unabated horror the Conservatives both in 
 Church and State. They are, however, I believe, growing in 
 influence, and so they will do, until there comes a check to 
 our present commercial prosperity, for vulgar minds never 
 can understand the duty of reform till it is impressed on them 
 by the argumentum ad ventrem ; and the mass of mankind, 
 whether in good coats or in bad, will always be vulgar-minded. 
 
 CXXXVIII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 (Then at Fox How with his family.) 
 
 Rugby, September 23, 1836. 
 
 If you have the same soft air that is now breathing around 
 us, and the same bright sun playing on the trees, which are 
 full charged with the freshness of last night's rain, you must, 
 I think, be in a condition to judge well of the beauty of Fox 
 How. It is a real delight to think of you as at last arrived 
 there, and to feel that the place which we so love is enjoyed 
 by such dear friends, who can enjoy it fully. I congratulate 
 you on your deliverance from Lancaster Castle, and by what 
 you said in your last letter, you are satisfied, I imagine with 
 the propriety of the verdict. Now you can not only see the 
 mountains afar off, but feel them in eyes, lungs, and mind ; 
 and a mighty influence I think it is. I often used to think of 
 the solemn comparison in the Psalm, "the hills stand about 
 Jerusalem ; even so standeth the Lord round about his people." 
 The girdling in of the mountains round the valley of our 
 home is as apt an image as any earthly thing can be of the 
 encircling of the everlasting arms, keeping off evil, and show- 
 ering all good. 
 
 But my great delight in thinking of you at Fox How is 
 mixed with no repining that I cannot be there myself. We 
 have had our holiday, and it was a long and most agreeable 
 one ; and Nemesis might well be angry, if I was not now 
 ready and glad to be at work again. Besides, I think that 
 the school is again in a very hopeful state ; the set, which
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 55 
 
 rather weighed us down during the last year, is now broken 
 and dispersed ; and the tide is again, I trust, at flood, and 
 will, I hope, go on so. You would smile to see the zeal with 
 which I am trying to improve the Latin verse, and the diffi- 
 culty which I find in doing it. But I stand in amaze at the 
 utter want of poetical feeling in the minds of the majority of 
 boys. They cannot in the least understand either Homer or 
 Virgil ; they cannot follow out the strong graphic touches 
 which, to an active mind, suggest such infinitely-varied pic- 
 tures, and yet leave it to the reader to draw them for himself 
 on the hint given. But my delight in going over Homer and 
 Virgil with the boys makes me think what a treat it must be 
 to teach Shakespeare to a good class of young Greeks in re- 
 generate Athens ; to dwell upon him line by line, and word 
 by word, in the way that nothing but a translation lesson ever 
 will enable one to do ; and so to get all his pictures and 
 thoughts leisurely into one's mind, till I verily think one 
 would after a time almost give out light in the dark, after 
 having been steeped as it were in such an atmosphere of 
 brilliance. And how could this ever be done without having 
 the process of construing, as the grosser medium through 
 which alone all the beauty can be transmitted, because else 
 we travel too fast, and more than half of it escapes us ? 
 Shakespeare, with English boys, would be but a poor substi- 
 tute for Homer ; but I confess that I should be glad to get 
 Dante and Goethe now and then in the room of some of the 
 Greek tragedians and of Horace ; or rather not in their 
 room, but mixed up along with them. I have been trying 
 something of this in French, as I am now going through, with 
 the Sixth Form, Barante's beautiful Tableau de la Litterature 
 Franchise pendant le Dix-huitieme Siecle. I thought of you 
 the other day, when one of my fellows translated to me 
 that splendid paragraph, comparing Voltaire to the Babouc 
 of one of his own romances, for I think you first showed 
 me the passage many years ago. Now by going through 
 Barante in this way, one gets it thoroughly, and with a really 
 good book, I think it is a great gam 
 
 CXXXIX. * TO A. P. STANLEY, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, October 21, 1836. 
 
 As long as you read moderately, and not vora- 
 ciously, I can consent that your reading should even prevent
 
 56 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 your coming to Rugby ; and I am glad that, by beginning in 
 time, you will escape all excessive pressure at last You will 
 be rejoicing at the meeting of the scattered members of your 
 society after the Long Vacation. I can well recall the same 
 feeling, deeply associated in my mind with the October tints 
 of the Nettlebed beech woods, through which my road to 
 Oxford, from Kensington and Hampton, always lay. The 
 separation had been long enough to make the meeting 
 more than joyous, and some of my most delightful remem- 
 brances of Oxford and its neighborhood are connected with 
 the scenery of the later autumn ; Bagley Wood in its golden 
 decline, and the green of the meadows, reviving for a while 
 under the influence of a Martinmas summer, and then fading 
 finally off" into its winter brown. Here our society is too 
 busy, as well as too old, to enjoy in common, though we can 
 work in common ; but work after all is but half the man, 
 and they who only work together do not truly live together. 
 
 I agree with in a great deal, and so N 
 
 might ask as he does about Hampden and the Socinians, 
 where I begin to disagree with him. Politically, I do not 
 know that I do disagree as to any principle, and in sympathy 
 with a man's mind in argument, it makes no difference 
 whether he believes the exemplification of your common 
 principles to be found in this party, or in that party ; that 
 is a mere question of fact, which we need not empanel a 
 jury to try ; meanwhile we are agreed as to the law of the 
 
 case But to supply the place of Conscience, with 
 
 the 3p\ai of Fanaticism on one hand and of Utilitarianism 
 on the other, on one side is the mere sign from Heaven, 
 craved by those who heeded not Heaven's first sign written 
 within them : on the other, it is the idea which, hardly 
 hovering on the remotest outskirts of Christianity, readily 
 flies off to the camp of Materialism and Atheism ; the mere 
 pared and plucked notion of " good " exhibited by the word 
 " useful ; " which seems to me the idea of " good " robbed of 
 its nobleness, the sediment from which the filtered water 
 has been assiduously separated. It were a strange world, if 
 there were indeed in it no one apxtracroviKov ("8os but that of 
 the gvpfapnv ; if KaXov were only KO\OV, on gvpfapov. But this 
 is one of the peculiarities of the English mind ; the Puritan 
 and the Benthamite have an immense part of their nature in 
 common ; and thus the Christianity of the Puritan is coarse 
 and fanatical; he cannot relish what there is in it of beautiful
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 57 
 
 i>r delicate or ideal. Men get embarrassed by the common 
 cases of a misguided conscience ; but a compass may be out 
 of order as well as a conscience, and the needle may point 
 due south, if you hold a powerful magnet in that direction. 
 Still the compass, generally speaking, is the true and sure 
 guide, and so is the conscience ; and you can trace the de- 
 ranging influence on the latter quite as surely as on the 
 former. Again, there is confusion in some men's minds, 
 who say that, if we so exalt conscience, we make ourselves 
 the paramount judges of all things, and so do not live by 
 faith and obedience. But he who believes his conscience to 
 be God's law, by obeying it obeys God. It is as much 
 obedience, as it is obedience to follow the dictates of God's 
 Spirit ; and in every case of obedience to any law or guide 
 whatsoever, there always must be one independent act of the 
 mind pronouncing this one determining proposition, " I ought 
 to obey ; " so that in obedience, as in every moral act, we are 
 and must be the paramount judges, because we must ourselves 
 decide on that very principle, " that we ought to obey." 
 
 And as for faith, there is again a confusion in the use of the 
 term. It is not scriptural, but fanatical, to oppose faith to 
 reason. Faith is properly opposed to sense, and is the listen- 
 ing to the dictates of the higher part of our. mind, to which 
 alone God speaks, rather than to the lower part of us, to 
 which the world speaks. There is no end to the mischiefs 
 done by that one very common and perfectly unscriptural 
 mistake of opposing faith and reason, or whatever you choose 
 to call the highest part of man's nature. And this you will 
 find that the Scripture never does ; and observing this, cuts 
 down at once all Pusey's nonsense about Rationalism ; which, 
 in order to be contrasted scripturally with faith, must mean 
 the following some lower part of our nature, whether sensual 
 or merely intellectual ; that is, some part which does not 
 acknowledge God. But what he abuses as Rationalism is 
 just what the Scripture commends as knowledge, judgment, 
 understanding, and the like ; that is, not the following a 
 merely intellectual part of our nature, but the sovereign 
 part ; that is, the moral reason acting under God, and 
 using, so to speak, the telescope of faith, for objects too 
 distant for its naked eye to discover. And to this is opposed, 
 in scriptural language, folly and idolatry and blindness, and 
 other such terms of reproof. According to Pusey, the forty- 
 fourth chapter of Isaiah is Rationalism, and the man who
 
 58 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 bowed down to the stock of a tree was a humble man, who did 
 not inquire, but believe. But if Isaiah be right, and speaks 
 the words of God, then Pusey, and the man who bowed down 
 to the stock of a tree, should learn that God is not served by 
 folly. 
 
 CXL. TO SIR THOMAS 8. PASLET, BART. 
 
 Rugby, October 29, 1836. 
 
 The authority for the statement which you quote 
 
 is to be found in Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. i. 
 chap, iv., which says that " it was a common practice for 
 several years to appoint laymen, usually mechanics, to read 
 the service in vacant churches. This does not touch the 
 question of the sacraments, nor do I imagine that any lay- 
 man was ever authorized in the Church of England to 
 administer the Lord's Supper ; but lay baptism was allowed 
 by Hooker to be valid, and no distinction can be drawn 
 between one sacrament and the other. Language more to 
 the purpose is to be found in Tertullian, I think in the 
 Treatise de Corona Militis, but at any rate he states first of 
 all that the mode of administering rather than communicating 
 in the Sacrament was a departure from the original practice ; 
 and then he explains the origin of the practice by using the 
 word " Praesidentes," not " Sacerdotes " or " Presbyteri ; " 
 that is, the person who presided at the table for order's sake 
 would distribute the bread and wine; and in almost every 
 case he would be an elder, or one invested with a share of 
 the government of the Church, but he aid it not as priest 
 but as president of the assembly ; which makes just the whole 
 difference. But, after all, the whole question as to the matter 
 of right, and the priestly power, must be answered out of 
 the New Testament ; no one disputes the propriety of the 
 general practice as it now stands ; but the Church of England 
 has not said that it adopts this practice because it is essential 
 to the validity of the sacraments and is of divine institution, 
 but leaves the question of principle open ; and this of course 
 can only be decided out of the Scriptures. That the Scrip- 
 tures are clear enough against the priestcraft notion, is to me 
 certain ; the more so that nothing is quoted for it, but the 
 words of St. Paul, " The bread which we break, the cup which 
 we bless," &c. ; words which, quoted as a text, look something 
 to the quoter's purpose, because the ignorant reader may
 
 UFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 59 
 
 think that " we " mean St. Paul and his brother apostles ; but 
 if any from the text looks to the passage, he will find that 
 the " we " is the whole Christian congregation, inasmuch as the 
 words immediately following are, "for we being many are 
 one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one 
 bread." 1 Corinth x. Yet this text I have both seen in 
 books and heard in conversation quoted as a Scripture author- 
 ity for the exclusive right of the clergy to administer the 
 Communion. Wherefore I conclude, independently of my 
 own knowledge of the New Testament, that such an argument 
 as this would not have been used, if anything tolerable were 
 to be had. 
 
 CXLI. *TO DR. GREENHILL. 
 
 Rugby, October 31, 1836. 
 
 I was very much obliged to you for your letter, and much 
 gratified by it. It is a real pleasure to me to find that you 
 are taking steadily to a profession, without which I scarcely 
 see how a man can live honestly. That is, I use the term 
 " profession " in rather a large sense, not as simply denoting 
 certain callings which a man follows for his maintenance, but 
 rather, a definite field of duty, which the nobleman has as 
 much as the tailor, but which he has not, who having an 
 income large enough to keep him from starving, hangs about 
 upon life, merely following his own caprices and fancies : 
 quod factu pessimum est. I can well enough understand 
 how medicine, like every other profession, has its moral and 
 spiritual dangers ; but I do not see why it should have more 
 than others. The tendency to Atheism, I imagine, exists in 
 every study followed up vigorously, without a foundation of 
 faith, and that foundation carefully strengthened and built 
 upon. The student in History is as much busied with sec- 
 ondary causes as the student in medicine ; the rule " nee 
 Deus intersit," true as it is up to a certain point, that we may 
 oot annihilate man's agency and make him a puppet, is ever 
 apt to be followed too far when we are become familiar with 
 man or with nature, and understand the laws which direct 
 both. Then these laws seem enough to account for every- 
 thing, and the laws themselves we ascribe either to chance, 
 or the mystifications called " nature," or the " anima mundi," 
 the " spiritus intus alit " of Pantheism. If there is anything 
 special in the atheistic tendency of medicine, it arises, I sup-
 
 60 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 pose, from certain vague notions about the soul, its independ- 
 ence of matter, &c., and from the habit of considering these 
 notions as an essential part of religion. Now I think that the 
 Christian doctrine of the Resurrection meets the Materialists 
 so far as this, that it does imply that a body, or an organi- 
 zation of some sort, is necessary to the full development of 
 man's nature. Beyond this we cannot go; for, granting 
 that the brain is essential to thought, still, no man can say 
 that the white pulp which you can see and touch and anato- 
 mize can itself think, and by whatever names we endeavor 
 to avoid acknowledging the existence of mind, whether we 
 talk of a subtle fluid, or a wonderful arrangement of nerves, 
 or anything else, still we do but disguise our ignorance; 
 for the act of thinking is one sui generis, and the thinking 
 power must in like manner be different from all that we com- 
 monly mean by matter. The question of Free Will is, and 
 ever must be, imperfectly understood. If a man denies that 
 he has a will either to sit or not to sit, to write a note or no, 
 I cannot prove to him that he has one. If again, he main- 
 tains that the choosing power in him cannot but choose what 
 seems to it to be good, then this is a great tribute to the im- 
 portance of good habits, and to the duty of impressing right 
 notions of good on the young mind, all which is perfectly 
 true. And, in the last case, if a man maintains that his na- 
 ture irresistibly teaches him that what we call good is evil, 
 and vice versa, then I find at once the value of those passages 
 in Scripture which have been so grievously misused, and I see 
 More me a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction, fitted, as I 
 LcJcve, through his own fault; but if it denies this, then at 
 any rate fitted for destruction, and on the sure way to do it. 
 
 But no doubt every study requires to be tempered and 
 balanced with something out of itself, if it be only to prevent 
 the mind from becoming " einseitig," or pedantic ; and ascend- 
 ing higher still, all intellectual study, however comprehensive, 
 requires spiritual study to be joined with it, lest our nature 
 itself become " einseitig ; " the intellect growing ; the higher 
 reason the moral and spiritual wisdom stunted and de- 
 caying. You will be thinking that I have been writing a 
 sermon by mistake, instead of a letter, but your letter led 
 me into it. I believe that any man can make himself an 
 Atheist speedily, by breaking off his own personal communion 
 with God in Christ ; but, if he keep this unimpaired, I believe 
 that no intellectual study, whether of nature or of man, will
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 61 
 
 force Tiim into Atheism ; but on the contrary, the new crea- 
 tions of our knowledge, so to speak, gather themselves into a 
 fair and harmonious system, ever revolving in their brightness 
 around their proper centre, the throne of God. Prayer, and 
 kindly intercourse with the poor, are the two great safeguard* 
 of spiritual life ; its more than food and raiment. 
 
 CXLII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 16, 1836. 
 
 I have begun the Thessalonians, and like the work much ; 
 but I dread the difficulty of the second chapter of the Second 
 Epistle. You will not care to hear that I have got into the 
 fourth book of Gaius. But you will not, I hope, find it 
 against your conscience, so far to aid my studies of law, as to 
 get for me a good copy, if you can, of Littleton's work upon 
 which Coke commented. Coleridge recommended it to me 
 as illustrating the early state of our law of real property, 
 with the iniquities of feudality and the Conquest as yet in all 
 their freshness. I am fully persuaded that he, who were to 
 get the law of real property of any country in all its fulness, 
 would have one of the most important indications of its political 
 and social state. We have got Coleridge's Literary Remains, 
 in which I do rejoice greatly. I think with all his faults old 
 Sam was more of a great man than any one who has lived 
 within the four seas in my memory. It is refreshing to see 
 such a union of the highest philosophy and poetry, with so 
 full a knowledge, on so many points at least, of particular 
 facts. But yet there are marks enough that his mind was a 
 little diseased by the want of a profession, and the consequent 
 unsteadiness of his mind and purposes ; it always seems to 
 me that the very power of contemplation becomes impaired 
 or perverted, when it is made the main employment of life. 
 Yet I would fain have more time for contemplation than I 
 have at present ; so hard is it rvxelv TOV peo-ov. 
 
 CLXIII. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Rugby, November 25, 1836. 
 
 Thank you very much for your enclosure against 
 
 neutrality, which I suspect would be repelled by the state of 
 mind of those for whom it is designed, like a cannon-ball by a 
 woolpack. Neutrality seems to me a natural state for men of
 
 b'2 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 fair honesty, moderate wit, and much indolence ; they cannot 
 get strong impressions of what is true and right, and the weak 
 impression, which is all that they can take, cannot overcome 
 indolence and fear. I crave a strong mind for my children, 
 for this reason, that they then have a chance at least of appre- 
 ciating truth keenly ; and when a man does that, honesty be- 
 comes comparatively easy ; as, for instance, Peel has an idea 
 about the currency, and a distinct impression about it ; and 
 therefore on that point I would trust him for not yielding to 
 clamor ; but about most matters, the Church especially, he 
 seems to have no idea, and therefore I would not trust him 
 for not giving it all up to-morrow, if the clamor were loud 
 
 enough We look forward with some yearnings to 
 
 Fox How, and we much wish to know when you will all be 
 coming over. It is but an ostrich-like feeling, but it seems as 
 if I could fancy things to be more peaceful when I am out of 
 the turmoil, down in Westmoreland, and I find that I crave 
 
 after peace more and more. But it is owrrw, o&rw I 
 
 shall have occasion soon to set to work at the Celtic languages. 
 Can you get for me, and send me a good Erse grammar ; and 
 that book that you were mentioning, about the Welsh being 
 Picts, and not the Aborigines of Wales ? I shall want all this 
 for the Gallic invasion of Rome, so beautifully does History 
 branch out into all varieties of questions, and continually lead 
 one into fresh fields of knowledge. I have all but finished 
 my abstract of Gaius's Institutes of the Roman Law, and de- 
 light in it. 
 
 CXLIV. *TO W. C. LAKE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 18, 1836. 
 
 I am well satisfied with your impressions of Ger- 
 many. I never have wished to exchange my own country for 
 it, but I feel indignant that, with all our enormous advantages, 
 we continually let the Germans do what ought to be done by 
 us. But I have no temptation, even for one summer, to 
 resign Fairfield for Drachenfels. I daresay that gossiping 
 flourishes among the German women, as smoking does among 
 the men, and I like neither the one nor the other ; and their 
 scholars are perhaps instances of the division of labor carried 
 into excess ; * they are not enough universal, not enough of 
 
 * Extract from a letter of Chevalier Bunsen, in October, 1836: " What
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 63 
 
 men, of citizens, and of Christians. But then I turn and 
 look round, and where can I find what we should most desire 
 on this side of the water either ? Where is the knowledge, 
 where the wisdom, and where the goodness, which combine to 
 form a great man ? I know of no man who approaches to this 
 character except Whately, and he is taken away from the place 
 where he was wanted, and sent where the highest greatness 
 would struggle in vain against the overpowering disadvantages 
 of his position. 
 
 We, in our little world, are going on much as usual, but 
 of this you will hear from Clough more than I could tell you. 
 For myself, I have nearly finished my abstract, or almost 
 translation of Gaius's Institutes, which I thought it necessary 
 to finish before I begun to write about the Twelve Tables. It 
 has answered to me, I think, very well ; for, by the mere result 
 of having had my mind so long engaged about the Roman Law, 
 so left, as it were, to soak in it, I have gained a much greater 
 familiarity with it than I could have done by a short and vora- 
 cious cram of the same number of pages. It has greatly 
 served to increase that sense of reality about the Romans, 
 that living in a manner amongst them, and having them and 
 their life distinctly before our eyes ; which appears to me so 
 indispensable to one who would write their history. This is 
 quiet and interesting, but not exciting reading ; other points 
 press me more nearly, and seem to have a higher claim upon 
 me. I have translated nearly half of the first Epistle to the 
 Thessalonians, and am disposed to prefer the plan of bringing 
 out these two Epistles first, rather than the Pastoral Epistles. 
 The chronological order of the Epistles is undoubtedly the 
 natural one, and luckily the Epistles to the Thessalonians 
 offer no very suspicious topics ; they will not be thought 
 to have been chosen for purposesof controversy, and yet they 
 may really be made to serve my purposes quite as well ; for 
 every part of the New Testament gives a picture of Chris- 
 tianity or of some one great feature in it, and every part nega- 
 tively confutes the Priestcraft heresy, because that is to be 
 
 a strange work Strauss's Leben Jesu appears to me, judging of it from the 
 notices in the ' Studien und Kritiken.' It seems to me to show the ill effects 
 of that division of labor which prevails so much amongst the learned men 
 of Germany. Strauss writes about history and myths, without appearing 
 to have studied the question, but having heard that some pretended Histories 
 re mythical, he borrows this notion as an engine to help him out of Chris- 
 tianity. But the idea of men writing mythic histories between the time of 
 Livy and Tacitus, and of St. Paul mistaking such for realities! "
 
 64 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 found nowhere, insomuch that no man yet ever fell or could 
 fall into that heresy by studying the Scriptures : they are 
 a bar to it altogether, and it is only when they are undermined 
 by traditions and the rudiments of men that the heresy begins 
 to make its way. And it is making its way fearfully, but it 
 will not take the form that Newman wishes, but its far more 
 natural and consistent form of pure Popery 
 
 CXLV. TO REV. DB. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, November 23, 1836. 
 
 I am quite well again, and indeed my attack 
 
 was short and slight; only so far remarkable to me that 
 I kept my bed one whole day for the first time since 1807, 
 which was as gentle a reminder as could have been given me, 
 that my health cannot be always what it has been. We are 
 all well, and are very glad to hear good accounts of your 
 
 party I was in Laleham for five hours on Monday 
 
 morning, to attend the funeral of my aunt, the last survivor 
 of my mother's household. She was in her eightieth year, 
 and after having been an invalid all her life, yet outlived all 
 her own family, and reached the full age of man. I cannot 
 tell you how solemn a thought it is to have now lost all my 
 relations of the generation preceding our own, and to be thus 
 visibly brought into that generation whose time for departure 
 comes the next. 
 
 I am very desirous of going fully into my views 
 
 about the Church, because there is no subject which I have 
 more studied, and none where I seem to see my way so 
 clearly, or to sympathize more entirely with the Scriptures 
 and with the notions of all great writers on government I 
 hold the Church to be a most divine institution, and eminently 
 characteristic of Christianity, and my abhorrence of the 
 Priestcraft and Succession doctrines (I do not mean that 
 they are synonymous) is grounded on my firm conviction that 
 they are and ever have been in theory and in practice a most 
 formidable, device of the great Enemy to destroy the real 
 living Church, and even to drive it out of men's minds, by the 
 false and superstitious idea of a Church which never has and 
 never can overthrow his kingdom. And in this sense, so 
 far as Popery is priestcraft, I do believe it to be the very 
 mystery of iniquity, but then it began in the first century, 
 and had no more to do with Rome in the outset than witli
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 65 
 
 Alexandria, Antioch, or Carthage. The whole confusion of 
 the ideas of priesthood and government, the taking half a 
 notion from one, and half a notion from the other, the dis- 
 claiming a priesthood and yet clinging to conclusions which are 
 only deducible from the notion of a priesthood, and the want 
 of familiarity with all political questions which characterize 
 all that I have ever seen written on English High-Church 
 grounds, may be exposed piece by piece with the utmost ease 
 
 and certainty I am for the Church, and against the 
 
 Priesthood ; not for individual license against the Church. 
 
 CXLVI. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 28, 1836. 
 
 The state of the country interests me as much 
 
 as ever, but since my correspondence with the Sheffield Cou- 
 rant, I have written nothing on the subject. I do not like 
 the aspect of things at all. An extraordinary period of com- 
 mercial enterprise threw into the shade for the time all those 
 evils in the state of the laboring population, which I have 
 ever dreaded as the rock fatal to our greatness ; but, mean- 
 while, those evils were not removed, nor in fact attempted to 
 be lessened, except by the Poor Law Act, a measure in 
 itself wise and just, but which, standing alone, and unaccom- 
 panied by others of a milder and more positively improving 
 tendency, wears an air of harshness, and will, I fear, embitter 
 the feelings of the poorer classes still more. Now we are 
 threatened by a most unprincipled system of agitation, the 
 Tories actually doing their best to Jacobinize the poor in the 
 hope of turning an outbreak against the Whig government to 
 their own advantage. Then there is the Currency question, 
 full of immense difficulties, which no man can clearly see his 
 way through. And withal the threatened schism between the 
 Whigs and Radicals about the reform of the House of Lords. 
 Surely there never was such folly as talking about a reform in 
 the House of Lords, when it is very doubtful whether, if 
 Parliament were dissolved, the Tories would not gain a major- 
 ity even in the House of Commons. It is nonsense to talk 
 of its being a struggle between the aristocracy and the people : 
 if it were so, it would be over in a week, provided they mean 
 by the aristocracy the House of Lords. It is really a great 
 contest between the adherents of two great principles, that of 
 preserving, and that of improving ; and he must have studied 
 6* E
 
 66 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 history to very little purpose, who does not know that in 
 common circumstances the former party is always the most 
 numerous and the strongest. It gets occasionally over- 
 powered, when it has had rope enough given it to hang itself; 
 that is, when it has carried its favorite Conservatism to such 
 a height, that the mass of unreformed evil becomes unendura- 
 ble, and then there comes a grand reform. But that grand 
 reform once effected, the Conservative instinct again regains 
 it? ascendency, and goes on upon another lease ; and so it 
 will ever do, unless some rare circumstances enabled a thor- 
 oughly enlightened government to remain long in power ; 
 and as such a government cannot rely on being popular, 
 for reform of evil in the abstract is gall and wormwood alike 
 to men's indolence, and love of what they are used to, as to 
 their propensities for jobbing, so it is only accident or des- 
 potism that can keep it on its legs. This is the secret of the 
 Tory reaction ; because men are all Tories by nature, when 
 they are tolerably well off, and it is only some monstrous in- 
 justice or insult to themselves, or some atrocious cruelty, or 
 some great reverses of fortune, that ever make them other- 
 wise. Now I cannot foresee any question likely to arise on 
 which the Government can strongly interest the public mind 
 in England in their favor. Certainly it will not be in the 
 Irish Church or Corporation questions, because the English 
 people do not care about Ireland, nor, to say truth, about any 
 people's rights except their own ; and then there is the whole 
 fanatical feeling against the Government, and fanaticism is a 
 far stronger feeling than the love of justice, when the wrong 
 is done, not to ourselves, but to our neighbor. Therefore, I 
 think that, as it always has been, the Reformers will be beaten 
 by the Conservatives, and then the Conservatives will again 
 go on coiling the rope round their own necks, till in twenty 
 years' time there will be another, not reform I fear, but con- 
 vulsion. For, though the Reformers are a weak party, the 
 Destructives are not so, and all evils, whether arising from 
 accident or lolly, or misgovernment, serve their purpose. A 
 great man in the Whig Government might yet save them per- 
 haps ; that is, might keep them in till the king's death, and 
 then they would have a chance, I suppose, of being really 
 supported by the court in a new reign. But a great man I 
 
 cannot see What I have said about Tory reaction, 
 
 you will find strongly confirmed in the history of the French 
 Revolution. After the Terror was over, the Revolution was
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 67 
 
 twice saved only by the army ; in Vendemiaire, 1795, and in 
 Fructidor, 1797. Twice the counter-revolutionists had gained 
 the ascendency in the nation.* 
 
 CXLVII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, November 30, 1836. 
 
 I wish I could sympathize with you in what you 
 
 say of our old Divines, f I quite agree as to their language ; 
 it is delightful to my taste ; but I cannot find in any of them 
 a really great man. I admire Taylor's genius, but yet how 
 little was he capable of handling worthily any great question ! 
 and, as to interpreters of Scripture, I never yet found one of 
 them who was above mediocrity. I cannot call it a learning 
 worth anything, to be very familiar with writers of this stamp, 
 when they have no facts to communicate : for of course, even 
 an ordinary man may then be worth reading. I have left off 
 reading our Divines, because, as Pascal said of the Jesuits, 
 if I had spent my time in reading them fully, I should have 
 read a great many very indifferent books. But if I could 
 find a great man amongst them, I would read him thankfully 
 and earnestly. As it is, I hold John BunyanJ to have been a 
 
 # "I should like," he said, "to write a book on 'the Theory of Tides,' 
 the flood and ebb of parties. The English nation are like a man in a 
 lethargy ; they are never roused from their Conservatism till mustard 
 poultices are put to their feet. Had it not been for the fires in Smithfield, 
 they would have remained hostile to the Reformation. Had it not been for 
 the butcheries of Jefferies, they would have opposed the Revolution." 
 
 t Of the English Divines in general, this was his deliberate opinion: 
 tt Why is it," he said, " that there are so few great works in Theology, com- 
 pared with any other subject? Is it that all other books on the subject 
 appear insignificant by the side of the Scriptures ? There appears to me in 
 all the English Divines a want of believing, or disbelieving anything, because 
 it is true or false. It is a question which does not seem to occur to them. 
 Butler is indeed a noble exception." As he excepted Butler among the 
 Divines of a later period, so amongst those of the earlier period he excepted 
 Hooker, whose Ecclesiastical Polity, as a whole, he regarded with great 
 admiration, though with great dislike of parts of it. "I long to see some- 
 thing which should solve what is to me the great problem of Hooker's mind. 
 He is the only man that I know, who, holding with his whole mind and 
 soul the idea of the eternal distinction between moral and positive laws, 
 holds with it the love for a priestly and ceremonial religion, such as appears 
 in the Fifth Book." 
 
 t His admiration of the Pilgrim's Progress was very great: "I cannot 
 trust myself," he used to say, "to read the account of Christian going up to 
 die Celestial gate, after his passage through the river of death." And when, 
 in one of the foreign tours of his later years, he had read it through again, 
 after a long interval, "I have always," said he, "been struck by its piety: 
 [ am now struck equally, or evec more, by its profound wisdom."
 
 68 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 man of incomparably greater genius than any of them, and to 
 have given a far truer and more edifying picture of Chris- 
 tianity. His Pilgrim's Progress seems to be a complete reflec- 
 tion of Scripture, with none of the rubbish of the theologians 
 mixed up with it. I think that Milton, in his " Reforma- 
 tion in England," or in one of his Tracts, I forget which, 
 treats the Church writers of his time, and their show of learn- 
 ing, utterly uncritical as it was, with the feeling which they 
 deserved. 
 
 CXLVIH. TO SIR THOMAS 8. PA8LET, BART. 
 
 Rugby, December 14, 1836. 
 
 The view which you mention is one into which I 
 
 suppose no one ever fell, who became a Christian in earnest 
 through the workings of his own mind and heart, and through 
 the Scriptures. That is, suppose a young man, when he be- 
 gins to think seriously upon life, resolving to turn to God, and 
 studying the Scriptures to learn the way, it is clear that all 
 this stuff about the true Church would never so much as 
 come into his head. He would feel and see that the matter 
 of his soul's salvation lay between God and Christ on the one 
 hand, and himself on the other ; and that his belonging to 
 this or that Church had really no more to do with the matter, 
 than his being born in France or England, in Westmoreland 
 or in Warwickshire. The Scripture notion of the Church is, 
 that religious society should help a man to become himself 
 better and holier, just as civil society helps us in civilization. 
 But in this great end of a Church, all Churches are now 
 greatly defective, while all fill it up to a certain degree, some 
 less, others more. In proportion as they fulfil it less perfectly, 
 so all that is said in Scripture of divisions, sects, &c., becomes 
 less applicable. It is a great fault to introduce division into 
 an unanimous and efficient society ; but when the social bond 
 is all but dissolved, and the society is no more than nominal, 
 there is no such thing, properly speaking, as creating a division 
 in it In this simple and scriptural view of the matter, all is 
 plain ; we were not to derive our salvation through or from 
 the Church, but to be kept or strengthened in the way of sal- 
 vation by the aid and example of our fellow-Christians, who 
 were to be formed into societies for this very reason, that they 
 might help one another, and not leave each man to fight hia 
 own fight alone. But the life of these societies has been long
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 69 
 
 since gone ; they do not help the individual in holiness, and 
 this is in itself evil enough; but it is monstrous that they 
 should pretend to fetter, when they do not assist. This view 
 arises simply from my old enemy, the priestcraft, in this way. 
 The Popish and Oxford view of Christianity is, that the 
 Church is the mediator between God and the individual : that 
 the Church (i. e. in their sense, the Clergy) is a sort of char- 
 tered corporation, and that by belonging to this corporation, 
 or by being attached to it, any given individual acquires such 
 and such privileges. This is a priestcraft, because it lays the 
 stress, not on the relations of a man's heart towards God and 
 Christ, as the Gospel does, but on something wholly artificial 
 and formal, his belonging to a certain so-called society ; and 
 thus, whether the society be alive or dead, whether it 
 really help the man in goodness or not, still it claims to 
 step in and interpose itself, as the channel of grace and sal- 
 vation, when it certainly is not the channel of salvation, be- 
 cause it is visibly and notoriously no sure channel of grace. 
 Whereas, all who go straight to Christ, without thinking of 
 the Church, do manifestly and visibly receive grace, and have 
 the seal of His Spirit, and therefore are certainly heirs of 
 salvation. This, I think, applies to any and every Church, 
 it being always true that the salvation of a man's soul is 
 effected by the change in his heart and life, wrought by 
 Christ's spirit ; and that his relation to any Church is quite a 
 thing subordinate and secondary : although, where the Church 
 is what it should be, it is so great a means of grace, that its 
 benefits are of the highest value. But the heraldic or Suc- 
 cession view of the question I can hardly treat gravely : there 
 is something so monstrously profane in making our heavenly 
 inheritance like an earthly estate, to which our pedigree is 
 our title. And really, what is called Succession, is exactly a 
 pedigree, and nothing better ; like natural descent, it conveys 
 no moral nobleness, nay, far less than natural descent, for I 
 am a believer in some transmitted virtue in a good breed, but 
 the Succession notoriously conveys none. So that, to lay a 
 stress upon it, is to make the Christian Church worse, I think, 
 than the Jewish : but " the sons of God are not to be born of 
 bloods," (i. e. of particular races,) " nor of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of the will of man," (i. e. after any human desire to 
 make out an outward and formal title of inheritance,) " but of 
 God," (i. e. of Him who can alone give the only true title to 
 His inheritance, the being conformed unto the image of
 
 70 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 His Son). I have written all this in haste as to the expres- 
 sion, but not at all in haste as to the matter of it. But the 
 simple point is this : Does our Lord, or do his Apostles, en- 
 courage the notion of salvation through the Church ? or would 
 any human being ever collect such a notion from the Scrip- 
 tures ? Once begin with tradition, and the so-called Fathers, 
 and you get, no doubt, a very different view. This the Ro- 
 manists and the Oxfordists say is a view required to modify 
 and add to that of the Scripture. I believe that because it 
 does modify, add to, and wholly alter the view of the Scrip- 
 ture, that therefore it is altogether false and antichristian. 
 
 CXLIX. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, February 4, 1837. 
 
 I have to thank you for your letter, as well as for the papers 
 which you have from time to time been kind enough to send 
 me I do not think that I am less zealous than for- 
 merly ; but I feel that, if I write briefly and without giving 
 all the grounds of my opinions, I arn constantly misunder- 
 stood : and to give the grounds, requires a volume, rather 
 than half a column in the newspaper. For instance, on this 
 very question of Church Rates, how much really is involved 
 in it? If the Churches are public buildings for a national 
 object, then how can a minority object to maintaining them ? 
 If they are only to be maintained by those who belong to one 
 religious denomination, it strikes, of course, at the very root 
 of any Establishment, because the same principle must apply 
 equally to tithes. I am sure that, sooner or later, what I said 
 in the Church Reform Pamphlet will be verified ; either the 
 Church must be more comprehensive, or, if this be impracti- 
 cable, then an Establishment cannot be maintained : and the 
 next best thing will be, to take care that all the Church prop- 
 erty is applied to strictly public purposes, to schools, hos- 
 pitals, almshouses, or something of the sort, and that it is 
 not stolen by the landlords. For the only possible way, in 
 which there can be a robbery of public property, is to transfer 
 it to private uses ; this is a direct robbery, committed against 
 ourselves and our posterity ; but in varying the particular 
 public object to which it is applied, there may be great folly, 
 great wickedness in the sight of God, but not the especial 
 crime of robbery or spoliation. 
 
 Your mention of the Article on the Life of Christ, encour-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 71 
 
 ages me to allude to it. I heard it spoken of before I had 
 the least idea of its author, and spoken of with regret, not as 
 unorthodox, but as painful to a Christian reader from its 
 purely historical tone. Now I think that this is a reasonable 
 source of pain, supposing the fact to be as stated ; because, 
 in such a case, neutrality is almost the same as hostility. To 
 read an account of Christ, written as by an indifferent person, 
 is to read an unchristian account of Him ; because no one 
 who acknowledges Him can be indifferent to Him, but stands 
 in such relations to Him, that the highest reverence must 
 ever be predominant in his mind when thinking or writing of 
 Him. And again, what is the impartiality that is required ? 
 Is it that a man shah 1 neither be a Christian, nor yet not a 
 Christian ? The fact is, that religious veneration is incon- 
 sistent with what is called impartiality ; which means, that as 
 you see some good and some evil on both sides, you identify 
 yourself with neither, and are able to judge of both. And 
 this holds good with all human parties and characters, but 
 not with what is divine, and consequently perfect; for then 
 we should identify ourselves with it, and are perfectly inca- 
 pable of passing judgment upon it.* If I think that Christ 
 was no more than Socrates, (I do not mean in degree, but in 
 kind,) I can of course speak of Him impartially ; that is, I 
 assume at once that there are faults and imperfections in 
 His character, and on these I pass my judgment : but, if 
 I believe in Him, I am not His judge, but His servant and 
 creature ; and He claims the devotion of my whole nature, 
 because He is identical with goodness, wisdom, and holiness. 
 Nor can I for the sake of strangers assume another feeling, 
 and another language, because this is compromising the 
 highest duty, it is like denying Him, instead of confessing 
 Him. This all passed through my mind when I heard that 
 the Article was written in a purely historical tone, and yet 
 
 * On similar grounds he had a strong feeling against Goethe. " That one 
 word at the end of Faust does indeed make it to my mind a great work in- 
 stead of a piece of Devilry." " Still," he said, " I cannot get over the intro- 
 duction. If it had been by one without any relation to God or his fellow- 
 creatures, it would be different but hi a human being it is not to be 
 forgiven. To give entirely without reverence a representation of God is in 
 itself blasphemous." " It is in speaking of God that what we call the Bible, 
 *aking it altogether, through and through, has such a manifest superiority to 
 everything else. When the Almighty condescends to make Himself known, 
 it is by an angel, or in some manner that keeps all safe. What can be more 
 magnfficent than what is said of the conversation of Abraham before the 
 destruction of Sodom ! "
 
 72 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 stated the Resurrection as a matter of fact. Now, if the 
 Resurrection be true, Christianity surely is true ; and then 
 how can one think of Christ except religiously ? A very able 
 and good friend of mine made the same objection to Victor 
 Cousin's tone : " It was," he said, " a patronizing of Chris- 
 tianity ; " that is, he spoke of it as one who could judge it, 
 and looked upon it, as it were, de loco superiori, a condition 
 inconsistent altogether with the relations of man to God, 
 when once acknowledged. Will you forgive me for all this, 
 but there seems to me rather a vague notion prevalent about 
 impartiality and fair judgment in some matters of religion, 
 which is really running into scepticism as to all. There is 
 abundant room for impartiality in judging of religious men, 
 and of men's opinions about religion, just as of their opinions 
 about anything else ; but with regard to God and his truth, 
 impartiality is a mere contradiction ; and if we profess to be 
 impartial about all things, it can only be that we acknowledge 
 in none that mark of divinity which claims devout adherence, 
 and with regard to which impartiality is profaneness. 
 
 CL. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, February 6, 1837. 
 
 I must write to you from Fox How, though it is our last 
 evening ; and to-morrow we set out to return to Rugby. 
 We have been here just six weeks ; and six weeks of greater 
 peace and happiness it would scarcely be possible, I suppose, 
 for any one to pass. In this neighborhood there has been 
 as yet no influenza ; no snow at any time to obstruct commu- 
 nication ; no rains to keep us within doors, nothing more 
 than the ordinary varieties of winter, containing among them 
 days of such surpassing beauty, that at no time of the 
 year could the country have been more enjoyable. You 
 know the view from the dining-room ; it was only a few 
 mornings since, that the clouds broke away from the summit 
 of Fairfield, while we were at breakfast, a little after eight 
 o'clock, and the sun just threw his light upon the crest of the 
 mountain all covered with snow, and gave it the rose color 
 which you have seen on the Alps ; while all the lower points 
 of the hills, and all the side of Loughrigg, wore the infinite 
 variety of their winter coloring of green and gray and gold. 
 
 We have had two of our Sixth Form boys down 
 
 here, who I thought wanted the refreshment of a mountain
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 73 
 
 country, as they had been working rather too hard. Mean- 
 while my History has been flourishing ; I have been turning 
 to account all my Roman law reading, in a chapter on the 
 Twelve Tables, and I have carried on the story to the year of 
 Rome 350. I am inclined to publish one volume, when I 
 have got to the end of the year 365, the Gaulish invasion ; 
 and I shall have plenty of matter for a volume : but whether 
 I am not yielding to a movement of impatience I can hardly 
 say. The natural divisions of the subject appear to me to be 
 the Gaulish Invasion ; the Conquest of Italy, after the 
 repulse of Pyrrhus ; the Conquest of the World, or of all 
 that could offer any effectual resistance, in the Punic and 
 Macedonian wars ; the Civil Wars from the Gracchi to 
 Actium ; the Maturity of the Empire from Augustus to M. 
 Aurelius ; the Decline of the Empire and of Paganism from 
 Commodus to Honorius ; the chaos out of which the new 
 creation of modern society has come, from Alaric to Charle- 
 magne. How grand a subject, if it could be written worthily ! 
 And how vast a variety of knowledge is required to do it 
 worthily ! I constantly feel how overpowering the labor is, 
 and how many advantages I want ; yet I feel, too, that I 
 have the love of history so strong in me, and that it has been 
 working in me so many years, that I can write something 
 which will be read, and which I trust will encourage the love 
 of all things noble and just, and wise and holy. 
 
 The study of the law is quite to my heart's 
 
 content, as is the practice of it in your situation. I think if 
 I were asked what station within possibility I would choose 
 as the prize of my son's well-doing in life, I should say the 
 place of an English judge. But then, in proportion to my 
 reverence for the office of a judge, is, to speak plainly, my 
 
 abhorrence of the business of an advocate I have 
 
 been thinking, in much ignorance, whether there is any path 
 to the bench except by the bar ; that is, whether in convey- 
 ancing, or in any other branch of the profession, a man may 
 make his real knowledge available, like the juris consult! of 
 ancient Rome, without that painful necessity of being re- 
 tained by an attorney to maintain a certain cause, and of 
 knowingly suppressing truth, for so it must sometimes hap- 
 pen, in order to advance your own argument. I am well 
 aware of the common arguments in defence of the practice ; 
 still it is not what I can myself like. On the other hand, 
 Medicine, in all its branches, I honor as the most beneficent 
 
 VOL. II. 7
 
 74 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of all professions ; but there I dread an incidental evil, the 
 intense moral and religious degradation of so many medical 
 students, who are, if you may trust report, materialist atheists 
 of the greatest personal profligacy ; and then if the profligacy 
 wear out with age, the evil principle will not ; and Satan 
 
 will be but cast out by Satan 
 
 We are going to Oxford, I believe, before we finally settle 
 at Rugby. I do love the place after all, though I sometimes 
 think of the fox's exclamation over the vizor mask KaXov 
 irpovanrov, K. T. A. Forgive my profaneness to Alma Mater, 
 and do not ascribe it to any academical jealousy in behalf of 
 my new University of London, of which I am a most poor 
 Fellow. 
 
 CLI. TO THE REV. G. CORNISH. 
 
 Fox How, February 5, 1837. 
 
 Even the bustle of Fox How is calmer than the quiet of 
 Rugby. We are going away to-morrow morning, and it is 
 now past ten o'clock ; yet I know not when I can sit down to 
 write so peacefully, as I can in this last hour of our last day's 
 sojourn at this most dear and most beautiful home. Thank 
 you very much for your letter. I will not revive matters of 
 dispute ; what, if spoken, would be known at once to be half 
 in joke, seems in writing to be all meant in sober earnest ; 
 and therefore our discussions shall wait till that day, which, I 
 trust, will yet arrive, when we may again meet, and introduce 
 some of our children to each other. A life of peace is one of 
 the things which I vainly sigh after. If you can live out of 
 the reach of controversy and party, it is a great gain. So a 
 quiet country parish is a far more attractive thing than the 
 care of a great manufacturing town ; but my lot, and, I believe, 
 my duty have thrown me, as it were, into the manufacturing 
 town ; and I must contend for what I earnestly believe to be 
 truth. Do you suppose that I could not resign myself with 
 delight to the quiet of this valley, and the peace of these 
 mountains, if so might be ? And we have been enjoying it 
 for the last six weeks thoroughly. The climate has been 
 better than in almost any part of England. We had no snow 
 here to stop communication for half an hour ; and since the 
 snow went away from all but the mountain tops, the coloring 
 of the country has been delicious. We have had our full 
 share of walking; whilst all the morning, till one o'clock, I
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 75 
 
 used to sit in one corner of the drawing-room, not looking 
 towards Fairfield lest I should be constantly tempted from my 
 work, and there I worked on at the Roman History and the 
 Twelve Tables, and Appius Claudius, and Cincinnatus, and 
 all the rest of them. 
 
 My wife, thank God, has been wonderfully well and strong, 
 and climbs the mountains with the rest of us. And little 
 Fan, who was three years old in October, went over Lough- 
 rigg with us to Rydal the other day though her little feet 
 looked quite absurd upon the rough mountain side, and the 
 fern-stalks annoyed her, as Gulliver was puzzled by the Brob- 
 dignag cornfield 
 
 We were, in the course of the summer, in the Isle of Man, 
 and in Ireland. I admired Dublin and its bay, and the Wick- 
 low Sugar Loaf, and the blue sea of Killiney Bay. But to 
 my astonishment, the " Emerald Isle " was a very parched 
 and dusty isle in comparison with Westmoreland, and the 
 Three Rock Mountain, though beautiful with its granite rocks 
 and heath, had none of the thousand springs of our Lough- 
 rigg. Of the people I saw little or nothing. 
 
 We expect to be in Oxford one day this week, before we 
 settle at Rugby for our long half-year. I wonder whether I 
 could find your tree in Bagley Wood, on which you once sat 
 exalted. Do you ever see or hear of old Dyson, or of Elli- 
 son ? or do you hear from Tucker ? Coleridge, as you per- 
 haps know, was a month at this house in the summer with all 
 his family ; then, on their way to town, they came to us at 
 Rugby, and there met Professor Buckland ; so that, after an 
 interval of many years, I was again one of an old Corpus 
 trio. It is eleven o'clock, and we are off at eight to-morrow, 
 so good night. 
 
 CLII. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Yarrow Bridge, Chorley, Feb. 6, 1837. 
 
 I call all this Judaizing a direct idolatry ; it is 
 
 exalting the Church and the Sacraments into the place of 
 Christ, as others have exalted His mother, and others in the 
 same spirit exalted circumcision. There is something almost 
 'udicrous, if the matter were not too serious, in the way in 
 which speaks of Calvin, and the best and ablest of his 
 followers, and some of the great living writers of Germany, 
 whom he must know, as of men laboring under a judicial
 
 76 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 blindness. " This people who knoweth not the law," i. e. as 
 interpreted by the tradition and doctors of the Church, " arc 
 accursed." It is vain to argue with such men, only when 
 they ascribe a judicial blindness to Calvin and Zuingle, or to 
 Tholuck, Nitzsch, and Bunsen, one cannot but be reminded 
 of those who " with lies made the heart of the righteous sad, 
 whom God had not made sad," or of those who denied St. 
 Paul's apostleship and spirituality, because he was not one of 
 the original twelve Apostles, and because he would not preach 
 circumcision. 
 
 No man doubts that a strictly universal consent would be 
 a very strong argument indeed ; but then by the very fact of 
 its being disputed, it ceases to be universal ; and general con- 
 sent is a very different thing from universal. It becomes 
 then the consent of the majority ; and we must examine the 
 nature of the minority, and also the peculiar nature of the 
 opinions or practices agreed in, before we can decide whether 
 general consent be really an argument for or against the truth 
 of an opinion. For it has been said, " Woe unto you, when 
 all men shall speak well of you ; " and then it would be equally 
 true of such a generation or generations, that it was, " Woe 
 to that opinion in which all men agree." 
 
 Now I believe that the Apostles' Creed may be taken as a 
 specimen of truths held by the general consent of Christians ; 
 for everything there (except the Descent into Hell, which 
 was a later insertion) is in almost the very words of Scrip- 
 ture. It is just like St. Paul's short creed in 1 Corinthians, 
 xv : "I delivered unto you that which I received, how that 
 Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was 
 
 buried," &c. But this Creed will no more suit 's turn 
 
 than the Scriptures themselves will. It says not a word of 
 priesthood or succession, it does not even say a word of 
 
 either Sacrament. The points for which needs the 
 
 consent of the Church, are points on which the principal 
 ecclesiastical writers, from whom he gleans this consent, had 
 all a manifest bias ; partly from their own position as minis- 
 ters, partly from the superstitious tendencies of their age. 
 And after all how few are those writers ! Who would think 
 of making out the universal consent of the Christian world 
 from the language of ten or a dozen bishops or clergy who 
 happened to be writers ? Who will bear witness to the 
 opinions of the Bithynian Church, of whose practice Pliny 
 has left so beautiful a picture? Or who would value for any
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 77 
 
 Church, or for any opinion, the testimony of such a man as 
 Tertullian ? But, after all, consent would go for nothing 
 where it is so clearly against Scripture. All in Asia were 
 turned away from Paul, even in his lifetime. [No wonder] 
 then, if after his death they could not bear his doctrines, and 
 undermined them while they were obliged outwardly to honor 
 [them]. The operation of material agency to produce a 
 spiritual effect [is not] more opposed to reason than it is 
 
 directly denied by our Lord, on grounds which would 
 
 call rationalistic, if I were to use them. I refer to what he 
 says of the impossibility of meat defiling a man, or water puri- 
 fying him ; and the reason assigned to show that meat cannot 
 morally defile is of course equally valid to show that it cannot 
 morally strengthen or cleanse. I believe it might be shown 
 that the efficacy of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper has 
 been weakened directly by the superstitions about it ; that in 
 proportion as a value was attached to the elements, as they 
 were called, so the real Christian Sacramentum, each man 
 pledging himself to Christ and to his brethren, upon the sym- 
 bols of his redemption and sanctification, became less and 
 less regarded ; whilst superstitions made the Sacrament less 
 frequent, and thus have inflicted a grievous injury on the 
 spiritual state of every Church. 
 
 CLHI. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 3, 1837. 
 
 About the grammars, I am inclined to think that 
 
 the common Eton grammars, purged of their manifest faults, 
 would answer better than anything else. I am more and 
 more in favor of a Latin rather than an English grammar, 
 and I think that the simpler and more dogmatical the rules 
 are, the better. That is best in a boy's grammar which can 
 be easiest remembered, and understood enough to be applied 
 practically; the explanation of the principles of grammar 
 belongs to a more advanced age. 
 
 By " manifest faults," I mean such as calling " hie, hsec, 
 hoc," an article ; or teaching boys to believe that there is such 
 a word as "TVTTOV, or such an Aorist to A/y<o as eXeyov, and other 
 monstrosities. And I think such corrections might be made 
 easily. But let us save " Verba dandi et reddendi," &c., and, 
 if I dared, I would put in a word for " As in praesenti," per- 
 haps even for " Propria quae maribus." Is not this a laudable
 
 78 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 specimen of Toryism ? Or is it that we are Reformers in our 
 neighbors' trade and Conservatives in our own ? 
 
 CLIV. TO GEORGE PRYME, ESQ., M. P. 
 
 Rugby, March 8, 1837. 
 
 I thank you much for your letter : I had regarded your 
 intended motion respecting the Universities with the deepest 
 interest, and feel therefore extremely obliged to you for allow- 
 ing me to express some of my views on the matter to you. 
 As to the great question of all, the admission of Dissenters, 
 it is so mixed up with the still greater question of the Church, 
 that I hardly know how to separate them : and besides, I 
 imagine that nothing on this point could be carried now. 
 But there are three points at Oxford, which, though of very 
 different importance, might all, I think, be noticed with advan- 
 tage. 
 
 1st. The system of fines; I do not mean as regards the 
 tenant, but as regards those members of the College Founda- 
 tions who do not belong to the governing body. It is the 
 practice I believe to divide the Corn Rents either equally, or 
 in certain fixed proportions fixed by the Founder, among all 
 the members of the Foundation ; but the fines, which form 
 always a large proportion of the gross income of the College, 
 are divided exclusively by the governing body amongst them- 
 selves ; where this governing body includes all the Fellows, 
 as at Oriel, Corpus, and New College, then those who do not 
 share the fines are only the Scholars and Probationer Fel- 
 lows ; but where it consists of what is called a seniority, 
 seven, or whatever number it be, of the senior Fellows, then 
 all the Fellows not on the seniority are excluded ; and this is 
 the case at Brasenose.* Now the question is, whether this 
 is according to the Founder's intentions, or whether it has 
 been legalized by any subsequent statute of the realm, I 
 mean, not of the University. The fines originally were a 
 direct bribe paid by the tenant to the Bursar or Treasurer of 
 the college, for letting him renew on favorable terms: sub- 
 sequently the bursars were not allowed to keep it all to them- 
 selves, but it was shared by all those with whom lay the power 
 of either granting or refusing the renewal. But still, if the 
 college property be notoriously underlet, because a great part 
 
 * This case is at present waiting the decision of the Visitor of the College.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 79 
 
 of the rent is paid in the shape of fines, those who are entitled 
 to a certain share in the proceeds are manifestly defrauded if 
 they are not allowed their proportion of the fines also. This 
 question only affects the members of the several foundations 
 as individuals ; still, it has always struck me as a great un- 
 fitness, that a system should go on with such a prima facie 
 look of direct fraud about it. 
 
 2d. All members of foundations are required to take an 
 oath to maintain the rights of the college, &c., and amongst 
 other things they swear that if expelled by the college they 
 will not appeal to any court of law. This oath is imposed at 
 Winchester College, or was in my time, on every boy as soon 
 as he was fifteen. I object utterly, on principle, to any pri- 
 vate society administering an oath to its members at all, 
 still more so to boys : but even if it were a promise or engage- 
 ment, the promise of not appealing to the King's Courts is 
 monstrous, and savors completely of the spirit of secret soci- 
 eties, who regard the law as their worst enemy. The Univer- 
 5ity has lately repealed some of its oaths but it still retains 
 /ar too many. 
 
 3d. The University should be restored, that is, the mo- 
 nopoly of the colleges should be taken away, by allowing 
 any Master of Arts, according to the old practice of Oxford, 
 to open a hall for the reception of students. The present 
 practice dates, I think, from the age of Elizabeth, when 
 the old halls had fallen into decay ; and then the gift of the 
 headship of the existing halls was placed in the Chancellor's 
 hands, and every member of the University was required to 
 be a member of some college, or of one of these recognized 
 halls. The evils of the present system, combined with a 
 statute passed, I believe, within the present century, obliging 
 every under-graduate under three years' standing to sleep in 
 college, are very great. The number of members at a college 
 is regulated therefore by the size of its buildings, and thus 
 some of the very worst colleges have the greatest number of 
 votes in Convocation, and consequently the greatest influence 
 in the decisions of the University. I am obliged to be brief, 
 - but this point is, I am sure, of the greatest importance, and 
 might open the door to much good. I am not at all able to 
 answer for all the details of the matters which I have men- 
 tioned, and you know how readily the enemy would exult if 
 he can detect the slightest inaccuracy in detail, and how gladly 
 he will avail himself of such a triumph to lead away men's
 
 80 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 minds from the real question. But I. think all the three points 
 which I have named are of importance. I am delighted that 
 you should take up this question. No man ought to meddle 
 with the Universities who does not know them well and love 
 them well; they are great and noble places, and I am sure 
 that no man in England has a deeper affection for Oxford 
 than I have, or more appreciates its inimitable advantn,Lr< -. 
 And therefore I wish it improved and reformed though thi- 
 is a therefore which men are exceedingly slow to understand. 
 
 CLV. TO CRABBE ROBINSON, ESQ. 
 
 (Who had written to him fearing he would not continue in the New Uni- 
 versity unless more were done in the examinations as to Theology, than 
 could or would be effected.) 
 
 March 15, 1837. 
 
 First, be assured that I will do nothing hastily, 
 
 that I wish most earnestly well to the London University, 
 and look upon it as so great a possible means of good, that 
 lothing but what will appear to me imperious duty shall 
 iempt me to leave it. Neither have I the least thought or 
 wish of conciliating the Tories ; on the contrary, I regret 
 nothing so much as the possibility of appearing to agree with 
 them in anything ; neither, in fact, can I believe that I ever 
 shall be so far mistaken. 
 
 Secondly, I have no wish to have Degrees in Divinity 
 conferred by the London University or to have a Theological 
 Faculty ; I am quite content with Degrees in Arts. But 
 then let us understand what Arts are. 
 
 If Arts mean merely logic or grammar, or arithmetic, or 
 natural science, then of course a degree in Arts implies 
 nothing whatever as to a man's moral judgment or prin- 
 ciples. But open the definition a little farther, include 
 poetry or history or moral philosophy, and you encroach 
 unavoidably on the domain of moral education ; and moral 
 education cannot be separated from religious education, unless 
 people have the old superstitious notion of religion, either 
 that it relates to rites and ceremonies, or to certain abstract 
 and unpractical truths. But, meaning by Religion what the 
 Gospel teaches one to mean by it, it is nothing more nor less 
 than a system directing and influencing our conduct, prin- 
 ciples, and feelings, and professing to do this with sover- 
 eign authority, and most efficacious influence. If then I 
 enter on the domain of moral knowledge, I am thereby on
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 81 
 
 the domain of religious knowledge ; and the only question 
 is, what religion am I to follow? If I take no notice of 
 the authority and influences of Christianity, I unavoidably 
 take a view of man's life and principles from which they are 
 excluded, that is, a view which acknowledges some other 
 authority and influence, it may be of some other religion, 
 or of some philosophy, or of mere common opinion or in- 
 stinct ; but, in any case, I have one of the many views 
 of life and conduct, which it was the very purpose of 
 Christ's coming into the world to exclude. And how can 
 any Christian man lend himself to the propagating or 
 sanctioning a system of moral knowledge which assumes 
 that Christ's law is not our rule, nor His promises our 
 motive of action ? This, then, is my principle, that moral 
 studies not based on Christianity must be unchristian, and 
 therefore are such as I can take no part in. 
 
 On the other hand, I allow as fully as you can do, that 
 the University should include Christians of every denomi- 
 nation without the slightest distinction. The differences 
 between Christian and Christian are not moral differences, 
 except accidentally ; and that is what I meant in that pas- 
 sage in the Church Reform Pamphlet which you, in common 
 with many others, have taken in a sense which I should 
 wholly disclaim. An Unitarian, as such, is a Christian ; that 
 is, if a man follows Christ's law, and believes His words ac- 
 cording to his conscientious sense of their meaning, he is a 
 Christian ; and, though I may think he understands Christ's 
 words amiss, yet that is a question of interpretation, and no 
 more ; the purpose of his heart and mind is to obey and be 
 guided by Christ, and therefore he is a Christian. But I 
 believe, if I err as to the matter of fact I shall greatly 
 rejoice, that Unitarianism happens to contain many persons 
 who are only Unitarians negatively, as not being Trini- 
 tarians ; and I question whether these follow Christ with 
 enough of sincerity and obedience to entitle them to be 
 called Christians. 
 
 Then comes the question of practicability. Here un- 
 doubtedly I am met at a disadvantage, because the whole 
 tendency of the last century, and of men's minds now, is to 
 shun all notions of comprehension ; and as the knot was 
 once cut by persecution, so it is to be cut now by toleration 
 and omission. 
 
 But it is an experiment undoubtedly worth trying, whether
 
 82 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 for the sake of upholding the Christian character of our 
 University, we ought not to venture on ground, new indeed in 
 England, just at present, but which is of the veiy essence of 
 true Christianity. With all Chri8tians except Roman Catho- 
 lics the course is plain, namely, to examine every candi- 
 date for a degree in one of the Gospels and one of the 
 Epistles out of the Greek Testament. I would ask of every 
 man the previous question, " To what denomination of Chris- 
 tians do you belong ? " and according to his answer, I would 
 specially avoid touching on those points, on which I as a 
 Churchman differed from him. I should probably say to 
 him aloud, if the examination were public, " Now I know 
 that you and I differ on such and such points, and therefore 
 I shall not touch on them ; but we have a great deal more on 
 which we agree, and therefore I may ask you so and so." 
 "With the Roman Catholics there might be a difficulty, 
 because they might possibly object to being examined by 
 heretics, or in the Scriptures ; but if so, where would be 
 the difficulty of adding a Catholic to the number of Fellows, 
 on purpose for this object ; or where would be the diffi- 
 culty of requiring from the candidate, being a Catholic, a 
 certificate of proficiency in religious knowledge from his own 
 priest or bishop ? What you state about doctrines might be 
 a very good argument against examining in any Articles or 
 Creeds, but would not affect the examination in a book or 
 books of the Scripture ; and so again with evidences, I 
 should not care about this ; though neither do I see that 
 your reference to Chalmers makes a valid objection ; because 
 you will and must have Examiners who differ on fifty points 
 of taste, of politics, and of philosophy ; but this signifies 
 nothing, as long as they are sensible men ; and, if they are 
 not, the whole thing must break down any way. But the 
 comparative value of external and internal Evidence is not a 
 point which forms the characteristic difference between any 
 one sect and another ; it may therefore be noticed without 
 any delicacy, just like any moot point in history ; and an Ex- 
 aminer may express his judgment on it, though of course 
 with such reserve and moderation as he may think fit. If 
 you say that all points which have ever been disputed are 
 to be avoided, you reduce your Examiners to such mere 
 ciphers as would deprive them of all weight and dignity. 
 Certainly I shall feel myself as in a certain degree appointed 
 to moderate and form the minds of those who come to me for
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 82 
 
 academical honors. I ought to express my judgment on 
 many matters as that of a mau qualified to instruct them, 
 and as entitled to an authority with them. You will not 
 suppose I mean an infallible authority. If our office be not 
 intended to be this, it will be a great mistake, and indeed 
 a total solecism, as far as regards education. I am perfectly 
 aware of the delicacy of our task as well as of its importance, 
 and I think I would undertake to manage it discreetly; but 
 much must be left to us. Let them choose the best men 
 they can find, and then let them trust them fully, and turn 
 them out if they do not like them. 
 
 CLVI. TO SIR THOMAS S. PASLEY, BART. 
 
 Rugby, April 21, 1837. 
 
 Our one day's visit to Oxford was very delight 
 
 ful, it was full of kindlinesses without anything of a contrary 
 sort ; and it made me wish that I could see the place and its 
 residents oftener. I am so thoroughly fond of it, that I can 
 quite trust myself in my earnest desire to see it reformed ; 
 indeed, I should care about its reform much less if I did not 
 value it so highly. From Oxford we came back to our work 
 
 as usual From that time forward we have never 
 
 been quite alone, and we are expecting other friends in May 
 and June, so that our half-year will, as usual, I suppose, end 
 in a crowd ; and then I trust we may meet in something like 
 summer in Westmoreland, and find you established in your 
 house, and enjoying the magnificence of the view and the 
 snugness of that delicious glady field behind, which lives 
 most vividly in my memory 
 
 I have read nothing but books connected with my own 
 business, so I am sadly ignorant of what is doing in the pub- 
 lishing world. Jacob Abbott's last work, "The Way to do 
 Good," will I think please you very much ; with some Amer- 
 icanisms, not of language but of mind, it is yet delightful to 
 read a book so good and so sensible ; so zealous for what is 
 valuable ; so fair about what is indifferent. I have also 
 looked through some of the Duke of Wellington's Dispatches. 
 He is different enough certainly from Abbott, but the work 
 gives one a favorable impression of him morally, I think, as 
 well as intellectually : * there is a frankness and kindliness 
 
 # His impression of the Duke of Wellington's character was in fact con- 
 efderably raised by this work, and a volume of the Dispatches was one of 
 the books which most frequently accompanied him when travelling.
 
 84 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 about his letters generally which is very attractive, and one 
 admires the activity and comprehensiveness of view which 
 could take in so much and so execute it. You would be 
 interested in Sir E. Codrington's strange attack upon Sir 
 Pulteney Malcolm, and gratified by the strong feeling gener- 
 ally expressed in Sir Pulteney's favor, and in admiration of 
 
 his character 
 
 I shall like to hear your remarks on the weather. I never 
 remember anything to equal it ; but I find from the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine that 1799 was very nearly as bad, and from 
 Evelyn's Memoirs that 1658 was rather worse. The wind 
 was northerly for nearly six months, and on the second of 
 June (old style) the season was as cold as winter. It is cer- 
 tainly so at present ; and what is remarkable is, that the 
 wind blows equally cold from all points of the compass. I 
 connect the constant northwest winds with the Magnetic 
 Pole, and as all phenomena of weather have to do with elec- 
 tricity and volcanic action, I should not be surprised to hear 
 of something extraordinary in the way of earthquakes or erup- 
 tions before the end of the year. This is a sad dull letter, 
 but my life affords but little variety. 
 
 CLVH. TO AN OLD PUPIL, (c.) 
 
 Rugby, April 5, 1837. 
 
 I take this opportunity to answer your kind and interesting 
 letter, for which I beg you to accept my best thanks. I can 
 hardly answer it as I could wish, but I did not h'ke to delay 
 writing to you any longer. Your account of yourself and of 
 that unhealthy state of body and mind under which you have 
 been laboring, was very touching to me. I rejoice that you 
 were recovering from it, but still you must not be surprised if 
 God should be pleased to continue your trials for some time 
 longer. It is to me a matter of the deepest thankfulness, 
 that the fears which I at one time had expressed to you about 
 yourself, have been so entirely groundless : we have the com- 
 fort of thinking that, with the heart once turned to God, and 
 going on in His faith and fear, nothing can go very wrong 
 with us, although we may have much to suffer and many 
 trials to undergo. I rejoice too that your mind seems to be 
 in a healthier state about the prosecution of your studies. I 
 am quite sure that it is a most solemn duty to cultivate our 
 understandings to the uttermost, for I have seen the evij
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 85 
 
 moral consequences of fanaticism to a greater degree than I 
 ever expected to see them realized ; and I am satisfied that a 
 neglected intellect is far oftener the cause of mischief to a man, 
 than a perverted or overvalued one. Men retain their natu- 
 ral quickness and cleverness, while their reason and judgment 
 are allowed to go to ruin, and thus they do work their minds 
 and gain influence, and are pleased at gaining it ; but it is 
 the undisciplined mind which they are exercising, instead of 
 one wisely disciplined. I trust that you will gain a good 
 foundation of wisdom in Oxford ; which may minister in after 
 years to God's glory and the good of souls ; and I call by the 
 name of wisdom, knowledge, rich and varied, digested and 
 combined, and pervaded through and through by the light of 
 the Spirit of God. Remember the words, " Every scribe in- 
 structed to the kingdom of God is like unto a householder 
 who bringeth out of his treasures things new and old: " that is, 
 who does not think that either the first four centuries on the 
 one hand, nor the nineteenth century on the other, have a 
 monopoly of truth ; but who combines a knowledge of one 
 with that of the other, and judges all according to the judg- 
 ment which he has gained from the teaching of the Scriptures. 
 I am obliged to write more shortly than I could wish ; let me 
 hear from you when you can, and see you when you can, and 
 be sure that, whether my judgments be right or wrong, you 
 have no friend who more earnestly would wish to assist you in 
 that only narrow road to life eternal, which I feel sure that 
 you by God's grace are now treading. 
 
 CLVIII. TO BISHOP OTTER. 
 
 Rugby, April 30, 1837. 
 
 I venture to address you, and I trust to your forgiveness 
 for so doing, on a subject on which we have a common inter- 
 est, the new University of London ; and I am the more in- 
 duced to address you particularly, as I understand that you 
 are disposed to take an active part in the arrangements to be 
 made ; as you have had practical experience in education ; 
 and as you are one of the few members of our profession who 
 happen to belong to the University. I imagine, also, that 
 the particular department with which I am likely to be con- 
 cerned, will be that in which you too will be most interested, 
 the Examination for Degrees in Arts. And I find that a 
 committee was to be appointed yesterday, to draw up some*
 
 86 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 thing of a plan on this subject. I hope to be in town very 
 shortly, but my visit must necessarily be very brief, and I 
 feel that I should much further my views, if I could explain 
 them to your Lordship beforehand, and above all, if, as I hope, 
 I shall be so happy as to find that you agree with them. 
 
 I need not say that I cordially agree with the principle of 
 the University, that it recognizes no sectarian distinctions. 
 But while I fully allow this, I also find it expressly declared 
 in our charter, that we are founded for the advancement of 
 " Religion and Morality." And this seems to lead to the 
 exact conclusion which I most earnestly approve of, that we 
 are to be a Christian University, but not a Romanist one, nor 
 a Protestant, neither exclusively Church of England, nor ex- 
 clusively Dissenting. " Religion," in the king's mouth, can 
 mean only Christianity ; in fact, no Christian can use it in 
 any other sense without manifest inconsistency. Again, must 
 it not follow that if we enter at all upon moral science, 
 whether it be Moral Philosophy or History, we must be sup- 
 posed to have some definite notions of moral truth ? Now 
 those notions are not, I suppose, to be the notions of each 
 individual Examiner; we must refer to some standard. I 
 suppose that a man could hardly get a degree in physical 
 science if he made Aristotle's Physics his standard of truth 
 in those matters. Now there are many views of moral truth, 
 quite as false as those of Aristotle on physical science ; but 
 what are we to take for our standard of truth ? We must, it 
 seems to me, have some standard, in whatever we profess to 
 examine, and what can that standard be to any Christian, ex- 
 cept what he believes to be God's revealed will ? It seems 
 to me that we cannot recognize any other standard of moral 
 truth without directly renouncing Christ as our Master. 
 Further, Mr. Lieber, who wrote a little book of his Remi- 
 niscences of Niebuhr, who is now engaged in one of the 
 American colleges in Carolina, and has published some ex- 
 ceedingly good papers on the system there pursued, lays it 
 down as a matter of common sense, that, without entering 
 into the religious question, a knowledge of the Christian 
 Scriptures must form a part of the merely intellectual educa- 
 tion of ah 1 persons in Christian countries. He says, I think 
 most truly, that Christianity has so colored all our institutions, 
 and all our literature, and has in so many points modified or 
 even dictated our laws, that no one can be considered as an 
 educated man who is not acquainted with its authoritative
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 87 
 
 documents. He considers that a liberal education without the 
 Scriptures, must be, in any Christian country, a contradiction 
 in terms. 
 
 My conclusion is, that we are bound in some way or other 
 to recognize this truth. We may, indeed, give Degrees in 
 Law and in Medicine, without acknowledging it ; so we may 
 also in physical science ; so we may also in pure science and 
 philology. None of these things, nor all of them together, 
 constitute education. But if we profess to give Degrees in 
 Arts, we are understood, I think, as giving our testimony that 
 a man has received a liberal education. And the same result 
 follows from our examining on any moral subject, such as 
 History or Moral Philosophy ; because it is precisely moral 
 knowledge, and moral knowledge only, which properly consti- 
 tutes education. 
 
 The University of Bonn, the only one of the Prussian 
 universities with the system of which I happen to be ac- 
 quainted, is open, as you know, to Catholics and Protestants 
 equally. But both have their Professors and their regular 
 courses of religious instruction. Now as we do not teach at 
 present, but only examine, and as we confer no degrees in 
 Theology, our difficulty will be of a far simpler kind. It may 
 be met, I think, perfectly easily in two or three different man- 
 ners. I suppose that, for any of the reasons stated above, 
 our Bachelor of Arts' Degree must imply a knowledge of the 
 Christian Scriptures. But then, as we are not to be sectarian, 
 neither you and I on the one hand, nor any of our Dissenting 
 colleagues on the other, have any right to put their own con- 
 struction on this term, " knowledge of the Scriptures." I 
 think that an Unitarian knows them very ill, and he would 
 think the same of us. But we agree in attaching an equal 
 value to a " knowledge of the Scriptures," each of us inter- 
 preting the phrase in his own way. 
 
 I would propose, then, two or three modes of ascertaining 
 every candidate's knowledge of the Scriptures, in his own 
 meaning of the term. First, in imitation of the University of 
 Bonn, there might be members of the Senate of different 
 denominations of Christians to examine the members of their 
 own communions. Practically this would involve no great 
 multitude ; I doubt if it would require more than three di~ 
 visions, our own Church, Roman Catholics, and Unitarians. 
 I doubt if the orthodox Dissenters, as they are called, would 
 have any objection to be examined by you or me. in such books
 
 88 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of the New Testament as they themselves chose to bring up, 
 when they were required to subscribe to no Articles or Lit- 
 urgy, and were examined as persons whose opinions on their 
 own peculiar points of difference were not tolerated merely, 
 but solemnly recognized ; so that there would be neither any 
 suspicion of compromise on their part, nor of attempts at 
 proselytism on ours. 
 
 Secondly, we might even do less than this, and merely re- 
 quire from every candidate for a Degree in Arts a certificate 
 signed by two ministers of his own persuasion, that he was 
 competently instructed in Christian knowledge as understood 
 by the members of their communion. This is no more than 
 every young person in our own Church now gets, previously 
 to his Confirmation. I think this would be a very inferior 
 plan to the former, inasmuch as the certificates might in some 
 cases be worth very little ; but still it completely saves the 
 principle recognized in our Charter, and indispensable, I think, 
 to every plan of education, or for the ascertaining of the suf- 
 ficiency of any one's education in a Christian country; that 
 Christian knowledge is a necessary part of the formation and 
 cultivation of the mind of every one. 
 
 Thirdly, we might, I am sure, do what were best of all and 
 which might produce benefits in the course of time, more than 
 could be told. All Protestants acknowledge the Scriptures 
 as their common authority, and all desire their children to 
 study them. Let every candidate for a Degree bring up at 
 his own choice some one Gospel, and some one Epistle in the 
 Greek Testament. Let him declare, on coming before us, to 
 what communion he belongs. We know what are the peculiar 
 views entertained by him as such, and we would respect them 
 most religiously. But on all common ground we might ex- 
 amine him thoroughly, and how infinite would be the good of 
 thus proving, by actual experience, how much more our com- 
 mon ground is than our peculiar ground. I am perfectly ready 
 to examine to-morrow in any Unitarian school in England, in 
 presence of parents and masters. I will not put a question 
 that should offend, and yet I would give such an examination 
 as should bring out; or prove the absence of what you and I 
 should agree in considering to be Christian knowledge of the 
 highest value. I speak as one who has been used to examine 
 young men in the Scriptures for twenty years nearly, and I 
 pledge myself to the perfect easiness of doing this. Our ex- 
 aminations, in fact, will carry their own security with them, i)
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 89 
 
 our characters would not ; they will be public, and we should 
 not and could not venture to proselytize, even if we wished it. 
 But the very circumstance of our having joined the London 
 University at the risk of much odium from a large part of our 
 profession, would be a warrant for our entering into the spirit 
 of the Charter with perfect sincerity. I have no sufficient 
 apology to offer for this long intrusion upon your patience, but 
 my overwhelming sense of the importance of the subject. It 
 depends wholly, as I think, on our decision on this point, 
 whether our success will be a blessing or a curse to the coun- 
 try. A Christian, and yet not sectarian University, would be 
 a blessing of no common magnitude. An University that 
 conceived of education as not involving in it the principles of 
 moral truth, would be an evil, I think, no less enormous. 
 
 CLIX. TO THE REV. H. HILL. 
 
 (In answer to questions about Thucydides.) 
 
 Rugby, May 25, 1837. 
 
 My experience about Thucydides has told me that 
 
 the knowledge required to illustrate him may be taken at 
 anything you please, from Mitford up to omne scibile. I 
 suppose that the most direct illustrations are to be found in 
 Aristophanes, the Acharnians, the Peace, the Birds, and the 
 Clouds ; as also in the speech of Andocides de Mysteriis. For 
 the Greek, Bekker's text, in his smaller edition of 1832, and 
 a good Index Verborum though bad is the best are, I 
 think, the staple. You may add, instead of a Lexicon, Reiske's 
 Index Verborum to Demosthenes, and Mitchell's to Plato and 
 Isocrates, with Schweighauser's Lexicon Herodoteum. Butt- 
 man's larger Greek Grammar is the best thing for the forms 
 of the Verbs ; as for Syntax, Thucydides, in many places, is 
 his own law. 
 
 We talk about going to Rome, which will be a virtuous 
 effort, if I do go, for my heart is at Fox How. Yet, I should 
 love to talk once again with Bunsen on the Capitol, and to 
 expatiate with him on the green upland plain of Algidus. 
 
 I congratulate you and I do not mean it as a mere faon 
 de parler on your Ordination.
 
 90 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CLX. *TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, September 13, 1837. 
 
 The first sheet of the History is actually printed, 
 
 and I hope it will be out before the winter. But I am sure 
 that it will disappoint no one so much as it will myself; for I 
 see a standard of excellence before me in my mind, which I 
 cannot realize ; and I mourn over the deficient knowledge of 
 my book, seeing how much requires to be known in order to 
 write History well, and how soon in so many places the soil of 
 my own knowledge is bored through, and there is the barren 
 rock or gravel which yields nothing. 
 
 I could write on much, but my tune presses. I am anxious 
 to know your final decision as to profession ; but I do not like 
 to attempt to influence you. Whatever be your choice, it 
 does not much matter, if you follow steadily our great common 
 profession, Christ's service. Alas ! when will the Church 
 ever exist in more than in name, so that this profession might 
 have that zeal infused into it which is communicated by an 
 " Esprit de Corps ; " and, if the " Body" were the real Church, 
 instead of our abominable sects, with their half priestcraft, 
 half profaneness, its " Spirit " would be one that we might 
 desire to receive into all our hearts and all our minds. 
 
 CLXI. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Rugby, September 25, 1837. 
 
 I have to thank you for two very kind letters, as 
 
 also for a volume of C 's Sermons Do you know 
 
 that C was an old Oxford pupil of mine in 1815? and 
 
 a man for whom I have a great regard, though I am afraid 
 he thinks me a heretic, and though he has joined that party 
 which, as a party, I think certainly to be a very bad one. 
 
 But, if you ever see C , I should be much obliged to you 
 
 if you would give him my kind remembrances. It grieves 
 me to be so parted as I am from so many men with whom I 
 was once intimate. I feel and speak very strongly against 
 their party, but I always consider the party as a mere ab- 
 straction of its peculiar character as a party, and as such I 
 think it detestable ; but take any individual member of it, 
 and his character is made up of many other elements than 
 the mere peculiarities of his party. He may be kind-hearted, 
 sensible on many subjects, sincere, and a good Christian, and
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 91 
 
 therefore I may love and respect him, though his party as 
 such, that is, the peculiar views which constitute the bond 
 of union amongst its members, I think to be most utterly 
 at variance with Christianity. But I dare say many people, 
 hearing and reading my strong condemnations of Tories and 
 Newmanites, think that I feel very bitterly against all who 
 belong to those parties ; whereas, unless they are merely 
 Tories and Newmanites, I feel no dislike to them, and in 
 many instances love and value them exceedingly. Hampden's 
 business seemed to me different, as there was in that some- 
 thing more than theoretical opinions ; there was downright 
 evil acting, and the more I consider it, the more does my 
 sense of its evil rise. Certainly my opinion of the principal 
 actors in that affair has been altered by it towards them per- 
 sonally ; I do not say that it should make me forget all their 
 good qualities, but I consider it as a very serious blot in their 
 
 moral character But I did not mean to fill my letter 
 
 with this, only the thought of C made me remember 
 
 how much I was alienated from many old friends, and then I 
 wished to explain how I really did feel about them, for I be- 
 lieve that many people think me to be very hard and very 
 bitter ; thinking so, I hope and believe, unjustly. 
 
 CLXII. *TO DR. GREENHILL. 
 
 Rugby, September 18, 1837. 
 
 I shall be anxious to hear what you think of Ho- 
 moeopathy, which my wife has tried twice with wonderful 
 success, and I once with quite success enough to encourage 
 me to try it again. Also I shall like to" hear anything fresh 
 about Animal Magnetism, which has always excited my curi- 
 osity. But more than all I would fain learn something of 
 malaria, and about the causes of pestilential disease, partic- 
 ularly of Cholera. It is remarkable, that while all ordinary 
 disease seems to yield more and more to our increased knowl- 
 edge, pestilences seem still to be reserved by God for his own 
 purposes, and to baffle as completely our knowledge of their 
 causes, and our power to meet them, as in the earliest ages of 
 the world. Indeed, the Cholera kills more quickly than any 
 of the recorded plagues of antiquity ; and yet a poison so 
 malignant can be introduced into the air, and neither its causes 
 nor its existence understood ; we see only its effects. Influ- 
 enza and Cholera, I observe, just attack the opposite parts of
 
 92 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the system ; the former fastening especially on the chest and 
 sensorium, which are perfectly unaffected, I believe, in Chol- 
 era. As to connecting the causes of either with any of the 
 obvious phenomena of weather or locality, it seems to me a 
 pure folly to attempt it; as great as the folly of ascribing 
 malaria to the miasmata of aquatic plants. I shall be very 
 much interested in hearing your reports of the latest discov- 
 eries in these branches of science ; Medicine, like Law, having 
 always attracted me as much in its study as it has repelled me 
 in practice ; not that I feel alike towards the practice of both ; 
 on the contrary, I honor the one, as much as I abhor the 
 other; the physician meddles with physical evil in order to 
 relieve and abate it; the lawyer meddles with moral evil 
 
 .rather to aggravate it than to mend Yet the study 
 
 of Law is, I think, glorious, transcending that of any earthly 
 thing. 
 
 CLXIII. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 18, 1837. 
 
 I trust that I need not assure you that I feel as deeply in- 
 terested as any man can do in the welfare of our University, 
 and most deeply should I grieve if any act of mine were to 
 impair it. But then I am interested in the University, so far 
 as it may be a means towards effecting certain great ends ; 
 if it does not promote these, it is valueless : if it obstruct 
 them, it is actually pernicious. So far I know we are agreed ; 
 but then to my mind the whole good that the University can 
 do towards the cause of general education depends on its 
 holding manifestly a Christian character ; if it does not hold 
 this, it seems to me to be at once so mischievous, from giving 
 its sanction to a most mischievous principle, that its evil will 
 far outweigh its good. Now the education system in Ireland, 
 which has yet been violently condemned by many good men, 
 h Christian, though it is not Protestant or Catholic ; their 
 Scripture lessons give it the Christian character clearly and 
 decisively. Now, are we really for the sake of a few Jews, 
 who may like to have a Degree in Arts, or for the sake of 
 one or two Mahometans, who may possibly have the same 
 wish, or for the sake of English unbelievers, who dare not 
 openly avow themselves are we to destroy our only chance 
 of our being even either useful or respected as an Institution 
 of national education ? There is no difficulty with Dissenters
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 93 
 
 of am- denomination ; what we have proposed has been so 
 carefully considered, that it is impossible to pretend that it 
 bears a sectarian character ; it is objected to merely as being 
 Christian, as excluding Jews, Turks, and misbelievers. 
 
 Now considering the small number of the two first of 
 these divisions, and thjat the last have as yet no ostensible and 
 recognized existence, and that our Charter declares in the 
 very opening that the end of our institution is the promotion 
 of religion and morality, I hold myself abundantly justified 
 in interpreting the subsequent expressions as relating only 
 to all denominations of Her Majesty's Christian subjects, and 
 in that sense I cordially accede to them. Beyond that I can- 
 not go, as I have not the smallest doubt that it is better to 
 go on with our present system, with ah 1 its narrowness and 
 deficiencies, than to begin a pretended system of national 
 education on any other than a Christian basis. As to myself, 
 therefore, my course is perfectly clear. If our report be 
 rejected on Wednesday^ I mean as to its Christian clauses, 
 I certainly will not allow my name to be affixed to it with- 
 out them ; nor can I assist any farther in preparing a scheme 
 of Examination which I should regard as a mere evil. It 
 would be the first time that education in England was avow- 
 edly unchristianized for the sake of accommodating Jews or 
 unbelievers ; and as, on the one hand, I do not believe that 
 either of these are so numerous as to be entitled to considera- 
 tion even on points far less vital, so, if they were ever so 
 numerous, it might be a very good reason why the national 
 property should be given to their establishments and taken 
 from ours, but nothing could ever justify a compromise be- 
 tween us and them in such a matter as education 
 
 I am quite sure that no earnest Christian would wish the 
 Gospels and Acts, and the Scripture history to be excluded, 
 because they were in some instances understood differently. 
 It was a sure mark of the false mother when she said, " Let 
 the child be neither mine nor thine, but divide it ; " the real 
 mother valued the child very differently. I can see, there- 
 fore, in this question, no persons opposed to us whom I should 
 wish to conciliate, no benefits in the University, if it bears 
 no mark of Christianity which I should think worth preserv- 
 ing. It will grieve me very muck if vte in the last result 
 take a different view of this matter.
 
 94 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CLXIV. TO THE REV. TREVENEN PENROSE, 
 (His brother-in-law.) 
 
 Rugby, November 20, 1837. 
 
 I have long since purposed to write to you, and at last I 
 j>pe I shall be able to do it. I always read your additions to 
 me Journal with great interest, and they never fail to awaken 
 in me many thoughts of various kinds, but principally, I 
 think, a strong sense of the blessing which seems to follow 
 your father's house, and of the true peace, which, for seven- 
 teen years, I can testify, and I believe for many more, ha,s 
 continually abided with it. And this peace I am inclined 
 to value above every other blessing in the world ; for it is 
 very far from the " Otium " of the Epicurean, and might in- 
 deed be enjoyed anywhere ; but in your case outward circum- 
 stances seem happily to have combined with inward, and 
 other people have rarely, I believe, so large a portion of the 
 one or of the other. I am not disposed to quarrel with my 
 own lot ; nevertheless, it is not altogether peaceful, and 
 this great concern oppresses me more as I grow older, 
 and as I feel more deeply the evils I am powerless to quell. 
 You see much hardness, perhaps, and much ignorance, but 
 then you see also much softness, if nowhere else, yet amongst 
 the sick ; and you see much affection and self-denial amongst 
 the poor, which are things to refresh the heart ; but I have 
 always to deal with health and youth, and lively spirits, which 
 are rarely soft or self-denying. And where there is little 
 intellectual power, as generally there is very little, it is very 
 hard to find any points of sympathy. And the effect of this 
 prevalent mediocrity of character is very grievous. Good 
 does not grow, and the fallow ground lies ready for all eviL 
 
 CLXV. TO W; EMPSON, ESQ. 
 
 Rngby, November 28, 183". 
 
 The whole question turns upon this ; whether 
 
 the country understood, and was meant to understand, that 
 the University of London was to be open to all Christians 
 without distinction, or to all men without distinction. The 
 question Avhich had been discussed with regard to Oxford and 
 Cambridge, was the admissibility of Dissenters ; which in 
 common speech does not mean, I think, Dissenters from 
 Christianity : no one argued, so far as I know, for the admis-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 95 
 
 eion of avowed unbelievers. I thought that the University 
 of London was intended to solve this question, and I there- 
 fore readily joined it. I thought that whatever difficulties 
 were supposed to exist with respect to the introduction of the 
 Greek Testament, relative to Dissenters only, and, as such, 
 I respected them ; and our plan, therefore, waiving the Epis- 
 tles, requires only some one Gospel and the Acts ; that is, 
 any one who is afraid of the Gospel of St. John, may take up 
 St. Luke or St. Mark ; and St. Luke and the Acts have been 
 translated by the Irish Board of Education, and are used in 
 the Irish schools with the full consent of Catholics and Prot- 
 estants ; nor do I imagine that any Protestant Dissenters 
 could consistently object to either. I do not see the force of 
 the argument about the College in Gower Street ; because 
 we admit their students to be examined for degrees, we do 
 not sanction their system any more than we sanction the very 
 opposite system of King's College. Nor does it follow, so far 
 as I see, that University College must have a Professor of 
 Theology, because we expect its members to have a knowl- 
 edge of the elements of Christianity. University College 
 hopes or has not yet ventured to say it does not hope that 
 its students are provided with this knowledge before they 
 join it. But I should protest, in the strongest terms, against 
 its being supposed that our University is to be merely an 
 University College with a Charter : if so, undoubtedly I would 
 not belong to it for an hour. You say that we are bringing 
 in the Greek Testament by a side-wind, in putting it in 
 amongst the Classical writers ; but if by Classics we mean 
 anything more than Greek and Latin Grammar, they are just 
 the one part of our Examination which embraces points of 
 general education : for instance, we have put in some recom- 
 mendations about Modern History, which, if Classics be taken 
 to the letter, are just as much of a departure from our province, 
 as what we have done about the Greek Testament. On the 
 whole, I am quite clear as to my original position, namely, 
 that if you once get off from the purely natural ground of 
 physical science, Philology, and pure Logic, - the moment, 
 in short, on which you enter upon any moral subjects, wheth- 
 er Moral Philosophy or History you must either be Chris- 
 tian or Antichristian, for you touch upon the ground of Chris- 
 tianity, and you must either take it as your standard of moral 
 judgment, or you must renounce it, and either follow another 
 standard, or have no standard at all. In other words, again,
 
 96 LIFE OF DR ARNOLD. 
 
 the moment you touch on what alone is education, the form- 
 ing of the moral principles and habits of man, neutrality is 
 impossible; it would be very possible, if Christianity con- 
 sisted really in a set of theoretical truths, as many seem to 
 fancy ; but it is not possible, inasmuch as it claims to be the 
 paramount arbiter of all our moral judgments ; and he who 
 judges of good and evil, right and wrong, without reference 
 to its authority, virtually denies it. The Gower-Street Col- 
 lege I therefore hold to be Antichristian, inasmuch as it med- 
 dles with moral subjects, having lectures in History, and 
 yet does not require its Professors to be Christians. And so 
 long as the Scriptures were held to contain divine truth on 
 physical science, it was then impossible to give even physical 
 instruction neutrally ; you must either teach it according to 
 God's principles, (it being assumed that God's word had 
 pronounced concerning it,) or in defiance of them. I hope 
 we may meet on Saturday : I know that you are perfectly 
 
 sincere, and that L is so : nevertheless, I am persuaded 
 
 that your argument goes on an over-estimate of the theologi- 
 cal and abstract character of Christianity, and an under-esti- 
 
 mate of it as a moral law ; else how can L talk of a 
 
 clergyman being in a false position hi belonging to the Uni- 
 versity, if he does not think that the position is equally false 
 for every Christian ? Ifit be false for me, it is false for you, 
 except on the priestcraft notion, which is as unchristian, hi 
 my opinion, as the system in Gower Street. Indeed, the two 
 help one another well. 
 
 CLXVI. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, December 6, 1887. 
 
 I am afraid that I did no service to the Hertford 
 
 Reformer ; for what I sent them was, I knew, too general 
 and discursive for a newspaper ; but they would insert all my 
 articles, and I felt that they would not thauk me for any 
 more such, and I thought that I could not manage to write 
 what really would be to their purpose. You must not misun- 
 derstand me, as if I thought that my writings were too good 
 for a newspaper ; it is very much the contrary, for I think 
 that a newspaper requires a more condensed and practical 
 etyle than I am equal to, such, perhaps, as only habit and 
 mixing more in the actual shock of opinions can give a man 
 My writing partakes of the character of my way of life, which
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 97 
 
 is very much retired from the highway of politics, and of all 
 great discussions, though it is engaged enough with a busy 
 
 little world of its own 
 
 I was much gratified in the summer by going over to France 
 for about ten days, at the end of the holidays, with my wife 
 and three eldest children. Seven years had elapsed since I 
 had been in France last, so that many things had quite an 
 appearance of novelty, and I fancied that I could trace the 
 steady growth of everything from the continuance of peace, 
 and the absence of most of those evils which in tunes past so 
 interfered with national prosperity. We went to Rouen, 
 Evreux, and Chartres, and then came back through Versailles 
 and Paris. I admired Paris as I always had done, and we 
 had very fine weather ; but I had no time to call on anybody, 
 even if all the world had not been in the country. This little 
 tour I owed to the election, which brought me up from West- 
 moreland to Warwickshire to vote, and it was so near the end 
 of the holidays, that it did not seem worth while to go back 
 again. I watched the elections with great interest, but not 
 with much surprise. In 1831, when I wrote for the Sheffield 
 Courant, I shared the common opinion as to the danger which 
 threatened all our institutions from the force of an ultra- 
 popular party. But the last six years have taught me, what 
 the Roman History ought indeed to have shown me before, 
 that when an aristocracy is not thoroughly corrupted, its 
 strength is incalculable ; and it acts through the relations of 
 private life, which are permanent, whereas the political ex- 
 citement, which opposes it, must always be short-lived. In 
 fact, the great amount of liberty and good government enjoyed 
 in England is the security of the aristocracy : there are no 
 such pressing and flagrant evils existing, as to force men's 
 attention from their own domestic concerns, and make them 
 cast off their natural ties of respect or of fear for their richer 
 or nobler neighbors ; and as for Ireland, the English care 
 not for it one groat. 
 
 CLXVII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, December 8, 1837. 
 
 I have asked Hull to send you the two first printed sheets 
 of my History. You had promised to look at the manuscript, 
 and, if you agree with me, you will find it pleasanter to read 
 print than writing. Specially will you notice any expressions 
 
 VOL. II. 9 G
 
 98 LIFE DF r)R. ARNOLD. 
 
 in the Legends which may seem to you to approach too near 
 to the language of our translation of the Bible. I have tried 
 to avoid this, but in trying to write in an antiquated and sim- 
 ple language, that model with which we are most familiar 
 will sometimes be followed too closely ; and no one can dep- 
 recate more than I do anything like a trivial use of that 
 language which should be confined to one subject only. I 
 hope and believe that I have kept clear of this ; still, I would 
 rather have your judgment on it ; I think you will at the 
 same time agree with me that the Legends ought to be told 
 as Legends, and not in the style of real history. We had a 
 four hours' debate at the University, and a division in our 
 favor with a majority of one. But the adversary will oppose 
 us still, step by step ; and they are going to ask the Attorney 
 General's opinion, whether we can examine in the Greek 
 Testament without a breach of our Charter ! ! ! A strange 
 Charter, surely, for the Defender of the Faith to grant, if it 
 forbids the use of the Christian Scriptures. 
 
 CLXVIII. f TO REV. T. J. ORMEROD. 
 
 (After speaking of the affair of the Archbishop of Cologne.) 
 
 Fox How, December 18, 1887. 
 
 Certainly there is no battle in which I so entirely 
 
 sympathize as in this of the Christian Church against the 
 Priestcraft- Antichrist. And yet this is not quite true, for I 
 sympathize as cordially in its battle against the other Anti- 
 christ ; the Antichrist of Utilitarian unbelief, against which 
 
 I am fighting at the London University. If persuades 
 
 the Government to sanction his views, it will be a wrench to 
 me to separate from the only party that hitherto I have been 
 able to go along with ; and to be obliged to turn an absolute 
 political Ishmaelite, condemning all parties, knowing full well 
 what to shun, but finding nothing to approve or sympathize 
 with. But so I suppose it ought to be with us, till Christ's 
 kingdom come, and both the Antichrists be put down before 
 Him. 
 
 CLXIX. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, December 20, 1837. 
 
 We have been here since Saturday afternoon, and I think 
 it has rained almost ever since ; at this moment Wansfell and
 
 LIFE C^ DR. ARNOLD. 99 
 
 Kirkstone and Fairfield are dimly looming through a medium 
 which consists, I suppose, as much of water as of air ; the 
 Rotha is racing at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour, 
 and the meadows are becoming rather lake-like. Notwith- 
 standing, I believe that every one of us, old and young, would 
 rather be here than anywhere else in the world. 
 
 I thank you very heartily for your letter, and, in this pre- 
 cious leisure time of the holidays, I can answer it at once and 
 without hurry. Your judgment as to the Legends determines 
 me at once to recast that whole first chapter. I wish, however, 
 if it is not giving you too much trouble, that you would get 
 the manuscript, and read also the chapter about the banish- 
 ment of the Tarquins and the battle by the Lake Regillus. 
 I think that you would not find it open to the same objec- 
 tions ; at least, Wordsworth read it through with a reference 
 merely to the language, and he approved of it ; and I think 
 that it is easier and more natural than the first chapter. But 
 I have not, and I trust I shall not, shrink from any labor of 
 alteration, in order to make the work as complete as I can ; 
 it will, after all, fall infinitely short of that model which I 
 fancy keenly, but vainly strive to carry out into execution. 
 With regard to the first chapter, you have convinced me that 
 it is faulty, because it is not what I meant it to be. But as 
 to the principle, I am still of opinion that the Legends 
 cannot be omitted without great injury, and that they must 
 not be told in my natural style of narrative. The reason of 
 this appears to me to be, the impossibility of any man's telling 
 such stories in a civilized age in his own proper person, with 
 that sincerity of belief, nay even with that gravity, which is 
 requisite to give them their proper charm. If I thought that 
 they contained really an historical skeleton, disguised under 
 fabulous additions, it would of course be easy to give the his- 
 torical outline as history in my own natural language, and to 
 omit, or to notice with a grave remark as to their fabulous- 
 ness, the peculiar marvels of the stories. This was done by 
 Goldsmith, Rollin, &c. But I wish to give, not the supposed 
 facts of the stories, but the stories themselves, in their oldest 
 traceable form ; I regard them as poetry, in which the form 
 is quite as essential as the substance of the story. It is a 
 similar question, and fraught with similar difficulties to that 
 which regards the translation of Homer and Herodotus. If 
 I were to translate Herodotus, it were absurd to do it in my 
 common English, because he and I do not belong to analogous
 
 100 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 periods of Greek and English literature ; I should try to 
 translate him in the style of the old translation of Comines 
 rather than of Froissart ; hi the Engh'sh of that period of our 
 national cultivation which corresponds to the period of Greek 
 cultivation at which he wrote. I might and probably should 
 do this ill : still, I should try to mend the execution without 
 altering my plan ; and so I should do with these Roman 
 stories. For instance, the dramatic form appears to me quite 
 essential ; I mean the making the actors express their thoughts 
 in the first person, instead of saying what they thought or 
 felt as narrative. This, no doubt, is the style of the Bible : 
 but it is not peculiar to it ; you have it in Herodotus just tho 
 same, because it is characteristic of a particular state of cul- 
 tivation, which all people pass through at a certain stage hi 
 their progress. If I could do it well, I would give all the 
 Legends at once in verse, in the style and measure of Chap- 
 man's Homer ; and that would be the best and liveliest way 
 of giving them, and liable to no possible charge of parodying 
 the Bible. The next best way is that which I have tried and 
 failed in executing ; but I will try again ; and if it is not too 
 much trouble, I will ask you to look at the new attempt. I 
 feel sure and I really have thought a great deal upon this 
 point that to give the story of the white sow, of the wolf 
 suckling the twins, of Romulus being carried up to heaven, 
 &c., in my own language, would be either merely flat and 
 absurd, or else would contain so palpable an irony as to de- 
 stroy the whole effect which one would wish to create by 
 telling the stories at all. 
 
 For the other and greater matter of the University, I think 
 it is very probable that I shall have to leave it ; but I cannot 
 believe that it is otherwise than a solemn duty to stand by it 
 as long as I can hope to turn it to good. Undoubtedly we 
 must not do evil that good may come ; but we may and must 
 bear much that is painful, and associate with those whom we 
 disapprove of, in order to do good. What is the evil of be- 
 longing to the University a priori ? There is no avowed prin- 
 ciple in its foundation which I think wrong ; the comprehen^ 
 sion of all Christians, you know, I think most right ; if more 
 be meant, I think it most wrong ; but this is the very point 
 which I am trying to bring to issue ; and, though my fears of 
 the issue outweigh my hopes, yet while there is any hope ] 
 ought not to give up the battle.
 
 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 101 
 
 CLXX. TO EEV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Fox How, January 23, 1838. 
 
 I had intended to answer your kind letter of the 21st of 
 November long before this time ; I reserved it for the leisure 
 of Fox How, and I have found, as is often the case, that the 
 less 1 have to do, the less I do of anything. Now our holi- 
 days are fast wearing away, and in little more than a week 
 we shall leave this most delightful home ; a home indeed so 
 peaceful and so delightful, that it would not be right to make 
 it one's constant portion ; but after the half-years at Rugby, 
 which now begin to be quite as much as I can well bear, the 
 rest seems to be allowed ; and I drink it in with intense 
 enjoyment, and I hope with something of the thankfulness 
 which it claims 
 
 To London I must go, on account of our meeting of the 
 London University on the 7th, when the question of Scrip- 
 tural Examination will again be discussed. It was curious to 
 me, knowing my character at Oxford, to hear myself charged, 
 at our last meeting in December, with wishing to engross the 
 University of London for the Established Church, as the 
 other Universities were engrossed by it already. The oppo- 
 sition is very fierce I could not examine a Jew in a 
 
 history of which he would not admit a single important fact, 
 nor could I bear to abstain systematically from calling our 
 Lord by any other name than Jesus, because I must not 
 
 shock the Jew by implying that He was the Christ 
 
 The prevailing evils in the University of Oxford are, to be 
 sure, rather of a different character from those of the Uni- 
 versity of London But you have done much good 
 
 with the statutes, and I delight to hear about the prospect of 
 the six scholarships. 
 
 I have been engaged in tiresome disputes about my History 
 with the booksellers, and they are only just settled. The first 
 volume will now, I suppose, go to press speedily, and I have 
 begun the second. It is delightful work when I can get on 
 with it without interruption, as is the case here. Besides this, 
 I have done little except reading Newman's book about Ro- 
 manism and Protestantism, and Bishop Sanderson's work on 
 the Origin of Government, which Pusey refers to in the 
 Preface to his Sermons. The latter work does not raise my 
 opinion of its author ; it contains divers startling assertions, 
 admirably suited to the purposes of text quoters, which ap- 
 9*
 
 102 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 pear to advocate pure despotism ; but then they are so quali- 
 fied, that at last one finds nothing surprising in them, except 
 the foolishness or the unfairness of putting them out at first 
 
 in so paradoxical a form.* I think, by what I hear, 
 
 the cold in Oxford must have been more severe than with us. 
 I have not seen our thermometer lower than 14, at which it 
 stood at 9 A. M. last Saturday, in a northern aspect. But we 
 have had no snow in the valleys till Sunday, and the water 
 
 in the house has never frozen The hills have been 
 
 very hard to walk on, all the streams being hard frozen, and 
 the water which generally is steeping all the surface of the 
 slopes being now sheets of ice. But the waterfalls and the 
 snowy mountain summits, backed by the clear blue sky, have 
 been most beautiful. 
 
 CLXXI. TO THE CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 (On the affair of the Archbishop of Cologne.) 
 
 Fox How, January 27, 1838. 
 
 When I consider the question I am more and 
 
 more at a loss to guess how it can be satisfactorily solved. 
 How can truth and error be brought into harmony ? This 
 marriage question is admirably fitted for showing the ab- 
 surdity of the favorite distinction between spiritual things and 
 secular. Every voluntary moral action is to a Christian both 
 the one and the other. " Spiritual " and " ritual " differ ut- 
 terly. Mere ritual observances may be separated from secular 
 actions, but ritual observances are not a Christian's religion: 
 A Christian's religion is coextensive with his life, and how 
 can he in the general tenor of his life obey two masters, the 
 King and the Pope ; how can he at once obey the rightful 
 authorities of the Christian Church and the usurped authority 
 of Priestcraft? I lament the very expressions in which the 
 actual dispute is described. It is represented as a contest 
 between, the Church and the Government, or between the 
 Church and the State ; in which case I think that all Chris- 
 tians would be bound to obey the Church, and, if the State's 
 commands are incompatible with such obedience, to submit to 
 martyrdom. But hi truth, you are the Church, and the Arch- 
 
 * Of Mr. Newman's book he says in another letter, " Parts of it I think 
 very good," [the allusion here was especially to Lecture xii., Scripture 
 the record of our Lord's teaching,] " parts as bad as bad can be."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 103 
 
 bishop of Cologne represents the Church's worst enemy, the 
 spirit of priesthood. It is Korah the Levite, falsely pretend- 
 ing to be a priest, and in that false pretension rebelling against 
 Moses. But this mingled usurpation and rebellion this root 
 of anarchy, fraud, and idolatry is the very main principle 
 of all popery, whether Romish or Oxonian, whether of the 
 Archbishop of Cologne or of Pusey and Newman. How 
 either you or we can preserve the Church from it, I do not 
 see ; but from the bottom of my heart do I " wish you good 
 luck in the name of the Lord," in this most holy cause. 
 
 Connected with this is Rothe's book, which I have read 
 with great interest. His first position that the State, and 
 not the Church, (in the common and corrupt sense of the 
 term,) is the perfect form under which Christianity is to be 
 developed entirely agrees with my notions. But his sec- 
 ond position that the Church in the corrupt sense, that is, 
 a priestly government, transmitted by a mystical succession 
 from one priest to another, is of apostolical origin seems to 
 me utterly groundless. It may be, that the Apostles, after 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, if any of them survived it, 
 made the government of the Church more monarchical, and 
 less popular ; and that they were very anxious to commit it 
 to persons of their own choice, or chosen by those who had 
 been so. But this does not touch the point. Different states 
 of society require governments more or less despotic, and that 
 the Church should be governed according to the principles of 
 Christianity as set forth by the Apostles, is most certain. The 
 mischief of the false Church notion consists in its substitu- 
 tion of the idea of priesthood for that of government, and as 
 a consequence, deriving the notion of a mystical succession 
 throughout all time, which does not and cannot preserve the 
 spirit of the Apostles' principles, but paralyzes the free action 
 of the Church, and introducing a principle incompatible with 
 all sound notions of law and government, at one time crushes 
 the Church with its tyranny, and at another distracts it with 
 its anarchy. I am convinced that the whole mischief of the 
 great Antichristfan apostasy has for its root the tenet of " a 
 priestly government transmitted by a mystical succession from 
 the Apostles."
 
 104 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CLXXII. *TO A. H. CLOUGH, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, January 29, 1838. 
 
 I hope to see you before another week is over ; still, as in 
 my short visits to Oxford I see everybody in some hurry, I 
 wished to send these few lines by Hill to thank you for a very 
 kind letter which I received from you in November, and which 
 you might perhaps think I had altogether forgotten. I \\;is 
 very much obliged to you for it, and pray believe that, when- 
 ever you can write to me, your letters will give me the greatest 
 interest and pleasure. I delight in your enjoyment of Oxford, 
 and in what you say of the union amongst our Rugby men 
 there. But I cannot think that you are yet thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with the country about Oxford, as you prefer the 
 Rugby fields to it. Not to mention Bagley Wood, do you 
 know the little valleys that debouche on the Valley of the 
 Thames behind the Hinkseys ; do you know Horspath, nest- 
 ling under Shotover ; or Elsfield, on its green slope, or all the 
 variety of Cumnor Hill, or the wider skirmishing ground by 
 Beckley, Stanton St. John's, and Foresthill, which we used to 
 expatiate over on whole holidays ? 
 
 As for the school, Tickell's success was most welcome and 
 most beneficial ; the railway and the multitude of coaches will 
 I suppose bring with them their anxieties ; but it is of no use 
 to anticipate them beforehand. I trust with God's blessing 
 we shall continue to go on doing some good, restraining some 
 evil, but we shall ever do too little of the former, and leave 
 too much of the latter in vigor, to allow of any feeling of self- 
 satisfaction. But I have an unmixed pleasure in thinking of 
 many of those who have been and who are still with us : and 
 this pleasure more than makes up for many cares. I was very 
 glad to have Burbidge here, and delighted to see how he 
 enjoyed the country. You may be sure that we shah 1 be very 
 glad to have you and him in our neighborhood in the summer, 
 if his castle is ever built. I have been at work steadily, and 
 have begun the second volume of my History : the first will I 
 suppose now go to press without any farther delays. We are 
 all well, and unite in kindest regards to you.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 105 
 
 CLXXIII. TO SIR T. S. PASLEY, BART. 
 
 Rugby, February 16, 1838. 
 
 You may perhaps have seen in the papers an account of our 
 meeting at the London Uni^rsity ; but at any rate I will keep 
 my promise, and give you my own report of it. Every single 
 member of the Senate except myself was convinced of the ne- 
 cessity, according to the Charter, of giving the Jews Degrees ; 
 all were therefore inclined to make an exemption in their 
 favor as to the New Testament Examination, and thus to 
 make that Examination not in all cases indispensable. Most 
 were disposed to make it altogether voluntary, and that was 
 the course which was at last adopted. The Examination is 
 not to be now restricted to any one part of the New Testament, 
 and it is to be followed by a certificate of a man's having 
 simply passed it, and a class paper for those who are distin- 
 guished in it. I think that it will be passed so generally, as 
 to mark very much those who do not pass it ; and in this way 
 it will do good. It also saves the University from the reproach 
 of neglecting Christianity altogether. But it does not main- 
 tain the principle which I wished ; and as on the one hand I 
 think it neither fair nor of any use to go on agitating the 
 question with every one against me, so, on the other, I have 
 no satisfaction in belonging to a body whose views are so dif- 
 ferent from mine ; and I should leave them at once, were I not 
 anxious to see something of the working of our Scriptural 
 Examination, and, if possible, to try to settle it on a good 
 footing. After we left you at Bowness, we had no farther 
 adventures. When we came to Lyth, the snow was all gone, 
 and between Lancaster and Preston the roads were quite 
 dirty. We slept at Yarrow Bridge, embarked on the railway 
 the next day at Warrington, and got safe home by about ten 
 o'clock. Our visit to Oxford was very delightful; we saw 
 great numbers of my old pupils, and met with a very kind 
 reception from every one. Have you yet got Pusey's Sermon, 
 or seen the review of it in the Edinburgh Review ? That 
 article was written, I am told, by Merivale, the Political Econ- 
 omy Professor ; I have looked at it, and like its tone and abil- 
 ity, though I do not think that it takes the question on the 
 highest ground. From Oxford we went to London, where my 
 two days were passed, one at the University, and the other at 
 Mr. Phillips's room, where I sat for my portrait. Then we 
 went down to Laleham, from whence I paid a visit to Eton, a
 
 106 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 place which has always a peculiar interest for me. And now 
 we are as regularly settled at our work as if we had never 
 stirred from Rugby, and looking forward to the speedy open- 
 ing of the Railway to Birmingham, to effect which, we have 
 six hundred men working night and day, as hard as the frost 
 will let them. I rejoice in the prospect of a peaceful settle- 
 ment of the affair of the Caroline ; it is not easy to make out 
 the facts exactly, nor, if I knew the truth, am I quite sure as 
 to the law. But one is glad to find the American Govern- 
 ment disposed to act justly and in a friendly spirit ; and the 
 Buffalo and the Canada Orangemen will not, if this be the 
 case, be able to involve the two countries in war. Alas, for 
 all our evergreens, if these biting east winds last much longer. 
 Poor Murphy's reputation must be pretty well at an end now. 
 
 CLXXIV. TO THE BISHOP OF NORWICH. 
 
 Rugby, February 17, 1838. 
 
 The result of the meeting of the London University, on the 
 7th, has placed me personally in a situation of great embar- 
 rassment; and I venture to apply to you, to learn whether 
 you, on your own part, also feel the same difficulty. On the one 
 hand, the Senate were so unanimous in their opinion, that the 
 admission of unbelievers of all sorts to Degrees in Arts could 
 not be resisted under the terms of the Charter, that I should 
 not think it becoming to agitate the question again. And I 
 think that the voluntary examination which we have gained is 
 really a great point, and I am strongly tempted to assist, so 
 far as I can, towards carrying it into effect. But, on the other 
 hand, the University has solemnly avowed a principle to which 
 I am totally opposed, namely, that education need not be 
 connected with Christianity ; and I do not see how I can join 
 in conferring a degree on those who, in my judgment, cannot 
 be entitled to it ; or hi pronouncing that to be a complete edu- 
 cation, which I believe to be no more so than a man without 
 his soul or spirit is a complete man. Besides, my continuing 
 to belong to the University, may be ascribed to an unwilling- 
 ness to offend the Government from interested motives ; all 
 compliances with the powers that be being apt to be ascribed 
 to unworthy considerations. Yet, again, you will believe me, 
 though Newman probably would not, when I say, that I feel 
 exceedingly unwilling to retire on such grounds as mine, while 
 three Bishops of our Church do not feel it inconsistent with
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 107 
 
 their duty to remain in the University ; it seems very like 
 presumption on my part, and a coming forward without author- 
 ity, when those, who have authority, judge that there is no 
 occasion for any protest. My defence must be that the prin- 
 ciple to which I so object, and which appears to me to be in- 
 volved by a continuance in the University, may not appear to 
 others to be at stake on the present occasion : that I am not 
 professing, therefore, or pretending to be more zealous for 
 Christianity than other members of the Senate, but that what 
 appears to me to be dangerous appears to them to be perfectly 
 innocent ; and that they naturally, therefore, think most of 
 the good which the University will do, while I fear that all 
 that good will be purchased by a greater evil, and cannot, 
 therefore, take any part in the good, as I should wish to do, 
 because, to my apprehension, it will be bought too dearly. On 
 the whole, my leaning is towards resigning ; and then I think 
 that I ought to do it speedily, as my own act, and not one into 
 which I may seem to have been shamed by the remonstrances 
 or example of others of King's College, for instance ; if, as 
 seems possible, they may renounce all connection with us after 
 our late decision. 
 
 CLXXV. TO. REV. J. K. TYLER. 
 
 February 17, 1838. 
 
 You will feel, I think, the exceedingly difficult situation in 
 which I am placed. I am personally very anxious to resign ; 
 but the engine is so powerful, that I hardly dare to abandon 
 all share in the guidance of it, while there is any chance of 
 turning it to good. I feel also, that the decision of King's 
 College would greatly assist in determining me how to act. 
 If they break off all connection with us, and thus leave us 
 wholly in the condition of an University for men of one party 
 only, I should be in haste to be gone ; but if they stay on, 
 and are willing to avail themselves of our religious Examina- 
 tion, I should like to stay on too, to make that Examination 
 as good as I could. If you know what Hugh Rose's senti- 
 ments are on this point, will you have the goodness to write 
 me a few lines about it ? Your Consecration Sermon for the 
 Bishop of Salisbury never reached me, or otherwise I hope 
 that I should have had the grace to thank you for it long ere 
 now. I used to think that we agreed well, but I heard that 
 you had been shocked by my Church Reform Pamphlet ; and
 
 108 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 many men with whom I once agreed have been scared in 
 these later days, and have, as I think, allowed their fears to 
 drive them to the wrong quarter for relief. I could tell you 
 readily enough with what parties I disagreed namely, with 
 all. My own TtXtiorarov TfXos I shall never see fulfilled, and 
 
 what is the least bad, bevrepos TT\OVS, I hardly know 
 
 I heard of your bad illness, and was glad to find that you 
 were recovered again. I, too, have lately felt that I am not 
 so young as when we skirmished in the common room at Oriel, 
 or speared on Shotover ; but God gives me still so much 
 health and strength, that I have no excuse for not serving 
 him more actively. 
 
 CLXXVI. TO AN OLD PUPIL. 
 
 Rugby, February 28, 1838. 
 
 Some passages of your letter have, I confess, 
 
 alarmed me, as seeming to show that you do not enough allow 
 for the effect of the local influences around you ; that ques- 
 tions assume an unreal importance in your eyes, because of 
 their accidental magnitude within the immediate range of 
 your own view ; that you are disposed to dispute great truths, 
 because in the society into which you happen to be thrown, it 
 has become the fashion to assail them. Now, I remember 
 that in Henry Marty n's Journal, written when he was in 
 Persia, there is a passage to this effect : " I reviewed the evi- 
 dence hi proof of the falsehood of Mahommedanism, and found 
 it clear and convincing." It was natural that to him, h'ving 
 in Persia, Mahommedanism should have acquired an impor- 
 tance of which we in Europe can form no idea ; it was natural 
 that he should endeavor to satisfy himself of the falsehood of 
 that which we in England may dismiss from our minds with 
 little hesitation. But I think it would have startled us, had 
 we found him attaching so much weight to the goodness and 
 the ability of the Persian Imaums around him, as to conceive 
 it possible that they might be right, and that he might find 
 himself obliged to abandon his faith in Christ, and adopt Islam. 
 Now, you will forgive me for saying that a passage hi your 
 letter did startle me nearly as much, when impressed as it 
 seems by the local and present authority of Newmanism 
 you imagined the possibility that you might be forced to look 
 elsewhere than in the New Testament for the full picture of 
 Christianity ; that you might, on the supposed result of read-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 109 
 
 ing through certain books, written in the second and third 
 centuries, be inclined to adopt the views of St. Paul's Juda- 
 izing opponents, and reject his own. I think that you state 
 the question fairly that it does in fact involve a choice be- 
 tween the Gospel of Christ, as declared by himself and by his 
 Apostles, and that deadly apostasy which St. Paul in his life- 
 time saw threatening, nay, the effects of which, during his 
 captivity, had well-nigh supplanted his own Gospel in the 
 Asiatic Churches, and which, he declares, would come speedily 
 with a fearful power of lying wonders. The Newmanites 
 would not, I think, yet dare to admit that their religion was 
 different from that of the New Testament; but I am perfectly 
 satisfied that it is so, and that what they call Ecclesiastical 
 Tradition, contains things wholly inconsistent with the doc- 
 trines of our Lord, of St. Paul, of St. Peter, and of St. John. 
 And it is because I see these on the one side, and on the other 
 not the writings merely of fallible men, but of men who, ever; 
 in human matters, are most unfit to be an authority, from their 
 being merely the echo of the opinions of their time, instead of 
 soaring far above them into the regions of eternal truth ; (the 
 unvarying mark of all those great men who are and have been 
 not infallible indeed but truly an authority, claiming a 
 priori our deference, and making it incumbent on us to ex- 
 amine well before we pronounce in the peculiar line of their 
 own greatness against them) because the question is truly 
 between Paul and Cyprian ; and because all that is in any 
 way good in Cyprian, which is much, is that which he gained 
 from Paul and from Christianity, that I should not feel 
 myself called upon, except from local or temporary circum- 
 stances, to enter into the inquiry. And, if I did enter into 
 it, I should do it in Martyn's spirit, to satisfy myself, by a 
 renewed inquiry, that I had unshaken grounds for rejecting 
 the apostasy, and for cleaving to Christ and to His Apostles ; 
 not as if by possibility I could change my Master, and having 
 known Christ and the perfections of His Gospel, could ever, 
 whilst life and reason remained, go from Him, to bow down 
 before an unsightly idol. 
 
 And what is there a priori to tempt me to think that this 
 idol should be a god ? This, merely, that in a time of much 
 excitement, when popular opinions in their most vulgar form 
 were very noisy, and seemed to some very alarming, there 
 should have arisen a strong reaction, in which the common 
 elements of Toryism and High-Church feeling, at all times 
 
 VOL II. 10
 
 110 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 rife in Oxford, should have been moulded into a novel form 
 by the peculiar spirit of the place, that sort of religious aris- 
 tocratical chivalry so catching to young men, to students, and 
 to members of the aristocracy, and still more, by the revival 
 of the spirit of the Nonjurors in two or three zealous and able 
 men, who have given a systematic character to the whole. 
 The very same causes produced the same result after the 
 Reformation in the growth and spread of Jesuitism. No man 
 can doubt the piety of Loyola and many of his followers ; yet, 
 what Christian, in England at least, can doubt that, as Jesuit- 
 ism, it was not of God ; that it was grounded on falsehood, 
 and strove to propagate falsehood ? So, again, the Puritans 
 led to the Nonjurors ; zealous, many of them, and pious, but 
 narrow-minded in the last degree, fierce, and slanderous ; and, 
 even when they were opposing that which was very wrong, 
 meeting it with something as wrong or worse. Kenn, and 
 Hickes, and Dodwell, and Leslie, are now historical charac- 
 ters; we can see their party in its beginning, middle, and 
 end, and it bears on it all the marks of an heresy and of a 
 faction whose success would have obstructed good, and 
 preserved or restored evil. Whenever you see the present 
 party acting as a party, they are just like the Nonjurors, 
 busy, turbulent, and narrow-minded ; with no great or good 
 objects, but something that is at best fantastic, and generally 
 mischievous. That many of these men, as of the Nonjurors 
 and of the Jesuits, are far better than their cause and princi- 
 ples I readily allow ; but their cause is ever one and the 
 same a violent striving for forms and positive institutions, 
 which, ever since Christ's Gospel has been preached, has 
 been always wrong, wrong, as the predominant mark of a 
 party ; because there has always been a greater good which 
 needed to be upheld, and a greater evil which needed to be 
 combated, even when what they upheld was good, and what 
 they combated was bad. And if this same spirit infected the 
 early Church also, as from the circumstances of the times and 
 the position of the Church it was exceedingly likely to do, 
 if it infected all the eminent ecclesiastical leaders whose 
 power and influence it was so eminently fitted to promote, 
 if they by their credit, (in many respects most deserved,) per- 
 suaded the Church to adopt it, shall we dignify their error 
 by the specious name of the " Consent of Antiquity," and call 
 it an " Apostolical Tradition," and think that it should guide 
 us in the interpretation of Scripture ; when we see distinctly
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. Ill 
 
 in the Scripture itself that this very same spirit was uniformly 
 opposed to our Lord and His Apostles, and when it is one of 
 the commonest sophisms which History exposes, that the 
 principle of error which a great truth had dislodged, should 
 disguise itself in the outward form, and borrow the nomen- 
 clature of the system which had defeated it ; and then assert 
 that its nature is changed, and that the truth no longer con- 
 demns it, but approves it ? "If we had lived in the days of 
 our fathers we would not have been partakers in the blood of 
 the Prophets." " Paul rightly condemned trusting to circum- 
 cision, but baptism is quite another thing." Whereas all the 
 Newmanite language about baptism might be, and probably 
 was, used by the Jews and Judaizers about circumcision ; the 
 error in both is the same ; i. e. the teaching that an outward 
 bodily act can have a tendency to remove moral evil ; or 
 rather, the teaching that God is pleased to act upon the spirit 
 through the body, in a way agreeable to none of the known 
 laws of our constitution ; a doctrine which our Lord's lan- 
 guage about meats not defiling a man, " because the do not 
 go into the heart, but into the belly," puts down in every 
 possible form under which it may attempt to veil itself. 
 
 CLXXVII. *TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 4, 1838. 
 
 You have my most hearty congratulations on your success 
 in the Examination, which I believe few will more rejoice at 
 than I do. I cannot regret you being bracketed with another 
 man ; for, judging by my own feelings about you, his friends 
 would have been much grieved if he had been below you ; 
 and when two men do so well, there ought, according to 
 my notions, to be neither a better nor a worse of them. 
 Thank you much for your kindness in sending the Class 
 paper, and for your Declamation, which I like very much. 
 How glad shall I be to see you when your Medal Examina- 
 tion is over, and when, the preparation for life being ended, 
 you will begin to think of fife, its actual self. May it be to 
 us both, my dear Vaughan, that true life which begins and 
 has no end in God. My wife and the children fully share in 
 our joy on your account, and join in kindest remembrances.
 
 112 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 CLXXVIII. TO THE EARL OF BURLINGTON. 
 
 (Chancellor of the University of London.) 
 
 Rugby, March 17, 1838. 
 
 I fear that I may be too late in offering the following sug- 
 gestions, but I had not observed the progress of the Committees, 
 till I found by the reports, which I received this morning, 
 that a resolution had been passed, but not yet, I believe, con- 
 firmed, to adopt the recommendation of the Vice-Chancellor, 
 that the examinations should be conducted entirely through 
 the medium of printed papers. I think that is a point on 
 which the experience of Oxford, entirely confirmed in my 
 judgment by my own experience here, is well deserving of 
 consideration, because we habitually use and know the value 
 of printed papers, and we know also the advantages to be 
 derived from a viva voce examination, of which Cambridge 
 has made no trial. I think that these advantages are much 
 too great to be relinquished by us altogether. 
 
 1st The exercise of extempore translation is the only 
 thing in our system of education, which enables a young man 
 to express himself fluently and in good language without pre- 
 meditation. Wherever it is attended to, it is an exercise of 
 exceeding value ; it is, in fact, one of the best possible modes 
 of instruction in English composition, because the constant 
 comparison with the different idioms of the languages, from 
 which you are translating, shows you in the most lively man- 
 ner the peculiar excellences and defects of our own ; and if 
 men are tried by written papers only, one great and most 
 valuable talent, that of readiness, and the very useful habit of 
 retaining presence of mind, so as to be able to avail one's self 
 without nervousness of all one's knowledge, and to express it 
 at once by word of mouth, are never tried at all. 
 
 2d. Nothing can equal a viva voce examination for trying 
 a candidate's knowledge in the contents of a long history or of 
 a philosophical treatise. I have known men examined for two 
 hours together viva voce in Aristotle, and they have been thus 
 tried more completely than could be done by printed papers ; 
 for a man's answers suggest continually further questions ; 
 you can at once probe his weak points ; and, where you find 
 him strong, you can give him an opportunity of doing him- 
 self justice, by bringing him out especially on those very 
 points. 
 
 3d. Time is saved, and thereby weariness and exhaustion
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 113 
 
 of mind to both parties. A man can speak faster than he can 
 write, and he is relieved by the variety of the exercise. 
 
 4th. The e'clat of a viva voce examination is not to be 
 despised. When a clever man goes into the schools at Ox- 
 ford, the room is filled with hearers of all ranks in the Uni- 
 versity. His powers are not merely taken on trust from the 
 report of the examiners ; they are witnessed by the University 
 at large, and their peculiar character is seen and appreciated 
 also. I have known the eloquence of a man's translations 
 from the poets and orators and historians, and the clearness 
 and neatness of his answers in his philosophical examination, 
 long and generally remembered, with a distinctness of impres- 
 sion very different from that produced by the mere knowledge 
 that he is in the first class. And in London, the advantages 
 of such a public viva voce examination would be greater of 
 course than anywhere else, because the audience might be 
 larger and more mixed. 
 
 5th. Presence of mind is a quality which deserves to be 
 encouraged nervousness is a defect which men feel painfully 
 in many instances through life. Education should surely 
 attach some reward to a valuable quality which may be ac- 
 quired in great measure by early practice, and should impose 
 some penalty or some loss on the want of it. Now, if you have 
 printed papers, you effectually save a man from suffering too 
 much from his nervousness ; but if you have printed papers 
 only, you do not, I think, encourage as you should do the ex- 
 cellence of presence of mind, and the power of making our 
 knowledge available on the instant. 
 
 6th. It is an error to suppose that no exact judgment of a 
 man can be formed from a viva voce examination. Like all 
 other things, such an examination requires some attention 
 and some practice on the part of those who conduct it ; but 
 all who have had much experience in it are well aware that, 
 combined with an examination on paper, it is entirely satisfac- 
 tory. In fact, either system, of papers, or of viva voce exami- 
 nation, if practised exclusively, does but half try the men. 
 Each calls forth faculties which the other does not reach 
 equally. 
 
 As it is not in my power to be present at the next meet- 
 ings of the University, I have ventured to say thus much by 
 letter. I trust that I shall not be thought presumptuous in 
 having done so. 
 
 10* H
 
 114 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CLXXIX. *TO DR. GREENHILL. 
 
 Rugby, May 15, 1838. 
 
 I have been lately writing and preaching two sermons on 
 the subject of prophecy, embodying some views which you 
 may perhaps have heard from me six years since, for they 
 have been long in my mind, although I never put them out 
 fully in writing. I have some thoughts of publishing them 
 now, in Oxford, with something of a Preface, developing the 
 notions more fully. But, ere I do this, as I have never found 
 anything satisfactory on the subject, I wish to learn from one 
 who admires and knows pretty thoroughly, the writings both 
 of the early Christian writers and of those of the Church of 
 England, what he would recommend, as containing a good 
 view of the nature and interpretation of prophecy. This I 
 know you can learn from Pusey, and I should be much obliged 
 to you to ask him ; nor should I object to your saying that 
 you are asking for me ; only you need not say anything of my 
 intended publication, which indeed is a very hypothetical in- 
 tention after all. I wish sincerely to read what Pusey, and 
 those who think with him, consider as good on any subject ; 
 on this particular one I do not know that their views would 
 differ from mine. My small respect for those writers whom 
 Pusey admires has been purely the result of experience : 
 whenever I have read them, I have found them wanting. I 
 should be very honestly glad to find some one amongst them 
 who would give me the knowledge which I want. 
 
 We are all tolerably well, but the weather is almost pain- 
 ful to me ; it seems to inflict such suffering on all nature. 
 
 CLXXX. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, May 18, 1838. 
 
 The first volume of Rome will be out on Wednesday, and 
 you will receive your copy, I hope, immediately. I ask for 
 your congratulations on the termination of this part of my 
 labors, whatever may be the merits or success of the book. 
 One object of publishing it in separate volumes is, that the 
 sensible criticisms on the first may be of use to its successors. 
 I hope that I shall have some such, and I shall receive them 
 very thankfully. I want hints as to points which require ex- 
 amination, for I may pass over things through pure ignorance, 
 because I may know nothing about them ; but as to the great
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 115 
 
 point, the richness and power of the narrative, to that no 
 eriticism can help me ; my own standard, I believe, is as high 
 as any man's can be, and my inability to come up to it or 
 near it in my execution constantly annoys me. Yet I hope 
 and think that you will on the whole like the book ; you will 
 not sympathize with all the sentiments about Aristocracy, but 
 I think if you ever see the subsequent volumes, you will find 
 that I have not spared the faults of Democracy. Still, I con- 
 fess that Aristocracy as a predominant element in a govern- 
 ment, whether it be aristocracy of skin, of race, of wealth, of 
 nobility, or of priesthood, has been to my mind the greatest 
 source of evil throughout the world, because it has been the 
 most universal and the most enduring. Democracy and tyr- 
 anny, if in themselves worse, have been, and I think ever will 
 be, less prevalent, at least in Europe ; they may be the 
 Cholera, but aristocracy is Consumption ; and you know that 
 in our climate Consumption is a far worse scourge in the long 
 run than Cholera. The great defect of the volume will be 
 the want of individual characters, which was unavoidable, but 
 yet must lower the interest and the value of the history. The 
 generalities on which I have been obliged to dwell, from the 
 total want of materials for painting portraits, are a sad con- 
 trast to those inimitable living pictures with which Carlyle's 
 History of the French Revolution abounds. 
 
 [After speaking of the London University.] What the 
 end will be I can scarcely tell, but I have no pleasure in re- 
 maining in the University, and yet I do not like to leave it 
 till the very last momeut. It makes me feel very lovingly to 
 Rugby, where I seem to have, in principle at least, what I 
 most like, that is, a place neither like the University of 
 
 London, nor yet like Oxford, where we are not 
 
 ashamed of Christianity or of the Church of England, while 
 we have no sympathy with those opinions and feelings which 
 possess the majority of the clergy, from Archbishop Howley 
 downwards. 
 
 CLXXXI. TO THE BISHOP OF NORWICH. 
 
 Rugby, June 7, 1838. 
 
 I am much obliged to you for the information contained in 
 your letter. I have always objected to the Rule which you 
 have marked A ; whereas I agree with Rule B, if by " pecu- 
 liarity of doctrinal views " be meant the peculiar opinions of
 
 116 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 any denomination of Christians. But Rule A seems to me 
 to be needlessly offensive. As the theological Examination is 
 not necessary to the Degree, no one surely but Christians 
 would wish to pass it ; and why should we say that we do 
 not intend it to imply any man's belief in Christianity ? I, 
 for one, could never examine any man in the New Testament, 
 if I thought that he did not believe it, or was not in a state of 
 mind in which he was honestly and respectfully acquiring a 
 knowledge of it with a view to his religious belief. I have 
 always thought that to examine in it merely as a matter of 
 curious information was a very great profaneness. 
 
 Again, have you thought anything more of what Arch- 
 bishop Whately suggested to Dr. Jerrard, through Dr. Dick- 
 enson, that the certificate of a man's Degree should notice his 
 having passed the theological Examination ? Now I see that 
 the theological Examination is to follow the Degree, so that 
 this cannot be done; and the Degree is to air intents and 
 purposes complete before the theological Examination even 
 comes into question. And, when I find from Hugh Rose's 
 letter to Hare, in answer to some inquiries of mine, that he 
 will care little whether the students of King's College pass 
 our Examination in theology or no, I am greatly afraid that 
 our Examination will fail practically, as well as in principle, 
 to make a marked distinction between the Christian and un- 
 christian students of our University : the one great point 
 which Warburton dreads, and I deem essential. 
 
 I cannot disguise from myself that the University of Lon- 
 don, in its public capacity, cannot be considered as a Chris- 
 tian institution, although it may happen that all its branches 
 individually may be Christians ; and therefore I must with- 
 draw from it. Living at such a distance as I do, I can be of 
 no practical use ; and, if I could, I feel that the practical 
 good to the extent which alone would be possible would be 
 dearly bought by my acquiescence in a principle which I 
 so strongly disapprove. 
 
 To see my hopes for this new University thus frustrated, 
 is one of the greatest disappointments I have ever met with. 
 But I cannot be reconciled to such a total absence of all con- 
 fession of the Lord Jesus, and such a total neglect of the 
 command to do all things in His name, as seems to me to be 
 hopelessly involved in the constitution of our University. 
 
 As to the manner of my resignation, I would fain do it 
 in the quietest manner possible, consistent with the simple
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 117 
 
 declaration of the reasons which led me to it. I suppose 
 that the proper way would be to write a short letter to the 
 Chancellor. 
 
 CLXXXII. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (D.) ON DIFFICULTIES IN 
 
 SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 Fox How, June 22, 1838. 
 
 My own answer must be clear to you from my 
 
 own practice. I do not believe the damnatory clauses in the 
 Athanasian Creed, under any qualification given of them, ex- 
 cept such as substitute for them propositions of a wholly dif- 
 ferent character. Those clauses proceed on a false notion, 
 which I have* elsewhere noticed, that the importance of all 
 opinions touching God's nature is to be measured by his 
 greatness ; and that therefore erroneous notions about the 
 Trinity are worse than erroneous notions about Church gov- 
 ernment or pious frauds, or any other disputed point on which 
 there is a right and a wrong, a true and a false, and on which 
 the wrong and the false may indeed be highly sinful ; but it 
 does not follow that they must be ; and their sinfulness does 
 not depend upon their wrongness and falsehood, but on other 
 circumstances in the particular mind of the person holding 
 them. But I read the Athanasian Creed, and have and 
 would again subscribe the Article about it, because I do not 
 conceive the clauses in question to be essential parts of it, or 
 that they were retained deliberately by our Reformers after 
 the propriety of retaining or expunging them had been dis- 
 tinctly submitted to their minds. They retained the Creed, 
 I doubt not, deliberately ; to show that they wished to keep 
 the faith of the general Church in matters relating to the 
 Arian, Macedonian, Nestorian, Eutychian, and Socinian con- 
 troversies ; and as they did not scruple to burn Arians, so 
 neither would they be likely to be shocked by the damnatory 
 clauses against them ; but I do not imagine that the Article 
 about the Creed was intended in the least to refer to the 
 clauses, as if they supposed that a man might embrace the 
 rest of the Creed, and yet reject them. Nor do I think that 
 the Reformers, or the best and wisest men of the Church 
 since, would have objected to any man's subscription, if they 
 had conceived such a case ; but would have said, " What we 
 
 * Postscript to " Principles of Church Reform," p. 9. For the limitation 
 to this statement, see, amongst other passages, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 140.
 
 118 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 mean you to embrace is the belief of the general Church, as 
 expressed in the Three Creeds, with regard to the points, 
 many of them having been much disputed, on which those 
 Creeds pronounce ; the degree of blnmableness in tho.*e 
 who do not embrace this belief is another matter, on which 
 we do not intend to speak particularly in this Article." I do 
 not think that there is anything evasive or unfair in this. I 
 do not think that it even requires in its defence, what is 
 yet most true, that Church subscriptions mtist be taken in 
 their widest rather than in their strictest sense, except on 
 points where they were especially intended to be stringent, 
 and to express the opposite of some suspected opinion. Yet, 
 when you speak of others throwing your subscription in your 
 teeth, you may surely say that it does indeed require the ut- 
 most laxity of interpretation to reconcile Newmanism with a 
 subscription to our Articles, because there, on points especially 
 disputed, such as the Authority of Tradition, and the King's 
 Supremacy, the Church of England and the Newmanites are 
 directly at variance. As far as Keble or Newman are con- 
 cerned, the most decided Socinian might subscribe the Arti- 
 cles as consistently as they do ; but this of course is not the 
 point, and my opinion as to the damnatory clauses, as it is 
 much older than the rise of Newmanism, so it stands on 
 grounds far different from a mere argumentum ad hominem, 
 and is, I think, perfectly right, considered simply on the 
 merits of the case. 
 
 When the faults of the London University revive 
 
 all my tenderness for Oxford, then the faults of Oxford repel 
 me again, and make it impossible to sympathize with a spirit 
 so uncongenial. Wherefore I wish the wish of Achilles, when 
 he looked out upon the battle of the ships and desired that the 
 Greeks and Trojans might destroy one another, and leave the 
 field open for better men. 
 
 We had a very prosperous journey, and arrived here 
 yesterday evening about nine o'clock. The place is most 
 beautiful ; but the rain is falling thick. 
 
 CLXXXIII. TO T. F. ELLIS, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, August 29, 1838. 
 
 Independently of the real pleasure which it would give me 
 to be of any service to a friend of yours, I have that admira- 
 tion of Mr. Macaulay's writings, and have derived so much
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 119 
 
 pleasure from them, that it would be but a matter of simple 
 gratitude to do anything in my power towards facilitating his 
 observations during his stay at Rome. I was there myself 
 so very short a time, that I was able only to look at the mere 
 outline of things ; and it was my object to go to as many of 
 the higher points as I could, in and about Rome, that by 
 getting the landscape from a number of different points I 
 might better understand the bearings of its several parts 
 towards one another. For instance, I went to the top of the 
 dome of St. Peter's ; to that of the tower of the Capitol ; to 
 the Monte Mario ; the terrace of the Church of St. Pietro in 
 Montorio, (on the old Janiculum,) that of the Convent of St. 
 Gregorio, I think it is, on the Coelian, (from which you look 
 upon the reverse of the Esquiline, just at the place where the 
 street of the Carinaa ran along,) to the old mound of Ser. 
 Tullius ; to the summits of the Aventine and Palatine, &c. ; 
 by which I always fancy that I have retained a more distinct, 
 and also a more lively and picturesque image of Rome than I 
 could otherwise have gained within the same space of time ; 
 and if I were to go again, I think I should do the same thing. 
 Out of Rome I should recommend, as near objects, Tivoli, of 
 course, and the Alban hills, and especially Palestrina (Prae- 
 neste). If I could get there again, I should wish especially 
 to take the upper road from Rome to Naples, by Palestrina, 
 Anagni, Frosinone, and the valley of the Garigliano. This 
 is every way a most interesting line, and it might easily 
 include Arpino. I am not sure where you would best come out 
 upon the plain of Naples. I should try to get by S. Ger 
 mano and Monte Cassino, in the great road from Naples, 
 across to the Adriatic ; and so to descend by the Valley of the 
 Voltorno, either upon Capua, or straight by Carazzo and 
 Caserta. 
 
 Much must depend on the state of the banditti, which is 
 always known on the spot. If they are well put down, as I 
 believe they are, the upland valleys in the central Apennines 
 are most attractive. I had a plan once of turning off from 
 the great road at Terni, then ascending the valley of the 
 Velino to Rieti, and making my way through what they call 
 me Cicolano, the country of the Aborigines of Cato down 
 upon Alba and the Lake Fucinus ; from thence you can go 
 either to Rome or Naples, as you like. The neighborhood 
 of Alba is doubly interesting, as it is close by the field of 
 Scurzola, the scene of Conradin's defeat by Charles of Anjou.
 
 120 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 In Etruria I would make any efforts to get to Voltera, which 
 is accessible enough, either from Leghorn or from Sienna. 
 If Mr. Macaulay is going into the kingdom of Naples, he will 
 find Keppel Craven's recent book, " Travels in the Abruzzi," 
 &c., exceedingly useful, as a regular guide, I have not met 
 with a better book. Does he know WestphaPs book on the 
 Campagna? lengthy, but full of details, which are carefully 
 done. 
 
 CLXXXIV. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 (Two letters, as being closely connected with each other, are here joined.) 
 
 (A.) Fox How, August 6, 1838. 
 
 Just before the holidays, I had a letter from Card- 
 well, in which he mentioned that there was some scheme for 
 enlarging the sphere of the Degree Examination. I should 
 rejoice at this, but I more desire your old plan of an Exam- 
 ination at entrance, which would be so great a benefit at once 
 to you and to us. With regard to the Examinations, I hear a 
 general complaint of the variableness of the standard ; that 
 new Examiners lay the main stress on the most different things ; 
 with some Scholarship is everything, with others History, 
 with others the Aristotle, &c. Now it is a very good thing 
 that all these should have their turn, and should all be insisted 
 upon ; but I think that some notice should be given before- 
 hand, and that a new Examiner should state, like the Praetors 
 at Borne, what points he intended particularly to require : for 
 at present, the men say that they are often led to attend to 
 one thing, from the experience of the last Examination, and 
 then a new Examiner attaches the greatest importance to 
 
 something else. 
 
 (B.) 
 
 I hear that you are thinking of extending the 
 
 range of your Examinations at Oxford, at which I wish you 
 all manner of success. I do not think that you need in the 
 least to raise the standard of your classes, but a pass little go, 
 or even great go, is surely a ridiculous thing, as all that the 
 University expects of a man after some twelve or fourteen 
 years of schooling and lecturing. I think, too, that physical 
 science can nowhere be so well studied as at Oxford, because 
 the whole spirit of the place is against its undue ascendency ; 
 for instance, Anatomy, which in London is dangerously, as I 
 think, made one of the qualifications for a degree, might be, J
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 121 
 
 imagine, profitably required at Oxford, where you need not 
 dread the low morals and manners of so many of the common 
 
 medical students 
 
 I have read Froude's volume,* and I think that its pre- 
 dominant character is extraordinary impudence. I never saw 
 a more remarkable instance of that quality than the way in 
 which he, a young man, and a clergyman of the Church of 
 England, reviles all those persons whom the accordant voice 
 of that Church, without distinction of party, has agreed to 
 honor, even perhaps with an excess of admiration. 
 
 CLXXXV. t TO THE REV - w ' K - HAMILTON. 
 
 Rugby, October 5, 1838. 
 
 Will you thank "Wordsworth for his specimen of his Gram- 
 mar when you write to him ? I am glad that he writes it in 
 Latin, being fully convinced that an English Grammar will 
 never be remembered with equal tenacity. 
 
 You are indeed too much of a stranger to us, and it would 
 delight us to see you here again, or still more to see you in 
 Westmoreland. But I know the claims of your parish upon 
 your time ; as well as those of your relations. Only, when- 
 ever you can come to us, let me beg that you will not let slip 
 the opportunity 
 
 There seems to me to be a sort of atmosphere of 
 
 unrest and paradox hanging around many of our ablest young 
 men of the present day, which makes me very uneasy. I do 
 not speak of religious doubts, but rather of questions as to 
 great points in moral and intellectual matters ; where things 
 which have been settled for centuries seem to be again brought 
 into discussion. This restless love of paradox, is, I believe, 
 one of the main causes of the growth of Newmanism ; first, 
 directly, as it leads men to dispute and oppose all the points 
 which have been agreed upon in their own country for the 
 last two hundred years ; and to pick holes in existing reputa- 
 tions ; and then, when a man gets startled at the excess of 
 his scepticism, and finds that he is cutting away all the 
 ground under his feet, he takes a desperate leap into a blind 
 fanaticism. I cannot find what I most crave to see, and what 
 still seems to me no impossible dream, inquiry and belief 
 
 * That is, the first volume of the first part of Froude's Remains. The other 
 three volumes he had not read. 
 
 VOL. II. 11
 
 122 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 going together, and the adherence to truth growing with in- 
 creased affection, as follies are more and more cast away. 
 
 But I have seen lately such a specimen of this, and of all 
 other things, that are good and wise and holy, as I suppose 
 can scarcely be matched again in the world. Bunsen has 
 been with us for six days, with his wife and Henry. It was 
 delightful to find that my impression of his extraordinary 
 excellence had not deceived me; that the reality even sur- 
 passed my recollection of what he was eleven years ago. 
 
 CLXXXVI. TO THE EARL OP BURLINGTON. 
 
 (Chancellor of the University of London.) 
 
 Rugby, November 7, 1838. 
 
 It is with the greatest regret that, after the fullest and fair- 
 est deliberation which I have been able to give to. the subject. 
 I feel myself obliged to resign my Fellowship in the Univer- 
 sity of London. 
 
 The Constitution of the University seems now to be fixed,, 
 and it has either begun to work, or will soon do so. After the 
 full discussion given to the question, on which I had the mis- 
 fortune to differ from the majority of the Senate, I felt that 
 it would be unbecoming to agitate the matter again, and it 
 only remained for me to consider whether the institution of a, 
 voluntary Examination in Theology would satisfy, either prac- 
 tically or in theory, those principles which appeared to me to- 
 be indispensable. 
 
 I did not wish to decide this point hastily, but after the 
 fullest consideration and inquiry I am led to the conclusion, 
 that the voluntary Examination will not be satisfactory. Prac- 
 tically I fear it will not, because the members of King's Col- 
 lege will not be encouraged by their own authorities, so far as 
 I can learn, to subject themselves to it ; and the members of 
 University College may be supposed, according to the prin- 
 ciples of their own society, to be averse to it altogether. But, 
 even if it were to answer practically better than I fear it will 
 do, still it does not satisfy the great principle that Christian- 
 ity should be the base of all public education in this country. 
 Whereas with us it would be no essential part of one system, 
 but merely a branch of knowledge which any man might pur- 
 sue if he liked, but which he might also, if he liked, wholly 
 neglect, without forfeiting his claim, according to our estimate, 
 to the title of a completely educated man.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 123 
 
 And further, as it appeared, I think, to the majority of the 
 Senate, that the terms of our Charter positively forbade that 
 which in my judgment is indispensable ; and as there is a 
 painfulness in even appearing to dispute the very law under 
 which our University exists ; there seems to me an additional 
 reason why, disapproving as I do very strongly of that which 
 is held to be the main principle of our Charter, I should with- 
 draw myself from the University altogether. 
 
 I trust that I need not assure your Lordship or the Senate, 
 that I am resigning my Fellowship from no factious or disap- 
 pointed feeling, or from any personal motives whatever. 
 Most sincerely shall I rejoice if the University does in prac- 
 tice promote the great interests to which the principle appears 
 to me to be injurious. Most glad shall I be if those whose 
 affection to those interests is, I well know, quite as sincere 
 and lively as mine, shall be found to have judged of their 
 danger more truly as well as more favorably. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE, NOVEMBER, 1838, TO SEP- 
 TEMBER, 1841. 
 
 IT is impossible to mistake the change which once 
 more passed over his state of mind during these last 
 years of his life the return, though in a more chas- 
 tened form, of the youthful energy and serenity of the 
 earlier part of his career at Rugby the Martinmas 
 summer succeeding to the dreary storms with which he 
 had been so long encompassed ; and reoalling the more 
 genial season, which had preceded them, yet mellowed 
 and refined by the experience of the intervening period. 
 
 His whole constitution seemed to have received a new 
 spring. " The interest of life," to use his own descrip- 
 tion of middle age,* " which had begun to fade for him- 
 
 * Sermons, vol. iv. p. 116.
 
 124 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 self, revived with vigor in behalf of his children." The 
 education of his own sons in the school, his firmer 
 hold of the reins of government, his greater famil- 
 iarity with the whole machinery of the place, the in- 
 creasing circle of pupils at the Universities, who looked 
 upon him as their second father ; even the additional 
 bodily health which he gained by resuming in 1838 his 
 summer tours on the continent, removed that sense 
 of weariness by which he had been at times oppressed 
 amidst his heavy occupations, and bound him to^iis 
 work at Rugby with a closer tie than ever. 
 
 But it was not only in his ordinary work that a new 
 influence seemed to act upon him in the determination 
 which he formed to dwell on those positive truths on 
 which he agreed with others, rather than to be always 
 acting on the defensive or offensive. 
 
 To this various causes had contributed, the weari- 
 ness of the contest of the last four years, the isolation 
 in which he found himself placed after his failure in the 
 London University, the personal intercourse, now, 
 after an interval of eleven years, renewed with his friend 
 the Chevalier Bunsen, the recoil, which he felt from 
 the sceptical tone of mind which struck him as being at 
 once the cause and effect of the new school of Oxford 
 Theology. It was in this spirit that he struck out all 
 the political allusions of his notes on Thucydides, which 
 were now passing through a second edition, " not," he 
 said, " as abhorring the evils against which they were di- 
 rected, less now than I did formerly, but because we 
 have been all of us taught by the lessons of the last nine 
 years, that, in political matters more especially, moder- 
 ation and comprehensiveness of views are the greatest 
 wisdom." * So, again, in the hope of giving a safbr and 
 more sober direction to the excitement then prevailing 
 in the country on the subject of National Education, he 
 
 * The whole passage in which this occurs (noticing a severe attack upom 
 him, introduced into an article in the Quarterly Keview by "a writer for 
 whom he entertained a very sincere respect") well illustrates his feeling at 
 this time. (Note on Thucyd. ii. 40, 2d ed.)
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 125 
 
 published a Lecture delivered in 1838 before the Me- 
 chanics' Institute at Rugby, on the Divisions of Knowl- 
 edge ; " feeling that while it was desirable on the one 
 hand to encourage Mechanics' Institutes 011 account of 
 the good which they can do, it was no less important to 
 call attention to their necessary imperfections, and to 
 notice that great good which they cannot do." His 
 " Two Sermons on Prophecy, with Notes," which were 
 published in the same year, and which form the most 
 complete and systematic of any of his fragments on Ex- 
 egetical Theology, he regarded as a kind of peace-offer- 
 ing, " in which it was his earnest desire to avoid as 
 much as possible all such questions as might engender 
 strife, that is to say, such as are connected with the 
 peculiar opinions of any of the various parties existing 
 within the Church." And it must have been a pleas- 
 ure to him to witness the gradual softening of public 
 feeling towards himself, not the least perhaps in that 
 peaceful visit of one day to Oxford, to see his friends 
 the Chevalier Bunsen and the aged Poet Wordsworth 
 receive their degrees at the commemoration of 1839, 
 when he also had the opportunity of renewing friendly 
 connections, which the late unhappy divisions had in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 His wish for a closer sympathy and union of efforts 
 amongst all good men was further increased, when, in 
 1839 40, his attention was again called to the social 
 evils of the country, as betraying themselves in the dis- 
 turbances of Chartism, and the alarm which had pos- 
 sessed him in 1831-32 returned, though in a more 
 chastened form, never to leave him. " It haunts me," 
 he said, "I may almost say night and day It fills me 
 with astonishment to see antislavery and missionary so- 
 cieties so busy with the ends of the earth, and yet all 
 the worst evils of slavery and of heathenism are exist- 
 ing amongst ourselves. But no man seems so gifted, 
 or to speak more properly, so endowed by God, with 
 the spirit of wisdom, as to read this fearful riddle truly ; 
 which most Sphinx-like, if not read truly, will most 
 ii*
 
 126 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 surely be the destruction of us all." To awaken the 
 higher orders to the full extent of the evil, was accord- 
 ingly his chief practical aim, whether in the Letters 
 which he addressed to the " Hertford Reformer," or in 
 his attempts to organize a Society for that purpose, as 
 described in the ensuing correspondence. " My fear 
 with regard to every remedy that involves any sacrifices 
 to the upper classes, is, that the public mind is not yet 
 enough aware of the magnitude of the evil to submit to 
 them. ' Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed,' 
 was the question put to Pharaoh by his counsellors ; for 
 unless he did know it, they were aware that he would 
 not let Israel go from serving him." 
 
 Most of all were these feelings exemplified in his 
 desire, now more strong than ever, for the revival of 
 what he believed to be the true idea of the Church. 
 " I am continually vexed," he writes in 1840, " at be- 
 ing supposed to be a maintainer of negatives an 
 enemy to other systems or theories, with no positive 
 end of my own. I have told you how it wearies me 
 to be merely opposing Newmanism, or this thing or 
 that thing ; we want an actual truth, and an actual 
 good. I wish to deliver myself, if I can, of my posi- 
 tive notions, to state that for which I long so eagerly ; 
 that glorious Church which Antichrists of all sorts hate, 
 and are destroying. If any one would join me in this, 
 I should rejoice ; many more, I feel sure, would agree 
 with me, if they saw that the truth was not destructive 
 nor negative, but most constructive, most positive." 
 His desire for removing any particular grievances in 
 the ecclesiastical system was proportionably diminished. 
 The evil to be abated, the good to be accomplished, 
 appeared to him beyond the reach of any single meas- 
 ure ; and though in 1840 he signed a Petition for 
 alteration in the subscription to the Liturgy and Arti- 
 cles, yet it had so little bearing on his general views as 
 not to be worth mention here, except for the purpose 
 of explaining any misapprehension of his doing so. 
 It was planned and drawn up entirely without his par-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 127 
 
 ticipation, and was only brought to his notice by the 
 accident of two of the principal movers being personal 
 friends of his own. Whatever scruples * he had once 
 had on the subject, had been long since set at rest ; 
 and it was merely from his unwillingness to let others 
 bear alone what he conceived to be an unjust odium, 
 that he joined in a measure, from which he would at 
 this period have been naturally repelled, both by his 
 desire to allay those suspicions against him which he 
 was now so anxious to remove, and by his conviction 
 that the objects which he most wished to attain lay 
 entirely in another direction. 
 
 But in proportion to the strength of his belief that 
 these objects, whether social or religious, lay beyond 
 the reach of any single measure, or of any individual 
 efforts, was the deep melancholy which possessed him, 
 when he felt the manifold obstacles to their accomplish- 
 ment. His favorite expression ex&'o-nj 68vvr) TroXXa <poi/e- 
 p ^hos KpaTfew, "the bitterest of all griefs, to 
 
 * This seems the fittest place for noticing a previous passage in his life, 
 connected with the subject of subscription. The graver difficulties, which 
 Mr. Justice Coleridge has noticed as attending his first Ordination, never 
 returned after the year 1820, when he seems to have arrived at a complete 
 conviction both of his conscience and understanding, that there was no real 
 ground for entertaining them. The morbid state of mind into which he was 
 thrown, from various causes, at his entrance on life, makes it difficult to 
 ascertain the exact nature of these doubts, or the exact view which he took 
 of them himself: but the recollection of those friends who best remember 
 him at the time just specified, warrants the conclusion that, whatever they 
 were, he was ultimately freed from them by the joint effect of a healthier 
 frame of mind, when he had entered on practical life, and of the conviction 
 that the view which he eventually adopted was less encumbered with diffi- 
 culties than any other. It was on wholly distinct grounds that, during the 
 inquiries which he prosecuted at Laleham, there arose in his mind scruples 
 
 time to 
 rolve a 
 
 to my own difference, except that, however trifling be the point, and how- 
 ever gladly I would waive it altogether, still, when I am required to acqui- 
 esce in what I think a wrong opinion upon it, I must decline compliance." 
 On these grounds he long hesitated to take Priest's Orders, at least unless 
 he had the opportunity of explaining his objections to the Bishop who or- 
 dained him : and it was in fact on this condition that, after his appointment 
 to Rugby, while still in Deacon's orders, he consented to be ordained by the 
 Bishop of his diocese, at that time Dr. Howley ; as appears from the follow- 
 ing extracts from letters, of which the first states his intention with regard 
 to another situation in 1826, which he fulfilled in 1828, in the interval be-
 
 128 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 see clearly and yet to be able to do nothing," might 
 stand as the motto of his whole mind, as often before 
 in his life, so most emphatically now. The Sermon 
 on " Christ's Three Comings," in the fifth volume, 
 preached in 1889, truly expresses his sense of the state 
 of public affairs ; and in looking at the general 
 aspect of the religious world, " When I think of the 
 Church," he wrote in 1839,"! could sit down and 
 pine and die." And it is remarkable to observe the 
 contrast between the joyous tone of his sermons on 
 Easter Day, as the birthday of Christ's Religion, and 
 the tone of subdued and earnest regret which marks 
 those on Whit Sunday, as the birthday of the Chris- 
 tian Church : " Easter Day we keep as the birthday 
 of a living friend : Whit Sunday we keep as the birth- 
 day of a dead friend." 
 
 Of these general views the fourth volume of Ser- 
 mons, entitled " Christian Life, its Course, its Helps, 
 and its Hindrances," published in May, 1841, is the 
 
 tween his election at Rugby and his entrance upon his office. 1. " As my 
 objections turn on points which all, I believe, would consider immaterial in 
 themselves, I would consent to be ordained, if any Bishop would ordain me 
 on an explicit statement of my disagreement on those points. If he would 
 not, then my course would be plain; and there would be an end of all 
 thought of it at once." 2. " I shall, I believe, be ordained Priest on Trinity 
 Sunday, being ordained by the Bishop of London. I wished to do this, be- 
 cause 1 wished to administer the Sacrament in the chapel at Rugby. :md 
 because, as I shall have in a manner the oversight of the chaplain. I thought 
 it would be scarce seemly for me, as a Deacon, to interfere with a Priest; 
 and after a long conversation with the Bishop of London, I do not object to 
 be ordained." 
 
 This was the last time that he was troubled with any similar perplexities; 
 and in later vears, as appears from more than one letter of this period, he 
 thought that he had, in his earlier life, overrated the difficulties of subscrip- 
 tion. The particular subject of his scruples arose from his doubt, founded 
 chiefly on internal evidence, whether the Epistle to the Hebrews did not 
 belong to a period subsequent to the Apostolical age. It may be worth 
 while to mention, that this doubt was eventually removed by an increased 
 study of the Scriptures and of the early Christian writers. In the ten last 
 years of his life ne never hesitated to use and apply it as one of the most 
 valuable parts of the New Testament: and his latest opinion was inclining 
 to the belief that it might have been written, not merely under the guidance 
 of St. Paul, but by the Apostle himself. The only other difficulty, at this 
 time, to which, however, he attached less importance, and which did not 
 practically affect him in his situation as Head-master, was the indiscrimi- 
 nate use of the Baptismal and Burial Services. On this point also his later 
 opinion is expressed in Serm. iv. 391.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 129 
 
 most complete expression. It is true, indeed, that in 
 parts of it the calmer tone of the last few years is dis- 
 turbed by a revival of the more polemical spirit, which, 
 in the close of 1840 and the beginning of 1841, was 
 again roused against the Oxford school of Theology. 
 That school had in the interval made a rapid progress, 
 and in some important points totally changed its origi- 
 nal aspect ; many of those who had at first welcomed 
 it with joy, were now receding from it in dismay ; 
 many of those who had at first looked upon it with con- 
 tempt and repugnance, were now become its most 
 active adherents. But he was not a man whose first 
 impressions were easily worn off: and his feelings 
 against it, though expressed in a somewhat different 
 form, were not materially altered ; he found new 
 grounds of offence in the place of old ones that were 
 passing away ; and the Introduction to this volume, 
 written at a time when his indignation had been re- 
 cently roused by what appeared to him the sophistry 
 of the celebrated Tract 90, and when the public ex- 
 citement on this question had reached its highest pitch, 
 contains his final and deliberate protest against what 
 he regarded as the fundamental errors of the system. 
 
 Yet even in this, he brought out more strongly than 
 ever the positive grounds on which he felt himself 
 called upon to oppose it. " It is because my whole 
 mind and soul repose with intense satisfaction on the 
 truths taught by St. John and St. Paul, that I abhor 
 the Judaism of the Newmanites, it is because I so 
 earnestly desire the revival of the Church that I abhor 
 the doctrine of the priesthood." And this volume, as 
 a whole, when taken with the one which has been 
 already noticed as preceding it a few years before, may 
 be said to give his full view of Christianity in its action, 
 not on individuals, as in the first volume, or on 
 schools, as in the second, but on the world at large. 
 But whereas the Sermons selected from the ordinary 
 course of his preaching, in the third volume, speak 
 rather of the Christian Revelation in itself, of its
 
 130 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 truths, its evidences, and its ultimate objects, so the 
 fourth, as its title expresses, was intended to convey 
 the feeling so strongly impressed on his mind during 
 this last period, that these objects would be best at- 
 tained by a full development of the Church or Chris- 
 tian society, whether in schools, in parishes, or in 
 States. 
 
 CLXXXVII. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Rugby, November 23, 1838. 
 
 It would be a great shame if I were to put off writing to 
 you till the holidays, and especially after the long and kind 
 letter which I have received from you. I was purposing to 
 write long ago, and to return both to you and Mrs. Hearn my 
 wife's and my own sincere thanks for your kind hospitality to 
 us at Hatford, and to assure you that we both enjoyed our 
 visit exceedingly, and have often since recalled it to our mem- 
 ories ; sometimes, I fear, with almost a disposition to envy 
 you the peacefulness and the comfort of your very delightful 
 Parsonage ; the image of which, as I knew it would, has 
 haunted me at times almost painfully, like the phantoms of 
 green fields, which visit the sailor when he is attacked with 
 sickness far out at sea. When one is well, there is a kindling 
 pleasure in being borne rapidly over the great sea, and living 
 in all the stir of the great highway of nations. But when 
 health fails, then what before was pleasantly exciting becomes 
 harassing, and one indulges in a fond craving for rest. Here, 
 thank God, I have not suffered from failing health, but I have 
 been much annoyed with the moral evils which have come un- 
 der my notice ; and then a great school is very trying. It never 
 can present images of rest and peace ; and when the spring 
 and activity of youth is altogether unsanctified by anything 
 pure and elevated in its desires, it becomes a spectacle that is 
 as dizzying and almost more morally distressing than the 
 shouts and gambols of a set of lunatics. It is very startling 
 to see so much of sin combined with so little of sorrow. In 
 a parish, amongst the poor, whatever of sin exists, there is 
 sure also to be enough of suffering ; poverty, sickness, and 
 old age are mighty tamers and chastisers. But with boys of 
 the richer classes, one sees nothing but plenty, health, and 
 youth ; and these are really awful to behold, when one must
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 131 
 
 feel that they are unblessed. On the other hand, few things 
 are more beautiful, than when one does see all holy and noble 
 thoughts and principles, not the forced growth of pain or in- 
 firmity or privation ; but springing up as by God's immediate 
 planting in a sort of garden of all that is fresh and beautiful ; 
 full of so much hope for this world as well as for Heaven. 
 All this has very much driven the Newmanites out of my 
 head ; and indeed while I am here, I see and hear very little 
 of them, but I quite think they are a great evil, and I fear a 
 growing one ; though on this point I find that opinions differ. 
 
 I could not express my sense of what Bunsen is 
 
 without seeming to be exaggerating ; but I think if you could 
 hear and see him, even for one half-hour, you would under- 
 stand my feeling towards him. He is a man in whom God's 
 graces and gifts are more united than in any other person 
 whom I ever saw. I have seen men as holy, as amiable, as 
 able : but I never knew one who was all three in so extraor- 
 dinary a degree, and combined with a knowledge of things 
 new and old, sacred and profane, so rich, so accurate, so pro- 
 found that I never knew it equalled or approached by any man. 
 
 November 28th. This letter has waited for five days, and 
 I must now manage to finish it. I have been much distressed, 
 also, by the accounts of the alarming agitation which is going 
 on in the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lanca- 
 shire ; an agitation not political merely, but social, complain- 
 ing of the unequal reward of labor, and inveighing against 
 capital and capitalists in no gentle terms. Believing this to 
 be peculiarly our sore spot, any irritation in it always disturbs 
 me ; and I have been tempted to write again on the subject, as 
 I did in 1831 in the Sheffield Letters. One man's writing can 
 do but little, I know ; but there is the wish, " liberare animam 
 meam," and the hope that all temperate and earnest writing 
 on such a subject must do good as far as it is read, must 
 lead men to think and feel quietly, if it be but for a moment. 
 My History gets on but slowly, but still it does make some 
 progress, as much as I can expect here. I am trying to learn 
 a little Hebrew, but I do not know whether I shall be able 
 to make much of it ; it is so difficult to find time to learn, and 
 so irksome to remember the minute rules about the alteration 
 of the vowels. But I should like, on many accounts, to make 
 some progress in it. Is it not marvellous that they can now 
 read the old Egyptian readily, and understand its grammar ? 
 It combines, as I hear, some of the characteristic peculiarities
 
 132 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of the Semitic languages with others belonging to the Indo- 
 Germanic family, as if it belonged to a period previous to the 
 branching off of these two great families from their common 
 stock. But these Egyptian discoveries are likely to be one of 
 the greatest wonders of our age. What think you of actual 
 papyrus MSS. as old as the reign of Psammitichus ? and these, 
 too, in great numbers, and quite legible. 
 
 CLXXXVin. TO THE CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, November 9, 1838. 
 
 I thank you very much for your valuable notes on 
 
 my MS. about the Church. I am sure you will believe me 
 when I say that on such a matter especially, " paene religio 
 mihi est aliter ac tu sentire." And in one main point you 
 agree with the Archbishop of Dublin, who is a man so unlike 
 you, and yet so able, that your agreement on any point is of 
 very great weight. You interpret, I think, as he does, our 
 Lord's words, " that his kingdom was not of this world," and 
 you hold that the Church may not wield the temporal sword. 
 This is undoubtedly the turning-point of the whole question ; 
 and if you are right in these positions, it follows undoubtedly 
 that the Church never can be a sovereign society, and there- 
 fore can never be identical with a Christian State. 
 
 Now I want to know what principles and objects a Chris- 
 tian State can have, if it be really Christian, more or less 
 than those of the Church. In whatever degree it differs from 
 the Church, it becomes, I think, in that exact proportion un- 
 christian. In short, it seems to me that the state must be 
 " the world," if it be not " the Church ; " but for a society of 
 Christians to be " the world " seems monstrous. Nor can I 
 understand, if this be so, how any Christian can take a part, 
 otherwise than as passively obeying, in the concerns of Gov- 
 ernment. If TI woAiTft'a fipii>i> lv ovpatxp, then we are in the 
 world as ei/oi or /XC'TCHKM, and should not be " curiosi in aliena 
 republica." I think, then, that St. Paul's command to the 
 Christians of Corinth would apply to us, and that we ought 
 never to carry a cause into any other than ecclesiastical courts ; 
 for, if the civil courts are not really Church courts, they are 
 not the courts of the <Jyioi, but of the world ; and the world 
 cannot and ought not to judge between Christian and Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 When Christ said that his kingdom was not of this world,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 133 
 
 and forbade James and John to call down fire from heaven, 
 &c., His meaning seems to me to have been this, that moral 
 and religious superiority, i. e. the being Christians, did not 
 confer any title to physical and external dominion.* The 
 saints, as such, are not to claim to exercise power ; and this, 
 I think, is the bar to religious persecution, because it is not 
 the possession of religious superiority that warrants us in 
 exercising physical power over other men. This bars the 
 fanatical doctrine, that the earth belongs to God's saints : it 
 bars also, as I think, all minor phases of the same doctrine ; 
 and especially, I think, it condemns the maintaining by force 
 a Protestant Establishment in a Roman Catholic country, as 
 we do in Ireland. 
 
 But, government being in itself good, and declared to be 
 God's instrument for the punishment of evil and the advance- 
 ment of good, what possible objection can there be to its 
 being exercised by Christians, when they become possessed of 
 it according to the ordinary laws of human society ? And if 
 Christians exercise it they must do it either on the principles 
 of the world, or of the Church ; but it can be only on the 
 latter, for otherwise they would be false Christians. 
 
 Again, the epyov of a Christian State and Church is abso- 
 lutely one and the same ; nor can a difference be made out 
 which shall not impair the Christian character of one or both ; 
 as, e. g. the epyov of the State be made to be merely physical 
 or economical good, or that of the Church be made to be the 
 performing of a ritual service. 
 
 It is said that the State can never be kept sufficiently pure 
 to be worthy of being considered as the Church ; but this to 
 me is a confusion. Purity and extent, whether as Church or 
 State, are to a certain degree incompatible. A large church 
 relaxes discipline, and for this very reason, F will not be- 
 long to the Church of England. On the other hand, States 
 can and have enforced the greatest strictness of life, as at 
 Sparta ; and the law can always insist upon anything which is 
 called for by public opinion. To make public opinion really 
 Christian is difficult ; but it is a difficulty which exists as much 
 in a Church as in a Christian state ; those who are nominal 
 
 * " Was Theodosius right or wrong in changing the temples into churches ? 
 Wrong, if he did it because in his belief Christianity was the only true faith. 
 right if he did it because the Roman world was become Christian, ana 
 chose to have its public worship Christian also." MS. Comments on Arch 
 bishop Whately's Kingdom of Christ 
 
 VOL. II. 12
 
 134 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Christians in one relation will be so in the other. I could 
 add much more on this point ; but this will be enough to show 
 you that I do not differ from you without consideration. But, 
 as the book is in no danger of being published yet, there will 
 be ample time to go over the question again fully, and also to 
 add those explanations which the naked statements in the 
 MS. seem to require. 
 
 Another point, on which I do not seem as yet fully to enter 
 into your views, relates to what you say of the Sacraments. 
 I do not quite understand the way in which you seem to con- 
 nect the virtue of external ordinances with the fact of the 
 Incarnation. My own objection to laying a stress on the 
 material elements, as distinct from the moral effect of the 
 Communion, or of the becoming introduced into the Chris- 
 tian Society, is very strong, because I think that such a 
 notion is at variance with the essential character of Chris- 
 tianity. I am sure that in this we agree ; but yet I think 
 that we should express ourselves differently about the Sacra- 
 ments, and here I believe that you have got hold of a truth 
 which is as yet to me dark ; just as I cannot understand 
 music, yet nothing doubt that it is my fault, and not that of 
 music. 
 
 CLXXXIX. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Fox How, January 12, 1839. 
 
 When I found how entirely I agreed with your 
 
 Sermon on Private Judgment, it struck me that I had taken 
 rather too indifferently the sort of vague odium which has 
 been attached to my opinions, or supposed opinions, for the 
 last ten years in Oxford ; that I had forfeited a means of in- 
 fluence which I might have had, and which would have been 
 a valuable addition to what I have enjoyed among my own 
 pupils at Rugby. I do not mean anything political, nor in- 
 deed as to the right or the wrong of my opinions on any mat- 
 ter, because I have held them decidedly and expressed them 
 openly, and people who differ from me will of course think 
 me wrong. But I think I have endured too quietly a sus- 
 picion affecting me more directly professionally ; a suspicion 
 of heterodoxy such as was raised against Hampden, and 
 which would exclude me from preaching before the Univer- 
 sity ; an office to which otherwise I think I should have a 
 fair claim, from my standing, and from my continued con- 
 nection with the University through the successive generations
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 135 
 
 of my pupils. Now this suspicion is, I contend, perfectly 
 unfounded in itself, and at the present moment it is ridicu- 
 lous ; because the Newmanites are far more at variance with 
 the Articles, Liturgy, and Constitution of the Church of 
 England than any clergymen have been within my memory ; 
 and yet even those who most differ from them do not en- 
 deavor, so far as I know, to hinder them from preaching in 
 Oxford. I am perfectly aware that my opinion about the 
 pretended Apostolical succession is different from that of 
 most individual clergymen, but I defy any man to show that 
 it is different from the opinion of the Church of England ; 
 and, if not, it is fairly an open question, on which any man 
 may express his own opinion peaceably ; and he is the schis- 
 matic who would insist upon determining in his own way 
 what the Church has not determined. But in what is com- 
 monly called doctrine, as distinct from discipline, I do not 
 think that anything can be found in any of my sermons, pub- 
 lished or not published, which is more at variance with the 
 doctrines of the Church than what is to be found in the ser- 
 mons of any other man who has written as many ; and not 
 only so, but I think there is no negative difference ; that is, I 
 think there would be found no omission of any points which 
 the Reformers would have thought essential, bating some par- 
 ticular questions which were important then, and are now 
 gone by. I am perfectly willing to bear my portion of odium 
 for all that I really have written, and the Newmanites may 
 fairly speak against my opinions as I do against theirs. But 
 a vague charge of holding, not wrong, but technically unor- 
 thodox opinions, affects a man's professional usefulness in a 
 way that in any other profession would be thought intolerable ; 
 and, in fact, in other professions men would be ashamed or 
 afraid to breathe it. I have gone on with it quietly for a long 
 time, partly because no charge has ever been brought against 
 me which I could answer, and partly because, whilst I was so 
 fully engaged at Rugby, I was not practically reminded of it. 
 But as I grow older, and the time is approaching more and 
 more when I must, in the natural course of things, be thinking 
 of leaving Rugby, and when I see a state of things in Oxford 
 which greatly needs the help of every man interested about 
 the University, when I see that you are doing a great deal 
 of good, and without any question of your orthodoxy, so far 
 as I know, and yet know that in my constant preaching there 
 is as little that anybody could call heterodox as in yours, it
 
 136 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 makes me feel that I ought not silently to bear a sort of bad 
 name, which to man or dog is little better than hanging ; and 
 that it would be desirable, if there rgally is a similar feeling 
 against me to that which exists against Hampden, to get it if 
 possible into some tangible shape. I wish you would think of 
 this matter a little, and give me your judgment. We are all 
 well and enjoying this rest, which enables me to work and to 
 gain refreshment at the same time. 
 
 CXC. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, January 20, 1839. 
 
 I have often thought of you and the Courant 
 
 during this new excitement of the operative population. 
 Most gladly would I join in any feasible attempt to check 
 this terrible evil, which men seem to regard as so hopeless 
 that they would rather turn their eyes away from it, and not 
 look at it till they must. But that " must " will come, I fear, 
 but too soon ; simply because they will not look at it now. 
 
 I am inclined to think, that the Poor Law, though 
 
 I quite believe it to be in itself just in its principle, has yet 
 done more moral harm, by exasperating the minds of the poor, 
 than it can possibly have done good. I am very far, however, 
 from wishing to return to the old system ; but I think that the 
 Poor Law should be accompanied by an organized system of 
 Church charity, and also by some acts designed in title, as 
 well as in substance, for the relief of the poor, and that by 
 other means than driving them into economy by terror. Econ- 
 omy itself is a virtue which appears to me to imply an exist- 
 ing previous competence ; it can surely have no place in the 
 most extreme poverty ; and for those who have a competence 
 to require it of those who have not, seems to me to be some- 
 thing very like mockery I shall be in London, I 
 
 hope, on the 6th, and shall be staying at No. 1, Tavistock 
 Square. If I can see you either there, or by calling on you 
 in Ludgate Street, it will give me much pleasure. 
 
 CXCI. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Rugby, February 25, 1839. 
 
 I read and have got Gladstone's book, and quite 
 
 agree with you in my admiration of its spirit throughout ; I 
 also like the substance of about half of it ; the rest of course
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 137 
 
 appears to me erroneous. But it must be good to have a 
 public man writing on such a subject, and it delights me to 
 have a good protest against that wretched doctrine of War- 
 burton's that the State has only to look after body and goods. 
 " Too late," however, are the words which I should be in- 
 clined to affix to every plan for reforming society in England ; 
 we are engulfed, I believe, inevitably, and must go down 
 the cataract ; although ourselves, i. e. you and I, may be in 
 Hezekiah's case, and not live to see the catastrophe. 
 
 I thank you very much for your truly kind offer of assist- 
 ance about the Roman History. If any man were reading 
 Augustine or any other writer for his own purposes, and took 
 notes of such points as you mention, there is no doubt that his 
 notes would be very useful to me ; but there is this objection 
 against asking anybody to read for my purposes, that the 
 labor saved to me might not be in proportion to that which I 
 was imposing on him. Such notes -as you suggest would be 
 like an exceedingly good index ; but they must rather guide 
 my own researches than supersede them ; for it is, I think, 
 absolutely necessary to look through for one's self all the most 
 important works which relate to one's period of history. I 
 shall save myself many or most of the Byzantine writers by 
 stopping at any rate in the eighth century, and confining my- 
 self chiefly to the Latin empire. 
 
 ..... I think that, hard as the Agrarian questions are, 
 they connect themselves with one almost harder, namely, 
 "How can slavery be really dispensed with?" It is, of 
 course, perfectly easy to say we will have no slaves, but it is 
 not quite so easy to make all the human inhabitants of a 
 country what free citizens ought to be ; and the state of our 
 railway navigators and cotton operatives is scarcely better for 
 themselves than that of slaves, either physically or morally, 
 and is far more perilous to society. It is when I see all these 
 evils, which I believe the church was meant to remove, that I 
 groan over that fatal system which has so utterly destroyed > 
 it ; that system of substituting unrealities for realities, which 
 Newman and his party are striving to confirm and to propa- 
 gate. But I feel, also, that even a sham is better to most 
 minds than nothing at all ; and that Newmanism ought not to 
 be met with negatives, by trying to prove it to be false, but by 
 something positive, such as the real living Church would be. 
 And how is the Church to be revived ? So Newmanism, I 
 12*
 
 138 LIFE OF DB. AENOLD. 
 
 suppose, will grow and grow, till it provokes a reaction of in- 
 fidelity, and then infidelity will grow and grow, till up starts 
 Newmanism again in such form as it may wear in the twenti- 
 eth or twenty-first century. 
 
 CXCII. *TO A. P. STANLEY, ESQ. 
 
 Bugby, February 27, 1839. 
 
 The stir about Church matters, of which Glad- 
 stone's book is a symptom, interests me, of course, and on the 
 whole delights me. Anything on such point is, I believe, 
 better than the mere ignorance of indifference. But I am 
 more and more anxious to organize, I do not say a party, for 
 I dislike all parties ; but a system of action for those who 
 earnestly look to the Church as the appointed and only pos- 
 sible means of all earthly improvement for society, whether in 
 its larger divisions or 'in its smaller. Nothing can or ought 
 to be done by merely maintaining negatives ; I will neither 
 write nor talk, if I can help it, against Newmanism, but for 
 that true Church and Christianity, which all kinds of evil, each 
 in its appointed time, have combined to corrupt and destroy. 
 It seems to me, that a great point might be gained by urging 
 the restoration of the Order of Deacons, which has been long, 
 quoad the reality, dead. In large towns many worthy men 
 might be found able and willing to undertake the office out of 
 pure love, if it were understood to be not necessarily a step 
 to the Presbyterial order, nor at all incompatible with lay 
 callings. You would get an immense gain by a great exten- 
 sion of the Church, by a softening down that pestilent dis- 
 tinction between clergy and laity, which is so closely linked 
 with the priestcraft system, and by the actual benefits, tem- 
 poral and spiritual, which such an additional number of min- 
 isters would insure to the whole Christian congregation. And 
 I believe that the proposal involves in it nothing which ought 
 to shock even a Newmanite. The Canon Law, I think, makes 
 a very w.ide distinction between the Deacon and the Pres- 
 byter ; the Deacon, according to it, is half a Layman ; and 
 could return at any time to a lay condition altogether ; and I 
 suppose no one is so mad as to maintain that a minister 
 abstaining from all secular callings is a matter of necessity, 
 seeing that St. Paul carried on his trade of tentmaker 
 even when he was an Apostle. Of course the Ordination 
 Service might remain just as it is ; for in fact no alteration in
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the law is needed ; it is only an alteration in certain cus- 
 toms which have long prevailed, but which have really no 
 authority. It would be worth while, I think, to consult the 
 Canon Law and our own Ecclesiastical Law, so far as we 
 have any, with regard to the Order of Deacons. I have long 
 thought that some plan of this sort might be the small end of 
 the wedge, by which Antichrist might hereafter be burst 
 asunder like the Dragon of Bell's temple. 
 
 CXCIII. * TO J. P. GELL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 15, 1839. 
 
 I have just received a letter from Sir John Franklin, who, 
 as you know, is Governor of Van Diemen's Land, accom- 
 panied by one from the Colonial Office, asking me to recom- 
 mend some man as Head-master of a great school in Van 
 Diemen's Land, which it is wished to establish on the very 
 highest scale in the hope that it may hereafter become a Col- 
 lege or University for that part of the world. [After stating 
 the nature of the situation.] He enters at length and with 
 all his heart into the plan ; and from what he tells me of the 
 capabilities and the wants of the situation, I know of no man 
 whom I could so much wish to see intrusted with it as your- 
 self, if you should feel disposed to let me name you to Lord 
 Normanby. It is a most noble field, and in Franklin himself 
 you will have a fellow-laborer, and a Governor with and 
 under whom it would do one's heart good to work. He wants 
 a Christian, a gentleman, and a scholar, a member of one 
 of our Universities, a man of ability and of vigor of char- 
 acter, to become the father of the education of a whole 
 quarter of the globe ; and to assist, under God's blessing, and 
 with the grace of Christ's Spirit, in laying the foundations of 
 all good and noble principles, not only in individual children, 
 but in an infant nation, which must hereafter influence the 
 world largely for good or for evil. And I think that, if you 
 could feel disposed to undertake this great missionary labor, 
 you would work at it in the spirit of Christ's servant, and 
 would become the instrument of blessings, not to be num- 
 bered, to thousands, and would for yourself obtain a Kapnov 
 cpyou, such as can rarely be the fortune of the most ambitious. 
 Let me know your mind as soon as you can decide on a mat- 
 ter which you, I am sure, will not treat lightly. Give my 
 kindest regards to your father, towards whom I feel more
 
 140 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 guilty than towards any one else ; for I am afraid that he and 
 your mother will not thank me for making such a proposal. 
 But I believe you to be so eminently the man for such an 
 undertaking, that I could not acquit myself of my commission 
 to the Government, without naming it to you. Your brother 
 is very well, and writing Greek verse close by my side, see- 
 ing that it is Fourth Lesson. I hope that you can give me 
 good accounts of your brother Charles. 
 
 CXCIV. TO THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 (Relating to the College in Van Diemen's Land.) 
 
 Rugby, March 19, 1839. 
 
 Some expressions in your letter lead me to ask 
 
 whether, if the person appointed to the School were not in 
 orders, there would be an objection on the part of the Gov- 
 ernment to his entering into them before he left England? 
 Because, I think that many persons best fitted to carry on the 
 work of education, would be actually unwilling to engage in 
 it unless they were allowed to unite the clerical character 
 with that of the teacher. This feeh'ng is, I confess, entirely 
 my own. Even in a far lower point of view, as to what 
 regards the position of a schoolmaster in society, you are well 
 aware that it has not yet obtained that respect in Eingland, as 
 to be able to stand by itself in public opinion as a liberal 
 profession ; it owes the rank which it holds to its connection 
 with the profession of a clergyman, for that is acknowledged 
 universally in England to be the profession of a gentleman. 
 Mere teaching, like mere literature, places a man, I think, in 
 rather an equivocal position ; he holds no undoubted station in 
 society by these alone ; for neither education nor literature 
 have ever enjoyed that consideration and general respect in 
 England, which they enjoy in France and in Germany. But 
 a far higher consideration is this, that he who is to educate 
 boys, if he is fully sensible of the importance of his business, 
 must be unwilling to lose such great opportunities as the 
 clerical character gives him, by enabling him to address them 
 continually from the pulpit, and to administer the Communion 
 to them as they become old enough to receive it. And in a 
 remote colony it would be even more desirable than in Eng- 
 land, that the head of a great institution for education should 
 be able to stand in this relation to his pupils ; and I am quite 
 Bure that the spirit of proselytism, which some persons appear
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 141 
 
 BO greatly to dread, would no more exist in a good and sen- 
 sible clergyman, than in a good and sensible layman. Your 
 master must be a member of some Church or other, if he is 
 not a minister of it ; if he is a sincere member of it, and 
 fitted to give religious instruction at all, he must be anxious 
 to inculcate its tenets ; but, if he be a man of judgment and 
 honesty, and of a truly Catholic spirit, he will find it a .still 
 more sacred duty not to abuse the confidence of those par- 
 ents of different persuasions who may have intrusted their 
 children to his care, and he will think besides that the true 
 spirit of a Christian teacher is not exactly the spirit of prose- 
 lytism. I must beg to apologize for having trespassed on 
 your time thus long. 
 
 CXCV. *TO E. WISE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 20, 1839. 
 
 Your letter gave me very great pleasure, and I was really 
 obliged to you for writing at such length, and giving me a full 
 account of all the circumstances of your present situation. 
 Everything in a position like yours depends on the disposition 
 and character of the family ; and where these are good and 
 kind, the life of a tutor may be as pleasant, I think, as it is 
 useful and respectable 
 
 I trust that your health is completely restored, and that you 
 will be able to read gently, without feeling it a matter of 
 necessity ; a sensation which I suppose must aggravate the 
 pressure greatly when a man is reading, and feels himself not 
 strong. But, on the other hand, you need not think that your 
 own reading will now have no object, because you are en- 
 gaged with young boys. Every improvement of your own 
 powers and knowledge tells immediately upon them; and 
 indeed I hold that a man is only fit to teach so long as he is : 
 himself learning daily. If the mind once becomes stagnant, 
 it can give no fresh draught to another mind ; it is drinking 
 out of a pond, instead of from a spring. And whatever you 
 read tends generally to your own increase of power, and will 
 be felt by you in a hundred ways hereafter.
 
 142 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CXCVI. * TO J. P. CELL, ESQ. 
 (On the death of his brother Charles Cell.) 
 
 Rugby, April 5, 1839. 
 
 Your letter ought not to grieve me, but it was a shock for 
 which I was not prepared, as I had not dreamed that your 
 brother's departure was so near. The thoughts of him will 
 be amongst the most delightful of all my thoughts of Rugby 
 pupils ; so amiable and so promising here, and so early called 
 to his rest and glory. I do feel more and more for my pupils, 
 and for my children also, that I can readily and thankfully 
 see them called away, when they are to all human appearance 
 assuredly called home. This is a lesson which advancing 
 years impress very strongly. We can then better tell how 
 little are those earthly things of which early death deprives 
 us, and how fearful is the risk of this world's struggle. May 
 God bless us through His Son, and make us to come at last, 
 be it sooner or later, out of this struggle conquerors. 
 
 CXCVII. TO THE UNDER SECRETARY OP STATE. 
 
 July 1, 1839. 
 
 Nothing can be more proper than that the Head- 
 master or Principal of the proposed School should be sub- 
 ject to the control of the Governor, or of the Bishop, should 
 there be one in the colony. I am only anxious to understand 
 clearly whether he is to be in any degree under the control of 
 any local Board, whether lay or clerical ; because, if he were, 
 I could not conscientiously recommend him to undertake an 
 office which I am sure he would shortly find himself obliged 
 to abandon. Uniform experience shows, I think, so clearly 
 the mischief of subjecting schools to the ignorance and party 
 feelings of persons wholly unacquainted with the theory and 
 practice of education, that I feel it absolutely necessary to 
 understand fully the intentions of the Government on this 
 question. 
 
 CXCV1II. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, May 8, 1839. 
 
 [After speaking of a decision respecting the Foundationers 
 in Rugby School.] The world will not know that it makes 
 no earthly difference to me in a pecuniary point of view,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 143 
 
 whether a boy is in the lower school or the upper ; and that if 
 I had discouraged the lower school, and especially the Foun- 
 dationers, who do not interfere with the number of boarders, 
 I should have been quarrelling with my own bread and but- 
 ter. Lord Langdale did not understand the difference which 
 I had always made between Non-foundationers and Founda- 
 tioners, as I have indeed always advised people not to send 
 their sons as boarders under twelve, but have never applied 
 the same advice to Foundationers living under their parents' 
 roof. But it is so old a charge against masters of Foundation 
 Schools, that they discourage the Foundationers, in order to 
 have boarders who pay them better, that I dare say Lord 
 Langdale and half the world will believe that I have been 
 acting on this principle ; and my old friends of the Tory 
 newspapers are quite likely to jibe at me as liking a little 
 jobbing in my own particular case, as well as other pretended 
 Reformers. Even you, perhaps, do not know that I receive 
 precisely as much money for every Foundationer, if he be 
 only a little boy in the first form, as I do for any Non-founda- 
 tioner at the head of the school ; so that I have a direct inter- 
 est since all men are supposed to act from interest in 
 increasing the number of Foundationers, and no earthly inter- 
 est or object in diminishing them. I think you will not 
 wonder at my being a little sensitive on the present occasion, 
 for a judge's decision is a very different thing from an article 
 in a common newspaper ; and, as I believe that nothing of the 
 latter sort has ever disturbed my equanimity, so I should not 
 wish to regard the former lightly. So I should very much 
 like to hear from you what you think is to be done, if any- 
 thing. After all, I could laugh heartily at the notion of my 
 being suspected of a little snug corruption, after having 
 preached Reform all my life. 
 
 CXCIX. TO SIB T. S. PASLET, BART. 
 
 Rugby, May 10, 1839. 
 
 Your absence will be a sad blank in our West- 
 moreland visits, if we are still allowed to continue them. But 
 seven years is a long term for human life, and so long have 
 we been permitted to go down summer and winter, and return 
 with all our family entire and in good health ; so that I can- 
 not but fancy that something or other may happen to break 
 this happy uniformity of our lives.
 
 144 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 The state of public affairs is not inviting, and I 
 
 rejoice that we take in no daily paper. It is more painful 
 than enough to read of evils which one can neither cure nor 
 palliate. The real evil which lies at the bottom of the Char- 
 tist agitation is, I believe, too deep for any human remedy, 
 unless the nation were possessed with a spirit of wisdom and 
 of goodness, such as I fear will never be granted to us 
 after we have for so many centuries neglected the means 
 which we have had. So far from finding it hard to believe 
 that repentance can ever be too late, my only wonder is that 
 it should ever be otherwise than too late, so instantaneous and 
 so lasting are the consequences of an evil once committed. I 
 find it very hard to hinder my sense of this from quite oppress- 
 ing me, and making me forget the many blessings of my own 
 domestic condition. But perhaps it comes from my fondness 
 for History, that political things have as great a reality to my 
 mind, as things of private life, and the life of a nation becomes 
 distinct as that of an individual. We are going to have a con- 
 firmation here, by the Bishop of Worcester, next month, in 
 the chapel, as I wished to have one every two years at least, 
 for otherwise many of the boys go abroad and are never con- 
 firmed at all. And I think that we shall have a third painted 
 window up in the chapel before the holidays 
 
 CC. TO ARCHDEACON HARE. 
 
 Fox How, June 21, 1839. 
 
 I am sure that you will have sympathized with me 
 
 in the delight which I have felt in reading Niebuhr's Letters ; 
 that letter in particular to a young Student in Philology, 
 appears to me invaluable. I think that you and Thirlwall 
 have much to answer for in not having yet completed your 
 translation of the third volume of the History. It is only 
 when that volume shall have become generally known, that 
 English readers will learn to appreciate Niebuhr's excellence 
 as a narrator. At present I am continually provoked by 
 hearing people say, that he indeed prepared excellent materi- 
 als for an historian, but that he did not himself write history. 
 
 I am obliged to superintend a new edition of my Thu- 
 cydides, which interferes rather with the progress of my His- 
 tory. And the first volume of Thucydides is so full of errors, 
 both of omission and commission, that to revise it is a work 
 of no little labor.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 145 
 
 You would rejoice in the good that Lee is doing at Bir- 
 mingham ; I do not think that there is, in all England, a man 
 more exactly in his place than he is now. 
 
 CCI. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (E.) 
 
 Fox How, June 22, 1839. 
 
 I was much obliged to you for your last kind letter, and I 
 would have answered it immediately had it not arrived just at 
 our most busy time, at the close of the summer half-year. I 
 do not wonder at your interest about the friend whom you 
 speak of, and should be very glad to be of any assistance to 
 you in the matter. Priestley's statements, as you probably 
 know, were answered by Horsley, and I believe sufficiently 
 answered ; but neither of the controversialists was very pro- 
 found, or, as I should fear, very fair ; and but little real benefit 
 can be derived from the works of either. Priestley's argu- 
 ments now would be repeated nowhere, I suppose, but in 
 England, and in England only amongst a sect so destitute of 
 theological and critical learning as the Unitarians. It goes 
 on two assumptions : first, that the Christian Church of Jeru- 
 salem held Unitarian opinions ; and secondly, that the Church 
 of Jerusalem was the standard by which the tenets of the 
 other churches were to be measured. Now the second of 
 these assumptions is clearly wrong, and the first is probably 
 so ; but we have very small evidence as to the opinions of the 
 Church of Jerusalem, and so a dispute may be maintained for- 
 ever on that point, by those who would confine their attention 
 to it, and who do not see that the real stress of the question 
 lies elsewhere. But the Epistles of Ignatius are a decided 
 proof that neither he nor the churches of Asia were Uni- 
 tarian ; and his language is the more to be valued, because it 
 is evidently not controversial, nor does he ever dream of 
 dwelling on Christ's Divinity as a disputed point, but as a 
 thing taken by all Christians for granted. I do not under- 
 stand, however, how an Unitarian can consistently transfer 
 the argument from the Scripture to the opinion of the early 
 Church. As he rejects the authority of the Church, without 
 scruple, where it is clearly to be ascertained, and where it 
 speaks the opinions of Christians of all parts "of the world, 
 through more than seventeen centuries, it is idle to refer to 
 the single Church of Jerusalem during a period of twenty or 
 thirty years, unless he can show that that Church was infal- 
 
 VOL. II. 13 J
 
 146 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 lible, and its decisions of equal weight with those of the Scrip- 
 ture. If he says that St. Paul and St. John corrupted the 
 purity of the true Gospel, which was kept only by St. James 
 and the Church of Jerusalem, that no doubt would be an 
 intelligible argument ; but to accept St. Paul and St. John as 
 inspired Apostles, and then to plead the opinions of the 
 Church of Jerusalem against them, is an absurdity. And as 
 for the Unitarian interpretations of St. Paul and St. John, 
 they are really such monstrosities of extravagance, that to 
 any one used to the critical study of the ancient writers, they 
 appear too bad to have been ever maintained in earnest. And 
 thus, wherever Unitarianism has existed, together with any 
 knowledge of criticism or philology, as in Germany, it has at 
 once assumed that the Apostles were not infallible, and that 
 they overrated the dignity of Christ's Person. So impossible 
 is it to doubt what St. John meant in so many passages of his 
 Gospel, and what St. Paul meant in so many passages of his 
 Epistles. It gives me the greatest pleasure to find that you 
 still enjoy your situation, and that being the case, you are 
 likely, I think, to find it more and more agreeable, the longer 
 you hold it. 
 
 CCII. TO REV. G. CORNISH. 
 
 Fox How, July 6, 1839. 
 
 As I believe that the English universities are the 
 
 best places in the world for those who can profit by them, so I 
 think for the idle and self-indulgent they are about the very 
 worst, and I would far rather send a boy to Van Diemen's 
 Land, where he must work for his bread, than send him to 
 Oxford to live in luxury, without any desire in his mind to 
 avail himself of his advantages. Childishness in boys, even 
 of good abilities, seems to me to be a growing fault, and I do 
 not know to what to ascribe * it, except to the great number 
 of exciting books of amusement, like Pickwick and Nickleby, 
 Bentley's Magazine, &c., &c. These completely satisfy all 
 the intellectual appetite of a boy, which is rarely very vora- 
 cious, and leave him totally palled, not only for his regular 
 work, which I could well excuse in comparison, but for good 
 literature of all sorts, even for History and for Poetry. 
 
 I went up to Oxford to the Commemoration, for the first 
 
 * See Sermons, vol. iv. pp. 39 - 41.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 147 
 
 time for twenty-one years, to see Wordsworth and Bunsen 
 receive their degrees ; and to me, remembering how old Cole- 
 ridge inoculated a little knot of us with the love of Words- 
 worth, when his name was in general a byword, it was 
 striking to witness the thunders of applause, repeated over 
 and over again, with which he was greeted in the theatre by 
 Undergraduates and Masters of Arts alike. 
 
 CCIII. TO CHEVALIER BUXSEN. 
 
 Rugby, August 23, 1839. 
 
 I intend this letter to reach you on the 25th of August, a 
 day which has a double claim on my remembrance ; for it is 
 my little Susy's birthday also, and I wish it to convey to you, 
 though most inadequately, my congratulation to Mrs. Bunsen 
 and all your family on the return of that day, and my earnest 
 wishes for all happiness for you and for them ; and, so far as 
 we may wish in such matters, my earnest desire that you may 
 be long spared to your friends, your family, your country, and 
 above all to Christ's Holy Catholic Church, in whose cause I 
 know you are ever laboring, and which at this hour needs the 
 utmost service of all her true members, amidst such various 
 dangers as now threaten her from within and from without. 
 I am glad to think that this one birthday more you will pass 
 in England. 
 
 We shall see you and all your family, I confidently trust, 
 
 ere very long. Meanwhile you will be glad to hear that 
 
 and I enjoyed our journey greatly, and, although we saw but 
 little of Italy, yet that the South of France even surpassed 
 our expectations, and the physical benefit to my health and 
 strength was as complete as I could desire. Aries interested 
 me exceedingly ; it was striking to see the Amphitheatre and 
 Theatre so close to each other, and the two marble pillars still 
 standing in the proscenium of the theatre reminded me of 
 the Forum at Rome. I was also much struck with the de- 
 serted port of Frejus, and the mole and entrance tower of the 
 old harbor, rising now out of a plain of grass. The famous 
 plain of stones, or plain of Craue, was very interesting, for it 
 lies now in precisely the same state as it was 2300 years ago, 
 or more, when it was made the scene of one of the adventures 
 of Hercules ; and the remarkably Spanish character of the 
 town, population, and neighborhood of Salon, between Aries 
 and Aix, was something quite new to me. In Italy we only
 
 148 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 went from Nice to Turin, by the Col di Tenda, and certainly 
 in ray recollections of the year's tour, all images of beauty 
 and interest are connected with France rather than with Italy. 
 The intense drought had spoiled everything, and the main 
 Alps themselves, as seen in a perfectly clear morning from 
 the neighborhood of Turin, exhibited scarcely more than 
 patches of snow on their summits ; the effect of a long range 
 of snowy summits was completely gone. Still, I had a great 
 delight in setting foot once more, if it was but in a mere cor- 
 ner of Italy ; sights which I had half forgotten have taken 
 again a fresh place in my memory ; the style of the buildings, 
 
 the " congesta manu prseruptis oppida saxis " the culti- 
 vation of the valleys the splendor of the churches nay, 
 the very roguery and lying of the people, and their mar- 
 vellous ignorance rose up before me again as something 
 which I did not wish to lose altogether out of my mem- 
 ory. 
 
 I paid a long visit to Letronne at Paris, and Peyrou at 
 Turin. Both were very civil and agreeable, and gave me 
 several of their works. Peyrou had received many letters 
 from Niebuhr, which he showed to me with seeming pleasure 
 
 but he had never seen him. It was sad to me to find that 
 he too had a lively sense of the grievous ignorance of English 
 writers on points of philology. He mentioned to me with 
 dismay, and read to me extracts from a Coptic dictionary, 
 lately published, proh pudor! at Oxford, which I had never 
 seen, or even heard of the writer's name, nor do I remember 
 
 it now but it was worthy to rank with 's extravagances 
 
 about the Keltic languages. I tried hard at Provence to find 
 a Provencal Grammar, but I could not succeed, and they told 
 me there was no such thing ; they only showed me a grammar 
 for teaching French to Provencals, which they wanted to per- 
 suade me was all the same thing. It seems that the Pro- 
 ven<jal language is less fortunate than the Welsh, in having 
 wealthy and educated persons desirous of encouraging it. I 
 could not find that it was at all used now as a written lan- 
 guage, although it seemed to me to be as distinct from French 
 as Italian is. 
 
 [After questions relating to Sillig's edition of Pliny.] I 
 have read your speech at Oxford, and admire your indefati- 
 gable exertions to see and hear everything in England. But 
 I feel the state of public affairs so deeply that I cannot bear 
 either to read, or hear, or speak, or write about them. Only
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 149 
 
 I would commend them to God's care and deliverance, if the 
 judgment is not now as surely fixed as that of Babylon. 
 
 CCIV. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, September 25, 1839. 
 
 I do not know where this letter may find you, but I hope 
 that it may be at Ottery ; and that you may be enjoying to 
 the full your rest from work, and the society of your family, 
 and the actual beauty and old recollections of your home. 
 We have been at work now nearly seven weeks, so that the 
 holidays live but in remote memory, and I am very far from 
 wishing them to come again very speedily ; for they imply 
 that a half-year is gone, and there is so much that I would 
 fain do, that I cannot wish time to pass away very quickly. 
 The South of France puts me into the best .bodily condition in 
 which I can almost ever remember to have been ; and happily 
 the effect of such a medicine does not immediately evaporate ; 
 it really seems to wind up the machine for three or four 
 
 months The Roman Remains at Aries, the papal 
 
 remains at Avignon, and the Spanish-like character of the 
 country between Aries and Aix were exceedingly interesting. 
 I thought of old days when I used to read Southey's raptures 
 about Spain and Spaniards as I looked out on the street at 
 Salon, where a fountain was playing under a grove of plane- 
 trees, and the population were all in felt hats, grave and quiet, 
 and their Provencal language sounding much more like Span- 
 ish than French. Then we had the open heaths covered with 
 the dwarf ilex and the Roman pine, and the rocks actually 
 breathing fragrance from the number of their aromatic plants. 
 
 We arrived at Rugby from London in the afternoon of the 
 day on which the school opened ; and when we reached the 
 station, we found there my wife and all her party from Fox 
 How, who had arrived barely five minutes before us, so that 
 we actually all entered our own house together. We had a 
 very large admission of new boys, larger than I ever remem- 
 ber since I have been at Rugby, so that the school is now, 
 I believe, quite full. And since that time we have gone on 
 working much as usual ; only Thucydides is still upon hand, 
 and interferes with the History, and will do so, I fear, for 
 another month. 
 
 I have just got the fourth volume of your Uncle's Literary 
 Remains, which makes me regard him with greater admira- 
 ls *
 
 150 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tion than ever. He seems to hold that point which I have 
 never yet been able to find in any of our English Divines, 
 and the want of which so mars my pleasure in reading them. 
 His mind is at once rich and vigorous, and comprehensive and 
 critical ; while the iflos is so pure and so lively all the while. 
 He seems to me to love Truth really, and therefore Truth 
 presented herself to him not negatively, as she does to many 
 minds, who can see that the objections against her are un- 
 founded, and therefore that she is to be received ; but she 
 filled him, as it were, heart and mind, imbuing him with 
 her very self, so that all his being comprehended her fully 
 and loved her ardently ; and that seems to me to be true wis- 
 dom 
 
 It was just at the foot of the old Col di Tenda that I got 
 hold of an English newspaper containing a charge of yours, 
 in which the Chartists were noticed. I was glad to find that 
 your mind had been working in that direction ; and that you 
 spoke strongly as to the vast importance of the subject I 
 would give anything to be able to organize a Society " for 
 drawing public attention to the state of the laboring classes 
 throughout the kingdom." Men do not think of the fearful 
 state in which we are living ; if they could once be brought 
 to notice and to appreciate the evil, I should not even yet de- 
 spair that the remedy may be found and applied ; even though 
 it is the solution of the most difficult problem ever yet pro- 
 posed to man's wisdom, and the greatest triumph over selfish- 
 ness ever yet required of his virtue. A society might give 
 the alarm, and present the facts to the notice of the public. 
 It was thus that Clarkson overthrew the Slave-Trade ; and it 
 is thus, I hope, that the system of Transportation has received 
 its death-blow. I have desired Fellowes to send you one of 
 the copies of a Lecture which I once showed you, about the 
 Divisions of Knowledge, and which I have just printed, in 
 the hope of getting it circulated among the various Mechanics' 
 Institutes, where something of the kind is, I think, much 
 wanted. Let me hear from you when you can. 
 
 CCV. TO SIR T. S. PASLET. 
 
 Rugby, September 9, 1839. 
 
 Our tour was most delightful, and put me into such 
 
 a perfect state of health as I never can gain from anything 
 but travelling abroad, where one can neither read nor write,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 151 
 
 nor receive letters ; and therefore the mind is perfectly at 
 rest, while the body is constantly enjoying air and exercise, 
 light food, and early hours. 
 
 I never before saw so much of the Mediterranean, and the 
 weather was so perfect that it never could have been more 
 enjoyable. I thought of you, particularly when we were out 
 in a boat in the midst of Toulon Harbor, and rowing under 
 the stern of the Montebello, which seemed to me a very fine 
 looking three-decker. We went over the Arsenal, which I 
 thought very inferior to Portsmouth, but the magnificence of 
 the harbor exceeds anything that I had ever seen, how it 
 would stand in your more experienced, as well as better 
 
 judging eyes, I know not Provence far surpassed 
 
 my expectations ; the Roman remains at Aries are magnifi- 
 cent ; and the prisons in the Pope's Palace, at Avignon, were 
 one of the most striking things I ever saw in my life. In the 
 selfsame dungeon the roof was still black with the smoke of 
 the Inquisition fires, in which men were tortured or burnt ; 
 and, as you looked down a trap-door into an apartment below, 
 the walls were still marked with the blood of the victims 
 whom Jourdan Coupe Tete threw down there into the Ice- 
 house below in the famous massacre of 1791. It was very 
 awful to see such traces of the two great opposite forms of all 
 human wickedness, which I know not how to describe better 
 than by calling them Priestcraft and Benthamism, or if you 
 like, White and Red Jacobinism. 
 
 I am still in want of a master, and I shall want another at 
 
 Christmas, but I cannot hear of a man to suit me 
 
 We are also in almost equal distress for a pony for my wife ; 
 and there, too, we want a rare union of qualities ; that he 
 should be very small, very quiet, very surefooted, and able to 
 walk more than four miles an hour. If you hear of any such 
 marvel of a pony in your neighborhood, I would thankfully be 
 at the expense of its transit from the Isle of Man to Rugby ; 
 for to be without a pony for my wife interferes with our daily 
 comfort more than almost any other external inconvenience 
 could do. 
 
 I was over at Birmingham twice during the meeting of the 
 British Association, and James Marshall was there the whole 
 week. Murchison convinced Greenough and De la Beche, 
 on the spot, that they must recolor all their geological maps ; 
 for what were called the Gray Wackes of North Devon, he 
 maintains to be equivalent to the coal-formation ; and the
 
 152 LIFE OF DB. ABNOLD. 
 
 limestones on which they rest are equivalent to the old Red 
 Sandstone, which now is to be sandstone no more, seeing 
 that it is often limestone, but is to be called the Devonian 
 System. Lord Northampton, as Chairman, wound up the 
 business on the last day in the Town Hall by a few Christian 
 sentences, simply and feelingly put, to my very great satis- 
 faction. 
 
 CCVI. * TO J. L. HOSKYNS, ESQ. 
 
 (In answer to a question on the Preface to the third volume of Sermons. ) 
 
 Bugby, September 22, 1839. 
 
 It is always a real pleasure to me to keep up my intercourse 
 with my old pupils, and to be made acquainted not only with 
 what is happening to them outwardly, but much more with 
 what is going on in their own minds ; and in your' case I owe 
 you especially any assistance which it may be in my power to 
 render, as I appear to have unconsciously contributed to your 
 present difficulty. If you were going into the Law, or to 
 study Medicine, there would be a clear distinction between 
 your professional reading and your general reading ; between 
 that reading which was designed to make you a good lawyer 
 or physician, and that which was to make you a good and 
 wise man. But it is the peculiar excellence of the Christian 
 ministry, that there a man's professional reading and general 
 reading coincide, and the very studies which would most tend 
 to make him a good and wise man, do therefore of necessity 
 tend to make him a good clergyman. Our merely professional 
 reading appears to me to consist in little more than an ac- 
 quaintance with such laws, or church regulations, as concern 
 the discharge of our ministerial duties, in matters external 
 and formal. But the great mass of our professional reading 
 is not merely professional, but general ; that is to say, if I had 
 time at my command, and wished to follow the studies which 
 would be most useful to me as a Christian, without reference 
 to any one particular trade or calling, I should select, as nearly 
 as might be, that very same course of study which to my 
 mind would also be the best preparation for the work of thd 
 Christian ministry. 
 
 That the knowledge of the Scriptures is the most essential 
 point in our studies as men and Christians, is as clear to my 
 mind as that it is also the most essential point in our studies 
 as clergymen. The only question is, in what manner is this
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 153 
 
 knowledge to be best obtained. Now, omitting to speak of 
 the moral and spiritual means of obtaining it, such as prayer 
 and a watchful life, about the paramount necessity of which 
 there is no doubt whatever, our present question only 
 regards the intellectual means of obtaining it, that is, the 
 knowledge and the cultivation of our mental faculties, which 
 may best serve to the end desired. 
 
 Knowledge of the Scriptures seems to consist in two things, 
 so essentially united, however, that I scarcely like to separate 
 them even in thought ; the one I will call the knowledge of 
 the contents of the Scriptures in themselves; the other the 
 knowledge of their application to us, and our own times and 
 circumstances. Really and truly I believe that the one of 
 these cannot exist in any perfection without the other. Of 
 course we cannot apply the Scriptures properly without know- 
 ing them ; and to know them merely as an ancient book with- 
 out understanding how to apply them, appears to me to be 
 ignorance rather than knowledge. But still in thought we 
 can separate the two, and each also requires in some measure 
 a different line of study. 
 
 The intellectual means of acquiring a knowledge of the 
 Scriptures in themselves are, I suppose, Philology, Antiqui- 
 ties, and Ancient History ; but the means of acquiring the 
 knowledge of their right application are far more complex in 
 their character ; and it is precisely here, as I think, that the 
 common course of theological study is so exceedingly narrow, 
 and therefore the mistakes committed in the application of 
 the Scriptures, are, as it seems to me, so frequent and so mis- 
 chievous. As one great example of what I mean, I will 
 instance the questions, which are now so much agitated, of 
 Church authority and Church government. It is just as im- 
 possible for a man to understand these questions without a 
 knowledge of the great questions of law and government 
 generally, as it is to understand any matter that is avowedly 
 political ; and therefore the Politics of Aristotle and similar 
 works are to me of a very great and direct use every day of 
 my life, wherever these questions are brought before me ; and 
 you know how often these questions are mooted, and with 
 what vehemence men engage in them. Historical reading it 
 appears that you are actually engaged in, but so much of 
 History is written so ill, that it appears to me to be desirable 
 to be well acquainted with the greatest historians, in order to 
 learn what the defects of common History are, and how we
 
 154 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 should be able to supply them. It is a rare quality in any 
 man to be able really to represent to himself the picture of 
 another age and country ; and much of History is so vague 
 and poor that no lively images can be gathered from it. 
 There is actually, so far as I know, no great ecclesiastical his- 
 torian in any language. But the flatnesses and meagreness 
 and unfairness of most of those who have written on this sub- 
 ject may not strike us, if we do not know what good History 
 should be. And any one very great historian, such as Thucy- 
 dides, or Tacitus, or Niebuhr, throws a light backward and 
 forward upon all History ; for any one age or country well 
 brought before our minds teaches us what historical knowledge 
 really is, and saves us from thinking that we have it when we 
 have it not. I will not cross my writing, so I must continue 
 my say in another sheet. 
 
 The accidental division of my paper suits well with the 
 real division of my subject I have stated what appears to 
 me to be the best means of acquiring a knowledge of the 
 Scriptures, both in themselves, and in their application to our- 
 selves. And it is this second part which calls for such a 
 variety of miscellaneous knowledge ; inasmuch as, in order to 
 apply a rule properly, we must understand the nature and 
 circumstances of the case to which it is to be applied, and 
 how they differ from those of the case to which it was ap- 
 plied originally. Thus there are two states of the human 
 race which we want to understand thoroughly ; the state 
 when the New Testament was written, and our own state. 
 And our own state is so connected with, and dependent on 
 the past, that in order to understand it thoroughly we must go 
 backwards into past ages, and thus, in fact, we are obliged to 
 go back till we connect our own time with the first century, 
 and in many points with centuries yet more remote. You 
 will say then, in another sense from what St. Paul said it, 
 " Who is sufficient for these things ? " and I answer, " No 
 man ; " but, notwithstanding, it is well to have a good model 
 before us, although our imitation of it will fall far short of it. 
 But you say, how does all this edify 1 ? And this is a matter 
 which I think it is very desirable to understand clearly. 
 
 If death were immediately before us, say that the 
 Cholera was in a man's parish, and numbers were dying 
 daily, it is manifest that our duties, our preparation for 
 another life by conforming ourselves to God's will respecting
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 155 
 
 us in this life, would become exceedingly simple. To 
 preach the Gospel, that is, to lead men's faith to Christ as 
 their Saviour by His death and resurrection ; to be earnest in 
 practical kindness; to clear one's heart of all enmities and 
 evil passions ; this would be a man's work, and this only ; his 
 reading would, I suppose, be limited then to such parts of the 
 Scriptures as were directly strengthening to his faith, and hope, 
 and charity, to works of prayers and hymns, and to such prac- 
 tical instructions as might be within his reach as to the treat- 
 ment of the prevailing disease. 
 
 Now can we say, that in ordinary life our duties can be 
 made thus simple ? Are there not, then, matters of this life 
 which must be attended to ? Are there not many questions 
 would press upon us in which we must act and advise, besides 
 the simple direct preparation for death ? And it being God's 
 will that we should have to act and advise in these things, 
 and our service to Him and to His Church necessarily requir- 
 ing them ; is it right to say, that the knowledge which shall 
 teach us how to act and advise rightly with respect to them is 
 not edifying ? 
 
 But may not a man say, " I wish to be in the Ministry, 
 but I do not feel an inclination for a long course of reading ; 
 my tastes, and I think my duties, lead me another way " ? 
 This may be said, I think, very justly. A man may do im- 
 mense good with nothing more than an unlearned familiarity 
 with the Scriptures, with sound practical sense and activity, 
 taking part in all the business of his parish, and devoting 
 himself to intercourse with men rather than with books. I 
 honor such men in the highest degree, and think that they 
 are among the most valuable ministers that the Church pos- 
 sesses. A man's reading, in this case, is of a miscellaneous 
 character, consisting, besides the Bible and such books as are 
 properly devotional, of such books as chance throws in his 
 way, or the particular concerns of his parish may lead him to 
 take an interest in. And, though he may not be a learned 
 man, he may be that which is far better than mere learning, 
 a wise man, and a good man. 
 
 All that I would entreat of every man with whom I had 
 any influence is, that if he read at all in the sense of study- 
 ing he should read widely and comprehensively ; that he 
 should not read exclusively or principally what is called 
 Divinity. Learning, as it is called, of this sort, when not 
 properly mixed with that comprehensive study which alone
 
 156 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 deserves the name, is, I am satisfied, an actual mischief to 
 a man's mind ; it impairs his simple common sense, and gives 
 him no wisdom. It makes him narrow-minded, and fills him 
 with absurdities ; and, while he is in reality grievously igno- 
 rant, it makes him consider himself a great divine. Let a man 
 read nothing, if he will, except his Bible and Prayer-Book 
 and the chance reading of the day ; but let him not, if he 
 values the power of seeing truth and judging soundly, let him 
 not read exclusively or predominantly the works of those 
 who are called divines, whether they be those of the first 
 four centuries, or those of the sixteenth or those of the 
 eighteenth or seventeenth. With regard to the Fathers, as 
 they are called, I would advise those who have time to read 
 them deeply, those who have less time to read at least parts of 
 them ; but in all cases preserve the proportions of your read- 
 ing. Read, along with the Fathers, the writings of men of 
 other times and of different powers of mind. Keep your 
 view of men and things extensive, and depend upon it that a 
 mixed knowledge is not a superficial one ; as far as it goes, 
 the views that it gives are true, but he, who reads deeply 
 in one class of writers only, gets views which are almost sure 
 to be perverted, and which are not only narrow but false. 
 Adjust your proposed amount of reading to your time and 
 inclination this is perfectly free to every man, but whether 
 that amount be large or small, let it be varied in its kind and 
 widely varied. If I have a confident opinion on any one 
 point connected with the improvement of the human mind, it 
 is on this. I have now given you the principles which I 
 believe to be true, with respect to a clergyman's reading. 
 
 If you can come to Rugby in your way to Oxford, I will 
 add anything in my power to the details ; at any rate I shall 
 be delighted to see you here, and I shall have great pleasure 
 in giving you an introduction to Hamilton, who, I am sure, 
 would value your acquaintance much. 
 
 CCVII. *TO T. BUHBIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 (Travelling in Switzerland.) 
 
 Rugby, October 2, 1839. 
 
 Vaughan has just got his fellowship at Trinity, 
 
 and Howson, I am sorry to say, has not. Freeman has been 
 staying with us for some days, and we all like him more and 
 more. And in the course of the next fortnight, I suppose
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 157 
 
 that we shall see several of our friends from Oxford and 
 Cambridge, just before the time of their gathering. Our 
 weather has been sadly capricious ; for the last ten days it 
 has been much better, and I bathed in the Waterfall yester- 
 day ; but to-day it is again broken, and is cold and rainy. I 
 watch with a most intense interest the result of the harvest, 
 believing that the consequences of a bad crop may be most 
 serious ; and having also a belief, that there are many symp- 
 toms about of one of those great periods of judgment which 
 are called the Comings of our Lord ; periods which I could 
 bear with far greater equanimity, if the distracted state of the 
 Church, or rather the non-existence of the Church for very 
 many of its highest objects, did not make it so hard to find 
 sympathy. Those men at Oxford look upon me as a her- 
 etic, and though I hope and believe that I could feel almost 
 entire sympathy with them, if we were together in mere suf- 
 fering, or death, yet in life and in action I necessarily shrink 
 from them when I see them laboring so incessantly, though I 
 doubt not so ignorantly, to enthrone the very Mystery of 
 falsehood and iniquity in that neglected and dishonored Tem- 
 ple, the Church of God. And then those who are called 
 Liberals ! And the Zurich Government putting Strauss for- 
 ward as an instructor of Christians ! It is altogether so sad, 
 that if I were to allow myself to dwell much upon it, I think it 
 would utterly paralyze me. I could sit still and pine and 
 die. 
 
 You have heard that the school is flourishing outwardly ; 
 as to its inward state, I fear that Walrond's account is too 
 favorable, although there is I think no particular ground of 
 complaint, and there is much to like and think well of. .... 
 The Latin verse altogether in the Form is much better than 
 it was ; Latin prose I think not so. I have nearly finished 
 Thucydides, and then I hope to turn again to Rome. The 
 second edition of the first volume is now printing. Pray call 
 on Amadee Peyrou at Turin, with my respects to him ; he 
 will be very civil to you, and you will, I think, like him. He 
 will tell you if anything has come out since I was at Turin, 
 which it would concern me to get ; and if there is, will you 
 be so kind as to get it for me ? 
 
 VOL. ii. 14
 
 158 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CCVni. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, October 4, 1839. 
 
 When I think of you as really going to leave 
 
 England, it makes me think how much there still is on which 
 I want to talk to you more fully. Particularly, I must get 
 you some day to answer for me in writing certain questions 
 as to the Lord's supper. I think that you and Samuel Cole- 
 ridge both agree with one another and differ from me, and this 
 of course makes me suspect the justness of my own views, 
 while it makes me sure that what you and Coleridge hold can 
 he nothing superstitious or unchristian. I see clearly the 
 wide difference between what you hold and the opinions which 
 I so dread and condemn. But, plainly, I cannot arrive at 
 even your notion of the Communion, or what I believe to be 
 your notion, from the Scriptures, without interpreting them by 
 what is called the Consensus Ecclesiae. Now this so called 
 Consensus Ecclesiae is in such a matter to me worth nothing, 
 because such a view of the Communion was precisely in 
 unison with the tendencies of the prevailing party in the 
 Church whose writings are now called Consensus Ecclesiae. 
 And if I follow this pretended Consensus in forming my 
 views of the Sacraments, I appear to myself to be undoing 
 St. Paul's and our Lord's work in one great point, and to be 
 introducing that very Judaism to which Christianity is so 
 directly .opposed, and which consists in ascribing spiritual 
 effects' to outward and bodily actions. It seems to me histori- 
 cally certain that the Judaism which upheld Circumcision and 
 insisted on the difference of meats, after having vainly en- 
 deavored to sap the Gospel under its proper Judaic form, did, 
 even within the first century, transfuse its spirit into a Chris- 
 tian form ; and substituting Baptism for Circumcision and the 
 mystic influence of the Bread and Wine of the Communion 
 for the doctrine of purifying and defiling meats, did thereby, 
 as has happened many a time since, pervert Christianity to a 
 fatal extent, and seduced those who would have resisted it to 
 the death under its own form, because now, though its spirit 
 was the same, its form was Christian. Now I am sure that 
 you are not Judaic either in form or spirit, and therefore there 
 may be a real Christian element in the doctrine which I do 
 not perceive or am not able to appreciate. And if so, it 
 would be my earnest wish to be permitted to see it and to em- 
 brace it : and it would also be no light pleasure to find myself
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 159 
 
 here also in complete sympathy with you. About the Chris- 
 tian Sacrifice we agree, I believe, fully ; but as to the Com- 
 munion, as distinct from the Sacrifice, there is something in 
 you and in Coleridge, as there is of course in Luther also, 
 which I do not find in myself, and with which, as yet, to say 
 the very truth, I cannot bring myself to agree. 
 
 CCIX. TO JAMES MARSHALL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, October 30, 1839. 
 
 You will think, I am afraid, that my zeal has cooled away 
 to nothing, since I had last the pleasure of seeing you ; but 
 it was only last week that I received an answer, partly direct 
 and partly indirect, with regard to some of those whose co- 
 operation we had wished to gain 's answer is, 
 
 that he thinks a Society would be impracticable, for that men 
 will not agree as to the remedy, and unless some remedy is 
 proposed, there will be no good, he thinks, in merely laying 
 
 bare the disease. And he thinks that will take the same 
 
 view of the question with himself. So far, then, there is a 
 rebuff for us ; but I think that we must not be discouraged, 
 and that efforts may be made in other quarters ; if these also 
 fail, then I think that publication must be tried, and the point 
 noticed, if possible, in some of the leading reviews and news- 
 papers ; but for this details are wanted ; details at once exact 
 and lively, which I imagine it will be difficult to procure for 
 the whole kingdom, except through the mechanism of a 
 Society. For Manchester there is, I believe, a Statistical 
 Society which would afford some good materials. At present 
 people are still so scattered about, many being on the Conti- 
 nent, that it is difficult to get at them. But in the vacation I 
 hope to be moving about to different parts of England, and 
 then I may be able to find somebody who may be useful. 
 And meantime I shall do what alone lies in my power, viz. 
 write one or two articles on the subject in the Hertford Re- 
 former, in which I have written more than once already. I 
 shall be delighted to hear from you, and to learn whether you 
 have made any progress, and whether you have any sugges- 
 tions to communicate.
 
 160 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CCX. * TO H. BALSTON, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, November 21, 1839. 
 
 With regard to the questions in your letter, I hold 
 
 that to a great degree in the choice of a profession, "sua 
 cuique Deus fit dira cupido," a man's inclination for a calling 
 is a great presumption that he either is or will be fit for it. 
 And in education this holds very strongly, for he who likes 
 boys has probably a daily sympathy with them ; and to be in 
 sympathy with the mind you propose to influence is at once 
 indispensable, and will enable you in a great degree to succeed 
 in influencing it. 
 
 Another point to which I attach much importance is liveli- 
 ness. This seems to me an essential condition of sympathy 
 with creatures so lively as boys are naturally, and it is a great 
 matter to make them understand that liveliness is not folly or 
 thoughtlessness. Now I think the prevailing manner amongst 
 many very valuable men at Oxford is the very opposite to live- 
 liness ; and I think that this is the case partly with yourself; not 
 at all from affectation, but from natural temper, encouraged, per- 
 haps, rather than checked, by a belief that it is right and be- 
 coming. But this appears to me to be in point of manner the 
 great difference between a clergyman with a parish and a 
 schoolmaster. It is an illustration of St. Paul's rule, " Rejoice 
 with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep." A 
 clergyman's intercourse is very much with the sick and the 
 poor, where liveliness would be greatly misplaced ; but a 
 schoolmaster's is with the young, the strong, and the happy, 
 and he cannot get on with them unless in animal spirits he 
 can sympathize with them, and show them that his thought- 
 fulness is not connected with selfishness and weakness. At 
 least this applies, I think, to a young man ; for when a teacher 
 gets to an advanced age, gravity, I suppose, would not misbe- 
 come him, for liveliness might then seem unnatural, and his 
 sympathy with boys must be limited, I suppose, then, to their 
 great interests rather than their feelings. 
 
 You can judge what truth may be in this notion of mine 
 generally ; and if true, how far it is applicable to your own 
 case ; but, knowing you as I do, my advice to you would be 
 to follow that line for which you seem to have the most evi- 
 dent calling ; and surely the sign of God's calling in such a 
 case is to be sought in our own reasonable inclination, for the 
 tastes and faculties which he gives us are the marks of our 
 fitness for one thing rather than another.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 161 
 
 CCXI. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (D.) 
 
 Fox How, December 20, 1839. 
 
 It is just one-and-twenty years ago this very day that I was 
 ordained Deacon at Oxford, and I wish this letter to reach 
 you on Sunday, when I suppose you will be ordained at the 
 same place to the same office. I had enough and more than 
 enough of scruples and difficulties, not before only, but after- 
 wards for a long time. 
 
 But I have been satisfied now for many years, 
 
 and wonder almost that I ever could have been otherwise, 
 that Ordination was never meant to be closed against those 
 who, having been conscientious members of the Church be- 
 fore, and wishing in earnest to be ministers of the Church 
 now, holding its truths and sympathizing in its spirit, yet can- 
 not yield an active belief to the words of every part of the 
 Articles and Liturgy as true, without qualification or explana- 
 tion. And I think so on historical as well as on k priori 
 grounds ; on historical, from the fact that the subscriptions 
 were made more stringent in their form to meet the case of 
 those whose minds, or rather tempers, were so uncomplying, 
 that they would use in the service of the Church no expres- 
 sions which they did not approve of; and therefore the party 
 in power, to secure the conformity, required a pledge of 
 approbation ; and also from the expressed opinion of Bull, 
 Usher, and others ; opinions not at all to be taken to such an 
 extent as if the Articles were Articles of peace merely, but 
 abundantly asserting that a whole Church never can be ex- 
 pected to agree in the absolute truth of such a number of 
 propositions as are contained in the Articles and Liturgy. 
 This consideration seems to me also decisive on a priori 
 grounds. For otherwise the Church could by necessity 
 receive into the ministry only men of dull minds or dull con- 
 sciences ; of dull, nay, almost of dishonest minds, if they can 
 persuade themselves that they actually agree in every mi- 
 nute particular with any great number of human proposi- 
 tions ; of dull consciences, if exercising their minds freely and 
 yet believing that the Church requires the total adhesion of 
 the understanding, they still, for considerations of their own 
 convenience, enter into the ministry in her despite. 
 
 You will say that this makes the degree of adhesion re- 
 quired indefinite, and so it must be : yet these things, so seem- 
 ingly indefinite, are not really so to an honest and sensible 
 U* K
 
 162 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 mind ; for such a mind knows whether it is really in sym- 
 pathy with the Church in its main faith and feelings ; and, if 
 it be not, then subscription would indeed be deceitful ; but, if 
 it be, to refuse subscription would, I think, be at once unjust 
 to the Church and to itself. 
 
 Enough, however, of this ; I earnestly hope and pray that 
 your entrance into the ministry may be to God's glory, to the 
 good of His Church, and to your own great blessing. To 
 have a ministry in the Church is a great honor, and a great 
 responsibility ; yet in both is it far inferior to the privilege of 
 being a member of the Church. In our heavenly common- 
 wealth the Jus Civitatis is a thousand times greater than the 
 Jus Honorum ; and he who most magnifies the solemnity of 
 Baptism, will be inch'ned to value most truly the far inferior 
 solemnity of Ordination. 
 
 You are entering on an office extinct in all but name. If 
 it could be revived in power, it would be one of the greatest 
 blessings that could be conferred on the Church. I wish you 
 
 would talk to about this ; and if a book on this point 
 
 could be got up between us, I think it could excite no offence, 
 and might lead to very great good. God bless you ever in 
 this and in all your undertakings, through Jesus Christ 
 
 CCXH. 
 
 (In answer to a request for a subscription to a church.) 
 
 Fox How, December 22, 1839. 
 
 Your letter followed me hither from Rugby, and I only 
 reply to it, that you may not think me neglectful if I delayed 
 my answer till my return to Warwickshire. 
 
 I shall be happy to subscribe towards the endowment of the 
 Church and not towards the building. My reason for this 
 distinction is, that I think in all cases the right plan to pursue 
 is to raise funds in the first instance for a clergyman, and to 
 procure for him a definitely marked district as his cure. The 
 real Church being thus founded, if money can also be pro- 
 cured for the material Church, so much the better. If not, I 
 would wish to sec any building in the district licensed for the 
 temporary performance of Divine Service, feeling perfectly 
 sure that the zeal and munificence of the congregation would 
 in the course of years raise a far more ornamental building 
 than can ever be raised by public subscription ; and that, in 
 the mean time, there might be raised by subscription an ade-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 163 
 
 quate fund for the maintenance of a clergyman ; whereas, on 
 the present system, it seems perfectly hopeless by any sub- 
 scriptions in one generation to provide both clergymen and 
 churches in numbers equal to the wants of the country. 
 
 I should not have troubled you with my opinions, which I 
 am aware are of no importance to you, did I not wish to ex- 
 plain the reason which makes me, in such cases, always desir- 
 ous of contributing to the endowment of a minister rather than 
 to the building. 
 
 CCXIII. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Fox How, December 29, 1839. 
 
 I retained the benefit of my continental tour 
 
 throughout the half-year, insomuch that at the very end of it, 
 after the examination, I felt as if I was not entitled to my 
 vacation, because I was so perfectly untired by my past 
 work. This alone could tell you that the school had gone on 
 quietly, as was the case .It seems to me that peo- 
 ple are not enough aware of the monstrous state of society, 
 absolutely without a parallel in the history of the world, 
 with a population poor, miserable, and degraded in body and 
 mind, as much as if they were slaves, and yet called freemen, 
 and having a power as such of concerting and combining 
 plans of risings, which makes them ten times more dangerous 
 than slaves. And the hopes entertained by many of the 
 effects to be wrought by new churches and schools, while the 
 social evils of their condition are left uncorrected, appear to 
 me to be utterly wild. Meanwhile here, as usual, we seem to 
 be in another world, for the quietness of the valleys and the 
 comparative comfort and independence of this population are 
 a delightful contrast to what one finds almost everywhere else. 
 
 We have had heavy rains and a flood, but now both are 
 gone, and the weather is beautiful, and the country most mag- 
 nificent - snow on all the high hills, but none on the low hills 
 or in the valleys. 
 
 CCXIV. TO JAMES MARSHALL, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, January 1, 1840. 
 
 I may be wrong as to the necessity of gaining 
 
 more information, but I think I am not wrong in wishing to 
 secure a more extensive and universal co-operation, before
 
 164 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 anything is ventured remedially, I would join half a dozen 
 men, or even fewer, if the object be merely to collect and cir- 
 culate facts such as may fix the public attention ; but, if more 
 be proposed to be done, I dread the thing's assuming a party 
 character, and I could not myself undertake to sanction a sort 
 of political mission system, without knowing more exactly 
 than I can well expect to know, the characters and discretion 
 and opinions of the agents to be employed. And, even if I 
 could depend on these, yet I do not think that they could be 
 successful, for the evil is far deeper, as I believe, than can be 
 cured without the aid of the Government and Legislature. I 
 quite agree with you in the wisdom of forming local societies 
 and a general Central Society ; and I should wish the local 
 societies to consist of men of all classes, including certainly 
 the working classes ; every possible information collected by 
 such societies would be most valuable, but why should they 
 go on to the farther step of endeavoring, by tracts or mission- 
 aries, to influence the mass of the working classes, or to pro- 
 pose remedies ? For instance, in Leeds, I can conceive that 
 benevolent men among the highest Conservatives, and among 
 the clergy especially, would join a society which really only 
 sought to collect information ; but they could not, and would 
 not, if it endeavored to do more, because the differe/ices of 
 opinion between you and them render it impossible for you to 
 agree in what you should disseminate. The Society would 
 therefore consist, I think, exclusively of men of what is called 
 the Liberal party, and principally of Dissenters ; and this 
 would be, I think, a great pity, and would cripple our opera- 
 tions sadly. I confess I am very suspicious of bodies of men 
 belonging all to one party, even although that party be the 
 one with which I should in the main myself agree, and for 
 this reason, I as little like the composition of the University 
 of London, as I do that of the University of Oxford. 
 
 CCXV. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Fox How, Ambleside, January 6, 1840. 
 
 I must not let more of my time at Fox How pass away 
 without writing to you, for I wish much to know how you are, 
 and how you bear the winter. Your letter of September 7th, 
 gave me a better account of you than your former note had 
 done, and I was very glad to learn that you were better 
 Still you did not write as if you were quite well, and I do not
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 165 
 
 like to hear of any disorder or languor hanging about you, 
 however slight ; for you are not old enough to feel any natural 
 decay, and slight indisposition requires to be watched, lest it 
 should become serious. But I love to think of the quiet of 
 Hatford for you, which, if your complaints are bodily merely, 
 must be very good for you. If you feel any nervousness or 
 oppression of spirits, then I suspect a little more of the stir of 
 life would be very good for you ; and we should be delighted 
 to see you and Mrs. Hearn and your little ones at Rugby, 
 where you might have enough of movement around you, and 
 yet might be yourself as much at rest as you chose. I some- 
 times think, that if I were at all in nervous spirits, the solemn 
 beauty of this valley would be almost overwhelming, and that 
 brick streets and common hedgerows would be better for me ; 
 just as now, whilst my life is necessarily so stirring, and my 
 health so good, there is an extreme delight in the peacefulness 
 of our life here, and in the quiet of all around us. Last night 
 we were out on the gravel walk for nearly half an hour, 
 watching the northern lights. I never saw them so beautiful : 
 the sky in the north behind the mountains was all of a silvery 
 light, while in other parts it was dark as usual, and all set with 
 its stars ; then, from the mass of light before us, there shot up 
 continually long white pillars or needles, reaching to the zenith ; 
 and then again fleeces of light would go quivering like a 
 pulse all over the sky, till they died away in the far south. 
 And to-day there is not a cloud to be seen, and the mountain 
 before our windows reflects the sun's light upon us like a 
 great mirror, we ourselves being in the shade, for the sun 
 
 soon sets on this side of the valley 
 
 P. S Have you seen Taylor's book on Early 
 
 Christianity ? With much allowance for an unpleasant man- 
 ner, and some other faults, yet I think he is right in his 
 main point, and the question at issue is really one of Chris- 
 tianity or of the Church system Because I believe 
 
 the New Testament to represent Christianity truly, therefore 
 I reject the Church system, and I think that the Church of 
 England does exactly the same thing for the same reason. 
 But that the Church has always faithfully preserved the 
 Christian doctrine in other points, and much of the purity of 
 Christian holiness, I acknowledge thankfully ; and therefore, 
 although I think that in one point Antichrist was in the 
 Church from the first century, yet God forbid that I should 
 <;all the Church Antichrist. It preserved much truth and
 
 166 LIFE OF DR. AENOLD. 
 
 much holiness, with one fatal error, subversive, indeed, in its 
 consequences, both of truth and goodness, but which has not 
 always developed its full consequences, nor was even dis- 
 tinctly conscious of its own ground. But that the modern 
 Newmanites are far worse than the early Church writers is 
 certain, and many of their doctrines are disclaimed and con- 
 demned by those writers ; only in their peculiar system, they 
 are the development of that system which, in the early 
 Church, existed in the bud only ; and which, as being directly 
 opposed to our Lord's religion, as taught by Him and His 
 Apostles, I call Antichrist. 
 
 CCXVI. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, January 12, 1840. 
 
 It is a very long time since I have written to you ; your 
 last letter to me being dated, I am ashamed to say, nearly a 
 year ago. But I intended to write to you from this place in the 
 summer ; and then my stay here was so short, that I had no 
 time for anything, the greater part of my holidays having 
 been passed on the Continent. 
 
 I think that I have to thank you for introducing so much 
 of my little Lecture, on the Divisions of Knowledge, into the 
 Penny Magazine. I printed it, thinking that it might be 
 useful to the members of Mechanics' Institutions ; but having 
 printed it at Rugby, and no publisher having an interest in it, 
 and it not having been advertised, it has had, I suppose, but 
 a very limited circulation. I was very glad therefore to see 
 such large extracts from it in the Penny Magazine, which 
 must have brought it to the knowledge of many readers, 
 although perhaps not exactly of that class for whom I most 
 designed it 
 
 I shall be very glad if you can give me good accounts of 
 yourself and all your family. Our life goes on with very 
 little variety beyond its own even alternations of vacation and 
 half-year ; and I could be too happy if private comfort did 
 not seem almost inconsistent with justice, while the state of 
 public affairs is so troubled. If you see the Herts Reformer, 
 you will have observed that I have still continued from time 
 to time to write on my old subject, and latterly I have been 
 trying to form a society to collect information, and draw public 
 attention to the question. The difficulties are very great, but 
 I do hope that something will be done, for I see that men are
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 167 
 
 interested in the question who have a personal interest in 
 manufactures, and a practical knowledge of the state of the 
 people. Such men may really do great good, but I can do 
 nothing more than pull the bell, as it were, and try to give the 
 alarm as to the magnitude of the danger. I was very much 
 
 struck with Mr. Gill's speech the other day in answer to . 
 
 I do not know how you find it, but for myself I cannot go 
 cordially along with the Radical party, philosophical or other- 
 wise, even on points where in the main I agree with them. 
 They all seem to me more or less overrun with two things, 
 Benthamism and Political Economy; and Bentham I have 
 always thought a bad man, and also, as Carlyle called him in 
 a letter to a friend of mine, " a bore of the first magnitude." 
 I believe I agree with the Radicals as to the mischief of the 
 Corn Laws ; yet I cannot but think that the Chartists have 
 some reason in their complaint, that the clamor about the 
 Corn Laws is rather leading men off on a false scent, and 
 that the Repeal will not benefit the working man so much 
 as it is expected. You will not, however, suspect me of 
 
 thinking that the true scent is to be found in following 's 
 
 notions of universal suffrage and universal plunder. He and 
 his companions continually remind me of slaves, of men so 
 brutalized by their seclusion from the pale of society, that 
 they have lost all value for the knowledge and morality of the 
 civilized world, and have really no more ideas of the use to 
 be made of all the manifold inventions and revelations of six 
 thousand years, than Sir Isaac Newton's dog had of the value 
 of his master's problems. The cry against property is just 
 the cry of a slave, who, being incapable of holding anything 
 himself as his own, has no notion of any harm in stealing, 
 stealing, in fact, is hardly a word in his language. It is cer- 
 tain, I suppose, that a certain moral and social training are 
 necessary in order to enable us to appreciate truths which, to 
 those who have had that training, are the very life of their 
 life. And again, there is a course of training so mischievous, 
 and degradation and distress are such a curse, as absolutely 
 to make men believe a lie, and to take away that common 
 standing-ground of a general sense of the principles of right 
 and wrong, on which we meet uncorrupted ignorance, and so 
 are able to lead it on to a sense of the purest truths and the 
 highest. You mentioned Laing's book on Norway to me. I 
 have got it, and like it very much ; but it is easier to admire, 
 and almost envy the example of Norwegian society, than to
 
 168 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 apply it to our own state here. It would be a great comfort 
 to me if your experience and observation have led you to look 
 on matters more hopefully ; and yet no man feels more keenly 
 than I do the vast amount of goodness and energy which we 
 have amongst us. How noble, after all, is the sight of these 
 Trials for high treason. Such deliberation and dignity, and 
 perfect fairness, and even gentleness on the part of the Gov- 
 ernment and the law, in dealing with guilt so recent, so great, 
 and so palpable. Therefore we cannot be without hope that, 
 with God's blessing, we may get over our evils, although I 
 own with me that fear is stronger than hope. 
 
 CCXVII. TO THOMAS CABLYLE, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, January, 1840. 
 
 A note of yours to our common acquaintance, Mr. James 
 Marshall, furnishes, I believe, the only shadow of a pretence 
 which I could claim for addressing you, according to the ordi- 
 nary forms of society. But I should be ashamed, to you 
 above all men, to avail myself of a mere pretence ; and my 
 true reason for addressing you is, because I believe you sym- 
 pathize with me on that most important subject, the welfare of 
 the poorer classes, and because I know, from your history of 
 the French Revolution, that you understand the real nature 
 and magnitude of the evil, which so many appear to me 
 neither to comprehend nor to feel. 
 
 I have been trying, hitherto with no success, to form a So- 
 ciety, the object of which should be to collect information as 
 to every point in the condition of the poor throughout the 
 kingdom, and to call public attention to it by every possible 
 means, whether by the press, or by yearly or quarterly meet- 
 ings. And as I am most anxious to secure the co-operation 
 of good men of all parties, it seems to me a necessary condi- 
 tion that the Society should broach no theories, and propose 
 no remedies ; that it should simply collect information, and 
 rouse the attention of the country to the infinite importance 
 of the subject You know full well that wisdom in the higher ( 
 sense and practical knowledge are rarely found in the same 
 man ; and, if any theory be started, which contains something 
 not suited to practice, all the so-called practical men cry out 
 against the folly of all theories, and conclude themselves, and 
 lead the vulgar to the conclusion, that because one particular 
 remedy has been prescribed ignorantly, no remedy is needed 
 or at least none is practicable.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 169 
 
 I see by the newspapers that you are writing on Chartism, 
 and I am heartily glad to hear of it. I shall be curious to 
 know whether you have any definite notions as to the means of 
 relieving the fearful evils of our social condition, or whether 
 you, like myself, are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the 
 mischief, and are inclined to say, like the Persian fatalist in 
 
 Herodotus, e^dicrrf] 68vvf) TroXXa (frpoveovra p.rj8evos Kparfftv. 
 
 I have no sort of desire to push my proposal about a Soci- 
 ety, and would gladly be guided by wiser men as to what is 
 best to be done. But I cannot, I am sure, be mistaken as to 
 this, that the state of society in England at this moment was 
 never yet paralleled in history ; and though I have no stake 
 on the country as far as property is concerned, yet I have a 
 wife and a large family of children ; and I do not wish to lose, 
 either for them or myself, all those thousand ties, so noble and 
 so sacred and so dear, which bind us to our country, as she 
 was and as she is, with all her imperfections and difficulties. 
 If you think that anything can be done, which could interest 
 any other person on the subject, I should be delighted to give 
 aid in any possible manner to the extent of my abilities. I 
 owe you many apologies for writing thus to a perfect stranger, 
 but ever since I read your History of the French Revolu- 
 tion, I have longed to become acquainted with you ; because 
 I found in that book an understanding of the true nature of 
 history, such as it delighted my heart to meet with ; and 
 having from a child felt the deepest interest in the story of the 
 French Revolution, and read pretty largely about it, I was 
 somewhat in a condition to appreciate the richness of your 
 knowledge, and the wisdom of your judgments. I do not 
 mean that I agree with you in all these ; in some instances 
 I should differ very decidedly ; but still the wisdom of the 
 book, as well as its singular eloquence and poetry, was such 
 a treasure to me as I have rarely met with, and am not at all 
 likely to meet with again. 
 
 CCXVIII. TO JAMES MARSHALL, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, January 23, 1840. 
 
 I thank you much for your last letter, and I assure you 
 that I attach a great value to such communications from you. 
 The scheme of a newspaper I actually tried myself nine years 
 ago, and spent above two hundred pounds upon it. I was not 
 so foolish as to think that I could keep up a newspaper ; but I 
 
 VOL. ii. 15
 
 170 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 was willing to bell the cat, hoping that some who were able 
 might take up what I had begun. But no one did, and the 
 thing died a natural death at the end of two months. I feel, 
 however, so strongly the desirableness of such an attempt, 
 that I am ready again to contribute money or writing, or both, 
 to the same cause ; and I should be doubly glad if we could 
 effect both the objects you speak of, a daily paper and a weekly 
 one. It seems to me, however, desirable that at this point I 
 should make somewhat of a confession of my political faith 
 to you, that you may know how far my views would coincide 
 with yours. 
 
 My differences with the Liberal Party would turn, I think, 
 chiefly on two points. First, I agree with Carlyle, in think- 
 ing that they greatly overestimate Bentham, and also that 
 they overrate the Political Economists generally ; not that I 
 doubt the ability of those writers, or the truth of their conclu- 
 sions, as far as regards their own science, but I think that 
 the summum bonum of their science, and of human life, are 
 not identical ; and therefore many questions in which free- 
 trade is involved, and the advantages of large capital, &c., 
 although perfectly simple in an economical point of view, 
 become, when considered politically, very complex ; and the 
 economical good is very often from the neglect of other points 
 made in practice a direct social evil. 
 
 But my second difference is greater by much than this ; I 
 look to the full development of the Christian Church in its 
 perfect form, as the Kingdom of God, for the most effective 
 removal of ah evil, and promotion of all good ; and I can 
 understand no perfect Church or perfect State, without their 
 blending into one in this ultimate form. I believe, farther, 
 that our fathers at the Reformation stumbled accidentally, or 
 rather were unconsciously led by God's Providence, to the 
 declaration of the great principle of this system, the doctrine 
 of the King's Supremacy ; which is, in fact, no other than 
 an assertion of the supremacy of the Church or Christian 
 society, over the clergy, and a denial of that which I hold to 
 be one of the most mischievous falsehoods ever broached, 
 that the government of the Christian Church is vested by 
 divine right in the clergy, and that the close corporation of 
 bishops and presbyters, whether one or more, makes no 
 difference, is and ever ought to be the representative of the 
 Christian Church. Holding this doctrine as the very corner- 
 stone of all my political belief, I am equally opposed to Popery,
 
 LIFE OF DR; ARNOLD. 171 
 
 High-Churcliism, and the claims of the Scotch Presbyteries, 
 on the one hand ; and to all the Independents, and advocates 
 of the separation, as they call it, of Church and State, on the 
 other ; the first setting up a priesthood in the place of the 
 Church, and the other lowering necessarily the objects of Law 
 and Government, and reducing them to a mere system of 
 police, while they profess to wish to make the Church purer. 
 And my fondness for Greek and German literature has made 
 me very keenly alive to the mental defects of the Dissenters 
 as a body , the characteristic faults of the English mind, 
 narrowness of view, and a want of learning and a sound crit- 
 ical spirit, being exhibited to my mind in the Dissenters 
 almost in caricature. It is nothing but painful to me to feel 
 this ; because no man appreciates more than I do the many 
 great services which the Dissenters have rendered, both to 
 the general cause of Christianity, and especially to the cause 
 of justice and good government in our own country ; and my 
 sense of the far less excusable errors, and almost uniformly 
 mischievous conduct of the High-Church party, is as strong 
 as it can be of any one thing in the world. 
 
 Again, the principle of Conservatism has always appeared 
 to me to be not only foolish, but to be actually felo de se ; it 
 destroys what it loves, because it will not mend it. But I 
 cordially agree with Niebuhr, who in all such questions is 
 to me the greatest of all authorities ; because together with 
 an ability equal to the highest, he had an universal knowledge 
 of political history, far more profound than was ever pos- 
 sessed by any other man, that every new institution should 
 be but a fuller development of, or an addition to, what already 
 exists ; and that if things have come to such a pass in a 
 country, that all its past history and associations are cast 
 away as merely bad, Reform in such a country is impossible. 
 I believe it to be necessary, and quite desirable, that the pop- 
 ular power in a state should, in the perfection of things, be 
 paramount to every other ; but this supremacy need not, and 
 ought not, I think, to be absolute ; and monarchy, and an aris- 
 tocracy of birth, as distinguished from one of wealth or of 
 office, appear to me to be two precious elements which still 
 exist in most parts of Europe, and to lose which, as has been 
 done unavoidably in America, would be rather our insanity 
 than our misfortune. But the insolencies of our aristocracy 
 no one feels more keenly than I do : the scandalous ex-
 
 172 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 emption* of the peers from all ignominious punishments short 
 of death, so that for a most aggravated manslaughter a peer 
 must escape altogether, as the old Lord Byron did, or as the 
 Duchess of Kingston did, for bigamy ; the insolent practice 
 of allowing peers to vote in criminal trials on their honor, 
 while other men vote on their oath ; the absurdity of proxy 
 voting, and some other things of the same nature. All theory 
 and all experience show, that if a system goes on long un- 
 reformed, it is not then reformed, but destroyed. And so, I 
 believe, it will be with our Aristocracy and our Church; 
 because I fear that neither will be wise in time. But still, 
 looking upon both as positive blessings and capable the 
 latter especially of doing good that can be done by no other 
 means, I love and would maintain both, not as a concession or 
 a compromise, but precisely with the same zeal that I would 
 reform both, and enlarge the privileges and elevate the condi- 
 tion of the mass of the community. As to your difference of 
 opinion with Carlyle about the craving for political rights, I 
 agree with you fully. But I think that, before distress has 
 once got in, a people whose physical wants are well supplied, 
 may be kept for centuries by a government without a desire 
 for political power : but, when the ranks immediately above 
 them have been long contending earnestly for this very 
 power, and physical distress makes them impatient of their 
 actual condition, then men are apt, I think, to attach even an 
 overvalue to the political remedy ; and it is then quite too late 
 to try to fatten them into obedience : other parts of their 
 nature have learnt to desire, and will have their desire 
 gratified. 
 
 CCXIX. TO SIR THOMAS PASLET, BART. 
 
 Fox How, January 25, 1840. 
 
 On the difficulties of Scripture I met , as to 
 
 the matter of fact, maintaining that the differences of interpre- 
 tation are very few in number ; and that many of the greatest 
 points at issue are altogether foreign to the interpretation of 
 Scripture, and are argued upon other grounds ; and that 
 where the Scripture is really difficult, there the boasted 
 authority of the Church gives no help, the early Christian 
 
 * This, so far as it is here correctly stated, was abolished by 4 & 6 Viet 
 cap. 22.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 173 
 
 writers having been quite as much puzzled as ourselves, when 
 they did not attempt to clear themselves by mere guesses, and 
 
 those generally very bad ones I have been working 
 
 hard every morning at my History, and have wanted the 
 evenings for my letters : so that we really declined dining out 
 after the first half of our stay. The second volume is now 
 finished, and I have written besides four Sermons, three Let- 
 ters to the Herts Reformer, and letters of other sorts, of 
 course, without number. I have had a considerable corre- 
 spondence with Mr, James Marshall, about our plan of a 
 Society for obtaining and disseminating information about the 
 poorer classes : he is deeply interested in the question. In- 
 deed, it is only a wonder to me that every one is not ener- 
 getic on this matter; but the security of those who were 
 " buying, selling, planting, and building, and knew not till the 
 flood came, and swept them all away," is to be repeated, I 
 suppose, or rather will be repeated, before each of our Lord's 
 comings, be they as many as they may. I have often thought 
 of New Zealand, and if they would make you Governor and 
 me Bishop, I would go out, I think, to-morrow, not to return 
 after so many years, but to live and die there, if there was any 
 prospect of rearing any hopeful form of society. I have actu- 
 ally got two hundred acres in New Zealand, and I confess that 
 my thoughts often turn thitherward ; but that vile population 
 of runaway convicts and others who infest the country, deter 
 me more than anything else, as the days of Roman Procon- 
 suls are over, who knew so well how to clear a country of 
 such nuisances. Now, I suppose they will, as they find it 
 convenient, come in and settle down quietly amongst the colo- 
 nists, as Morgan did at Kingston ; and the ruffian and outlaw 
 of yesterday becomes to-day, according to our Jacobin notions 
 of citizenship, a citizen, and perhaps a magistrate and a legis- 
 lator. I imagine that the Jamaica society has never recov- 
 ered the mixture of Buccaneer blood, and it is in that way 
 that colonial societies become so early corrupted, because all 
 the refuse of old societies find such easy access into them. 
 
 I am very glad, indeed, that you like my Prophecy Ser- 
 mons : the points in particular on which I did not wish to 
 enter, if I could help it, but which very likely I shall be 
 forced to touch on, relate to the latter chapters of Daniel, 
 Avhich, if genuine, would be a clear exception to my canon of 
 interpretation, as there can be no reasonable spiritual mean- 
 ino- made out of the Kings of the North and South. But I 
 
 o o 
 
 15* K
 
 174 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD 
 
 have long thought that the greater part of the book of Daniel 
 is most certainly a very late work of the time of the Macca- 
 bees ; and the pretended prophecy about the Kings of Grecia 
 and Persia, and of the North and South, is mere history, like 
 the poetical prophecies in Virgil and elsewhere. In fact you 
 can trace distinctly the date when it was written, because the 
 events up to the date are given with historical minuteness, 
 totally unlike the character of real Prophecy ; and beyond 
 that date all is imaginary. It is curious that when there was 
 so allowed a proof of the existence of apocryphal writings, 
 under the name of the Book of Daniel, as the Stories of the 
 apocryphal Esther, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, those 
 should have been rejected, because they were only known in 
 the Greek translation, and the rest, because it happened to be 
 in Chaldee, was received at once in the lump, and defended 
 as a matter of faith. But the self-same criticism which has 
 established the authenticity of St John's Gospel against all 
 questionings, does, I think, equally prove the non-authenticity 
 of great part of Daniel ; that there may be genuine fragments 
 in it, is very likely. 
 
 CCXX. TO ARCHDEACON HARE. 
 
 Fox How, January 26, 1840. 
 
 The Penny postage will allow me to trouble you with a 
 question, which otherwise I should not have thought it worth 
 while to send to you. Wordsworth, I think, told me, on your 
 authority, that Niebuhr had spoken with strong disrespect of 
 Coleridge's Church and State. Now, as I respect Coleridge 
 exceedingly, it pains me to think that Niebuhr should speak 
 with actual disrespect of any work of his ; and it seems to me 
 that his habit of criticism was generally mild and considerate. 
 On the other hand, Coleridge's Church and State does seem 
 to me to be historically very faulty, and this Niebuhr would 
 feel, I doubt not, very keenly. Can you tell me what Nie- 
 buhr's judgment of the book really was, and on what it was 
 founded ? * 
 
 You will be glad to hear, I think, that the volumes 
 
 of Thirlwall's Greece seem to me to improve as the work ad- 
 
 * This Question has been inserted merely as an illustration of the jealousy 
 with which he regarded the reputations of men whom he really reverenced. 
 How far Niebuhr's unfavorable judgment was given, upon full deliberation, 
 does not appear.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 175 
 
 vances. There never could be a doubt as to the learning and 
 good sense of the book ; but it seems to me to be growing in 
 feeling and animation, and to be now a very delightful history, 
 
 as well as a very valuable one Mr. Maurice wrote 
 
 to me the other day, to say that he had sent to Rugby, for me, 
 the first number of the Educational Magazine. I could not 
 thank him, because I did not know his address, but I should 
 be very sorry to appear inattentive to a man whom I respect 
 so highly as I do Mr. Maurice. 
 
 CCXXI. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, January, 24, 1840. 
 
 We are going to leave this place, if all be well, on Monday ; 
 and I confess that it makes me rather sad to see the prepara- 
 tions for our departure, for it is like going out of a very 
 quiet cove into a very rough sea ; and I am every year 
 approaching nearer to that time of life when rest is more 
 welcome than exertion. Yet, when I think of what is at 
 stake on that rough sea, I feel that I have no right to lie in 
 harbor idly ; and indeed I do yearn more than I can say to 
 be able to render some service where service is so greatly 
 needed. It is when I indulge such wishes most keenly, and 
 only then, that strong political differences between my friends 
 and myself are really painful ; because I feel that not only 
 could we not act together, but there would be no sympathy 
 the moment I were to express anything beyond a general 
 sense of anxiety and apprehension, in which I suppose all 
 good men must share. 
 
 CCXXII. TO MB. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, January 26, 1840. 
 
 We left Rugby this time so early, that your letter followed 
 me down here, and I must have the pleasure of answering it 
 before we go away, which alas ! must be to-morrow morning. 
 We talk of going to Norwich for a few days, to see the Stan- 
 leys, and to Cambridge, before we settle at Rugby ; and 
 really, in these most troublous times, it seems more than is 
 allowable to be living, as we are here, in a place of so much 
 rest and beauty. 
 
 Your letter interested me very deeply, and I have thought 
 over what you say very often. Yet I believe that no man's
 
 176 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 mind has ever been more consciously influenced by others 
 than mine has been in the course of my life, from the time 
 that I first met you at Corpus. I doubt whether you ever 
 submitted to another with the same complete deference as I 
 did to you when I was an undergraduate. So, afterwards, 
 I looked up to Davison with exceeding reverence, and to 
 Whately. Nor do I think that Keble himself has lived on 
 in more habitual respect and admiration than I have, only 
 the objects of these feelings have been very different. At 
 this day, I could sit at Bunsen's feet, and drink in wisdom, 
 with almost intense reverence. But I cannot reverence the 
 men whom Keble reverences, and how does he feel to Luther 
 and Milton ? It gives me no pain and no scruple whatever 
 to differ from those whom, after the most deliberate judgment 
 that I can form, I cannot find to be worthy of admiration. 
 Nor does their number affect me, when all are manifestly 
 under the same influences, and no one seems to be a master 
 spirit, fitted to lead amongst men. But with wise men in 
 the way of their wisdom, it would give me .very great pain to 
 differ ; I can say that truly with regard to your Uncle, even 
 more with regard to Niebuhr. I do not know a single sub- 
 ject on which I have maintained really a paradox, that is, 
 on which I have presumed to set up my judgment, against 
 the concurrent judgment of wise men, and I trust I never 
 should do it. But it is surely not presumption to prefer a 
 foreign authority to one nearer home, when both are in them- 
 selves perfectly equal. For instance, suppose that any point 
 in English Law, although steadily defended by English law- 
 yers, was at variance no less decidedly with the practice of 
 the Roman Law, and condemned by the greatest jurists and 
 philosophers of other countries, there can be no presump- 
 tion, as it seems to me, in taking either side strongly, according 
 as a man's convictions may be : nor ought one to be taxed with 
 disrespect of authority in either case ; because although one 
 may be treating some great men as clearly wrong, yet other 
 men no less great have justified us in doing so. Perhaps 
 this consciousness of the actually disputed character of many 
 points in theology and politics rendered it early impossible 
 to my mind to acquiesce without inquiry in any one set of 
 opinions ; the choice was not left me to do so. I was brought 
 up in a strong Tory family ; the first impressions of my own 
 mind shook my merely received impressions to pieces, and at 
 Winchester I was well-nigh a Jacobin. At sixteen, when
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 177 
 
 I went up to Oxford, all the influences of the place which 1 
 loved exceedingly, your influence above all, blew my Jacobin- 
 ism to pieces, and made me again a Tory. I used to speak 
 strong Toryism in the old Attic Society, and greedily did I 
 read Clarendon, with all the sympathy of a thorough royalist. 
 Then came the peace, when Napoleon was put down, and the 
 Tories had it their own way. Nothing shook my Toryism 
 more than the strong Tory sentiments that I used to hear at 
 
 , though I liked the family exceedingly. But I heard 
 
 language at which my organ of justice stood aghast, and 
 which, the more I read of the Bible, seemed to me more and 
 more unchristian. I could not but go on inquiring, and I do 
 feel thankful that now and for some years past I have been 
 living not in scepticism, but in a very sincere faith, which 
 embraces most unreservedly those great truths, divine and 
 human, which the highest authorities, divine and human, seem 
 to me concurringly to teach. I have said this defensively 
 only, for I am sure I meant to convey no insinuation against 
 you for not being active in inquiring after truth. I believe I 
 never think of you but with entire respect and admiration, 
 and I never talked with you on any subject without gaining 
 something, so far am I from venturing to think that I am 
 entitled to think myself fonder of truth than you are. I am 
 glad that you like the Sermons on Prophecy ; I have not ven- 
 tured to say that the principle is of universal application, but 
 it is I think very general ; and, in both the cases which you 
 notice, I think it holds. Cyrus is said, in many commentaries, 
 to be a type of Christ, by which I understand that the lan- 
 guage applied to him is hyperbolical, and suits properly only 
 Him who is the real deliverer of Israel, and conqueror of 
 Babylon. And the passage about the " Virgin conceiving," 
 &c., has a manifest historical meaning as applied to Isaiah's 
 wife ; the sign being one of time, that within the youth of an 
 infant presently to be born, Syria and Israel should be over- 
 thrown. Emmanuel might improperly be the name of a com- 
 mon child, just as Jesus or Joshua was, but both apply to our 
 Lord, and to Him only, in unexaggerated strictness. I have 
 finished Vol. II. of the History, and am getting on with the 
 new edition of Thucydides. The school is quite full, and I 
 have been obliged to refuse several applications on that account. 
 Our attempt to secure some of the benefits of the Eton system 
 of tuition will come into practice as soon as the half-year 
 begins. Wordsworth is and has been remarkably well this
 
 178 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 winter. A Miss Gillies came down here in the autumn to 
 take his miniature, in which I think she has succeeded ad- 
 mirably. The state of the times is so grievous, that it really 
 pierces through all private happiness, and haunts me daily like 
 a personal calamity. But I suppose that as to causes and 
 cure, we should somewhat differ, though in much surely we 
 should agree. I wish your son John would come down to see 
 me some day from Oxford. I should much wish to see him, 
 and to observe how he is getting on. 
 
 CCXXIII. TO SIR CULLING E. SMITH, BART. 
 (With reference to a correspondence in the Herts Reformer.) 
 
 Rugby, February 14, 1840. 
 
 I have two principal reasons which make me un- 
 willing to aHix my name to my letters in the Herts Re- 
 former, one, as I mentioned before, because I am so totally 
 unconnected with the county, which to my feelings is a 
 reason of great weight : my other reason concerns my own 
 particular profession, not so much as a clergyman but as a 
 schoolmaster. I think if I wrote by name in a newspaper 
 published in another county, I should be thought to be step- 
 ping out of the line of my own duties, and courting notoriety 
 as a political writer. And this, I think, I am bound for the 
 school's sake to avoid, unless there is a clear duty on the other 
 side, which I own I cannot as yet perceive to exist. I think 
 that your own case as a gentleman of independent rank and 
 fortune, and directly connected with Hertfordshire, is very 
 different from mine ; for no one could charge you with step- 
 ping out of your own profession, or with interfering without 
 any title to do so in the newspaper of another county. And 
 as to the reasons which you urge, of setting an example of 
 moderation in arguing on the question of Church Establish- 
 ments, it seems to me that the mischief of our newspapers 
 mainly arises from the virulent language which men use while 
 writing anonymously, and that, as far as example goes, this 
 is better reproved by temperate writings which are also 
 anonymous. I suppose that no man, writing with his name, 
 would allow himself to write in the style which newspaper 
 writers often use ; if you and I write with our names, it would 
 be no wonder at all if we should write moderately ; but if 
 Augur and F. H. observe the courtesies and the charities of 
 life, which their incognito might enable them to cast aside if
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 179 
 
 they would, it appears to me to be likely, as far as their letters 
 are read, to have a salutary influence, because their modera- 
 tion could scarcely be ascribed to anything but to their real 
 disapprobation of scurrility and unfairness. After all, my 
 incognito is only a very slight veil, and I am more anxious to 
 preserve it in form than in reality. I have no objection to be 
 known as the author of my Letters, but I would neither wish 
 to attach my name to them, nor to be mentioned by name in 
 the Reformer, for the reasons which I have given above. I 
 trust that you will not take it amiss that I still adhere to my 
 former resolution. May I add at the same time, that I am 
 much obliged to you for the kind expressions in your letter, 
 and I trust that you will have no cause to recall your testi- 
 mony to the respectfulness of my language in any of my 
 future Letters. I do respect sincerely every man who writes 
 with a real desire to promote the cause of Christ's kingdom. 
 
 CCXXIV. * TO H. FOX, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, February 21, 1840. 
 
 I am well persuaded that to a good man with regard to his 
 choice of one amidst several lines of duty, " Sua cuique Deus 
 fit dira cupido." It is a part of God's Providence that some 
 men are made to see strongly the claims of one calling, 
 others those of another. If, therefore, a man tells me that he 
 feels bound to go out as a Missionary to India, I feel that I 
 ought not to grudge to India what God seems to will for her. 
 A very old friend of mine, who has been for some years 
 superintendent of the Missions at Madras, is coming home 
 this spring for his health, hoping to go ont again in the 
 autumn ; if your purpose is fixed I should like you to see 
 him, for he would counsel you well as to the manner of carry- 
 ing it into effect : but on the previous question itself, to go 
 to India or not, his judgment must be biased, for he him- 
 self left a very large field of ministerial duty here, to go out 
 to India. But whether you go to India, or to any other 
 foreign country, the first and great point, I think, is to turn 
 your thoughts to the edification of the Church already in 
 existence, that is, the English or Christian societies as dis- 
 tinct from the Hindoos. Unless the English and the half- 
 caste people can be brought into a good state, how can you 
 get on with the Hindoos ? Again, I am inclined to think that 
 greater good might be done by joining a young English set-
 
 180 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tlement, than by missionary work amongst the heathen. 
 Every good man going to New Zealand, or to Van Diemen's 
 Land, not for the sake of making money, is an invaluable ele- 
 ment in those societies ; and remember that they, after all, 
 must be, by-and-by, the great missionaries to the heathen 
 world, either for God or for the Devil. 
 
 But still, do not lightly think that any claims can be greater 
 upon you than those of this Church and people of England. 
 It is not surely to the purpose to say that there are ten thou- 
 sand clergymen here, and very few in India. Do these ten 
 thousand clergymen all, or even the greater part of them, 
 appreciate what they have to do ? Is not the mass of evil 
 here, greater a thousand times in its injurious effects on the 
 world at large, than all the idolatry of India ? and is it less 
 dangerous to the souls of those concerned in it ? Look at 
 the state of your own county ; * and does not that cry out as 
 loud as India, notwithstanding its bishop and its golden stalls ? 
 And remember that the Apostles did indeed, or rather 
 some of them did, spread the Gospel over many provinces of 
 the Roman Empire ; but it was necessary that it should 
 have a wide diffusion once ; not that this diffusion was to go 
 on universally and always, although the old Churches might 
 be grievously wanting the aid of those who are plunging into 
 heathen and barbarian countries to make nominal converts. 
 
 But beyond this no man can advise you ; you may do good 
 by God's blessing anywhere, you will, I doubt not, serve him 
 everywhere, but what you feel to be your particular call, 
 you must alone determine. But do not decide hastily, for it 
 is an important question, and if you go and then regret it, time 
 and opportunities will be lost. You know that F. Newman 
 went out as a missionary to Persia, and returned, finding that 
 he had judged his calling wrongly. I shall, of course, be at 
 all times glad to advise you to the best of my power, either 
 by letter or personally. 
 
 CCXXV. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, March 30, 1840. 
 
 I would not willingly have left your last letter so long un- 
 answered, but my time has been even more than usually 
 engaged. I am sure that if your bent seems to be to the work 
 of a Missionary in India, I would not be the man to dissuade 
 
 # Durham.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 181 
 
 you from it. It is a Christian and a most important calling, 
 and though to my own mind, certainly, there are others even 
 more important, yet I fully believe that it is God's will that, 
 by our different impulses, all the several parts of His vine- 
 yard should be supplied with laborers. Only, if you do go 
 to India, still remember that the great work to be done is to 
 organize and purify Christian Churches of whites and half- 
 castes. This, I believe, Tucker would tell you, and all other 
 men whose judgments can be relied on. These must be the 
 nucleus to which individuals from the natives will continually 
 join more and more, as these become more numerous and 
 more respectable. Otherwise the caste system is an insuper- 
 able difficulty ; you call on a man to leave all his old connec- 
 tions, and to become infamous, in their eyes, and yet have no 
 living Church to offer him where " he shall receive fathers 
 and mothers, and brethren and sisters, &c., a hundred-fold." 
 Individual preaching amongst the Hindoos, without having a 
 Church to which to invite them, seems to me the wildest of 
 follies. Remember how in every place, Paul made the eva-epf'is 
 the foundation of his Church, and then the idolatrous heathens 
 gathered round these in more or less numbers. 
 
 Again, if you go out to India, you must be clear as to ques- 
 tions of Church government and the so-called Apostolical 
 Succession, which there become directly practical questions. 
 Are you to look upon Lutheran ordinations, and Baptists' or 
 Independent baptisms, as valid or invalid ? Are the members 
 of non-episcopal Churches your brethren or not ? In matters 
 of doctrine, an opinion, however unimportant, is either true 
 or false ; and if false, he who holds it is in error, although 
 the error may be so practically indifferent as to be of no 
 account in our estimate of the men. But in matters of gov- 
 ernment, I hold that there is actually no right, and no wrong. 
 Viewed in the large, as they are seen in India, and when 
 abstracted from the questions of particular countries, I hold 
 that one form of Church government is exactly as much ac- 
 cording to Christ's will as another ; nay, I consider such ques- 
 tions as so indifferent, that, if I thought the government of 
 my neighbor's Church better than my own, I yet would not, 
 unless the case were very strong, leave my Church for his, 
 because habits, associations, and all those minor ties which 
 ought to burst asunder before a great call, are yet of more 
 force, I think, than a difference between Episcopacy and 
 Presbytery, unless one be very good of its kind, and the 
 VOL. u. 16
 
 182 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 other very bad However, whether you think with 
 
 me or not, the question at any rate is one of importance to a 
 man going as Missionary to India, Let me hear from you 
 again when you can. 
 
 CCXXVI. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 (Then Pmssian Minister at Berne.) 
 
 Rugby, February 25, 1840. 
 
 It rejoices me indeed to resume my communication with 
 you, and it is a comfort to me to think that you are at least 
 on our side of the Alps, and on a river which runs into our 
 own side, in the very face of Father Thames. May God's 
 blessing be with you and yours in your new home, and pros- 
 per all your works, public and private, and give you health 
 and strength to execute them, and to see their fruits beginning 
 to show themselves. I am going on in my accustomed way 
 in this twelfth year of my life at Rugby, with all about me, 
 thank God, in good health. 
 
 I have determined, after much consideration, to 
 
 follow the common chronology, for convenience. To alter it 
 now seems as hopeless as Hare's attempt to amend our 
 English spelling; and besides I cannot satisfy myself that 
 any sure system of chronology is attainable, so that it does 
 not seem worth while to put all one's recollections into con- 
 fusion for the sake of a result which after all is itself uncer- 
 tain. I have written the naval part of the First Punic War 
 with something of an Englishman's feeling, which I think 
 will make you find that part interesting. I have tried also 
 to make out a sort of Domesday Book of Italy after the 
 Roman Conquest, to show as far as possible the various 
 tenures by which the land was held * 
 
 I am seriously thinking of going southwards. I 
 
 hesitate between two plans, Marseilles and Naples, or Trieste 
 and Corfu. Corfu Corcyra would be genuine Greece 
 
 * A passage has here been omitted relating to the question between the 
 Judges and the House of Commons, on Breach of Privilege, in consequence 
 of the statement of his opinion being mixed up with a statement of facts 
 which he had intended eventually to reconsider. But it was a subject on 
 which, at the time, he felt very strongly in favor of the House of Com- 
 mons, in the belief that " the leading statesmen of all parties took one side, 
 and the lawyers and the ultra Tories the other side," and that " Peel's con- 
 duct on this occasion does him more credit than any part of his political
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 183 
 
 in point of climate and scenery, and if one could get a sight 
 of the country about Durazzo, it would greatly help the cam- 
 paign of Dyi-rhachium. Then, in going to Trieste, we should 
 see Ulm, Augsburg, Munich, and Salzburg, and might take 
 Regensburg and Nurnburg on our return. Naples in itself 
 would be to me less interesting than Corfu, but if we could 
 penetrate into the interior nothing would delight me more. 
 Do you think that we could penetrate into the Abruzzi, that 
 is, my wife and I, and can you give us letters to anybody 
 in the Neapolitan dominions if we did go ? Any advice of 
 yours on this subject would be very acceptable. We went to 
 Cambridge at the end of- our winter holidays, where I saw 
 Donaldson, the author of the New Cratylus, and almost the 
 only Englishman who promises, I think, to be a really good 
 philologer. How I wish that your Egyptian work were pub- 
 lished, and that we had a near prospect of the Evangelica and 
 the liturgical work. 
 
 Niebuhr's third volume is indeed delightful ; but it grieved 
 me to find those frequent expressions, in his later letters, of 
 his declining regard for England. I grieve at it, but I do 
 not wonder. Most gladly do I join in your proposal that 
 
 we should write monthly Will you send me your 
 
 proper address in German, for I do not like directions to you 
 in French. 
 
 CCXXVII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 13, 1840. 
 
 I do not often venture to talk to you about public 
 
 affairs, but surely you will agree with me in deprecating this 
 war with China, which really seems to me so wicked as to be 
 a national sin of the greatest possible magnitude, and it dis- 
 tresses me very deeply. Cannot anything be done by petition 
 or otherwise to awaken men's minds to the dreadful guilt we 
 are incurring ? I really do not remember, in any history, of 
 a war undertaken with such combined injustice and baseness. 
 Ordinary wars of conquest are to me far less wicked, than to 
 go to war in order to maintain smuggling, and that smuggling 
 consisting in the introduction of a demoralizing drug, which 
 the government of China wishes to keep out, and which we, 
 for the lucre of gain, want to introduce by force ; and in this 
 quarrel are going to burn and slay in the pride of our sup- 
 posed superiority.
 
 184 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CCXXVIII. TO W. LEAPER NEWTON, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, February 19, 1840. 
 
 It is with the most sincere regret that I feel myself unable 
 to give an unqualified support to the resolution which you 
 propose to bring forward at the next general meeting of the 
 proprietors of the North Midland Railway Company. 
 
 Of course, if I held the Jewish law of the Sabbath to be 
 binding upon us, the question would not be one of degree, but 
 I should wish to stop all travelling on Sundays as in itself 
 unlawful. But holding that the Christian Lord's Day is a 
 very different thing from the Sabbath, and to be observed in 
 a different manner, the question of Sunday travelling is, in 
 my mind, quite one of degree ; and whilst I entirely think 
 that the trains which travel on that day should be very much 
 fewer on every account, yet I could not consent to suspend all 
 travelling on a great line of communication for twenty-four 
 hours, especially as the creation of railways necessarily puts 
 an end to other conveyances in the same direction ; and if the 
 trains do not travel, a poor man, who could not post, might 
 find it impossible to get on at all. But I would cheerfully 
 support you in voting that only a single train each way should 
 travel on the Sunday, which would surely enable the clerks, 
 porters, &c., at every station, to have the greatest part of 
 every Sunday at their own disposal. Nay, I would gladly 
 subscribe individually to a fund for obtaining additional help 
 on the Sunday, so that the work might fall still lighter on 
 each individual employed. 
 
 CCXXIX. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, February 22, 1840. 
 
 It would be absolutely wrong, I think, if I were not to 
 answer your question to the best of my power ; yet it is so 
 very painful to seem to be arguing in any way against the 
 observance of the Sunday, that I would far rather agree with 
 you than differ from you. I believe that it is generally agreed 
 amongst Christians that the Jewish Law, so far as it was 
 Jewish and not moral, is at an end ; and it is assuming the 
 whole point at issue to assume that the Ten Commandments 
 are all moral. If that were so, it seems to me quite certain 
 that the Sabbath would have been kept on its own proper 
 day ; for, if the Commandments were still binding, I do nol
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 185 
 
 see where would be the power to make any alteration in its 
 enactments. But it is also true, no doubt, that the Lord's 
 Day was kept from time immemorial in the Church as a 
 day of festival ; and, connected with the notion of festival, 
 the abstinence from worldly business naturally followed. A 
 weekly religious festival, in which worldly business was sus- 
 pended, bore such a resemblance to the Sabbath, that the 
 analogy of the Jewish law was often urged as a reason for 
 its observance ; but, as it was not considered to be the Sab- 
 bath, but only a day in some respects like it, so the manner 
 of its observance varied from time to time, and was made 
 more or less strict on grounds of religious expediency, without 
 reference in either case to the authority of the fourth com- 
 mandment. An ordinance of Constantine prohibits other 
 work, but leaves agricultural labor free. An ordinance of 
 Leo I. (Emperor of Constantinople) forbids agricultural labor 
 also. On the other hand, our own Reformers (see Cranmer's 
 Visitation Articles) required the clergy to teach the people 
 that they would grievously offend God if they abstained from 
 working on Sundays in harvest time ; and the statute of Ed- 
 ward VI., 5th and 6th, chap, iii., (vol. iv. part i. p. 132 of the 
 Parliamentary edition of the Statutes, 1819,) expressly allows 
 all persons to work, ride, or follow their calling, whatever it 
 may be, in the case of need. And the preamble of this statute 
 which was undoubtedly drawn up with the full concurrence of 
 the principal Reformers, if not actually written by them, 
 declares in the most express terms that the observance of all 
 religious festivals is left in the discretion of the Church, and 
 therefore it proceeds to order that all Sundays, with many 
 other days named, should be kept holy. And the clear lan- 
 guage of this statute, together with the total omission of the 
 duty of keeping the Sabbath in the Catechism, although it 
 professes to collect our duty towards God from the four first 
 commandments, proves to my mind that in using the fourth 
 commandment in the Church service, the Reformers meant it 
 to be understood as enforcing to us simply the duty of wor- 
 shipping God, and devoting some portion of time to His 
 honor, the particular portion so devoted, and the manner of 
 observing it, being points to be fixed by the Church. It is on 
 tiiese grounds that I should prefer greatly diminishing public 
 travelling on the Sunday to stopping it altogether ; as this 
 seems to me to correspond better with the Christian observ- 
 ance of the Lord's Day, which, while most properly making 
 16*
 
 186 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 rest from ordinary occupation the general rule, yet does not 
 regard it as a thing of absolute necessity, but to be waived on 
 weighty grounds. And surely many very weighty reasons for 
 occasionally moving from place to place on a Sunday are oc- 
 curring constantly. But if the only alternative be between 
 stopping the trains on our railway altogether, or having them 
 go frequently, as on other days, I cannot hesitate for an instant 
 which side to take, and I will send you my proxy without a 
 moment's hesitation. You will perhaps have the goodness to 
 let me hear from you again. 
 
 CCXXX. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, April 1, 1840. 
 
 I should have answered your last letter earlier, had I not 
 been so much engaged that I assure you I do not find it easy 
 to find time for anything beyond the necessary routine of my 
 employments. I agree with you that it is not necessary with 
 respect to the practical point to discuss the authority of the 
 command to keep the Sunday. In fact, believing it to be an 
 ordinance of the Church at any rate, I hold its practical obli- 
 gation just as much as if I considered it to be derivable from 
 the fourth commandment ; but the main question is, whether 
 that rest, on which the commandment lays such exclusive 
 stress, is really the essence of the Christian Sunday. That it 
 should be a day of greater leisure than other days, and of the 
 suspension, so far as may be, of the common business of life, I 
 quite allow; but then I believe that I should have much 
 greater indulgence for recreation on a Sunday than you might 
 have ; and if the railway enables the people in the great 
 towns to get out in the country on the Sunday, I should think 
 it a very great good. I confess that I would rather have one 
 train going on a Sunday than none at all ; and I cannot con- 
 ceive that this would seriously interfere with any of the com- 
 pany's servants ; it would not be as much work as all domestic 
 servants have every Sunday in almost every house in the 
 country. At the same time, I should be most anxious to 
 mark the day decidedly from other days, and I think that 
 one train up and down would abundantly answer all good pur- 
 poses, and that more would be objectionable. I was much 
 obliged to you for sending me an account of the discussion on 
 the subject, and, if it comes on again, I should really wish to 
 express my opinion, if I could, by voting against having more
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 187 
 
 than one train. I am really sorry that I cannot go along with 
 you more completely. At any rate, I cannot but rejoice in 
 the correspondence with you to which this question has given 
 occasion. Differences of opinion give me but little concern ; 
 but it is a real pleasure to be brought into communication 
 with any man who is in earnest, and who really looks to God's 
 will as his standard of right and wrong, and judges of actions 
 according to their greater or less conformity.* 
 
 CCXXXI. *TO HOWELL LLOYD, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, February 25, 1840. 
 
 With regard to Welsh, I am anxious that people should 
 notice any words which may exist in the spoken language of 
 old people, or in remote parts of the country, which are not 
 acknowledged in the written language. ' Welsh must have its 
 dialects, I suppose, like other languages, and these dialects 
 often preserve words and forms of extreme antiquity, which 
 have long since perished out of the written language, or rather 
 were never introduced into it. You know Dr. Pritchard's 
 book, I take it for granted, the only sensible book on the sub- 
 ject which I ever saw written in English. This, and Bopp's 
 Vergleichende Grammatik, should be constantly used, I think, 
 to enable a man to understand the real connection of lan- 
 guages, and to escape the extravagances into which our so- 
 called Celtic scholars have generally fallen. 
 
 CCXXXII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 (Relating to a Petition on Subscription.) 
 
 April, 1840. 
 
 My wish about the bill is this, if it could be done ; 
 
 that the Athanasian Creed should be rejected altogether, 
 that the promise to use the Liturgy should be the peculiar sub- 
 scription of the clergy, that the Articles should stand as 
 articles of peace, in the main draft of each Article, for clergy 
 and laity alike; and that for Church membership there 
 should be no other test than that required in Baptism. I 
 think you may require fuller knowledge of the clergy than 
 of the laity ; and, as they have a certain public service in 
 the Church to perform, you may require of them a promise 
 
 * See p. 315, vol. i., for his further view of the fourth commandment.
 
 188 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 that they will perform it according to the law of our Church ; 
 but as to the adhesion of the inner man to any set of religious 
 truths, this, it seems to me, belongs to us as Christians, and 
 is in fact a part of the notion of Christian faith, which faith is 
 to be required of all the Church alike, so far as it can be or 
 ought to be required of any one. And therefore, so long as 
 the clerjry subscribe to the Articles, so long do I hope that 
 they will be required at taking degrees in Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge, of all who are members of the Church. If they are 
 a burden, all ought to bear it alike ; if they are a fair test of 
 church membership, they should extend to all alike. 
 
 CCXXXIII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 April, 1840. 
 
 I would not willingly petition about the Canons, 
 
 except to procure their utter abolition ; I have an intense dis- 
 like of clerical legislation, most of all of such a clergy as was 
 dominant in James the First's reign. And, if the Canons are 
 touched ever so lightly, what is left untouched would acquire 
 additional force, an evil greater to my mind than leaving them 
 altogether alone. I think that I should myself prefer peti- 
 tioning for a relaxation of the terms of Subscription, and 
 especially for the total repeal of the 36th Canon. Histori- 
 cally, our Prayer-Book exhibits the opinions of two very dif- 
 ferent parties, King Edward's Reformers, and the High 
 Churchmen of James the First's time, and of 1661. There 
 is a necessity, therefore, in fact, for a comprehensive Sub- 
 scription, unless the followers of one of these parties are 
 to be driven out of the Church ; for no man who heartily 
 likes the one, can approve entirely of what has been done by 
 the other. And I would petition specifically, / think, but I 
 speak with submission, for the direct cancelling of the damna- 
 tory clauses of the anonymous Creed, vulgarly called Atha- 
 nasius's (would it not be well in your petition to alter the 
 expression, " Athanasius's Creed " ?) leaving the Creed itself 
 untouched.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 189 
 
 i 
 
 CCXXXIV. TO THE SAME. 
 
 May 16, 1840. 
 
 I have sent a copy of this petition * to Whately : if he 
 approves of it, I will ask you to get it engrossed, and put into 
 the proper forms. My feeling is this ; as I believe that the 
 tide of all reform is at present on the ebb, I should not myself 
 have come forward at this moment with any petition, but, as 
 you have resolved to petition, I cannot but sign it ; and then, 
 signing your petition, I wish also to put on record my senti- 
 ments as to what seems to me to be a deeper evil than any- 
 thing in the Liturgy or Articles I wish that the sig- 
 natures may be numerous, and may include many Laymen ; 
 it is itself a sign of life in the Church that Laymen should 
 feel that the Articles and Liturgy belong to them as well as 
 to the Clergy. 
 
 CCXXXV. *TO J. P. GELL, ESQ. 
 
 April 12, 1840. 
 
 I do not like to let my wife's letter go without a word from 
 me, if it were only to express to you my earnest interest 
 about the beginnings of your great work, which I imagine is 
 now near at hand. It is very idle for me to speculate about 
 what is going on in states of society, of which I know so 
 little ; yet my knowledge of the Jacobinism of people here at 
 home, makes me full sure that there must be even more of it 
 out with you, and it fills me with grief when I think of 
 
 society having such an element a-virpofov e| dpxrjs 
 
 I often think that nothing could so rouse a boy's energies as 
 sending him out to you, where he must work or starve. 
 There is no earthly thing more mean and despicable in my 
 mind than an English gentleman destitute of all sense of his 
 responsibilities and opportunities, and only revelling in the 
 luxuries of our high civilization, and thinking himself a great 
 person. Burbidge is here again, as fond of Rugby as ever, 
 but I hope that he will now complete his terms at Cambridge. 
 I hope that you will journalize largely. Every tree, plant, 
 stone, and living thing is strange to us in Europe, and capa- 
 
 * That is, for the restoration of Deacons. His wish for the revival of any 
 distinct ecclesiastical government of the clergy at this time, was checked 
 by the fear of its countenancing what he held to be erroneous views con- 
 cerning the religious powers and duties of the State.
 
 190 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ble of affording an interest. Will you describe the general 
 aspect of the country round Hobart's Town ? To this day I 
 never could meet with a description of the common face of 
 the country about New York or Boston, or Philadelphia, and 
 therefore I have no distinct ideas of it. Is your country plain 
 or undulating, your valleys deep or shallow, curving or 
 with steep sides and flat bottoms ? Are your fields large or 
 small, parted by hedges, or stone walls, with single trees about 
 them, or patches of wood here and there ? Are there many 
 scattered houses, and what are they built of, brick, wood, 
 or stone ? And what are the hills and streams like, ridges, 
 or with waving summits, with plain sides, or indented with 
 combes ; full of springs, or dry ; and what is their geology ? 
 I can better fancy the actors when I have got a lively notion 
 of the scene on which they are acting. Pray give my kindest 
 remembrances to Sir John and Lady Franklin ; and by all 
 means, if possible, stick to your idea of naming your place 
 Christ's College. Such a name seems of itself to hallow Van 
 Diemen's Land, and the Spaniards did so wisely in transplant- 
 ing their religious names with them to the new world. We 
 unhappily " in omnia alia abiimus." May God bless you and 
 your work. 
 
 CCXXXVI. f TO REV. W. K. HAMILTON. 
 
 Rugby, May 4, 1840. 
 
 I thank you very much for the book which you were so 
 kind as to send me I was delighted to see transla- 
 tions of some of my favorite hymns in Bunsen's collection, 
 and shall try to get them sometimes sung in our Chapel. I 
 will try also again to understand the very old music which 
 you speak of, and which Lepsius, at Bunsen's request, once 
 played to me. It is a proof of Bunsen's real regard for me, 
 that he still holds intercourse with me even after I proved 
 utterly insensible to what he admires and loves so much. But 
 seriously, those who are musical can scarcely understand 
 what it' is to want that sense wholly ; I cannot perceive, 
 (KaTaXa/i/3ai/K.) what to others is a keen source of pleasure ; 
 there is no link by which my mind can attach it to itself; and, 
 much as I regret this defect, I can no more remedy it, than I 
 could make my mind mathematical, or than some other men 
 could enter into the deep delight with which I look at wood 
 anemones or wood sorrel. I trust that you will be able to
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 191 
 
 tome and see us, though I know the claims upon your time 
 too well to complain of your absence. You will be glad to 
 hear that I wrote to Keble lately, and had a very kind answer 
 from him ; I yearn sadly after peace and harmony with those 
 whom I have long known, and I will not quarrel with them if 
 I can help it ; though, alas, in some of our tastes there is the 
 music which to them is heavenly, and which to me says noth- 
 ing ; and there are the wild-flowers which to me are so full of 
 
 beauty, and which others tread upon with indifference 
 
 If you come to us in about a month's time, I hope that I shall 
 be able to show you four out of the seven windows in our 
 chapel supplied with really good painted glass, which makes 
 me not despair of getting the other three done in good time. I 
 should always wish to be very kindly remembered to your 
 father and mother, whom I now so rarely see. 
 
 CCXXXVII. TO REV. HERBERT HILL. 
 
 Rugby, May 8, 1840. 
 
 I was very glad indeed to find that were to go to you ; 
 
 but, before I heard it, I was going to send you an exhortation, 
 which, although you may think it needless, I will not even 
 now forbear. It is, that you should, without fail, instruct your 
 pupils in the six books of Euclid at least. I am, as you well 
 know, no mathematician, and therefore my judgment in this 
 matter is worth so much the more, because what I can do in 
 mathematics, anybody can do ; and as I can teach the first six 
 books of Euclid, so I am sure can you. Then it is a griev- 
 ous pity that at your age, and with no greater amount of work 
 than you now have, you should make up your mind to be 
 shut out from one great department, I might almost say, from 
 many great departments of human knowledge. Even now I 
 would not allow myself to say that I should never go on 
 in mathematics, unlikely as it is at my age ; yet I always 
 think that if I were to go on a long voyage, or were in any 
 way hindered from using many books, I should turn very 
 eagerly to geometry, and other such studies. But further I 
 do really think that with boys and young men, it is not right 
 to leave them in ignorance of the beginnings of physical 
 science. It is so hard to begin anything in after life, and so 
 comparatively easy to continue what has been begun, that I 
 think we are bound to break ground as it were, into several 
 of the mines of knowledge with our pupils, that the first dif-
 
 192 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ficulties may be overcome by them while there is /et a power 
 from without to aid their own faltering resolution, and that so 
 they may be enabled, if they will, to go on with the study 
 hereafter. I do not think that you do a pupil full justice, if 
 you so entirely despise Plato's authority, as to count geometry 
 in education to be absolutely good for nothing. I am sure 
 that you will forgive me for urging this, for I think that it 
 concerns you much, and I am quite sure that you ought not to 
 run the risk of losing a pupil because you will not master the 
 six books of Euclid, which, after all, are not to be despised for 
 one's very own solace and delight ; for I do not know that 
 Pythagoras did anything strange, if he sacrificed a hecatomb 
 when he discovered that marvellous relation between the 
 squares containing and subtending a right angle, which the 
 47th proposition of the first book demonstrates. .... 
 More than five hundred pages of Vol. II. are printed, but 
 there will be, I fear, one hundred more. I dread the adage 
 about ptya /3(/3Xt'oi/. We have real spring for the first time 
 for seven years ; delicious rains and genial sunshines, so that 
 the face of the earth is bursting visibly into beauty. I think 
 nothing yet of summer plans, for if I go abroad, and give up 
 Fox How, it must be done tete baissee, it will not bear look- 
 ing at beforehand. 
 
 CCXXXVIII. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, May 8, 1840. 
 
 I believe that I look to Church Extension as the 
 
 only possible means, under God's blessing, of bringing society 
 to a better state, but I cannot press Church Extension in the 
 common sense of the term, as a national measure, because I 
 think that the mass of Dissent renders it, if objected to by the 
 Dissenters, actually unjust The evil of Dissent and its causes 
 are so entirely at the bottom of all our difficulties in this way, 
 that we never can get on consistently or smoothly till some- 
 thing be done to try to remedy this ; and if this is incurable, 
 then the nationality of the Church must always be so far false 
 that you can never have a right to act as if it were entirely 
 true. And the same difficulty besets the Education Question, 
 where I neither like the Government Plan nor the Diocesan 
 System, and am only glad that I can avoid taking an active 
 part on either side. One thing I see, that if attempts be 
 made, as they seem to be, to make the power of the Bishops
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 193 
 
 less nominal than it has been, there will be all the better 
 chance of our getting a really good Church government ; for 
 irresponsible persons, irremovable, and acting without respon- 
 sible advisers, are such a solecism in government, that they 
 can only be suffered to exist so long as they do nothing ; let 
 them begin to act, and the vices of their constitution will be- 
 come flagrant. I have written even this little note at two 
 different times, and yet it is not finished. I should be glad to 
 get any detailed criticism on my Prophecy Sermons, but that, 
 I am afraid, I shall not get. If you put, as you may do, 
 Christ for abstract good, and Satan for abstract evil, I do not 
 think that the notion is so startling that they are the main and 
 only perfect subjects of Prophecy, and that in all other cases 
 the language is hyperbolical in some part or other; hyperbol- 
 ical, I mean, and not merely figurative. Nor can I conceive 
 how, on any other supposition, the repeated applications of the 
 Old-Testament language to our Lord, not only by others, but 
 by Himself, can be understood to be other than arbitrary. 
 
 CCXXXIX. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, May 26, 1840. 
 
 I feel very deeply the kindness of all that you 
 
 say about my work, and rejoice with the greatest thankfulness 
 that you are breathing more freely. You may remember 
 that I used to be very anxious about you, and now I rejoice to 
 think that you are relieved from your burdens, and have only 
 to beware of over indulgence in your own works, a more be- 
 guiling danger, probably, than that of working too much at 
 what is mere business. For uiyself, if I were left to my 
 natural taste merely, I believe I should do little but read and 
 write and enjoy the society of my own family and dearest 
 friends ; but I believe also, most sincerely, that it is far 
 better for me to be engaged in practical life, and therefore I 
 am thankful for the external necessity which obliges me to 
 go on at Rugby. In fact, the mixture of school work and of 
 my own reading furnishes a useful, and I feel, too, a pleasant 
 variety ; and I cannot perceive that it is any strain upon my 
 constitution, while I sleep like an infant, and daily have 
 either a bathe or a walk in the country, where I think neither 
 of school nor of History. 
 
 No doubt I feel very keenly the narrow compass of my 
 reading, from the want of greater leisure ; and it hinders me 
 
 VOL. II. 17 H
 
 194 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD 
 
 from trying to do some things which I should like to do ; but 
 I am pretty well reconciled to this, and as long as I feel that 
 I can be useful practically in the work of education, I am 
 well content to relinquish some plans which would otherwise 
 have been very dear to me. But then my health may fail, 
 and what am I to do then ? I know the answer which you 
 would make in my place, and I would try to share in your 
 spirit, and to say, that then Christ, I doubt not, will provide 
 for me as He sees best. As man wishes and schemes, I 
 think that I should like to go on here till Mat and Tom 
 have gone through the University, and then, if I could, retire 
 to Fox How. But I would earnestly pray, and would ask 
 your prayers too for me, that in this and in all things I may 
 have a single heart and will, wishing for nothing but what 
 Christ wishes and wills for me. 
 
 I read your accounts of your own pursuits with a pleasure 
 more than I could describe. It is, indeed, a feeling deeper 
 than pleasure ; a solemn thankfulness that you are so blessed 
 with the will and the power to set forth the truth in faith 
 and love. And most earnestly do I pray that God's blessing 
 may be upon all your works to complete them to His own 
 glory, and to the good of His Church. I do rejoice, indeed, 
 to see you now reaping the fruits for which you have sowed 
 so patiently, and seizing those great truths to which, by so 
 many years of quiet labor, and labor which ignorant per- 
 sons often thought and think to have another direction, as 
 the parallels of a besieger's approaches are not carried in a 
 straight line to the ditch, you were silently and surely 
 making your way good. But it is a sad feeling too, when I 
 turn to our own Church, and see the spirit which prevails 
 here. 
 
 Now for the second volume of my History, I shall have 
 no pleasure, or next to none, in sending it to you, for you 
 will sadly feel its poverty. You will perceive, what I know 
 too well, that everywhere you are in soundings, and that too 
 often you are almost in shoal water. I mean, you will 
 perceive the defects of my knowledge at every turn ; how 
 many books I have never read, perhaps have never heard of ; 
 how incapable I am of probing many of the questions, which 
 I notice, to the bottom. I wished to have your Essay on the 
 Principles of Historical Criticism, which you promised me 
 when you were in Westmoreland ; but now I must beg for it 
 for the third volume. I think that you will like the tone of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 195 
 
 the book ; in that alone I can think of your reading it with 
 pleasure ; but alas ! alas ! that I should have had to write 
 such a book in the face of Niebuhr's third volume, which yet 
 I was obliged to do. 
 
 I went up to one of our levees about three weeks 
 
 ago, and was presented to the Queen. I believe that one 
 of the principal reasons which led me to go, was to enable 
 me to be presented hereafter, if it may be, by you at Berlin. 
 I saw several people whom I was glad to see, and was 
 amused by the novelty of the scene. Our political world 
 offers nothing on which I can dwell with pleasure or with 
 hope. One or two men are stirring the question of Subscrip- 
 tion to the Articles and Liturgy, wishing to get its terms 
 altered. Hull prepared a petition to this effect, which 
 Wliately will present this evening in the House of Lords. 
 
 signed it, as did , and so did I ; not that I believe 
 
 it will do any good, nor that my own particular wish would 
 lead me to seek for reform there ; it is in government and 
 discipline, not in doctrine, that our Church wants mending 
 most ; but when any good men feel it a matter of conscience 
 to petition for what I think good and right, I do not feel it 
 becoming to stand aloof from them, especially where the 
 expression of their sentiments is likely to expose them to 
 some odium. But for my own satisfaction, I drew up and 
 sent to Wliately a sketch of what I should myself wish to 
 petition for ; namely, the abolition of those political services 
 for the 30th of January, &c., and the repeal of all acts or 
 canons which forbid deacons from following a secular calling. 
 , Sir R. Inglis is going to propose a grant of 400,000 a year 
 for new clergymen ; but surely his end would be better 
 answered, and at no expense, by reviving the order of 
 deacons, and enabling us to see that union of the Christian 
 ministry with the common business of life which would be 
 such a benefit both to the clergy and the laity. Whately 
 approved entirely of the petition, but thought it too abrupt a 
 way of proceeding, as the subject would be new to so many. 
 Here, indeed, I do feel the want of time ; for I should like 
 to write upon the point, and go into it deeply, which now I 
 cannot do at all.
 
 196 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CCXL. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, June 13, 1840. 
 
 I know not whether this letter will find you at Berne; 
 probably not, for I have just read the official account of the 
 King of Prussia's death ; but it may wait for you or follow 
 you to Berlin, and I would not willingly let a day pass with- 
 out expressing my deep interest in the present crisis. That 
 extract which you wrote out for me is indeed glorious, and 
 fills one with thankfulness that God has raised up such a 
 King in a great Protestant country at this momentous 
 time ; when the great enemy in his two forms at once, 
 Satan and Antichrist, the blasphemy of the Epicurean 
 Atheist, and the idolatry of the lying and formal spirit of 
 Priestcraft, is assailing the Church with all his might. May 
 Christ's strength and blessing be with the King and with you, 
 that Prussia may be as the mountain of the Lord, the city of 
 God upon a hill, whose light cannot be hid. 
 
 I have in the last week again felt the effects of your true 
 friendship. Bishop Stanley procured for me from Lord Mel- 
 bourne the offer of the Wardenship of Manchester College, 
 just vacant ; and he told me that he had been especially 
 induced to try to get something for me by a letter of yours, 
 in which you expressed your great anxiety that I should be 
 relieved from the burden of Rugby. But, indeed, dearest 
 friend, Rugby, while it goes on well, is not a burden, but the 
 thing of all others which I believe to be most fitted for me 
 while I am well and in the vigor of life.* The Wardenship 
 I declined, for the income was so comparatively small, that I 
 should have found a difficulty in educating my children on it ; 
 but much more, I must either have made the office a sinecure, 
 or it would have involved me in labors and responsibilities 
 quite equal to those which I haVe now, and of a kind quite 
 new to me. And I think that the Bishop was satisfied that 
 I did right in declining it ; but I do not feel the less strongly 
 his great kindness and yours. God bless and prosper you 
 always. 
 
 CCXLI. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (B.) 
 
 Rugby, August 17, 1840. 
 
 I do not give heed to much of what I hear about 
 
 men's opinions, because having had my own often misunder-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 197 
 
 stood, I am prepared to find the same thing in the case of my 
 neighbors. Yet I confess that I should like to know the 
 position of your mind at the present moment, because some 
 three or four years ago it had attained, I think, to an unusual 
 degree of independence and vigor, and therefore its progress 
 is to me a greater matter of interest. And I remember well, 
 by my own experience, the strong tendency of an Oxford life 
 upon any one who is justly fond of Oxford, to make him 
 exceedingly venerate those who are at the head of Oxford 
 society But then in those days the excessive admira- 
 tion was less injurious, because it was merely personal ; there 
 was no set of opinions identified with Davison and Coplestone 
 which one learnt to venerate for their sake. The influence of 
 the place in this way can hardly be resisted during a certain 
 time of a man's life ; I got loose from it before I left Oxford, 
 because I found, as my own mind grew, that those whom I 
 had so reverenced were not so much above myself, and I 
 knew well enough that I should myself have made but a sorry 
 oracle. And this I think has hindered me from looking up to 
 any man as a sort of general guide ever since ; not that I 
 have transferred my idolatry from other men's minds to my 
 own, which would have been a change greatly for the 
 worse, but as much as I have felt its strength comparatively 
 with others, so also have I felt its absolute weakness and 
 want of knowledge. I have great need of learning daily, but 
 I am sure, that other men are in the like predicament, in 
 some things, though in fewer than in any other man whom I 
 know, Bunsen himself. But all the eminent Englishmen 
 whom I know have need of learning in a great many points ; 
 and I cannot turn my schoolfellows into my masters ; ou TroAii 
 8ia(f){pfi avQpamos dvdp<birov is a very important truth, if one 
 appreciates properly the general wisdom of mankind as well 
 as its general unwisdom ; otherwise it leads to scepticism, a 
 state which I dread and abhor every day more and more, 
 both in itself and as being so often the gate of idolatry. 
 
 My object in saying all this is mainly to warn you against 
 the secret influence of the air in which you are living for so 
 large a portion of the year. Like all climates it has its 
 noxious elements, and these affect the constitution surely but 
 unconsciously, if it be continually exposed to their influence, 
 unless a man, knowing that he is living in an aguish district, 
 looks to his diet and habits accordingly ; and, as poor Davison 
 17*
 
 198 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 did when he lived in the fens, gets his supply of water from a 
 distance. 
 
 Perhaps my late journey makes me more alive to the mis- 
 chievous effects of any one local influence. One cannot help 
 feeling how very narrow the view of any one place must be, 
 when there are so many other views in the world, none scarcely 
 without some element of truth, or some facility for discerning 
 it which another has not. 
 
 For my own especial objects, my journey answered excel- 
 lently. I feel that I have no need of going to Italy again ; 
 that my recollection of Rome is completely refreshed, and that 
 having seen Naples and the interior of the country between 
 Naples and Terni, I have nothing more to desire, for it would 
 be idle to expect to visit every single spot in Italy which 
 might in itself be interesting. The beauty of the country 
 between Antrodoco and Terni surpassed, I think, anything 
 that I saw, except it be La Cava, and the country dividing the 
 bay of Naples from that of Salerno. But when we returned 
 to Fox How, I thought that no scene on this earth could ever 
 be to me so beautiful. I mean that so great was its actual 
 natural beauty, that no possible excess of beauty in any other 
 scene could balance the deep charm of home which in Fox 
 How breathes through everything. But the actual and real 
 beauty of Fox How is, in my judgment, worthy to be put in 
 comparison with anything as a place for human dwelling. I 
 have run on at greater length than I intended. 
 
 CCXLII. *TO REV. H. BALSTON. 
 (Who was threatened with consumption.) 
 
 Rugby, August 17, 1840. 
 
 I grieved not to see you on our way to France, as 
 
 Rugby, I fear, must be forbidden ground to you at present ; 
 this cold air would ill suit a delicate chest. I have great con- 
 fidence in a southern climate, if only it be taken in time, 
 which I should trust was the case in the present instance. 
 But certainly my summer's experience of Italy has not im- 
 pressed me with a favorable opinion of the climate there ; for 
 the changes from heat to cold, and severe cold, were very 
 trying ; and after sunset, or at any considerable elevation of 
 ground, I found the cold quite piercing on several occasions. 
 And in the Alps it was really miserable, and I never worked 
 at lighting a fire with such hearty good-will as I did at Airolo
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 199 
 
 in Italy in this present year. We enjoyed greatly 
 
 our four days at Fox How, and are now returned in good 
 bodily condition, and I trust disposed in mind also, to engage 
 in the great work which is here offered, a work, the impor- 
 tance of which can hardly, I think, be overrated. 
 
 I thank you most truly for the kind expressions with which 
 your note concludes. It would make me most happy if I could 
 feel that I duly availed myself of my opportunities here to 
 teach and impress the one thing needful. It was a wise in- 
 junction to Timothy, " to be instant in season and out of sea- 
 son," because we so often fancy that a word would be out of 
 season when it would in fact be seasonable. And I believe I 
 often say too little from a dread of saying too much. Here, 
 as in secular knowledge, he is the best teacher of others who 
 is best taught himself; that which we know and love we can- 
 not but communicate ; that which we know and do not love 
 we soon, I think, cease to know. 
 
 CCXLIII. TO THE CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, September 4, 1840. 
 
 Both public and private matters furnish me with 
 
 more points on which I should like to talk to you than it is 
 possible to enter on in a letter. May God avert the calamity 
 of a general war, which would be, I think, an unmixed evil 
 from which no power could gain anything, except it were 
 Russia. I cannot help looking to Russia as God's appointed 
 instrument for such revolutions in the races, institutions, and 
 dominions of Europe as He may yet think fit to bring about. 
 But, as far as England and France are concerned, war could 
 only be disastrous to both parties. 
 
 My private prospects have acquired a fixedness which they 
 never before have had so completely, because I have now 
 reason to know that I should never be appointed to one of 
 those new Professorships in Oxford, which above all other 
 
 things would have been acceptable to me It vexes 
 
 me to be thus shut out from the very place where I fancy that 
 I could do most good : but these things are fixed by One who 
 knows best where and how He would have us to serve Him, 
 and it seems to tell me plainly that my appointed work is 
 here. I know that I have yearnings after opportunities for 
 writing not so much on account of the History as for other 
 matters far nearer and dearer ; above all, that great question
 
 200 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of the Church. But still the work here ought to satisfy all 
 my desires ; and, if I ever live to retire to Fox How with 
 undecayed faculties, the mountains and streams which I so 
 love may well inspire me with a sort of swan-like strain, even 
 in old age. Meantime, the school is fuller than ever, and all 
 seems encouraging. I shall have another new master to 
 appoint at Christmas, and shall perhaps be able to find one 
 amongst my own old pupils. 
 
 I have to thank you for Gottling's book on the 
 
 Roman Constitution, and for Dorner's work on the Doctrine 
 as to the Person of Christ. But I seem to be able to read 
 less than ever, and all books alike stand on my shelves, as it 
 were mocking me ; for I cannot make use of them though I 
 have them. 
 
 Henry will come down here next month, to have his exam- 
 ination from me previously to going into the schools. He will 
 stay here, I hope, some time ; for it will do him good, I think, 
 to be out of Oxford as much as he can just before his exam- 
 ination, when he will need all possible refreshment and repose. 
 Tell me something of your absent sons, of Ernest and Charles, 
 and George, of whose progress I should much like to hear. 
 God bless you, my dearest friend. 
 
 CCXLIV. TO SIR THOMAS PASLET, BART. 
 
 Rugby, October 19, 1840. 
 
 I never rejoiced so much as I do now that I see 
 
 no daily newspaper. I think that the interest of this present 
 crisis would soon make me quite ill, if I did not keep my eyes 
 away from it. The spirit displayed by the French press, and 
 by, I fear, a large portion of the people, is very painful to all 
 those who, like me, have been trying resolutely to look on 
 France with regard and with hope ; and it will awaken, I 
 doubt not, that vulgar Antigallican feeling in England which 
 did so much mischief morally to us. Besides, I dread a war 
 on every conceivable ground, both politically and morally. I 
 do not see how any power but Russia can gain by it ; and 
 Russia's gain seems to me to be the world's loss. Besides, I 
 have no faith in coalitions; the success of 1814 and 1815 
 was a rare exception, owing to special causes, none of which 
 are in action now ; so that I have great fears of France being 
 victorious ; for, with the greatest respect for our army and 
 navy, I have none whatever for our war ministers, whether
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 201 
 
 Whig or Tory, blundering in that department having 
 marked all our wars, with scarcely a single year's exception. 
 And then the money and the debt, and the mortgaging our 
 land and industry still deeper ; and thus inevitably feeding 
 the deadly ulcer of Chartism, which now, for the moment, is 
 skinned over, and, being out of sight, is with most of us, ac- 
 cording to the usual infirmity of human nature, out of mind. 
 Certainly the command to " put not our trust in princes, nor 
 in the son of man, for there is no help in them," was never 
 less difficult to fulfil than now ; for he must be a desperate 
 idolater who can find among our statesmen any one on whom 
 he can repose any excessive confidence. 
 
 One thing has delighted me, namely, Bishop Stanley's 
 speech on the presentation of the petition last session for the 
 revision of the Liturgy, &c., which he has now published with 
 notes. He has done the thing exceedingly well, and has 
 closed himself completely, I think, against all attack. But I 
 do not imagine that the question itself will make any progress. 
 
 I am reading and abstracting Cyprian's Letters, - 
 
 the oldest really historical monument of the condition of the 
 Christian Church after the Apostolical Epistles. They are 
 full of information, as all real letters written by men in public 
 stations must be ; and are far better worth reading than any 
 of Cyprian's other works, which are indeed of little value. I 
 am revising my Thucydides for the second edition, and re- 
 serving the third volume of Rome for Fox How ; so that I 
 do not do much at present beyond the business of the school : 
 we are sadly too full in point of numbers, and I have got thirty- 
 six in my own form. I have read Mr. Turnbull's book on 
 Austria, which I like much, and it well agrees with my ten- 
 derness for the Austrian government and people. 
 
 CCXLV. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, September 14, 1840. 
 
 I have received your Bampton Lectures, for which 
 
 I thank you much ; and I have read seven out of the eight 
 Sermons carefully, and shall soon finish the volume. The 
 volume interested me greatly for the subject's sake, as well 
 as for your own. With much I entirely agree, indeed I 
 quite agree as to your main positions ; but I have always 
 supposed it to be a mere enemy's caricature of our Protestant 
 doctrine, when any are supposed to maintain that it is the duty
 
 202 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of each individual to make out hia faith de novo, from the 
 Scriptures alone, without regard to any other authority living 
 or dead. I read with particular interest what you say about 
 Episcopacy, because I did not know exactly what you thought 
 on the subject : there I am sorry to find that we differ most 
 widely. I cannot understand from your book, and I never 
 can make out from anybody, except the strong Newmanites, 
 what the essence of Episcopacy is supposed to be. The 
 Newmanites say that certain divine powers of administering 
 the Sacraments effectually can only be communicated by a 
 regular succession from those who, as they supposed, had 
 them at first. W. Law holds this ground ; there must be a 
 succession in order to keep up the mysterious gift bestowed 
 on the priesthood, which gift makes Baptism wash away sin, 
 and converts the elements in the Lord's Supper into effectual 
 means of grace. This is intelligible and consistent, though I 
 believe it to be in the highest degree false and Antichristian. 
 Is Government the essence of Episcopacy, which was meant 
 to be perpetual in the Church ? Is it the monarchical element 
 of government ? and if so, is it the monarchical element, pure 
 or limited ? Conceive what a difference between an absolute 
 monarchy, and one limited like ours ; and still more, like the 
 French monarchy, under the constitution of 1789. I cannot in 
 the least tell, therefore, what you suppose to be the real thing 
 intended to be kept in the Church, as I suppose that you do 
 not like the Newmanite view. And all the moderate High 
 Churchmen appear to me to labor under the same defect, 
 that they do not seem to perceive clearly what is the essence 
 of Episcopacy ; or, if they do perceive it, they do not express 
 themselves clearly. 
 
 Another point incidentally introduced, appeared to me also 
 to be not stated quite plainly. You complain of those persons 
 who judge of a Revelation, not by its evidence, but by its sub- 
 stance. It has always seemed to me that its substance is a 
 most essential part of its evidence ; and that miracles wrought 
 in favor of what was foolish or wicked, would only prove 
 Manicheism. We are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen 
 world, that the character of any supernatural power can be 
 only judged of by the moral character of the statements which 
 it sanctions : thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation 
 from God, or from the Devil. If his father tells a child some- 
 thing which seems to him monstrous, faith requires him to 
 submit his own judgment, because he knows his father's
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 203 
 
 person, and is sure, therefore, that his father tells it him. 
 But we cannot thus know God, and can only recognize His 
 voice by the words spoken being in agreement with our idea 
 of His moral nature. Enough, however, of this. I should 
 hope that your book would do good in Oxford ; but whether 
 anything can do good there or not is to me sometimes 
 doubtful. 
 
 CCXLVI. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, September 21, 1840. 
 
 This sheet is not so large as yours, but it is my largest size 
 next to foolscap ; and I readily and thankfully acknowledge 
 your claim upon me for as long and full a letter as I can 
 write. I have more than time enough just now, for I have 
 been confined to my room since Thursday with a slight attack 
 of fever, which, though it would be nothing, I suppose, to any 
 one else, yet always has such an effect upon my constitution 
 as to unfit me for all exertion ; and I lay either in bed or on 
 the sofa in my room for three days, a most inutile lignum. 
 Nor am I yet allowed to go down stairs, but I am on the 
 mend, and my pulse has returned nearly to its natural tardi- 
 ness, which in me is its state of health. So I can now thank 
 you very heartily for your letter, and that delightful picture 
 which it gave me of your home repose. No man feels more 
 keenly than I do how much better it is irapa\a$fiv TOV Sypov 
 than fcT7j<Tao-&u, if my father's place in the Isle of Wight 
 had never passed out of his executors' hands, I doubt whether 
 I ever could have built Fox How, although in all other re- 
 spects there is no comparison to my mind between the Isle of 
 Wight and Westmoreland. Therefore I " macarize " you the 
 more, for having both an inherited home, and in a county and 
 part of the county per se delightful. I never saw Ottery but 
 once, and that in the winter ; but the valley and the stream, 
 and the old church, and your house, are still tolerably distinct 
 in my memory ; and I do trust that one day they will be 
 freshened by a second actual view of them. Cornish and his 
 wife, I hear, are actually in Yorkshire : if you can tell where 
 a letter would find them. I would ask you to let me know by 
 one line, for I want to catch them on their return, and to 
 secure some portion of their time by a previous promise be- 
 fore George's home sickness comes on him like a lion, and 
 drives him off to Cornwall, uno impetu, complaining that even
 
 204 LIFE OF DK. ARNOLD. 
 
 railways are too slow The school is flourishing sur- 
 prisingly, and I cannot keep our numbers within their proper 
 limit ; but yet the limit is so far useful, that it keeps us within 
 bounds, and allows us to draw back again as soon as we can. 
 We are now about 340, and I have admitted 63 boys since 
 the holidays. And all this pressure arose out of applications 
 made previously to our great success at Oxford in the sum- 
 mer, which was otherwise likely to set us up a little. Yet it 
 is very certain to me that we have little distinguished talent 
 in the School, and not much of the spirit of reading. What 
 gives me pleasure is, to observe a steady and a kindly feeling 
 in the School, in general, towards the Masters and towards 
 each other. This I say to-day, knowing, however, so well the 
 unstable nature of this boy sea, that I am well aware how 
 soon any " dux turbidus " may set our poor Adria all in a 
 commotion. 
 
 Meanwhile, as long as we go on fairly, and my health 
 stands, I am well convinced that for the present, and so long 
 as my boys are in the School, I would rather be here than 
 
 anywhere else Quod est in votis : if, after a life of 
 
 so much happiness, I ought to form a single wish for the future, 
 it would be to have hereafter a Canonry of Christ Church, 
 with one of the new Professorships of Scriptural Interpreta- 
 tion or Ecclesiastical History But Oxford, both for 
 
 its good and its beauty, which I love so tenderly, and for the 
 evil now tainting it, which I would fain resist in its very birth- 
 place, is the place where I would fain pass my latest years of 
 unimpaired faculties. 
 
 It distresses me to think of your reading such a book as 
 Kuinoel. That most absurd trash, absurd no less than pro- 
 fane, which prevailed for a time among the German theo- 
 logians, I have happily very little acquaintance with, except 
 from quotations ; but I have always thought that it was utterly 
 bad. Niebuhr's spirit of historical and literary criticism was 
 as much needed by German theologians as by English ones, 
 and Strauss to this day is wholly without it. But the best 
 German divines, Liicke, Tholuck, Nitzsch, Olshausen, &0-, 
 write only in German, which I fancy you do not read ; neither, 
 in fact, do I read much of them, because I have not time ; but 
 they are good men, devout and sensible, as well as learned, 
 and what I have read of them is really valuable. 
 
 I should have liked any detailed criticism of yours upon Vo' 
 11. of History of Rome. I have scarcely yet been able to gel
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 205 
 
 any judgments upon the first two volumes which will help me 
 for those to come. The second volume will be, I hope, the 
 least interesting of all ; for it has no legends, and no contem- 
 porary history. I tried hard to make it lively, but that very 
 trying is too like the heavy Baron, who leaped over the chairs 
 in his room, pour apprendre d'etre vif. What I can honestly 
 recommend to you in the book is its sincerity ; I think that it 
 confesses its own many imperfections, without attempting to 
 ride grand over its subject. In the war of Pyrrhus I was 
 oppressed all the time by my sense of Niebuhr's infinite supe- 
 riority ; for that chapter in his third volume is one of the 
 mo.st masterly pieces of history that I know, so rich and 
 vigorous, as well as so intelligent. I think that I breathe 
 freer in the First Punic War, where Niebuhr's work is scarcely 
 more than fragmentary. I hope, though, to breathe freer still 
 in the Second Punic War ; but there floats before me an image 
 of power and beauty in History, which I cannot in any way 
 realize, and which often tempts me to throw all that I have 
 written clean into the fire. 
 
 CCXLVII. *TO W, SETON KARK, ESQ. 
 (Then at Haileybury College.) 
 
 Rugby, October 5, 1840. 
 
 I thank you much for your letter, which I was very glad 
 to receive, and which gave me as favorable an account of 
 your new abode as I had expected. It must be always an 
 anomalous sort of place, and I suppose that the best thing to 
 do is to turn the necessity of passing a certain time there to 
 as good account as possible, by working well at the Eastern 
 languages. I should be much obliged to you if you would 
 tell me what Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary you use ; and 
 whether there is anything like a Sanskrit Delectus, or an 
 easy construing book for beginners. I am not so old as Cato 
 was when he learned Greek, and I confess that I should h'ke, 
 if possible, to learn a little of the sifter of Greek, which has 
 almost a domestic claim upon us as the oldest of our greatest 
 Indo-Germanic family. 
 
 All things are going on here much as usual. The foot-ball 
 matches are in great vigor. The Sixth match, is over, being 
 ,ettled in one day by the defeat of the Sixth. The School- 
 house match is pending, and the School-house have kicked 
 
 VOL. II. 18
 
 206 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 one goal. Pigou, Bradley, and Hodson, leave us, I am afraid, 
 
 in the course of a week I am writing this at Fourth 
 
 Lesson, as usual, and the lower row are giving up their books, 
 
 BO that I must conclude. 
 
 i 
 
 CCXLVIII. TO ARCHDEACON HARE. 
 
 Rugby, October 28, 1840. 
 
 I have read your Sermons with very great pleas- 
 ure, and ought long since to have thanked you for them- 
 The Notes, I hope, will not long be delayed. It is a greal 
 delight to me to read a book with which I can agree so gen- 
 erally and so heartily. Universally one never can expect to 
 agree with any one, but one's highest reasonable hope is ful- 
 filled, when one sympathizes cordially with the greatest part 
 of a book, and feels sure, where there is a difference, that the 
 writer would hear our opinions patiently, and if he did not 
 agree with them, would at least not quarrel with us for hold- 
 ing them. 
 
 It was no small delight to me to tread the ground of the 
 Forum once more, and to see the wonders of Campania, and 
 to penetrate into the land of the Samnites and Sabines. I 
 missed Bunsen sadly, but his friend Abeken was a most 
 worthy substitute, and was hardly less kind than Bunsen 
 himself would have been. 
 
 I signed the petition, because, agreeing with its 
 
 prayer, I did not wish to avoid bearing my share of its odium ; 
 but I am not earnest about it myself, being far more anxious 
 about the government and discipline of the Church, than for 
 any alterations in the Liturgy or Subscriptions ; although these 
 too, I think, should not be left undone. But I would do any- 
 thing in the world to destroy that disastrous fiction by which 
 the minister has been made " personam Ecclesiae gerere," and 
 which the Oxford doctrines are not only upholding, but aggra- 
 vating. Even Maurice seems to me to be infected in some 
 measure with the same error in what he says respecting 
 the right of the Church, meaning the Clergy, to educate 
 the people. A female reign is an unfavorable time, I know, 
 for pressing strongly the doctrine of the Crown's Supremacy. 
 Yet that doctrine has been vouchsafed to our Church by so 
 rare and mere a blessing of God, and contains in itself so 
 entirely the true idea of the Christian perfect Church, the 
 Kingdom of God, and is so mighty to the overthrowing
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 207 
 
 of that which I regard as the essence of all that is evil in 
 Popery, the doctrine of the Priesthood, that I do wish, 
 even now, that people's eyes might be opened to see the 
 peculiar blessings of our Church Constitution, and 'to work 
 it out to its full development. 
 
 CCXLIX. *TO REV. II. BALSTON. 
 
 Rugby, September 9, 1840. 
 
 I cannot let a day pass without thanking you for your very 
 
 kind letter Do not think of answering this letter till 
 
 you feel quite able to do it without painful effort. It will be. 
 a pleasure to me to write to you when I can ; and I should 
 be very glad indeed if I could help to relieve what I fear 
 must be the loneliness of Guernsey. But I dare say that 
 other people have not always my shrinking from a residence 
 in a small island surrounded by a wide sea ; it always seems 
 to me like a prison in a howling wilderness 
 
 Since our return I have done little or nothing besides the 
 school work and my letters. I do not intend to do much as 
 yet upon the History ; but I am getting on a little with 
 Thucydides, a work, however, in which I take now but little 
 interest. 
 
 My wife will add a few lines to go in the same cover with 
 this. We always think of you with, affection, and with no 
 small gratitude for your constant kindness to our children. 
 
 CCL. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, October 29, 1840: 
 
 I cannot bear that a second letter should go to Guernsey, 
 without conveying under my own hand the expression of my 
 warmest thanks to Miss Hawtrey for her most kind, delight- 
 ful letters And now, my dear Balston, I have not 
 
 much else to say, or rather, I have much more than I can or 
 ought to say. ..... I look round in the school, and feel 
 
 now utterly beyond human power is the turning any single 
 human heart to God. Some heed, and some heed not, with 
 the same outward means, as it appears, offered to both, and 
 \he door opened to one no less wide than to another. But 
 * the kingdom of God suffereth violence ; " and to infuse 
 the violence, which will enter at all cost, and will not be 
 tlonied, belongs to Him alone whose counsels we cannot fol-
 
 203 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 low. You will pray for us all, that we may glorify God's 
 name in this place, in teaching and in learning, in guiding 
 and in following. 
 
 I hate many delightful proofs that those who have been 
 here, have found at any rate no such evil as to prevent their 
 serving God in after life ; and some, I trust, have derived 
 good from Rugby. But the evil is great and abounding, I 
 well know ; and it is very fearful to think that it may to 
 some be irreparable ruin. I will write again when I can. 
 May God bless you ever, and support you, as he did my 
 dear sister, through all that He may see fit to lay on you. 
 Be sure that there is a blessing and a safety in having scarcely 
 any other dealings than with Christ alone, in bearing His 
 manifest will, and waiting for His pleasure, intervening 
 objects being of necessity removed away. 
 
 CCLI. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (G.) 
 
 Rugby, November 4, 1840. 
 
 Your letter gave me such deep and lively pleasure, that I 
 could scarcely restrain my joy within decent bounds ; for to 
 see any man whom I thoroughly value, delivered from the 
 snare of the law as a profession, is with me a matter of the 
 most earnest rejoicing. It can scarcely be necessary for me 
 to say, that as I grieved to see you decided, as I supposed, 
 in favor of the law, so I should rejoice in your escaping 
 while it is yet time, and following the right-hand path to 
 any pure and Christian calling, which to my mind that of 
 an advocate, according to the common practice of the Bar, 
 cannot be ; and I think that scarcely any practice could make 
 it such. 
 
 I think, too, that for yourself individually, you would do 
 well to adopt another calling. I think that your highest 
 qualities could not be exercised in the law, while, if you are 
 at all inclined to love argument as an exercise, and therefo, 
 to practise it without regard to its only just end, truth, I mn- 
 not but .think that the law would be especially dangerous to 
 you. For advocacy does seem to me inconsistent with a 
 strong perception of truth, and to be absolutely intolerable 
 anless where the mind sits loose, as it were, from any con- 
 clusions, and merely loves the exercise of making anything 
 wear the semblance of truth which it chooses for the time 
 being to patronize.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 209 
 
 With respect to the other part of the question, while I 
 should delight to see you in the ministry of the Church, I 
 cannot quite think that the parochial ministry is so clearly to 
 be preferred to the work of education. But in this men have 
 also their calling, and I would not wish to tempt them from it. 
 Nor would I have you think that I mix up any personal feel- 
 ings at the possibility of persuading you to join us at Rugby, 
 with my genuine thankfulness, for your own sake and that of 
 others, that, in so great a matter as the choice of a profession, 
 you are disposed to turn from the evil to the good. But I do 
 not think that our work is open to the objections which you 
 suppose ; it and the parochial ministry have each their ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages ; but education has the advantages, 
 on the whole, where it can be combined with opportunities of 
 visiting the sick and old, the sobering needful to qualify the 
 influences of youth and health and spirits, so constantly dis- 
 played by boys, and necessary also in a great degree to those 
 who teacli boys. Do not decide this point hastily, unless you 
 feel yourself called as it were beyond dispute to the parochial 
 ministry ; if you are, then follow it in Christ's name, and may 
 it be blessed to you and the Church. 
 
 I have been obliged to write hastily, but I wish to lose no 
 tune. Write again or come over to us, if I can be of any use 
 in answering any questions. 
 
 CCLII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, November 16, 1840. 
 
 I am afraid that my opinion is suspected by you, because it 
 was expressed so strongly. However, you must not suppose 
 me to doubt that there can be most excellent men in the pro- 
 fession even of an advocate, two of my most valued and re- 
 spected friends being, or having been, advocates ; and all 
 other parts of the law I hold in the highest honor, and think 
 that no calling can be nobler. But I do not quite understand 
 why you desire to make out a justification for yourself for 
 choosing one profession rather than another. It seems to me 
 that the point is as yet fully open. Your University residence 
 is only just closed ; your legal studies your mere legal edu- 
 cation can hardly, I suppose, have yet commenced. Cer- 
 tainly it cannot have advanced as far as your theological ; so 
 that in point of preparation you are actually more fitted for 
 the church ministry than for the Law. 
 
 18* N
 
 210 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Now, with respect to being an example in a profession 
 where example is much needed, I can hardly think that any 
 man could choose a profession with such a view without some 
 presumption. In such matters, safety rather than victory 
 should be each man's object ; that desire to preserve his best 
 self, being not selfishness, but as I imagine, the true fulfilment 
 of the law. If one is by God's will fixed in a calling full of 
 temptations, but where the temptations may be overcome, and 
 the victory will be most encouraging to others, then it may be 
 our duty to overcome rather than to fly ; but no man, I think, 
 ought to seek temptation in the hope of serving the Church 
 brilliantly by overcoming it. 
 
 With regard to the minor question, I will not enter upon it 
 now. Thus much, however, I may say, that, humanly speak- 
 ing, I am not likely soon to leave Rugby ; that it would be my 
 greatest delight to have you here as a master ; and that the 
 field of good here opened, is, I think, not easily to be sur- 
 passed. If you decide on the parochial ministry, then I think 
 that your calling would be to a large town rather than to a 
 country village. 
 
 CCLIII. TO AN OLD PUPIL, ENGAGED IN BUSINESS. (H.) 
 
 Rugby, November 18, 1840. 
 
 I think that even your very kind and handsome gift to the 
 library has given me less pleasure than the letter which ac- 
 companied it, and which was one of the highest gratifications 
 that a man in my profession can ever experience. Most sin- 
 cerely do I thank you for it ; and be assured that I do value 
 it very deeply. Your letter holds out to me another prospect 
 which interests me very deeply. I have long felt a very 
 deep concern about the state of our manufacturing popula- 
 tion, and have seen how enormous was the work to be done 
 there, and how much good men, especially those who were not 
 clergymen, were wanted to do it. And therefore I think of 
 you, as engaged in business, with no little satisfaction, being 
 convinced that a good man, highly educated, cannot possibly 
 be in a more important position in this kingdom than as one 
 of the heads of a great manufacturing establishment. I feel 
 encouraged also by the kindness of your letter, to trouble 
 you, perhaps, hereafter, with some questions on a point where 
 my practical knowledge is of course nothing. Yet I see the 
 evils and dangers of the present state of things, and long that
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 211 
 
 those who have the practical knowledge could be brought 
 steadily and systematically to consider the possibility of a 
 
 remedy We are now in the midst of the winter 
 
 examination, which, as you may remember, gives us all suffi- 
 cient employment. 
 
 CCLIV. t TO REV - w ' K - HAMILTON. 
 
 Rugby, November 18 or 19, 1840. 
 
 I have very much, which I should like to say to 
 
 you if I were with you, but I have not time to write it, nor 
 
 would it do well in a letter. tells me that you were 
 
 gratified with the improvement in the diocese of Salisbury; 
 so one sees encouragements which cheer us, as well as disap- 
 pointments enough to humble us ; but, perhaps, I am already 
 partaking of one of the characteristics of old age, according 
 to Aristotle, and I am less inclined to hope than to fear. But 
 it is a great comfort to know that there are many good men 
 at work, and that their labors are not without a blessing. You 
 will, I am sure have been wishing and praying that we may 
 be saved from the curse of war ; an evil which would crush 
 the seeds of more good than can be told throughout Europe, 
 and confirm or revive mischiefs innumerable. Your godson 
 is well, but it is becoming needful to keep him from the boys 
 of the school, who would soon pet and spoil him. 
 
 CCLV. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, December 4, 1840. 
 
 I wished also to thank you for your Sermon, and to 
 
 say a little to you about it. I quite agree with you that you 
 should not attack the Newmanites directly. Independently of 
 what I might call the moral reasons for your not doing so, I 
 think that truth is never best taught negatively ; and these 
 very men derive a great advantage from holding up some- 
 thing positive, although, as I think, it be but a most sorry and 
 abominable idol, to men's faith and love ; and merely to say 
 that the idol is an idol, and that its worship is pernicious, is 
 doing but little good, unless we show where the worship can 
 be transferred wholesomely. But your sermon is to me per- 
 sonally almost tantalizing, because it shows that we agree in 
 so much, and makes it doubly vexatious to me that there is 
 beyond this agreement, as I suppose there must be, a great
 
 212 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 and wide divergence. I suppose that it is the hardest thing 
 in the world to apprehend rightly what is that peo-ov, which is 
 really the great excellence to be aimed at. The Newmanites, 
 humorously enough, call their system Via Media. You think 
 that your views are Via Media, I think that mine are so ; 
 that is, we all see errors and dangers on the right and on the 
 left of us, and endeavor to avoid Doth. But I suppose that 
 the pf<rov is then only the point of excellence, when it refers, 
 as Aristotle has referred it, to the simple tendencies of the 
 human mind ; whereas it appears to me that men are some- 
 times beguiled by taking the peo-ov of the views of opposite 
 parties as the true point of excellence, or still more, the f^aov 
 of the opinions held by people of our party or of our nation 
 on any given point. You think that Newman is one extreme 
 and I another ; and so I am well aware that, in common esti- 
 mation, we should be held ; and thus in Church matters the 
 pevov would seem to be somewhere between Newman's views 
 and mine ; whereas the truth is, that in our views of the im- 
 portance of the Church, Newman and I are pretty well agreed, 
 and therefore I stand as widely aloof as he can do from the 
 language of " religion being an affair between God and a 
 man's own conscience," and from all such persons who dispute 
 the claims of the Church to obedience. But my quarrel with 
 Newman and with the Romanists, and with the dominant party 
 in the Church up to Cyprian, (Ignatius, I firmly believe, is 
 not to be classed with them, vehement as his language is,) 
 my quarrel with them all and all that I have named are 
 exactly in the same boat is, that they have put a false 
 Church in the place of the true, and through their counterfeit 
 have destroyed the reality, as paper money drives away gold. 
 And this false Church is the Priesthood, to which are ascribed 
 all the powers really belonging to the true Church, with others 
 which do not and cannot belong to any human power. But 
 the Priesthood and the Succession are inseparable, the 
 Succession having no meaning whatever if there be not a 
 Priesthood, as W. Law saw and maintained ; arguing, and I 
 think plausibly enough, that the Succession was necessary to 
 carry on the priestly virtue which alone makes the acts of the 
 ministry available. Now as the authorized formularies of 
 our Church are perfectly free from this notion, and as the 
 twenty-third Article to my mind implies the contrary, for no 
 man, who believed in the necessity of a Succession, would 
 have failed to omit that, to him, great criterion of lawfulness
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 213 
 
 of any ordination, it has always vexed me to see our 
 Clergy coquetting as they do with the doctrine of Succession, 
 and clinging to it, even while they stoutly repudiate those 
 notions of a Priesthood which the Succession doctrine really 
 involves in it. And it is by this handle that the Newmanites 
 have gained such ground, especially with the Evangelicals, 
 for they too have been fond of the Succession notion, and 
 when the doctrine has been pressed to its consequences, they 
 have in many instances embraced them, however repugnant 
 to their former general views of doctrine. You speak of per- 
 sons who do not value Church privileges. I have no sympa- 
 thy with such at all ; but then you seem to connect Church 
 privileges with the Succession, and to shrink from those who 
 deny the Succession as if they undervalued the Church. 
 Perhaps I understand you wrongly in this, and if so, I shall 
 be truly rejoiced, for, to my mind, he who holds to the Suc- 
 cession as necessary, should, consistently, adopt Newmanism to 
 its full extent ; for really and truly the meaning of the Suc- 
 cession is what one of the writers of the Tracts stated in one 
 of the earliest of their numbers, " that no one otherwise ap- 
 pointed could be sure that he could give the people the real 
 body of Christ." And this is a pure priestly and mediatorial 
 power, rendered, according to this hypothesis, necessary to the 
 Christian's salvation, over and above Christ's death, and his 
 faith in it ; a power which I am sure stands exactly on the 
 same footing with Circumcision in the Galatian Church, and 
 what St. Paul says of those who required Circumcision ap- 
 plies exactly to those who so hold a priesthood. 
 
 All this has been recalled to me now, for I dare say I have 
 said it before, by your late sermon, and by my own rather 
 increasing wish to write on the whole question ; a wish strength- 
 ened by the incredible errors of Gladstone's last work. 
 The vexation to me is, that while I hold very high Church 
 doctrines, I am considered as one who dislikes the Church, 
 whereas my whole hope for the advance and triumph of the 
 Gospel looks to it only through the restoration of the Church. 
 But the Christians were called tidfoi because they respected 
 not the idols which had transferred to themselves the name 
 and worship of God. And so I am called a no-Churchman, 
 because I respect not the idol which has slipped not only into 
 the Church's place, but into God's i. e. the notion of the 
 Priesthood, which does not seem to me to be false only in its 
 excess, but altogether from the very beginning priestly
 
 214 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 power under the Gospel being reserved to Christ alone, and 
 its character being quite distinct from those other powers of 
 government, teaching, and ministration, which the Church 
 may have and must have. But from the natural confusion 
 between government with ministration in a religious society, 
 and the notion of priesthood, the master falsehood gradually 
 stole in unperceived, till long time had so sanctioned it, that 
 when at last men saw and allowed its legitimate consequences, 
 itself was still spared as a harmless and venerable error, if 
 not as a sacred truth. But I have sent you a sermon in 
 manuscript, a thing intolerable, and therefore I will end 
 abruptly, as they say my sermons are apt to do. Thank you 
 for your allusion to our visit to Oxford ; we hope that we 
 may at any rate see something of you, and you need not 
 dread my coming up with any designs of arguing or entering 
 into controversy ; my visits to Oxford are always intended to 
 be for peace, and not for war. 
 
 CCLVI. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (G.) 
 
 Rugby, December 4, 1840. 
 I thank you for a certain pamphlet which 
 
 gave me a day or two ago ; I must earnestly wish it success ; 
 and such moral reforms are among the purest delights which 
 a man can ever enjoy in this life. I delight too, most heartily, 
 that the change of profession is decided. May God's blessing 
 be with your decision, through His Son now and ever. 
 
 CCLVII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Fox How, December 28, 1840. 
 
 I honor and sympathize with an anxiety to follow our 
 Lord's will in matters of real moral importance, as much as 
 I shrink from the habit of exalting every notice of what was 
 once done in matters of form into a law, that the same ought 
 always to be done, and that Christ has commanded it. But 
 I do not feel your objection to taking an oath when required 
 by a lawful and public authority, nor do I quite see your dis- 
 tinction, between taking an oath when imposed by a magis- 
 trate and taking one voluntarily, in the sense in which alone 
 the oath of supremacy, when taken at Ordination, can be called 
 voluntary. For, if the thing be unlawful, it must be as wrong 
 to do it for the sake of avoiding a penalty, as of obtaining a
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 215 
 
 good. But it is quite clear to me that the evil is in requiring 
 an oath, when we speak of solemn oaths, and not of those 
 used gratuitously in conversation, to which I believe our 
 Lord's words in the letter apply. I would not do anything 
 which would imply that I thought a Christian's word not suf- 
 ficient, and required him to make a distinction between it and 
 his oath. But if an authority in itself lawful says to me, "I 
 require of you, though a Christian, that same assurance which 
 men in general have agreed to look to as the highest," I do 
 not see that I should object to give it him, although in my 
 own case I feel it to be superfluous. And it appears to me 
 clear that our Lord did Himself so comply with the adjuration 
 of the High Priest. It is a grief to me that the Church in 
 this, as in many other things, has not risen to the height 
 designed for her ; but it seems to me that the individual's 
 business is not to require oaths, rather than not to take them 
 when required by others. The difference seems to me to lie, 
 as I think our Article implies, not between oaths voluntary 
 and involuntary, for no oath can be strictly speaking in- 
 voluntary, " commands being no constraints," but between 
 oaths gratuitously proffered, where you are yourself enforcing 
 the difference between affirmations and oaths, and oaths taken 
 on the requisition of a lawful authority, where you incur no 
 such responsibility. 
 
 CCLVIII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, January 2, 1841. 
 
 If our minds were comprehensive enough and 
 
 life were long enough, to follow with pleasure every pursuit 
 not sinful, I can fancy that it would be better to like shooting 
 than not to like it ; but as things are, all our life must be a 
 selection, and pursuits must be neglected, because we have 
 not time or mind to spare for them. So that I cannot but 
 think that shooting and fishing, in our state of society, must 
 always be indulged at the expense of something better. 
 
 I feel quite as strongly as you do the extreme difficulty of 
 giving to girls what really deserves the name of education 
 intellectually. When Jane was young, I used to teach her 
 some Latin with her brothers, and that has been, I think, of 
 real use to her, and she feels it now in reading and trans- 
 lating German, of which she does a great deal. But there is 
 nothing for girls like the Degree Examination, which con-
 
 216 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 centrates one's reading so beautifully, and makes one master 
 a certain number of books perfectly. And unless we had 
 a domestic examination for young ladies to be passed before 
 they came out, and another like the great go, before they 
 come of age, I do not see how the thing can ever be effected. 
 Seriously, I do not see how we can supply sufficient encour- 
 agement for systematic and laborious reading, or how we 
 can insure many things being retained at once fully in the 
 mind, when we are wholly without the machinery which we 
 have for our boys. I do nothing now with my girls regularly, 
 owing to want of time ; once for a little while, I used to 
 
 examine in Guizot's Civilization of France, and I am 
 
 inclined to think that few better books could be found for the 
 purpose than this and his Civilization of Europe. They em- 
 brace a great multitude of subjects and a great variety, and 
 some philosophical questions amongst the rest, which would 
 introduce a girl's mind a little to that world of thought to 
 
 which we were introduced by our Aristotle 
 
 We had a very delightful visit from the Cornishes early in 
 December ; Mrs. Cornish I had only seen for a few minutes 
 at your house since the winter of 1827 ; and Essy I had not 
 seen at all since she was a baby. I learnt from Cornish what 
 I never knew before, the especial ground of Keble's alienation 
 from me ; it appears that he says that " I do not believe in 
 the Holy Catholic Church." Now that I do not believe in it 
 in Keble's sense is most true ; I would just as soon worship 
 Jupiter; and Jupiter's idolatry is scarcely farther from 
 Christianity, in my judgment, than the idolatry of the priest- 
 hood ; but, as I have a strong belief in the Holy Catholic 
 Church, in my sense of it, I looked into Pearson on the Creed, 
 and read through his whole article on the subject, which 
 I had not for many years, to see whether my sense of it was 
 really different from that of the most approved writers of our 
 Church ; and I found only one line in all Pearson's article 
 that I should not agree with, and in his summing up or para- 
 phrase of the words of the Creed, where he says what we 
 should mean when we say, " I believe in the Holy Catholic 
 Church," I agree entirely. I do not say that Pearson's opin- 
 ions on Church government are exactly the same as mine, 
 I dare say they are not ; but he does not venture to say that 
 his opinions are involved in the words of the Creed, nor would 
 he have said that a man did not believe in the Holy Catholic 
 Church, because he did not believe in Apostolical succession.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 217 
 
 Meantime, it has been a pleasure to me to find that my 
 Sermons on Prophecy have given no offence to the Newman- 
 ites, but rather have conciliated them, as far as they go, 
 which was one of my main objects in publishing them. I am 
 afraid that I cannot expect the same toleration to be extended 
 to the new volume of my Sermons which is going to be pub- 
 lished ; for, although they are not controversial, yet, as em- 
 bracing a great many points, they cannot avoid collision with 
 those whose opinions' are the very opposite to mine ; nor 
 should I think it right to leave out everything which the New- 
 man ites would object to, any more than Newman would think 
 it right to omit in his sermons all that I should object to. 
 Yet I still hope that the volume will give no unnecessary 
 oifence even to those from whom I differ most widely. 
 
 CCLIX. TO W. BALSTON, ESQ. 
 
 (On the death of his son.) 
 
 January, 1841. 
 
 .... Miss Hawtrey's great kindness has given us con- 
 stant information of the state of your son Henry ; and I was 
 happy to find that so many of his brothers were with him. I 
 believe that I am much more disposed to congratulate you on 
 his account than to condole with you ; at least, as the father 
 of five sons, I feel that nothing could make me so happy for 
 any of them as to be satisfied that they were so loved by 
 God, and so fashioned by His Spirit to a fitness for his king- 
 dom, as is the case with your dear son Henry. 
 
 CCLX. TO KEY. TREVENEN PENROSE. 
 
 Fox How, January 6, 1841. 
 
 We have received from Miss Hawtrey a long ac- 
 count of the last days of H. Balston's h'fe, and I never read 
 anything more beautiful. He seemed to be aware of the 
 coming of death, step by step ; and some of his expressions 
 at the very last seem more strikingly to connect this present 
 existence with anotner than anything I ever heard. He actu- 
 ally laid himself down to die in a particular posture, as a man 
 lays himself down to sleep, and even so he did die. His state 
 of mind was quite heavenly. 
 
 We are enjoying this place as usual, though I am obliged 
 
 VOL. II. 19
 
 218 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 to work very hard, with my History and letters. The History 
 is intensely interesting, and I feel to regard it more and more 
 with something of an artist's feeling as to the composition 
 and arrangement of it; points on which the ancients laid 
 great stress, and I now think very rightly. I find constantly 
 the great use of my many foreign journeys, for though I 
 have no good maps here, yet I am getting on with Hannibal's 
 march from personal recollections of the country, which I 
 think will give an air of reality to the narrative greater than 
 it ever could have from maps. Twelve o'clock strikes, and I 
 must go to bed. 
 
 CCLXI. tTO REV. T. J. ORMEROD. 
 
 Fox How, January 3, 1841. 
 
 It is very delightful to be here, and our weather 
 
 till to-day has been beautiful. I sit at the window with my 
 books on the sofa around me, and my Epicurean wish would 
 be to live here in quiet, writing, and reading, and rambling 
 about on Loughrigg, more beautiful than Epicurus's garden. 
 But my reasonable wishes turn to the work at Rugby, as a 
 far better employment, so long as my health and strength are 
 spared me. 
 
 Poor Southey's state is most pitiable; his mind is quite 
 gone. There is something very touching in this end of so 
 much mental activity, but there is no painful feeling of mor- 
 bid restlessness in his former activity, he worked quietly 
 though constantly, and his faculties seem gently to have sunk 
 asleep, his body having outlived them, but in such a state 
 of weakness as to give sign that it will soon follow them. 
 Wordsworth is in body and mind still sound and vigorous ; 
 it is beautiful to see and hear him. 
 
 CCLXII. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ. 
 
 Fox How, January 15, 1841. 
 
 I was unwell before the holidays, and although I 
 
 soon recovered, yet I was very glad to come down here and 
 get some rest. And the rest of this place in winter is com- 
 plete, everything so quiet, with only our immediate neigh- 
 bors, all kind and neighborly. Wordsworth is remarkably 
 well, and we see him daily ; and moreover, Rydal Lake is 
 frozen as hard as a rock, and my nine children, and I with
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 219 
 
 them, were all over it to-day, to Dur great delight. Four of 
 my boys skate. Walter is trundled in his wheelbarrow, and 
 my daughters and I slide, for I am afraid that I am too old 
 to learn to skate now. My wife walks to Ambleside to get 
 the letters, and then goes round to meet us as we come from 
 
 the lake When I am here, it does make me sadl) 
 
 yearn for the time when I may live here steadily, if I am 
 alive at all. Yet I do not suppose that I should ever be able 
 to get an income to retire upon, equal to what yours is ; but, 
 if my boys were once educated, I think I should come down 
 here without more delay. As for poor little Walter, I do not 
 think that I should ever be able to wait at Rugby for him, &o 
 I do not know what he will do. Your boys, however, are so 
 much older than he is, that your difficulty would be over 
 much before mine ; and depend upon it that the comfort of an 
 income already secured is great, when a man feels at all un- 
 well but all this is in wiser and better hands than 
 
 ours, and our care has enough to think of in those nearer con- 
 cerns which may not be neglected without worse fault than 
 imprudence, and worse mischief than a narrow income. 
 
 CCLXIU. TO REV. J. HEAKN. 
 
 Fox How, January 25, 1841. 
 
 I had hoped to write to you at any rate before we left Fox 
 How, and now your kind and long letter gives you a stronger 
 claim on me. You have also been so kind as to wish my 
 wife and myself to be sponsors for your little boy ; and we 
 can have only one scruple in becoming so, lest we should 
 stand in the way of other friends of yours, and particularly 
 of Mrs. Hearn's, who may be better known to your children 
 than we can expect to be in the common course of things, as 
 our life, in all human probability, will be passed between 
 Warwickshire and Westmoreland. Otherwise we should ac- 
 cept with great pleasure so sure a mark of your confidence 
 and friendship. 
 
 We have been here almost six weeks, in perfect rest as far 
 as this place is concerned, but I have had a very trouble- 
 some correspondence about school matters, which has brought 
 Rugby more before my mind than I wish to have it in the 
 holidays. I hope that this is not indolence, but I feel it very 
 desirable, if I can. to get my mind thoroughly refreshed and" 
 diverted during the vacation; "diverted," I mean in the
 
 220 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 etymological rather than in the popular sense, that is, turned 
 aside from its habitual objects of interest to others which re- 
 fresh from their very variety. Thus my History is a great 
 diversion from the cares about the school, and then the school 
 work in its turn is a diversion from the thoughts about the 
 History. Otherwise either would be rather overpowering, 
 for the History, though very interesting, is a considerable 
 engrosser of one's thoughts ; there is so much difficulty in 
 the composition of it, as well as in the investigation of the 
 facts. I have just finished Cannae, and do not expect to do 
 much more these holidays. 
 
 "We hope to be at Laleham on Saturday, and to stay there 
 till Wednesday ; thence we go to Oxford, and finally return 
 to Rugby on Friday, February 5. There are other subjects 
 which will require a good deal of attention, just coming upon 
 me. I am appointed, with Dr. Peacock, Dean of Ely, to 
 draw up a Charter for the proposed College in Van Diemen's 
 Land, which will again force me upon the question of relig- 
 ious instruction without exclusion, one of the hardest of all 
 problems. In all British colonies, it is manifest that the 
 Scotch Church has exactly equal rights with the English, 
 equal rights even legally, and I think, considering Ireland, 
 that the Roman Church has equal rights morally. Yet to 
 instruct independently of any Church, is utterly monstrous, 
 and to teach for all three Churches together, is, I think, im- 
 possible. I can only conceive the plan of three distinct 
 branches of one college, each sovereign in many respects, but 
 in others forming a common government. Then my friend 
 Hull is again stirring the question of reform in our own 
 Church, as to some of the Rubrics and parts of the Liturgy ; 
 and though I would not myself move this question now, yet 
 agreeing with Hull in principle, I do not like to decline bear- 
 ing my share of the odium ; thinking that what many me'n 
 call " caution " in such matters is too often merely a selfish 
 fear of getting one's self into trouble or ill-will. I am quite 
 sure that I would not gratuitously court odium or controversy, 
 but I must beware also of too much dreading it ; and the 
 love of ease, when a man is past five-and-forty, is likely to 
 be a more growing temptation than the love of notoriety, or 
 the pleasure of argument. 
 
 Your useful and happy life is always an object on which my 
 thoughts rest with unmixed pleasure ; a green spot morally as 
 well as naturally, yet not the green of the stagnant pool, which
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 221 
 
 no life freshens. I love to see the freedom and manliness, 
 and fairness of your mind, existing in true combination with 
 holy and spiritual affections. Why will so many good men, 
 in their theological and ecclesiastical notions, so completely 
 reverse St. Paul's rule, showing themselves children in un- 
 derstanding, and men only in the vehemence of their pas- 
 sions? 
 
 CCLXIV. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Fox How, January 28, 1841. 
 
 I have been working at my History pretty steadily, 
 
 and have just finished Cannae. Some of our military geog- 
 raphers have offered me assistance ; Colonel Napier amongst 
 others ; but there are points on which full satisfaction appears 
 to me impossible. I think that both Flaminius and Varro 
 have been maligned, and that the family papers of the Scipios 
 and the " Laudatio M. Marcelli a filio habita," have falsified 
 the history grievously. Gottling imagines the number of 
 thirty-five tribes to have been an idea of Flaminius, and that 
 it was meant to be final ; but he strangely ascribes the ad- 
 dition of the last two tribes to the censorship of Flaminius, 
 whereas it preceded it nearly twenty years. The text of 
 Polybius appears to me in a very unsatisfactory state, and the 
 reading of the names of places in Italy worth next to nothing. 
 I am sorry to say that my sense of his merit as an historian 
 becomes less and less continually ; he is not only " einseitig," 
 but in his very own way he seems to me to have been greatly 
 overvalued, as a military historian most especially ; I should 
 like to know what Niebuhr thought of him. Livy's careless- 
 ness is most provoking ; he gives different accounts of the 
 same events in different places, as he happened to take up 
 different writers, and his incapability of conceiving any dis- 
 tinct idea of the operations of a campaign is truly wonderful. 
 I think that the Latin Colonies and Hannibal's want of artil- 
 lery and engineers saved Rome. Samnium would not rise 
 effectually, whilst its strongest fortresses, Beneventum, JEser- 
 nia, &c., were in the hands of the enemy. If the French 
 artillery had been no better than Hannibal's and they had had 
 no other arm to depend on than their cavalry, I believe that 
 the Spaniards by themselves would have beaten them, for 
 every town would then have been impregnable, and the Gu- 
 erillas would have starved the army out. Some of Hannibal's 
 19*
 
 222 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 faults remind me strongly of Nelson ; his cruelty to the Ro- 
 mans is but too like Nelson's hatred of. the Jacobins, which 
 led to the disgraceful tragedy at Naples. The " meretricula 
 Salapiensis," was his Lady Hamilton. The interest of the 
 History I find to be very great, but I cannot at all satisfy my- 
 self; the story should be so lively, and yet so rich in knowledge, 
 and I can make it neither as I wish. 
 
 The year seems opening upon us with more favorable pros- 
 pects ; there is a strong feeling of enthusiasm, I think, about 
 our successes in Syria, and though I do not sympathize in the 
 quarrel, and regret more than I can say the alienation of 
 France, yet the efficiency of the navy is naturally gratifying 
 to every Englishman, and the reduction of Acre so far is, 
 I think, a very brilliant action. Trade seems also reviving, 
 although I suspect that in many markets you have excluded 
 us irrevocably. But these respites of which we have had so 
 many, these lullings of the storm, in which the ship might 
 be righted perhaps, and the point weathered, seem doomed to 
 be forever wasted ; the great evil remains uncured, nay, un- 
 probed, and all fear to touch it. Truly, the gathering of the 
 nations to battle, is more and more in the neighborhood of 
 Jerusalem, not in the sense in which our fanatics look at the 
 war in Syria, as likely to lead to the fulfilment of prophecy hi 
 their view of it, but because political questions more and more 
 show that the Church question lies at the root of them 
 Niebuhr's true doctrine, that 1517 must precede 1688, and so 
 that for a better than 1688, there needs a better than even 
 1517. Some of the Oxford men now commonly revile Lu- 
 ther as a bold, bad man ; how surely would they have reviled 
 Paul ; how zealously would they have joined in stoning Ste- 
 phen ; true children of those who slew the prophets, not the 
 less so because they with idolatrous reverence build their 
 sepulchres. But I must stop, for the sun is shining on the 
 valley, now quite cleared of snow, and I must go round and 
 take a farewell look at the trees and the river, and the moun- 
 tains ; ere " feror exul in altum," into the wide and troubled 
 sea of life's business, from which this is so sweet a haven. 
 But " Rise, let us be going," is a solemn call, which should 
 forever reconcile us to break off our luxurious sleep. May 
 God bless us both in all our ways outward and inward, through 
 Jesus Christ
 
 LIFE OB DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CCLXV. *TO REV. A. P. STANLEY. 
 
 223 
 
 Rugby, March 8, 1841. 
 
 I was much struck by what you say of Constan- 
 tinople being the point to which the hopes of Greeks are 
 turning, rather than to Athens or Sparta. I can well believe 
 it, but it makes the tirades of many Philo-Hellenians very 
 ridiculous, and it should moderate our zeal in trying to revive 
 classical antiquity. It curiously confirms what I said in the 
 sermons on Prophecy, that '' Christian Athens was divided 
 by one deep and impassable chasm from the Heathen Athens 
 of old." And we do not enough allow for the long duration 
 of the Byzantine empire, more than eleven hundred years, 
 a period how far longer than the whole of English History ! 
 But, however, I must turn from Greece to Italy, and now that 
 you are in genuine Italy, (which you were not before, except 
 in the short distance between Rimini and Ancona, for Cisal- 
 pine Gaul has no pretensions to the name,) I hope that you 
 feel its beauty to be more akin to that of Greece. I have 
 always felt in the Apennines that same charm that you speak 
 of in the mountains of Greece ; the " rosea rura Velini," be- 
 tween Rieti and Terni, are surrounded by forms of almost 
 unearthly beauty. I have no deeper impression of any scene 
 than of that, and when I was in that very rich and beautiful 
 country between Como and Lugano, I kept asking of myself 
 why I so infinitely preferred the Apennine to the Alpine val- 
 leys. Naples itself is the only very beautiful spot which a 
 little disappointed me ; but the clouds hung heavily and coldly 
 over the Sorrento mountains, and Vesuvius gave forth no 
 smoke, so that the peculiar character of the scene, both in its 
 splendor and in its solemnity, was wanting. My wife was 
 half wild with Mola di Gaeta, and indeed I know not what 
 can surpass it. There, too, the remains of the villas, "jactis 
 in altum molibus," spoke loudly of the Roman times; and 
 from Mola to Capua, the delightfulness of everything was to 
 me perfect. My own plans for the summer are very uncer- 
 tain ; we have an additional week, which of course tempts me, 
 ind I did think of going to Corfu, and of trying to get to Du- 
 razzo, where Caesar's Lines attract me greatly, but I am half 
 afraid both of the climate and quarantine, and want to consult 
 you about it, if, as I hope, we shall see you before the end of 
 the half-year. Spain again, and the neighborhood of Lerida, 
 Is, I fear, out of the question ; so that, if I do go abroad, I 
 should not be surprised if I again visited Itaiy.
 
 224 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 I suppose that by this time your thoughts are again accom- 
 modating themselves to the position of English and of Oxford 
 Life, after so many months of a sort of cosmopolitism. I 
 am afraid that war is becoming less and less an impossibility ; 
 and, if we get reconciled to the notion of it as a thing which 
 may be, our passions, I am afraid, will soon make it a thing 
 
 that will be My own desire of going to Oxford was, 
 
 as you know, long cherished and strong, but it is quenched 
 now ; I could not go to a place where I once lived so happily 
 and so peaceably, and gained so much, to feel either con- 
 stant and active enmity to the prevailing party in it, or else, 
 by use and personal humanities, to become first tolerant of 
 such monstrous evil, and then perhaps learn to sympathize 
 with it. 
 
 CCLXVL, *TO J. P. GELL, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, March 3, 1841. 
 
 There is really something formidable in writing a letter to 
 Van Diemen's Land. You must naturally delight in hearing 
 from England, and I should wish to give you some evidence 
 that you are not forgotten by your friends at Rugby ; yet how 
 to fill a sheet with facts I know not; for great events are 
 happily as rare with us as they used to be, and the little events 
 of our life here, the scene, and the actors, are all as well known 
 to you as to ourselves ; in this respect contrasting strangely 
 with our entire ignorance of the scene and nature of your life 
 in Van Diemen's Land, where every acre of ground would be 
 to me full of a thousand novelties ; perhaps the acres in the 
 towns not the least so. Again, the gigantic scale of your 
 travelling quite dwarfs our little summer excursions. If I 
 were writing to a man buried in a country parsonage, I could 
 expatiate on our delightful tour of last summer, when my 
 wife, Mayor, and myself, went together to Rome, Naples, and 
 the heart of the Abruzzi. But your journal of your voyage, 
 and the consciousness that you are at our very antipodes, with 
 declining summer instead of coming spring, at the beginning 
 of your short half-year, while we are beginning our long one ; 
 this makes me unwilling to talk to you about a mere excur- 
 sion to Italy. 
 
 We have been reassembled here for nearly four months ; 
 locking up is at half-past six, callings over at three and five, 
 first lesson at seven. I am writing in the- library at Fourth
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 225 
 
 lesson, on a Wednesday, sitting in that undignified kitchen 
 chair, which you so well remember, at that little table, a just 
 proportional to the tables of the Sixth themselves, at which 
 you have so often seen me writing in years past. And, as the 
 light is scarcely bright enough to show the increased number 
 of my gray hairs, you might, if you looked in upon us, fancy 
 that time had ceased to run, and that we are the identical 
 thirty-one or more persons who sat in the same place, at the 
 same hour, and engaged in the very same work when you 
 were one of them. The school is very full, about 330 boys 
 in all, quiet and well disposed, I believe ; but enough, as there 
 will always be, to excite anxiety, and quite enough to temper 
 vanity. 
 
 My wife, thank God, is very well, and goes out on 
 
 the pony regularly, as usual. We went to-day as far as the 
 turnpike on the Dunchurch Road, then round by Deadman's 
 Corner, to Bilton, and so home. Hoskyns, who is Sandford's 
 curate, at Dunchurch, walked with us as far as the turnpike. 
 The day was bright and beautiful, with gleams of sun, but no 
 frost. You can conceive the buds swelling on the wild roses 
 and hawthorns, and the pussy catkins of the willows are very 
 soft and mouse-like ; their yellow anthers have not yet shown 
 themselves. The felling of trees goes on largely, as usual, 
 and many an old wild and tangled hedge, with its mossy 
 banks, presents at this moment a scraped black bank below, 
 and a cut and stiff fence of stakes above ; one of the minor 
 griefs which have beset my Rugby walks for the last twelve 
 years at this season of the year. 
 
 Of things in general I know not what to say. The country 
 is in a state of much political apathy, and therefore Toryism 
 flourishes as a matter of course, and commercial speculation 
 goes on vigorously. Reform of all sorts, down to Talfourd's 
 Copyright Bill, seems adjourned sine die ; wherefore evil of 
 all sorts keeps running up its account, and Chartism, I sup- 
 pose, rejoices. The clergy are becoming more and more 
 Newmanite, Evangelicalism being swallowed up more and 
 more by the stronger spell, as all the minor diseases merged 
 in the plague in the pestilential time of the second year of 
 the Pcloponnesian war. Yet one very good bill has been 
 brought into Parliament by the Government, for the better 
 drainage and freer room of the dwellings of the poor in large 
 towns, and some of the master manufacturers are considering 
 that their workmen have something else beside? hands belong-
 
 226 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 ing to them, and are beginning to attend to the welfare of 
 that something. If reform of this sort spreads amongst a 
 class of men so important, I can forgive much political apathy. 
 Whether that unlucky Eastern question will prove in the end 
 the occasion of another general war, no man can tell ; but I 
 fear the full confidence of peace is gone, and men no longer 
 look upon war as impossible, as they did twelve months since. 
 God bless you, my dear Gell, and prosper all your work. Re- 
 member me very kindly to Sir John and Lady Franklin. 
 
 CCLXVII. TO SIB JOHN FRANKLIN, K.C.B.* 
 
 Rugby, March 16, 1841. 
 
 I ought not to have left your kind letter so long unan- 
 swered ; but I have not, I trust, neglected its main business, 
 although I cannot report any satisfactory progress, for I know 
 not in what state the question now is, and I have been this 
 very day writing to Mr. Stephen to ask what they are about, 
 and whether I can be of any further service. 
 
 My whole feelings go along with Gell's wishes, but I do 
 not think that they ought to be indulged. It is a great happi- 
 ness to live in a country where there is only one Church to 
 be considered either in'law or in equity ; then all institutions 
 can take a simple and definite character ; the schools and the 
 Church can be identified, and the teaching in the school-room 
 and in the Church may breathe the same spirit, and differ 
 only so far as the one is addressed to adults, the other to chil- 
 dren. All this no one can love more than I do. I have the 
 Bishop's license : we have our School Chapel, where the Church 
 service is duly performed ; I preach in it as a Minister of 
 the Church, and the Bishop comes over every two years to 
 confirm our boys in it. I quite allow that my position is that 
 which suits my taste, my feelings, and my reason most 
 entirely.. 
 
 But if I were in Gell's place, as in many other respects I 
 could not expect all the advantages of England, so neither 
 could I in this identification of my school with my Church. 
 In a British colony there are other elements than those purely 
 English ; they are involved, I think, in the very word 
 rf British," which is used in speaking of our colonies. Here, 
 in England, we Englishmen are sole masters, in our colo- 
 
 * With regard to the College in Van Diemen's Land. See
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 227 
 
 nies we are only joint masters ; and I cannot, without direct 
 injustice, make the half right as extensive as the whole right. 
 
 But whilst I quite acknowledge the equal rights of the 
 Church of Scotland, I acknowledge no right in any third sys- 
 tem, for a Church it cannot be called, to be dominant 
 both over the Church of Scotland and over us. I would 
 allow no third power or principle to say to both Churches, 
 " Neither of you shall train your people in your own way, but 
 in a certain third way, which, as it is that of neither, may 
 perhaps suit both." I would have the two Churches stand 
 side by side, each free, and each sovereign over its own 
 people ; but I do not approve of such a fusion of the one into 
 the other as would produce a third substance, unlike either of 
 them. 
 
 Now, I confess that what I should like best of all, would 
 be, to see two colleges founded, one an English college, the 
 other a. Scotch college, each giving its own Degrees in Di- 
 vinity, but those Degrees following the Degrees in Arts, 
 which should be given by both as a University. Each col- 
 lege possessing full independence within itself, the education 
 of the members of each would in all respects be according to 
 their respective Churches, while the University authorities, 
 chosen equally from each, would only settle such points as 
 could harmoniously be settled by persons belonging to differ- 
 ent Churches. 
 
 This, I think, would be my beau ideal for Van Diemen'? 
 Land ; and that the English college would quickly outgrow 
 the Scotch college, that it would receive richer endowments 
 from private munificence, that it would have more pupils, 
 and abler tutors or professors, I do not doubt. But that 
 would be in the natural course of things, and justice would 
 have been done to the rights of Scotland as a member of the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 The decisive objection to this, I suppose, would be the ex- 
 pense. You can have only one college, and I suppose may 
 be thankful even for that. What is next best, then, as it ap- 
 pears to me, is still to provide for the equal, but at the same 
 time the free and sovereign and fully developed action of both 
 Churches within the same college, by the appointment of two 
 clergymen, the one of the English, the other of the Scotch 
 Church, as necessary members of the college always, with the 
 title of Dean, or such other as may be thought expedient, 
 Buch Deans having the direct charge of the religious instruc-
 
 228 Ui'ii OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tion generally of their own people ; the Dean of that Church 
 to which the Principal for the time being does not be-long, 
 being to his own people in all religious matters both Principal 
 and Dean, but the Dean of whose Church the Principal i.s a 
 member, acting under the superintendence of the Principal, 
 and the Principal himself taking a direct part in the religious 
 teaching of the students of his own communion. 
 
 It might be possible and desirable to put the office of Prin- 
 cipal altogether .in commission, and vest it in a Board of 
 which the two Deans should be ex officio members, and three 
 other persons, or one, as it might be thought fit Local knowl- 
 edge is required to decide the details, but in this way, if 
 Gell were English Dean, his power and importance might be 
 equal to what they would be as Principal; and his position 
 might be at once less invidious, and yet more entirely free 
 and influential. 
 
 This solution of the difficulty had not suggested itself to 
 me before, but I give it for what it may be worth. I believe 
 that I see clearly, and hold fast the principles on which your 
 college should be founded ; but different ways of working 
 these principles out may suggest themselves at different times, 
 and none of them perhaps will suit your circumstances ; for it 
 is in the application of general principles to any given place 
 or condition of things, that practical knowledge of that particu- 
 lar state of things is needful, which I cannot have in the pres- 
 ent case. Still, the conclusions of our local observation must 
 not drive us to overset general principles, or to neglect them, 
 for that is no less an error. 
 
 CCLXVIII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Rugby, April 4, 1842. 
 
 Your letter of the 18th of August quite coincides with my 
 wishes, and satisfies me also that I may, without injustice, act 
 
 according to them And I am happy to say that 
 
 seems quite disposed to agree with your view of the 
 
 subject, and to make it a standing rule of the College, that 
 the Principal of it shall always be a member of the Church 
 of England, if not a clergyman. My own belief is, that our 
 Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are, with all their faults, 
 the best institutions of the kind in the world, at least for 
 Englishmen; and therefore I should wish to copy then> 
 exactly, if it were possible, for Van Diemen's Land. I only
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 229 
 
 doubted whether it were just to Scotland to give a predomi- 
 nantly English character to the institutions of a British colony ; 
 but your argument from the establishment of the English law 
 is, I think, a good one, and mixed institutions are to my mind 
 so undesirable, that I would rather have the College Scotch 
 altogether, so far as my own taste is concerned, than that it 
 should represent no Church at all. I have always wished, 
 and I wish it still, that the bases of our own, as of other 
 Churches, should be made wider than they are ; but the en- 
 largement, to my mind, should be there, and not in the schools : 
 for it seems a solecism to me, that a place of education for 
 the members of a Church should not teach according to that 
 Church, without suppressions of any sort for the sake of ac- 
 commodating others. 
 
 As to the other point, of there being always an English 
 and Scotch clergyman amongst the Fellows of the College, 
 
 took your view of the case and I yielded to him 
 
 But, though I do not like to urge anything against your judg- 
 ment, yet I should like to explain to you my view of the case. 
 I wish to secure to members of the Scotch Church the educa- 
 tion of their own Church, I mean an education such as 
 their own Church would wish them to have, just as I wish 
 to secure for our people a full Church of England education. 
 Then, on the other hand, I am not afraid of sectarian feelings 
 and struggles, where men live together, each with a distinct 
 recognized position of his own, and with his own proper work 
 assigned to him. I dread much more the effect of differences 
 not publicly recognized, such as those of parties within the 
 same Church. If Roman Catholics, as such, had a college of 
 their own at Oxford, I do not believe that there would be half 
 the disputing or proselytizing which exists now, where Roman 
 Catholic opinions are held by men calling themselves mem- 
 bers of our Church. A Scotch clergyman has to do with 
 Scotchmen, an English clergyman with Englishmen. The 
 national distinction would make the ecclesiastical difference 
 natural, as I think, and would take away from it everything 
 of hostility. But, however, as I said before, I should have 
 the greatest objection to pressing a point against your judg- 
 ment. I grieve over the difficulty about the name of the 
 College : it seems to me not a little matter ; and how sadly 
 does that foolish notion of its being profane, help the supersti- 
 tion to which it professes to be most opposed, the supersti- 
 tion of holy places, and holy things, and holy times. But 
 VOL ii. 20
 
 230 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 your leaving the question to the Government seems quite the 
 wisest way of settling it.* 
 
 CCLXIX. TO REV. TREVENEN PENROSE. 
 
 (Who had asked him his opinion about sanctioning various Provident Socie- 
 ties by preaching Sermons on their anniversaries.) 
 
 Rugby, April 10, 1841. 
 
 My opinion on such points as you have proposed to me, is 
 not worth the fiftieth part of yours, so totally am I without 
 the needful experience. But speaking as an l8iu>Tris, I am 
 inclined quite to agree with you. These half-heathen clubs, 
 including, above all, Freemasonry, are, I think, utterly un- 
 lawful for a Christian man : they are close brotherhoods, 
 formed with those who are not in a close sense our brethren. 
 You would do a great service, if by your sermons, aided by 
 your personal influence, you could give the clubs a Christian 
 character. But their very names are unseemly. A club of 
 Odd Fellows is a good joke, but hardly a decent piece of 
 earnest. I suspect, however, that the Government plans are 
 too purely economical : an annual dinner is so much the usage 
 of all English societies, that it seems hard to deny it to the 
 poor. 
 
 CCLXX. * TO REV. J. T. ORMEROD. 
 
 Fox How, June 19, 1841. 
 
 I think that it is very desirable to show the con' 
 
 nection of the Church with the Synagogue, a point on which 
 Whately insists strongly. I should also like to go into the 
 question as to the Bevrepa Siardgfts rS>v aTrocrroAaw, mentioned in 
 that famous fragment of Irenaeus. That the Church system, 
 or rather the Priest system, is not to be found in Scripture, is 
 as certain as that the worship of Jupiter is not the doctrine of 
 the Gospel; the only shadow of an apostolical origin of il 
 rests on the notion that, after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 the surviving Apostles altered the earlier Christian service^ 
 and made the Eucharist answer to the sacrifice of the Temple. 
 I believe this to be unsupported as to its historical basis, and 
 perverted doctrinally ; if there be any foundation for the fact, 
 
 * This letter is, for the sake of convenience, transposed to this place from 
 its proper order.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 231 
 
 ft was not that the Eucharist was to succeed to the Temple 
 sacrifices, one carnal sacrifice, and carnal priest succeeding 
 to another ; but that the spiritual sacrifice of each man's 
 self to God, connected always, according to Bunsen, with the 
 commemoration of Christ's sacrifice in the Eucharist, was now 
 visibly the only sacrifice anywhere offered to God ; and thus, 
 as was foretold, the carnal worship had utterly perished, and 
 the spiritual worship was established in its room. That the 
 great Enemy should have turned his very defeat into his 
 greatest victory, and have converted the spiritual self-sacrifice 
 in which each man was his own priest, into the carnal and 
 lying sacrifice of the Mass, is to my mind, more than anything 
 else, the exact fulfilment of the apostolical language concern- 
 ing Antichrist. 
 
 CCLXXI. TO MB. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, June 26, 1841. 
 
 Thank you for your letter, and your remarks on 
 
 my Introduction. You speak of yourself as standing half- 
 way between Newman and me ; but I do not think that you 
 will or can maintain that position. For many years such a 
 middle position was in fact that of the majority of the Eng- 
 lish clergy ; it was the old form of High Churchism, retain- 
 ing much of Protestantism, and uniting it with other notions, 
 such as Apostolical Succession, for which it had an instinctive 
 fondness, but which it cherished indistinctly, without pushing 
 them to their consequences. Newman and I thank him for 
 it has broken up this middle state, by pushing the doctrines 
 of the Succession, &c., to their legitimate consequences ; and 
 it appears now that they are inconsistent with Protestantism ; 
 and Newman and his friends repudiate the very name of Prot- 
 estant, disclaim the sole supremacy of Scripture, and in short 
 hold every essential tenet of Popery, though not of Roman- 
 ism ; for they so far agree with the Gallican Church, that they 
 would set a General Council above the Pope ; but the essence 
 of Popery, which is Priesthood, and the mystic virtue of ritual 
 acts done by a Priesthood, they cling to as heartily as the 
 most vehement ultramontane Papists. Now that the two 
 systems are set front to front, I do not think that a middle 
 course is possible : the Priest is either Christ or Antichrist ; 
 he is either our Mediator, or he is like the man of sin in 
 God's temple ; the " Church system ' is either our Gospel, and
 
 232 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 St. John's and St. Paul's Gospel is superseded by it, or it is a 
 system of blasphemous falsehood, such as St. Paul foretold was 
 to come, such as St. John saw to be " already in the world." 
 
 I think that you have not quite attended to my argument 
 in the Introduction, when you seem to think that I have 
 treated the question more as one of a priori reasoning, than of 
 scriptural evidence. If you look at the paragraph beginning 
 at the bottom of page xxix., you will see, I think, that it is 
 most fully acknowledged to be a question of scriptural evi- 
 dence. It is not my fault if the scriptural authority which 
 the " Church system " appeals to, is an absolute nonentity. 
 The Newmanite interpretation of our Lord's words, " Do this 
 in remembrance of me," you confess to have startled you. 
 Surely it may well startle any man, for no Unitarian comment on 
 the first chapter of St. John could possibly be more monstrous. 
 Now, in such matters, I speak and feel confidently from the 
 habits of my life. My business as schoolmaster, is a constant 
 exercise in the interpretation of language, in cases where no 
 prejudice can warp the mind one way or another, and this 
 habit of interpretation has been constantly applied to the 
 Scriptures for more than twenty years ; for I began the care- 
 ful study of the Epistles long before I left Oxford, and have 
 never intermitted it. I feel, therefore, even more strongly 
 towards a misinterpretation of Scripture than I should to- 
 wards a misinterpretation of Thucydides. I know there are 
 passages in the Scriptures which no man can interpret ; that 
 there are others of which the interpretation is doubtful ; 
 others, again, where it is probable, but far from certain. This 
 I feel strongly, and in such places I never would speak other- 
 wise than hesitatingly. But this does not hinder us from feel- 
 ing absolutely certain in other cases: and the Newmanite 
 interpretations seem to me to be of the same class as the 
 lowest Unitarian, or as those of the most extravagant fanat- 
 ics ; they are mere desperate shifts to get a show of author- 
 ity from Scripture, which it is felt after all the Scripture will 
 not furnish ; for the anxious endeavor to exalt Tradition and 
 Church authority to a level with the Scripture, proves suffi- 
 ciently where the real support of the cause is felt to lie ; for 
 no man would ever go to Tradition for the support of what 
 the Scripture by itself teaches ; and in all the great discus- 
 sions on the Trinitarian question, the battle has been fought 
 out of the Scripture : no tradition L> wanted to strengthen the 
 testimony of St. John.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 233 
 
 I suppose it is that men's individual constitution of mind 
 determines them greatly, when great questions are brought to 
 a clear issue. You have often accused me of not enough 
 valuing the Church of England, the very charge which I 
 should now be inclined to retort against you. And in both 
 instances the charge would have a true foundation. Viewing 
 the Church of England as connected with the Stuart Kings, 
 and as opposing the " good old cause," I bear it no affection ; 
 viewing it as a great reformed institution, and as proclaiming 
 the King's supremacy, and utterly denying the binding au- 
 thority of General Councils, and the necessity of priestly 
 mediation, you perhaps would feel less attached to it than I 
 am. For, after all, those differences in men's minds which 
 we express, when exemplified in English politics, by the terms 
 Whig and Tory, are veiy deep and comprehensive, and I 
 should much like to be able to discover a formula which 
 would express them in their most abstract shape ; they seem 
 to me to be the great fundamental difference between think- 
 ing men ; but yet it is certain that each of these two great 
 divisions of mankind apprehends a truth strongly, and the 
 Kingdom of God will, I suppose, show us the perfect recon- 
 ciling of the truth held by each. I think that in opinion you 
 will probably draw more and more towards Keble, and be re- 
 moved farther and farther from me ; but I have a most entire 
 confidence that this, in our case, will not affect our mutual 
 friendship, as, to my grief unspeakable, it has between old 
 Keble and me ; because I do not think that you will ever lose 
 the consciousness of the fact, that the two great divisions of 
 which I spoke are certainly not synonymous with the division 
 between good and evil ; that some of the best and wisest of 
 mortal men are to be found with each ; nay, that He who 
 is our perfect example, unites in Himself and sanctions the 
 truths most loved, and the spirit most sympathized in by 
 each ; wherefore, I do not think that either is justified in 
 denouncing the other altogether, or renouncing friendship 
 with it. I have run on to an enormous length, but your 
 
 letter rather moved me 
 
 If you could see the beauty of this scene, you would think 
 me mad to leave it, and I almost think myself so too. The 
 boys are eager to be off, and I feel myself that the work of 
 Rugby is far more welcome when I come to it as a home after 
 foreign travelling, than when I only go to it from Fox How, 
 from one home to another, and from what is naturally the 
 20*
 
 234 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 more dear to the less dear. Yet I should be very false, and 
 very ungrateful too, if I did not acknowledge that Rugby was 
 a very dear home ; with so much of work, and yet so much 
 of quiet as my wife and I enjoy every day when we go out 
 with her pony into our quiet lanes. 
 
 We have been reading some of the Rhetoric in 
 
 the Sixth Form this half-year, and its immense value struck 
 me again so forcibly that I could not consent to send my son 
 to an University where he would lose it altogether, and where 
 his whole studies would be formal merely and not real, either 
 mathematics or philology, with nothing at all like the Aris- 
 totle and Thucydides at Oxford. In times past, the neglect 
 of philology at Oxford was so shameful that it almost neutral- 
 ized the other advantages of the place, but I do not think that 
 this is so now ; and the utter neglect of viva-voce translatiop 
 at Cambridge is another great evil ; even though by constru- 
 ing instead of translating they almost undo the good of thew 
 viva-voce system at Oxford. 
 
 CCLXXII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Fox How, August 1, 1841. 
 
 Thank you for Randell's letter. He is one of th< 
 
 many men whom the course of life has to my regret parted 
 me from ; I do not mean " parted," in the sense of estranged, 
 but simply hindered us from meeting. I was very glad to see 
 his judgment on the matters in which I am so interested, an<? 
 rejoice to find how much I agree with him. Indeed I do noJ 
 think that we differ so much as he imagines ; I think the ex- 
 istence of Dissent a great evil, and I believe my inclinations 
 as little lead me to the Dissenters as any man's living. But 
 I do not think m the first place that the Christian unity of 
 which our Lord and his Apostles speak so earnestly, is an 
 unity of government, or that national churches, each sove- 
 reign, or churches of a less wide extent than national, each 
 equally sovereign, are a breach of unity necessarily ; and, 
 again, if Dissent as it exists in England were a breach of 
 unity, then there comes the historical question, whose fault the 
 breach is ? and that question is not to be answered summarily, 
 nor will the true answer ever lay all the blame on the Dis- 
 senters, I think not so much as half of it. 
 
 If you did not object, I should very much like to write to 
 Randell myself on the point ; if it were only to know from
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 235 
 
 tdiat parts of my writings he has been led to ascribe to me 
 opinions and feelings which are certainly not mine, in his im- 
 pression of them. 
 
 CCLXXIII. TO THE REV. JAMES RANDELL. 
 
 Fox How, September 20, 1841. 
 
 I read your letter to Coleridge with great interest, and 
 wished much to write to you about it, but I fear that I have 
 not tiirie to do so. It would take rather a long time to state 
 what I think about Dissent and what is called " Schism." I 
 think it a great evil, as being inconsistent with the idea of the 
 perfect Church, to which our aspirations should be continually 
 directed. But, "in fsece Romuli," with historical Churches, 
 and such ideas of Church as have been most prevalent, Dis- 
 sent seems to me to wear a very different aspect. Yet I am 
 not partial to our English Dissenters, and think that their 
 views are quite as narrow as those of their opponents. And 
 what good is to be done, will be done, I think, much sooner" 
 by members of the Church than by Dissenters. 
 
 What you say of my books is very gratifying to me. It 
 repays the labor of writing in the best manner, to know that 
 any thinking man has considered what one has written, and 
 has found in it something to interest him, whether he agrees 
 with it or no. By the way, your criticism on a passage in my 
 Christmas-Day Sermon is quite just; and, if my Sermon 
 expresses any other doctrine,* it has failed in expressing my 
 meaning. Surely, I do not hold that the Godhead of the 
 Son is really inferior to that of the Father, but only KO.T 
 oiKovopiav, that is, it is presented to us mixed with an in- 
 ferior nature, and also with certain qualities, visibility, for 
 instance, which have been assumed in condescension, but 
 which are still what St. Paul calls, " an emptying of the 
 Divinity," presenting it to us in a less absolutely perfect 
 form, because it is not merely itself, but itself with some- 
 thing inferior joined to it. 
 
 CCLXXIT. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 June 25, 1841. 
 
 I purpose leaving this place for the Continent with my two 
 eldest sons on Monday next, and I wish before we set out to 
 
 * Viz. that Deity does not admit of degrees.
 
 236 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 thank you for your last letter ; and to send my earnest gcod 
 wishes for the health and welfare, temporal and eternal, of my 
 dear little godson. We have been here about a week, after a 
 half-year at Rugby very peaceable as far as regarded the 
 conduct of the boys, but very anxious as regarding their 
 health. One boy died from pressure on the brain in the 
 middle of the half-year; another has died within the last 
 week of fever ; and a third, who had been long in a delicate 
 state and went home for his health, is since dead also. And 
 besides all these, four boys more were at different times at 
 the very point of death, and some are even now only slowly 
 and with difficulty recovering. You may conceive how much 
 anxiety and distress this must have occasioned us : yet I can 
 most truly say, that it is as nothing when compared with the 
 existence of any unusual moral evil in the school ; far less 
 distressing and far less harassing. 
 
 This place is very calm and very beautiful^ and I think 
 would furnish you with much employment, if you lived here 
 all the year. But I am so ignorant about gardening and agri- 
 cultural matters, that I can do little or nothing ; and besides, 
 we are away just at those times of the year when there is most 
 to be done. 
 
 I am very glad you saw my old friend Tucker. He was 
 with us for a few days in April, and he seemed to have de- 
 rived nothing but good in all ways from his stay in India. 
 Before he went out he had for some time been growing more 
 and more of an Evangelical partisan, and had acquired some 
 of the narrowness of mind and peculiarity of manner which 
 belong to that party. But his missionary life seems to have 
 swept away all those clouds : and I found him now with all 
 the simplicity, hearty cheerfulness, affectionateness, and plain 
 sense, which he had when a young man at Oxford, with all 
 the earnestness and goodness of a ripened Christian superad- 
 ded. It was one of the most delightful renewals of intercourse 
 with an old friend which I can ever hope to enjoy. 
 
 CCLXXV. TO THE REV. J. TUCKER. 
 
 Fox How, August 2, 1841. 
 
 I have heard of you in various quarters since your 
 
 visit at Rugby, but I do not at all know what your plans are, 
 and when you propose leaving England. If you can pay us 
 another visit at Rugby before you sail, we shall all earnestly
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 237 
 
 unite in entreating you to do so. It was a great gratification 
 to me to find that many of our children enjoyed your visit 
 extremely, and have spoken both of it and of your sermon 
 which you preached in the Church in a manner that has been 
 very delightful to me. 
 
 For myself, my dear friend, your visit has been a happiness 
 greater than I could tell you. It assured me that I still pos- 
 sessed not only your affectionate remembrances for the sake 
 of old times, which I never doubted, but your actual living 
 friendship, unshaken by differences of opinion, whatever those 
 differences might be. I believe in my own case, as often hap- 
 pens, my friends have exaggerated those differences. Keble, 
 I am sure, has ascribed to me opinions which I never held, 
 not of course wilfully, but because his sensitiveness on some 
 points is so morbid, that his power of judgment is pro tanto 
 utterly obscured. The first shock of perceiving something 
 that he does not like makes him incapable of examining stead- 
 ily how great or how little that something is. I had feared 
 (therein very likely doing you injustice) that, before you left 
 England for India, you had in some degree shared Keble's 
 feelings, though on different grounds ; and I did not write to 
 you, though with many a wish to do so, because one feels in- 
 stinctively repelled, I think, from communicating with an old 
 friend, except on a footing of equal confidence and respect; 
 and I doubted your feeling these towards me, though I did not 
 doubt your kindness and affection. But one or two men have 
 behaved towards me in the course of my life just as they might 
 have done, being kind-hearted and affectionate men, if I had 
 committed some great crime, which rendered respect or friend- 
 ship impossible, though old kindness might still survive it. 
 And this is hard to bear, when, far from being conscious of 
 such great fault in myself in the points which are objected to, 
 I hold my faith in those points to be the most certain truth in 
 Christ, and the opposite opinions to be a most grievous and 
 mischievous error, which I only will not, in the individual 
 cases of those holding it, regard as they regard my supposed 
 error, because I know that along with it there exists a truth 
 and a goodness which I am clearly warranted in loving and 
 in believing to be Christ's Spirit's work. But your last visit 
 was so friendly ; I perceived, too, that you could bear things 
 with which you might not agree, and saw and felt with satis- 
 faction how much there was with which you did agree, that 
 I was altogether revived, and, if I may use St. Paul's Ian-
 
 238 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 guage, " my heart was enlarged," and I ventured to tell Fcl- 
 lowes to send you my new volume of Sermons, as to a man 
 who might not and would not agree with all that he found 
 there, but yet would not be shocked at it, but would believe 
 that it was intended to serve the same cause to which he was 
 himself devoted. And I have had the full intention of writing 
 to you as in times past, if you again sailed to India, or if you 
 remained in England ; of which intention be this present 
 letter the first fruits and pledge. 
 
 CCLXXVI. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Fox How, August 12, 1841. 
 
 I thank you very much for your letter, although, 
 
 to say the truth, there were some expressions in it which a 
 little disappointed me. I do not know, in point of fact, what 
 our differences of opinion are, and with regard to Newmanism, 
 I had supposed that we were mostly in agreement. I should 
 have expected, therefore, that generally you would have agreed 
 with the Introduction to my last volume ; and that your differ- 
 ences would have been rather with some parts of the appen- 
 dices. But I do not mean by disappointment the finding more 
 or less of disagreement in opinion, but much more the finding 
 that you still look upon the disagreement, be it what it may, 
 as a serious matter, by which I understand you to mean a 
 thing deserving of moral censure ; as if, for example, one had 
 a friend whom one respected and loved for many good qual- 
 ities, but whose temper was so irritable, that it made a consid- 
 erable abatement in one's estimate of him. Of course, he who 
 believes his own views to be true, must believe the opposite 
 views to be error ; but the great point in our judgment and 
 feeling towards men seems to be not to confound error with 
 fault. I scarcely know one amongst my dearest friends, ex- 
 cept Bunsen, whom I do not believe to be in some point or 
 other in grave error. I differ very widely from Whately on 
 many points, as I differ from you and from Keble on others ; 
 but the sense of errors is with me something quite distinct 
 from the sense of fault, and if I were required to name Keble's 
 faults or yours, it would never enter into my head to think of 
 his Newmanism or your opinions, whatever they may be, 
 which differ from my own. The fault would be, in my judg- 
 ment, and you will forgive me for saying so, the feeling as 
 Keble does, and as I hoped that you now did not, towards an
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 239 
 
 error as if it were a fault, and judging it morally. "We are 
 speaking, you will observe, of such errors as are consistent 
 with membership, not only in Christianity, but in the same 
 particular Church ; and I cannot think that we have a right 
 to regard such as faults, though we have quite a right, a right 
 which I would largely exercise, to protest against them as 
 mischievous, mischievous, it may be, in a very high degree, 
 as I think Newmanism is. 
 
 CCLXXVII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Fox How, September 22, 1841. 
 
 I must write a few lines to you before we leave Fox How, 
 because my first arrival at Rugby is likely to be beset with 
 business, and I fear that your time of sailing is drawing near. 
 Most heartily do I thank you for your last letter, and you may 
 be sure that I will not trouble you on the subject any farther. 
 Nor do I feel it necessary, for although it may be that there 
 is something which I could wish otherwise still, yet I feel now 
 that it need not and will not disturb our intercourse, and there- 
 fore I can write to you with perfect content. 
 
 You are going again to your work, which I feel sure is and 
 will be blessed both to others and yourself. I should be well 
 pleased if one of my sons went out hereafter to labor in the 
 same field, but what line they will take seems very hard to 
 determine. They do not seem inclined to follow Medicine, 
 and I have the deepest abhorrence of the Law, so that two 
 professions seem set aside, and for trade, I have neither cap- 
 ital nor connection. Meanwhile I wish them to do well at the 
 University, which will be an arming them in a manner for 
 whatever may open to them. We shall leave this place, I 
 think, on Friday. This long stay has doubly endeared it to 
 us all, and though I am thankful to be able to get back to 
 Rugby, yet there will be a sad wrench in leaving Fox How. 
 It is not the mere outward beauty, but the friendliness and 
 agreeableness of the neighborhood in which we mix, simply 
 as inhabitants of the country, and not as at Rugby, in an of- 
 ficial relation. 
 
 The school is summoned for the 9th of October, but many 
 of the boys will return, I think, on Saturday, so that the work 
 will begin, probably, on Monday ; but as I have some of the 
 Sixth Form down here, I have not the leisure for my History 
 I could have desired. I trust that you will go on with your
 
 240 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Journal, and that you will hereafter allow large portions of it 
 to be printed. I am persuaded that it will do more towards 
 enabling us to realize India to ourselves, than anything which 
 has yet appeared. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LAST YEAR. PROFESSORSHIP OF MODERN HISTORY AT OX- 
 FORD. LAST DAYS AT RUGBY. DEATH. CONCLUSION. 
 
 IT was now the fourteenth year of Dr. Arnold's stay 
 at Rugby. The popular prejudice against him, which 
 for the last few years had been rapidly subsiding, now 
 began actually to turn in his favor ; his principles 
 of education, which at one tune had provoked so much 
 outcry, met with general acquiescence ; the school, 
 with each successive half-year, rose in numbers beyond 
 the limit within which he endeavored to confine it, 
 and seemed likely to take a higher rank than it had 
 ever assumed before ; the alarm which had once 
 existed against him in the theological world was now 
 directed to an opposite quarter ; his fourth volume 
 of Sermons, with its Introduction, had been hailed by 
 a numerous party with enthusiastic approbation ; and 
 many who had long hung back from him with sus- 
 picion and dislike, now seemed inclined to gather 
 round him as their champion and leader. 
 
 His own views and objects meanwhile remained the 
 same. But the feeling of despondency, with which 
 for some time past he had regarded public affairs, 
 now assumed a new phase, which, though it might 
 possibly have passed away with the natural course of 
 events, colored his mind too strongly during this 
 period to be passed over without notice. 
 
 His interest, indeed, in political and ecclesiastical
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 241 
 
 matters still continued ; and his sermon on Easter 
 Day, 1842, stands almost if not absolutely alone in the 
 whole course of his school sermons, for the severity 
 and vehemence of its denunciations against what he 
 conceived to be the evil tendencies of the Oxford 
 School. But he entertained also a growing sense of 
 his isolation from all parties, whether from those with 
 whom he had vainly tried to co-operate in former 
 years, or those who, from fear of a common enemy, 
 were now anxious to claim him as an ally ; and it was 
 not without something of a sympathetic feeling that, 
 in his Lectures of this year, he dwelt so earnestly on 
 the fate of his favorite Falkland, " who protests so 
 strongly against the evil of his party, that he had 
 rather die by their hands than in their company but 
 die he must ; for there is no place left on earth where 
 his sympathies can breathe freely ; he is obliged to 
 leave the country of his affections, and life elsewhere 
 would be intolerable." And it is impossible not to 
 observe how, in the course of sermons preached during 
 this year, he turned from the active " course " of the 
 Christian life, with its outward " helps and hin- 
 drances," to its inward " hopes and fears," and its final 
 " close ; " * or how, in his habitual views at this time, 
 he seemed disposed, for the first time in his life, to 
 regard the divisions of the Church as irreparable, the 
 restoration of the Church as all but impracticable, and 
 " to cling," as he expresses himself in one of his let- 
 ters, " not from choice, but from necessity, to the 
 Protestant tendency of laying the whole stress on 
 Christian religion, and adjourning his idea of the 
 Church sine die." It was in this spirit also, that he 
 began to attach a new importance to the truths relat- 
 ing to a man's own individual convictions^ which, 
 though always occupying a prominent place in his 
 thoughts, had naturally less hold upon his sympathies 
 than those which affect man in relation to society. 
 
 * Sermons XIII. XXXIV. in the posthumous volume, entitled " Chris- 
 tian Life; its Hopes, its Fears, and its Close." 
 
 VOL. II. 21 P
 
 242 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 The controversy on Justification acquired greater inter- 
 est in his eyes than it had assumed before ; and he felt 
 himself called, for the first time, to unfold his own 
 views on the subject. The more abstract and meta- 
 physical grounds of truth, divine and human, which 
 he had formerly been accustomed to regard in its 
 purely practical aspect, were now becoming invested 
 in his mind with a new value. The inseparable con- 
 nection between truth and goodness which he had 
 always insisted upon, seemed to come before him with 
 peculiar force from time to time in these his latest 
 thoughts. In one of the last school Essays revised by 
 him, it was recollected with what peculiar emphasis he 
 had written at the close of it, "not," as he said, 
 " because there was any particular place for it in the 
 composition itself, but because he wished to say some- 
 thing about it," the words, " Turn demum id quod 
 Verum est a Bono alienum licebit dicere, cum Deum 
 a Mundo sustulerimus." In his latest lessons it was 
 observed how, in reading Plato's Republic, he broke 
 out into a solemn protest against the evil effects of an 
 exaggerated craving after Unity or in Cicero's 
 work, "De Divinatione," the contrast that he drew 
 between the conduct of the later philosophers and the 
 Christian martyrs with regard to the established re- 
 ligion. " Neither of the two parties believed in it 
 but the philosophers and augurs worshipped and sacri- 
 ficed because they thought it convenient to uphold the 
 ' instituta majorum ; '- -just as in Roman Catholic 
 countries there are to be found men who would laugh 
 at the most solemn parts of the service, at the mass 
 itself who would burn a Protestant, but who believe 
 in Christ just as much as Cicero believed in Him. 
 But they could not understand why the Christians 
 would not act as they did - they had no notion of men 
 dying rather than act a lie and deny what they were 
 certain was a truth. It is this which shows us what 
 martyrdom really was, and in what the nobleness of 
 the martyrs consisted in that they would die sooner
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 243 
 
 than by their slightest action assist in what they felt to 
 be a lie and a mockery." And, whilst in his latest 
 studies of early Christian history, in the Epistles of 
 Cyprian, he dwelt on this endurance and self-devotion 
 of the early martyrs with an increasing sympathy and 
 admiration, which penetrated even into his private 
 devotions, and on the instruction to be derived from 
 contemplating an age " when martyrdom was a real 
 thing to which every Christian might, without any re- 
 markable accident, be exposed," * he was also much 
 struck with the indications which these Epistles seemed 
 to him to contain, that the Church had been corrupted 
 not only by the Judaic spirit of priesthood, but even 
 more by the Gentile spirit of government, stifling the 
 sense of individual responsibility. " The treatment of 
 the Lapsi, by Cyprian," he said, " is precisely in the 
 spirit of the treatment of the Capuans by the Roman 
 Senate, of which I was reading at the same time for 
 my Roman History. I am myself so much inclined to 
 the idea of a strong social bond, that I ought not to be 
 suspected of any tendency to anarchy ; yet I am be- 
 ginning to think that the idea may be overstrained, 
 and that this attempt to merge the soul and will of the 
 individual man in the general body is, when fully de- 
 veloped, contrary to the very essence of Christianity. 
 After all, it is the individual soul that must be saved, 
 and it is that which is addressed in the Gospel. Do 
 consider the immense strength of that single verse, 
 ' Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.' 
 Indeed, so strong is the language of some parts of the 
 New Testament in this direction, as to be an actual 
 perplexity to me. St. Paul's language concerning it, 
 I think, may be explained, but the refusal of our Lord, 
 to comply with some of the indifferent customs, such 
 as washing before meals, is, when I come to consider 
 it, so startling, that I feel that there is something in it 
 which I do not fully understand." 
 
 * See Serra. vol. v. p. 316.
 
 244 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Such were the general feelings with which he entered 
 on this year a year, on every account, of peculiar 
 interest to himself and his scholars. It had opened 
 with an unusual mortality in the school. One of his 
 colleagues, and seven of his pupils, mostly from causes 
 unconnected with each other, had been carried off 
 within its first quarter ; and the return of the boys 
 had been delayed beyond the accustomed time in con- 
 sequence of a fever lingering in Rugby, during which 
 period he had a detachment of the higher Forms resid- 
 ing near or with him at Fox How. It was during his 
 stay here that he received from Lord Melbourne the 
 offer of the Regius Professorship of Modern History at 
 Oxford, vacant by the death of Dr. Nares. How joy- 
 fully he caught at this unexpected realization of his 
 fondest hopes for his latest years, and how bright a 
 gleam it imparted to the sunset of his life, will best be 
 expressed by his own letters and by the account of his 
 Lectures. 
 
 CCLXXVIII. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Fox How, August 21, 1841. 
 
 You may perhaps have heard my news already, but I must 
 tell you myself, because you are so much connected with my 
 pleasure in it. I have accepted the Regius Professorship of 
 Modern History, chiefly to gratify my earnest longing to have 
 some direct connection with Oxford; and I have thought with 
 no small delight that I should now see something of you in 
 the natural course of things every year, for my wife and my- 
 self hope to take lodgings for ten days or a fortnight every 
 Lent Term, at the end of our Christmas holidays, for me to 
 give my Lectures. I could not resist the temptation of ac- 
 cepting the office, though it will involve some additional work, 
 and if I live to leave Rugby, the income, though not great, 
 will be something to us when we are poor people at Fox 
 How. But to get a regular situation in Oxford would have 
 tempted me, I believe, had it been accompanied with ua 
 buhiry at all.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 245 
 
 CCXXLIX. TO MB. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, September 1, 1841. 
 
 In the midst of my perplexities, practical and historical, I 
 am going to indulge myself by writing to you. My practical 
 perplexity is about the meeting of the school, which in either 
 way involves a great responsibility, and the chance of much 
 inconvenience and loss. I believe that we might meet next 
 week without any real imprudence, and that the amount of 
 fever in Rugby is but trifling ; but if a single boy were to 
 catch it, after the two fatal cases of last half-year, the panic 
 would be so great that we should not be able to keep the 
 school together, or to reassemble it till after Christmas. . . . 
 
 My historical perplexity has caused me many hours of 
 work, and I cannot yet see land. It shows to me how the 
 most notorious facts may be corrupted, even very soon after 
 the occurrence, when they are subjected to no careful and ju- 
 dicious inquiry. Hannibal's march from Capua upon Rome, 
 to effect a diversion for the besieged town, is of course one of 
 the most striking parts of the whole war. I want to give it 
 in detail, and with all the painting possible. But it is wholly 
 uncertain by what road he advanced upon Rome, whether by 
 the Latin road direct from Capua, or by an enormous circuit 
 through Samnium, just the road which we took last summer 
 from Capua to Reate, and so from Reate on Rome. Caslius 
 Antipater, Polybius, and Appian, all either assert or imply 
 the latter. Livy says the former, and gives an account of the 
 march, from Fabius, I think, or Cincius, which is circumstan- 
 tial and highly probable ; but he is such a simpleton, that 
 after having written a page from Cincius or Fabius, he then 
 copies from some other writer who had made him take the 
 other road ; and, after bringing Hannibal by the Latin road, 
 he makes him cross the Anio to approach Rome, and tells di- 
 vers anecdotes, which all imply that he came by the Valerian 
 or Salarian road ; for of course the Latin road has no more 
 to do with the Anio than with the Arno. The evidences and 
 the probabilities are so balanced, and all the narratives are so 
 unsatisfactory, that I cannot tell what to do about it. And 
 the same sort of thing occurs often, with such constant uncer- 
 tainty as to the text, in Livy, the common editions being 
 restored conjecturally in almost every page, where the MSS. 
 are utterly corrupt, that the Punic War is almost as hard 
 in the writing as in the fighting. 
 21*
 
 246 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Now, about my Notes, I offended in that matter deliber- 
 ately, having always so enjoyed a history with many Note*, 
 and having known so many persons feel the same, that I mul- 
 tiplied them purposely. But I quite agree with you that the 
 text ought to be intelligible without them ; and if you will be 
 so kind as to point out the passages which are faulty in this 
 respect, I shall be greatly obliged to you, and will try and 
 manage better for the future. 
 
 I thank you much for your congratulations about the Pro- 
 fessorship. I caught at any opportunity of being connected 
 again with Oxford; and the visions of Bagley Wood and 
 Shotover rose upon me with an irresistible charm. Then it 
 suited so well with future living at Fox How, if I may dare 
 to look forward ; giving me work for my life, and an income 
 for life, which, though not large, would be much to me when 
 I had left Rugby (especially if the Americans go on not pay- 
 ing their just and lawful debts, whereby I shall lose more than 
 fifteen hundred pounds). And now, whilst my boys are at 
 Oxford, it will take me up there from time to time, and will 
 give me a share in the working of the University, although 
 not a great one. In short, there is nothing which the Gov- 
 ernment could have given me that would have suited all my 
 wishes so well, and great -nxn it was that it fell vacant only 
 one week before the Tories came into power. 
 
 Now as to what is to be done in it. I shall follow your ad- 
 vice, and ponder well before I decide on anything 
 
 With regard to party questions, I should write as I am trying 
 to write in my Roman History, avoiding partisanship or per- 
 sonalities ; but, as I have said in the Preface to the History, 
 if history has no truths to teach, its facts are but little worth ; 
 and the truths of political science belong as much, I think, to 
 an historian, as those of theology to a Professor of Divinity. 
 As an ecclesiastical historian, I would try to hold an equal 
 balance between Catholics and Arians ; but not between Cathol- 
 icism and Arianism ; and so it seems to me one ought to deal 
 with the great principles of Government and of Politics, and 
 not to write as if there were no truth attainable in the matter, 
 but all was mere opinion. Roman and English history par- 
 ticularly illustrate each other ; but I do not know how I could 
 more particularly connect my Lectures with the History. 
 The influence of the Roman Empire upon modern Europe 
 would naturally often be touched upon ; but the more minute 
 inquiry as to the particular effects of the Roman law on ours,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 247 
 
 would be beyond my compass ; and the transition state from 
 ancient to modern history is not to me inviting as a period, 
 and it has besides been so often treated of. 
 
 is going up to Trinity College, Oxford, after the long 
 
 vacation. We do not know him personally, but are interested 
 about him for his friend's sake. If your son Henry could 
 show him any countenance, I should be very much obliged to 
 him, and you know the value of kindness shown to a fresh- 
 man. 
 
 We unite in love and kind regards to you and yours. I 
 could rave about the beauty of Fox How, but I will forbear. 
 I work very hard at mowing the grass amongst the young trees, 
 which gives me constant employment. Wordsworth is remark- 
 ably well. I direct to Ottery, hoping that you may be there 
 at peace, escaped from the Old Bailey. 
 
 CCLXXX. TO SIR T. S. PASLEY, BART. 
 
 Fox How, September 23, 1841. 
 
 The first Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem is to be 
 
 consecrated at Lambeth next Wednesday. He is to be the 
 legal protector of all Protestants of every denomination to- 
 wards the Turkish government, and he is to ordain Prussian 
 clergymen on their signing the Augsburg Confession and 
 adopting the Prussian Liturgy, and Englishmen on their sub- 
 scribing to our Articles and Liturgy. Thus the idea of my 
 Church Reform pamphlet, which was so ridiculed and so con- 
 demned, is now carried into practice by the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury himself. For the Protestant Church of Jerusalem 
 will comprehend persons using different Liturgies, and sub- 
 scribing different Articles of Faith ; and it will sanction these 
 differences, and hold both parties to be equally its members. 
 Yet it was thought ridiculous in me to conceive that a na- 
 tional Church might include persons using a different ritual 
 and subscribing different articles. Of course it is a grave 
 question what degrees of difference are compatible with the 
 bond of Church union ; but the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 has declared in the plainest language that some differences are 
 compatible with it, and this is the great principle which I con- 
 tended for. 
 
 In your letter of the 26. of August, you ask whether I 
 mink that a Christian ministry is of divine appointment. 
 Now I cannot conceive any Church existing without public
 
 248 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 prayer, preaching and communion, and pome must minister in 
 these offices. But that these " some " should be always the 
 same persons, and that they should form a distinct profession, 
 and, following no other calling, should be maintained by the 
 Church, I do not think to be of divine appointment, but I 
 think it highly expedient that it should be so. In the same 
 way, government for the Church is of divine appointment, 
 and is of absolute necessity ; but that the governors should be 
 for life, or possess such and such powers, or should be appointed 
 in such or such a way, all this appears to me to be left entirely 
 open. I shall be very anxious to hear what reports Malcolm 
 gives of himself, when he gets a little used to his new life. 
 
 CCLXXXI. *TO REV. A. P. STANLEY. 
 
 Rugby, September 29, 1841. 
 
 I have not written to yo since I accepted the 
 
 Professorship, though it has made me think of you very often. 
 I should like very much to have your opinion as to the best 
 line to choose in my lectures ; the best practicable, that is, for 
 the best &ir\S>s is beyond my means to compass. I had 
 thought of trying to do for England what Guizot began so 
 well for France ; to start with the year 1400, and make the 
 first year's course comprise the 15th century. My most de- 
 tailed historical researches happen to have related to that 
 very century, and it gives you the middle ages still undecayed, 
 yet with the prospect of daybreak near. I could not bear to 
 plunge myself into the very depths of that noisome cavern, 
 and to have to toil through centuries of dirt and darkness. 
 But one century will show fully its nature and details, the 
 ripened corruption of the Church, and in England the ripened 
 evils of the feudal aristocracy, and those curious wars of the 
 Roses, which I suppose were as purely personal and party 
 wars, without reference to higher principles, as ever existed. 
 I think I shall write to Sir F. Palgrave, and put some ques- 
 tions to him which he can answer, I suppose, better than any 
 one. Do you know whether there exists in rerum natura 
 anything like a Domesday Book for the 15th century? It 
 would be very curious to trace, if one could, the changes of 
 property produced by the wars of the Roses, and the growtli 
 of the English aristocracy upon the gradual extinction of that 
 purely Norman.* 
 
 * This plan, as will be seen, he altered.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 249 
 
 T think of coming up in Michaelmas term to give my In- 
 augural Lecture. The interest which I shall feel in lecturing 
 in Oxford, you can understand, I think, better than most men. 
 As to the spirit in which I should lecture with respect to the 
 peculiar feelings of the place, the best rule seems to me to 
 lecture exactly as I should write for the world at large ; to 
 lecture, that is, neither hostilely nor cautiously, not seeking 
 occasions of shocking men's favorite opinions, yet neither in 
 any way humoring them, or declining to speak the truth, how- 
 ever opposed it may be to them. Oxford caution would in 
 me be little better than weakness or ratting, especially now 
 that the Tories are in the ascendant. 
 
 CCLXXXII. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ. 
 
 Rugby, October 15, 1841. 
 
 As each successive year passes, I turn to Fox 
 
 How with more homelike feelings, and our long stay there 
 this summer has encouraged this greatly. It is one of the 
 great recommendations of the Professorship to me, that it 
 will be consistent with our living at Fox How, and will only 
 call us away for a part of the year to Oxford, the place to 
 which I still have the strongest local affection of any in the 
 world, next to our valley of the Rotha. 
 
 The Spanish journey was a sad failure on the whole ; yet 
 I saw much that I wanted to see in France, and which will 
 make it quite needless to travel southwest again ; and the 
 two or three hours of fine weather which we had between St- 
 Jean de Luz and Irun, gave me a view of the maritime Pyr- 
 enees, and of the union of mountain and sea about the mouth 
 of the Bidassoa, which I shah 1 not soon forget. The Landes 
 also delighted me from their resemblance to the New Forest : 
 the glades of heath, surrounded by wood, and the dark iron- 
 colored streams fringed with alders, were quite like the south 
 of Hampshire, and delighted me greatly. 
 
 Our eldest son is gone up to Oxford this day to commence 
 his residence at BallioL It is the first separation of our 
 family, for, from our peculiar circumstances, all our nine 
 children have hitherto lived at home together, with very short 
 exceptions, but now it will be so no more. 
 
 I have read Stephens's article on Port Royal, with great 
 admiration: it seems to be at once eloquent, wise, and good. 
 Is it not strange that the Guelf and Glubelin contest should
 
 250 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 be again reviving, as in fact it is, and the greatest questions 
 of our days are those which touch the nature and powers of 
 the Church ? I have been reading Lamennais, and recogniz- 
 ing the true Guelf union of democracy and priestcraft, such 
 as it existed in Guelf Florence of old. The Sans Culotte, 
 with the mitre on his head, and the bandage over his eyes, is 
 to me the worst Sans Culotte of all. I am glad to hear good 
 accounts of Seton Carr, and greatly envy Eton their gift of a 
 writership. 
 
 CCLXXXIII. TO KEV. T. HILL, VICAE OP CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 (Not personally acquainted with him.) 
 
 Rugby, October 29, 1841. 
 
 Allow me to offer you my sincere thanks for your kind 
 letter, and for the sermon which you have had the goodness 
 to send me, and which I have read with great pleasure. It is 
 encouraging to find that there are still clergymen who are not 
 ashamed of the term Protestant, and who can understand that 
 the essence of Popery does not consist in the accidental exal- 
 tation of the Bishop of Rome, but in those principles which 
 St. Paul found in the Judaizing Christians, even in the very 
 beginning of the Gospel, and which are just as mischievous, 
 whether they happen to include the doctrine of the supremacy 
 of the Bishop of Rome, or no. 
 
 With regard to printing the Introduction to my last volume 
 of Sermons separately, I trust to be permitted ere long to 
 publish the substance of it, somewhat enlarged, in a small 
 volume, which may yet exceed the size of a pamphlet. I am 
 very unwilling to publish again, in the form of a pamphlet, as 
 it appears to me to give a personal and temporary character 
 to a discussion which belongs to all times of the Church, 
 and really involves the most fundamental principles of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Thanking you most sincerely for your good wishes, I would 
 earnestly and seriously crave to be remembered in your 
 prayers, and believe me that to feel that any of my brother 
 ministers of Christ, to whom I am personally unknown, are 
 yet interested about me, is one of the greatest earthly en- 
 couragements and comforts which God in His mercy could 
 vouchsafe to me.
 
 LIFE OF DK. AKNOLU. 251 
 
 CCLXXXIV. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (D.) 
 
 Rugby, October 30, 1841. 
 
 ..... You seemed to think that I was not -so charitable 
 towards the Newmanites as I used to be towards the Roman 
 Catholics, and you say that the Newmanites are to be regarded 
 as entirely Roman Catholics. I think so too, but with this 
 grave difference, that they are Roman Catholics at Oxford in- 
 stead of at Oscott, Roman Catholics signing the Articles of 
 a Protestant Church and holding offices in its ministry. Now, 
 as I know that you are a fair man, and I think that Oxford 
 has as yet not deprived you of your wideness of mind, it is a 
 real matter of interest to me, to know how the fact of these 
 men being Roman Catholics in heart, which I quite allow, 
 can be other than a most grave charge against them, till they 
 leave Oxford and our Protestant Church. I cannot at all 
 conceive how you can see this otherwise, any more than I can 
 conceive how you can acquit Tract 90 of very serious moral, 
 delinquency. For surely the Feathers Tavern petitioners 
 would have been quite as much justified in retaining their 
 
 preferments as and are justified in remaining in 
 
 our ministry. Neither does it seem to me to be a just argu- 
 ment respecting the Articles, any more than about other 
 things, to insist that they shall be everything or nothing. I 
 very gladly signed the Petition for alterations, because I agree 
 with you in thinking that subscriptions cannot be too carefully 
 worded ; but after all, the real honesty of a subscription ap- 
 pears to me to consist in a sympathy with the system to which 
 you subscribe, in a preference of it, not negatively merely, as 
 better than others, but positively, as in itself good and true in 
 all its most characteristic points. Now the most characteristic 
 points of the English Church are two ; that it maintains what 
 is called the Catholic doctrine as opposed to the early here- 
 sies, and is also decidedly a reformed Church as opposed to 
 the Papal and priestly system. It seems to me that here is 
 the stumbling-block of the Newmanites. They hate the 
 Reformation ; they hate the Reformers. It were scarce pos- 
 sible that they could subscribe honestly to the opinions of men 
 whom they hate, even if we had never seen the process of 
 their subscription in detail. 
 
 Undoubtedly I think worse of Roman Catholicism in itself 
 than I did some years ago. But my feelings towards [a Ro- 
 man Catholic] are quite different from my feelings towards [a
 
 252 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Newmanite], because I think the one a fair enemy, the othef 
 a treacherous one. The one is a Frenchman in his own uni- 
 form, and within his own praesidia ; the other is the French- 
 man disguised in a red coat, and holding a post within our 
 praesidia, for the purpose of betraying it. I should honor the 
 first, and hang the second. 
 
 CCLXXXV. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 (In allusion to an election for the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford.) 
 
 Rugby, November 19, 1841. 
 
 Seriously, I should feel glad to be able to vote con- 
 scientiously for a Newmanite, but, except on matters of sci- 
 ence, I hardly see how this could be. That is, I can conceive 
 no moral subjects on which I should wish to see a Newmanite 
 placed in the situation of a teacher in Oxford. Earnestly do 
 I wish to live peaceably with them while I am in residence, 
 neither shall it be my fault if I do not. But courteous per- 
 sonal intercourse, nay, personal esteem and regard, are dif- 
 ferent things, I think, from assisting to place a man, whose 
 whole mind you consider perverted, in the situation of a 
 teacher. That is, I think, true in theory ; but what I hope to 
 find when I get up to Oxford, is that the Newmanites' minds 
 are not wholly perverted ; that they have excellences which 
 do not appear to one at a distance, who knows them only as 
 Newmanites ; and in this way I hope that my opinion of 
 many, very many, of the men who hold Newman's views, 
 may become greatly more favorable than it is now, because I 
 shall see their better parts as well as their bad ones. And in 
 the same way I trust that many of them will learn to think 
 more favorably of me.* 
 
 # Extract from a letter to the same on November 23d. "I am not satis- 
 fied with what I have written, because I see that it does not express both 
 how much I should have enjoyed voting with you, and also how entirely I 
 agree with you as to the general principle that Oxford elections should not 
 be decided on party grounds. But then this Newmanism appears to me like 
 none of the old parties of our youth, Whig and Tory, High Church and 
 Low Church ; and it is our estimate of this, I am afraid, which is the great 
 difference between us. I do not know, and am almost afraid to ask, how 
 far you go along with them ; and yet if you go along with them farther than 
 I th'ink, I am unconsciously saying things which would be unkind. Only I 
 am sure that morally you are not and cannot be what some of them are, and 
 \ never look upon our differences as by any possibility diminishing my love 
 for you. My fear from mv experience in other cases would have oeen thai 
 it would affect your love for me, had it not been for that delightful letter o 
 yours just before I went abroad, for which I cannot enough thank you."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 253 
 
 I go up to read my Inaugural Lecture on the 2d of Decem- 
 ber, and I have written about two thirds of it. I think that 
 you will approve of it ; I have tried earnestly to be cautious 
 and conciliatory, without any concealment or compromise. 
 We are full to overflowing, and so it seems we are likely to 
 be after the holidays. All you say of Selwyn is quite in ac- 
 cordance with what I hear of him from others. May God's 
 blessing be on him and on his work. 
 
 CCLXXXVI. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, November 22, 1841. 
 
 I rejoice very deeply at the prospect of your remaining in 
 England, not only on personal grounds, because we shall keep 
 you among us, and have Mrs. Bunsen here with you, but also 
 publicly, because I delight to think that the relations between 
 Prussia and England, most important now to the whole world, 
 will be watched by one, to whom the peace and mutual friend- 
 ship of both countries are so precious as they are to you. 
 The only drawback is, that I fear this post, honorable and im- 
 portant as it is, may seem to detain you from those prospects 
 of a home in your own land, in which I can so fully sympa- 
 thize, for we are both approaching the age when " ex longa 
 navigatione jam portum prospicimus," and, even with the con- 
 sciousness of undiminished vigor, still the thought of rest 
 mingles in my dreams of the future more often than it did ten 
 years ago. And yet, when I think of the works that are to be 
 done everywhere I suppose more or less, but here in Eng- 
 land works of such vastness and of such necessity also I 
 could long for years of strength, if it might be, to be able 
 to do something where the humblest efforts are so needed. 
 
 I go up to Oxford on the 2d of December, Thursday week, 
 to read my Inaugural Lecture. I suppose it is too much 
 to hope that you could be there, but it would give me the 
 greatest pleasure to utter my first words in Oxford in your 
 hearing. I am going to give a general sketch first of the 
 several parts of History generally, and their relation to each 
 other, and then of the peculiarities of Modern History. This 
 will do very well for an Inaugural Lecture ; but what to 
 choose for my course after we return from Fox How I can 
 scarcely tell, considering how little time I shall have for any 
 deep research, and how important it is at the same time that 
 
 VOL. ii. 22
 
 254 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 my first Lectures should not be superficial Our Ex- 
 amination begins on Wednesday ; still, as Thucydides is done, 
 and gone to the press, and as my Lecture will be finished, I 
 hope, in one or two evenings more, I expect to be able to go 
 on again with my History before the end of the week, and I 
 may do a little in it before we go to Fox How. 
 
 On the 2d of December he entered on his Professorial 
 duties, by delivering his Inaugural Lecture. His 
 school work not permitting him to be absent more 
 than one whole day, he left Rugby with Mrs. Arnold, 
 very early in the morning, and occupying himself from 
 the time it became light in looking over the school 
 exercises, reached Oxford at noon. The day had been 
 looked forward to with eager expectation, and the 
 usual lecture-rooms in the Clarendon Buildings being 
 unable to contain the crowds that, to the number of 
 four or five hundred, nocked to hear him, the " The- 
 atre " was used for the occasion ; and there, its whole 
 area and lower galleries entirely filled, the Professor 
 rose from his place, amidst the highest University 
 authorities in their official seats, and in that clear, 
 manly voice, which so long retained its hold on the 
 memory of those who heard it, began, amidst deep 
 silence, the opening words of his Inaugural Lecture. 
 
 Even to an indifferent spectator, it must have been 
 striking, amidst the general decay of the professorial 
 system in Oxford, and at the time when the number of 
 hearers rarely exceeded thirty or forty students, to see 
 a Chair, in itself one of the most important in the 
 place, but which, from the infirmities of the late 
 Professor, had been practically vacant for nearly twenty 
 years, filled at last by a man whose very look and 
 manner bespoke a genius and energy capable of dis- 
 charging its duties, as they had never been discharged 
 before ; and at that moment commanding an audience 
 unprecedented in the range of Academical memory ; 
 the oppressive atmosphere of controversy, hanging at 
 that particular period so heavily on the University,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD 255 
 
 was felt at least for the time to be suddenly broken ; 
 and the whole place to have received an element of 
 freshness and vigor, such as in the course of the Lec- 
 ture itself he described in his sketch of the renovation 
 of the worn-out generations of the Roman Empire by 
 the new life and energy of the Teutonic races. But 
 to many of his audience there was the yet deeper 
 interest of again listening to that well-known voice, 
 and gazing on that well-known face, in the relation of 
 pupils to their teacher, of seeing him at last, after 
 years of misapprehension and obloquy, stand in his 
 proper place, in his Professorial robes, and receive a 
 tribute of respect, so marked and so general, in his 
 own beloved Oxford, of hearing him unfold, with 
 characteristic delight, the treasures of his favorite 
 study of History ; and with an emotion, the more 
 touching for its transparent sincerity and simplicity, 
 declare " how deeply he valued the privilege of ad- 
 dressing his audience as one of the Professors of Ox- 
 ford," how " there was no privilege which he more 
 valued, no public reward or honor which could be to 
 him so welcome." * 
 
 It was curious that the Professorship should have 
 twice seemed to be on the point of escaping from his 
 hold ; once by an accidental mistake shortly after his 
 appointment, and now, immediately after his Inaugural 
 Lecture, by various difficulties, which arose from im- 
 perfect information respecting the regulations of an 
 office that had been so long dormant. But these dif- 
 ficulties, which are explained, so far as is necessary, in 
 the ensuing letters, were removed on a more complete 
 understanding of them between himself and the Uni- 
 versity authorities. The requirements to which he 
 had refused to assent as impracticable, were found to 
 be no part of the original institution ; and accordingly, 
 finding that he could still retain his office after finish- 
 vug the first seven of his Lectures, during the earlier 
 
 * Inaug. Lect. p. 43,
 
 256 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 part of his Christmas vacation at Fox How, he came 
 up to Oxford to deliver them during the first three 
 weeks of the Lent Term of 1842, during which he 
 resided there with his whole family. 
 
 The recollections of that time will not easily pass 
 away from the memory of his audience. There were 
 the Lectures themselves, with the unwonted concourse 
 which, to the number of two or three hundred, flocked 
 day after day to the Theatre to listen with almost 
 breathless attention to a man, whose opinions, real or 
 supposed, had been in the minds of many of his hear- 
 ers so long associated with everything most adverse to 
 their own prepossessions : there was his own unfeigned 
 pleasure, mingled with his no less unfeigned surprise, 
 at the protracted and general enthusiasm which his 
 presence enkindled ; his free acknowledgment that the 
 favor then shown to him was in great measure the 
 result of circumstances over which he had no control, 
 and that the numerous attendance which his Lectures 
 then attracted was no sure pledge of its continuance. 
 There are many, too, who will love to recall his more 
 general life in the place ; the elastic step and open 
 countenance, which made his appearance so conspicu- 
 ous in the streets and halls of Oxford ; the frankness 
 and cordiality with which he met the welcome of his 
 friend and pupils ; the anxiety to return the courtesies 
 with which he was received both by old and young ; 
 the calm and dignified abstinence from all contro- 
 versial or personal topics ; the interest of the meeting 
 at which, within the walls of their common college, he 
 became for the first time personally acquainted with 
 that remarkable man,* whose name had been so long 
 identified in his mind with the theological opinions of 
 which he regarded Oxford as the centre. All his early 
 love for the place and its associations returned, to- 
 gether witli the deeper feelings imparted by later 
 years ; day by day, on his return from Oriel Chapel to 
 
 * " February 2, Wednesday. Dined in hall at Oriel, and met Newman 
 Evening at Hawkins's." Entry from MS. Journal.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 257 
 
 his house in Beaumont Street, he delighted to linger 
 in passing the magnificent buildings of the Radcliffe 
 Square, glittering with the brightness of the winter 
 morning ; and, as soon as his day's work was over, he 
 would call his children or his pupils around him, and 
 with the ordnance map in his hand, set out to explore 
 the haunts of his early youth, un visited now for more 
 than twenty years ; but still in their minutest details 
 the streams, the copses, the solitary rock by Bagley 
 Wood, the heights of Shotover, the broken field be- 
 hind Ferry Hincksey, with its several glimpses of the 
 distant towers and spires remembered with the 
 freshness of yesterday. 
 
 " And so ends our stay in Oxford," were the few 
 words at the close of his short daily journal of en- 
 gagements and business, " a stay of so much pleasure 
 in all ways as to call for the deepest thankfulness. 
 May God enable me to work zealously and thankfully 
 through Jesus Christ." 
 
 In turning from the personal to the public interest 
 of his Professorial career, its premature close at once 
 interposes a bar to any full consideration of it ; in this 
 respect so striking a contrast to the completeness of his 
 life at Rugby, in its beginning, middle, and end. Yet 
 even in that short period, the idea of his office had 
 presented itself to him already in so lively a form as 
 to impart a more than temporary interest both to what 
 he did and what he intended to do. 
 
 His actual course was purely and in every sense of 
 the word " introductory." As the design of his first 
 residence in Oxford was not to gain influence over the 
 place so much as to familiarize himself with it after his 
 long absence ; so the object of his first Lectures was 
 not so much to impart any historical knowledge, as to 
 state his own views of history, and to excite an inter- 
 est in the study of it. The Inaugural Lecture was a 
 definition of History in general, and of Modern His- 
 tory in particular ; the eight following Lectures were 
 
 22* Q
 
 258 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the natural expansion of this definition ; and the state- 
 ment of such leading difficulties as he conceived a 
 student would meet in the study first of the external 
 life, and then of the internal life of nations. They 
 were also strictly " Lectures ; " it is not an author 
 and his readers, but the Professor and his hearers, that 
 are brought before us. Throughout the course, but 
 especially in its various digressions, is to be discerned 
 his usual anxiety, in this case almost as with a pro- 
 phetic foreboding, to deliver his testimony before it 
 was too late on the subjects next his heart ; which 
 often imparts to them at once the defect and the inter- 
 est of the outpouring of his natural conversation. And 
 again it must be remembered, that they were addressed, 
 not to the world but to Oxford ; no one but an Oxford 
 man could have delivered them no one but an Ox- 
 ford man could thoroughly enter into them ; it was 
 the wants of Oxford that he endeavored to supply, the 
 tendencies of Oxford that he presupposed, the scenery 
 of Oxford that supplied his illustrations. But with 
 these allowances, they are not a fragment but a whole, 
 not brought together at random, but based upon a 
 regular plan ; though, from their peculiarly personal 
 and local character, they will probably never be read 
 with an interest equal to that with which they were 
 heard. 
 
 Having made this introduction to his Professorial 
 duties, he felt that those duties themselves were yet to 
 begin. Their details, of course, were not yet fixed in 
 his own mind, or, so far as they were contemplated by 
 him, would have been open to subsequent modifica- 
 tions. But their general outline had already assumed 
 a definite shape. So long as he remained at Rugby, 
 his visits must necessarily have been confined to little 
 more than three weeks every year, a disadvantage 
 which seemed to him in some measure counterbal- 
 anced by the influence and opportunities of his station 
 as Head-master of a great public school. During these 
 periods, which would have been extended after his
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 259 
 
 retirement from Rugby, he intended to give his regu- 
 lar course of Lectures, which were naturally the chief, 
 but not in his judgment the only duty of his office. It 
 was his hope to excite a greater interest in History 
 generally than existed in the University : and with a 
 view to this it had been his intention, when first he 
 accepted the chair, an intention which was sub- 
 sequently suspended during the reconsideration of the 
 Statutes of the Professorship, to devote the salary, 
 so long as he remained at Rugby, to the foundation of 
 scholarships in Modern History. Even of the Lectures 
 themselves, as of his school lessons at Rugby, he felt 
 that " they may assist our efforts, but can in no way 
 supersede them." And accordingly, in the last Lec- 
 ture he mentioned the various authorities connected 
 with the subject of his intended course for the next 
 year, in " the hope that many might thus co-operate, 
 and by their separate researches collect what no one 
 man could have collected alone ; " knowing that if 
 " any one shall learn anything from me, he may be 
 sure also that he may impart something to me in 
 return, of which I was ignorant." 
 
 And further, he looked forward to the position 
 belonging to him, not merely as a lecturer in History, 
 but as one of the Professorial body in Oxford, to the 
 insight which he should gain into the feelings of the 
 place, to the influence which he might exercise by 
 intercourse with the younger students, and to the 
 share which he might take amongst the leading mem- 
 bers of the University, in attempting to carry out some 
 of those academical changes which he had long had at 
 heart. Nor did he overlook, in the existing state of 
 Oxford, the importance of his station as a counterpoise 
 to what he believed to be its evil tendencies, though at 
 the same time it was in full sincerity that he assured 
 his audience, in his parting address to them, " He 
 must be of a different constitution from mine who can 
 wish, in the discharge of a public duty in our common 
 University, to embitter our academical studies witk
 
 260 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 controversy, to excite angry feelings in a place where 
 he has never met with anything but kindness, a place 
 connected in his mind with recollections, associations, 
 and actual feelings, the most prized and the most de- 
 lightful." 
 
 With regard to the subject of his Lectures, it was 
 nis intention to deliver a yearly course of at least eight 
 Lectures, in which he was to endeavor to do for Eng- 
 lish History what Guizot in his Lectures on the Civil- 
 ization of France had begun for French History. His 
 first design had been, as has already appeared, to have 
 started with the 15th century. But upon its being 
 represented to him that this could hardly be taken as 
 a fair representation of the Middle Ages, he finally 
 resolved on the plan which he announced in his last 
 Lecture, of commencing with the 14th century, not as 
 being equally with the 13th century a complete speci- 
 men of the system in Europe generally, but as being 
 the period in which English institutions and characters 
 first acquire any special interest, and so more fitted for 
 the design of his own Lectures. 
 
 In these successive courses he would have been en- 
 abled to include not only many new fields of inquiry, 
 but most of those subjects which had been long the 
 subjects of his study and interest, and which he had 
 only been withheld from treating by want of time and 
 opportunity. His early studies of the contest of Charles 
 the Bold and of Louis XL, and of the fate of John 
 Huss and Jerome of Prague, of which his mind had 
 always retained a lively impression : his somewhat 
 later studies of the times of the English Reforma- 
 tion, in which he used to say it was necessary, above 
 all other historical periods, " not to forget the badness 
 of the agents in the goodness of the cause, or the good- 
 ness of the cause in the badness of the agents ; " 
 would here have found their proper places. He had 
 long desired, and now doubtless would have endeav- 
 ored, fully to describe the reigns of the first two 
 Georges, " the deep calm of the first seventy years o/
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 261 
 
 the eighteenth century," which, as " the abused trial 
 time of modern Europe, and as containing within itself 
 the seeds of our future destiny," had always had such 
 a hold upon his interest, that at one time he was on 
 the point of sacrificing to a detailed exposition of this 
 period even his History of Rome. And here, also, he 
 would have aimed at realizing some of those more 
 general views, for which his office would have given 
 him ample scope his long-cherished intention of 
 bringing the " Politics " of his favorite Aristotle to bear 
 on the problems of modern times and countries, his 
 anxiety to call public attention to the social evils of 
 the lower classes in England, which he would have 
 tried to analyze and expose in the process of their for- 
 mation and growth, his interest in tracing the gen- 
 eral laws of social and political science, and the symp- 
 toms of advancing age in the human race itself ; and 
 his longing desire according to his idea * of what the 
 true history of the Church should be, of unfolding all 
 the various elements, physical and intellectual, social 
 and national, by which the moral character of the 
 Christian world has been affected, and of comparing 
 the existing state of European society with the ideal 
 Church in the Apostolical age, or in his own anticipa- 
 tions of the remote future. 
 
 This was to be his ordinary course. The statutes of 
 his Professorship required, in addition, terminal Lec- 
 tures on Biography. In these accordingly, though 
 intending to diversify them by occasional Lectures 
 on general subjects, such as Art or Language, he 
 meant to furnish, as it were, the counterpoise to the 
 peculiarly English and political element in his regular 
 course, by giving not national, but individual life, not 
 British, but European History. Thus the first was to 
 have been on " The Life and Time of Pope Gregory 
 the First, or the Great," as the name that stands at 
 the opening of the history of Christian Europe. The 
 
 * See Sermons, vol. ir p. 111.
 
 262 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 next would have been Charlemagne, whose coronation 
 he had already selected as the proper termination of 
 Ancient History ; and along with or succeeding him, the 
 Life of Alfred. What names would have followed can 
 only be conjectured. But he had intended to devote 
 one Lecture to Dante, in the fourteenth century ; and 
 there can be no doubt, without speculating on the 
 wide field of later times, that one such biography 
 would have described " the noblest and holiest of 
 monarchs, Louis IX. ; " and that he would have taken 
 this opportunity of recurring to the eminent Popes 
 of the Middle Ages, Gregory VII. and Innocent III., 
 whose characters he had vindicated in his earlier 
 works,* long before that great change in the popular 
 view respecting them, which in this, as in many other 
 instances, he had forestalled at a time when his opin- 
 ion was condemned as the height of paradox. 
 
 How far any or all of these plans would have been 
 realized what effect they would have had upon the 
 University or upon English Literature what would 
 have been the result of his coming into personal con- 
 tact with men, whom he had up to this time known or 
 regarded only as the representatives of abstract sys- 
 tems, how far the complete renewal of his inter- 
 course with Oxford would have brought him that 
 pleasure, which he fondly anticipated from it, are 
 questions on which it is now useless to speculate. The 
 Introductory Lectures were to be invested with the 
 solemnity of being the last words which he spoke in 
 his beloved University. The expressions, always habit- 
 ual to him, but in this volume occurring with more 
 than usual frequency : " if I am allowed to resume 
 these Lectures next year" " if life and health be 
 spared me " " if God shall permit," were to be justi- 
 fied by his own unexpected call ; the anxiety which he 
 describes when a man is cut off by sudden death, " to 
 know whether his previous words or behavior indicated 
 
 * Pamphlet on " the Roman Catholic Claims," in 1829, and on " th 
 Principles of Churcu Reform." in 1833.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 263 
 
 any sense of his coming fate," was to be exemplified in 
 his own case to the very letter.* 
 
 CCLXXXVII. TO KEV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, December 4, 1841. 
 
 I thank you very much for your notices of my Lecture. 
 With regard to the influence of the Jews, I could not have 
 noticed that as a new element, because it has already been at 
 work before, and I was considering merely what prospect 
 there was of any new race arising, to add a new power to 
 those which have hitherto been in operation. 
 
 With regard to the other two points, I am afraid that there 
 will be a difference between us, though I am not sure how far 
 we differ as to the object of a state. I liked the first part of 
 Gladstone's book as to its conclusions, though I did not much 
 like all his arguments. In the second part I differed from 
 him utterly. 
 
 I did not mean to say anything about the Church more 
 than might be said by all persons of whatever opinions, nor 
 more, indeed, than is implied by the very fact of an Estab- 
 lishment. I do not think that my words said anything about 
 the Church being an instrument in the State's hand, either ex- 
 pressly or by implication. Certainly I did not mean to say 
 a word on that topic which could give suspicion to any one ; 
 for of course it was my desire to have at any rate a peaceable 
 beginning. 
 
 We both enjoyed our day extremely, and it has given me 
 a very good heart for my next appearance in Oxford. We 
 got home about eleven, and found all well. We have still 
 more than a fortnight before we start for Westmoreland. 
 
 CCLXXXVIII. TO THE KEV. F. C. BLACKSTONE. 
 
 Rugby, December 17, 1841. 
 
 I believe that my Professorship pleases me even 
 
 more than that of Ecclesiastical History, even with a stall at 
 Christ Church added to it. I do not wish to leave Rugby 
 yet, as the income of a stall would not enable me to educate 
 my sons nearly as well as I can do at present, besides the 
 extreme comfort of having their school education completed 
 
 * Lectures on Modern History, first edition, pp. 139, 151, 155.
 
 2G4 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 under my own teaching. And then Modern History embrace* 
 all that I most want to touch upon in Ecclesiastical History, 
 and has much besides of the deepest interest to me, which I 
 could not have included under the other. I cannot tell you 
 the delight which I have in being able to speak at Oxford on 
 the points which I am so fond of; and my Inaugural Lecture 
 was so kindly received that it gives me great hopes of 
 being able to do something. I do dread the conflict of opin- 
 ions in which I must be more or less involved ; but then I 
 also feel that the cause, which I earnestly believe to be that of 
 Christ's faith, wants all the support in Oxford which it can 
 get ; and from my numerous pupils I have some peculiar ad- 
 vantages, which hardly any one else could have. 
 
 CCLXXXIX. *TO THE REV. R. THORPE. 
 
 Fox How, Christmas Day, 1841. 
 
 I thank you very much for the extracts which you have 
 sent me, and still more for your kind letter. I often think 
 that I should be better qualified to assist those who are in 
 doubt as to these questions, if I could understand what there 
 is in the opposite opinions which recommends itself particu- 
 larly to the mind. I can understand, for instance, the Cal- 
 vinistic and Arminian controversy, both sides appearing to 
 me to have something in their favor both in Scripture and in 
 Philosophy, although I think not equally. But here I cannot 
 perceive what is the temptation, i. e. what ground of Scripture 
 or of reason, what need of the human mind, nay, even 
 what respectable weakness there is, which craves the support 
 of those opinions to which I am so opposed. I am well aware 
 that there must be something to fascinate such minds as I 
 have known overcome by them. But I never yet have been 
 able to make out what it is; and, being thus painfully out of 
 sympathy with the persons so affected, I am unable to be of 
 the service to them which I could wish to be. And this may 
 account to you at least for anything which may seem harsh or 
 over-positive in my writing against them. It is difficult to 
 speak hesitatingly on points which you feel to be the most 
 clear and certain truths in existence ; and it is difficult to 
 speak with consideration of what appears to you not error 
 merely, but error absolutely unaccountable, error so ex- 
 traordinary as to appear equivalent to an absolute delusion. 
 And therefore you will do me a great service if ever you
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 265 
 
 can make me understand what is the attractive side of these 
 opinions, attractive, I mean, to those who believe and are 
 familiar with the Scriptures, and therefore are persuaded that 
 they hold already, as far as their own sin and infirmity will 
 allow them, all that hope and strength and comfort, and 
 these resting immediately on a Divine Author, which 
 these opinions would give us through a human or formal 
 medium. Many years ago Keble told me that the sin for- 
 bidden to us by the second commandment was, he thought, 
 the having recourse to unauthorized mediators or means of 
 approach to God. Now the whole of these opinions seems 
 to me to be susceptible of this definition, that they contain 
 a great variety of ways of breaking the second command- 
 ment, and nothing else. 
 
 CCXC. TO MB. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, December 26, 1841. 
 
 I will say nothing about the Oxford contest, nor 
 
 about the matters connected with it, only asking you to con- 
 sider your expression about "descending all the way to my 
 level " in religious opinions. Is it not rather assuming the 
 question to call my views low, and the opposite ones high? 
 You know that I should urge the authority of St. Paul for 
 reversing the epithets, according to his language in the Epistle 
 to the Galatians. Neither are my opinions properly low as to 
 Church authority. I am for High Church but no Priest ; 
 that is, I no more entertain a low sense of the Church, by 
 denying the right and power of the Priesthood, than I enter- 
 tain a low sense of the State or of Law, because I deny the 
 authority of TvpawtoVs, or of those oligarchies which Aristotle 
 calls Swaoraai. I am not saying whether I am right or 
 wrong, only contending that the opposite views have no right 
 to be called high in comparison with mine, either religiously 
 or ecclesiastically. 
 
 I will remember what you say about Vincentius Lirinensis, 
 and will see the passage in Bishop Jebb ; but I doubt exces- 
 sively his references to all the men to whom he appeals. Of 
 course everybody would allow that " Quod plerumque, quod a 
 pluribus" &c., is an authority, and that I have admitted ; but 
 the question is whether it be a paramount authority. 
 
 Wordsworth is in high force, and I hope that we shall see 
 much of him while we are here. The country is in most per- 
 
 VOL. n. 23
 
 266 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 feet beauty. I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to yon 
 for all the conclusion of your letter ; and I trust that I shall 
 1 enter into, and act in the spirit of it. But how startling is it 
 to see how quietly opposite opinions lie side by side, so long 
 as neither are entertained keenly; but, when both become 
 deep and real convictions, then toleration is no longer easy. 
 I dreamt some years ago of a softening of the opposition be- 
 tween Roman Catholics and Protestants, having been beguiled 
 by the apparent harmony subsisting between them, while the 
 principles of both were slumbering. But I do not dream of 
 it now : for the principles are eternally at variance, and now 
 men are beginning to feel their principles, and act on them. 
 I should not now be surprised if I live to see a time of perse- 
 cution ; and the histories of the old martyrs appear to me now 
 things which we may ourselves be called upon to realize, for 
 wherever men are not indifferent, I doubt greatly whether 
 they are much advanced in charity. 
 
 CCXCI. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 (With regard to difficulties in the statutes of the Professorship.) 
 
 Fox How, December 26, 1841. 
 
 The matter lies in a short compass. The present 
 
 regulations could not be observed without injury to the Uni- 
 versity, if I were resident altogether and had nothing to do with 
 Rugby. Twenty Lectures a year, if they are to be such as a 
 Professor of History in Oxford ought to give, cannot be pre- 
 pared in a year. I could give fifty, on the other hand, or any 
 number which might be required, if I made my course an 
 abridgment of all Modern History, collected appar- 
 ently from some popular book like Russell. My object would 
 be to give eight Lectures every year, like Guizot's on French 
 History, for the history, chiefly the internal history of England, 
 beginning at the fifteenth century. It would be a work for 
 my life, and eight Lectures a year would be, I am sure, as 
 much as any man could give with advantage. My present 
 course will be introductory, on the method of reading History ; 
 and this, too, will consist of eight Lectures. Now I am will- 
 ing to go on with the present regulations, if the University 
 think it advisable, provided always, that I am required to take 
 no oath about them ; because then as much of the salary may 
 be forfeited now, as the Vice-Chancellor may think proper,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 267 
 
 and the question of reducing the number of Lectures may be 
 considered at leisure, before I come to leave Rugby. But 
 feeling earnestly desirous to do the duty of the Professorship 
 efficiently, and believing that I can do it, I think I may ask 
 the sanction of the University authorities for an application to 
 the Government about the regulations, to have them altered 
 as regards the number of Lectures, and, I think, also, to take 
 away the oath, if such a thing be not required of other Pro- 
 fessors. In the last century, there was a sad recklessness in 
 requiring oaths on all occasions worthy or unworthy ; but 
 
 there is a better feeling now prevalent, and I should 
 
 hope to show that without the oath the duty might be done 
 effectually. 
 
 In the mean time this uncertainty is very inconvenient, be- 
 cause we have actually engaged our house in Oxford, and I 
 shall have enough to do to finish my Lectures in time if they 
 are wanted, and, if they are not wanted, I can ill afford the 
 
 time to work upon them But this cannot be helped, 
 
 only the oath is a serious matter ; and if I am required to 
 take it to the regulations attached to my patent, I have no 
 alternative but to refuse it most positively. We are all well 
 here, and have the most beautiful weather ; the mountain tops 
 all covered with snow, and all their sides and the valleys rich 
 with the golden ferns and the brown leaves of the oaks. 
 
 [The regulations in question were found not to be in force.] 
 
 CCXCII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Fox How, December 31, 1841. 
 
 [After explaining the difficulties about the Professorship.] 
 I do not like undertaking more than I can do, or being thought 
 to do the work of my place inefficiently. And I would rather 
 give up the Professorship a hundred times than to be thought 
 to make a job of it. Yet I do value it very much, and look for- 
 ward to having great parties of the young men of the various 
 great schools with no small pleasure. I shall ask our Rugby 
 men to bring their friends of other schools, when they are 
 good men. And I hope to see some of my boys and girls 
 well bogged in the middle of Bagley Wood. It is the la.su 
 night of the year. May the new year begin and go on hap- 
 pily with us both, and I think that at our age we begin to feel 
 that the word " happy " has no light meaning and requires 
 mo^e than mere worldly prosperity or enjoyment to answer 
 to its signification. Our family greetings to all yours.
 
 268 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 CCXCIII. TO THE SAME. 
 
 Fox How, January 9, 1842. 
 
 I have nearly finished six Lectures, although 1 
 
 scarcely know whether I shall deliver them. If I do go up 
 to Oxford, many things, I can assure you, have been in my 
 thoughts, which I wished gradually to call men's attention to ; 
 one in particular, which seems to me a great scandal, the debts 
 contracted by the young men, and their backwardness in pay- 
 ing them. I think that no part of this evil is to be ascribed 
 to the tradesmen, because so completely are the tradesmen at 
 the mercy of the under-graduates, that no man dares refuse to 
 give credit ; if he did, his shop would be abandoned. The 
 Colleges take care to secure themselves by requiring caution 
 money, and other expedients ; and I cannot but think that 
 their authority might be exerted to compel payment to trades- 
 men with nearly the same regularity as they exact their own 
 battells. 
 
 CCXCIV. TO THE REV. J. HEARN. 
 
 Fox How, January 17, 1842. 
 
 I do not like to leave your kind letters unanswered, lest you 
 should think that I am indifferent to receiving them, which 
 would be most far from the truth ; and yet I have been so 
 busy, and still am, that it not only makes it difficult to find 
 time to write letters, but it makes them not worth reading 
 when they are written, because it so engrosses me with one or 
 two pursuits, that it leaves me nothing to communicate which 
 can be of interest to others. Next week, I suppose, our life 
 will have variety and excitement enough, when we go up to 
 Oxford with all our family, and are established at our house 
 in Beaumont Street, which we have taken for three weeks. 
 Nevertheless, I prefer writing from the delicious calm of this 
 place, where the mountains raise their snowy tops into the 
 clear sky by this dim twilight, with a most ghost-like solemnity ; 
 and nothing is heard, far or near, except the sound of the 
 stream through the valley. I have been walking to-day to 
 Windermere, and went out on a little rude pier of stones into 
 the lake, to watch what is to me one of the most beautiful ob- 
 jects in nature, the life of blue water amidst a dead landscape 
 of snow ; the sky was bright, and the wind fresh, and the 
 lake was dancing and singing, as it were, while all along iti
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 269 
 
 margin lay the dead snow, covering everything but the lake, 
 plains and valleys and mountains. I have admired the 
 same thing more than once by the sea-side, and there the tide 
 gives another feature in the broad band of brown shingles 
 below high-water mark, interposed between the snow and 
 the water. We have been here more than three weeks, and, 
 as it always does, the place has breathed a constant refresh- 
 ment on me, although I have never worked harder ; having 
 done six of my Lectures, besides a large correspondence about 
 the school matters, as usual in the holidays. I have, in all, 
 written seven Lectures, and leave one more to be written in 
 Oxford, and this last week I hope to devote to my History. 
 
 We have been all well, and as my children grow up, 
 
 we are so large and companionable a party, that we need no 
 society out of ourselves. There is a great change in later 
 married life, when your table is always full without company, 
 and you live in the midst of a large party. And I am sure 
 that its effect is to make you shrink from other society, which 
 is not wanted to enliven you, and which, added to a large 
 family in the house, becomes almost fatiguing. 
 
 I will say nothing of my deep interest in this Oxford elec- 
 tion, and in the progress of the Newmanite party, on which 
 so many seem to look either complacently or stupidly, who yet 
 cannot really sympathize with it. But I shall see and hear 
 enough, and more than enough, of all this during my stay in 
 
 Oxford I half envy you your farming labors, and 
 
 wish you all manner of success in them. I could enter with 
 great delight into planting, but I am never here at the right 
 season, and at Rugby I have neither the time nor the ground. 
 
 CCXCV. TO REV. HERBERT HILL. 
 
 Oxford, February 9, 1842. 
 
 If Mrs. Nichols* is alive and sensible, both my 
 
 wife and I would wish to give her our affectionate remem- 
 brances. I can quite feel what you say as to the good of 
 sitting by, and watching her patience. It is a great lesson to 
 
 learn how to die Our stay here has even surpassed 
 
 my expectations, and the country is more beautiful than my 
 recollections, but my keen enjoyment of it makes me satisfied 
 that my dislike of the Rugby country proceeds from no fond 
 
 * A poor woman near Fox How. 
 23*
 
 270 LIFE OP DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 contrast with "Westmoreland, but from its own unsurpassable 
 dulness. I was to-day in the valley behind S. Hincksey, and 
 in the thickets of Bagley Wood. I went up to town to see 
 the King of Prussia at Bunsen's, and there met both Maurice 
 and Carlyle. We go down on Friday. All join in kindest 
 regards to Mrs. Hill, and in love to the babies, begging Katie's 
 pardon for the affront of so calling her. 
 
 CCXCVI. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (K.) 
 
 Oxford, February 9, 1842. 
 
 I think the question of the expediency of your 
 
 residing for some time at Oxford is rather difficult. But on 
 the whole, unless you have some special object in coming here 
 which I do not know, I think that I should advise against it. 
 This place appears, at this moment, to be overridden with one 
 only influence, which is so predominant that one must either 
 yield to it, or be living in a state of constant opposition to 
 those around one, a position not very agreeable. Besides, are 
 you not already engaged more usefully both to yourself and 
 others, than you could be here, and reading what you do read 
 in a healthier atmosphere ? I say this, but yet there is not a 
 man alive who loves this place better than I do, and I have 
 enjoyed our fortnight's stay here even more than I expected. 
 I have been in no feuds or controversies, and have met with 
 nothing but kindness ; but then my opinions are so well known, 
 that they are allowed for as a matter of course, so that my 
 difficulty here is less than that of most men. We go down 
 to Rugby on Friday, when the school meets. It always gives 
 me real pleasure to hear from you, nor would I answer you 
 so briefly if I were not overwhelmed with work of various 
 kinds, which leaves not a moment to spare, insomuch that 
 Rugby will be almost a relaxation. 
 
 CCXCVII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, March 3, 1842. 
 
 [After speaking of the statutes of the Professorship.] What 
 the University itself drew up so lately, and which has never 
 been more than an utter dead letter, may, I should think, be 
 well altered by the University now. But this I should wish 
 to leave entirely to the Heads of Houses, never having had
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 271 
 
 the slightest wish to ask anything of the Government as a 
 personal favor to myself, and still less anything which the 
 University did not think desirable. I shall write again to 
 Hawkins immediately, and, if the University wishes things to 
 remain in statu quo, even let it be so. If they do not tender 
 the oath, which I do not think they will, I shall not think of 
 resigning, and they may deal with the salary as they think 
 proper. But after the experience which I had this term, 
 nothing shall induce me to resign so long as I can lawfully 
 hold the place, and so long as the University itself does not 
 wish me to give it up. Our stay in Oxford more than realized 
 all my hopes in every way. I do not mean the attendance on 
 the Lectures, gratifying as that was, but the universal kind- 
 ness which was shown to us all, down to Fan and Walter, and 
 the hearty delight with which I went over my old walks with 
 the children, and seemed to be commencing residence once 
 again. 
 
 CCXCVIII. TO ARCHDEACON HAKE. 
 
 Rugby, March 18, 1842. 
 
 I thank you very much for your Charge, and for the kind 
 mention of my name, and the sanction given to what I have 
 said, which you have added in the notes. I think it likely 
 that if I were in your situation, or in any similar office in the 
 Church, my sense of the good to be done, even under the 
 present system, and of the necessity of being myself not idle, 
 would lead me to a view perhaps more exactly agreeing with 
 your own. As it is, I feel so deeply the danger and evil of 
 the false Church system, that despairing of seeing the true 
 Church restored, I am disposed to cling, not from choice 
 but necessity, to the Protestant tendency of laying the whole 
 stress on Christian religion, and adjourning the notion of 
 Church sine die. Thus I can take no part in aiding the new 
 Colonial Bishoprics ; because they seem to me to be likely to 
 propagate to the ends of the earth the Popery * of Canter- 
 bury, the more so as the very appointment is not to be vested 
 in the Crown but in the Bishops, which seems to me a very 
 great step taken in the wrong direction. But I have no time 
 to trouble you with my notions, and you have better things to 
 ilo than to read them. 
 
 * In allnsion to Lord Falkland's speech. See 5th Lee. on Mod. Hist. 
 The appointment here alluded to was still vested nominally in the Crown
 
 272 LIFE OF DK. ARNOLD. 
 
 ccxcmc. *TO THE REV. H. FOX. 
 
 (Now settled as a Missionary in India.) 
 
 Rugby, April 10, 1842. 
 
 I thank you very much for your letter, which gave me a 
 very comfortable account of you and yours. Be assured that 
 I shall be always very thankful to you for writing; nor will 
 I fail to answer your letters ; only you will remember that I 
 write at a disadvantage, having nothing to communicate to 
 you from a country which you know as well as I do, to be 
 compared with the interest of your communications, which 
 must be full of new information to one who h:i never been in 
 India. I suppose * that the late events in Cabul must have 
 produced a strong sensation all over India. They are deeply 
 to be regretted, and very painful to me so far as I know about 
 them, because they seem to have been brought on by such sad 
 misconduct. Otherwise, the magnitude of their consequence 
 seems to be overrated by many people ; the Indian Empire, I 
 believe, will stand no less securely, and will have the oppor- 
 tunity, whether employed or wasted, of doing great things for 
 the welfare of Asia. 
 
 There must be a great interest in having to deal with minds 
 whose training has been so different from our own, though it 
 would be to me a great perplexity. I should think its ten- 
 dency would be at first to make one sceptical, and then, if that 
 was overcome, to make one fanatical. I mean that it must be 
 startling at first to meet with many persons holding as truths, 
 things the most opposite from what we believe, and even so 
 differing from us in their appreciation of evidence. And first, 
 this would incline one, I should think, to mistrust all truth, or 
 to think that it was subjective merely, one truth for Europe, 
 and another for India ; then, if this feeling were repelled, 
 there would be the danger of maintaining a conclusion which 
 yet one did not feel one could satisfactorily prove, the resolv- 
 ing that a thing shall be believed by the mind, whether reason- 
 ably or unreasonably. I should earnestly, I think, look out 
 in a Hindoo's mind for those points which he had in common 
 with us, and see if the enormous differences might not be ex- 
 
 * " It gives me a pain I cannot describe," he said in one of his latest con- 
 versations, " to hear of all this misery, which 1 have no power to alleviate. 
 Yet it will be as it was with the Romans in Spain ; we hear often of ' csesus 
 consul cum legionibus,' but then the next year another oonsul and new 
 Vegions go out, just as before."
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 273 
 
 plained, and their existence accounted for. In this way I 
 have always believed in the existence of a moral sense 
 amongst all men, in spite of the tremendous differences in 
 the notions of different ages and countries as to right and 
 wrong. I think these differences may be explained, and that 
 they do not disprove a common idea of and appreciation of 
 virtue, as consisting mainly in self-denial and love. But all 
 this will have presented itself to you often, and mine is but 
 hypothesis, for my sole acquaintance has been with European 
 minds, trained more or less in the same school. 
 
 You will be glad to hear of the flourishing state of Rugby. 
 Highton is permanently settled here as a Master. The school 
 have subscribed a hundred and thirty pounds for another 
 window in the Chapel, and Frank Penrose has looked at the 
 roof and given us a plan for getting rid of the flat roof, which 
 has long been my great enemy. Of other news, I know none 
 so good as that Clough is just elected at Oriel, which all his 
 friends are most rejoiced at. 
 
 I hear flourishing accounts of New Zealand, and 
 
 Bishop Selwin, who is gone out there, seems to be just the 
 man for such a place, very active and very zealous. I 
 suppose that you will see Tucker erelong, as I find he is 
 returned to Madras. We are doing Elphinstone's History of 
 India in the Sixth, for our Modern History on Thursdays, as 
 I wished to make the fellows know something of India, of 
 which they knew next to nothing. It is a pity that Elphin- 
 stone had not a more profound knowledge of the ancient 
 western world, which continually illustrates and is illustrated 
 by the state of things in India. God bless you, my dear Fox, 
 and prosper your work. I must beg you to offer my very 
 kind regards to Mrs. Fox, and 1 rejoice to hear of the birth 
 of your little boy. 
 
 CCC. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. 
 
 Rugby, May 3, 1842. 
 
 Since our return from Oxford, we have been living 
 
 in a quiet, which offers a curious contrast to your life in Lon- 
 don. We have seen fewer people than usual ; and as I hardly 
 ever read a newspaper, our thoughts have been very much 
 kept within the range of our little world here, and of my sub- 
 jects of writing. My Lectures will be published in a few 
 days, and you shall have a copy immediately : and I hope to
 
 274 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 give another Lecture in Oxford in about a month, on the Life 
 and Times of Gregory the First. Is there any good German 
 work on that special subject ? I am continually wanting to 
 apply for information to you, but I know that you have no 
 time to answer me. One thing I will ask, whether there is 
 any good information to be had about the Iberian inscriptions 
 and coins still to be found in various collections ? I have 
 been reading or referring to various Spanish books, Masdeu, 
 for instance, and Velasquez, but they seem to me worth 
 little. By the way, in looking into Larramendi's Basque 
 Grammar, I was delighted to find the long-lost plural of 
 " Ego," and singular of " Nos." It was evident that Ego 
 and Nos had made a sort of match of convenience, each hav- 
 ing lost its original partner ; but behold, in Basque " gu " is 
 " nos," and " ni " or " neu " is " ego." One cannot doubt, I 
 think, that " ego " and " nos " have here found their lost 
 other half. I hope to finish vol. iii. of Rome, before the end 
 of the holidays ; and then, in the last month of them, my wife 
 and I are going, I believe, to have a run abroad. I do not 
 know where we shall go exactly, but I think very likely to 
 Grenoble and the Val d'Isere, and thence to Marseilles, or 
 the eastern Pyrenees. If I can get to Carthagena it would 
 be a great satisfaction to me ; for Polybius's account is so at 
 variance with Captain Smyth's survey of the present town and 
 port that it is utterly perplexing. This is better than nothing 
 in the way of a letter, but I know that it is not much ; how- 
 ever, if it draws even a shorter answer from you, I shall be 
 thankful. 
 
 CCCI. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS. 
 
 Rugby, May 19, 1842. 
 
 I beg your pardon for not having thanked you for your 
 Sermon, which I had not only received, but read, and read 
 with very great pleasure. I am delighted to find that on the 
 Priest question, which I think is the fundamental one of the 
 whole matter, we are quite agreed. And I am also not a 
 little pleased that the Archbishop should have wished a 
 sermon to be printed, containing, as I think, so much truth, 
 and truth at this time so much needed. I will fix, as there 
 seems no objection, Thursday, June 2, at one P. M., for my 
 Lecture ; and it may be called, if you please, " On the Life 
 and Times of Pope Gregory the First, or the Great." The
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 275 
 
 materials are very good and plentiful, if I had but more time 
 to work at them. Thank you for accepting my dedication. 
 
 Carlyle dined, and slept here on Friday last, and on 
 
 Saturday we went over with my wife and two of my boys to 
 Naseby field, and explored the scene of the great battle very 
 satisfactorily. 
 
 CCCII. TO MK. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. 
 
 Rugby, May 22, 1842. 
 
 I was not ignorant of what was going on about the 
 
 Colonial Bishoprics ; but you can well understand that all 
 this movement wears to me rather a doubtful aspect. While 
 I can fully enter into the benefits of giving a centre of govern- 
 ment where there was none, and of having a clergyman of 
 superior rank, and probably superior acquirements, made an 
 essential part in the society of a rising colony, yet, on the 
 other hand, I cannot but know that the principal advocates of 
 the plan support it on far other principles ; that it is with 
 them an enforcing their dogma of the necessity of Succession- 
 Episcopacy to a true Church ; that accordingly the paper, 
 which you sent me, speaks of the " Church " in America (U. 
 S.) and of the various "sects" there, language quite con- 
 sistent in the mouths of High Churchmen, but which assumes 
 as a truth, what I hold to be the very Xa/x7rporaToi> rJ/^iiSoy of a 
 false system. I feel, therefore, half attracted and half re- 
 pelled, doubting whether the practical administrative and 
 social advantages to be gained are likely to outweigh the en- 
 couragement given to what I believe to be very mischievous 
 error ; and while " dubitatio ista non tollitur," I cannot feel 
 disposed to come to the practical conclusion of a subscription. 
 Believe me, it is no pleasure to me to be obliged to stand aloof 
 from a movement which has so much of good in it, and might 
 be so purely and gloriously good, were it not . 
 
 The time which he had originally fixed for his 
 retirement from Rugby was now drawing near, and 
 the new sphere opened to him in his Profesorship at 
 Oxford, seemed to give a fixedness to his future pros- 
 pects which would naturally increase his long-cherished 
 wishes of greater leisure and repose. But he still felt 
 himself in the vigor of life, and used to rejoice in the
 
 276 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 thought that the forty-ninth year, fixed by Aristotle as 
 the acme of the human faculties, lay still some years 
 before him. The education of his two younger sons 
 was a strong personal inducement to him to remain a 
 short time longer in his situation. His professorial 
 labors were of course but an appendage to his duties 
 in the school, and when some of the unforeseen details 
 of the entrance on his new office had seemed likely to 
 deprive him of the place which he had so delighted to 
 receive, "in good and sober truth," he writes to 
 Archbishop Whately, " I believe that this and all other 
 things are ordered far more wisely than I could order 
 them, and it will seem a manifest call to turn my 
 mind more closely to the great work which is before 
 me here at Rugby." The unusual amount also of 
 sickness and death which had marked the beginning of 
 the school year, naturally gave an increased earnest- 
 ness to his dealings with the boys. His latest scholars 
 were struck by the great freedom and openness with 
 which he spoke to them on more serious subjects, 
 the more directly practical applications which he made 
 of their scriptural lessons, the emphasis with which 
 he called their attention to the contrast between Chris- 
 tian faith and love, and that creed of later Paganism, 
 which made " the feelings of man towards the Deity 
 to be exactly those with which we gaze at a beautiful 
 sunset." * The same cause would occasion those fre- 
 quent thoughts of death which appear in his Chapel 
 Sermons, and in his more private life during this last 
 year. There had never, indeed, been a time from his 
 earliest manhood in which the uncertainty of human 
 life had not been one of the fixed images of his mind ; 
 and many instances would recur to all who knew him, 
 of the way in which it was constantly blended with all 
 his thoughts of the future. " Shall I tell you, my lit- 
 tle boy." he once said to one of his younger children 
 whose joyful glee at the approaching holidays he had 
 
 * MS. Notes of his lessons on Cic. Div. ii. 72.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 277 
 
 gently checked ; " shall I tell you why I call it sad ? " 
 r- and he then repeated to him the simple story of his 
 own early childhood ; how his own father had made 
 him read to him a sermon on the text, " Boast not 
 thyself of to-morrow," on the very Sunday evening 
 before his sudden death : " Now cannot you see, 
 when you talk with such certainty about this day week 
 and what we shall do, why it seems sad to me ? " 
 But it was natural that such expressions should have 
 been more often remarked by those who heard them 
 during this year, even had they not been in themselves 
 more frequent. " It is one of the most solemn things 
 I do," he said to one of his children, who asked him 
 why, in the title-page of his MS. volume of Sermons, 
 he always wrote the date only of its commencement, 
 and left a blank for that of its completion, " to write 
 the beginning of that sentence, and think that I may 
 perhaps not live to finish it." And his pupils recol- 
 lected the manner in which he had announced to them, 
 before morning prayers, the unexpected death of 
 one of their number : " We ought all to take to 
 ourselves these repeated warnings ; God, in His mercy, 
 sends them to us. I say in His mercy, because they 
 are warnings to all of us here, we ought all to feel 
 them as such," adding emphatically, "and I am 
 sure I feel it so myself." 
 
 Whatever might be the general interest of this clos- 
 ing period was deepened during the last month by 
 accidental causes, into which it is not necessary to 
 enter, but which became the means of drawing forth 
 all the natural tenderness of his character more fully 
 than any previous passage of his life. There was 
 something in the added gentleness and kindness of his 
 whole manner and conversation, watching himself, 
 and recalling his words, if he thought they would be 
 understood unkindly, which, even in his more gen- 
 eral intercourse, would make almost every one who 
 saw him at that time connect their last recollections of 
 him with some trait of thoughtfulness for others, and 
 
 TOL. II. 24
 
 278 LIFE OF DK ARNOLD. 
 
 forgetfulness of himself; and which, to those nenrost 
 and dearest to him, seemed to awaken a consciousness, 
 amounting almost to awe, of a visible growth in those 
 qualities which are most naturally connected with the 
 thought of another world. 
 
 There was something also in the expressions of his 
 own more personal feelings, few and short as they 
 ever were, but for that reason the more impressive 
 when they did escape him, which stamped them with a 
 more than usual solemnity. Such were some of the 
 passages in a private diary, which he now commenced 
 for the first time, but not known till after his death by 
 any, except her who alone shared his inmost thoughts, 
 and who could not but treasure up in her memory 
 every word connected with the beginning of this cus- 
 tom. It was about three weeks before his end, whilst 
 confined to his room for a few days by an attack of 
 feverish illness, to which, especially when in anxiety, 
 he had always from time to time been liable, that he 
 called her to his .bedside, and expressed to her how, 
 within the last few days, he seemed to have " felt quite 
 a rush of love in his heart towards God and Christ ; " 
 and how he hoped that " all this might make him more 
 gentle and tender," and that he might not soon lose 
 the impression thus made upon him ; adding, that, as 
 a help to keeping it alive, he hi tended to write some- 
 thing in the evenings before he retired to rest. 
 
 From this Diary, written the last thing at night, not 
 daily, but from time to time in each week, it has been 
 thought right to give the following extracts : 
 
 May 22. I am now within a few weeks of completing 
 my forty-seventh year. Am I not old enough to view life as 
 it is, and to contemplate steadily its end, what it is coming 
 to, and must come to, what all things are without God ? I 
 know that my senses are on the very eve of becoming weaker, 
 and that my faculties will then soon begin to decline too, 
 whether rapidly or not I know not but they will decline. 
 Is there not one faculty which never declines, which is the 
 seed and the seal of immortality ; and what has become of
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 279 
 
 that faculty in me ? What is it to live unto God ? May 
 God open my eyes to see Him by faith, in and through His 
 Son Je.-us Christ ; may He draw me to Him, and keep me 
 with Him, making His will my will, His love my love, His 
 strength my strength, and may he make me feel that pre- 
 tended strength, not derived from Him, is no strength, but 
 the worst weakness. May his strength be perfected in my 
 weakness. 
 
 Tuesday evening, May 24. Two days have passed and I 
 am mercifully restored to my health and strength. To-morrow 
 I hope to be able to resume my usual duties. Now then is 
 
 the dangerous moment gracious Father, keep me 
 
 now through thy Holy Spirit ; keep my heart soft and tender 
 now in health and amidst the bustle of the world ; keep the 
 thought of Thyself present to me as my Father in Jesus 
 Christ : and keep alive in me a spirit of love and meekness 
 to all men, that I may be at once gentle and active and firm. 
 
 strengthen me to bear pain, or sickness, or danger, or what- 
 ever Thou shalt be pleased to lay upon me, as Christ's soldier 
 and servant; and let my faith overcome the world daily. 
 Strengthen my faith, that I may realize to my mind the things 
 eternal death, and things after death, and Thyself. O save 
 me from my sins, from myself, and from my spiritual enemy, 
 and keep me ever thine through Jesus Christ. Lord, hear 
 my prayers also for my dearest wife, my dear children, my 
 many and kind friends, my household, for all those com- 
 mitted to my care, and for us to whom they are committed. 
 
 1 pray also for our country, and for Thy Holy Church in all 
 the world. Perfect and bless the work of Thy Spirit in the 
 hearts of all Thy people, and may Thy kingdom come, and 
 Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. I pray for this, 
 and for all that Thou seest me to need for Jesus Christ's 
 sake. 
 
 Wednesday, May 25. Again, before I go to rest would I 
 commit myself to God's care, through Christ, beseeching Him 
 to forgive me for all my sins of this day past, and to keep 
 alive His grace in my heart, and to cleanse me from all indo- 
 lence, pride, harshness, and selfishness, and to give me the 
 spirit of meekness, humility, firmness, and love. Lord, 
 keep Thyself present to me ever, and perfect Thy strength in 
 my weakness. Take me and mine under Thy blessed care, 
 this night and evermore, through Jesus Christ. 
 
 Thursday, May 26 O Lord, keep Thyself present
 
 280 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 to me always, and teach me to come to Thee by the One and 
 Living Way, Thy Son Jesus Christ. Keep me humble and 
 gentle. 2. Self-denying. 3. Firm and patient. 4. Active. 
 5. Wise to know Thy will, and to discern the truth. 6. Lov- 
 ing, that I may learn to resemble Thee and my Saviour. 
 Lord, forgive me for all my sins, and save me and guide me 
 and strengthen me through Jesus Christ. 
 
 May 29 O Lord, save me from idle words, and 
 
 grant that my heart may be truly cleansed and filled with 
 Thy Holy Spirit, and that I may arise to serve Thee, and lie 
 down to sleep in entire confidence in Thee, and submission to 
 Thy will, ready for life or for death. Let me live for the day, 
 not overcharged with worldly cares, but feeling that my 
 treasure is not here, and desiring truly to be joined to Thee 
 in Thy heavenly kingdom, and to those who are already gone 
 to Thee. O Lord, let me wait on patiently ; but do Thou 
 save me from sin, and guide me with Thy Spirit, and keep 
 me with Thee, and in faithful obedience to Thee, through 
 Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord. 
 
 May 31. Another day and another month succeed. May 
 God keep my mind and heart fixed on Him, and cleanse me 
 from all sin. I would wish to keep a watch over my tongue, 
 as to vehement speaking and censuring of others. I would 
 desire to be more thoughtful of others, more thoughtful 
 " ultro " of my own head, without the suggestions of others. 
 I would desire to remember my latter end to which I am ap- 
 proaching, going down the hill of life, and having done far 
 more than half my work. May God keep me in the hour of 
 death, through Jesus Christ ; and preserve me from over fear*, 
 as well as from presumption. Now, O Lord, whilst I am in 
 health, keep my heart fixed on Thee by faith, and then I shall 
 not lose Thee in sickness or in death. Guide and strengthen 
 and enkindle me, and bless those dearest to me, and those 
 committed to my charge, and keep them Thine, and guide 
 and support them in Thy holy ways. Keep sin far from them, 
 O Lord, and let it not come upon them through any neglect 
 of mine. O Lord, inspire me with zeal, and guide me with 
 wisdom, that Thy name may be known to those committed to 
 my care, and that they may be made and kept always Thine. 
 Grant this, O Lord, through Jesus Christ my Saviour, and 
 may my whole trust towards thee be through His merits and 
 intercessions. 
 
 Thursday evening, June 2. Again the day is over and 1
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 281 
 
 am going to rest. O Lord, preserve me this night, and 
 strengthen me to bear whatever Thou shalt see fit to lay on 
 me, whether pain, sickness, danger or distress. 
 
 Sunday, June 5. I have been just looking over a news- 
 paper, one of the most painful and solemn studies in the 
 world, if it be read thoughtfully. So much of sin and so 
 much of suffering in the world, as are there displayed, and 
 no one seems able to remedy either. And then the thought 
 of my own private life, so full of comforts, is very startling ; 
 when I contrast it with the lot of millions, whose portion is 
 so full of distress or of trouble. May I be kept humble and 
 zealous, and may God give me grace to labor in my gen- 
 eration for the good of my brethren, and for His glory ! May 
 He keep me His by night and by day, and strengthen me to 
 bear and to do His will, through Jesus Christ. 
 
 Monday evening, June 6. I have felt better and stronger 
 all this day, and I thank God for it. But may He keep my 
 heart tender. May He keep me gentle and patient, yet active 
 and zealous, may He bless me in Himself and in His Son. 
 May He make me humble-minded in this, that I do not look 
 for good things as my portion here, but rather should look for 
 troubles as what I deserve, and as what Christ's people are 
 to bear. " If ye be without chastisement, of which all are 
 partakers," &c. How much of good have I received at God's 
 hand, and shall I not also receive evil? Only, O Lord, 
 strengthen me to bear it, whether it visit me in body, in mind, 
 or in estate. Strengthen me with the grace which Thou didst 
 vouchsafe to Thy martyrs ; and let me not fall from Thee in 
 any trial. O Lord, let me cherish a sober mind, to be ready 
 to bear evenly, and not sullenly. O Lord, reveal to me Thy- 
 self in Christ Jesus, which knowledge will make all suffering 
 and all trials easy. O Lord, bless my dearest wife, and 
 strengthen us in the hardest of all trials, evil befalling each 
 other. Bless our dear children, and give me grace to guide 
 them wisely and lovingly, through Jesus Christ. 3 Lord, 
 may I join with all Thy people in heaven and on earth in of- 
 fering up my prayers to Thee through our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 and in saying, " Glory be to Thy most holy Name for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 Meanwhile his general occupations during this last 
 year had been going on as usual, though interrupted for 
 a time by his Professorial Lectures at Oxford. On re- 
 
 24*
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 turning from them to Rugby, in February, he immedi- 
 ately engaged again upon the Roman History. " I 
 thirst," he said, " for Zama," and on the 5th of May 
 he had begun the chapter immediately preceding the 
 account of that battle, which, with two more, would 
 have completed the third volume. His Lecture on 
 Gregory the Great had also been occupying his time 
 and thoughts ; and he had for this purpose been an- 
 alyzing and commenting on the earlier books of Paulus 
 Diaconus, De Gestis Longobardorum. He was also 
 beginning to make final arrangements for the edition 
 of St. Paul's Epistles, which he had now for some 
 years past been hoping to leave as a monument of his 
 government of Rugby School. And it was about six 
 weeks before his death that he explored the field of 
 Naseby in company with Mr. Carlyle, who left his 
 house at Rugby, expressing the hope that it might 
 "long continue to be what was to him one of the 
 rarest sights in the world a temple of industrious 
 peace." 
 
 His short illness presented no material interruption 
 to his present pursuits or future plans. He looked 
 eagerly forward to his holidays at Fox How, often 
 writing to those of his children who had gone there 
 before the usual time of their common journey, to 
 inquire after the growth of his favorite trees, and the 
 aspect of his favorite views ; and he was also prepar- 
 ing for his meditated excursion to Carthagena, with 
 a view to his history of the Punic wars. His more 
 laborious and extended designs for his later years were 
 still floating before him. " One inducement I should 
 have if they would send me as Bishop to any of the 
 Australian Colonies," were his last words to one of 
 hi most attached pupils, while the attack of illness 
 was still upon him, " that there should be at least one 
 Bishop in those parts, who would endeavor to build up 
 a Church according to my idea of what a true Church 
 should be." His terminal Lecture at Oxford had been 
 duly notified for the 2d of June, and was not aban-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 doned till lie found that it would be physically impos- 
 sible, in consequence of the unexpected interruption 
 of his indisposition, to finish it hi time. " I am 
 obliged," he wrote to Dr. Hawkins, on the 27th of 
 May, " to give up altogether the hope of coming to 
 Oxford this term. I grieve for this very much, but, if 
 I live and am well, I hope to give two Lectures next 
 term to make up for it, for nothing would grieve me 
 more than to be thought to escape from the duties of 
 my office, so far as it is in my power to fulfil them." 
 
 The last week of the long summer half-year had 
 now arrived his fourteenth year at Rugby was 
 drawing to its close the course of sermons, in which, 
 during the preceding month, he had dwelt on the 
 three things necessary to be borne in mind by his 
 scholars wherever they might be scattered in after life, 
 had now been ended. On the 5th of June the last and 
 farewell sermon was preached in the Chapel, before 
 the final dispersion of the boys for the holidays, in 
 which he surveyed, from his own long experience, the 
 peculiar difficulties and temptations of the place, and 
 in which he concluded his parting advice with words 
 to which, in the minds of his hearers, the sequel gave 
 a new import, even in their minutest particulars. 
 " The real point which concerns us all, is not whether 
 our sin be of one kind or of another, more or less 
 venial, or more or less mischievous in man's judgment, 
 and to our worldly interests ; but whether we struggle 
 against all sin because it is sin ; whether we have or 
 have not placed ourselves consciously under the ban, 
 ner of our Lord Jesus Christ, trusting in Him, cleav- 
 ing to Him, feeding on Him by faith daily, and so 
 resolved, and continually renewing our resolution, to 
 be His faithful soldiers and servants to our lives' end. 
 To this," he said, " I would call you all, so long as I 
 am permitted to speak to you to this I do call you 
 all, and especially all who are likely to meet here 
 again after a short interval, that you may return 
 Christ's servants with a believing and loving heart ;
 
 284 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 and, if this be so, I care little as to what particular 
 form temptations from without may take ; there will 
 be a security within a security not of man, but of 
 God." 
 
 The succeeding week was as usual one of much 
 labor and confusion from the accumulation of work at 
 the end of the half-year. There was the heavy pressure 
 of the Fifth Form Examination, and the general wind- 
 ing up of the school business ; there was the public- 
 day of the school-speeches, on Friday the 10th, the 
 presence of the yearly examiners from Oxford and 
 Cambridge, the visits of his former pupils on their 
 way from the Universities at the beginning of the long 
 vacation. It might seem needless to dwell on details 
 which, though of deep interest to those who knew him 
 well, differed but little from the tenor of his usual life. 
 Yet for this very reason it is worth while to recall so 
 much of them as shall continue the same image down 
 to its sudden close. 
 
 Whatever depression had been left by the feverish 
 attack of the preceding fortnight, had in the two or 
 three last days passed away, and he had recovered not 
 only his usual health, but his usual spirits and energy, 
 playing with his children, undertaking all the work of 
 the Examination, and at the same time interrupting 
 himself in his various occupations, to go and sit for an 
 hour to relieve the anxiety or enliven the sick bed of 
 an invalid ; and though " glad to get off going up to 
 Oxford to do battle," and wishing to avoid the excite- 
 ment and inconvenience of a hurried journey, he 
 offered, if it were necessary, to give his vote in con- 
 vocation, on June 9th, for the repeal of the censure on 
 Dr. Hampden. 
 
 Deeply, too, did he enter into the unusual beauty of 
 the summer of that genial year. In his daily walk to 
 his bathing-place in the Avon, he was constantly call- 
 ing the attention of his companions to the peculiar 
 charm of this season of the year, when everything was 
 BO rich without being parched ; the deep green of a
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 285 
 
 field of clover, or of an old elm on the rise of a hill on 
 the outskirts of Rugby, or of a fine oak, which called 
 forth many old recollections of its associates in the ad- 
 joining hedges, of which it was one of the few sur- 
 vivors. And these walks were enlivened by those con- 
 versations in which his former pupils took so much 
 delight, in which he was led on through the various 
 topics of which his mind was full. There were the 
 remembrances of his past tours, and " of the morning 
 between Pisa and Rome, which gave him the most 
 perfect outward enjoyment which he could conceive ; " 
 the expectation of future journeys of the delight of 
 visiting the Sierra Morena, " containing all the various 
 stages of vegetation, and beautiful as the garden of the 
 Lord," and yet again the constant feeling that " he 
 never could rest anywhere in travelling," "if he 
 stayed more than a day at the most beautiful spot in 
 the world, it would only bring on a longing for Fox 
 How." There was also the anticipation of the more 
 distant future ; how he would have pupils with him in 
 Westmoreland during the long vacation, when he had 
 retired from Rugby, and " what glorious walks he 
 would take them upon Loughrigg." 
 
 His subjects of more general interest were also dis- 
 cussed as usual, such as the comparison of the art 
 of medicine in barbarous and civilized ages, the 
 philological importance of provincial vocabularies, 
 the threatening prospect of the moral condition of the 
 United States, united on the other hand with their 
 great opportunities for good in " that vast continent." 
 Of the Oxford opinions his language was strong as 
 usual, but with none of that occasional vehemence of 
 expression, which had of late years somewhat inter- 
 fered with the freedom of his intercourse with some 
 of his Oxford pupils, who thought more favorably than 
 himself of the school in question. He objected, as he 
 often did, to the use of ridicule in religious arguments, 
 as incompatible with the painful feeling which should 
 be aroused by the sight of serious errors or faults ; and
 
 286 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 spoke of the irreconcilable difference of principle by 
 which he believed Roman Catholics and Protestants 
 were divided, and " between which," he said, " the 
 nineteenth pentury will have to make her choice," - 
 dwelling at the same time on the inconsistency of any 
 attempt to hold the Apostolical Succession short of 
 Romanism ; though with expressions of great affection 
 of some of his friends, and with great respect of Mr. 
 Maurice, who seemed to him to do this. " But such 
 views," he said, " were my earliest dislike, the 
 words mean so entirely nothing, their system goes on 
 two legs and a half, the Oxford system on three and 
 three quarters, the Roman Catholic on four." 
 
 On Saturday morning he was busily employed in ex- 
 amining some of the boys in Ranke's History of the 
 Popes, in preparation for which he had sat up late on 
 the previous night, and some of the answers which had 
 much pleased him he recounted with great interest at 
 breakfast. The chief part of the day he was engaged 
 in finishing the business of the school, not accepting 
 proffered assistance even in the mechanical details, but 
 going through the whole work himself. He went his 
 usual round of the school to distribute the prizes to 
 the boys before their final dispersion and to take leave 
 of those who were not returning after the holidays. 
 " One more lesson," he had said, to his own Form on 
 the previous evening, " I shall have with you on Sun- 
 day afternoon, and then I will say to you what I have 
 to say." That parting address to which they were 
 always accustomed to look forward with such pleasure, 
 never came. But it is not to be wondered at, if they 
 remarked with peculiar interest, that the last subject 
 which he had set them for an exercise was " Domus 
 Ultima;" that the last translation for. Latin verses 
 was from the touching lines on the death of Sir Philip 
 Sidney, in Spenser's " Ruins of Time ; " that the 
 last words with which he closed his last lecture on the 
 New Testament were in commenting on the passage of 
 St. John : "It doth not appear what we shall be ;
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 28T 
 
 but we know that when he shall appear we shall be 
 like Him, for we shall see Hun as He is." " So., 
 too," he said, " in the Corinthians, ' For now we see 
 through a glass darkly, but then face to face.' Yes," 
 he added, with marked fervency, " the mere contem- 
 plation of Christ shall transform us into His likeness." 
 
 In the afternoon he took his ordinary walk and 
 bathe, enjoying the rare beauty of the day, and he 
 stopped again and again to look up into the unclouded 
 blue of the summer sky, " the blue depth of ether " 
 which had been at ah 1 times one of his most favorite 
 images in nature, " conveying," as he said, " ideas so 
 much more beautiful, as well as more true, than the 
 ancient conceptions of the heavens as an iron firma- 
 ment." At dinner he was in high spirits, talking with 
 his several guests on subjects of social or historical 
 interest, and recurring with great pleasure to his early 
 geological studies, and describing with much interest, 
 his recent visit to Naseby with Carlyle, " its position 
 on some of the highest table-land in England, the 
 streams falling on the one side into the Atlantic, on 
 the other into the German Ocean, far away, too, from 
 any town, Market Harborough the nearest, into 
 which the Cavaliers were chased, late in the long sum- 
 mer evening, on the 14th of June, you know." 
 
 In the evening he took a short stroll, as usual, on 
 the lawn in the farther garden, with the friend and 
 former pupil, from whom the account of these last few 
 days has been chiefly derived. His conversation with 
 him turned on some points in the school of Oxford 
 Theology, in regard to which he thought him to be in 
 error ; particularly he dwelt seriously, but kindly, on 
 what he conceived to be false notions of the Eucharist, 
 insisting, especially, that our Lord forbids us to sup- 
 pose that the highest spiritual blessings can be con- 
 ferred only or chiefly through the reception of material 
 elements, urging with great earnestness, when it was 
 said that there might be various modes of spiritual 
 agency, " My dear Lake, God be praised, we are told
 
 288 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the great mode by which we are affected we have 
 His own blessed assurance, ' The words which I speak 
 unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.' ' 
 
 At nine o'clock was a supper, -which, on the last 
 evening of the summer half-year, he gave to the Sixth 
 Form boys of his own house ; and they were struck 
 with the cheerfulness and liveliness of his manner, 
 talking of the end of the half-year, and the pleasure of 
 his returning to Fox How in the next week, and ob- 
 serving, in allusion to the departure of so many of the 
 boys, " How strange the Chapel will look to-morrow." 
 
 The school business was now completely over. The 
 old school-house servant, who had been about the place 
 many years, came to receive the final accounts, and 
 delighted afterwards to tell how his master had kept 
 him a quarter of an hour talking to him with more 
 than usual kindness and confidence. 
 
 One more act, the last before he retired that night, 
 remains to be recorded, the last entry in his Diary, 
 which was not known or seen till the next morning, 
 when it was discovered by those to whom every word 
 bore a weight and meaning, which he who wrote it had 
 but little anticipated. 
 
 " Saturday evening, June llth. The day after to-morrow 
 is my birthday, if I am permitted to live to see it my forty- 
 seventh birthday since my birth. How large a portion of iny 
 life on earth is already passed. And then what is to follow 
 this life? How visibly my outward work seems contracting 
 and softening away into the gentler employments of old age. 
 In one sense, how nearly can I now say ' Vixi.' And I thank 
 God that, as far as ambition is concerned, it is, I trust, fully 
 mortified ; I have no desire other than to step back from my 
 present place in the world, and not to rise to a higher. Still 
 there are works which, with God's permission, I would do be- 
 fore the night cometh ; especially that great work,* if I might 
 be permitted to take part in it. But above all, let me mind 
 my own personal work, to keep myself pure and zealous 
 
 * To prevent any posibility of misconceptiou, it may be as wall to refer 
 chapter iv. vol. L p. 131.
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 289 
 
 and believing, laboring to do God's will, yet not anxious 
 that it should be done by me rather than by others, if God 
 disapproves of my doing it." 
 
 It was between five and six o'clock on Sunday morn- 
 ing that he awoke with a sharp pain across his chest, 
 which he mentioned to his wife, on her asking whether 
 he felt well, adding that he had felt it slightly on the 
 preceding day, before and after bathing. He then 
 again composed himself to sleep ; but her watchful 
 care, always anxious, even to nervousness, at the least 
 indication of illness, was at once awakened, and on 
 finding from him that the pain increased, and that it 
 seemed to pass from his chest to his left arm, her alarm 
 was so much roused from a remembrance of having 
 heard of this in connection with Angina Pectoris, and 
 its fatal consequences, that in spite of his remon- 
 strances, she rose and called up an old servant, whom 
 they usually consulted in cases of illness, from her 
 having so long attended the sick bed of his sister Su- 
 sannah. Reassured by her confidence that there was 
 no ground for fear, but still anxious, Mrs. Arnold re- 
 turned to his room. She observed him as she was 
 dressing herself, lying still, but with his hands clasped, 
 his lips moving, and his eyes raised upwards, as if en- 
 gaged in prayer, when all at once he repeated, firmly 
 and earnestly, " And Jesus said unto him, Thomas, 
 because thou hast seen thou hast believed ; blessed are 
 they who have not seen, and yet have believed ; " and 
 soon afterwards, with a solemnity of manner and depth 
 of utterance which spoke more than the words them- 
 selves, " But if ye be without chastisement, whereof 
 all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons." 
 
 From time to time he seemed to be in severe suffer- 
 ing ; and, on the entrance of the old servant before 
 mentioned, said, "Ah! Elizabeth, if I had been as 
 much accustomed to pain as dear Susannah was, I 
 should bear it better." To his wife, however, he ut- 
 tered no expressions of acute pain, dwelling only on 
 
 VOL II. 25 8
 
 290 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the moments of comparative ease, and observing that 
 he did not know what it was. But the more than usual 
 earnestness which marked his tone and manner, es- 
 pecially in repeating the verses from Scripture, had 
 again aroused her worst fears ; and she ordered mes- 
 sengers to be sent for medical assistance, which he at 
 first requested her not to do, from not liking to disturb 
 at that early hour the usual medical attendant, who 
 had been suffering from indisposition. She then took 
 up the Prayer Book, and was looking for a Psalm to 
 read to him, when he said quickly, " The fifty-first," 
 which she accordingly read by his bedside, reminding 
 him, at the seventh verse, that it was the favorite verse 
 of one of the old almswomen, whom he was in the 
 habit of visiting ; and at the twelfth verse, " give 
 me the comfort of Thy help again, and establish me 
 with Thy free spirit ; " he repeated it after her very 
 earnestly. She then read the prayer in the " Visita- 
 tion of the Sick," beginning, " The Almighty Lord, 
 who is a most strong tower," &c., kneeling herself at 
 the foot of the bed, and altering it into a common 
 prayer for them both. 
 
 As the clock struck a quarter to seven, Dr. Bucknill 
 (the son of the usual medical attendant) entered the 
 room. He was then lying on his back, his counte- 
 nance much as usual, his pulse, though regular, was 
 very quick, and there was cold perspiration on the 
 brow and cheeks. But his tone was cheerful. " How 
 is your father ? " he asked, on the physician's entrance : 
 " I am sorry to disturb you so early I knew that 
 your father was unwell, and that you had enough to 
 do." He described the pain, speaking of it as having 
 been, very severe, and then said, " What is it ? " Whilst 
 the physician was pausing for a moment before he re- 
 plied, the pain returned, and remedies were applied 
 till it passed away ; and Mrs. Arnold seeing by the 
 measures used that the medical man was himself 
 alarmed, left the room for a few moments to call up 
 her second son, the eldest of the family then at Rugby,
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 291 
 
 and impart her anxiety to him ; and during her ab- 
 sence her husband again asked what it was, and was 
 answered that it was spasm of the heart. He ex- 
 claimed, in his peculiar manner of recognition, " Ha ! " 
 and then on being asked if he had ever in his life 
 fainted, " No, never." If he had ever had difficulty 
 of breathing? "No, never." If he had ever had 
 sharp pain in the chest? "No, never." If any of 
 his family had ever had disease of the chest ? " Yes, 
 my father had he died of it." What age was he ? 
 
 "Fifty-three." Was it suddenly fatal? "Yes, 
 suddenly fatal." He then asked " If disease of the 
 heart was a common disease ? " " Not very com- 
 mon." " Where do we find it most ? " " In large 
 towns, I think." " Why ? " (Two or three causes 
 were mentioned.) " Is it generally fatal ? " " Yes, 
 I am afraid it is." 
 
 The physician then quitted the house for medicine, 
 leaving Mrs. Arnold now fully aware from him of her 
 husband's state. At this moment she was joined by 
 her son, who entered the room with no serious appre- 
 hension, and, on his coming up to the bed, his father, 
 with his usual gladness of expression towards him, 
 asked, " How is your deafness, my boy ? " (he had 
 been suffering from it the night before,) and then, 
 playfully alluding to an old accusation against him, 
 ' " you must not stay here ; you know you do not like a 
 sick-room." He then sat down with his mother at the 
 foot of the bed, and presently his father said in a low 
 voice : " My son, thank God for me ; " and as his son 
 did not at ouoe catch his meaning, he went on saying, 
 
 " Thank God, Tom, for giving me this pain ; I have 
 suffered so little pain in my life, that I feel it is very 
 good for me : now God has given it to me, and I do so 
 thank Him for it." And again, after a pause he said, 
 
 alluding^ to a wish which his son had often heard 
 him express, that if he ever had to suffer pain, his fac- 
 ulties might be unaffected by it. " How thankful I 
 am that my head is untouched." Meanwnile ILLS wile,
 
 292 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 who still had sounding in her ears the tone in which 
 he had repeated the passage from the Epistle to the He- 
 brews, again turned to the Prayer Book, and began to 
 read the Exhortation, in which it occurs in the " Vis- 
 itation of the Sick." He listened with deep attention, 
 saying emphatically, " Yes," at the end of many of 
 the sentences. " There should be no greater comfort 
 to Christian persons than to be made like unto Christ." 
 
 " Yes." " By suffering patiently troubles, adversi- 
 ties, and sickness." "Yes." "He entered not into 
 His glory before He was crucified." " Yes." At the 
 words " everlasting life," she stopped, and his son said, 
 
 "I wish, dear Papa, we had you at Fox How." He 
 made no answer, but the last conscious look, which 
 remained fixed in his wife's memory, was the look of 
 intense tenderness and love with which he smiled upon 
 them both at that moment. 
 
 The physician now returned with the medicines, and 
 the former remedies were applied : there was a slight 
 return of the spasms, after which he said, "If the 
 pain is again as severe as it was before you came, I do 
 not know how I can bear it." He then, with his eyes 
 fixed upon the physician, who rather felt than saw them 
 upon him, so as to make it impossible not to answer 
 the exact truth, repeated one or two of his former 
 questions about the cause of the disease, and ended by 
 asking, " Is it likely to return ? " and, on being told 
 that it was, " Is it generally suddenly fatal ? " " Gen- 
 erally." On being asked whether he had any pain, he 
 replied that he had none, but from the application of 
 the external remedies ; and then, a few moments after- 
 wards, inquired what medicine was to be given ; and 
 on being told, answered, " Ah, very well." The phy- 
 sician, who was dropping the laudanum into a glass, 
 turned round, and saw him looking quite calm, but 
 with his eyes shut. In another minute he heard a 
 rattle in the throat, and a convulsive struggle, flew 
 to the bed, caught his head upon his shoulder, and 
 called to one of the servants to fetch Mrs. Arnold.
 
 LIFE OF DE. ARNOLD. 293 
 
 :3he had but just left the room before his last conver- 
 sation with the physician, in order to acquaint her son 
 with his father's danger, of which he was still uncon- 
 scious, when she heard herself called from above. She 
 rushed up stairs, told her son to bring the rest of the 
 children, and with her own hands applied the remedies 
 that were brought, in the hope of reviving animation, 
 though herself feeling, from the moment that she saw 
 him, that he had already passed away. He was indeed 
 no longer conscious. The sobs and cries of his chil- 
 dren as they entered and saw their father's state, made 
 no impression upon him the eyes were fixed the 
 countenance was unmoved : there was a heaving of the 
 chest deep gasps escaped at prolonged intervals, 
 and just as the usual medical attendant arrived, and 
 as the old school-house servant, in an agony of grief, 
 rushed with the others into the room, in the hope of 
 seeing his master once more, he breathed his last. 
 
 It must have been shortly before eight A. M. that he 
 expired, though it was naturally impossible for those 
 who were present to adjust their recollections of what 
 passed with precise exactness of time or place. So short 
 and sudden had been the seizure, that hardly any one 
 out of the household itself had heard of his illness be- 
 fore its fatal close. His guest, and former pupil, (who 
 had slept in a remote part of the house,) was coming 
 down to breakfast as usual, thinking of questions to 
 which the conversation of the preceding night had 
 given rise, and which, by the great kindness of his 
 manner, he felt doubly encouraged to ask him, when 
 he was met on the staircase by the announcement of 
 his death. The masters knew nothing till the moment, 
 when, almost at the same time at the different boarding- 
 houses, the fatal message was delivered in all its starts 
 ling abruptness, " that Dr. Arnold was dead." What 
 that Sunday was in Rugby, it is hard fully to repre- 
 sent : the incredulity the bewilderment the agi- 
 tated inquiries for every detail the blank, more 
 awful than sorrow, that prevailed through the vacant 
 
 25*
 
 294 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 services of that long and dreary day the feeling as if 
 the very place had passed away with him who had so 
 emphatically been in every sense its head the sym- 
 pathy which hardly dared to contemplate, and which 
 yet could not but fix the thoughts and looks of all on 
 the desolate house, where the fatherless family were 
 gathered round the chamber of death. 
 
 Five of his children were awaiting their father's 
 arrival at Fox How. To them the news was brought 
 on Monday morning, by the same pupil who had been 
 in the house at his death, and who long would remem- 
 ber the hour when he reached the place, just as the 
 early summer dawn the dawn of that forty-seventh 
 birthday was breaking over that beautiful valley, 
 every shrub and every flower in all its freshness and 
 luxuriance speaking of him who had so tenderly fos- 
 tered their growth around the destined home of his old 
 age. On the evening of that day, which they had been 
 fondly preparing to celebrate with its usual pleasures, 
 they arrived at Rugby in time to see their father's face 
 in death. 
 
 He was buried on the following Friday, the very day 
 week, since, from the same house, two and two in like 
 manner, so many of those who now joined in the 
 funeral procession to the Chapel, had followed him in 
 full health and vigor to the public speeches in the 
 school. It was attended by his whole family, by those 
 of his friends and former pupils who had assembled 
 from various parts during the week, and by many of 
 the neighboring clergy and of the inhabitants of the 
 town, both rich and poor. The ceremony was per- 
 formed by Mr. Moultrie, Rector of Rugby, from that 
 place which, for fourteen years, had been occupied 
 only by him who was gone, and to whom every part of 
 that Chapel owed its peculiar interest ; and his re- 
 mains were deposited in the Chancel immediately 
 under the Communion-table. 
 
 Once more his family met in the Chapel on the fol- 
 lowing Sunday, and partook of the Holy Communion
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 295 
 
 at his grave, and heard read the sermon preached by 
 him in the preceding year, on " Faith Triumphant in 
 Death." And yet one more service in connection with 
 him took place in the Chapel, when, on the first Sun- 
 day of the next half-year, the school, which had dis- 
 persed on the eve of his death, assembled again within 
 its walls under his successor, and witnessed in the 
 funeral sendees, with which that day was observed, 
 the last public tribute of sorrow to their departed 
 master. 
 
 Nowhere could the shock have been so overwhelming 
 as in the immediate circle of his friends and pupils. 
 But the sensation occasioned by his death was far 
 wider than the limits of his personal acquaintance. In 
 London, and still more in Oxford, where his name had 
 always excited so much interest, where the last im- 
 pression of him had been one of such life and energy, 
 and of such promise for the future, the tidings were 
 received, by men of the various parties, with the shock 
 which accompanies the announcement of a loss be- 
 lieved to be at once general and irreparable. Few 
 men, it was felt, after having been centres of love and 
 interest to a circle in itself so large, have been known 
 and honored in a circle yet larger, and removed from 
 both by an end so sudden and solemn. Some notion 
 of the general sympathy may be formed by the notices 
 -of his death in most of the periodicals of the years 
 1842, 43, 44, amongst which may be especially men- 
 tioned the organs of the two most opposite parties, the 
 extreme Radical and the extreme Oxford School, with 
 both of which in life he had had so little of friendly 
 intercourse. As a testimony of gratitude to his ser- 
 vices in the cause of education, a public subscription 
 was set on foot, under the superintendence of a Com- 
 mittee, consisting of noblemen and gentlemen of dif- 
 ferent political and ecclesiastical parties, the proceeds 
 of which were applied, after the erection of a monu- 
 ment in Rugby Chapel, to the foundation of scholar- 
 ships, to be enjoyed in the first instance by his sons in
 
 296 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 succession, and afterwards dedicated to the promotion 
 of general study at Rugby, and of the pursuit of his- 
 tory at Oxford. 
 
 But however wide was the sense of his loss, and the 
 tribute of respect to his memory, it was only in the 
 narrower range of those who knew him, especially of 
 those who had been brought up under his charge, that 
 the solemnity of the event could be fully appreciated. 
 Many were the testimonies borne by them to the great- 
 ness of their loss, which it is impossible here to record. 
 But it may be permitted to close this narrative with a 
 letter to his widow from a former pupil, whose name 
 has already occurred in these pages, which it has been 
 thought allowable to publish, (though of course only 
 the utterance of the first feelings of private sorrow,) 
 as giving the impression left upon one who had been 
 parted from him for three years in a distant country, 
 and to whom his fellow-scholars will, it is felt, willingly 
 leave the expression of thoughts and hopes in which so 
 many will be able more or less to share. 
 
 Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, Nov. 16, 1842. 
 MT DEAR MRS. ARNOLD, 
 
 If you knew the true affection I had for him whom 
 we have lost, you would not forbid my writing of my 
 grief to one most near and dear to him when here be- 
 low. No one inspirited and encouraged my undertak- 
 ing here as he did ; no letters were so sure to bring 
 fresh hopes and happiness as those which can never 
 come again from him. It was not so much what he 
 said in them, as the sense which they conveyed, that 
 he still was, as he had ever been, the same earnest, 
 faithful friend. It was this which made one feel that, 
 while he was alive, it would indeed be pusillanimous 
 to shrink from maintaining what was true and right. 
 This I felt the last tune I ever saw him, in the autumn 
 of 1839. He rose early and spent the last hour with 
 me, before we separated forever ; he to his school
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 297 
 
 tvork and I to my journey here. We were in the 
 dining-room', and I well remember the autumnal dawn 
 it was calm and overcast, and so impressed itself on 
 my memory, because it agreed with the more than 
 usual quietness ; the few words of counsel which still 
 serve me from time to time ; the manner in which the 
 commonest kindnesses were offered to one soon to be 
 out of their reach forever ; the promise of support 
 through evil fortune or good, in few words, once re- 
 peated, exceeding my largest deserts ; and then the 
 earnest blessing and farewell from lips never again to 
 open in my hearing. His countenance and manner 
 and dress his hand, and every movement are all 
 before me now more clearly than any picture and 
 you will understand full well how a quiet scene like 
 this has an impressiveness unrivalled by the greatest 
 excitements. The uncertain consciousness that this 
 parting might be the last hung about it at the time ; 
 and preserved the recollection of it, till now that the 
 sad certainty gives a new importance to the slightest 
 particular. 
 
 I feel how unequal I am to offer you any consola- 
 tion that you do not already possess, in the far more 
 solemn and painful parting to which you have been 
 called. But how unhappy would it have been, had 
 you foreseen that each day was drawing nearer and 
 nearer to that fatal event, as surely as you now know 
 that every passing hour is an hour nearer to a happy 
 reunion. Fear not but that he will be himself again 
 some good men fall asleep in Jesus so full of infirm- 
 ities, that they cannot but be greatly changed both in 
 body and mind by the healing miracle of the Resurrec- 
 tion. But will not those who die, as Moses and Elias 
 did, in the fulness of their labors and their strength, 
 be as quickly recognized as were Moses and Elias by 
 the faithful in God's holy mount ? As our Saviour's 
 wounds were healed on the morning of the Resurrec- 
 tion, so shall his mortal disease be healed, and all that 
 we most loved in him shall become immortal. The
 
 298 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tone of earnestness shall be there, deepened perhaps 
 into a more perfect beauty by a closer intercourse with 
 the Son of Man, when his ears have heard the " Ver- 
 ily, verily, I say unto you," that once used to be heard 
 upon the earth the cheerfulness shall be there with- 
 out a cloud to dim it throughout all eternity, and how 
 will the most aspiring visions of reformation that ever 
 filled his mind on earth be more than accomplished in 
 that day of the restitution of all things ! How will he 
 rejoice in his strength and immortality, as he busies 
 himself to perform the whole counsel of God, no longer 
 doubted or disputed by men ! What member of the 
 Divine Body will glory more than he will in the cath- 
 olic and perfect union of men with each other and with 
 God? 
 
 My dear Mrs. Arnold, you have been heretofore a 
 kind friend to one who is neither forgetful nor un- 
 grateful. But, when thus gazing up into heaven after 
 him, I remember that you are his, I pray with a double 
 earnestness that you may follow him, and that when 
 your time is come, you may present to him the great- 
 est blessing that can now be added to his full cup of 
 joy, yourself and your children perfect before the 
 throne of God. Accept this blessing from your true 
 and ip*?ere friend, 
 
 JOHN PHILIP GELL.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 (A.) 
 PRAYERS, 
 
 WRITTEN BY DR. ARNOLD FOR VARIOUS OCCASIONS IN 
 RUGBY SCHOOL. 
 
 I. PRATER READ EVERT MORNING IN THE SIXTH FORM. 
 (See chap. iii. vol. i. p. 107.) 
 
 LORD, who, by Thy holy Apostle, has taught us to do 
 all things in the name of the Lord Jesus and to Thy glory, 
 give Thy blessing, we pray Thee, to this our daily work, that 
 we may do it in faith, and heartily, as to the Lord and not 
 unto men. All our powers of body and mind are Thine, and 
 we would fain devote them to Thy service. Sanctify them 
 and the work in which they are engaged ; let us not be sloth- 
 ful, but fervent in spirit, and do Thou, O Lord, so bless our 
 efforts that they may bring forth in us the fruits of true 
 wisdom. Strengthen the faculties of our minds and dispose 
 us to exert them, but let us always remember to exert them 
 for Thy glory, and for the furtherance of Thy kingdom, and 
 save us from all pride, and vanity, and reliance upon our own 
 power or wisdom. Teach us to seek after truth and enable us 
 to gain it ; but grant that we may ever speak the truth in 
 love: that, while we know earthly things, we may know 
 Thee, and be known by Thee, through and in Thy Son Jesus 
 Christ. Give us this day Thy Holy Spirit, that we may be 
 Thine in body and spirit in all our work and all our refresh- 
 ments, through Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
 
 300 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 II. PRAYER USED ON PUNDAY EVENING IN THE SCHOOL- 
 
 HOUSE. 
 
 O Lord our God, we are once again arrived at the evening 
 of Thy holy day. May Thy Spirit render it truly blest to 
 us! 
 
 We have attended the public service of Thy Church ; Thou 
 knowest, O Lord, and our own consciences each know also, 
 whether while we worshipped Thee in form, we worshipped 
 Thee in spirit and in truth. Thou knowest, and our own 
 consciences know also, whether we are or are likely to be any 
 the better for what we have heard with our outward ears this 
 day. 
 
 Forgive us, Lord, for this great sin of despising the means 
 of grace which Thou hast given us. Forgive us for all our 
 carelessness, inattention, and hardness of heart : forgive us for 
 having been far from Thee in mind, when our lips and out- 
 ward expression seemed near to Thee. 
 
 Lord, will it be so forever ? Shall we ever hear and not 
 heed ? And when our life is drawing near to its end, as this 
 day is now, shall we then feel that we have lived without 
 Thee in the world, and that we are dying unforgiven ? Gra- 
 cious Father, be pleased to touch our hearts in time with 
 trouble, with sorrow, with sickness, with disappointment, with 
 anything that may hinder them from being hard to the end, 
 and leading us to eternal ruin. 
 
 Thou knowest our particular temptations here. Help us 
 with Thy Holy Spirit to struggle against them. Save us from 
 being ashamed of Thee and of our duty. Save us from the 
 base and degrading fear of one another. Save us from idle- 
 ness and thoughtlessness. Save us from the sin of falsehood 
 and lying. Save us from unkindness and selfishness, caring 
 only for ourselves and not for Thee, and for our neighbors. 
 
 Thou who knowest all our weaknesses, save us from our- 
 selves, and our own evil hearts. Renew us with Thy Spirit 
 to walk as becomes those whom Thou hast redeemed, through 
 Thy Sou Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen. 
 
 III. PRAYER USED AFTER CONFIRMATION AND COMMUNION. 
 
 O Lord, we thank Thee for having preserved us safe from 
 all the perils and dangers of this day : that Thou hast given, 
 us health and strength, food and clothing, and whilst there are 
 BO many who are poor, so many who are sick, so many who
 
 APPENDIX A. 301 
 
 are in sorrow, that Thou hast given us so richly such manifold 
 and great blessings. 
 
 Yet more, O Lord, we thank Thee for Thy mercies to us 
 in Thy Son Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for Thy infinite 
 love shown in our redemption, that Thou hast opened, through 
 Thy beloved Son, the kingdom of heaven to all believers. 
 We thank Thee for the full assurance of hope which Thou 
 hast given us, that if our earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we 
 have yet a building of God, a house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens. Thou hast shown to us nothing but 
 goodness, O Lord, for this life and for life eternal ; and yet 
 we have sinned, .and are sinning against Thee daily. We are 
 forfeiting all Thy blessings, and turning them into a curse. 
 Forgive us, for Jesus Christ's sake, all and each, for all our 
 many sins in thought, word, and deed; whether known to 
 others, or to our own conscience alone, or forgotten even by 
 our own careless hearts, but known and recorded by Thee, 
 against the great day of judgment. 
 
 One thing more, O Lord, we pray for, without which all 
 these blessings shall only condemn us the more heavily. O 
 Lord, increase and keep alive in us Thy faith. Let not the 
 world, and our own health, and the many good things which 
 Thou hast given us, prove a snare unto us. Let us endure, 
 as seeing by faith Thee who art invisible. 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst take our nature upon Thee, 
 and art now standing as the Son of Man at the right hand of 
 the Majesty on high, reveal Thyself to our minds and hearts, 
 as Thou didst to the bodily eyes of Thy martyr Stephen. As 
 Thou didst comfort and strengthen him in his suffering, so, O 
 Lord, do Thou warn and chasten us in our enjoyments ; 
 making us to know and feel that in Thee is our only life, and 
 that if we cleave not to Thee, and have not Thee abiding in 
 its, we are dead now, and shall be dead forever. 
 
 Quicken in us the remembrance of our baptism : how we 
 were pledged to become Thy true servants and soldiers to our 
 lives' end. Dispose us all to renew this pledge from the bot- 
 tom of our hearts, both those of us who are going to receive 
 the rite of confirmation soon, and those of us who have re- 
 ceived it already, and those of us who may expect to receive 
 it hereafter. Quicken in as many of us as have either this 
 day or heretofore been partakers in the communion of Thy 
 body and blood, the remembrance of that blessed sacrament, 
 VOL. ii. 26
 
 302 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 
 
 that we gave ourselves therein to be wholly Thine, in body, 
 soul, and spirit, that we might evermore dwell hi Thee, and 
 Thou hi us. 
 
 O Holy Spirit of God, who art the only author of all 
 spiritual life, quicken us with Thy power, and preserve and 
 quicken us in the life which is Thy gift. Forgive us that we 
 have so often grieved Thee, and preserve us from grieving 
 Thee so long and so often, that Thou wilt depart from us for 
 evermore, and leave us to a state beyond repentance, and be- 
 yond forgiveness. Teach us to remember that every day 
 which we spend carelessly and unprofitably, we are grieving 
 Thee, and tempting Thee to leave us. Let not our pros- 
 perity harden our hearts to our destruction. Screen us from 
 the horrible sin of casting a stumbling-block in our brother's 
 way, of tempting him to evil, or discouraging him from good 
 by our example, or by our laughter, or by our unkindness and 
 persecution. 
 
 O Lord Almighty, this day is now drawing to its end. May 
 the means of grace which Thou hast given us in it work good 
 in us for to-morrow, and the days to come. May Thy bless- 
 ing be with us on this first day of the week, to guide us and 
 to strengthen us even to its end. 
 
 Bless all our friends in all places, and keep them hi Thy 
 faith and fear : bless Thy universal church militant here on 
 earth, and grant that all who confess with their mouth the 
 Lord Jesus, may believe on Him in their hearts, to life ever- 
 lasting. Bless our Queen and our country ; that we may be 
 a Christian people, not in word only, but in power. Bless 
 this school, that it may be a place of godly education, to Thy 
 glory and the salvation of our own souls. Fill us with Thy 
 Holy Spirit, that we may labor in our several duties towards 
 one another and towards Thee, as befits those whom Thou 
 hast redeemed by the blood of Thy dear Son. 
 
 Finally, we thank Thee for all those, whether we have 
 known them on earth, or whether they were strangers to us, 
 who have departed this life in Thy faith and fear ; and who 
 are safe and at rest till the day of Thy coming. Increase 
 their number, Lord, and enable us through Thy grace to 
 be of their company, that when Thou comest in Thy glorious 
 majesty, and shalt call us all to judgment, we may stand with 
 all Thy faithful people at Thy right hand, and may hear Thee 
 call us " blessed," and bid us enter into Thy kingdom to see 
 God face to face.
 
 APPENDIX A. 303 
 
 IV. PRATER USED IK THE SICK ROOMS. 
 
 O Lord and heavenly Father, we come before Thee with 
 our humble thanks for all Thy mercies towards us, more espe- 
 cially for the means of grace which Thou hast afforded us in 
 this interruption to our usual course of health. We thank 
 Thee for thus reminding us that our enjoyment of the bless- 
 ings of this world will not last forever that the things in 
 which we commonly take delight will one day cease to please 
 us. We thank Thee that by calling us off for a little while 
 from our common employments and amusements, Thou givest 
 us time to think how we are passing our life, and what those 
 joys are which if we once learn to know them will abide with 
 us forever. Lord, deliver us from all impatience and from 
 all fear for our bodies, and fill us at the same time with spir- 
 itual fear ; let us not be afraid of pain or sickness, but let us 
 be afraid of Thee, and not waste the opportunity which Thou 
 art now affording us. Give us grace to think under the vis- 
 itations of light sickness whether we are fit to be visited with 
 dangerous sickness ; let us consider what we should - do if, 
 while our body were weakened, our mind should be clouded 
 also, so that we could not then pray to Thee for succor. Now, 
 therefore, O Lord, teach us to call on Thee, while we can call 
 on Thee, to think on Thee while our reason is yet in its vigor. 
 Teach us to look into our heart and life, to consider how Thou 
 wouldst judge us, to ask Thy forgiveness through Thy Son 
 Jesus Christ, for all that Thou seest amiss in us, and by the 
 help of Thy Holy Spirit to overcome all that is evil in our 
 heart, and to learn and practise all that is good. Restore us 
 in Thy good time to our usual health, and grant that this in- 
 terruption to it may be sanctified to our souls' health, so 
 making it not an evil to u, but an infinite blessing, for the 
 sake of Jesus Christ, our Saviour. 
 
 V. THANKSGIYING ON A BOT's RECOVERING FROM SICKNESS. 
 
 O Lord, our heavenly Father, we give Thee our humble 
 and hearty thanks for Thy goodness shown to Thy servant 
 whom Thou hast been pleased to visit with sickness. We 
 thank Thee for the prospect which Thou hast given him of 
 recovery of his full health and strength, as well as for the 
 present abatement of his disorder. Grant that Thy mercies 
 may be felt by him and us ; that they may not lead us to 
 tempt Thy long-suffering by continued hardness of heart, but
 
 804 LIFE OP DR. ABNOLD. 
 
 may make us desirous of showing our gratitude to Thee by 
 living according to Thy will. May we remember how nearly 
 health and sickness come together, and that the time will 
 surely come to us all when we shall be raised up from sick- 
 ness no more. 
 
 While Thou yet sparest us, give us grace to turn to Thee 
 in earnest, that we may not have to turn to Thee when it is 
 too late with a vain regret and despair. Grant this, O Lord, 
 for Thy dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 The following prayers were contributed by Dr. Ar- 
 nold, in 1842, to a " Book of Family Prayers for every 
 Day in the Year," (published by Mr. Whittlemore, 
 Brighton,) in answer to a request made to him by the 
 Editor, and they are here inserted by the kind permis- 
 sion of the publisher. The subjects of them were doubt- 
 less suggested by two wants which he often lamented, 
 in the public services of the Liturgy, viz., a more di- 
 rect reference to the blessings of the natural seasons, 
 and also an offering of thanksgivings and prayers for 
 the blessings of law and government, unconnected with 
 any such political allusions as occur in the Four State 
 Services appended to the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 I. JOHN IV. 35. 
 
 O Lord God, who givest us the promise of food for our 
 bodies, and markest the seed sown to grow up and ripen and 
 yield its fruits in its season, do Thou be pleased to give us 
 the true bread of life, and to bless and ripen in us the seed 
 sown by Thy Holy Spirit in our hearts, that it may bring 
 forth fruit unto life eternal. Give us, we beseech Thee, the 
 true bread of life, Thy beloved Son. May we ever hunger 
 after Him, and ever be filled. May we feed upon Him by 
 faith, receiving into our hearts His most precious body and 
 blood, even the virtue of His sacrifice which alone cleanseth 
 \rorn all sin. May we cleave unto Him, and grow into Him, 
 that we may be one with Him and He with us. Ripen in us 
 also, we pray Thee, the seed of Thy Holy Spirit Make us to 
 cherish every good resolution which He suggests to us, and 
 dread the great sin of grieving Him. Save us from hard- 
 ness of heart which will not listen to Him ; from carelessness
 
 APPENDIX A. 305 
 
 and lightness of heart which forgets Him ; from worldliness 
 and overmuch business, which cares for and loves other 
 things more. Bless Thy spiritual works even as Thy natural 
 works, and gather in Thy corn into Thy garner, to Thy glory 
 and our salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 II. EVENING. 
 
 Lord, who hast given us the summer sun to gladden us 
 with his light and to ripen the fruits of the earth for our sup- 
 port, and who biddest him to set when his work is done, that 
 he may rise again to-morrow ; give Thy blessing to us Thy 
 servants, that the lesson of the works of Thy hand may be 
 learnt by us Thy living works, and that we may run our 
 course like the sun which is now gone from us. 
 
 Let us rise early and go late to rest, being ever busy and 
 zealous in doing Thy will. Let our light shine before men, 
 that they may glorify Thee our Heavenly Father. Let us do 
 good all our days, and be useful to and comfort others. And 
 let us finish our course in faith, that we too may rise again 
 to a course which shall never end, through the only merits of 
 Thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 in. 
 
 O Lord, we beseech Thee, teach us to mark the flight of 
 tune, and learn from the course of the natural seasons to take 
 a lesson for the benefit of our own souls. 
 
 The summer is nearly ended, and if Thou seest fit to de- 
 prive us of our time of harvest, or if we have neglected to 
 do our part towards raising the fruits of the earth for our sus- 
 tenance, then we can no more make good our neglect, and it 
 will be too late to wish that we had been wiser. O Lord, our 
 lives are fast running away, like the natural year ; we have 
 received Thy good gifts, the sun and the rain of Thy grace, 
 that we should bring forth spiritual fruits. Now is the time 
 of the harvest ; now mayst Thou come to see whether or no 
 the seed which has been sown in us is bringing forth fruit in 
 its season. Every day, O Lord, mayst Thou expect to find 
 fruit in us ; our spiritual harvest should be ever ready for the 
 sickle. Yet how many days hast Thou come seeking fruit in 
 us, and finding none. How many days have we spent in sin, 
 or in that which Thou callest sin, though we deem it innocent, 
 26* T
 
 306 LIFE OF DR.. ARNOLD. 
 
 in following our own ways, and our own pleasures, and neither 
 working nor enjoying to Thy glory, because we thought not 
 of Thee, nor of Thy beloved Son. 
 
 So, in one sense, O Lord, the summer is ended, and we 
 are not saved. One summer, many summers have been so 
 ended, many times when we might have brought forth fruit 
 and did not : many birthdays have returned to us, and yet 
 have not found us nearer Thee, although we were nearer to 
 death and judgment. 
 
 Yet not for nothing, O Lord, does any man grieve Thy 
 Holy Spirit and turn away from Thy loving call. Refusing 
 Thy strength, we become weaker ; refusing to live by faith, 
 heavenly things become darker to us ; despising Thy long- 
 suffering, our hearts become harder ; we are not what we once 
 were ; we are stained with many fresh sins, encumbered with 
 many infirmities ; we have built again the things which Christ 
 destroyed ; and next year we shall not be what we are now, 
 but harder ; and Thou hast said, there is a state in which it is 
 impossible to be renewed unto repentance. 
 
 O Lord, save us from this dreadful state, a state of con- 
 demnation even before the judgment. O Lord, yet once more 
 we pray Thee to deliver us ; for Thy Son's sake, whose name 
 we bear, and by whose blood we are redeemed, have mercy 
 upon us. Cleanse our hearts from their manifold sins. Give 
 strength to our feeble purposes. Deliver us from the malice 
 of our enemy, to whom we have betrayed ourselves. Deliver 
 us from sin which cannot be repented of; from the last hard- 
 ness of heart, to be melted only by Thy judgments when the 
 tune of mercy is over O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst warn 
 Thy disciples when they failed to watch with Thee, that they 
 should watch and pray lest they entered into temptation, grant 
 us the help of Thy Holy Spirit, to do those things which 
 Thou commandest us. Help us to watch and help us to pray. 
 Keep alive in us the resolutions which fade so quickly. Call 
 to prayer the murmuring heart that tries to escape from Thy 
 service, and when we kneel down and our lips utter words of 
 prayer; do Thou then restrain our wandering thoughts, and fix 
 our whole soul and spirit in one earnest sense of our own per- 
 ishing condition and of Thine almighty and ever present love 
 to us. And now, O Lord, the words which we have spoken, 
 let us not deceive ourselves by them ; let not our lips have 
 prayed and our hearts be silent Forgive the unworthiness 
 of all our service, and cleanse us from the sin which cleaves
 
 APPENDIX A. 307 
 
 to us in body, soul, and spirit, by Thy most precious blood, 
 and by the grace of Thy Holy Spirit. And O God most 
 holy, receive our prayers in the name of Thy beloved Son, 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " O pray for the peace of Jerusalem : they shall prosper that love thee." 
 
 PSALM cxxii. 
 
 O Lord, who by Thy Holy Apostle hast commanded us to 
 make prayers and intercessions for all men, we implore Thy 
 blessing, more especially upon this our country, upon its gov- 
 ernment, and upon its people. 
 
 May Thy Holy Spirit be with our rulers, with the Queen, 
 and all who are in authority under her. Grant that they may 
 govern in Thy faith and fear, striving to put down all evil, 
 and to encourage and support all that is good. Give Thy 
 Spirit of wisdom to those whose business it is to make laws 
 for us. Grant that they may understand and feel how great 
 a work Thou hast given them to do ; that they may not do it 
 lightly or foolishly, or from any evil passion, or in ignorance, 
 but gravely, soberly, and with a godly spirit, enacting always 
 things just, and things wise, and things merciful, to the put- 
 ting away of all wrong and oppression, and to the advance- 
 ment of the true welfare of Thy t people. Give to us and all 
 this nation a spirit of dutiful obedience to the laws, not only 
 for wrath but also for conscience' sake. Teach us to remem- 
 ber Thy Apostle's charge, to render to all their dues, tribute 
 to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, not defraud- 
 ing or suffering to defraud those who in the .receiving of cus- 
 tom and tribute are Thy ministers, attending continually upon 
 this very thing. 
 
 Give peace in our time, O Lord ! Preserve both us and 
 our government from the evil spirit of ambition and pride, 
 and teach us to value, and to labor with all sincerity to pre- 
 serve peace with all nations, not indulging in taunts and rail- 
 ings against other people, but showing forth a spirit of meek- 
 ness, as becomes those who call themselves Christ's servants. 
 Save us from all those national sins which expose us most 
 justly to thy heavy judgments. From unbelief and profane- 
 ness, from injustice and oppression, from hardness of heart 
 and neglect of the poor, from a careless and worldly spirit, 
 working and enjoying with no thought of Thee ; from these
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 and all other sins, be Thou pleased to preserve us, and give 
 us each one for himself a holy watchfulness, that we may not 
 by our sins add to the guilt and punishment of our country, 
 but may strive to keep ourselves pure from the blood of all 
 men, and to bring down Thy blessing upon ourselves and all 
 who belong to us. 
 
 These things and all else which may be good for our tem- 
 poral and for our spiritual welfare, we humbly beseech Thee 
 to grant in the name and for the sake of Thy dear Son, Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. 
 
 (B.) 
 
 It has been thought worth while k> select a few of the 
 subjects wliich Dr Arnold chose for exercises at Rugby, 
 both as an illustration of what has been said on this 
 point in the Chapter on his school life ; and also be- 
 cause, at least to those who knew him, they would 
 suggest, perhaps, as much as anything which could be 
 given, his favorite images and trains of thought. 
 They were of course varied with translations from the 
 authors he most admired, and he used from time to 
 time to give criticisms on different books or poems. 
 Many of the subjects, as will be seen, are capable of 
 various applications, which he used to indicate to the 
 boys when he set the subjects. The subjects of the 
 last half-year of his life have been given entire, and 
 those who have read the account of that period will 
 trace the connection of many of them with some of 
 the thoughts then uppermost in his mind. 
 
 SUBJECTS FOB PROSE EXERCISES. 
 
 1. The difference between advantages and merits. 
 
 2. On the excellences of Translation, and some of its diffV 
 culties. 
 
 3. I 've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds 
 
 With coldness still returning, 
 Alas ! the gratitude of men 
 Hath oftener left me mourning.
 
 APPENDIX B. 309 
 
 4. Conversation between Thomas Aquinas, James Watt, 
 and Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 5. How far the dramatic faculty is compatible with the love 
 of truth. 
 
 6. The principal events and men of England, France, Ger- 
 many, and Holland, A. D. 1600. 
 
 7. The ideal is superior to the real. 
 
 8. The good and evil which resulted from the seven years' 
 war. 
 
 9. Cogitamus secundum naturam, loquimur ex praeceptis, 
 agimus e consuetudine. (Bacon.) 
 
 10. Magnus esse debet historiam legentibus fructus, supe- 
 rioris asvi calamitates cum hac nostra humanitate et tran- 
 quillitate conferentibus. 
 
 11. Parum valet rerum ipsarum scientia, nisi accedat 
 ingenii vigor, quae informem molem in veram doctrinam 
 effingat. 
 
 12. Henricus Jenkyns, jam extrema senectute, quae in tarn 
 longa vita memoria dignissima viderit, nepotibus enarrat. 
 
 13. An bene constitutum sit debitoris non bona tantum, 
 sed etiam corpus creditor! esse obnoxium. 
 
 14. Franco-Gallorum exercitus, devicta inferiori JEgypto, 
 superiorem et urbem Thebas Ingreditur. 
 
 15. De saeculo, quo Esaias vaticinia sua edidit 
 
 16. Diversi nuntii a Novoburiensi praelio Londinum et 
 Oxoniam pervenientes. 
 
 17. Oxoniae descriptio, qualem redivivus describeret He- 
 rodotus. ( Greek.) 
 
 18. Quae in quascunque regiones peregrinantibus precipue 
 notanda. 
 
 19. Alexander Babylonem ingreditur, neque ita multo post 
 morbo correptus, inter summum suorum fletum et dolorem 
 animum expirat. 
 
 20. Africa provincia, postquam Romanis subjecta esset, quas 
 potissimum vices usque ad hanc astatem subierit. 
 
 21. Non ea est vitse nostrae ratio ut sciamus omnia, neque 
 ut de omnibus incerti dubitemus ; sed ut neque scientes plane, 
 neque ignorantes, probabili causa moti credamus. 
 
 22. Definiantur voces quae sequuntur, TO rifuov, TO nd^ov, 
 iKK^rjcria, fides : necnon, voces Anglicae, " revolution," " phi- 
 losophy," " art," " religion," " duty," " romantic," " subUme," 
 " pretty." 
 
 23. Judaeua quidam Athenas devectus Socrati de repubu'ca
 
 310 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 et puerorum institutione disputant! forte auditorem se et inter- 
 rogatorem praebet. 
 
 24. De veris rerum miraculis. 
 
 25. De primaevis animalibus et terrae hujus mirandis 
 vicibus. 
 
 26. Europam per aestatem anni 1815 circumvectus, quern 
 rerum statum apud singulos populos offendisset. 
 
 27. Descriptio monasterii, quae sit singularum domi partium 
 distributio, qualemque ibi vitam degant monachi. 
 
 28. De celeberrimis quae in omni uieuxoria scriptae sunt 
 legibus. 
 
 29. Calendarium naturale. 
 
 30. Ea demum vera est voluptas quae non tarn spe delectat, 
 quam recordatione praeterita (" Look not on pleasures as 
 they come, but go.") 
 
 SUBJECTS FOR VERSE. 
 
 1. Pendent opera interrupta. 
 
 2. Venus eadem quse Libitina. 
 
 3. Prytaneum. 
 
 4. Byzantinum sive Romanum Imperium inter novas 
 Europae respublicas solum antiquitatis monumentum super- 
 stes manet. 
 
 5. Africa, bonarum artium nutrix, nunc barbaric premitur. 
 
 6. *Epa>T(s (ro(f>ias Trdptbpoi. 
 
 7. Mediterranei Asias campi. 
 
 8. Richardi Cromwellii in Senatum reditus. 
 
 9. Vulgo ferunt beatas esse nuptias, quas sol illuminat ; 
 inferias, quibus irrorant nubes. 
 
 10. The Land's End. 
 
 11. Supremi fructus anni. 
 
 12. Siccitate laborant agri. 
 
 13. Festum omnium Animarum, sive Dies in memoriam 
 Christianorum defunctorum celebratus. 
 
 14. Navr d(f>avi(r6fl(ra. 
 
 15. Epicurus scholam in hortulo suo in-t ituit. 
 
 16. Polycarpi Martyrium. 
 
 17. Magna est funerum religio. 
 
 18. Oculis capto mens tamen intus viget. 
 
 19. Christianus, trajecto flumine, ob pericula viae feliciter 
 euperata, grates agit. (Pilgrim's Progress.) 
 
 20. (The Seven Sleepers.) De septem illis pueris qui cum
 
 APPENDIX B. 311 
 
 per CLXXX. annos dormiissent, turn autem miraculo experge- 
 facti sunt. 
 
 21. Duodecim vultures a. Romulo visas. 
 
 22. Ulysses in ipso mortis limine cum matris umbra collo- 
 quitur. 
 
 23. Demosthenis suprema fata. 
 
 24. Fasti Christiani. 
 
 25. Adventus Domini qualis ab ecclesia singulis annis cel- 
 ebratur. 
 
 26. Urbis Romae vicissitudines. 
 
 27. Hortus Anglicus. 
 
 28. Prospectabat pulcherrimum sinum, antequam Vesuvius 
 mons ardescens faciem loci verteret Tac. Ann. iv. 67. 
 
 29. Pastores duo, hie mare ille dulcis aquas flumina after- 
 nis versibus laudant. 
 
 30. Ne plus ultra. 
 
 PROSE SUBJECTS, FROM FEBRUARY TO JUNE, 1842. 
 
 1. De fcenore et de legibus fcenebribus. 
 
 2. Duo viatores, ab ipso fonte profecti, Rhodani cursum 
 animi causa usque ad mare explorant. 
 
 3. Quis rerum fuerit status circa annum post Christum 
 sexcentesimum. 
 
 4. " Nunc dimittis:" (Christianus, ipsis Apostolis aequalis, 
 jam ad centesimum annum provectus, grates Deo agit ob fidem 
 per universum fere terrarum orbem pervulgatam.) 
 
 5. John, xvi. 22. "If I had not come and spoken unto 
 them, they had not had sin ; but now they have no cloak for 
 their sin." (English Prose.) 
 
 6. De sectis Judaeorum, Pharisaeis, Sadducasis, et Esseni- 
 bus ; necnon de Publicanis et quos vocant Judaizantibus sive 
 Christianis Judaismum affectantibus. 
 
 7. NfcoTep/fotxri rois oXiyois dvriXfytt 6 0pa(rvj3ouXos. (Gk.) 
 
 8. QumtiUus Varus cum legionibus in Germania occidione 
 occisus. 
 
 9. Caius Trebatius Testa a Britannia Ciceronis litteris, 
 (Ep. ad Div. lib. vii.) respondet. 
 
 10. De vita et moribus Sultani Mamudi. 
 
 11. De seditione inter Athenienses qua quadringenti illi 
 vlri rempublicam invaserunt. 
 
 12. Macedonum et Russorum regna inter se comparantur. 
 
 13. QuaBritur quae sit philosophia et quam ob causam ei a 
 pluribus invideatur.
 
 312 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 TERSE SUBJECTS, FROM FEBRUARY TO JUNE, 1842. 
 
 1. Abydos a Philippe expugnata. 
 
 2. Gray's Hymn to Adversity. 
 
 3. Sophonisba. 
 
 4. Fodinae mercenarii subito terrae lapsu poene obruti post 
 longum et gravissimum vitae discrimen tandem ad lucem pro- 
 feruntur. 
 
 5. Hannibal Italiam relinquit. 
 
 6. Novi Ulyssis errores columnae Herculis, Iberia, Oce- 
 anus. 
 
 7. Scipio Africanus in cella Jovis secum meditatur. 
 
 8. Translation from Cowper's Task, Book IV. 
 
 9. Kehama proculum immortalitatis impius arripit. 
 
 10. Translation from Pope's Third Moral Epistle. 
 
 11. Prometheus Liberatus. 
 
 12. Fortuna. 
 
 13. Halcyones. 
 
 14. Puteus in Monte Zion defossus vivas aquarum venas in 
 lucem aperit (in allusion to an Artesian well lately sunk in 
 the dry rock of Jerusalem). 
 
 15. Porcia, Catonis Filia, Bruti Uxor. 
 
 16. Domus ultima. 
 
 (C.) 
 
 EPITAPHS 
 
 WRITTEN BY DR. ARNOLD, TO THE MEMORY OF A PUPIL, 
 AND OF AN ASSISTANT-MASTER IN RUGBY CHAPEL. 
 
 M. 8. 
 
 HENRICI 8PARKES HATCH,* 
 
 SCHOL^E RUGBIEN8I8 ALUMNI 
 
 QUEM BONARUM LITERARUM 8TUDII8 FELICITER INCUMBENTEM 
 
 8UA Q.UOQUE DISCIPLINA CARERE NOLUIT CHRISTU8 J 
 
 8ED LENI PRIMO MANU ACCEPTUM ATQUE EXCITATTTM 
 
 DIVINJEQXJE SU^E VOCI INTER L^CTA OMNIA ASSUEFACTUM, 
 
 * See Letters cui. cix. Sermons, vol. vi. Death and Salvation.
 
 APPENDIX C. 313 
 
 GRAVI TANDEM DOLORE LENTIQTTE MORBI CRUCIATIBUS, 
 QU^E EST CHRISTIANORUM INSTITUTIO, 
 
 DIU TENTATUM 
 AD SUUM 8UORUMQUE EXEMPLAR INFORMAVIT, 
 
 INFORMATUM BREVI AD SE ACCE88IVIT. 
 
 VO8 AUTEM TAM BONI SANCTIQUE ADOLESCENTIS .EQUALES. 
 SI QUANDO EUM IMMATURA ABREPTUM MORTE 
 VESTRO AMICORUM CHORO DEESSE DOLEBITIS, 
 
 AT EIDEM EXACTO CERTAMINE VICTORI 
 EXAUCTORATO PRIMIS STIPENDIIS CHRISTI MILITI 
 
 PORTAM CCELI QTJIETEM NOLITE INVIDERE. 
 DE8IDERANDUS QUIDEM INTERIIT, SED NON LUGENDUS, 
 
 QUIPPE TALIUM EST REGNUM DEI. 
 VIXIT ANNOS XIX. MENSES IX. DIEM I. 
 
 OBIIT A.D. V. IDUS OCTOBR. ANNO SALUTIS MDCCCXXXV. 
 PRIMUS IN HOC LOCO SEPULTUS EST. 
 
 M. 8. 
 
 ALEXANDRI FREDERICI MERIVALE, A.M. 
 COLLEGII SS. TRENITATIS 
 APUD CANTABRIGIEN8ES 
 
 OI.IM 8OCII 
 
 ET HUJUSCE SCHOLJE 
 
 PER TRES ANNOS E MAGISTRI8. 
 
 QUI PXJBLICA ET PRIVATA MUNERA 
 
 OPTIME AUSPICATU8 
 QUIPPE QUI CHRISTUM SOLUM AUSPICEM 
 
 NOVISSET, 
 
 INOPINATO CORREPTUS MORBI IMPETU, 
 
 RECENTISSIME NUPTAM UXOREM 
 
 MORIENS RELIQUIT, 
 
 INFELICEM INFELIX 
 
 NISI QUOD CHRISTIANAM CHRISTIANUS. 
 
 DOMINUS AUTEM QUEM DILIGIT CASTIGAT. 
 
 OBIIT A.D. III. ID. JUN. MDCCCXLI. .ETAT. XXVII. 
 
 STOKLJi CANONICORUM JUXTA EXONIAM 
 
 JACET SEPULTUS. 
 
 ii. 27
 
 314 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 (D.) 
 EXTRACTS FROM TRAVELLING JOURNALS. 
 
 It will have been already gathered from Dr. Arnold's 
 letters, how great a pleasure he took in travelling. It 
 was, in fact, except so far as his domestic life can be so 
 considered, his chief recreation, combining, as it did, 
 opportunities for following out his delight in History 
 with his love of external nature, both in its poetical and 
 scientific aspect. In the works of art he took but little 
 interest, and any extended researches in physical 
 science were precluded by want of time, whilst from 
 natural history he had an instinctive but characteristic 
 shrinking. " The whole subject," he said, " of the 
 brute creation is to me one of such painful mystery, 
 that I dare not approach it." But geography and ge- 
 ology in all their forms, plants and flowers, not from 
 any botanical interest, but for their own sakes, 
 beauty of architecture and of scenery, had an at- 
 traction for him which it is difficult adequately to ex- 
 press ; and when to these were added the associations 
 of great historical event, it may well be conceived how 
 enthusiastic was his delight in his short summer tours, 
 and how essential a part of his life they became, 
 whether in present enjoyment, or past recollection. 
 
 It was his practice when travelling, to keep very 
 minute journals, which as his tours were, partly 
 from necessity, and partly from choice, extremely rapid 
 he wrote always on the spot, or immediately after, 
 and often whilst actually in the act of travelling. And, 
 being addressed throughout to his absent wife or chil- 
 dren, as the case might be, they partake partly of the 
 character of a private diary, or of private letters, but 
 rather of conversation, such as he would have held 
 with those whom he was addressing, had they been 
 actually with him. 
 
 It is obvious that no selections from journals of this 
 description can give any adequate notion of the whole,
 
 APPENDIX D. 315 
 
 of which they are fragments, of the domestic play- 
 fulnesses, the humorous details, inverse or prose, of 
 travelling adventures, the very jolts of the carriage, 
 and difficulties of the road, the rapid sketches of the 
 mere geographical outline of the country, the suc- 
 cession of historical associations, the love, brought 
 out more strongly by absence, for his own church and 
 country, the strain of devout thought and prayer 
 pervading the whole, which, when taken altogether, 
 give a more living image of the man himself, than 
 anything else which he has left. But to publish the 
 whole of any one of the many volumes through which 
 these journals extend, was for many reasons impossi- 
 ble, and it has therefore been thought desirable to 
 select, in the following extracts, such passages as con- 
 tained matters of the most general interest, with so 
 much of the ordinary context as might serve to obvi- 
 ate the abruptness of their introduction, and in the 
 hope that due allowance will be made for the difference 
 in their character, as they are read, thus torn from 
 their natural place, instead of appearing in the general 
 course of his thoughts and observations, as they were 
 suggested by the various scenes and objects through 
 which he was passing. 
 
 I. TOUR IN THE NORTH OF ITALY, 1825. 
 
 Chiavasso, July 3, 1825. 
 
 1. I can now understand what Signer A said of the 
 
 nakedness of the country between Hounslow and Laleham, 
 as all the plains here are covered with fruit-trees, and the 
 villages, however filthy within, are generally picturesque 
 either from situation, or from the character of their buildings, 
 and their lively white. The architecture of the churches, 
 however, is quite bad ; and certainly their villages bear no 
 more comparison with those of Northamptonshire, than St. 
 Giles's does with Waterloo Place. There are more ruins 
 here than I expected, ruined towers, I mean, of modern 
 date, which are frequent in the towns and villages. The 
 countenances of the people are fine, but we see no gentlemen
 
 316 LIFE OF DR. ABNOLD. 
 
 anywhere, or else the distinction of ranks is lost altogether, 
 except with the court and the high nobility. In the valley of 
 Aosta, through which we were travelling all yesterday, the 
 whole land, I hear, is possessed by the peasants, and there are 
 no great proprietors at all. I am quite satisfied that there is 
 a good in this, as well as an evil, and that our state of society 
 is not so immensely superior as we flatter ourselves I know 
 that our higher classes are immensely superior to any one 
 here; but I doubt whether our system produces a greater 
 amount of happiness, or saves more misery than theirs ; and 
 I cannot help thinking, that, if their dreadful superstition 
 were exchanged for the Gospel, their division of society would 
 more tend to the general good, than ours. Their superstition 
 is indeed most shocking, and yet with some points in which 
 we should do well to imitate them. I like the simple crosses 
 and oratories by the road-side, and the texts of Scripture 
 which one often sees quoted upon them ; but they are pro- 
 faned by such a predominance of idolatry to the Virgin, and of 
 falsehood and folly about the Saints, that no man can tell what 
 portion of the water of life is still retained for those who 
 drink it so corrupted. I want more than ever to see and talk 
 with some of their priests, who are both honest and sensible, 
 if, indeed, any man can be so, and yet belong to a system so 
 abominable. 
 
 July 25, 1825. 
 
 2. On the cliff above the Lake of Como. We are on a 
 mule-track that goes from Como along the eastern shore of 
 the lake, and as the mountains go sheer down into the water, 
 the mule-track is obliged to be cut out of their sides, h'ke a ter- 
 race, half-way between their summits and their feet They 
 are covered with wood, all chestnut, from top to bottom, ex- 
 cept where patches have been found level enough for houses 
 to stand on, and vines to grow ; but just where we are it is 
 quite lonely ; I look up to the blue sky, and down to the blue 
 lake, the one just above me, and the other just below me, and 
 see both through the thick branches of the chestnuts. Seven- 
 teen or eighteen vessels, with their white sails, are enlivening 
 the lake ; and about half a mile on my right the rock is too 
 steep for anything to go on it, and goes down a bare cliff. 
 A little beyond, I see some terraces and vines, and bright 
 white houses ; and further still, there is a little low point, 
 running out into the lake, which just affords room for a vit
 
 APPENDIX D. 317 
 
 lage, close on the water's edge, and a white church tower 
 rising in the midst of it. The opposite shore is just the 
 same ; villages and mountains, and trees, and vines, all one 
 perfect loveliness. I have found plenty of the red cyclamen, 
 whose perfume is exquisite. 
 
 On the edge of the Lake of Como. We have made our 
 way down to the water's edge to bathe, and are now sitting on 
 a stone to cool. No words can describe the beauty of all the 
 scenery ; we stopped at a walk at a spot where the stream 
 descended in a deep green dell from the mountains, with a 
 succession of falls ; the dell so deep that the sun could not 
 reach the water, which lay every now and then resting in 
 deep rocky pools, so beautifully clear, that nothing but strong 
 prudence prevented us from bathing in them ; the banks of 
 the dell, all turf; and magnificent chestnuts varied with rocks, 
 and the broad lake, bright in the sunshine, stretched out 
 before us. 
 
 II. TOUK IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 August 9, 1826. 
 
 The cheapness of education is certainly a great thing for 
 Scotland ; and the new Edinburgh Academy promises to be 
 as economical as the High School. They are both day 
 schools ; and parents mostly, therefore, reside in Edinburgh 
 whilst their children are at school. About fourteen, youths 
 enter at college, and at twenty-one they enter on their profes- 
 sions, at least those of Law and Physic ; but at college they 
 board at home, or with some relation, or in some cheap board- 
 ing-house ; thus the expenses are limited to the mere fees for 
 attendance on lectures, which of course are trifling, but not 
 more moderate than in Oxford ; nay, a pupil at Oxford gets 
 his college tuition comparatively cheaper, considering how 
 much more an Oxford tutor can do, and does commonly, than 
 a Professor who merely reads Lectures. The advantages of 
 the Edinburgh system are, however, very considerable. In 
 many respects I wish we could adopt them, or rather blend 
 them with those points in which we are certainly far superior. 
 The friendships of an English public school and university 
 can rarely, I should think, be formed on the Scotch system ; 
 but on the other hand the domestic affections are more cher- 
 ished. Jeffrey said that all nations remarked the want of 
 filial affection in sons towards their fathers in England ; the 
 looking upon them as harsh and niggardly, and the want of 
 27*
 
 318 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 entire love and confidence towards them, was peculiarly Eng- 
 lish ; and he attributed it to the estrangement from home, 
 and the habits of expense which are at once generated by our 
 system of education ; the one loosening the intimacy, and 
 close knowledge of one another, which should subsist between 
 father and son, the other supplying a perpetual food for mutual 
 complaints and unkindness. Assuredly this is true in some 
 measure, and is an evil arising out of our system of education 
 which had never struck me before. It certainly furnishes an 
 additional reason for doing everything to reduce the expenses 
 of our system ; and there is this also to be said if a boy in 
 Scotland wastes the advantages given him, at least the loss 
 to his father is not great in a pecuniary point of view ; but in 
 England a little fortune is sunk in a boy's education, and how 
 often is the fruit returned absolutely nothing. On the other 
 hand, in the most favorable cases, there can be no comparison 
 between what Oxford and Cambridge can do for a man, and 
 what he can gain at Edinburgh, nor indeed is the compari- 
 son quite fair, because we rarely leave the University till a 
 year or two later than is the case in Scotland ; and in the 
 most favorable cases, a year between twenty-one and twenty- 
 two is of incalculable benefit 
 
 HI. TOUR TO ROME THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 Paris, March 1, 1827. 
 
 1. In church to-day there was a prayer read for the king 
 and royal family of France, but they were prayed for simply 
 in their personal capacity, and not as the rulers of a great 
 nation, nor was there any prayer for the French people. St. 
 Paul's exhortation is to pray, not for kings, and their families, 
 but for kings and all who are in authority, " that we may lead 
 a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." So forever 
 is this most pure command corrupted by servility and courtli- 
 ness. 
 
 Joigny, April 6, 1827. 
 
 2. Sens has a fine cathedral, with two very beautiful painted 
 rose-windows in the transepts, and a monument of the Dau- 
 phin, father to the present king, which is much spoken of. 
 Here the cheating of the blacksmiths went on in full perfec- 
 tion, and is really a very great drawback to the pleasure of 
 travelling in France. The moment we stop anywhere, out
 
 APPENDIX D. 319 
 
 comes a fellow with his leathern apron, and goes poking and 
 prying about the carriage in hopes of finding some job to do ; 
 and they all do their work so ill, that they generally never 
 fail to find something left for them by their predecessor's 
 clumsiness. Again I have been struck with the total absence 
 of all gentlemen, and of all persons of the education and 
 feelings of gentlemen. I am afraid that the bulk of the 
 people are sadly ignorant and unprincipled, and then liberty 
 and equality are but evils. A little less aristocracy in our 
 country and a little more here, would seem a desirable im- 
 provement ; there seem great elements of good amongst the 
 people here, great courtesy and kindness, with all their 
 cheating and unreasonableness. May He, who only can, turn 
 the hearts of this people, and of all other people, to the 
 knowledge and love of Himself in His Son, in whom there 
 is neither Englishman nor Frenchman, any more than Jew or 
 Greek, but Christ is all and in all ! And may He keep alive 
 in me the spirit of charity, to judge favorably and feel kindly 
 towards those amongst whom I am travelling ; inasmuch as 
 Christ died for them as well as for us, and they too call them- 
 selves after His name. 
 
 Approach to Rome, April, 1827. 
 
 3. When we turned the summit and opened on the view 
 of the other side, it might be called the first approach to 
 Rome. At the distance of more than forty miles, it was of 
 course impossible to see the town, and besides the distance 
 was hazy ; but we were looking on the scene of the Roman 
 History ; we were standing on the outward edge of the frame 
 of the great picture, and, though the features of it were not 
 to be traced distinctly, yet we had the consciousness that there 
 they were before us. Here, too, we first saw the Mediter- 
 ranean ; the Alban hills, I think, in the remote distance, and 
 just beneath us, on the left, Soracte, an outlier of the Apen- 
 nines, which has got to the right bank of the Tiber, and stands 
 out by itself most magnificently. Close under us, in front, 
 was the Ciminian Lake, the crater of an extinct volcano, 
 surrounded, as they all are, with their basin of wooded hills, 
 and lying like a beautiful mirror stretched out before us. 
 Then there was the grand beauty of Italian scenery, the 
 depth of the valleys, and the endless variety of the mountain 
 outline, and the towns perched up on the mountain summits, 
 and this now seen under a mottled sky which threw an ever
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 varying shadow and light over the valley beneath, and all the 
 freshness of the young spring. We descended along one of 
 the rims of this lake to Ronciglione, and from thence still 
 descending on the whole to Monterossi. Here the famous 
 Campagna begins, and it certainly is one of the most striking 
 tracts of country I ever beheld. It is by no means a perfect 
 flat, except between Rome and the sea ; but rather like the 
 Bagshot Heath country ridges of hills with intermediate 
 valleys, and the road often running between high steep banks, 
 and sometimes crossing sluggish streams sunk in a deep bed. 
 All these banks were overgrown with the broom, now in full 
 flower ; and the same plant was luxuriant everywhere. There 
 seemed no apparent reason why the country should be so des- 
 olate ; the grass was growing richly everywhere, there was 
 no marsh anywhere visible, but all looked as fresh and healthy 
 as any of our chalk downs in England. But it is a wide wil- 
 derness , no villages, scarcely any houses, and here and there 
 a lonely ruin of a single square tower, which I suppose used 
 to serve as strong-holds for men and cattle in the plundering 
 warfare of the middle ages. It was after crowning the top 
 of one of these lines of hills, a little on the Roman side of 
 Baccano, at five minutes after six, according to my watch, 
 that we had the first view of Rome itself. I expected to see 
 St. Peter's rising above the line of the horizon as York Min- 
 ster does, but instead of that, it was within the horizon, and 
 so was much less conspicuous, and, only a part of the dome 
 being visible from the nature of the ground, it looked mean 
 and stumpy. Nothing else marked the site of the city, but 
 the trees of the gardens about it, sunk by the distance into 
 one dark mass, and the number of white villas, specking the 
 opposite bank of the Tiber for some little distance above the 
 town, and then suddenly ceasing. But the whole scene that 
 burst upon our view, when taken in all its parts, was most in- 
 teresting. Full in front rose the Alban hills, the white villas 
 on their sides distinctly visible even at that distance, which 
 was more than thirty miles. On the left were the Apennines, 
 and Tivoli was distinctly to be seen on the summit of its 
 mountain, on one of the lowest and nearest points of the 
 chain. On the right and all before us lay the Campagna, 
 whose perfectly level outline was succeeded by that of the 
 sea, which was scarcely more so. It began now to get dark, 
 and, as there is hardly any twilight, it was dark soon after 
 we left La Storta, the last post before you enter Rome. The
 
 APPENDIX D. 321 
 
 idr blew fresh and cool, and we had a pleasant drive over the 
 remaining part of the Campagna till we descended into the 
 valley of the Tiber, and crossed it by the Milvian bridge. 
 About two miles further on we reached the walls of Rome, 
 and entered by the Porta del Popolo. 
 
 Rome, April, 1827. 
 
 4 After dinner Bunsen called for us in his car- 
 riage and took us to his house first on the Capitol, the differ- 
 ent windows of which command the different views of ancient 
 and modern Rome. Never shall I forget the view of the 
 former ; we looked down on the Forum, and just opposite 
 were the Palatine and the Aventine, with the ruins of the 
 palac^ of the Caesars on the one, and houses intermixed with 
 gardens on the other. The mass of the Colosseum rose 
 beyond the Forum, and, beyond all, the wide plain of the 
 Campagna to the sea. On the left rose the Alban hills 
 bright in the setting sun, which played full upon Frascati 
 and Albano, and the trees which edge the lake ; and, further 
 away in the distance, it lit up the old town of Lavicum. 
 Then we descended into the Forum, the light fast fading 
 away and throwing a kindred soberness over the scene of ruin. 
 The soil has risen from rubbish at least fifteen feet, so that 
 no wonder that the hills look lower than they used to do, 
 having been never very considerable at the first. There it 
 was, one scene of desolation, from the massy foundation-stones 
 of the Capitoline Temple, which were laid by Tarquinius the 
 Proud, to a single pillar erected in honor of Phocas, the 
 Eastern Emperor, in the fifth century. What the fragments 
 of pillars belonged to, perhaps we never can know ; but that 
 I think matters little. I care not whether it was a Temple of 
 Jupiter Stator, or the Basilica Julia, but one knows that one 
 is on the ground of the Forum, under the Capitol, the place 
 where the tribes assembled, and the orators spoke ; the scene, 
 in short, of all the internal struggles of the Roman people. 
 We passed on to the Arch of Titus. Amongst the reliefs, there 
 is the figure of a man bearing the golden candlestick from the 
 Temple of Jerusalem as one of the spoils of th triumph. 
 Yet He who abandoned His visible and local Temple to the 
 hands of the heathen for the sins of His nominal worshippers, 
 nas taken to Him His great power and has gotten Him glory 
 by destroying the idols of Rome as He had done the idols of 
 Babylon ; and the golden candlestick burns and shall burn
 
 322 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 with an everlasting light, while the enemies of His holy name, 
 Babylon, Rome, or the carcass of sin in every land which the 
 eagles of His wrath will surely find out, perish forever from 
 before Him. We return to our inn to dress, and then went 
 again to Bunsen's evening party. We came home about 
 eleven ; I wrote some Journal, and went to bed soon after 
 twelve. Such was my first day in Rome ; and if I were to 
 leave it to-morrow, I should think that one day was well 
 worth the journey. But you cannot tell how poor all the 
 objects of the North of Italy seem in comparison with what 
 I find here ; I do not mean as to scenery or actual beauty, but 
 hi interest When I leave Rome I could willingly sleep all 
 the way to Laleham ; that so I might bring home my recol- 
 lection of this place " unmixed with baser matter." 
 
 May 2, 1827. 
 
 5 After dinner we started again in our carriage 
 
 to the Ponte Molle, about two miles out of Rome. All the 
 way the road runs under a steep and cliffy bank, which is the 
 continuation of the Collis Hortulorum in Rome itself, and 
 which turns off at the Ponte Molle, and forms the boundary 
 of the Tiber for some way to the northward, the cliffs, how- 
 ever, being succeeded by grass slopes. On the right bank, 
 after crossing the Monte Molle, the road which we followed 
 ran southwest towards St. Peter's and the Vatican, between 
 the Tiber and the Ponte Mario. The Monte Mario is the 
 highest point of the same line of hills, of which the Vatican 
 and Janiculum form parts : it is a line intersected with many 
 valleys of denudation, making several curves, and as it were 
 little bays and creeks in it, like the hills on the right bank of 
 the Thames behind Chertsey, which coming forward at St. 
 Anne's, fall back in a very irregular line behind Stroud and 
 Thorpe Green, and then come forward again with a higher 
 and steeper side close to the Thames at Cooper's Hill. The 
 Monte Mario is like Cooper's Hill, the highest, boldest, and 
 most prominent part of the line ; it is about the height and 
 steepness too of Cooper's Hill, and has the Tiber just at the 
 foot of it, like the Thames at Anchorwick. To keep up the 
 resemblance there is a sort of a terrace at the top of the 
 Monte Mario planted with cypresses, and a villa, though 
 dilapidated, crowns the summit, as also at our old friend above 
 Egham. Here we stood, on a most delicious evening, the 
 ilex and the gum-cistus in great profusion about us, the slope
 
 APPENDIX D. 323 
 
 below full of olives and vines, the cypresses over our heads, 
 and before our eyes all that one has ever read of in Roman 
 History the course of the Tiber between the low hills that 
 bound it, coming down from Fidense, and receiving the Allia 
 and the Anio ; beyond, the Apennines, the distant and higher 
 summits still quite white with snow; in front, the Alban 
 hills ; on the right, the Campagna to the sea, and just beneath 
 us the whole length of Rome, ancient and modern St. 
 Peter's and the Colosseum rising as the representatives of 
 each the Pantheon, the Aventine, the Quirinal, all the 
 well-known objects distinctly laid before us. One may safely 
 say that the world cannot contain many views of such mingled 
 beauty and interest as this. 
 
 6 From the Aventine we again visited the Colos- 
 seum, which I admired most exceedingly, but I cannot de- 
 scribe its effect. Then to the Church of St. John at the 
 Lateran gate, before which stands the highest of the Egyptian 
 obelisks, brought by Constantine to Rome. Near to this 
 Church also is the Scala Santa, or pretended staircase of 
 Pilate's house at Jerusalem. It is cased with wood, and 
 people may only ascend to it on their knees, as I saw several 
 persons doing. Then we went to St. Maria Maggiore, to 
 Maria degli Angeli at the baths of Diocletian, and from 
 
 thence I was deposited again at . I care very little for the 
 
 sight of their churches, arid nothing at all for the recollection 
 of them. St. John at the Lateran is, I think, the finest ; and 
 the form of the Greek Cross at St. Maria degli Angeli is 
 much better for these buildings than that of the Latin. But 
 precious marbles, and precious stones, and gilding, and rich 
 coloring, are to me like the kaleidoscope, and no more ; and 
 these churches are almost as inferior to ours, in my judgment, 
 as their worship is to ours I saw these two lines painted on 
 the wall in the street to-day, near an image of the Virgin : 
 
 " Chi vuole in morte aver Gesu per Padre, 
 Onori in vita la sua Santa Madre." 
 
 I declare I do not know what name of abhorrence can be 
 too strong for a religion which, holding the very bread of life 
 in its hands, thus feeds the people with poison. I say " the 
 bread of life ; " for in some things the indestructible virtue of 
 Christ's Gospel breaks through all their pollutions of it ; and 
 I have seen frequent placards also but printed papers, not 
 printed on the walls, and therefore, perhaps, the work of some 
 individual. " Iddio ci vede. Eternita." This is a sort
 
 324 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of seed scattered by the wayside, which certainly would not 
 have been found in heathen Rome. 
 
 7 I fear that our countrymen, and especially our 
 
 unmarried countrymen, who live long abroad, are not in the 
 best possible moral state, however much they may do in sci- 
 ence and literature ; which comes back to my old opinion, 
 that such pursuits will not do for a man's main business, and 
 that they must be used in subordination to a clearly-perceived 
 Christian end, and looked upon as of most subordinate value, 
 or else they become as fatal as absolute idleness. In fact, the 
 house is spiritually empty, so long as the pearl of great price 
 is not there, although it may be hung with all the decorations 
 of earthly knowledge. But, in saying this I do not allude to 
 
 , but to a class ; I heard him say nothing amiss except 
 
 negatively ; and I have great reason to thank him for his 
 civility. But it is so delightful to meet with a man like Bun- 
 sen, with whom I know that all is right, that perhaps the con- 
 trast of those with whom I cannot feel the same certainty is 
 the more striking. 
 
 8. We found the Savignys at home, and I had some con- 
 siderable talk with Savigny about the Roman Law, which was 
 satisfactory to me on this account, that I found that I knew 
 enough of the subject to understand what its difficulties were, 
 and that in conversing with the most profound master of the 
 Roman Law in Europe, I found that I had been examining 
 the right sources of information. He thought that the Tribes 
 voted upon laws down to a late period of the Emperor's gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Rome, May, 1827. 
 
 9. Lastly, we ascended to the top of the Colosseum, Bun- 
 sen leaving us at the door, to go home ; and I seated myself 
 
 with , just above the main entrance, towards the Forum, 
 
 and there took my farewell look over Rome. It was a deli- 
 cious evening, and everything was looking to advantage ; the 
 huge Colosseum just under me, the tufts of ilex and aliter- 
 nus, and other shrubs that fringe the ruins everywhere in the 
 lower parts, while the outside wall, with its top of gigantic 
 stones, lifts itself high above, and seems like a mountain bar- 
 rier of bare rock, inclosing a green and varied valley, I sat 
 and gazed upon the scene with an intense and mingled feel- 
 ing. The world could show nothing grander ; it was one 
 which for years I had longed to see, and I was now looking
 
 APPENDIX D. 325 
 
 at it for the last time. I do not think you will be jealous, 
 dearest, if I confess that I could not take leave of it without 
 something of regret. Even with you and our darlings, I 
 would not live out of our dear country, to which I feel bound 
 alike by every tie of duty and affection ; and to be here a 
 vagrant, without you, is certainly very far from happiness. 
 Not for an instant would I prolong my absence from Laleham, 
 yet still I feel, at leaving Rome, very differently from what I 
 ever felt at leaving any other place not more endeared than 
 this is by personal ties ; and when I last see the dome of St. 
 Peter's, I shall seem to be parting from more than a mere 
 town full of curiosities, where the eye has been amused, and 
 the intellect gratified. I never thought to have felt thus 
 tenderly towards Rome ; but the inexpressible solemnity and 
 beauty of her ruined condition has quite bewitched me ; and 
 to the latest hour of my life I shall remember the Forum, the 
 surrounding hills, and the magnificent Colosseum. 
 
 In a Ferry-boat on the Po. May 16, 1827. 
 
 10. Here we are in our carriage in a great boat, with an- 
 other carriage alongside of us, in which is a priest of some 
 dignity, as I imagine, with two servants. The Po has been 
 uncivil to us, and first of all broke down the bridge of Pla- 
 centia, and obliged us to go round by Pavia, and then has 
 made such a flood that we cannot land at the usual place, but 
 are going to have a voyage of nearly a mile up the river. 
 The scene is very Trentish ; the wide and very dirty river ; 
 the exceedingly rich and fat plains ; the church towers on the 
 banks, and the exceeding clumsiness of the boats, so unlike 
 those of the Thames. Meanwhile I gain some time for Jour- 
 nal, which I am in great need of. The whole of yesterday 
 morning, from nine to half-past two, I spent in the Library at 
 Parma, collating Thucydides, At a little before four we left 
 Parma, and at a little before nine we reached Placentia. I 
 must not omit to mention the remarkable beauty of the fire- 
 flies last night, just as we entered Placentia. The wide 
 meadows before we reached the town were sparkling with the 
 shifting light of hundreds of these little creatures, whose 
 irregular movements and perpetual change resembled a fairy 
 dance, in which each elf carried a lamp in his hand, alter- 
 nately lighting and extinguishing it by magic power. I never 
 saw them before in such abundance. The change of climate 
 VOL. ii. 28
 
 326 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 from Rome is very perceptible. We have no olives here, and 
 few figs, and the flowers in the fields and hedges are mostly 
 the same as our own : though I still see our garden gladiolus 
 in the corn-fields, and the dog-roses are in full bloom. From 
 Placentia here we have been again on old ground, still the 
 great plain of Lombardy, which we have now followed for a 
 hundred and twenty miles without one hill, and we are 
 going to follow it for fifty more on the other bank of the Po 
 from here to Como. Its richness is apparently unequal, and 
 about Placentia it seems much inferior to what it is about 
 Bologna, Modena, and Reggio. We have just crossed about 
 three miles of the Sardinian dominions in our way to the Po : 
 and for this little bit we have again had trouble with the 
 Custom-House about my books : for it seems the Sardinian 
 government is afraid of light as well as its neighbors. There 
 has evidently been a great deal of rain here lately, and all 
 the streams from the Apennines are full. We should not 
 have been able to cross the Trebbia had there not been a 
 bridge built about two years since, and the same may be said 
 of the Taro. These increasing facilities of communication 
 are certainly very creditable to the governments, and of good 
 omen for the people ; as they may tend to give them some 
 activity of mind, and some knowledge of what is going on at 
 some little distance from their own homes ; and thus they may 
 in time be fit for liberty. But I cannot think that any good 
 and wise man can regret the failure of the Piedmontese and 
 Neapolitan revolutions of 1821. It would be a hopeless state 
 of things to see the half-informed and thoroughly unprincipled 
 lawyers, merchants, and literati of Italy put into the possession 
 of power. With Prussia the case is totally different ; but the 
 king there has done so much good, that we may hope favora- 
 bly of what he will do to make his people independent of the 
 personal character of their sovereign. Successors like him- 
 self he cannot reckon on ; and the true magnanimity of a 
 sovereign is to resign the exclusive power of doing good to 
 his people, and to be content that they should do it to them- 
 selves. By the way, I suppose it was this sentiment in my 
 
 Life of Trajan that found so shocking ; but be it so ; at 
 
 that rate I cannot write what will not be shocking, and 
 most ashamed I should be so to write as that such men should 
 approve of it. The Po has been now civil enough to redeem 
 his incivility, so I shall part with him on good terms.
 
 APPENDIX D. 327 
 
 On the mountain side, above the Lake of Como (second visit). 
 
 May 19, 1827. 
 
 11. I am now seated, dearest M , very nearly in the 
 
 same spot from which I took my sketch with in 1825 ; 
 
 and I am very glad to be here again, for certainly the steam- 
 boat had given no adequate impression of the beauties of this 
 lake, and I did not wish to go away from it admiring it less 
 than I did the last time. But now, seated under its chestnut 
 woods, and looking down upon its clear water, it appears as 
 beautiful as ever. Again I see the white sails specking it, and 
 the cliff running down sheer into it, and the village of Tomo 
 running out into it on its little peninsula, and Blevio nearer to 
 me, and the houses sometimes lining the water's edge, and some- 
 times clustering up amidst the chestnuts. How strange to be 
 sitting twice within two years in the same place, on the shores 
 of an Italian lake, and to be twice describing the selfsame 
 scenery. But now I feel to be taking a final leave of it, and 
 to be viewing the inexpressible beauty of these lakes for the 
 last time. And I am fully satisfied ; for their images will 
 remain forever in my memory, and one has something else 
 to do in life than to be forever running about after objects to 
 delight the eye or the intellect. " This, I say, brethren ; the 
 time is short ; " and how much is to be done in that time ! 
 May God, who has given me so much enjoyment, give me 
 grace to be duly active and zealous in His service ; that I 
 may make this relaxation really useful, and hallow it as His 
 gift, through Jesus Christ. May I not be idle or selfish, or 
 vainly romantic ; but sober, watchful, diligent, and full of love 
 to my brethren. 
 
 IV. TOUR IN GERMANY. 
 
 June 9, 1828. 
 
 1. Early this morning we left Aix, and came on to Cologne. 
 The country, which about Aix is very pretty, soon degenerates 
 into great masses of table-land, divided at long intervals by 
 the valley of the Roer, in which is Juliers, or Julich, where 
 we breakfasted, and that of the Ernst, in which is Bergheim. 
 All this was dull enough, but the weather meantime was 
 steadying and settling itself, and the distances were getting 
 very clear, and at last our table-land ended and sank down 
 into a plain, and from the edge of it, as we began to descend, 
 we burst upon the view of the valley of the Rhine, the city
 
 328 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 of Cologne, with all its towers, the Rhine itself distinctly seen 
 at the distance of seven miles, the Seven Mountains above 
 Bonn on our right, and a boundless sweep of the country 
 beyond the Rhine in front of us. To be sure, it was a strik- 
 ing contrast to the first view of the valley of the Tiber from 
 the mountain of Viterbo ; but the Rhine in mighty recollec- 
 tions will vie with anything, and this spot was particularly 
 striking : Cologne was Agrippa's colony inhabited by Ger- 
 mans, brought from beyond the river, to live as the subjects 
 of Rome ; the river itself was the frontier of the empire, 
 the limit as it were of two worlds, that of Roman laws and 
 customs, and that of German. Far before us lay the land of 
 our Saxon and Teutonic forefathers, the land uncorrupted 
 by Roman or any other mixture ; the birthplace of the most 
 moral races of men that the world has yet seen, of the 
 soundest laws, the least violent passions, and the fairest 
 domestic and civil virtues. I thought of that memorable * 
 defeat of Varus and his three legions, which forever confined 
 the Romans to the western side of the Rhine, and preserved 
 the Teutonic nation the regenerating element in modern 
 Europe safe and free. 
 
 On the Elbe, a little before sunset. July, 1828. 
 
 2. We are now near Pirna, that is, near the end of the 
 Saxon Switzerland ; the cliffs which here line the river on 
 both sides a wall of cliff rising out of wood, and crowned 
 with wood will in a very short time sink down into plains, 
 or at the best into gentle slopes, and the Elbe will wind 
 through one unvaried flat from this point till it reaches the 
 sea. There is to me something almost affecting in the strik- 
 ing analogy of rivers to the course of human life, and my 
 fondness for them makes me notice it more in them than in 
 any other objects in which it may exist equally. The Elbe 
 rises in plains; it flows through plains for some way; then 
 for many miles it runs through the beautiful scenery which 
 we have been visiting, and then it is plain again for all the 
 rest of its course. Even yet, dearest, and we have reached 
 our middle course in the ordinary run of life, how much more 
 favored have we been than this river ; for hitherto we have 
 gone on through nothing but a fair country, yet so far like 
 
 * This, and the defeat of the Moors by Charles Martel, he used to rank 
 as the two most important battles in the world.
 
 APPENDIX D. 329 
 
 the Elbe, that the middle has been the loveliest. And what 
 if our course is henceforth to run through plains as dreary as 
 those of the Elbe, for we are now widely separated, and I 
 may never be allowed to return to you ; and I know not what 
 may happen, or may even now have happened to you. Then 
 the river may be our comfort, for we are passing on as it 
 passes ; and we are going to the bosom of that Being who 
 sent us forth, even as the rivers return to the sea, the general 
 fountain of all waters. Thus much is natural religion, not 
 surely to be despised or neglected, though we have more 
 given us than anything which the analogy of nature can 
 parallel. For He who trod the sea, and whose path is in 
 the deep waters, has visited us with so many manifestations 
 of His grace, and is our God by such other high titles, greater 
 than that of creation, that to him who puts out the arm of 
 faith, and brings the mercies that are round him home to 
 his own particular use, how full of overflowing comfort must 
 the world be, even when its plains are the dreariest and lone- 
 liest ! Well may every one of Christ's disciples repeat to Him 
 the prayer made by His first twelve, " Lord increase our 
 faith ! " and well may He wonder as the Scripture applies 
 such a term to God that our faith is so little. Be it 
 strengthened in us, dearest wife, and hi our children, that 
 we may be all one, now and evermore, in Christ Jesus. 
 
 V. TOTTR IN SWITZERLAND AND NORTH OF ITALT. 
 
 July 16, 1829. 
 
 1. How completely is the Jura like Cithaeron, with its vdirat 
 and \cip.>i>es, and all that scenery which Euripides has given 
 to the life in the Bacchae. Immediately beyond the post- 
 house, at S. Cergues, the view opens, one that I never saw 
 surpassed, nor can I ever ; for if America should afford 
 scenes of greater natural beauty, yet the associations cannot 
 be the same. No time, to civilized man, can make the Andes 
 like the Alps ; another deluge alone could place them on a 
 level. There was the Lake of Geneva, with its inimitable 
 and indescribable blue, the whole range of the mountains 
 which bound its southern shore, the towns that edge its 
 banks, the rich plain between us and its waters, and im- 
 mediately around us, the pines and oaks of the Jura, and its 
 deep glens, and its thousand flowers, out of which we looked 
 on this paradise. 
 
 28*
 
 330 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Genoa, July 29, 1829. 
 
 2. Once again I am on the shore of the Mediterranean. I 
 saw it only from a distance when I was last in Italy, but now 
 I am once more on its very edge, and have been on it and in 
 it. True it is, that the Mediterranean is no more than a vast 
 mass of salt water, if people choose to think it so ; but it is also 
 the most magnificent thing in the world, if you choose to think 
 it so ; and it is as truly the latter as it is the former. And as 
 the pococurante temper is not the happiest, and that which 
 can admire heartily is much more akin to that which can love 
 heartily, 6 8e dya7rS>v, 6tca fj8r) opoios, so, my children, I wish 
 that if ever you come to Genoa, you may think the Mediter- 
 ranean to be more than any common sea, and may be unable 
 to look upon it without a deep stirring of delight. 
 
 On the Lake of Como, August 3, 1829. 
 
 3. I fancy how delightful it would be to bring one's family 
 and live here ; but, then, happily, I think and feel how little 
 such voluptuous enjoyment would repay for abandoning the 
 line of usefulness and activity which I have in England, and 
 how the feeling myself helpless and useless, living merely to 
 look about me, and training up my children in the same way, 
 would soon make all this beauty pall, and appear even weari- 
 some. But to see it as we are now doing, in our moments of 
 recreation, to strengthen us for work to come, and to gild with 
 beautiful recollections our daily life of home duties ; this, 
 indeed, is delightful, and is a pleasure which I think we may 
 enjoy without restraint. England has other destinies than 
 these countries, I use the word in no foolish or unchristian 
 sense, but she has other destinies ; her people have more 
 required of them ; with her full intelligence, her restless 
 activity, her enormous means and enormous difficulties ; her 
 pure religion and unchecked freedom ; her form of society, 
 with so much of evil, yet so much of good in it, and such im- 
 mense power conferred by it ; her citizens, least of all men, 
 should think of their own rest or enjoyment, but should cher- 
 ish every faculty and improve every opportunity to the utter- 
 most, to do good to themselves and to the world. Therefore 
 these lovely valleys, and this surpassing beauty of lake and 
 mountain, and garden and wood, are least, of all men, for us to 
 covet ; and our country, so entirely subdued as it is to man's 
 uses, with its gentle hills and valleys, its innumerable canals 
 and coaches, is best suited as an instrument of usefulness.
 
 APPENDIX D. 331 
 
 Zurich, August 7, 1829. 
 
 4. Once more I must recross the Alps, to Chiavenna, which 
 certainly is amongst the most extraordinary places I ever be- 
 held. Its situation resembles that of Aosta and Bellinzona, 
 and I think, if possible, it surpasses them both. The moun- 
 tains by which it is enclosed are formed of that hard dark 
 rock which is so predominant in the lower parts of the Alps 
 on the Italian side, and which gives them so decided a char- 
 acter. Above Chiavenna their height is unusually great, and 
 their magnificence, both in the ruggedness of their form and 
 the steepness of their cliffs, as in the gigantic size of the 
 fragments which they have thrown down into the valley, and 
 in the luxuriance of their chestnut woods, is of the very high- 
 est degree. The effect too is greater, because the valley is so 
 much narrower than that of the Ticino at Bellinzona, or of the 
 Dorea Baltea at Aosta ; in fact the stream is rather a torrent 
 than a river, but full and impetuous, and surprisingly clear, 
 although the snowy Alps from which it takes its source rise 
 at a very little distance; but their substance apparently is 
 harder than that of the Alps about Mont Blanc, and the tor- 
 rents, therefore, are far purer than the Dorea or the Arve. 
 In the very midst of the town of Chiavenna, now covered 
 with terrace walls and vineyards to its very summit, stands 
 an enormous fragment of rock, once detached from the neigh- 
 boring mountains, and rising to the height, I suppose, of seventy 
 or eighty feet. It was formerly occupied by a fortress built 
 on its top by the Spaniards, in their wars in the north of Italy ; 
 but it all looks quiet and peaceful now. Miss H., her brother, 
 and I wandered about before dinner to take a scramble amidst 
 the rocks and chestnuts. We followed a path between the 
 walls of the vineyards, wide enough for one person only, till 
 it led us out amid the rocks, and then continued to wind about 
 amongst them, leading to the little grotto-like dwellings which 
 were scattered amongst them, or built on to the enormous frag- 
 ments which cover the whole mountain side. On the tops of 
 these fragments, however, as well as between them, a vege- 
 tation of fine grass has contrived to establish itself, and the 
 chestnuts twist their knotty roots about in every direction till 
 they find some fissure by which they can strike down into the 
 soil. It is impossible, therefore, to picture anything more 
 beautiful than a scramble about these mountains. You are in 
 a wood of the most magnificent trees, shaded from the sun, yet 
 not treading on mouldering leaves or damp earth, but on a
 
 332 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 carpet of the freshest spring turf, rich with all sorts of flowers. 
 You have the softness of an upland meadow and the richness 
 of an English park, yet you are amidst masses of rock, now 
 rearing their steep sides in bare cliffs, now hung with the senna 
 and the broom, now carpeted with turf, and only showing their 
 existence by the infinitely varied form which they give to the 
 ground, the numberless deep dells, and green amphitheatres, 
 and deliciously smooth platforms, all caused by the ruins of 
 the mountain which have thus broken and studded its surface, 
 and are yet so mellowed by the rich vegetation which time 
 has given them, that they now only soften its character. 
 
 This to me unrivalled beauty of the chestnut woods was 
 very remarkable in two or three scenes which we saw the 
 next day ; one before we set out for the Splugen, when we 
 drove a little way up the valley of Chiavenna, to see a water- 
 fall. The fall was beautiful in itself, as all waterfalls must be, 
 but its peculiar charm was this, that instead of falling amidst 
 copsewood, as the falls in Wales and the north of England 
 generally do, or amidst mere shattered rocks, like that fine 
 one in the Valais near Martigny, here, on the contrary, the 
 water fell over a cliff of black rock into a deep rocky basin, 
 and then as it flowed down in its torrent it ran beneath a 
 platform of the most delicious grass, on which the great chest- 
 nut-trees stood about as finely as in an English park, and 
 rose almost to a level with the top of the fall, while the turf 
 underneath them was steeped in a perpetual dew from the 
 spray. The other scene was on the road to Isola, on the way 
 to the Splugen, in the valley of the Lina. It is rather a gorge 
 than a valley, so closely do the mountains approach one an- 
 other, while the torrent is one succession of falls. Yet jusi 
 in one place, where the road by a succession of zigzags had 
 wound up to the level of the top of the falls, and where the 
 stream was running for a short space as gentle and as limpid 
 as one of the clear rapid chalk streams of the South of Hamp- 
 shire, the turf sloped down gently from the road to the stream, 
 the great chestnut-trees spread their branches over it, and just 
 on its smooth margin was a little chapel, with those fresco 
 paintings on its walls which are so constant a remembrance of 
 Italy. Across the stream there was the same green turf and 
 the same chestnut shade, and if you did not lift up your eyes 
 high into the sky, to notice the barrier of insurmountable cliff 
 and mountain which surrounded you on each side, you would 
 have had no other images before you than those of the softest 
 and most delicate repose, and of almost luxurious enjoyment-
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 Champagne, August 12, 1829- 
 
 Between Brienne and Arcis the valley was full of villages, 
 and they were large and comfortable-looking, almost every 
 cottage having a good garden. These valleys in Champagne 
 are, on a small scale, what Egypt is on a large scale ; highly 
 cultivated, and with a crowded population along the streams, 
 because all the country on either side of the valley is an un- 
 inhabitable desert. Arcis is a very poor town, and from thence 
 to Chalons it was a country not to be paralleled, I suppose, in 
 civilized Europe, except it be in Castile in Spain. A waste 
 it was not, for it was all cultivated, but the dreariness of a 
 boundless view, all brown and dry, corn-fields either cleared or 
 ready for the harvest, without a tree or a green field, or a 
 house, was exceedingly striking, and Champagne is worth 
 seeing for the very surpassing degree of its ugliness. They 
 are, however,.in several places, beginning to plant firs, and if 
 this system be followed, the aspect as well as the value of the 
 country will be greatly improved. Chalons, at a distance 
 looks well ; and the green valley and fine stream of the Marne 
 are quite delicious to eyes accustomed to one brown extent of 
 plain or table-land during thirty miles. 
 
 VI. TOUR IN NORTH OF ITALY. 
 
 Chamberri, July 17, 1830. 
 
 1. The state of feeling displayed by , and the rest 'of 
 
 the party, filled me with thoughts that might make a volume. 
 It was, I fear, certainly unchristian and ultra-liberal ; look- 
 ing to war with very little dismay, but anxious to spread 
 everywhere what they considered liberal views, " les Idees du 
 
 Siecle," and so intolerant of anything old, that made it 
 
 a matter of reproach to our Government that Guernsey and 
 Jersey still retained their old Norman laws. They were 
 strongly An ti- Anglican, regarding England as the great enemy 
 to all improvement all over the world. Now as to mending 
 
 and , that is not our concern ; but for ourselves, it 
 
 did fill me with earnest thoughts of the fearful conflict that 
 must soon take place between the friends and enemies of the 
 old system of things, and the provoking intermixture of evil 
 in the latter, which makes it impossible to sympathize wholly 
 in their success. I was struck, too, with the total isolation of 
 England from the European world. We are considered like 
 the inhabitants of another planet, feared perhaps, and respected
 
 334 LIFE OF DB. ARNOLD. 
 
 in many points, but not loved, and in no respect understood or 
 sympathized with. And how much is our state the same with 
 regard to the Continent. How little do we seem to know, or 
 to value their feelings, how little do we appreciate or imi- 
 tate their intellectual progress Is it never to be that 
 
 men shall be at once Christians and really liberal and wise : 
 and shall the improvement of our social condition always be 
 left to unhallowed hands to effect it? I conclude with the 
 lament of the Persian noble : x$iVr' 68vvr) TroXXa tppo 
 fjaj8fvos KpaTffiv ; or rather, I should say, it would be, t' 
 oSvi/j;, did we not believe that there was One in whom infinite 
 wisdom was accompanied with infinite power ; and whose will 
 for us is that we should follow after what is good ourselves, 
 but should not wonder or be disappointed if " another take 
 the city and it be called after his name." There is a want of 
 moral wisdom among the Continental Liberals, as among their 
 opponents both abroad and at home, which makes one tremble 
 
 to follow such guides. I gave my Thucydides to ; would 
 
 that he could read it and profit by it ; for, sad to say, Thucydi- 
 des seems to me to have been not only a fairer and an abler 
 man, but one of a far sounder moral sense, and deeper prin- 
 ciple, than the modern Liberals. Between what a Scylla and 
 Charybdis does the state of society seem to be wavering, the 
 brute ignorance and coarse commonplace selfishness of the 
 Tories, and the presumption and intellectual fever of the 
 Liberals. " To the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks 
 foolishness ; but to them who believe, both Jews and Greeks, 
 CHRIST, the power of God, and the wisdom of God." 'A.p.})it 
 
 val fpx ov Kvpte 'l^croC. 
 
 Varese, July 24, 1830. 
 
 2. We arrived here, at the Star inn, the post, about a quar- 
 ter after five, got a hasty dinner, and and I were in our 
 
 carriage, or rather in a light cabriolet, hired for the purpose, 
 a little after six, to drive about two miles out, to the foot of 
 the mountain of S. Maria. At the foot of the mountain we 
 began to walk, the road being a sort of paved way round the 
 mountain in great zigzags, and passing by in the ascent about 
 twenty chapels or arches, introductory to the one at the sum- 
 mit. Over the first of these was written, " Her foundations 
 are upon the holy hills ; " and other passages of Scripture 
 were written over the succeeding ones. In one of these chap- 
 els, looking in through the window, we saw that it was full of 
 waxen figures as large as h'fe, representing the Apostles on
 
 APPENDIX D. 335 
 
 the day of Pentecost ; and in another there was a sepulchre 
 hewn out of the rock, and the Apostles coming, as on the 
 morning of the Resurrection, " to see the place where Jesus 
 lay." I confess, these waxen figures seemed to me anything 
 but absurd ; from the solemnity of the place altogether, and 
 from the goodness of the execution, I looked on them with no 
 disposition to laugh or to criticise. But what I did not expect 
 was the exceeding depth and richness of the chestnut shade, 
 through which the road partially ran, only coming out at 
 every turning to the extreme edge of the mountain, and so 
 commanding the view on every side. But when we got to the 
 summit we saw a path leading up to the green edge of a cliff 
 on the mountain above, and we thought if we could get there 
 we should probably see Lugano. Accordingly, on we walked ; 
 till just at sunset we got out to the crown of the ridge, the 
 brow of an almost precipitous cliff, looking down on the whole 
 mountain of S. Maria del Monte, which on this side presented 
 nothing but a large mass of rock and cliff, a perfect contrast 
 to the rich wood of its other side. But neither S. Maria del 
 Monte, nor the magnificent view of the plain of Lombardy 
 one mass of rich verdure, enlivened with its thousand white 
 houses and church-towers were the objects which we most 
 gazed upon. We looked westward full upon the whole range 
 of mountains, behind which, in a cloudless sky, the sun had 
 just descended. It is utterly idle to attempt a description of 
 such a scene. I counted twelve successive mountain outlines 
 between us and the farthest horizon ; and the most remote of 
 all, the high peaks of the Alps, were brought out strong and 
 dark in the glowing sky behind them, so that their edge seemed 
 actually to cut it. Immediately below our eyes, plunged into 
 a depth of chestnut forest, varied as usual with meadows and 
 villages, and beyond, embosomed amidst the nearer mountains, 
 lay the Lake of Lugano. As if everything combined to make 
 the scene perfect, the mountain on which we stood was cov- 
 ered, to my utter astonishment, with the Daphne Cneorum, 
 and I found two small pieces in flower to ascertain the fact, 
 although generally it was out of bloom. We stood gazing on 
 the view, and hunting about to find the Daphne in flower, till 
 the shades of darkness were fast rising ; then we descended 
 from our height, went down the mountain of S. Maria, refresh- 
 ing ourselves on the way at one of the delicious fountains which 
 are made beside the road, regained our carriage at the foot of 
 the mountain , and, though we had left our coats and neck-
 
 336 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 cloths at Varese before we started, and were hot through and 
 through with the skirmish, yet the soft air of these summer 
 nights had nothing chilly in it, and we were only a little re- 
 freshed by the coolness during our drive home. I now look 
 out on a sky bright with its thousand stars, and have observed 
 a little summer lightning behind the mountains. If any one 
 wishes for the perfection of earthly beauty, he should see such 
 a sunset as we saw this evening (from the mountain above S. 
 Maria del Monte. 
 
 Mule track above the Lake of Como, under the chestnuts, 
 July 25, 1830. (Third visit) 
 
 3. Once more, dearest M , for the third time seated 
 
 under these delicious chestnuts, and above this delicious lake, 
 with the blue sky above, and the green lake beneath, and 
 Monte Rosa and the S. Gothard, and the Simplon rearing 
 their snowy heads in the distance. It would be a profanation 
 of this place to use it for common journal ; I came out here 
 
 with partly to enjoy the association which this lake in a 
 
 peculiar manner has connected with it to my mind. Last 
 year it did not signify that I was not here, for you were with 
 me ; but, with you absent, I should have grieved to have 
 visited Como, and not have come to this sweet spot I see 
 no change in the scenery since I was last here in 1827, and I 
 feel very little, if any, in myself. Yet for me, " summer is 
 now ebbing ; " since I was here last, I have passed the middle 
 point of man's life, and it is hardly possible that I should be 
 here again without feeling some change. If we were here 
 with our dear children, that itself would be a change, and I 
 hardly expect to be again on this very spot, without having 
 them. But what matters, or rather what should matter change 
 or no change, so that the decaying body and less vigorous in- 
 tellect were but accompanied with a more thriving and more 
 hopeful life of the spirit ? It is almost awful to look at the 
 overwhelming beauty around me, and then think of moral 
 evil ; it seems as if heaven and hell, instead of being separated 
 by a great gulf from one another, were absolutely on each 
 other's confines, and indeed not far from every one of us. 
 Might the sense of moral evil be as strong in me as my de- 
 light in external beauty, for in a deep sense of moral evil, 
 more perhaps than in anything else, abides a saving knowledge 
 of God ! It is not so much to admire moral good ; that we 
 may do, and yet not be ourselves conformed to it ; but if we
 
 APPENDIX D. 337 
 
 really do abhor that which is evil, not the persons in whom 
 evil resides, but the evil which dwelleth in them, and much 
 more manifestly and certainly to our own knowledge, in our 
 own hearts, this is to have the feeling of God and of Christ, 
 and to have our spirit in sympathy with the Spirit of God. 
 Alas ! how easy to see this and say it, how hard to do it and 
 to feel it ! Who is sufficient for these things ? No one, but 
 he who feels and really laments his own insufficiency. God 
 bless you, my dearest wife, and our beloved children, now 
 and evermore, through Christ Jesus. 
 
 July 29, 1830. 
 
 4. The Laquais de Place, at Padua, was a good one of his 
 kind, and, finding that his knowledge of French was much 
 less than mine of Italian, if that be possible, we talked wholly 
 in Italian. He said that the taxes were now four times as 
 heavy as under the old Venetian government, or under the 
 French. He himself, when a young man, had volunteered 
 into the republican army, after the overthrow of the Venetian 
 aristocracy in 1797, and had fought at Marengo, where he 
 was wounded. He said they had in Padua a Casa di Rico- 
 vero, or asylum for the infirm and infant poor ; and here also, 
 he said, relief was given to men in full age and vigor, when 
 they were thrown out of employment. I asked how it was 
 supported. He said, chiefly by bequests ; for whenever a 
 man of property died, the priest who attended him never failed 
 to suggest to him that he should leave something to the Casa 
 di Ricovero ; and he seemed to think it almost a matter of 
 course that such a recommendation should be attended to. It 
 seems then, that in the improved state of society, the influence 
 of the Catholic clergy is used for purposes of general charity, 
 and not for their own advantage ; and who would not wish 
 that our clergy dared to exercise something of the same influ- 
 ence over our higher classes, and could prevent that most un- 
 christian spirit of family selfishness and pride, by which too 
 many wills of our rich men are wholly dictated ? But our 
 Church bears, and has ever borne, the marks of her birth. 
 The child of regal and aristocratical selfishness and unprin- 
 cipled tyranny, she has never dared to speak boldly to the 
 great, but has contented herself with lecturing to the poor. " I 
 will speak of thy testimonies even before kings, and will not 
 be ashamed," is a text which the Anglican Church, as a 
 29 V
 
 338 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 national institution, seems never to have caught the spirit of. 
 Folly, and worse than folly is it, to think that preaching what 
 are called orthodox doctrines before the great is really preach- 
 ing to them the Gospel. Unless the particular conclusions 
 which they should derive from those doctrines be impressed 
 upon them; unless they are warned against the particular 
 sins to which they are tempted by their station in society, and 
 urged to the particular duties which their political and social 
 state requires of them, the Gospel will be heard without 
 offence, and, therefore, one may almost say, without benefit. 
 Of course I do not mean offence at the manner in which it is 
 preached, nor offence indeed, at all in the common sense of the 
 word ; but a feeling of soreness that they are touched by what 
 they hear, a feeling which makes the conscience uneasy, be- 
 cause it cannot conceal from itself that its own practice is 
 faulty. 
 
 Latsch, August 3, 1830. 
 
 5. In the market-place at Meran there is a large statue of 
 the Virgin, to commemorate two deliverances from the French, 
 in 1796 and in 1799, when the enemy on one occasion came 
 as far as Botzen, and on the other as far as Glurns and Eyers. 
 But this is so exactly a thing after the manner of Herodotus, 
 that I must for a few lines borrow his language. 
 
 "Ear?;** 8e eV p.eo~rj 777 dyoprj ayoX/xa v\ivov 'A0f)irr}s d\fiKaKov ' 
 e<rri 8e roayaX/ta KOI ypa(prj Kal epya> flKao~p*vov Kal 777 p.tv Kpa\fj 
 TTJS Beov TTfpiKffTai OT((f)avos daTepcoi>, 777 8e OTT]\r} TroXXa eViye'ypa- 
 TTTCU, rrjv atTirjv TOV dvaOrnMTOS d7ro8fiKVVfi,eva. *Hv yap irort ptyas 
 dvd ndo-av, a>s ttTTflv, ~Evpa>irr}v rrdXe/xos' o~v)(va.l 8e tytvovro TroXewi/ 
 avacrrdtrtes, en Se /xaXXoi/ dypu>v Sijaxrfis Kal dv6pu>7ru>v <povoi. 'Ev 
 p.fv 2>v Tovrw TO) 7roXe'/io) /leyitrra 8^ Trdvrav (pya dTTf8tavro ol FaXd- 
 TU (cat 1ro\vs firfxeiTo ird(rr)<Ti 1770-1 Trfpia>KT)fjVT)(ri ir6\i(Tiv 6 an' 
 avrcjv KLv8vvos- OVTOI ol FaXdrat Avcrrpidvois fTro\tfju>vv TOV 8e 
 Avorpidvaiv ftao~i\eos TO TipcaXiKov tdvos TJV VTTTJKOOV. Ol fit Aixrrpi- 
 avoi Tro\\fj<Tiv rj8r) pdxjlo~i vu(T)dti>TfS, KUKUS eTratr^ov Kal irtpl TT/S 
 e'avrcbi/ dp)(T)s ^8r) KadiaraTo 6 dyu>v. Kal TTJS p.fv TtpwXi'So? yei/i/aiW 
 i>irfpfid\ovTO ol eVt^wpioi, ir\r)6tt. Se v7Tfp^a\\6/j.fvoi TOVS FaXdras ts 
 TTJV X<j*pr)v fo-fSfKovro. OvTOi fie TO. p.(v aXXa drjtoO-avTfS ft TTJV TUIV 
 Mfpdvwv OIIK d(piKOvro, tire o~wrv)(ij] TIVI, fiTf TTJS 6eov OVTU> 8iaOfi- 
 crrjs* 'AXXd ye 01 Mepavoi fs dflov TI dva(f)f points TO Trpijy^ia, jcal ov 
 Tv-^rj paXXof fj 6e<av evvoiq aotdrivai Tore f)yovp.fvoi, TO re ayaXfia rrj 
 6f<o dv(6r)Kav, Kal en fs TO vvv atel, us 5t' OVTTJV irfpiyiyvopevut, 810-
 
 APPENDIX D. 339 
 
 August 11, 1830. 
 
 My dearest M , this book [a new MS. volume of the 
 
 journal] ought surely to begin with good omens, as it begins 
 on our wedding-day. How much of happiness and of cause 
 for the deepest thankfulness is contained in the recollections 
 of this day ; for in the ten years that have elapsed since our 
 marriage, there has been condensed, I suppose, as great a 
 portion of happiness, with as little alloy, as ever marked any 
 ten years of human existence. It is impossible to look back, 
 and to look forwards, without some feelings of awe and appre- 
 hension ; for the future cannot be more full of earthly happi- 
 ness than the past, and, in all human probability, must, in one 
 way or another, be less so. Perhaps it is best that it should 
 be ; for one cannot help feeling the enormous disproportion 
 between desert and blessing ; and though this is not a true 
 feeling, for desert has nothing to do with it, yet the unfitness 
 for blessings is a real and just consideration ; a sickly state 
 cannot bear such delicious fare ; a constitution that has so 
 much to struggle with should be braced with a harder disci- 
 pline for the conflict. And yet how vain would any such con- 
 siderations be to alleviate the actual misery of a change : 
 then nothing could, I think, tend so much to support me as 
 the simple consideration of Christ's example. He pleased 
 not Himself, nor entered into His rest till He had gone 
 through the worst extremity of evil. Perhaps, however, the 
 best way of taking such anniversaries as this is, not by specu- 
 lating on the future, or on how we could bear a change, but 
 by remembering now, in our season of happiness, that it is but 
 an earnest of more, if we receive it with true thankfulness, 
 and that, let come what will, all will work to good if, while it 
 is day, we labor to work the work that is set before us. May 
 I remember this ; and remember, too, that God's work is to 
 believe on Him whom He hath sent : that is, not only to do 
 my earthly business honestly and zealously, but to do it as a 
 Christian, humbly and piously, not trusting in any degree 
 in myself, but laboring for that strength which is made most 
 perfect in him who feels his own weakness. God bless u; 
 
 both, my dearest M , and our dearest children, through 
 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
 [This account of his visit to Niebuhr, being written in the 
 carriage on the journeys of the subsequent days, was inter- 
 spersed with remarks on the route, which have been omitted.]
 
 340 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 August, 1830. 
 
 7 In person Niebuhr is short, not above five feet 
 
 six, or seven, I should think, at the outside ; his face is thin, 
 and his features rather pointed, his eyes remarkably lively 
 and benevolent His manner is frank, sensible, and kind, 
 and what Bunsen calls the Teutonic character of benevolence 
 is very predominant about him, yet with nothing of what 
 Jeffrey called, on the other hand, the beer-drinking heaviness 
 of a mere Saxon. He received me very kindly, and we 
 talked in English, which he speaks very well, on a great num- 
 ber of subjects. I was struck with his minute knowledge of 
 the text and MSS. of Thucydides, and with his earnest hope, 
 several times repeated, that we might never do away with 
 the system of classical education in England. I told him of 
 
 's nonsense about Guernsey and Jersey, at which he was 
 
 very much entertained, but said that it did not surprise him. 
 He said that he was now much more inclined to change old 
 institutions than he had been formerly, but " possibly," said 
 he, " I may see reason in two or three years to go back more 
 to my old views." Yet he anticipated no evil consequences 
 to the peace of Europe, even from a Republic in France, for 
 he thought that all classes of people had derived benefit from 
 experience. 
 
 Niebuhr spoke with great admiration of our former great 
 men, Pitt and Fox, &c., and thought that we were degener- 
 ated ; and he mentioned as a very absurd thing a speech of 
 
 , who visited him at Bonn, that if those men were now 
 
 to come to life, they would be thought nothing of with our 
 present lights in political economy. Niebuhr asked me with 
 much interest about my plans of religious instruction at 
 Rugby, and said that in their Protestant schools the business 
 began daily with the reading and expounding a chapter in 
 the New Testament. He spoke of the Catholics in Prussia, 
 as being very hypocritical, that is, having no belief beyond 
 outward profession. Bunsen, he said, was going to publish a 
 collection of German hymns for the Church service. Their 
 literature is very rich in hymns in point of quantity, no fewer 
 than 36,000, and out of these Bunsen is going to collect the 
 best. Niebuhr's tone on these matters quite satisfied me, and 
 made me feel sure that all was right He spoke with great 
 admiration of Wordsworth's poetry. He often protested that 
 he was no revolutionist, but he said, though he would have 
 given a portion of his fortune that Charles X. should have gov-
 
 APPENDIX D. 341 
 
 erned constitutionally, and so remained on the throne, " yet," 
 said he, " after what took place, I would myself have joined 
 the people in Paris, that is to say, I would have given them 
 my advice and direction, for I do not know that I should have 
 done much good with a musket." Niebuhr spoke of Mr. 
 Pitt, that to his positive knowledge, from unpublished State 
 Papers, which he had seen, Pitt had remonstrated most 
 warmly against the coalition at Pilnitz, and had been unwill- 
 ingly drawn into the war to gratify George III. My account 
 of Niebuhr's conversation has been sadly broken, and I am 
 afraid I cannot recollect all that I wish to recollect. He said 
 that he once owed his life to Louis Bonaparte, who interceded 
 with Napoleon when he was going to have Niebuhr shot ; 
 and promised Niebuhr that, if he could not persuade his 
 brother, he would get him twenty-four hours' notice, and 
 furnish him with the means of escaping to England. After 
 this Niebuhr met Louis at Rome, and he said that he did not 
 well know how to address him ; but he thought that the service 
 which he had received from him might well excuse him for 
 addressing him as " Sire." He asked me into the drawing- 
 room to drink tea, and introduced me to his wife. Niebuhr's 
 children also were in the room, four girls and a boy, with a 
 young lady, who, I believe, was their governess. They struck 
 me as very nice mannered children, and it was very delight- 
 ful to see Niebuhr's affectionate manner to them and to his 
 wife. While we were at tea, there came in a young man 
 with the intelligence that the Duke of Orleans had been pro- 
 claimed king, and Niebuhr's joy at the news was quite enthu- 
 siastic. He had said before, that in the present state of 
 society, a Republic was not to his taste, and that he earnestly 
 hoped that there would be no attempt to revive it in France. 
 He went home with me to my inn, and when I told him what 
 pleasure it would give me to see any of his friends in Eng- 
 land, he said that there was a friend of his, a nobleman, who was 
 thinking of sending his son to be educated in England. The 
 father and mother, he said, were pious and excellent people, 
 and devoted to the improvement of their tenantry in every 
 respect, and they wished their son to be brought up in the 
 same views. And Niebuhr said that if this young man came 
 to England, he should be very happy to avail himself of my 
 offer. And he expressed his hope that you and I might be at 
 Bonn again some day together, and that he might receive us 
 under his own roof. He expressed repeatedly his great affec- 
 
 29*
 
 842 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 tion for England, saying that his father had accustomed him 
 from a boy to read the English newspapers, in order that he 
 might early learn the opinions and feelings of Englishmen. 
 On the whole, I was most delighted with my visit, and thought 
 it altogether a great contrast to the fever and excitement 
 
 of . The moral superiority of the German character in 
 
 this instance was very striking : at the same time I owe it to 
 the French to say, that now that I have learnt the whole story of 
 the late revolution, I am quite satisfied of the justice of their 
 cause, and delighted with the heroic and admirable manner 
 in which they have conducted themselves. How different 
 from even the beginning of the first* Revolution, and how sat- 
 isfactory to find that in this instance the lesson of experience 
 seems not to have been thrown away. 
 
 August, 1830. 
 
 8. The aspect of Germany is certainly far more pleasing 
 than that of France, and the people more comfortable. I 
 cannot tell whether it really is so, but I cannot but wonder at 
 Guizot placing France at the head of European civilization : 
 he means because it is superior to Germany in social civiliza- 
 tion, and to England in producing more advanced and en- 
 larged individual minds. Many Englishmen will sneer at 
 this notion, but I think it is to a certain degree well founded, 
 and that our intellectual eminence in modern times by no 
 means keeps pace with our advances in all the comforts and 
 effectiveness of society. And I have no doubt that our mis- 
 erable system of education has a great deal to do with it. I 
 maintain that our historians ought to be twice as good as 
 those of any other nation, because our social civilization is 
 
 perfect Then, again, our habits of active h'fe give 
 
 our minds an enormous advantage, if we would work ; but 
 we do not, and therefore the history of our own country is at 
 this day a thing to be done, as well as the histories of Greece 
 and Rome. Foreigners say that our insular situation cramps 
 and narrows our minds ; and this is not mere nonsense either. 
 If we were not physically a very active people, our disunion 
 from the Continent would make us pretty nearly as bad as the 
 Chinese. As it is, we are so distinct in habits and in feelings, 
 owing originally in great measure to our insular situation, that 
 I remember observing in 1815, that the English stood alone 
 amidst all the nations assembled at Paris, and that even our 
 fellow-subjects, the Hanoverians, could understand and sym-
 
 APPENDIX D. 343 
 
 pathize with the French better than with us. Now it is very 
 true that by our distinctness we have gained very much, 
 more than foreigners can understand. A thorough English 
 gentleman, Christian, manly, and enlightened, is more, I 
 believe, than Guizot or Sismondi could comprehend ; it is a 
 finer specimen of human nature than any other country, I 
 believe, could furnish. Still, it is not a perfect specimen by a 
 great deal ; and therefore it will not do to contemplate our- 
 selves only, or, contenting ourselves with saying that we are 
 better than others, scorn to amend our institutions by compar- 
 ing them with those of other nations. Our travellers and our 
 exquisites imitate the outside of foreign customs without dis- 
 crimination, just as in the absurd fashion of not eating fish 
 with a knife, borrowed from the French, who do it because 
 they have no knives fit for use. But monkeyish imitation 
 will do no good ; what is wanted is a deep knowledge and 
 sympathy with the European character and institutions, and 
 then there would be a hope that we might each impart to the 
 other that in which we are superior. 
 
 VII. TOUR IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 July, 1831. 
 
 1 . T was at Church (at Greenock) twice on Sunday, once 
 at the Presbyterian Church, and once at the Episcopal 
 Chapel. My impressions, received five years ago, were again 
 renewed and strengthened as to the merits of the Presby- 
 terian Church and our own. The singing is to me delightful, 
 I do not mean the music, but the heartiness with which all 
 the congregation join in it. And I exceedingly like the local 
 and particular prayers and addresses which the freedom of 
 their services allows the minister to use. On the other hand, 
 the people should be protected from the tediousness or dul- 
 ness of their minister ; and that is admirably effected by a 
 Liturgy, and especially by such a Liturgy as ours. As to the 
 repetitions in our Service, they arise chiefly from Land's 
 folly in joining two services into one ; but the repetition of 
 the Lord's Prayer I can hardly think objectionable ; not that 
 I would contend for it, but neither would I complain of it. 
 Some freedom in the Service the minister certainly should 
 have ; some power of insertion to suit the particular time and 
 place ; some power of explaining on the spot whatever is read 
 from the Scriptures, which may require explanation, or at 
 any rate of stating the context. It does seem to me that tha
 
 344 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 reforms required in our Liturgy and Service are so obvious, 
 and so little affect the system itself, that their long omission is 
 doubly blamable. But more remains behind, and of far 
 greater difficulty : to make the Church at once popular and 
 dignified, to give the people their just share in its govern- 
 ment, without introducing a democratical spirit, to give the 
 Clergy a thorough sympathy with their flocks, without al- 
 together lowering their rank and tone. When Wesley said 
 to his minister, that they had no more to do with being gentle- 
 men than with being dancing-masters, TO /zei> op6u>s fine, TO & 
 ijiMpTfv. In Christ's communication with His Apostles there 
 is always a marked dignity and delicacy, a total absence of 
 all that coarseness and vulgarity into which Wesley's doctrine 
 would infallibly lead us. Yet even in Christ, the Lord and 
 Master of His Disciples, there is a sympathy, which is a 
 very different thing from condescension, a spirit of unaffected 
 kindness, and, I had almost said, of sociability which the spirit 
 of gentlemanliness has doubtless greatly dulled in the Church 
 of England. "I have called you friends," is a text which 
 applies to the Christian minister in his dealings with his 
 brethren and equals, in an infinitely stronger degree than it 
 could do to Him, who was our Lord and Master, and whose 
 calling us brethren was not of nature, but out of the conde- 
 scension of His infinite love. And he who shall thus far 
 keep and thus far get rid of the spirit of gentlemanliness, 
 would go near to make the Church of England all but perfect, 
 no less in its popularity than in its real deserving of popu- 
 larity, Kai irtpl fjitv TOVTWV flprja-da) firi ToeroOro, ai/et/it 8< tirl TOV 
 ava> \6yov. 
 
 July, 1831. 
 
 2. Again (at Glasgow) the Scotch minister's sermon struck 
 me as addressed more ad clerum than ad populum ; and again 
 more than ever I felt the superiority of our Service. I can- 
 not say how doubly welcome and impressive I thought the 
 Lord's Prayer, when the minister (to my surprise, by the way) 
 used it before the sermon. Nothing, it seems to me, can be 
 worse than the introductory prayers of the Scotch Service, 
 to judge from what I have hitherto heard : the intercessory 
 prayer after the sermon is far simpler, and there the dis- 
 cretion given to the ministers is often happily used. But 
 altogether, taking their Service as it is, and ours as it is, 1 
 would far rather have our own ; how much more, therefore, 
 with the slight improvements which we so easily might introi
 
 APPENDIX D. 345 
 
 duce if only But even to the eleventh hour we will 
 
 not reform, and therefore we shall be not, I fear, reformed, 
 but rudely mangled or overthrown by men as ignorant in 
 their correction of abuses as some of us are in their main- 
 tenance of them. Periodical visitations of extreme severity 
 have visited the Church and the world at different times, but 
 to no human being is it given to anticipate which will be the 
 final one of all. Only the lesson in all of them is the same. 
 " If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly 
 and the sinner appear ? " And in each of these successive 
 " comings " of our Lord, how little is the faith which He has 
 found even among His professed followers ! May He increase 
 this faith in me, and those who are dearest to me, ere it be too 
 late forever! 
 
 VIII. TOUR IN FRANCE. 
 
 Dover, August 11, 1837. 
 
 1. Twenty and twenty-two years ago I was backwards and 
 forwards at this place, being then a young man with no wife 
 or children, but with a mother whose house was my home, 
 with a brother, aunt, and sisters. Ten, eight, and seven years 
 ago, I used to be also passing often through here ; I had then 
 lost my dear brother, and latterly my dearest mother, and I 
 had a wife and children ; I had also a sister living here with 
 her husband and children. Now, after another period of seven 
 years, I am here once more ; with no mother or aunt, with no 
 remains left of my early home ; my sister who did live here 
 has lost her husband, and now lives at Rugby ; but I have not 
 only my dearest wife with me, but a more advanced stage 
 of life three dear children are with us, and their pens are 
 all busy with their journals like their mother's and mine. So 
 Dover marks very strikingly the several periods of my life, 
 and shows me how large a portion of my space here I have 
 already gone through. 
 
 Then for the world at large. When I first came here, it 
 was so soon after Napoleon's downfall, that I remember hear- 
 ing from one of the passengers in the packet the first tidings 
 of Labedoyere's execution. At my second and third visits, 
 the British army still occupied the North of France. My 
 second period of coming here, from 1825 to 1830, marked 
 the last period of the old Bourbon reign in France, and the 
 old Tory reign in England. When I first landed here, it was
 
 346 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 in the brief interval between the French and Belgian Revo- 
 lutions; it was just after the triumphant election of 1830 in 
 England, which overthrew the ministry of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, and led to the Reform Bill. And now we seem to be 
 witnessing the revival of Toryism in England, perhaps of the 
 old Bourbon principles in part of France. The tide is turned, 
 and will advance no higher till the next flood ; let us only 
 hope that its ebb will not be violent ; and in the meanwhile 
 our neighbors have got rid of the white flag, and we have got 
 rid of the rotten boroughs of Schedule A. This is a clear 
 gain ; it is a question whether the positive good which either 
 of us have gained, is equal to the positive evil which we have 
 destroyed; but still in the course of this world, Seeva the 
 destroyer is ever needed, and in our imperfect state, the very 
 deliverance from evil is a gratification and a good. 
 
 On Saturday last we were at our delicious Westmoreland 
 home, at that dear Fox How, which I love beyond all other 
 spots of ground in the world, and expatiating on the summit 
 of our familiar Fairfield. There, on a cloudless sky, we were 
 beholding the noble outline of all our favorite mountains: 
 The Old Man, Wetherlam, Bow Fell, Sea Fell, Great Gable, 
 the Langdale Pikes, the Pillar, Grassmoor, Helvellyn, Place 
 Fell, High Street, Hill Bell ; there we saw Ulleswater and 
 Coniston, and our own Winandermere, and there too we looked 
 over a wide expanse of sea of the channel which divides 
 England from Ireland. On Tuesday last we were at our dear 
 Rugby home ; seeing the long line of our battlements and our 
 well-known towers backed by the huge elms of the school- 
 field, which far overtopped them; and looking on the deep 
 shade which those same elms, with their advanced guard of 
 smaller trees and shrubs, were throwing over the turf of our 
 quiet garden. And now, on Friday morning, we are at an inn 
 at Dover, looking out on the castle and white cliffs which are 
 so linked with a thousand recollections; beholding the sea, 
 which is the highway from all the life of England to all the 
 life of Europe, and beyond there stretches out the dim line of 
 darker shadow which we know to be the very land of France. 
 
 And besides, in this last week, I have been at an Election ; 
 one of those great occasions of good or evil which are so largely 
 ministered to Englishmen ; an opportunity for so much energy, 
 for so much rising beyond the mere selfishness of domestic 
 interests, and the narrowness of mere individual or local pur- 
 suits ; but an opportunity also for every base and bad passion,
 
 APPENDIX D. 347 
 
 for corruption, for fear, for tyranny, for malignity. Such is an 
 election, and such is all human life ; and those who rail against 
 these double-handed appointments of God, because they have 
 an evil handle as well as a good,* may desire the life of the 
 Seven Sleepers, for then only can opportunities of evil be 
 taken from us, when we lose all opportunities of doing or 
 of becoming good. However, even as an occasion of evil, 
 there is no doubt that our elections are like an inoculating for 
 a disorder, and so mitigating ; the party spirit and the feuds 
 which now spend themselves in bloodless contests, would, if 
 these were away, find a far more deadly vent ; they solve that 
 great problem how to excite a safe and regulated political 
 activity. 
 
 We also in the course of the week have been travelling 
 on the great railway from Manchester to Birmingham. The 
 distance is ninety-five miles, which we accomplished in five 
 hours. Nothing can be more delightful, as well as more con- 
 venient. It was very beautiful, too, to be taken, as it were, into 
 the deepest retirement of the country, surprising lone farm- 
 houses and out-lying copses with the rapid darting by of a 
 hundred passengers, yet leaving their quiet unbroken ; for no 
 houses have as yet gathered on the line of the railway, and 
 no miscellaneous passers at all times of the day and night 
 serve to keep it ever in public. Only at intervals, four or 
 five times a day, there rushes by the long train of carriages, 
 and then all is as quiet as before. 
 
 We also passed through London, with which I was once so 
 familiar, and which now I almost gaze at with the wonder of 
 a stranger. That enormous city, grand beyond all other 
 earthly grandeur, sublime with the sublimity of the sea or of 
 mountains, is yet a place that I should be most sorry to call 
 my home. In fact its greatness repels the notion of home; 
 it may be a palace, but it cannot be a home. How different 
 from the mingled greatness and sweetness of our mountain 
 valleys ; and yet he who were strong in body and mind, 
 ought to desire rather, if he must do one, to spend all his life 
 in London, than all his life in Westmoreland. For not yet can 
 
 * " The Epicureans," he said, " did not meddle with politics, that they 
 might be as quiet as possible from the strife of tongues. There are good 
 people who do this now , remaining in willing ignorartce of what is going on. 
 But the mischief is, they cannot set their passions to sleep as they can their 
 Understanding ; and when they do come to interfere, they are violent and 
 prejudiced in proportion to their ignorance. Such meu', to be consistent, 
 ihould live like Simon Styiices."
 
 848 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 energy and rest be united in one, and this is not our time and 
 place for rest, but for energy. 
 
 Chartres, August, 1837. 
 
 2 Chartres was a very fine termination of our 
 
 tour. We stopped at the Hotel du Grand Monarque, on an 
 open space just at the outside of the town, and from thence 
 immediately made our way to the Cathedral. The high tower, 
 so celebrated all over France, is indeed remarkably beautiful, 
 but the whole church far surpassed my expectations. The 
 portails of both transepts are rich in figures as large as life, 
 like the great portail at Rheims ; the rose-windows over them 
 are very rich, and the windows all over the church are most 
 rich in painted glass. The size is great, a very essential 
 element, I think, in the merits of a cathedral, and all the 
 back of the choir was adorned with groups of figures in very 
 high relief, which had an extremely fine effect. These are 
 all the proper and perpetual beauties of Chartres Cathedral ; 
 but we happen to see it on the Festival of the Assumption, 
 when the whole church was full of people in every part, when 
 the service was going on in the choir, and the whole building 
 was ringing with the peals of the organ, and with the voices 
 of the numerous congregation. Unchristian as was the ser- 
 vice, so that one could have no sympathy with it in itself, yet 
 it was delightful to contrast the crowded state of the huge 
 building, nave, transepts, and aisles, all swarming with peo- 
 ple, and the sharing of all in the service, with the naked- 
 ness of our own cathedrals, where all, except the choir, is 
 now merely a monument of architecture. There is no more 
 provoking confusion to my mind than that which is often made 
 between the magnificence and beauty of the Romish Church 
 and its superstitions. No one abhors more than I do the 
 essence of Popery, i. e. Priestcraft ; or the setting up a quan- 
 tity of human mediators, interpreters, between God and man. 
 But this is retained by those false Protestants who call them- 
 selves High Churchmen ; while they have sacrificed of Popery 
 only its better and more popular parts ; its beauty and its im- 
 pressiveness. On the other hand, the Puritans and Evangeli- 
 cals, whilst they disclaim Popery, undervalue the authority 
 and power of the Church, not of the Clergy, and have a bibli- 
 olatry, especially towards the Old Testament, quite as foolish 
 and as mischievous as the superstition of the Catholics. The 
 open churches, the varied services, the beautiful solemnities,
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 the processions, the Calvaries, the crucifixes, the appeals to 
 the eye and ear through which the heart is reached most 
 effectually, have no natural connection with superstition. 
 People forget that Christian worship is in its essence spiritual, 
 that is, it depends for its efficacy on no circumstances of 
 time or place or form, but that Christianity itself has given 
 us the best helps towards making our worship spiritual to us, 
 that is, sincere and lively, by the visible images and signs 
 which it has given us of God and of heavenly things, namely, 
 the Person of the Man Christ Jesus, and the Sacraments. 
 
 To forbear, therefore, from all use of the Humanity of 
 Christ, as an aid to our approaching in heart to the Invisi- 
 ble Father, is surely to forfeit one of the merciful purposes 
 of the Incarnation, and to fall a little into that one great ex- 
 treme of error, the notion that man can either in his under- 
 standing, or in his heart, approach to the Eternal and Invisi- 
 ble God, without the aid of a /^ea-tVqr, or " interpres ; " (the 
 English word, " Mediator," has become so limited in its sense 
 that it does not reach to the whole extent of the case,) we 
 want not an interpreter only, but a medium of communica- 
 tion, some middle point, in which the intelligible may 
 unite with the perfections of the unintelligible, and so may 
 prepare us hereafter to understand Him who is now un- 
 intelligible. 
 
 I think that this is important, for many reasons, both as 
 regards Popery and our Pseudo-Popery, and Evangelicalism 
 and Unitarianism. The errors of all four seem to flow out 
 of a confusion as to the great truth of our need of a 
 and of the various ways in which Christ is our One 
 and that with infinite perfectness. 
 
 IX. TOUR IX THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. 
 
 Paris, July 14, 1839. 
 
 1 But really, when we went out on these leads, 
 
 and looked down on the whole mass of the trees of the Tuil- 
 eries' garden, forming a luxuriant green bed below us, and 
 saw over them the gilded dome of the Invalids, and the mass 
 of the Tuileries, and the rows of orange-trees, and the people 
 sitting at their ease amongst them, and the line of the street 
 not vanishing, as in London, in a thick cloud of smoke or fog, 
 but with the white houses as far as the eye could reach distinct 
 ;>n the sky, and that ?ky just in the western line of the 
 
 VOL. n. 30
 
 850 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 etreet, one blaze of gold from the setting sun, not a weak 
 watery sun, but one so mighty that his setting was like the 
 death of a Caesar or a Napoleon, of one mighty for good 
 and for evil, of one to be worshipped by ignorant men, 
 either as God or Demon, one hardly knew whether to 
 rejoice or to grieve at his departure ; when we saw all this, 
 we could not but feel that Paris is full of the most poetical 
 beauty. 
 
 Cosne, July 16, 1839. 
 
 2 The wide landscape under this bright sky looks 
 
 more than joyous, and the sun in his unobstructed course is 
 truly giant-like. Here one can understand how men came to 
 worship the sun, and to depict him with all images of power 
 and of beauty, armed with his resistless arrows, yet the 
 source of life and light. And yet feeling, as none can feel more 
 strongly the evils of the state of England, yet one cannot but 
 see also, that the English are a greater people than these, 
 more like, that is, one of the chosen people of history, who 
 are appointed to do a great work for mankind. We are over 
 bustling, but there is less activity here, without more repose. 
 But, however, " it is not expedient, doubtless ; " and have not 
 we failed to improve the wonderful talents which have been 
 given to us ? 
 
 Aries, July 20, 1839. 
 
 3. We have just been walking round this town, after hav- 
 ing first been down to the Rhone, and had a bathe in him, 
 which, as we had seen so much of him, was, I thought, only 
 a proper compliment to him. But I ought to go back in 
 
 order, dearest M , to the Pope's palace at Avignon, only 
 
 this heat makes me lazy. There was an old porter, who 
 opened to us the first gate, and led us into an enormous court 
 full of soldiers, for it is now used as a barrack ; then he opened 
 a door into a long gallery, perhaps a hundred feet long, 
 
 through which we were to pass The rooms beyond 
 
 were scenes not to be forgotten ; prisons where unhappy 
 men had engraved their names on the stones, and mottoes, 
 mostly from Scripture, expressing their patience and their 
 hope. One man had carved simply our Lord's name, as if it 
 gave him a comfort to write it ; there was I. H. S., and nothing 
 more. Some of these dens had been the torture-rooms, and 
 one was so contrived in the roof and walls as to deaden all 
 sound ; while in another there was a huge stone trough, in which 
 the question " h 1'eau bouillante " used to be put ; and iu ye4
 
 APPENDIX D. 351 
 
 another the roof was still blackened by the fires in which the 
 victims had been burnt alive. One of these same rooms, long 
 since disused by the Inquisition, had been chosen as the prison 
 and scene of the murder of the victims of the aristocratical 
 party in the massacre in 1790 ; and in it there was a sort of 
 trap-door, through which the bodies were thrown down into 
 the lowest room of the tower, which was then used as an ice- 
 house. And the walls of the intermediate room were visibly 
 streaked with the blood of those who were so thrown down 
 after they had been massacred.* 
 
 July, 1839. 
 
 4 We are now between the Lion d'Or and Salon, 
 
 on the famous Plaine de Crau, or Plain of Stones, one vast 
 mass of pebbles, which cover the country for several leagues, 
 
 and reduce it to utter barrenness We are now in the 
 
 midst of this plain of stones, utter desolation on every side, 
 the magnificent line of the Alpines, as they are called, or 
 Provence mountains, stretching on our left ; and on our right, 
 close along by the road-side, runs, full and fresh and lively, a 
 stream of water, one of the channels of irrigation brought 
 from the Durance, and truly giving life to the thirsty land. 
 " He maketh the wilderness a running water," might be said 
 truly of this life in the midst of death. Here are two houses 
 just built by the road-side, and opposite to them a little patch 
 of ground just verdured, surrounded by a little belt of cy- 
 presses and willows ! now, again, all is desolate, all but the 
 living stream on our right, and some sheep wandering on the 
 left amidst the stones, and living one sees not how. The sun 
 has just set over this vast plain, just as at sea. Reeds and 
 yellow thistles fringe the stream. 
 
 Salon, July 20, 1839. 
 
 We have stopped here on our way to Marseilles from Aries, 
 and I really never saw anything more romantic than it is. 
 There are tall trees, one very fine plane amongst them, in the 
 middle of the street, and under their shade is a fountain play- 
 ing, which makes a perpetual music, up above is the cloud- 
 less sky, and the almost full moon, and below, in full activity, 
 is the population of Salon. They crowded round the carriage, 
 as there was some difficulty in getting open the boot, and I 
 could have fancied myself in Spain to see their dark faces 
 and eyes, their grave manner, their white felt hats, worn 
 
 * See Letter in chap. x. vol. ii. p. 151.
 
 852 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 alike by man and boy, and to hear their Provenqal language, 
 which sounds much more like Spanish than French, and is 
 indeed quite as like one as the other, and the old fille of the 
 inn might pass for Spanish anywhere. But what a difference 
 is made by good laws and regular government: here all is 
 peace and civility, while on the other side of the Pyrenees all 
 is blood and hatred. The bedrooms here are French enough, 
 but I suspect that there would be many things thoroughly 
 Spanish if I were to pry into the mysteries of the kitchen 
 and back settlements. 
 
 Left Salon 5.40. I am so glad we did not go on last night, 
 dearest, for we should have lost a great deal. Salon is at the 
 end of the Plain of Stones, overhung by the rocky hills in 
 tiers of cliff, but no longer bare, but covered with olives and 
 mulberries. We made our way up to the top of these hills, 
 and opened on a view of a character such as I have never 
 seen. It was the French picture in point of breadth and 
 richness, set in an Italian framework of mountains and with 
 the details, as to the buildings which are scattered over the 
 valley and the profusion of olives and mulberries, very much 
 as I imagine like Spain. 
 
 Point above St. Cergues, August 2, 1839- 
 
 5 I am come out alone, my dearest, to this spot, 
 
 the point almost of our own view, to see the morning sun 
 on Mont Blanc and on the Lake, and to look with more, I 
 trust, than outward eyes on this glorious scene. It is over- 
 powering, like all other intense beauty, if you dwell upon it ; 
 but I contrast it immediately with our Rugby horizon, and 
 our life of duty there, and our cloudy sky of England, 
 cloudy socially, alas ! far more darkly than physically. But 
 beautiful as this is, and peaceful, may I never breathe a wish 
 to retire hither, even with you and our darlings, if it were 
 possible ; but may I be strengthened to labor, and to do and 
 to suffer in our own beloved country and Church, and to give 
 my life, if so called upon, for Christ's cause and for them. 
 And if as I trust it will this rambling, and this beauty of 
 Nature in foreign lands, shall have strengthened me for my 
 work at home, then we may both rejoice that we have had 
 this little parting. And now I turn away from the Alps, and 
 from the south, and may God speed us to one another, and 
 bless us and ours, in Him and in His Son now and forever.
 
 APPENDIX D. 353 
 
 August 4, 1839. 
 
 6 It is curious to observe how nations run a sim- 
 ilar course with each other. We are now on a new road, 
 made by some private speculators, with a toll on it, and they 
 laud it much as a great improvement. And such it is really : 
 yet it is quite like " Bit and Bit," * at Whitemoss, for it goes 
 over a lower part of the hill, instead of keeping the valley ; 
 so that forty years hence we may have " Radical Reform " in 
 the shape of a road quite in the valley ; and then come rail- 
 roads by steam, and then perhaps railroads by air, or some 
 other farther improvement. And "quis finis?" That we 
 cannot tell ; and we have great need, I know, to strengthen 
 our moral legs, seeing that our physical legs are getting such 
 great furtherances to their speed. But still, do not check 
 either,f but advance both ; for though one may advance with- 
 out the other, yet one cannot be checked without the other ; 
 because to check the development of any of our powers, 8wd- 
 p.eis, is in itself sinful. 
 
 Calais, August 7, 1839. 
 
 7 Of the mere face of the country, I have spoken 
 
 enough already, and I am quite sure that English travellers 
 do it great injustice. I see a great deal of travelling, partic- 
 ularly in the south, a great number of diligences, and a very 
 active steam navigation on the Rhone, both up and down. 
 The new suspension-bridges thrown over the Rhone, at almost 
 every town from Lyons to Avignon, are a certain evidence of 
 a stir amongst the people ; and there is also a railway from 
 Lyons to St. Etienne, and from Roanne to Lyons. I see 
 crosses and crucifixes some new set up by the roadside, 
 and treated with no disrespect ; but I think I see, also, a re- 
 markable distinctness here between the nation and the Church, 
 as if it by no means followed that a Frenchman was to be a 
 Christian. I saw this morning " Ecole Chretienne," stuck 
 up in Aire, which implied much too clearly that there might 
 be "Ecoles non Chretiennes." And this I have seen in 
 
 1 * Playful names which he gave to two roads between Rydal and Gras- 
 mere. 
 
 t The delight with which, from such associations as these, he regarded 
 even the unsightliness of the great Birmingham Railway, when it was 
 brought to Rugby, was very characteristic of him. '' I rejoice to see it," he 
 said, as he stood "on one of its arches, and watched the train pass on through 
 the distant hedgerows, "I rejoice to see it, and think that feudality is 
 gone forever. It is so great a blessing to think that any one eril is really 
 extinct. Bunyan thought that the giant Pope was disabled forever, and 
 bow greatly was he mistaken." 
 
 30* w
 
 854 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 French literature; religious men are spoken of as acting 
 according to the principles of Christianity, just as if those 
 principles were something peculiar, and by no means acknowl- 
 edged by Frenchmen in general. I see again a state of 
 property which does appear to me an incalculable blessing. 
 I see a fusion of ranks, which may be an equal blessing. I 
 do not know whether it is. Well-dressed men appear talking 
 familiarly with persens of what we should call decidedly the 
 lower classes.* Now if this shows that the poorer man is 
 raised in mind to the level of the richer, it is a blessing of the 
 highest order ; if it shows that the richer man has fallen to the 
 level of the poorer, then I am not so sure that it is a blessing. 
 But I have no right to say that it is so, because I do not know 
 it ; only we see few here whose looks and manners are what 
 we should call those of a thorough gentleman ; and though I 
 do not believe that I am an aristocrat, yet I should grieve 
 beyond measure if our standard either of morals or of man- 
 ners were to be lowered. Unquestionably to English eyes 
 the women look far more lady-like than the men look like 
 gentlemen : I speak only of the look, for a hasty traveller 
 cannot judge farther. We have, I think, what France has 
 not; as she has in her large population of proprietors, what 
 we have not. But it seems to me that, according to the ordi- 
 nary laws of God's providence, the state of France is more 
 hopeful for the future, that society in its main points is more 
 stable, and that time being thus gained, religious and moral 
 truth will or may work their way, whenever it shall please 
 God to prepare His instruments for the work. Whereas, in 
 England, what moral power, without a direct and manifest 
 interposition of God, can overcome the physical difficulties of 
 our state of population and property ? And if Old England 
 perish as Old France perished in the first Revolution, -let no 
 man hope to see, even at an equal cost of immediate crime 
 and misery, a New England spring up in its room, such as 
 New France now is. If Old England perish, there perishes, 
 not a mere accursed thing, such as was the system of Old 
 
 * "If there is any one trnth after the highest for which I would die at 
 the stake." was one of his short, emphatic sayings, u it would be Democracy 
 without Jacobinism." Believing that the natural progress of society was 
 towards greater etjuality, he had also great confidence in the natural in- 
 stincts implanted in man reverence for authority, and resistance to change 
 as checks on what he considered a Jacobinical disregard of existing ties 
 or ancient institutions. " What an instructive work," he paid, "might be 
 written on God's safeguards against Democracy, as distinguished from man's 
 afeguards against it"
 
 APPENDIX D. 355 
 
 France, which had died inwardly to all good long before the 
 axe was laid to its root; but there perishes the most active 
 and noble life which the world has ever yet seen, which is 
 made up wholesomely of past and present, so that the centu- 
 ries of English History are truly " bound each to each by 
 natural piety." Now to destroy so great a life must be an 
 utterly unblessed thing, from which there can come only evil. 
 And would England, with her dense manufacturing and 
 laboring population, with her narrow limits, and her 
 intense activity, ever be brought into a state like that of agri- 
 cultural France, with her present proprietors ? No tongue or 
 thought of man could imagine the evil of a destruction of our 
 present system in England ; wherefore may God give us His 
 spirit of wisdom and power and goodness, to mould it into as 
 happy accordance with the future as it is already with the 
 past ; to teach the life that is in it to communicate itself to the 
 dead elements around it, for unless they are taken into the 
 living body, and partake of its life, they will inevitably make 
 it partake of their death. And now may God grant that I 
 may be restored safely to that England to-morrow, and that I 
 may labor to promote her good. " O, pray for the peace of 
 Jerusalem, peace be within thy walls and plenteousness 
 within thy palaces." 
 
 Adieu, dearest wife, and may God bless us both now and 
 ever ! 
 
 X. TOUR TO ROME AND NAPLES THROUGH FRANCE AND 
 ITALY, 1840. 
 
 [The passages marked as quotations have been inserted 
 from the memoranda of conversations kept by a former pupil, 
 who accompanied him and his wife on the greater part of this 
 tour. Most of these being, like the Journal, connected more 
 or less with the localities of the journey, would not, it was 
 thought be out of place here. It may be as well to add, that 
 the extracts in No. 6 form one continuous portion, which was 
 selected to give a better notion of the Journals in their origi- 
 nal state than could be collected from mere fragments.] 
 
 Orleans, June 22, 1840. 
 
 1. Here we are at last in a place which I have so long 
 wanted to see. It stands quite in a flat, on the north or right 
 bank of the Loire. One great street under two names, divided
 
 856 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 by the Square or Place of Martray, from north to south, 
 from the barrier on the Paris road to the river. We have 
 now been out to see the town, or at least the cathedral and the 
 bridge over the Loire. The former is by far the finest Gothic 
 building of the seventeenth century which I ever saw ; the end 
 of the choir is truly magnificent, and so is the exterior, and 
 its size is great. We then drove to the bridge, a vast fabric 
 over this wide river, the river disfigured by sandbanks, as 
 at Cosne, but still always fine, and many vessels lying under 
 the quays for the river navigation. 
 
 " The siege of Orleans is one of the turning-points in the 
 history of nations. Had the English dominion in France been 
 established, no man can tell what might have been the con- 
 sequence to England, which would probably have become an 
 appendage to France. So little does the prosperity of the 
 people depend upon success in war, that two of the greatest 
 defeats we ever had, have been two of our greatest blessings, 
 Orleans and Bannockburn. It is curious, too, that in Edward 
 II.'s reign, the victory over the Irish proved our curse, as our 
 defeat by the Scots turned out a blessing. Had the Irish re- 
 mained independent, they might afterwards have been united 
 to us, as Scotland was ; and had Scotland been reduced to 
 subjection, it would have been another curse to us like Ire- 
 land." * 
 
 June 24, 1840. 
 
 2 Now for Bourges a little more. In the crypt 
 
 is a Calvary, and figures as large as life representing the bury- 
 ing of our Lord. The woman who showed us the crypt, had 
 her little girl with her ; and she lifted up the child, about three 
 years old, to kiss the feet of our Lord. Is this idolatry ? Nay, 
 verily, it may be so, but it need not be, and assuredly is in 
 itself right and natural. I confess I rather envied the child. 
 It is idolatry to talk about Holy Church and Holy Fathers, 
 bowing down to fallible and sinful men ; not to bend knee, 
 lip, and heart to every thought f and every image of Him our 
 manifested God. 
 
 June 25, 1840. 
 
 Left Montlucon, and were well out of the town, 6.14, June 
 25th. A lovely morning in this lovely country. TJ> dc (TTI- 
 
 * "Bannockburn," he used to say, "ought to be celebrated by English- 
 lien as a national festival, and Athunree lamented as a national judgment." 
 
 t See this more fully developed in Essay on Interpretation of Scripture, 
 Berm. vol. ii., and note to Sunn. II., in vol. iii.
 
 APPENDIX D. 357 
 
 \OL>P'L<J)V fj fcrdrfg TOiaSf TIS eori ras fJ.ev avavpi8as KOI TOVS ^irS>vas 
 (fropovcriv fipivtas, Kal TO avro e\ovras ^pa^ia, nvdveov faftamitvovs 
 ras 8e Kvvtas VTrfpp.ryfdeis re Kal KvK\orepfis, T^C irapaipofpiTjv a>s 
 fiitfiv, Aya> 8e TO vrrep TOS o<ppvs \mfpt\ov, f \6vrat fvpvTarrjit. We 
 are now turning off eastwards, to leave this lovely valley of 
 the Cher, stealing up one of its feeders towards Neris. On 
 our left is the outer wall of the main valley, bare schistous 
 hills, with very slight ravines : on our right is an immpeia, the 
 boundary of our immediate valley. We passed a lovely scene 
 just now; the bottom of a small combe, with fine oaks above 
 on each slope, and haymaking, or rather mowing, going on 
 busily between. The combe was so narrow that the trees on 
 each side seemed to overshadow all of it. The geology I do 
 not make out : I see granitic pebbles, but what the hills them- 
 selves are, I do not know. I think that it is the grit of the 
 coal, and the Neris waters, I suppose, are like Harrowgate. 
 We have passed through Neris without stopping, on our way 
 to Montaign, and are now on a table-land between the valley 
 of the Cher, and that of his feeder, the Aumance, which we 
 crossed yesterday, at Meaulac. Then from the same ridge we 
 looked down upon both streams, but now there is a table-land 
 of some miles between them. It is a country of hedges and 
 hedgerow trees, with scattered houses, very quiet and peace- 
 ful, but of course, being table-land, not beautiful. But as we 
 entered Neris, up a long hill overhanging the feeder of the 
 Cher, or looking down the valley upon Montluqon, and the 
 wide landscape beyond, it was most beautiful. Now we are 
 descending into the valley of the Aumance, or rather of his 
 feeders ; a perfectly English country, like that between Coles- 
 hill and Litchfield ; woods, hedges, hedgerow trees, corn, pas- 
 ture, and a valley not wider than in England, which makes the 
 resemblance. Arrived at Montaign 9.55. Left it at 10.2. 
 We are now descending to Bonble, a feeder of the Allier. 
 The country most beautiful, not mountainous, but of the best 
 sort of hill and valley. The woods are fine, and the scattered 
 oaks in the combes and everywhere are most picturesque. 
 Here we cross the Bonble at S. Elvy to ascend through a 
 forest of fine trees on the other hill-side. We have just caught 
 a view of the Puy de Dome, Mont d'Or, &c., and are going 
 to descend into the valley of the Sioule at Menat. We have 
 crossed the Sioule and are ascending ; but I was not in the 
 Jeast prepared for the sort of scenery. The descent was 
 through a narrow rocky valley, after having swept round the
 
 858 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 sides of the hills in an extremely good line. The hills here 
 are just like those on the Rhine, the same slate, but much 
 finer, because here the valleys being narrow, the height is 
 somewhat in proportion. They have made a beautiful new 
 bridge of two high arches over the Sioule, and are everywhere 
 improving the line of road, another proof of the progress 
 which France is making, certainly, in physical prosperity, 
 hope and believe also, in moral. This is Auvergne, the ker- 
 nel, as it were, of France ; but the language hitherto is quite 
 intelligible to me, and the costume does not seem to have 
 changed from that of Bourbonnais. Oxen are used for draught, 
 and on these hills there is of course not much corn, and no 
 vines, but there is a good deal of beech wood on the higher 
 points, at least on the side by which we descended. Right 
 before us now, on an opposite hill, is a ruined castle, one of 
 those dens of Cacus happily laid open to the day and unten- 
 anted; for no Jacobinism was ever so detestable as that of 
 the feudal aristocracy, where every man derived his dominion 
 from his own power, and used it for his own purposes. I 
 dislike Jacobinical liberty, how much more, then, Jacobinical 
 oppression. 
 
 June 25. 
 
 3. " It is absurd to extol one age at the expense of an- 
 other, since each has its good * and its bad. There was greater 
 genius in ancient times, but art and science come late. But 
 in one respect it is to be feared we have degenerated, what 
 Tacitus so beautifully expresses, after telling a story of a man 
 who, in the civil war in Vespasian's time, had killed his own 
 brother, and received a reward for it ; and then relates that 
 the same thing happened before in the civil war of Sylla and 
 Marius, and the man when he found it out killed himself from 
 
 * He used frequently to dwell on the essentially mixed character of all 
 human things; as, for example, in his principle of the application of Proph- 
 ecy to human events or persons; so, too, his characteristic dislike of Milton's 
 representation of Satan. " By giving a human likeness, and representing 
 him as a bad man, you necessarily get some images of what is good as well 
 as of what is bad ; for no living man is entirely evil. Even banditti have 
 Borne generous qualities ; whereas the representation of the Devil should be 
 purely and entirely evil without a tinge of good, as that of God should be 
 purely and entirely good without a tinge of evil ; and you can no more get 
 the one than the other from anything human. With the heathen it was 
 different ; their gods were themselves made up of good and of evil, and so 
 might well be mixed up with human associations. The hoofs, and the horns, 
 and the tail were all useful in this way, as giving you an image of some- 
 thing altogether disgusting. And so Mephistophiles, in Faust, and the other 
 contemptible and hateful character of the Little Master in Sintram, are fai 
 more true than the Paradise Lost."
 
 APPENDIX D. 359 
 
 remorse ; and then he adds, ' tanto major apud antiques, ut 
 virtutibus gloria, ita flagitiis pcenetentia erat.' The deep re- 
 morse for crime is less in advanced civilization. There is 
 more of sympathy with suffering of all kinds, but less abhor- 
 rence of what is admitted to be crime." 
 
 June, 1840. 
 
 On board the Sardinian steamer, the Janus, in Marseilles 
 Harbor, July 2d, and this moment in movement, by my 
 watch, at 1.50. The day is delicious, not a cloud in the 
 sky, the sea bluer than blue, the gentlest air fanning us, and 
 the steamer not crowded. There is no lady on board besides 
 
 M , and but few gentlemen. The mountain barrier of 
 
 this coast is always fine, and in many places the hills come 
 down steep, and bare, and dry, to the sea; but often, as 
 now, there is an interval of plain between them and the water, 
 covered with olives and scattered houses, a gorgeous belt 
 round the waist of the rough Torso-like mountains. It is 
 quite a new scene in my life to witness the almost more than 
 earthly beauty of this navigation. Now we are passing just 
 between the islands Javos and Risa and the land : the sea a 
 perfect lake : the islands of fantastic rocky forms, and the 
 mainland of the same character. We have now passed 
 Cassis, and are just come to Cap 1'Aigle; in a short time 
 we shall open upon La Ciotat, a small town between Mar- 
 seilles and Toulon. We are, as usual, close under the cliffs, 
 which present their steep and scarred sides to the sea, bare 
 for the most part, but here and there with some pines upon 
 them. Now they are preparing dinner ; not in a small and 
 unsavory cabin, but out on the deck under awnings ; and the 
 table-cloth is of the whitest, and the plates are of our own 
 blue and white china, with the three men and the bridge ; 
 and the wine is in nice English decanters, and there is the 
 nicest of desserts being spread, which it seems is to precede the 
 dinner instead of following it. Dinner is over, and a right 
 goodly dinner it has been : we sat down on deck a party 
 of ten, two Englishmen besides ourselves, both agreeable 
 enough in their way. And now we are just off Toulon, see- 
 ing those beautiful mountains behind the town, and the masts 
 of the shipping rising over the low ground which forms the 
 entrance into the road, and the green hills which lie towards 
 Hyeres, while the islands lie off as a low land, which I am 
 afraid we are going to leave to our left, instead of passing
 
 360 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 between them and the land. Well, we are just coming to the 
 point from which we shall see Hyeres : for we are not going 
 outside the islands, as I think, but between them and a pro- 
 jecting point of the coast, connected only by a low strip of 
 sand or shingle with the mainland. And now the sun is 
 almost setting, and from him to us there is one golden line 
 through the water, and the mountains, sea, and sky are all 
 putting on a sober and a deeper tint. It is solemnly beautiful 
 to see the sea under the vessel, just where the foam caused by 
 the paddles melts away into the mass of blue . the restless 
 but yet beautiful finite lost in the peaceful and more beau- 
 tiful infinite. The historical interest of this coast and sea 
 almost sink in their natural beauties ; together, they give to 
 this scene an interest not to be surpassed. And now, good 
 night, my darling, and all of you : you know how soon 
 night comes here after the sun is down ; and even now his 
 orb is touching the mountains. May God's blessing be with 
 you and with us, through Jesus Christ. 
 
 Genoa, July 4, 1840. 
 
 4. We are now farther from England than at any time in 
 our former tour, dearest , but our faces are still set on- 
 wards, and I believe that the more I dislike Italy, or rather 
 the Italians, so the more eagerly do I desire to see those 
 parts of it which remind me only of past times, and allow me 
 to forget the present. Certainly I do greatly prefer France to 
 Italy, Frenchmen to Italians ; for a lying people, which these 
 emphatically are, stink in one's moral nose all the day long. 
 Good and sensible men, no doubt, there are here in abundance ; 
 but no nation presents so bad a side to a traveller as this. 
 For, whilst we do not see its domestic life and its private 
 piety and charity, the infinite vileness of its public officers, 
 the pettiness of the Governments, the gross ignorance and 
 the utter falsehood of those who must come in your way, are 
 a continual annoyance. When you see a soldier here, you 
 feel no confidence that he can fight ; when you see a so-called 
 man of letters, you are not sure that he has more knowledge 
 than a baby ; when you see a priest, he may be an idolater or 
 an unbeliever; when you see a judge or a public functionary, 
 justice and integrity may be utter strangers to his vocabulary. 
 It is this which makes a nation vile, when profession, whether 
 Godward or manward, is no security for performance. Now 
 in England we know that every soldier will fight, and every
 
 APPENDIX D 361 
 
 public functionary will be honest. In France and in Prussia 
 we know the same ; and with us, though many of our clergy 
 may be idolaters, yet we feel sure that none is an unbeliever. 
 
 Pisa, July 6, 1840. 
 
 5 But O the solemn and characteristic beauty of 
 
 that cathedral, with its simple, semicircular arches of the 
 twelfth century, its double aisles, and its splendor of marbles 
 and decoration of a later date, especially on the ceiling. Then 
 we went to the Baptistery, and lastly to the Campo Santo, 
 a most perfect cloister, the windows looking towards the 
 burying-ground within, being of the most delicate work. But 
 that burying-ground itself is the most striking thing of all ; 
 it is the earth of the Holy City ; for when the Pisan Cru- 
 saders were in Palestine, they thought no spoil which they 
 could bring home was so precious as so many feet in depth of 
 the holy soil, as a burying-place for them and their children. 
 This was not like Anson watching the Pacific from Tinian 
 to Acapulco, in order to catch the Spanish treasure-ship. 
 
 Now, however, this noble burying-ground is disused, and 
 only a few favored persons are laid there by the special per- 
 mission of the Grand Duke. The wild vine grows freely out 
 of the ground, and clothes it better, to my judgment, than four 
 cypresses, two at each end, which have been lately planted. 
 The Campo Santo is now desecrated by being made a 
 museum. The famous Cenotaphium Pisanum is here, a 
 noble monument, but Julia's sons and Augustus's grandsons 
 have no business on the spot which the Pisans filled with the 
 holy earth of Jerusalem. The town itself is very striking; 
 the large flat pavement filling up the whole street as at 
 Florence, and the oroat on each side, or else good and clean 
 houses, varied with some of illustrious antiquity. And after 
 all we were not searched at the gate of Pisa ; it seems it has 
 been lately forbidden by the government, a great humanity. 
 
 And now, dearest , good night, and God bless you and 
 
 all our darlings, and wisli us a prosperous journey of three 
 days to the great city of cities ; for Naples, I confess, does in 
 comparison appear to me to be viler than vile, a city without 
 one noble association in ancient days or modern. 
 
 July 6, 1840. 
 
 G. And now we are on the great road from Florence to 
 Home. Rome once again, but now how much dearer, and to 
 
 VOL II. 31
 
 862 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 me more interesting than when I saw it last, and in how 
 much dearer company. Yet how sad will it be not to find 
 Bunsen there, and to feel that Niebuhr is gone. I note here 
 in every group of people whom I meet many with light, very 
 light eyes. Is this the German blood of the middle-age con- 
 quests and wars, or are the mass of the present Italians de- 
 scended from the Roman slaves, Ligurians, Kelts, Germans, 
 and from all other nations ? However, of the fact of the 
 many light eyes in Tuscany I am sure. The country is beau- 
 tiful, and we are going up amidst oak woods chiefly. The 
 hedges here are brilliant; the Sweet William pinks of the 
 deepest color ; the broom, the clematis, and the gum-cistus 
 Salvianus, that beautiful flower which I have never seen wild 
 since 1827. Here is the beginning of the mountain scenery 
 of Central Italy, only a very faint specimen of it; but yet 
 bearing its character, the narrow valley, the road in a ter- 
 race above it, the village of Staggia with its old walls and 
 castle tower, the vines, figs, and olives over all the country, 
 and the luxuriant covering of all the cliffs and road-side banks, 
 the wild fig and wild vine. Arrived at Castiglioncello 1.45. 
 Left it 1.53. Ascending gradually towards Sienna, which is 
 at the top of the whole country, dividing the streams which 
 feed the Arno from those that feed the Ombrone. The road 
 here is a defile through oak woods, very beautiful ; and after 
 having got up through the wood, we are in a high plain, but 
 with higher hills around us, and a great deal of wood. Here 
 the country looks parched, for the soil is shallow. 
 
 Arrived at the gates of Sienna 3.16. I hope that I shall 
 not have much time to write ; nor have I, for the carriage is 
 at the door. Left Sienna 4.50. "We did not stop long, as is 
 evident, but we dined, for two pauls each (about one franc), 
 and we saw the cathedral, a thing very proper to do, and 
 moreover the cathedral is fine and very rich, and has some 
 pictures ; amongst the rest, a set of pictures of the events of 
 the life of my old friend ./Eneas Silvius, designed, it is said, 
 by Raphaelle in his early youth. There were also some fine 
 illuminations of some ancient music-books, and some very 
 well-executed Mosaics. Yet I should be a false man if I pro- 
 fessed to feel much pleasure in such things. What I did 
 rejoice in was the view which we had, far and wide, from the 
 heights of Sienna, a boundless range of Apennines. And 
 coming out of Sienna, we have just had a shower of Cicada 
 drop from the trees upon the carriage, who hopped off when
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 anything threatened them behind with an agility truly mar- 
 vellous. And now we are descending a'orn our height, 
 amidst a vast extent of corn-fields just cleared, and the view 
 is not unlike that from Pain a Bouchain, only some of the 
 Apennines before us are too fine for the hills about Roanne. 
 Let me notice now several things to the credit of the Italians 
 hereabouts. First of all, the excessive goodness of the Al- 
 bergo del' Ussaro at Pisa, where the master, who speaks 
 English, changed my French money into Tuscan and Roman, 
 a convenience to avoid the endless disputes about the exact 
 value of the foreign coinage. Next, at Castiglioncello, tho 
 stage before Sienna, there is "Terzo Cavallo," and justly, 
 seeing that the whole stage is up hill. I said to the ostler, 
 " You have a right, I believe, here, to a third horse ; " to 
 which he said, " Yes." But presently he added, " You are 
 only two persons, and I shall send you with two ; " and this 
 he did without any compromise of paying for two horses and 
 a half: but we had two, and we paid only for two. And 
 finally, the Sienna dinner, at four pauls, at the Aquila Nera, 
 was worthy of all commendation. 
 
 As I have occasion to complain often of the Italians, it is 
 pleasant to be able to make these exceptions. Sienna stands 
 like Langres, and as we have been descending, two little 
 streams have risen in the hill-sides right and left, and now 
 they meet and form a green valley, into which we are just de- 
 scended, and find again the hedgerows, the houses, and the 
 vines. Arrived at Montaroni 5.57. Left it 6.4. And still, 
 I believe we are going to have another stage of descent to 
 Buon Convento. Alas ! an adventure has sadly delayed us, 
 for though the stage be mostly descent or level ground, yet 
 there was one sharp little hill soon after we left Montaroni, in 
 the middle of which our horses absolutely would not go on, 
 wherefore the carriage would go back, and soon got fast in the 
 
 ditch. M got out very safely, and we got the carriage 
 
 out of the ditch, but it was turned round in the doing it, and 
 the road was so narrow that we could not turn it right again 
 for a long time. Meanwhile, a passing traveller kindly car- 
 ried a message back to the post for a Terzo, and after a while 
 Terzo and a boy came to our aid, and brought us up the hill 
 valiantly ; and Terzo is now trotting on, a bright example to 
 his companions. 
 
 July 7. Left Buon Convento 5.16. Again a lovely morn- 
 ing, dearest , and certainly if a man does not glorify God
 
 362 LIFE OF DR - ARNOLD. 
 
 me more intere;^ M we have J ust been reading,* "the very 
 much dearer cor CI 7 out -" The country is not easy to de- 
 Bunsen there a* jnewor k ^ ^ e Apennines here is very corn- 
 in every group' 3 ^ * ne main chain being very twisted, and 
 }\(r ht eyes. ot ^er smaller ribs which are no less so, so that the 
 quests ar~ infinitely winding ; but, generally we were on the 
 scended- 5 at Buon Convento, and at Torrinieri shall be on one 
 an( j f feeders, which runs so as to form a very acute angle 
 jp,a him at his confluence. Between the two the ground is 
 firown about in swells and falls indescribable. The country 
 s generally open corn land, just cleared, but varied with 
 patches of copse, of heath, and of vines and other trees in the 
 valleys, and the farm-houses perched about in the summit of 
 the hills with their odd little corn-stacks, some scattered all 
 over the fields, and others making a belt round the houses. 
 II Cavallo Inglese at Buon Convento was a decent place as 
 to beds, but roguish, as the small places always are, in their 
 charges. The Terzo did well, and brought us well to Buon 
 Convento after all. At this moment, Monte Alcino, on a high 
 mountain on the right, is looking splendidly under the morning 
 sun, with its three churches, its castle, and the mass of trees 
 beneath it Arrived at Torrinieri 6.15. Left it 6.21, with 
 four horses, but only three are to be paid for, which is all quite 
 right; the fourth is for their own pleasure. We have just 
 crossed the Orcia, and these great ascents, which require the 
 Terzo, are but shoulders dividing one feeder of the Ombrone 
 from another, the Orcia from the Tressa. We have had one 
 enormous ascent, and descent by zig and zag to a little feeder, 
 and now we are up again to go down to another. On this in- 
 termediate height, rising out of a forest of olives, with its old 
 wall, its church, with a fine Norman doorway, and its castle 
 
 tower, stands S. Quirico, on no river, my M , but a place 
 
 beginning with a Q., when we " play at Geographical." We 
 are just under its walls, with a mass of ilex sloping down 
 from the foot of the walls to the road ; the machicolations of 
 the walls are very striking. We are descending towards the 
 Tressa, a vast view before us, bounded by the mountains of 
 Radicofani. The hills which we are descending are thickly 
 wooded on our right, with the most picturesque towns on their 
 eummits ; while the deep furrows in this blue marl, though 
 
 * That is, in the daily lessons of Scripture, which, with the Te Deum, 
 they ued to read every morning on starting.
 
 APPENDIX D. 365 
 
 rock would doubtless be finer, are yet very striking in all the 
 gorges and combes. Arrived at La Poderina, that most strik- 
 ing view, 7.45. Left it 7.53. We have crossed the Tressa, 
 a rocky stream in a deep dell between noble mountains, on 
 each side crowned with the most picturesque towns and castles. 
 The postilion calls the river the Orcia, and I think he is 
 right ; the town is Rocca d'Orcia ; it is the scene I had noticed 
 in my former journal, and indeed it is not easy to be forgotten; 
 but I had fancied the spot had been at Buon Convento. This 
 stage is the only one as yet that could be called at all dull ; much 
 of it is through a low plain, without trees or vines, and therefore 
 it is now bare ; in this plain, however, there stands one of the 
 finest of oaks by the road-side, a lonely and goodly tree, which 
 has the plain to itself. They are also doing a very good work, 
 in making a line of road, quite in the plain, to avoid the many 
 ups and downs of the present road, in crossing the valleys of 
 the small streams which run down into the main valley. But ' 
 although the immediate neighborhood of the road is dull, yet 
 how glorious are the mountains all around ! Arrived at Ric- 
 corsi 9.10. Left it 9.18. I was speaking of the mountains, 
 and I am quite sure that a scene so picturesque as that which 
 we have just above Riccorsi, in this stage, which people who 
 read and sleep through the country call dull, can very rarely 
 be rivalled in England. The mountains are very high, and 
 their sides and banks and furrowing combes, nobly spread out 
 before you, covered mostly with oak forests, but the forest to- 
 ward the plain thinning off into single trees till it gives place 
 to the olives and vines ; and near the summit there is a great 
 scar or cliff, on which, or to which, sit or stick as they can, the 
 houses of Campiglia, with its picturesque towers as usual. 
 And now we are really going up to the head of the country, 
 to the fantastic rocks of Radicofani, which turn the waters to 
 the Ombrone and Tiber, and are visible from the Ciminian 
 hills. Again the road itself is in the bare hill-side, with 
 masses of rock here and there. But across the torrent, the 
 mountain-sides are clothed more or less with trees, in some 
 places thickly, and before us the hill-side is yellow with the 
 still standing corn. The torrent beds, however, are here for 
 the most part quite dry. Those creatures which dropped on 
 our carriage yesterday are here again in great numbers ; they 
 call them Cavaletti or Grigli ; they are a species of Cicada, 
 but not those which croak on the trees, and which, I believe, 
 are never seen on the ground. We have just crowned the 
 
 31*
 
 366 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 summit, and see before us the country towards Rome, and the 
 streams going to the Tiber. The valley of the Paglia for 
 miles lies before us. Alas ! to think of that unhappy papal 
 government, and of the degraded people subject to it. Arrived 
 at Radicofani 10.45. 
 
 There is a good inn here, so we have stopped to get some- 
 thing to eat, and to give M some rest, which she greatly 
 
 needs ; and from here our way is in a manner all down hill. 
 Glorious indeed is the view all around us, and there is also a 
 nice garden under the house, where I see an oleander in 
 bloom, although our height above the Mediterranean must be 
 very great, and up here the corn is not ripe. The air is pure 
 and cool enough, as you may suppose, but there is no chill in 
 it, and the flies are taking liberties with my face, which are 
 disagreeable. It is very strange to see so nice looking an inn 
 at this wild place, but the movement of the world does 
 wonders, and it improves even the mountain of Radicofani. 
 I have exposed myself to the attacks of those who cannot 
 bear to hear of the movement of the nineteenth century im- 
 proving anything ; however, I was thinking only of physical 
 improvement in roads and inns, which is a matter not to be 
 disputed. But in truth the improvement does go deeper than 
 this, and though the work is not all of God, (and did even 
 Christianity itself except the intermeddling hand of Anti- 
 christ ?) yet in itself it is of God, and its fruits are accordingly 
 good in the main, though mixed with evil always, and though 
 the evil sometimes be predominant: sometimes it may be 
 alone to be found ; just as in this long descent which I see be- 
 fore me to Ponte Centino there are portions of absolutely 
 steep up-hill. It is a lying spirit undoubtedly that says "look 
 backwards." . 
 
 Viterbo, July 8th, 1840. On May 9th, 1827, I entered 
 
 Rome last, dearest ; and it gives me a thrill to look out 
 
 from my window on the very Ciminian hills, and to know that 
 one stage will bring us to the top of them. But the Caffe 
 bids me stop. Left Viterbo 5.30. A clever piccolo has aided 
 our carriage well by leading Terzo round some very sharp 
 turnings in the narrow streets. And now we are out amidst 
 gardens and olives, with the Ciminian hills all green with 
 their copsewood right before us. We are now amidst the 
 copsewood ; many single chestnuts and oaks are still standing ; 
 the tufts of gum-cistus Salvianus by the road-side mingled with 
 the broom are most beautiful. Long, white lines of cloud lie
 
 APPENDIX D. 367 
 
 in the plains, so that the Sabine mountains seemed to rise 
 exactly from the sea. And now a wooded point rises above 
 us of a very fine shape, a sort of spur from the main ridge 
 like Swirl Edge from Helvellyn. Here the oaks and chest- 
 nuts are fine. Thick wood on both sides of the road. Again 
 we descend gradually towards Monterossi, Soracte, and the 
 mountains behind it finer than can be told. We may now 
 say that we are within what was the Roman frontier in the 
 middle of the fourth century, u.c., for we have just crossed 
 the little stream which flows by both Sutrium and Nepete, and 
 they were long the frontier colonies towards Etruria. Here 
 we join the Perugia and Ancona road, and after the junction 
 our ways seem much improved. And now we are ascending 
 a long hill into Monterossi, which seems to stand on a sort of 
 shoulder running down from the hills of the Lake Sabatinus 
 towards the Campagna. I suppose that this country must 
 have been the irepioiKts of Veii. The twenty-sixth milestone 
 from Rome stands just at the foot of the hill going up into 
 Monterossi. Here they are threshing their corn vigorously 
 out in the sun ; I should have thought that it must be dry 
 enough anywhere. Arrived at Monterossi 9.30, at the twenty- 
 fifth milestone, 9.44. Here begins the Campagna, and I 
 am glad to find that my description of it in Vol. I. is quite 
 correct. Here are the long slopes and the sluggish streams 
 such as I have described them, and the mountain wall almost 
 grander than my recollection of it. And, as our common 
 broom was tufting all the slopes and banks when I was here 
 last in April and May, so now, in July, we have our garden 
 broom no less beautiful. I observe that since we have joined 
 the Perugia road, everything seems in better style, both roads 
 and posting, because that is the great road to Bologna and 
 Ancona, and the Sienna road leads within the Roman States 
 to no place of consequence. Here is one of the lonely Osterie 
 of the Campagna, but now smartened up into the Hotel des 
 Sept Veines, Sette Vene, strange to behold. Here we found 
 our Neapolitan friend, who, not liking his horses, had sent 
 them back to Monterossi, and was waiting for others. The 
 postilions would have changed them for ours, deeming our 
 necks, I suppose, of no consequence ; but our Neapolitan 
 friend most kindly advised me not to allow them to change ; a 
 piece of disinterested, or rather self-denying consideration, for 
 which I felt much obliged to him. Strange it is to look at 
 these upland slopes, so fresh, so airy, so open, and to conceive
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 that malaria can be here. They have been planting trees 
 here by the road-side, acacias and elms and shumacks, a nice 
 thing to do, and perhaps also really useful, as trees might 
 possibly lessen the malaria. We see the men who come to 
 reap the crops in the Campagna sleeping under the shade by 
 the road-side ; we are going up the outer rim of the Baccano 
 crater ; the road is a " via cava," and the beauty of the brooms 
 and wild figs is exquisite. Now we are in the crater, quite 
 round, with a level bottom about one mile and a half in di- 
 ameter. Arrived at Baccano 10.35. Left it 10.45. And 
 now we are going up the inner rim of the crater, and it is an 
 odd place to look back on. I put up Catstabber, take my pen, 
 and look with all my eyes, for here is the top of the run, and 
 Rome is before us, though as yet I see it not. We have just 
 seen it, 11.5. S. Peter's within the horizon line, the Mons 
 Albanus, the portal into the Hernican country, Praeneste 
 Tiber, and the valley of the Anio, towards Sublaqueum. Of 
 earthly sights rptrov avro Athens and Jerusalem are the 
 other two the three people of God's election, two for things 
 temporal, and one for things eternal. Yet even in the things 
 eternal they were allowed to minister. Greek cultivation and 
 Roman polity prepared men for Christianity, as Mahomet- 
 anism * can bear witness, for the East, when it abandoned 
 Greece and Rome, could only reproduce Judaism. Mahom- 
 etanism, six hundred years after Christ, justifies the wisdom 
 of God in Judaism ; proving that the Eastern man could bear 
 nothing more perfect. Here I see perfectly the shoulder of 
 land which joins the Alban Hills to the mountains by Pra> 
 neste, and through the gap over them I see the mountains of 
 the Vols>cians. A long ridge lies before us, between us and 
 La Storta, but if we turned to the left before we ascended it, 
 we could get down to the Tiber without a hill. And here I 
 look upon Veil (Isola Farnese), and see distinctly the little 
 cliff above the stream which was made available for the old 
 walls. We are descending to the stream at Osteria del Fosso, 
 which was one of those that flowed under the walls of Veii. 
 And here at Osteria del Fosso we have the little cliffy banks 
 which were so often used here for the fortifications of the 
 ancient towns, and such as I have just seen in Veii itself. We 
 
 * " The unworthy idea of Paradise " in the Koran, he used to say, "jus. 
 tifies the ways of God in not revealing a future state earlier, since" man iq 
 early ages was not fit for it."
 
 APPENDIX D. 369 
 
 are going up the ridge from Osteria del Fosso, and have just 
 passed the eleventh milestone. These bare slopes overgrown 
 with thistles and fern are very solemn, while the bright broom 
 cheering the road banks might be an image of God's grace in 
 the wilderness, and a type that it most cheers those who keep 
 to the straight road of duty. Past the tenth milestone, and 
 here, apparently with no descent to reach to, is La Storta. 
 Arrived at La Storta 12.4. Left it 12.14. Here is a Cam- 
 pagna scene, on the left a lonely Osteria, and on the right one 
 of the lonely square towers of this district, old refuges for 
 men and cattle in the middle ages. We descend gradually ; 
 the sides of the slopes both right and left (for we are on a 
 ridge) are prettily clothed with copsewood. I have just seen 
 the Naples road beyond Rome, the back of the Monte Mario, 
 the towers of the churches at the Porta del Popolo. And 
 now, just past the fourth milestone, S. Peter's has opened 
 from behind Monte Mario, and we go down by zig and zag 
 towards the level of the Tiber. It brings us down into a 
 pretty green valley watered by the Acqua Traversa, where, 
 for the first time, we have a few vines on the slope above. The 
 Acqua Traversa joins the Tiber above the Milvian bridge, so 
 We cross him and go up out of this little valley on the right. 
 And here we find the first houses which seem like the ap- 
 proach to a city. There are the cypresses on the Monte 
 Mario, and here is the Tiber and the Milvian bridge. We 
 are crossing the Tiber now, and now we are in the AGEK 
 ROMANUS. Garden walls and ordinary suburb houses line 
 the road on both sides, but the Collis Hortulorum rises pret- 
 tily on the left, with its little cliffs, its cypresses, copsewood, 
 and broom. The Porta del Popolo is in sight, and then Pass- 
 port and Dogana must be minded, so here I stop for the 
 present, 1.20. 
 
 Rome, July 9. Again this date, my dearest , one of 
 
 the most solemn and interesting to me that my hand can ever 
 write, and now even more interesting than when I saw it last. 
 
 The Pantheon I had never seen before, and I admire it 
 greatly ; its vastness, and the opening at the top which ad- 
 mitted the view of the cloudless sky, both struck me particu- 
 larly. Of the works of art at the Vatican, I ought not to 
 speak, but I was glad to find that I could understand the 
 Apollo better than when I last saw it. 
 
 S. Stefano Rotondo on the Caelian, so called from its shape, 
 consists of two rows of concentric pillars, and contains the old
 
 370 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 Mosaic of our Lord, of which I spoke in my former journal 
 It exhibits also, in a series of pictures all round the church, 
 the martyrdoms of the Christians in the so-called Persecu- 
 tions, with a general picture of the most eminent martyrs since 
 the triumph of Christianity. No doubt many of the particu- 
 lar stories thus painted will bear no critical examination ; it 
 is likely enough, too, that Gibbon has truly accused the gen- 
 eral statements of exaggeration. But this is a thankless labor, 
 such as Lingard and others have undertaken with respect to 
 the St. Bartholomew massacre, and the Irish massacre of 1 642. 
 Divide the sum total of reported martyrs by twenty by fifty, 
 if you will but after all you have a number of persons of 
 all ages and sexes suffering cruel torments and death for con- 
 science' sake and for Christ's, and by their sufferings manifestly, 
 with God's blessing, insuring the triumph of Christ's Gospel. 
 Neither do I think that we consider the excellence of this 
 martyr spirit half enough. I do not think that pleasure is a 
 sin ; * the Stoics of old, and the ascetic Christians since, who 
 have said so, (see the answers of that excellent man Pope 
 Gregory the Great to Augustine's questions, as given at length 
 by Bede,) have, in saying so, overstepped the simplicity and 
 the wisdom of Christian truth. But, though pleasure is not a 
 sin, yet surely the contemplation of suffering for Christ's sake 
 is a thing most needful for us in our days, from whom in our 
 daily life suffering seems so far removed. And, as God's 
 grace enabled rich and delicate persons, women, and even 
 children, to endure all extremities of pain and reproach in 
 times past, so there is the same grace no less mighty now ; 
 and if we do not close ourselves against it, it might in us be 
 no less glorified in a time of trial. And that such time of 
 trial will come, my children, in your days, if not in mine, I 
 do believe fully, both from the teaching of man's wisdom, and 
 of God's. And, therefore, pictures of martyrdoms are, I 
 think, very wholesome, not to be sneered at, nor yet to be 
 looked on as a mere excitement, but a sober reminder to us 
 of what Satan can do to hurt, and what Christ's grace can 
 enable the weakest of his people to bear. Neither should we 
 forget those who, by their sufferings, were more than con- 
 
 * He had, however, a great respect for the later Stoics. " It is common 
 to ridicule them," he said; " but their triumph over bodily pain was one of 
 the noblest efforts after good ever made by man, without revelation. He 
 that said to pain, ' Thou art no evil to me, so long as I cau endure thee,' it 
 was given him from God."
 
 APPENDIX D. 371 
 
 querors, not for themselves only, but for us, in securing to us 
 the safe and triumphant existence of Christ's blessed faith 
 in securing to us the possibility nay, the actual enjoyment, 
 had it not been for the Antichrist of the Priesthood of 
 Christ's holy and glorious e/cicXqcria, the congregation and com- 
 monwealth of Christ's people. 
 
 July 12, 1840. 
 
 10 And I see Sezza on its mountain seat; but 
 
 here is a more sacred spot, Appii Forum, where St. Paul met 
 his friends, when, having landed at Puteoli, he went on by 
 the Appian road to Rome. Here the ancient and the present 
 roads are the same, here, then, the Apostle Paul, with 
 Luke and with Timothy, travelled along, a prisoner, under a 
 centurion guard, to carry his appeal to Caesar. How much 
 resulted from that journey, the manifestation of Christ's 
 name iv S\a TTW irpaiTa>pia>, the four precious Epistles ad Ephe- 
 sios, ad Philippenses, ad Colossenses, ad Philemona ; and on 
 the other hand, owing to his long absence, the growth of Ju- 
 daism, that is of priestcraft, in the eastern churches, never, 
 alas ! to be wholly put down. 
 
 July 13, 1840. 
 
 11 M says that she never saw so beautiful a 
 
 spot as Mola di Gaeta. I should say so too, in suo genere ; 
 but Fox How and Chiavenna are so different, that I cannot 
 compare them ; so again, are Rome from S. Pietro in Mon- 
 torio, Oxford, from the pretty field, or from St. John's Gar- 
 dens, London, from Westminster Bridge, and Paris, from 
 the Quays. But Mola is one of those spots which are of a 
 beauty not to be forgotten while one lives. 
 
 " At Mola is what is called Cicero's Villa. There is no 
 greater folly than to attempt to connect particular spots in this 
 uncertain way with great names ; and no one, who represents 
 to his own mind the succession of events and ages which have 
 passed, will attempt to do it upon conjecture, the chances being 
 thousands to one against correctness. There can be no tra- 
 ditions, from the long period when such things were forgotten 
 and uncared for ; and what seems to be tradition, in fact, origi- 
 nates in what antiquarians have told the people. People do 
 not enough consider the long periods of the Roman empire 
 after Augustus's time, the century of the greatest activity 
 under Trajan, and the Antonines, when the Republic and the 
 Augustan age were considered as ancient times, then Seve*
 
 872 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 rus and his time, then Diocletian and Theodosius, when 
 the Roman laws were in full vigor." 
 
 Naples, July 14, 1840. 
 
 12. While we are waiting for dinner, my dearest , I 
 
 will write two or three lines of journal. Here we actually 
 are, looking out upon what but presents images which, with a 
 very little play of fancy, might all be shaped into a fearful 
 drama of Pleasure, Sin, and Death. The Pleasure is every- 
 where, nowhere is nature more lovely, or man, as far as 
 appears, more enjoying ; the Sin is in the sty of Capreze, in the 
 dissoluteness of Baiae and Pompeii, hi the black treachery 
 which, in this ill-omened country, stained the fame even of 
 Nelson, in the unmatchable horrors of the White Jacobins 
 of 1799, in the general absence of any recollection of piety, 
 virtue, or wisdom, for " he that is not with me is against me." 
 And the Death stands manifest in his awfulness in Vesuvius, 
 in his loathsomeness at the abominable Campo Santo. Far 
 be it from me, or from my friends, to live or to sojourn long 
 in such a place ; the very contradictory, as it seems to me, of 
 the Hill Difficulty, of the House Beautiful, and of the Land 
 of Beulah. But, behold, we are again in voiture, going along 
 the edge of the sea in the port of Naples, and going out 
 to Salerno. Clouds are on the mountains which form the 
 southeast side of the bay ; but Vesuvius is clear, and quite 
 quiet, not a wreath of smoke ascends from him. Since I 
 wrote this, in the last five minutes, there is a faint curl of 
 smoke visible. Striking it is to observe the thousand white 
 houses round his base, and the green of copsewood which runs 
 half-way up him, and up to the very summit of his neighbor, 
 the Monte Somma, and then to look at the desolate black- 
 ness of his own cone. 
 
 July 15, 1840. 
 
 13. We have just left Pompeii, after having spent two hours 
 in walking over the ruins. Now what has struck me most in 
 this extraordinary scene, speaking historically ? That is, what 
 knowledge does one gain from seeing an ancient town de- 
 stroyed in the first century of the Christian era, thus laid 
 open before us ? I do not think that there is much. I ob- 
 served the streets crossing one another at right angles ; I 
 observed the walls of the town just keeping the crown of the 
 hill, and the suburbs and the tombs falling away directly from 
 the gates : I observed the shops in front of the houses, the 
 streets narrow, the rooms in the houses very small ; the dining-
 
 APPENDIX D. 373 
 
 room in one of the best was twenty feet by eighteen nearly. 
 The Forum was large for the size of the town ; and the temples 
 and public buildings occupied a space proportionably greater 
 than with us. I observed the Impluvium, forming a small 
 space in the midst of the Atrium. And I think, farther, that 
 Pompeii is just a thing for pictures to represent adequately ; 
 I could understand it from Gell's book, but no book can give 
 me the impressions or the knowledge which I gain from every 
 look at the natural landscape. Then, poetically, Pompeii is 
 to me, as I always thought it would be, no more than Pom- 
 peii ; that is, it is a place utterly unpoetical. An Osco- Roman 
 town, with some touches of Greek corruption, a town of the 
 eighth century of Rome, marked by no single noble recollec- 
 tion, nor having like the polygonal walls of Ciolano the 
 marks of a remote antiquity and a pure state of society. 
 There is only the same sort of interest with which one would 
 see the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, but indeed there is 
 less. One is not authorized to ascribe so solemn a character 
 to the destruction of Pompeii ; it is not a peculiar monument 
 of God's judgments, it is the mummy of a man of no worth 
 or dignity, solemn, no doubt, as everything is which brings 
 life and death into such close connection, but with no proper 
 and peculiar solemnity, like places rich in their own proper 
 interest, or sharing in the general interest of a remote antiquity, 
 or an uncorrupted state of society. The towns of the Ciolano 
 are like the tomb of a child, Pompeii is like that of Lord 
 Chesterfield. 
 
 July 18, 1840. 
 
 14. The panorama of mountains, and the infinite variety 
 of light and shade caused by a very bright sun and very black 
 clouds, cannot be described. Aquila is seen rising on its hills 
 on the left bank of the Aternus, about nine miles off. Behold 
 something of a section of the plain and valley, if I can make 
 
 them intelligible . By the way I saw the Tratturo delle 
 
 Pecore, or Cattle Path, " Callis," which Keppel Craven men- 
 tions, in our upland plain, a broad marked track on the turf, 
 which ran close by the road for a space, and then passed it. 
 We are now down fairly in the valley, at the 125th mile, and 
 the Gran Sasso d' Italia, or Monte Como, the highest of the 
 Apennines, 9,000 feet above the level of the sea, spreads out 
 
 his huge mass just behind the near hills of this valley . 
 
 I have endeavored to represent his outline, and his enormous 
 ribs and deep combes, but I must not forget his verdure ; for 
 VOL. ii. 32
 
 374 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 as the sun shines upon him, the turf upon his swells and 
 ridge looks green as Loughrigg, the peak looks as I have so 
 often seen Fail-field when a slight snow has fallen : the snow 
 lies where the steepness of the cliffs will let it lie. We are 
 in a fresh valley amidst streams of running water : but there 
 is malaria here. And now, 6.56, we are just beginning the 
 ascent of the hill on which Aquila itself is built. Nothing 
 can be fresher than everything around us, the vines on the 
 hills, the deep green of the poplars and willows that fringe the 
 streams, and the bright grass of a little patch of meadow. 
 Then the mountains rise behind on all sides, their tops still 
 gleaming with the sun which is set to us in the valley. (129th 
 mile, within a quarter of a mile of the entrance into Aquila,) 
 while the mountains to the northwest are steeped in one of the 
 richest glows of crimson that I ever saw. Passports at Aquila 
 gate, or rather at the gate of the old nipi/Bokos ; but Aquila 
 has shrunk, and a long avenue through corn-fields leads from 
 the gate of what was the town to the beginning of the part 
 inhabited now. 
 
 July 19. Left Aquila 6.8, passing under the citadel and 
 with the Gran Sasso facing us in all his brightness. I did 
 not see his main summit last night after all, for it was behind, 
 and the clouds covered it ; so I have put it in slightly this 
 morning. We have got to-day, not a Cheval but an Homme 
 de Renfort, to help the carriage through the difficulties of the 
 pass of Androdoco. And now, dearest, it is Sunday morning, 
 and a brighter day never shone : the clouds ar.d cold have 
 vanished, and summer seems returned. May God bless you 
 all, my darlings, and us your absent parents, to whom the 
 roads of Italy on this day are far less grateful than the chapel 
 of Rydal or of Rugby. It is here amongst strangers or ene- 
 mies that I could most zealously defend the Church of Eng- 
 land : here one may look only at its excellences ; whereas at 
 home, and amongst ourselves, it is idle to be puffing what our 
 own business is rather to mend and to perfect. 
 
 July 20. 1840. 
 
 15. Rieti is so screened by the thousand elms to which its 
 vines are trained, that you hardly can see the town till you 
 are in it. It stands in the midst of the " Rosea Rura," this 
 marvellous plain of the Velinus, a far fairer than the Thessa- 
 lian Tempe. Immediately above it are some of the Rocky 
 but exquisitely soft hills of the country, so soft and sweet 
 that they are like the green hills round Como, or the delicate
 
 APPENDIX D. 375 
 
 screen of the head of Derwentwater ; the Apennines have 
 lost all their harsher and keep only their finer features, 
 their infinite beauty of outline, and the endless enwrappings of 
 their combes, their cliffs, and their woods. But here is water 
 everywhere, which gives a universal freshness to everything. 
 Rieti, I see, stands just at an opening of the hills, so that you 
 may catch its towers on the sky between them. We have 
 crossed the Velino to its left bank, just below its confluence 
 with the Torrano, the ancient Tereno, as I believe, up whose 
 valley we have just been looking, and see it covered with 
 corn, standing in shocks, but not carried. It has been often 
 a very striking sight to see the little camp of stacks raised 
 round a farm-house, and to see multitudes of people as- 
 sembled, threshing their corn, or treading it out with mules' 
 or horses' feet. Still the towns stand nobly on the mountains. 
 Behold Grecio before us, two church-towers, and the round 
 towers of its old bastions, and the line of its houses on the 
 edge of one cliff, and with other cliffs rising behind it. The 
 road has chosen to go up a shoulder of hill on the left of the 
 valley, for no other visible reason than to give travellers a 
 station like the Bowness Terrace, from which they might 
 have a general view over it. It is really like " the garden of 
 the Lord," and " the Seraph guard " might keep their watch 
 on the summit of the opposite mountains, which, seen under 
 the morning sun, are invested in a haze of heavenly light, 
 as if shrouding a more than earthly glory. Truly may one 
 feel with Von Canitz,* that if the glory of God's perishable 
 works be so great, what "must be the glory of the imperish- 
 able, what infinitely more of Him who is the author of 
 both ! And if I feel thrilling through me the sense of this 
 outward beauty innocent, indeed, yet necessarily uncon- 
 scious, what is the sense one ought to have of moral beauty, 
 of God the Holy Spirit's creation, of humbleness and 
 truth, and self-devotion and love ! Much more beautiful, be- 
 cause made truly after God's image, are the forms and colors 
 of kind and wise and holy thoughts, and words, and actions ; 
 more truly beautiful is one hour of old Mrs. Price's f patient 
 waiting for the Lord's time, and her cheerful and kind interest 
 in us all, feeling as if she owed ,ris anything, than this 
 glorious valley of the Velinus. For this will pass away, and 
 
 * See the story and poem in Serm. vol. iv. note B. 
 ( An old womaii in the Almshouses at Rugby, alluded to vol- i. p. 216j 
 loL ii. p. 289.
 
 876 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 that will not pass away : but that is not the great point ; 
 believe with Aristotle that this should abide, and that should 
 perish ; still there is in the moral beauty, an inherent excel- 
 lence which the natural beauty cannot have ; for the moral 
 beauty is actually, so to speak, God, and not merely His 
 work ; His living and conscious ministers and servants are 
 it is permitted us to say so the temples of which the light 
 is God Himself. 
 
 July 20, 1840. 
 
 16. "We have now one of the best possible specimens of the 
 ancient mountain towns close above us. This is Torri, stand- 
 ing on the top of a hill, and stretching down towards the 
 plain. Its churches are at the summit like an acropolis, and 
 from thence its walls diverge down the hill, and are joined by 
 a cross wall, the base of the triangle, near, but not at the 
 
 plain . The walls are perfect, and, there being no 
 
 suburbs, the town is quite distinctly marked, standing in a 
 mass of olives around it ; and below I see that it is not quite 
 a triangle, but rather a triangle stuck on to a rule circle. 
 Spoleto is still beautifully visible at the end of the plain be- 
 hind us. I can conceive Hannibal's Numidians trying to carry 
 it avrofiocl after they had carried all this delicious plain ; and 
 if the colony shut its gates against them, and was not panic- 
 struck by the terror of Thrasymenus, it did well, and deserved 
 honor, as did Nola in like case, although Marcellus's son lied 
 about his father's life no less valiantly than he did about his 
 death. 
 
 Arrived at Ponte Centesimo 5.51. Left it 6.2. The valley 
 narrow, and the oaks very nice on the hill-sides. The road 
 ascends steeply from Ponte Centesimo along the side of the 
 hills as a terrace. The road is now very beautiful, the hills 
 on both sides are wooded, and the turf under them is soft in 
 the morning sun. We have still the vines and the maize, but 
 I doubt whether we shall see many more olives ; for from 
 here to the top of the Apennines it will be too high for them, 
 and they have the good taste not to grow in that mongrel 
 Italy between the Apennines and the Alps. Here we cross a 
 great feeder of the main stream, great in width of bed, but 
 very small in his supply of water, while the main stream, like 
 an honest man, seems to be no more that he is, has a little 
 channel, but fills it with water. Behold meadows by the 
 stream side, and mowing going forward ; and, marvellous 
 for a summer scent in Italy ! the smell of fresh hay ! It ia
 
 APPENDIX D. 377 
 
 quite lovely, the hill-sides like Rydal Park, and the valley 
 like our great hay-fields, with cattle feeding freely ; but still 
 the Apennine character of endless dells and combes in the 
 mountain sides, which give a character of variety and beauty 
 to the details of the great landscape, quite peculiar to central 
 Italy. We have had no stage like this since we have entered 
 Italy, and it goes on still with the same beauty. And now we 
 have crossed our beautiful stream, and are going up a little 
 valley to our right, in which stands Nocera. I did not notice 
 when we arrived at Nocera, but we left it 7.30. If for a 
 moment the country in the preceding stage could have made 
 us forget that we were in Italy, the town of Nocera would 
 soon have reminded us of it ; standing on a hill as usual, and 
 with all its characteristic style of building. A few olives, too, 
 were and are still to be seen, and the vines are luxuriant. 
 We went up a steep hill, and down a steeper out of Nocera, 
 to get out of the valley of the Nocera feeder, and to come 
 again into the valley of our old friend the Calcignolo ; but 
 now it is very wide and we are not near his stream, but on the 
 roots of the mountains, with a wide view right and left of 
 upland slopes, corn, and vines, and the hills beautifully 
 wooded, and the combes delicious, and water trickling down, 
 or rather running in every little stream bed. We have had 
 much up and down over the swellings and sinkings of the hill- 
 sides and combes, but as Terzo is gone back, our way, I pre- 
 sume, will now be smoother. As I now sit between Guisano 
 and Gualdo, I see the valley or upland plain in which we are 
 stretching away quite to the central ridge, which sinks at that 
 point perceptibly, so that the Apennines are here penetrated 
 from the south with no trouble. Even here I see a few olives, 
 but the vines and maize grow freely over the whole country, and 
 the hills are beautifully wooded, so that a more delightful or 
 liveable region is not easily to be found. Compare this pass 
 of the Apennines with that between Isermia and Castel di 
 Sangro, or with the tremendous descent from the Five-mile 
 plain to Sulmona. We descend a steep hill into the combe, 
 in which is Gualdo, and arrive at the post 9.0. I did not 
 notice our leaving it, because there was a dispute about a 
 Terzo. We have just passed a road, going to Gubbio Igu- 
 viuin, so famous for its tables in the Umbrian language, but 
 some of them written in the Latin character. Still ups and 
 downs perpetual, but fresh water everywhere, which freshens 
 the whole landscape, and it is truly beautiful. Still I see a 
 
 32*
 
 378 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 few olives on the hill-side above us, but they must be nearly 
 the last. Here is another such descent into the combe, on 
 the opposite side of which stands Sigillo, and still here are 
 the olives. Arrived at Sigillo 10.44. Left it 11.0. Still 
 the same beautiful plain, corn, and maize, and festooning 
 vines, although we are on high ground, and going to cross the 
 main ridge of the Apennines with no Terzo; and still olives, 
 while fine oaks are scattered over the plain, and raise their 
 higher foliage above the universal green of the young trees 
 where the vines are trained. The road has continued steal- 
 ing up along the sides of the hills till we are nearly arrived at 
 the head of the valley, and also at the extremity of cultiva- 
 tion, for only a thin belt of vines now intervenes between us 
 and the bare hill-side. And yet there are olives even here, 
 and the oaks are quite beautiful ; and walnuts are intermixed 
 with them. The road turns left across the valley, to go 
 round a spur or shoulder which runs out from the hills on the 
 right ; how or where we crossed the watershed I do not yet 
 
 see. We have turned our spur and the road goes right, 
 
 and the watershed opens before us, just a straight line be- 
 tAveen the hills, and closing up the valley as with a dam ; 
 exactly as in ascending Winster we find the top of the valley, 
 just before going down upon Windermere. Yet one or two 
 olives are to be found even here, and the vines and maize are 
 everywhere. I know of no other such passage of a great 
 mountain chain, preserving actually up to the very watershed 
 all the richness of a southern valley, and yet with the fresh- 
 ness of a mountain region too. And here we are on the 
 " ipsissimum divortium," still amidst the trailing vines ; and 
 here is La Schezzia, on a stream which is going to the 
 Adriatic. 
 
 Banks of the Metaurns, July 21, 1840. 
 
 1 7. " Livy says, ' the farther Hasdrubal got from the sea 
 the steeper became the banks of the river.' We noticed 
 some steep banks, but probably they were much higher twenty- 
 three centuries ago ; for all rivers have a tendency to raise 
 themselves, from accumulations of gravel, &c. ; the windings 
 of the stream, also, would be much more as Livy describes 
 them, in the natural state of the river. The present aspect 
 of this tract of the country is the result of 2,000 years of civi- 
 lization, and would be very different in those times. There 
 would be much of natural forest remaining, the only cultiva- 
 tion being the square patches of the Roman messores, and
 
 APPENDIX D. 379 
 
 these only on the best land. The whole plain would look wild, 
 like a new and half-settled country. One of the greatest 
 physical changes on the earth is produced by the extermina- 
 tion of carnivorous animals ; for then the graminivorous be- 
 comes so numerous as to eat up all the young trees, so that the 
 forests rapidly diminish, except those trees which they do not 
 eat, as pines and firs." 
 
 July 23, 1840. 
 
 18. Between Faenza and Imola, just now, I saw a large 
 building standing back from the road, on the right, with two 
 places somewhat like lodges in front, on the road-side. On 
 one of them was the inscription " Labor omnia vicit," and the 
 lines about iron working, ending " Argutae lamina serrae." On 
 the other were Horace's lines about drinking, without fear of 
 " insanae leges." Therefore I suppose that these buildings 
 were an iron-foundry, and a public, or cafe ; but the classical 
 inscriptions seemed to me characteristic of that foolery of 
 classicalism which marks the Italians, and infects those with 
 us who are called " elegant scholars." It appears to me that 
 in Christian Europe the only book from which quotations are 
 always natural and good as inscriptions for all sorts of places, 
 is the Bible ; because every calling of life has its serious side, 
 if it be not sinful ; and a quotation from the Bible relating to 
 it, is taking it on this serious side, which is at once a true side, 
 and a most important one. But iron-foundries and publics 
 have no connection with mere book literature, which to the 
 people concerned most with either, is a thing utterly unconge- 
 nial. And inscriptions on such places should be for those 
 who most frequent them ; a literary man writing up something 
 upon them, for other literary men to read, is like the imperti- 
 nence of two scholars talking to each other in Latin at a coach 
 dinner. 
 
 Bologna, July 23, 1840. 
 
 19 And now this is the last night, I trust, in which 
 
 I shall sleep in the Pope's dominions ; for it is impossible not 
 to be sickened with a government such as this, which dis- 
 ^harges no one function decently. The ignorance of the peo- 
 ple is prodigious, how can it be otherwise? The book- 
 sellers' shops sad to behold, the very opposite of that scribe, 
 instructed to the kingdom of God, who was to bring out of 
 his treasures things new and old, these scribes, not of the 
 kingdom of God, bring out of their treasures nothing good, 
 either new or old, but the mere rubbish of the past and the
 
 380 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 present. Other governments may see an able and energetic 
 sovereign arise, to whom God may give a long reign, so that 
 what he began in youth he may live to complete in old age. 
 But here every reign must be short ; for every sovereign 
 comes to the throne an old man, and with no better educa- 
 tion than that of a priest. Where, then, can there be hope 
 under such a system, so contrived as it should seem for every 
 evil end, and so necessarily exclusive of good ? I could muse 
 long and deeply on the state of this country, but it is not my 
 business ; neither do I see, humanly speaking, one gleam of 
 hope. "1517," said Niebuhr, " must precede 1 688 ; " but where 
 are the symptoms of 1517 here ? And if one evil spirit be cast 
 out, there are but seven others yet more evil, it may be, ready 
 to enter. Wherefore, I have no sympathy with the so-called 
 Liberal party here any more than has Bunsen. They are but 
 types of the counter evil of Popery, that is, of Jacobinism. 
 The two are obverse and reverse of the coin, the imprint- 
 ing of one type on the one side, necessarily brings out the 
 other on the other side : and so in a perpetual series ; for 
 [Newmanism] leads to [Socialism], and [Socialism] leads to 
 [Newmanism], the eternal oscillations of the drunken 
 11 lima, - the varying vices and vileness of the slave, and the 
 slave broken loose. " Half of our virtue," says Homer, " is 
 torn away when a man becomes a slave," and the other half 
 goes when he becomes a slave broken loose. Wherefore may 
 God grant us freedom from all idolatry, whether of flesh or 
 of spirit ; that fearing- Him * and loving Him, we may fear 
 and bow down before no idol, and never worshipping what 
 ought not to be worshipped, may so escape the other evil of 
 not worshipping what ought to be worshipped. Good night, 
 my darlings. 
 
 July 24, 1840. 
 
 20. As we are going through this miserable state of Mo- 
 dena, it makes me feel most strongly what it is to be iXfvQtpas 
 roXca>f TroXiTTjr. What earthly thing could induce me to 
 change the condition of an English private gentleman for any 
 conceivable rank of fortune, or authority, in Modena ? How 
 much of my nature must I surrender; how many faculties 
 must consent to abandon their exercise before the change could 
 be other than intolerable ! Feeling this, one can understand 
 
 * " He fears God thoroughly, and he fears neither man nor Devil beside," 1 
 was his characteristic description of a thoroughly courageous man.
 
 APPENDIX D. 881 
 
 the Spartan answer to the Great King's satrap : " Hadst thou 
 known what freedom was, thou wouldst advise us to defend it, 
 not with swords, but with axes." Now there are some, Eng- 
 lishmen unhappily, but most unworthy to be so, who affect to 
 talk of freedom, and a citizen's rights and duties, as things 
 about which a Christian should not care. Like all their other 
 doctrines, this comes out of the shallowness of their little 
 minds, " understanding neither what they say, nor whereof 
 they affirm." True it is, that St. Paul, expecting that the 
 world was shortly to end, tells a man not to care even if he 
 were in a state of personal slavery. That is an endurable evil 
 which will shortly cease, not in itself only, but in its conse- 
 quences. But even for the few years during which he sup- 
 posed the world would exist, he says, " if thou mayest be 
 made free, use it rather." For true it is that a great part of 
 the virtues of human nature can scarcely be developed in a 
 state of slavery, whether personal or political. The passive 
 virtues may exist, the active ones suffer. Truth, too, suffers 
 especially ; if a man may not declare his convictions when he 
 wishes to do so, he learns to conceal them also for his own 
 convenience ; and from being obliged to play the hypocrite 
 for others, he learns to lie on his own account. And as the 
 ceasing to lie is mentioned by St. Paul as one of the first 
 marks of the renewed nature, so the learning to lie is one of 
 
 the surest marks of nature unrenewed True it is, 
 
 that the first Christians lived under a despotism, and yet that 
 truth, and the active virtues, were admirably developed in 
 them. But the first manifestation of Christianity was in all 
 respects of a character so extraordinary as abundantly to 
 make up for the absence of more ordinary instruments for the 
 elevation of the human mind. It is more to the purpose to 
 observe, that immediately after the Apostolic times, the total 
 absence of all civil self-government was one great cause which 
 ruined the government of the Church also, and prepared men 
 for the abominations of the priestly dominion ; while, on the 
 other hand, Guizot has well shown that one great cause of the 
 superiority of the Church to the heathen world was because, 
 in the Church alone, there was a degree of freedom and a 
 semblance of political activity ; the great bishops, Athana- 
 sius and Augustine, although subjects of a despotic ruler in 
 the State, were themselves free citizens and rulers of a great 
 society, in the management of which all the political facul- 
 ties of the human mind found sufficient exercise. But when
 
 882 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 the Church is lost in the weakness and falsehood of a priest 
 hood, it can no longer furnish such a field, and there is the 
 greater need therefore of political freedom. But the only per- 
 fect and entirely wholesome freedom is where the Church and 
 the State are both free, and both one. Then, indeed, there 
 
 is Civitas Dei, then there is dp/orr; *cal reXfiorarTj TT; TroXtTei'^. 
 And now this discussion has brought me nearly half through 
 this Duchy of Modena, for we must be more than half-way 
 from Rubbiero to Reggio. 
 
 Canton Ticino, July 25, 1840. 
 
 21. We have now just passed the Austrian frontier, and 
 are entered into Switzerland, that is, into the Canton Ticino, 
 Switzerland politically, but Italy still, and for a long time geo- 
 graphically. In comparing this country with Central Italy, I 
 observe the verdure of the grass here, and the absence of the 
 olive, and mostly of the fig, and the comparative rarity of the 
 vine. Again, the villages are more scattered over the whole 
 landscape, and not confined to the mountains ; and the houses 
 themselves, white and large and with overhanging roofs, and 
 standing wide and free, have no resemblance to the dark 
 masses of uncouth buildings which are squee sed together upon 
 the scanty surface of their mountain platforms in Central Italy. 
 Here, too, is running water in every field, which keeps up 
 this eternal freshness of green. But in central Italy all the 
 forms are more picturesque, the glens are deeper, the hills are 
 bolder, and at the same time softer, besides the indescribable 
 charm thrown over every scene there by the recollection of its 
 antiquities. Still, I am not sure that I could justify to another 
 person my own preference beyond all comparison of the 
 country between Antrodoco and Terni over this between 
 Como and Lugano. Mola di Gaeta, Naples, Terracina, and 
 Vietri, having the sea in their landscape, cannot fairly be 
 brought into comparison. 
 
 July 28, 1840. 
 
 Left Amsteg 6.50. The beauty of the lower part of this 
 valley is perfect. The morning is fine, so that we see the tops 
 of the mountains, which rise 9,000 feet above the sea directly 
 from the valley. Huge precipices, crowned with pines, rising 
 out of pines, and with pines between them, succeed below to 
 the crags and glaciers. Then in the valley itself, green hows, 
 with walnuts and pears, and wild cherries, and the gardens of 
 these picturesque Swiss cottages, scattered about over them ; 
 and the roaring Reuss, the only inharmonious element where
 
 APPENDIX D. . 383 
 
 he is, yet he himself not incapable of being made harmo- 
 nious if taken in a certain point of view, at the very bottom 
 of all. This is the Canton Uri one of the Wald Staaten, or 
 Forest Cantons, which were the original germ of the Swiss 
 confederacy. But Uri, like Sparta, has to answer the question, 
 what has mankind gained over and above the ever-precious 
 example of noble deeds, from Murgarten, Sempach, or Ther- 
 mopylae ? What the world has gained by Salamis and Plataea, 
 and by Zama, is on the other hand no question, any more than 
 it ought to be a question what the world has gained by the 
 defeat of Philip's armada, or by Trafalgar and Waterloo. 
 But if a nation only does great deeds that it may live, and 
 does not show some worthy object for which it has lived, 
 and Uri and Switzerland have shown but too little of any such, 
 then our sympathy with the great deeds of their history 
 can hardly go beyond the generation by which those deeds 
 were performed ; and I cannot help thinking of the mercenary 
 Swiss of Novara and Marignano, and of the oppression exer- 
 cised over the Italian bailiwicks and the Pays de Vaud, and 
 all the tyrannical exclusiveness of these little barren oligar- 
 chies, as much as of the heroic deeds of the three men, Tell and 
 his comrades, or the self-devotion of my namesake of Wink- 
 elried, when at Sempach he received into his breast " a sheaf 
 of Austrian spears." 
 
 Steamer on the Lake of Luzern, July 29, 1840. 
 22. We arrived at Fluelen about half past eight, and having 
 had some food, and most commendable food it was, we are 
 embarked on the Lake of Luzern, and have already passed 
 Brunnen, and are outside the region of the high Alps. It 
 would be difficult certainly for a Swiss to admire our lakes, 
 because he would ask, what is there here which we have not, 
 and which we have not on a larger scale ? I cannot deny that 
 the meadows here are as green as ours, the valleys richer, the 
 woods thicker, the cliffs grander, the mountains by measure- 
 ment twice or three times higher. And if Switzerland were 
 my home and country, the English lakes and mountains would 
 certainly never tempt me to travel to see them, destitute as 
 they are of all historical interest. In fact, Switzerland is to 
 Europe, what Cumberland and Westmoreland are to Lan- 
 cashire and Yorkshire ; the general summer touring-place. 
 But all country that is actually beautiful is capable of afford- 
 inf to those who live in it the highest pleasure of scenery,
 
 884 . LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 which no country, however beautiful, can do to those who 
 merely travel in it ; and thus while I do not dispute the higher 
 interest of Switzerland to a Swiss, (no Englishman ought to 
 make another country his home, and therefore I do not speak 
 of Englishmen,) I must still maintain that to me Fairfield is 
 a hundred times more beautiful than the Righi, and Winder- 
 mere than the Lake of the Four Cantons. Not that I think 
 this is overvalued by travellers, it cannot be so; but most 
 people undervalue greatly what mountains are when they 
 form a part of our daily life, and combine not with our hours 
 of leisure, of wandering, and of enjoyment, but with those of 
 home life, of work, and of duty. Luzern, July 29. We ac- 
 complished the passage of the lake in about three hours, and 
 most beautiful it was all the way. And now, as in 1827, 1 
 recognize the forms of our common English country, and 
 should be bidding adieu to mountains, and preparing merely 
 for our Rugby lanes and banks, and Rugby work, were it not 
 for the delightful excrescence of a tour which we hope to 
 make to Fox How, and three or four days' enjoyment of our 
 own mountains, hallowed by our English Church, and hal- 
 lowed scarcely less by our English Law. Alas, the difference 
 between Church and Law, and clergy and lawyers ; but so in 
 human things the concrete ever adds unworthiness to the ab- 
 stract. I have been sure for many years that the subsiding of 
 a tour, if I may so speak, is quite as delightful as its swelling ; 
 I call it its subsiding, when one passes by common things indif- 
 ferently, and even great things with a fainter interest, because 
 one is so strongly thinking of home and of the returning to 
 ordinary relations and duties. 
 
 Swiss Lowlands, July 29, 1840. 
 
 23 We have left the mountains and lakes of 
 
 Switzerland, and are entering upon the Lowlands, which, like 
 those of Scotland, are always unduly depreciated by being 
 compared with their Highlands. The Swiss Lowlands are a 
 beautiful country of hill or valley, never flat, and never bar- 
 ren ; a country like the best parts of Shropshire or Worces- 
 tershire. They are beautifully watered, almost all the rivers 
 flowing out of lakes, and keeping a full body of water all the 
 year, and they are extremely well wooded, besides the wooded 
 appearance given to the country by its numerous walnut, pear, 
 and apple trees. They are also a well-inhabited and appar- 
 ently a flourishing country ; nor could I ever discern that
 
 APPENDIX D. 385 
 
 difference between the Protestant and Catholic Cantons, under 
 similar circumstances, which some of our writers have seen 
 or fancied. As for the present aspect of the country, the 
 corn is cutting, but not cut ; and much of it has been sadly 
 laid. Vines there are none hereabouts, nor maize, but plenty 
 of good grass, apple and pear trees, and walnuts numberless, 
 
 hemp, potatoes, and corn. The views behind the moun- 
 tains are and will be magnificent all the way till we get over 
 the H menstein hills, the continuation of the Jura, and we are 
 now ascending from the valley of the Reuss to get over to the 
 feeder of the Aar, the great river of the Bernese Oberland 
 and of Bern. 
 
 August 6, 1840. 
 
 24. Arrived at St. Omer. And Pave is dead, and we 
 have left our last French town (except Calais), and all things 
 and feelings French seem going to sleep in me, cares of 
 carriage, cares of passport, cares of inns, cares of pos- 
 tilions and of Pave, and there revive within me the habit- 
 ual cares of my life, which for the last seven weeks have 
 slumbered. In many things the beginning and end are differ- 
 ent, in few more so than in a tour. " Coelum non animum 
 mutant qui trans mare currunt," is in my case doubly false. 
 My mind changes twice, from my home self to my travelling 
 self, and then to my home self back again. On this day 
 seven weeks I travelled this very stage ; its appearance in 
 that interval is no doubt altered ; flowers are gone by, and 
 corn is yellow which was green ; but I am changed even more, 
 
 changed in my appetites and in my impressions ; for then 
 I craved locomotion and rest from mental work, now I de- 
 sire to remain still as to place, and to set my mind to work 
 again ; then I looked at everything on the road with in- 
 terest, drinking in eagerly a sense of the reality of foreign 
 objects, now I only notice our advance homeward, and for- 
 eign objects seem to be things with which I have no concern. 
 But it is not that I feel any way tired of things and persons 
 French, only that I do so long for things and persons English. 
 I never felt more keenly the wish to see the peace between 
 the two countries perpetual ; never could I be more indignant 
 at the folly and wickedness which on both sides of the water 
 are trying to rekindle the flames of war. The one effect of 
 the last war ought to be to excite in both nations the greatest 
 mutual respect. France, with the aid of half Europe, could 
 not conquer England ; England, with the aid of all Europe,
 
 886 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 never could have overcome France, had France been zealous 
 and united in Napoleon's quarrel. When Napoleon saw kings 
 and princes bowing before him at Dresden, Wellington was 
 advancing victoriously in Spain ; when a million of men in 
 1815 were invading France, Napoleon engaged for three days 
 with two armies, each singly equal to his own, and was for 
 two days victorious. Equally and utterly false are the follies 
 uttered by silly men of both countries, about the certainty of 
 
 one beating the Other. Ov TroAu 5ia$e'pe avBpumos dvOpanrov is 
 
 especially applicable here. When Englishmen and French- 
 men meet in war, each may know that they will meet in the 
 other all a soldier's qualities, skill, activity, and undaunted 
 courage, with bodies able to do the bidding of the spirit either 
 in action or in endurance. England and France may do each 
 other incalculable mischief by going to war, both physically 
 and morally ; but they can gain for themselves, or hope to 
 gain, nothing. It were an accursed wish in either to wish to 
 destroy the other, and happily the wish would be as utterly 
 vain as it would be wicked. 
 
 August 6, 1840. 
 
 25. Left Dover 7.45. What am I to say of this perfect 
 road and perfect posting; of the greenness and neatness of 
 everything, the delicate miniature scale of the country, the 
 art of the painter held in honor, and extending even to barns 
 and railings, of the manifest look of spring and activity and 
 business which appears in everybody's movements? The 
 management of the Commissioner at Dover in getting the 
 luggage through the Custom-House, was a model of method 
 and expedition, and so was the attendance at the inns. All 
 this fills me with many thoughts, amongst which the prevailing 
 one certainly is not pride ; for with the sight of all this there 
 instantly comes into my mind the thought of our sad plague- 
 spots, the canker-worm in this beautiful and goodly fruit 
 corrupting it within. But I will not dwell on this now, per- 
 sonally, I may indulge in the unspeakable delight of being 
 once again in our beloved country, with our English Church 
 and English Law. 
 
 August 7, 1840. 
 
 2G. Even whilst I write, the houses of the neighborhood 
 of London are being left behind, and these bright green quiet 
 fields of Middlesex are succeeding one another like lightning. 
 So we have passed London, no one can tell when again I 
 may revisit it; and foreign parts, having now p'l T " r ',
 
 APPENDIX D. 387 
 
 between me and them, are sunk away into an unreality, while 
 Rugby and Fox How are growing very substantial. We are 
 now just at Harrow ; and here too harvest, I see, has begun. 
 And now we are in Hertfordshire, crossing the valley of the 
 Coin at Watford. Watford station 5.54. Left it 5.56. Tring 
 station 6.28. Left it 6.30. And now we are descending the 
 chalk escarpment, and it may be some time before I set my 
 eyes upon chalk again. Here, too, in Buckinghamshire, I 
 see that the harvest is begun. Leighton Buzzard station 6.48. 
 Left it 6.51. This speed is marvellous, for we have not yet 
 been two hours on our journey, and here we are in the very 
 bowels of the kingdom, above 110 miles from Dover, and not 
 quite 240 from you, my boys. Here is the iron sand, and we 
 shall soon come upon our old friend the Oolite. The country 
 looks delicious under the evening sun, so green and rich and 
 peaceful. Wolverton station and the food 7.15. Left it 7.27. 
 Blisworth station 7.53. Left it 7.56. And now we are fairly 
 in Northamptonshire, and in our own Rugby country in a 
 manner, because we come here on the Kingsthorpe clay. 
 
 August 9, 1840. 
 
 27. Left Milnethorpe 6.21. My last day's journal, I hope, 
 dearest, and then the faithful inkstand which has daily hung 
 at my button-hole may retire to his deserved rest. Our tea 
 last night was incomparable; such ham, such bread and 
 butter, such cake, and then came this morning a charge of 
 4s. 6rf. for our joint bed and board ; when those scoundrels 
 in Italy, whose very life is roguery, used to charge double 
 and treble for their dog fare and filthy rooms. Bear witness 
 Capua, and that vile Swiss-Italian woman whom I could wish 
 to have been in Capua (Casilinum) when Hannibal besieged 
 it, and when she must either have eaten her shoes, or been 
 eaten herself by some neighbor, if she had not been too 
 tough and indigestible. But, dearest, there are other thoughts 
 within me as I look out on this delicious valley (we are going 
 down to Levens) on this Sunday morning. How calm and 
 beautiful is everything, and here, as we know, how little 
 marred by any extreme poverty. And yet do these hills and 
 valleys, any more than those of the Apennines, send up an 
 acceptable incense ? Both do as far as Nature is concerned, 
 our softer glory and that loftier glory each in their kind 
 render their homage, and God's work so far is still very good. 
 But with our just laws and pure faith, and here with a whole-
 
 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 some state of property besides, is there yet the Kingdom of 
 God here any more than in Italy ? How can there be ? For 
 the Kingdom of God is the perfect development of the Church 
 of God: and when Priestcraft destroyed the Church, the 
 Kingdom of God became an impossibility. We have now 
 entered the Winster Valley, and are got precisely to our own 
 slates again, which we left yesterday week in the Vosges. 
 The strawberries and raspberries hang red to the sight by the 
 road-side ; and the turf and flowers are more delicately beauti- 
 ful than anything which I have seen abroad. The moun- 
 tains, too, are in their softest haze ; I have seen Old Man and 
 the Langdale Pikes rising behind the nearer hills most beauti- 
 fully. We have just opened on Windermere, and vain it is 
 to talk of any earthly beauty ever equalling this country in 
 my eyes ; when mingling with every form and sound and 
 fragrance comes the full thought of domestic affections, and of 
 national, and of Christian ; here is our own house and home, 
 
 here are our own country laws and language, and here is 
 our English Church. No Mola di Gaeta, no valley of the 
 Velino, no Salerno or Vietri, no Lago di Pie di Lugo, can 
 rival to me this vale of Windermere, and of the Rotha. And 
 here it lies in the perfection of its beauty, the deep shadows 
 on the unruffled water, the haze investing Fairfield with 
 everything solemn and undefined. Arrived at Bowness 8.20. 
 Left it at 8.31. Passing Ragrigg Gate 8.37. On the Bow- 
 ness Terrace 8.45. Over Troutbeck Bridge 8.51. Here is 
 Ecclerigg, 8.58. And here Lowood Inn, 9.4^. And here 
 Waterhead and our ducking-bench, 9.12. The valley opens, 
 
 Ambleside, and Rydal Park, and the gallery on Loughrigg. 
 Rotha Bridge 9.16. And here is the poor humbled Rotha, 
 and Mr. Brancker's cut, and the New Millar Bridge, 9.21. 
 Alas ! for the alders gone and succeeded by a stiff wall. 
 Here is the Rotha in his own beauty, and here is poor T. 
 Flemming's Field, and our own mended gate. Dearest 
 children, may we meet happily. Entered FOX HOW, and 
 the birch copse at 9.25, and here ends journal. Walter first 
 saw us, and gave notice of our approach. We found all our 
 dear children well, and Fox How in such beauty, that no scene 
 in Italy appeared in my eyes comparable to it. We break- 
 fasted, and at a quarter before eleven, I had the happiness of 
 once more going to an English Church, and that Church out 
 own beloved Rydal Chapel.
 
 APPENDIX D. 389 
 
 XI. TOUR IN SOUTH OF FIIANCE. 
 
 July 4, 1841. 
 
 1. I have been reading Bunsen's Liturgy for the Holy or 
 Passion Week, with his Introduction. He has spoken out 
 many truths, which to the wretched theology of our schools 
 would be startling and shocking : but they are not hard 
 truths, but real Christian truths spoken in love, such as St. 
 Paul spoke, and was called profane by the Judaizers for doing 
 so. It will be a wonderful day when the light breaks in upon 
 our High Churchmen and Evangelicals : how many it will 
 dazzle and how many it will enlighten, God only knows : but 
 it will be felt, and the darkness will be broken up before it. 
 
 Between Angouleme and Bordeaux, July 7, 1841. 
 
 2. Left Barbiceaux 10.35, very rich and beautiful. It is 
 not properly southern, for there are neither olives nor figs ; 
 nor is it northern, for the vines and maize are luxuriant. It 
 is properly France, with its wide landscapes, no mountains, 
 but slopes and hills ; its luminous air, its spread of cultiva- 
 tion, with the vines and maize and walnuts, mixed with the 
 ripe corn, as brilliant in coloring as it is rich in its associa- 
 tions. I never saw a brighter or a fresher landscape. Green 
 hedges line the road ; the hay, just cut, is fragrant ; every- 
 thing is really splendid for man's physical well-being : it is 
 Kent six degrees nearer the sun. Nor are there wanting 
 church-towers enough to sanctify the scene, if one could be- 
 lieve that with the stone church there was also the living 
 church, and not the accursed Priestcraft. But, alas ! a Priest 
 is not a Church, but that which renders a Church impossible. 
 
 July 10, 1841. 
 
 3 I find that the dialect here is not Basque after 
 
 all, but Gascon, that is, merely a Lingua Romana, more or 
 less differing from the northern French. I fancied that I 
 could understand some of the words, which I certainly could 
 not have done in Basque. The postmaster of S. Paul les 
 Dax, a good-humored, loquacious old gentleman, told me that 
 " une femme " in their patois was " une Henne," a curious 
 instance of the H taking place of the F, as in Spanish, Hijo 
 for Filius. Close by the last post we saw the church-spire of 
 Pouy, the native place of Vincentius of Paula, a man worthy 
 of all memory. I have just seen the PYRENEES, lowering down 
 
 33*
 
 390 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 towards the sea, but with very high mountains to the left or 
 eastward : we should have seen more of them if it had not 
 been for the clouds, which are still dark and black to the 
 southward. These are the first mountains that I have seen 
 since I last saw our own : between Westmoreland and the 
 Pyrenees there are none. The near country is still the same, 
 but less of the pine forest. 
 
 St. Jean de Luz, July 11, 1841. 
 
 4. It is this very day year that we were at Mola di Gaeta 
 together, and I do not suppose it possible to conceive a greater 
 contrast than Mola di Gaeta on the llth of July, 1840, and 
 S. Jean de Luz on the llth of July, 1841. The lake-like 
 calm of that sea, and the howling fury of this ocean, the 
 trees few and meagre, shivering from the blasts of the Atlan- 
 tic, and the umbrageous bed of oranges, peaches, and pome- 
 granates, which there delighted in the freshness of that gentle 
 water ; the clear sky and bright moon, and the dark mass 
 of clouds and drizzle, the remains of Roman palaces and 
 the fabled scene of Homer's poetry, and a petty French fish- 
 ing town, with its coasting Chasse Marees : these are some of 
 the points of the contrast. Yet those vile Italians are the 
 refuse of the Roman slaves, crossed by a thousand conquests ; 
 and these Basques are the very primeval Iberians, who were 
 the most warlike of the nations of the West, before the Kelts 
 had ever come near the shores of the Mediterranean. And 
 the little pier, which I have been just looking at, was the 
 spot where Sir Charles Penrose found the Duke of Welling- 
 ton alone at the dead of night, when, anxious about the weather 
 for the passage of the Adour, he wished to observe its earliest 
 signs before other men had left their beds. 
 
 July 12, 1841. 
 
 5. SPAIN. Just out of Iran, sitting on a stone by the road- 
 side. We have left our carriage in France, and walked over 
 the Bidassoa to Irun, which is about a mile and a half from 
 the bridge. We went through the town, and out of it to some 
 high ground, where we had the whole panorama. The views 
 on every side are magnificent. There is the mouth of the 
 Bidassoa, Fontarabia on one side and Audaye on the other ; 
 and the sea blue now, like the Mediterranean. Then on the 
 other side are the mountains : San Marcial on its rocky sum- 
 mit, and the adjoining mountains with their sides perfectly 
 green, deep-wooded combes, fern and turf on the slopes,
 
 APPENDIX D. 391 
 
 mingled, as in our own mountains, with crags and cliffs. And 
 just now I saw a silver stream falling down in a deep- wooded 
 ghyll to complete the likeness. Around me are the crops of 
 maize, and here too are houses scattered over the country, but 
 less neat-looking and fewer than in France. For tke town 
 itself, I shall speak of it hereafter. 
 
 Biobi. We are just returned from Spain, and are again 
 seated in our carriage to return to Bayonne. Now what have 
 I seen in Spain worth notice? The very instant that we 
 crossed the Bidassoa, the road, which in France is nerfect, be- 
 came utterly bad, and the street of Irun itself was intolerable. 
 The town, in its style of building, resembled the worst towns 
 of Central Italy ; the galleries on the outside of the houses, 
 the overhanging roofs, and the absence of glass. It strikes 
 me that if this same style prevails both in Spain and Italy, 
 where modern improvement has not reached, it must be of 
 very great antiquity ; derived, perhaps, from the time when 
 both countries were united under a common Government, the 
 lloman ; unless it is to be traced to the Spanish ascendency in 
 Italy, which indeed it may be. Behind Irun, towards the in- 
 terior, are two sugar-loaf mountains very remarkable. The 
 hill-sides are all covered with dwarf oaks, not ilex, which 
 look, at a distance, like the apple-trees of Picardy, with just 
 that round cabbage-like head. 
 
 Near Agen, July 14. 
 
 6. For some time past the road has been a terrace above 
 the lower bank of the Garonne, which is flowing in great 
 breadth and majesty below us 
 
 From these heights, in clear weather, you can see the Pyr- 
 enees, but now the clouds hang darkly over them 
 
 One thing I should have noticed of Agen, that it is the birth- 
 place of Joseph Scaliger, in some respects the Niebuhr of the 
 seventeenth century, but rather the Bentley ; morally far be- 
 low Niebuhr ; and though, like Bentley, almost rivalling him 
 in acuteness, and approaching somewhat to him in knowledge, 
 yet altogether without his wisdom. 
 
 Auch, July 14, 1841. 
 
 7. At supper we were reading a Paris paper, Le Siecle ; but 
 the one thing which struck me, and rejoiced my very heart, 
 was an advertisement in* it of a most conspicuous kind, and in 
 very large letters of LA SAINTE BIBLE, announcing an edi- 
 tion, in numbers, of De Sacy's French translation of it. I 
 can conceive nothing but good from such a thing. May God
 
 392 LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD. 
 
 prosper it to His glory, and the salvation of souls ; it was a 
 joyful and a blessed sight to see it. 
 
 Bourges, July 14. 
 
 8 "We found the afternoon service going on at the 
 
 Cathedral ; and the Archbishop, with his priests and the chor- 
 isters, were going round the church in procession, chanting 
 some of their hymns, and with a great multitude of people 
 following them. The effect was very fine, and I again la- 
 mented our neglect of our cathedrals, and the absurd confu- 
 sion in so many men's minds between what is really Popery, 
 and what is but wisdom and beauty, adopted by the Roman 
 Catholics and neglected by us. 
 
 Paris, July 20, 1841. 
 
 9. I have been observing the people in the streets very 
 carefully, and their general expression is not agreeable, that 
 of the young men especially. The newspapers seem all gone 
 mad together, and these disturbances at Toulouse are very sad 
 and unsatisfactory. If that advertisement which I saw about 
 La Sainte Bible be found to answer, that would be the great 
 specific for France. And what are our prospects at home 
 with the Tory Government ? and how long will it be before 
 Chartism again forces itself upon our notice ? So where is 
 the hope, humanly speaking, of things bettering, or are the 
 Aoi/iot and AI/JOI, and iroXc^ot and dco<u 7roXc/ia>i>, ready to herald 
 a new advent of the Lord to judgment ? The questions con- 
 cerning our state appear to me so perplexing, that I cannot 
 even in theory see their solution. We have not and cannot 
 yet solve the problem, how the happiness of mankind is recon- 
 cilable with the necessity of painful labor. The happiness of 
 a part can be secured easily enough, their ease being provided 
 for by others' labor; but how can the happiness of the gen- 
 erality be secured, who must labor of necessity painfully ? 
 How can he who labors hard for his daily bread hardly, 
 and with doubtful success be made wise and good, and 
 therefore how can he be made happy? This question un- 
 doubtedly the Church was meant to solve ; for Christ's King- 
 dom was to undo the evil of Adam's sins ; but the Church 
 has not solved it, nor attempted to do so ; and no one else has 
 gone about it rightly. This is the great bar to education. 
 How can a poor man find time to be educated ? You may 
 establish schools, but he will not have time to attend them, for 
 a few years of early boyhood are no more enough to give ed- 
 ucation, than the spring months can do the summer's work
 
 APPENDIX D. 393 
 
 when the summer is all cold and rainy; But I must go to 
 bed, and try to get home to you and to work, for there is great 
 need of working. God bless you, my dearest wife, with all 
 our darlings. 
 
 Boulogne, July 23, 1841. 
 
 10. Our tour is ended, and I grieve to say that it has left 
 on my mind a more unfavorable impression of France than I 
 have been wont to feel. I do not doubt the great mass of good 
 which must exist, but the active elements, those, at least, which 
 are on the surface, seem to be working for evil. The viru- 
 lence of the newspapers against England is, I think, a very 
 bad omen, and the worship which the people seem to pay to 
 Napoleon's memory is also deeply to be regretted. But it is 
 the misfortune of France that her " past " cannot be loved or 
 respected ; her future and her present cannot be wedded to it ; 
 yet how can the present yield fruit, or the future have promise, 
 except their roots be fixed in the past ? The evil is infinite, 
 but the blame rests with those who made the past a dead thing, 
 out of which no healthful life could be produced 
 
 Much as I like coming abroad, I am never for an 
 
 instant tempted to live abroad ; not even in Germany, where 
 assuredly I would settle, if I were obliged to quit England. 
 But not the strongest Tory or Conservative values our Church 
 or Law more than I do, or would find life less liveable without 
 them. Indeed it is very hard to me to think that those can 
 value either who can see their defects with indifference ; or 
 that those can value them worthily, that is, can appreciate 
 their idea, who do not see wherein they fall short of their idea. 
 And now I close this Journal for the present, praying that 
 God may bless us, and keep us in worldly good or evil in Him- 
 self and in His Son. Amen.
 
 THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF 
 
 DR. ARNOLD'S PUBLISHED WOKKS. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 
 
 L Six volumes of Sermons : 
 
 1st. Sermons preached at Laleham, 1829. 
 
 2d. Sermons preached in the School Chapel at Rugby. With five 
 Sermons on the Social State of England, and an Essay on the Interpre- 
 tat ion of Scripture, 1832. [These last are omitted in a smaller edition 
 of this volume, entitled " Sermons preached in Rugbv Chapel," 1832, 
 which contains two sermons not in the larger edition.] 
 
 3d. Selection of Sermons, 1832-34, with a Preface on the Study of 
 Theology, and two Appendices on Atheism, and on the Doctrine of 
 Apostolical Succession. 
 
 4th Selection of Sermons, 1835-41, entitled "Christian Life, its 
 Course, its Helps, and its Hindrances;" with a Preface on the Oxford 
 School of Theology, and notes on Tradition, Rationalism, and Inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 6th. Sermons preached 1841-42, (posthumous,) entitled " Christian 
 Life, its Hopes, its Fears, and its Close." 
 
 6th. Sermons mostly on the Interpretation of Scripture ( posthumous j. 
 
 IL Two Sermons on Prophecy, with Notes, 1839. 
 III. Fragments on Church and State (posthumous). 
 
 HISTORICAL AND PHILOLOGICAL WORKS. 
 
 I. Edition of Thucydides, 1st edition, 1830, -33, -35. 2d 
 edition, 1840, -41, -42. 
 
 The first volume contains a Preface on the previous editions of Thu- 
 cydides, (omitted in the 2d edition,) and Appendices. 
 
 1. On the Social Progress of States. 2. On the Spartan Constitution. 
 3. (Omitted in the 2d edition,) on the Constitution of the Athenian 
 Tribes. 
 
 The second contains a collation of a Venetian MS. and Appendices 
 on the Date of the Pythian Games, and on the Topography of Megara, 
 Corinth, Sphacteria, and Amphipolis. 
 
 The third contains a Preface on the General Importance of Greek 
 History to Political Science, and an Appendix on the Topography of 
 Syracuse. 
 
 "[Of these Essays, the First Appendix to Vol. I. and the Preface to 
 Vol. III. are now published in the u Miscellaneous Works."] 
 
 II. History of Rome, in 3 volumes, 1838, -40, -42, which 
 was broken off, by his death, at the end of the Second 
 Punic War.
 
 DR. ARNOLD'S PUBLISHED WORKS. 395 
 
 III. History of the later Roman Commonwealth, from the end 
 
 of the Second Punic War to the Death of Julius Caesar, 
 and the Reign of Augustus: with a Life of Trajan. 
 Written 1821-27, and republished from the Encyclo- 
 paedia Metropolitana. 2 volumes. 
 
 IV. "Introductory Lectures on Modern History." 1842. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
 (Mostly republished in one volume, octavo.) 
 
 I. u The Christian Duty of conceding the Roman Catholic 
 
 Claims." 1828. 
 II. Englishman's Register, Articles in, signed A. 1831. 
 
 III. Tract on the Cholera, addressed to the inhabitants of 
 
 Rugby. 1831. 
 
 IV. Letters to the Sheffield Courant, on the Social Distress 
 
 of the Lower Orders. 1831 - 32. 
 
 V. Preface on " Poetry of Common Life," to a collection of 
 poetry under that name. Published by J. C. Platt, 
 Sheffield. 1832. 
 
 VI. "Principles of Church Reform," with "Postscript." 1833. 
 VII. Letters to the Hertford Reformer, on Chartism, and 
 
 on Church and State. 1839, -40, -41. 
 VIII. Lecture before Mechanics' Institute, at Rugby, on the 
 
 Divisions of Knowledge. 1839. 
 
 IX. Paper on the revival of the order of Deacons. 1841. 
 In addition to these were various articles in periodical journals. 
 
 1. On Souther's Wat Tyler. J RHtkh Prihp ISIQ 20 
 
 2. On Cunningham's De Ranee. \ Kl tic ' 18 ' 20 ' 
 
 3. On Niebuhr's " History of Rome." In Quarterly Review, vol. 
 xxxii. 1825. 
 
 4. On " Letters of an Episcopalian." Ed. Review, vol. xliv. 1826. 
 6. On " Dr. Hampden." Edinb. Review, vol Ixiii. 1836. 
 
 6. On "Rugby School," and on "The Discipline of Public Schools, 
 by a Wykehamist," in the Quarterly Journal of Education, vols. vii., 
 ix. 1834-35. 
 
 The monument to Dr. Arnold's memory in Rugby Chapel 
 was executed by Mr. Thomas. The Epitaph was written by 
 Chevalier Bunsen, in imitation of those on the tombs of the 
 Scipios, and of the early Christian inscriptions on similar 
 subjects.
 
 I1STD EX. 
 
 ABBOTT, Jacob, i. 325, 342; ii. 83. 
 
 Alexander, i. 189. 
 
 America, i. 342. 
 
 Animal Magnetism, ii. 91. 
 
 Antichrist, i. 83, 178, 228; ii. 98, 
 166. 
 
 Appii Forum, ii. 371. 
 
 Aristocracy, i 180; ii. 115, 172, 
 319 
 
 Aristotle, i. 30, 79; ii. 234. 
 
 Arnold, Thomas. Birth, i. 17. 
 Education at school, 17, 18. En- 
 trance at Oxford, 22. Marriage 
 and settlement at Laleham, 39. 
 Election at Rugby, 62. Purchase 
 of Fox How, 215. Professorship 
 at Oxford, ii. 244, 267. Death, 
 289. Character as a boy, i. 17, 
 18; as a young man, 35; at 
 Laleham, 37. Religions belief, 
 37. General views in later life, 
 175. Domestic life, 208. Inter- 
 course with friends, 211; with 
 the poor, 213. Formation of his 
 opinions, ii. 176. 
 
 Articles of the Church of England, 
 i. 33,319; ii. 188. 
 
 Arts, Degree in, i. 365; ii. 80. 
 
 Asia Minor, i. 362. 
 
 Association, British, ii. 151. 
 
 Athanasian Creed, ii. 117. 
 
 Atheism, i. 276, 366; ii. 69. 
 
 Attic Society, i. 32. 
 
 Austria, ii. 201. 
 
 Avignon, ii. 151, 350. 
 
 Babylon, i. 335. 
 
 Balston, Henry, illness and death, ii. 
 
 198, 217. 
 Barante, ii. 56. 
 Basque language, ii. 274. 
 Blackstone, Rev. F. C , i. 33. 
 Buccaneers, ii. 178. 
 Buckland, Professor, i. 32. 
 Bunsen, Chevalier, i. 64, 321, 352; 
 
 ii. 124, 126, 132. 
 
 Bunyan, ii. 67. 
 Butler, ii. 67. 
 Byron's Cain, i. 267. 
 
 Canons, ii. 188. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, ii. 116, 167, 16& 
 275, 282, 287. 
 
 Caution, i. 280; ii. 249. 
 
 Chapel, Rugby, i. 158. 
 
 Chartism, ii. 125, 143, 150, 169. 
 
 Chartres, ii. 348. 
 
 China, war with, ii. 183. 
 
 Chivalry, i. 228. 
 
 Cholera, i. 246, 269; ii. 91. 
 
 Christian Knowledge Society, i. 282. 
 
 Church, endowment and building of, 
 ii. 162. 
 
 extension, ii. 192. 
 
 government, i. 337. 
 
 consent of, 55. 76. 
 
 property, ii. 70. 
 
 of England, i. 323, 866; Di- 
 vines of, ii. 67, 150. 
 
 Reform, first thoughts of, L 
 
 67. Pamphlet on, 290. 
 
 Rates, ii. 70. 
 
 History of, i. 848 ; ii. 76. 
 
 Views of its ends and nature, 
 
 i. 200; ii 24, 68, 126, 212, 216. 
 In what sense a society, i. 243. 
 
 and State, work on, i. 59, 
 
 200. Identity of, i. 204, 323, 327 ; 
 
 ii. 102, 381. 
 
 Civilization, i. 359, 367. 
 Classics, i. 129. 
 
 Clerical profession, ii. 140. Edu- 
 cation, i. 334; ii. 152. 
 Clubs, i. 342 ; ii. 230. 
 Cobbett, i. 80, 81, 354. 
 Coleridge, Mr. Justice, Letter from, 
 
 i. 22. Elevation to the Bench, 
 
 347. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, i. 30, 378; 
 
 ii. 34, 61, 176. 
 Cologne, ii. 327. Archbishop of, ii 
 
 102.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 397 
 
 Colonization, i. 235; iL 62, 173, 189, 
 
 282. 
 
 Colosseum, ii. 324. 
 Commentary, design of, L 194, M4, 
 
 286. 
 
 Communion at Rugby, i. 151. 
 Como, Lake of, ii. 316, 332. 
 Confession, i. 328. 
 Confirmations, i. 150, 162; ii. 144. 
 Conservatism, L ISO, 228, 253; ii. 
 
 29. 
 
 Consumption, i. 369; ii. 198. 
 Conversion of barbarian nations, i. 
 
 58, 193. 
 
 Convicts, i. 225 ; ii. 52. 
 Corn Laws, i. 182, 263; ii. 167. 
 Cornish, Rev. George, i. 27. 
 Corpus Christi College, i. 23. 
 Corfu, ii. 182. 
 Cran, plain of, ii. 147, 351. 
 Crucifixes, i. 274. 
 Cyprian, ii. 201, 243. 
 Cyrus, a type of Christ, ii. 177. 
 
 Daniel, Prophecies of, i. 80; ii. 173. 
 Davison, Rev. John, ii. 176. 
 Deacons, revival of, ii. 138, 195. 
 Delafield, Mrs. Frances, ii. 64. 
 Demosthenes, i. 140. 
 Discipline, Church, i. 203. 
 Dissenters, L 365; ii. 171, 235. 
 
 Admission of to Universities, L 
 
 333. 
 
 Dominic, ii. 46. 
 Dyson, Rev. Francis, i. 28. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, article in, ii. 20. 
 Egyptian hieroglyphics, ii. 131. 
 Elections, ii. 346." 
 Elbe, ii. 327. 
 
 Elphinstone's India, ii. 273. 
 Englishman's Register, i. 249, 259, 
 
 261,263,269; ii. 169. 
 Episcopacy, respect for, L 239, 338. 
 
 Not essential, i. 382; ii- 181. 
 Etruscans, ii. 30. 
 Evangelicals, i. 90, 250, 255. 
 Evelyn, George, i. 224. 
 Evidences of Christianity, i. 272. 
 
 Internal, ii. 201. 
 
 F.vidences of Theism, i. 277, 366. 
 Eucharist, doctrine of, ii. 77. 
 Examiner, office of, ii. 82. 
 Expulsion from public schools, L 
 
 122. 
 
 Fagging, i. 116. 
 
 Fanaticism, ii. 46. 
 
 Festivals of the Church, L 149. 
 
 Feudality, dislike to, f. 228, 364. 
 Fifth form at public schools, i. 949. 
 Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, L 
 
 345. 
 
 Flogging, i. 113. 
 Florence, i. 82. 
 
 Flowers, love of, L 218; ii. 191. 
 Foundationers of Rugby School, ii. 
 
 142. 
 
 Fox How, i. 215; ii. 53, 164, 198. 
 Franklin, Sir John, ii. 52. 
 France, ii. 97, 349, 355, 393. 
 Freemasonry, ii. 230. 
 Fronde's Remains, ii. 121. 
 
 Gains, Institutes of, ii. 62. 
 
 Cell, J. P., appointed principal of a 
 
 college in X an Diemen's Land, iL 
 
 139. Letter from, iL 296. 
 Geology, i. 32; ii. 151. 
 Germany, iL 327, 342. 
 Girls, education of, ii. 215. 
 Gladstone on Church and State, ii. 
 
 138. 
 on Church principles, iL 
 
 213. 
 
 Goethe, ii. 71. 
 
 Grammars, i. 350; ii. 77, 121. 
 Greek history, i. 187. 
 Greek, influence of, i. 359. Ancient 
 
 and modern, iL 223. 
 Grotins, L 345. 
 Guizot, i. 241; iL 216, 342. 
 
 Hampden, Rev. Dr., L 37; ii. 18, 35. 
 
 Hannibal, like Nelson, ii. 221. His 
 march, 245. 
 
 Hare, Rev. Augustus, L 33. His 
 death, 330. 
 
 Archdeacon, L 33. 
 
 Hawkins, Rev. Dr., i. 37. Predic- 
 tion on the election at Rugby, 62, 
 171. Bampton Lectures, iL 201. 
 
 Hearn, Rev. James, i. 46. 
 
 Hebrew, attempts to learn, L 355; 
 ii. 131. 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to, doubts respect- 
 ing, ii. 128. 
 
 Heresy, i. 319, 320. 
 
 Herodotus, i. 31. 140; ii. 99. 
 
 Hertford Reformer, letters to, iL 96, 
 126. 
 
 Hey's Lectures, i. 344. 
 
 Horace, i. 143. 
 
 Hooker, iL 67. 
 
 Homer, L 141. 
 
 Hull, W. W., L S3, 
 
 Idolatry, ii. 47, 858.
 
 398 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Illyrians, i. 341. 
 
 Impartiality in religion, ii. 71 
 
 India, interest in, ii. 179, 272. 
 
 Innocent III., i . 349 ; ii. 262. 
 
 Inscriptions, ii. 379. 
 
 Inspiration, i. 86, 197. 
 
 Intellectual united with moral ex- 
 cellence, i. 126 
 
 Interpretation of Scripture, i. 194. 
 Essay on. i. 252, 274, 275. 
 
 Isle of Wight, ii. 50. 
 
 Ireland, i. 326, 336; ii. 41, 44. 
 Scenery of, ii. 75. 
 
 Irvingism, i. 270; ii. 27. 
 
 Italy, ii. 223, 360. 
 
 Jacobinism, i. 180, 312, 333; ii. 151. 
 James, St., Epistle of, i. 256. 
 Jerusalem, Bishopric of, ii. 247. 
 Jesuits, ii. 110. 
 Jews, admission of, to Parliament, 
 
 ii. 40, 44. Influence of, ii. 263. 
 Jowett's Researches, i. 77. 
 
 Keble, Rev. John, i. 28. Advice 
 and letter on doubts, 34. Chris- 
 tian Year, 28. 
 
 Laing on Norway, ii. 167. 
 
 Laleham, i. 39, 45. 
 
 Lamennais, ii. 250. 
 
 Latin Poets, i. 140. 
 
 Law, profession of, i. 63 ; ii. 73, 92. 
 
 Lee, Rev. J. P., ii. 145 
 
 Legends of Roman History, ii. 99, 
 
 100. 
 
 Liberal principles, i. 181, 357, 370. 
 Lieber on education, ii. 31, 86. 
 Lightfoot, i. 345. 
 Livy, i. 188, 241, 372; ii. 245. 
 London, ii. 347. 
 London University, ii. 20, 24, 31, 80, 
 
 85, 92, 94, 106, 122. 
 Louis, St., i. 142. 
 Lowe, Rev. J., i. 33. 
 Lugano, ii. 336. 
 
 Macaulay, T. B., ii. 118. 
 
 Mahometanism, ii. 368. 
 
 Marriage -Bill, ii. 51. 
 
 Martyrs, strong feeling towards, i. 
 
 192; ii. 242, 370. 
 Masters, assistant, ii. 191. 
 Mathematics, i. 131. 
 Materialism, ii. 60. 
 Maurice, Rev. F., ii. 175, 286. 
 Mechanics' Institutes, i. 212,339; ii. 
 
 125, 150, 166. 
 Mediterranean, ii. 390. 
 
 Medicine, ii. 60, 73, 92. 
 Merivale, Herman, ii. 105. 
 Millennium, i. 207, 271. 
 Milman's History of Jews, i. 242. 
 Milton's Satan, ii. 358. 
 Missionary, call to be, ii. 179. 
 Moberly, Rev. Dr., i. 100. Letter 
 
 from, 172. 
 
 Mola di Gaeta, ii. 371, 390. 
 Modena, ii. 380. 
 Modern languages, i. 131. History, 
 
 131. 
 
 Monte Mario, ii. 322. " 
 Mountain scenery, i. 329 ; ii. 53. 
 Music, ii. 190. 
 
 Naples, ii. 372. 
 
 National debt, i. 182, 262. 
 
 Neutrality, ii. 61. 
 
 New Zealand, ii. 173, 180. 
 
 Newman, Rev. John Henry, ii. 17, 
 
 102. 
 
 Newspaper writing, ii. 96, 178. 
 Niebuhr, i. 56 ; ii. 174. Visit to, i. 
 
 241, 260. Death, 259. Third 
 
 volume, 321; ii. 144. Life and 
 
 letters, 144. 
 Nonjurors, ii. 110. 
 
 Oaths, ii. 214, 267. 
 
 Old Testament, views of, i. 193, 356, 
 
 374. 
 
 Ordination, ii. 127, 162. 
 Oriel College, i. 37. 
 Orleans, ii. 356. 
 Oscans, ii. 30. 
 Oxford school of theology, ii. 15, 46, 
 
 110, 165, 222, 265, 286. 
 Oxford, i. 22, 64; ii. 24, 104, 197, 199, 
 
 204, 256. 
 
 Oxford Examinations, ii. 120. 
 Ottery, ii. 203. 
 
 Padua, i. 241. 
 Pantheon, ii. 369. 
 Papacy, ii. 261, 262, 379. 
 Paris, ii. 97. 
 
 Party spirit, i. 182; ii. 91. 
 Paul, St., Epistles of, i. 193, 256 ; it 
 60, 63. Journey to Rome, ii. 371. 
 Pearson on the Creed, ii. 216. 
 Penrose, Rev. T., i. 39. 
 Pestilences, ii. 91. 
 Physical science, ii. 43, 191. 
 Pisa, ii. 361. 
 Pindar, i. 365. 
 Plato, i. 140, 189, 372, 378. 
 Poetry in Education, i. 236 ; ii. 66 
 Pole's Synopsis, i. 345.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 Politics,!. 179; ii. 382. 
 
 Political rights, ii. 172. 
 
 Political economy, i. 182. 
 
 Polybius, i. 373. 
 
 Pompeii, ii. 372. 
 
 Pompey, i. 191. 
 
 Poor, intercourse with, i. 212; ii. 61. 
 
 Poor Law, New, ii. 65, 136. 
 
 Popular principles, i. 182,357,370; 
 
 ii. 166, 170, 171. 
 
 Prayers in Rugby School, ii. 299. 
 Price, B., Letter from, i. 50. 
 Priesthood, doctrine of, i. 202, 333; 
 
 ii. 65, 91, 102, 170, 202, 213, 371, 
 
 388, 392. 
 
 Private schools, i. 361. 
 Privilege question, ii. 182. 
 Professorship at Oxford, ii. 255. 
 Prophets, use of, i. 254, 256. 
 Prophecy, early views of, i. 79. 
 
 Two Sermons on, 199; ii. 114, 
 
 125, 177, 193. 
 
 Prussia, ii. 196. King of, ii. 270. 
 Public schools, state of, i. 96. 
 
 Constitution of, 113. Change in, 
 
 172. 
 
 Quakers, ii. 27. 
 
 Railways, ii. 347. 
 
 Randell, Rev. James, i. 33. 
 
 Rationalism, ii. 60, 81. 
 
 Reactions, ii. 67. 
 
 Record Newspaper, i. 255. 
 
 Reform Bill, i. 262, 264 ; ii. 346. 
 
 Reformation in England, i. 80; ii. 
 
 25, 260. 
 Revolution, French, i. 81, 255. 
 
 Second French Revolution, 240, 
 
 244, 259. 
 Rieti, ii. 374. 
 Rivers, ii. 329. 
 Robespierre, ii. 46. 
 Roman History, i. 20, 54, 190. 
 
 Plan of, ii. "32, 73. Motives in 
 
 undertaking it, i. 53, 297. 1st 
 
 volume of, ii. 114. 2d, 182, 192, 
 
 204. 3d, 218, 221. 
 
 Empire, ii. 372. 
 
 Catholicism, i. 83, 234. 
 
 Abroad, ii. 316, 323, 348, 392. 
 - Catholic Relief Act, i. 220. 
 
 Pamphlet in defence of, 219. 
 Rome, visits to, i. 64; ii. 318, 369. 
 
 Advice on visiting, 119. 
 Rothe on the Church, ii. 103. 
 Rugby Magazine, i. 346, 377. 
 Rugby, i. 213, 369 ; ii. 115, 194. 
 Russia, ii. 200. 
 
 Ryder, Bishop, i. 150, 213. 
 
 Sacraments, administration of, ii. 58. 
 
 Sacrifice, Eucharistic, ii. 230. 
 
 Salon, ii. 149, 351. 
 
 Sanderson on Government, ii. 101. 
 
 Sanscrit, ii. 205. 
 
 Savigny, ii. 324. 
 
 Scaliger, ii. 391. 
 
 Scepticism, i. 366; ii. 121. 
 
 Schism, i. 233, 331 ; ii. 235. 
 
 Scotch Presbyterian Church, ii. 343, 
 344. 
 
 Scripture teaching, i. 144. Read- 
 ing of, 160. 1 ranslation of in 
 French, ii. 391. 
 
 Sectarianism, i. 202, 346. 
 
 Sermons at Rugbv, i. 152. 1st vol- 
 ume, i. 59, 96" 2d, 152, 246. 
 3d, 298. 4th, ii. 128, 217, 235. 
 5th, 241. Plan for collection of, 
 i. 284. 
 
 Shakespeare, ii. 55. 
 
 Sheffield Courant Letters, i. 249, 269. 
 
 Sixth Form in Public Schools, i. 
 115. 
 
 Selwyn, Bishop, ii. 253, 273. 
 
 Slavery, ii. 137, 381. In West In- 
 dies, i. 79. 
 
 Socrates, i. 188. 
 
 Southey, i. 325 ; ii. 34. 
 
 State services, ii. 192. 
 
 Stephen, James, ii. 226. 
 
 Strauss, ii. 63, 157. 
 
 Strype, i. 345. 
 
 Subscription, difficulties of, ii. 117, 
 127, 187, 195. 
 
 Succession, Apostolical. ( See Priest- 
 hood.) 
 
 Sunday, i. 315. 
 
 Supremacy of the King, ii. 170. 
 
 Swiss, ii. 382. 
 
 Switzerland, ii. 382. 
 
 Syracusan Expedition, i. 188. 
 
 Sylla, i. 186, 191 ; ii. 46. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, ii. 165. 
 
 Jeremy, ii. 67. 
 
 Te Deum, love for, i. 149. 
 
 Timothy, Epistles to, i. 374 ; ii. 30. 
 
 Theological reading, i. 344; ii. 153. 
 Plan for review, i. 348. 
 
 Thirlwall's Greece, ii. 174. 
 
 Thomas, St., confession of, i. 41, 
 147; ii. 289. 
 
 Thucydides, fondness for, i. 30, 132; 
 ii. 89. Edition of, i. 62. Sec- 
 ond edition, ii. 124. 
 
 Tongues, gift of, i. 270 ; ii. 27.
 
 400 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Toulon, ii. 151. 
 
 Tracts for the Times, i. 330; ii. 48. 
 
 Tract xc., ii. 129, 261. 
 
 Tradition, ii. 26, 109. 
 
 Translation, i. 139; ii. 65. Of the 
 
 Bible, i. 326. 
 Transportation, ii. 150. 
 Travelling, ii. 325, 384. 
 
 Journals, ii. 314. 
 
 Tucker, Rev. J., i. 26, 303; ii. 236. 
 
 Unitarianism, i. 230, 308, 326; ii. 
 
 38, 81, 146. 
 
 University Reform, ii. 78, 101. 
 Useful Knowledge Society, i. 248, 267. 
 Utilitarianism, i. 310 ; ii. 56. 
 
 Van Diemen's Land, College in, ii. 
 
 140, 190, 226, 228. 
 Venice, i. 241. 
 
 Viva-voce examinations, ii. lia. 
 
 Warminster, i. 17, 18, 20, 21. 
 War, horror of, ii. 202, 211. 
 Wardenship or Manchester declined, 
 
 ii. 196. 
 
 Weather, interest in, ii. 84. 
 Wellington, Duke of, despatches, iL 
 
 84. 
 
 Welsh, study of, ii. 187. 
 Whately, Rev. Dr., i. 37, 55, 275 
 
 321. Prediction at Oriel ele<> 
 
 tion, 38. Elevation to the see of 
 
 Dublin, 273. 
 Wills, ii. 337. 
 Winchester, i. 18; ii. 50. 
 Wordsworth, i. 30, 280. Degree at 
 
 Oxford, ii. 126, 147. 
 
 Young, Arthur, i. 254, 256
 
 / 
 
 t/o- 
 
 ns- 
 
 13* 
 J4-J
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed.