MATTHEW ARNOLD

Eldest son of Thomas Arnold, D.D., and Mary Penrose

Born 1822

Entered Winchester College 1836

Transferred to Rugby School 1837

Scholar of Balliol 1840

Entered Balliol College 1841

Newdigate Prizeman 1843

B.A. 1844

Fellow of Oriel 1845

Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne 1847

Inspector of Schools 1851

Married Frances Lucy Wightman 1851

Professor of Poetry at Oxford 1857

D.C.L. 1870

Resigned Inspectorship 1886

Died 1888

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This book is intended to deal with substance rather than with form.  But, in estimating the work of a teacher who taught exclusively with the pen, it would be perverse to disregard entirely the qualities of the writing which so penetrated and coloured the intellectual life of the Victorian age.  Some cursory estimate of Arnold’s powers in prose and verse must therefore be attempted, before we pass on to consider the practical effect which those powers enabled him to produce.

And here it behoves a loyal and grateful disciple to guard himself sedulously against the peril of overstatement.  For to the unerring taste, the sane and sober judgment, of the Master, unrestrained and inappropriate praise would have been peculiarly distressing.

This caution applies with special force to our estimate of his rank in poetry.  That he was a poet, the most exacting, the most paradoxical criticism will hardly deny; but there is urgent need for moderation and self-control when we come to consider his place among the poets.  Are we to call him a great poet?  The answer must be carefully pondered.

In the first place, he did not write very much.  The total body of his poetry is small.  He wrote in the rare leisure-hours of an exacting profession, and he wrote only in the early part of his life.  In later years he seemed to feel that the “ancient fount of inspiration"[1] was dry.  He had delivered his message to his generation, and wisely avoided last words.  Then it seems indisputable that he wrote with difficulty.  His poetry has little ease, fluency, or spontaneous movement.  In every line it bears traces of the laborious file.  He had the poet’s heart and mind, but they did not readily express themselves in the poetic medium.  He longed for poetic utterance, as his only adequate vent, and sought it earnestly with tears.  Often he achieved it, but not seldom he left the impression of frustrated and disappointing effort, rather than of easy mastery and sure attainment.