In the time of the last war, when the embarkation of troops and the manoeuvring of fleets caused general excitement in the Isle of Wight, a little boy, named THOMAS ARNOLD, was sailing rival boats in his father's garden, or fighting the battles of old Homer's heroes, substituting domestic implements for the spear and shield, and reciting their several speeches from Pope's translation of the Iliad. This mimic warrior of classic taste was born at Cowes, on the 13th of June, 1795. The spirit of the times left its traces on his character. His father was a collector of the customs, and died suddenly of spasm in the heart, before the child was six years old. The incidents of his earliest days, trifling as they were, have a marked relation to the career of the future man. At the age of three he received "Smollett's History of England" as a reward for the accuracy with which he had gone through the stories connected with the portraits and pictures of the different reigns. At the same age he would sit to the table, arranging his geographical cards, and recognize, at a glance, the different counties of England. After his father's death his education was committed to his aunt, and she had reason to be proud of her young pupil. His memory was very tenacious; his knowledge of history and geography unusual; and his activity of mind such as to promise independence and depth of thought. A little tragedy, written by him before he was seven, on "Percy, Earl of Northumberland," in imitation of Home's play of "Douglas," still remains as a memorial of his ability. The acts and scenes are carefully arranged, the language, metre, and orthography are correct; but in other respects there is nothing remarkable.

In 1803 he was sent to school at Warminster. Long did he gratefully remember the books to which he had access in the library. When he quoted "Priestley's Lectures on History," in his professor's chair at Oxford, it was from the recollection of what he had

read there when eight years old. He was removed to Winchester in 1807, where he entered as a commoner, but became afterwards a scholar, and remained till 1811. At this time he was exceedingly fond of ballad poetry, and would rehearse it without wearying to his companions. His own compositions emulated the same strain, and won for him the appellation of Poet Arnold. He wrote, amongst other things, a second play, in which his schoolfellows were the dramatis personæ, and a poem on Simon de Montford, after the style of "Marmion." History was his favorite reading; he diligently studied "Russell's Modern Europe," and went through Gibbon and Mitford twice before leaving school. Of the public transactions of the period he was not an indifferent observer. His letters contain bursts of political enthusiasm. Mingling, too, with his comments on other subjects, there are sometimes criticisms indicative of growing predilections and discriminating judgment. Thus, at fourteen, he is indignant at the numerous boasts which are every where 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 narratives of Thucydides and Xenophon." His affections were strong; he had many friendships; but towards home his heart always turned with its deepest yearning; and that pure love to its inmates, and attachment to its associations and scenes, proved a safeguard as worldly influences became more potent.

When in his sixteenth year he was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Hitherto, his manners had been stiff and formal; he had appeared to be isolated, both in himself and in his pursuits. Now he was subjected to a discipline calculated to awake new sympathies and impart a genial freedom. The students of Corpus were few in number, rarely exceeding twenty, but displaying more

than the ordinary proportion of ability and scholarship. They lived together on familiar terms, discussed all topics of interest in ancient and modern times, and helped each other in the generous rivalry to excel. Arnold, when he became a member of the circle, was a boy both in age and appearance, but well able to take a share in the conversations that arose. His disposition won the general esteem and love, and the prevailing spirit of the place brought him into union with those of very diversified tastes. He was himself a fearless thinker, and always ready to utter his sentiments. Many and vehement were the debates in which he engaged, sometimes with all the leaders of the common room assailing him at once. There was not always the most scrupulous regard to argument, but there was never scarcely a momentary loss of temper. His antagonists were Tories in Church and State, and he was not afraid to question the correctness of their creed; but although his opinions often startled them, and were vigorously defended, he did not expose himself to the charge of presumption or conceit. He was as patient to bear retort as eager to defeat his adversary; as ingenuous and candid as ardent and decided. In the Attic society, of which he became a member, he never excelled as a regular speaker; he had so keen a perception of what was irrelevant, and so much real bashfulness, as to be under a restraint prejudicial to success. In his studies he gave the preference to the philosophers and historians of antiquity. He sought the gold that lay buried in the sand of time, and would dive beneath the current to secure the rich truths swept down from remote ages. He used to insist on the distinction between words and things. The habit led him to depreciate the value of the old poets, and to neglect those niceties of language which must be known before an author can be accurately translated. Aristotle and Thucydides were enthusiastically esteemed. His conversation and his letters were racily pointed with allusions to the former, with whose maxims and modes of thought he was familiarly acquainted. The story telling Herodotus was another whom he delighted to honor. He so thoroughly understood his style and that of Thucydides as to be able to write narratives readily and correctly in imitation of either. In 1812, he was an unsuccessful competitor for the Latin Verse prize, and it is not unlikely that he made other attempts of a similar kind which were followed by failure. In 1814, he ob

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tained a first class in Litteræ Humaniores; the following year was elected a Fellow of Oriel College; and, in 1815 and 1817, gained the Chancellor's prize for the two University Essays, Latin and English.

Walking and bathing were Arnold's chief physical exercises at Oxford. Though not possessed of much muscular strength, he could endure considerable fatigue. He found peculiar pleasure in what he called "a skirmish across the country," when with a few companions he would desert highways and byepaths, and roam across the fields, leaping ditches and scaling hedgerows, his spirits rising at every bound, and his imagination and feeling revelling in nature. He found exquisite enjoyment in external beauty; and though no poet himself, but, on the contrary, strongly tending to an exclusive devotion to the practical and evidently useful, he was far from insensible to that beauty as mirrored in poetry. Of Wordsworth he was a zealous defender against the tirades of the Edinburgh. From his pages he derived those sentiments of love for the lofty and imaginative which afterwards generally pervaded his writings.

After his election to a fellowship, Arnold remained in Oxford, taking private pupils, and prosecuting his studies according to his ample opportunities. His reading was very extensive, and was accompanied by a scrntinizing criticism. Abstracts of many works, and a number of original compositions on theological and other subjects, remain to testify of his diligence at this period. His style of writing was stiff, and has no counterpart in any of his published works; many of his opinions, however, were precisely those of maturer years, while others formed the germ then expanded. In his historical reading, he selected the fifteenth century, and taking Philip de Comines as his text-book, endeavored to make himself master of the period. Meanwhile his mind was awakening to the realities of religion, and there began within him an inward conflict, severe and distressing, such as those who have attained to greatest spiritual power and profoundest knowledge have so often experienced at the outset of their course, "Perfect through suffering" would seem to be written on every phase of our being. The battle must precede the victory; and no battle, no victory, there will generally be not the fruitfulness of peace, but the apathy of slavery or sloth. Ere the mission of life is begun, there are temptations to be encountered, fastings to be endured, and wanderings in the wilderness.

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This wonderful power of making all his pupils respect themselves, and of awakening in them a consciousness of the duties that God had 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 possessed 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 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 In all this measure, could go and do likewise. 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 consciousness 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 particular 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 esteen gave a dignity

and a worth both to himself and his labor.*

There was little to disturb the even tenor of Arnold's life at Laleham. Without taking any direct parochial charge, he occasionally officiated at the village church, and visited the poor in the workhouse or in their homes. His vacations were varied by short tours in England or on the Continent; and his leisure hours were filled by his favorite studies. At seven in the morning he was found with his pupils, and till nearly three he devoted himself to their instruction. The afternoon was spent with them in healthful sports, or in walks redolent of pleasure and conversation. It was not till late in the evening, when they were all gathered round him in his drawing-room, that he turned to his books or took up his pen. He employed himself then chiefly on a Lexicon of Thucydides, and an edition of that author with Latin notes. He also commenced a history of Greece, and wrote several articles for the " Encyclopædia Metropolitana," on the Roman history, from

*Stanley's Life and Correspondence of Dr. Arnold.

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the times of the Gracchi to Trajan. In 1825 he first became acquainted with Niebuhr's History of Rome," having first given a proof of his energy by learning German purposely that he might be able to read it. It made him aware of his ignorance, and induced him to delay any independent work of his own, till he had prosecuted his researches into the new regions that opened before him. It produced a great impression upon him; he enthusiastically adopted it, and hastened, in the Quarterly Review, to introduce it to the English public. So powerful was the grasp which Niebuhr had taken of his mind, that an unusual and perhaps excessive degree of veneration manifested itself in him towards both his principles and conclusions. He came gradually to the determination "never to differ from him, without a full consciousness of the probability that further inquiry might prove him to be right." In 1827, he succeeded himself in reaching the Eternal City. His stay was not long, but it sufficed to strengthen his predilections: it breathed fresh life into his classic lore, enabled him to realize familiar facts, and widened his range of feeling and philosophy. "I never thought," he wrote on leaving it, "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 magni

ficent Colosseum."

While thus busily engaged, and heartily aiming at the highest objects of life, he continued to direct his attention to the interpretation of Scripture. Theology, in its practical bearings, had a far stronger charm for him than even the maxims of the Stagyrite or the narratives of Thucydides. Although always eager to arrive at truth, and reverent in his search for it, he was not disposed to adopt current opinions without investigation. He knew that the gem often lay deep in the mine, and that false tinsel passed too frequently for the genuine substance. "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" "He that judgeth me is the Lord;" these were the sentiments he repeated in silence to himself. He knew that Truth must be wooed before she can be wedded to the soul; and that, like the maiden of chivalrous times, she often requires of her lovers long vigils and valorous exertions. Truth, accepted merely because generally pronounced to be truth, and never comprehended in its own nature by the recipient, is no truth; it is a prejudice, which, as far as his rational and moral being is concerned, he might as