insufficient to contain the crowds that thronged to listen to him, and the "Theatre was appointed as the scene of the inauguration. And there, amidst the highest university authorities, and surrounded by those who had once been his pupils, and who now, with mingled pride, affection, and delight, beheld him once more in his beloved Oxford, and "in his proper place!" he rose, and, in "that deep, ringing, searching voice of his," delivered the Inaugural Lecture, whose vigour and freshness and force made an ineffaceable impression on the minds of those who heard it.

An eminent American writer, speaking of English literature generally, says: "Another, and a very high merit may be claimed for history in the English literature of our times: I mean the religious element which has been developed in it, and MOST OF ALL BY ARNOLD. Arnold's great achievement in historical science is, that in treating the history of a pagan people, he gives to his reader a sense of a Divine Providence over the Roman nation for the future service of Christian truth, at the same time that this religious element is not irreverently obtruded, or mingled with incongruous objects." And the same author, referring to Sir Walter Scott's historic sagacity, remarks that his works were admired by two of the finest historical minds in our time—Arnold in England, and Thierry in France!" Truly, when Dr. Arnold filled the professional chair in his own university he was in his right place!

6.

During his Christmas vacation at Fox How, he finished the first seven of his lectures, and he wrote to Dr. Hawkins:

"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. 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."

He came up to Oxford at the beginning of Lent term, and there delivered his "Introductory Lectures on Modern History." His stay there, as he confesses, surpassed even his expectations, and the beauty of the country exceeded his recollections, and convinced him that his dislike to the neighbourhood of Rugby arose "from no fond contrast with Westmoreland, but from its own unsurpassable dulness."

The lectures themselves attracted an unwonted concourse, who hung breathlessly on his words; and he in his turn testified his own unfeigned pleasure, and his no less unfeigned surprise, at the unmistakable enthusiasm which his presence revived. All his youthful love for Oxford, deepened by years of absence, and by a painful and prolonged sense of misapprehension, burned with increasing ardour. He loved to traverse the streets and squares of the place he had longed, with all an exile's yearning fondness, to revisit as one of her most faithful sons; and when the day's work was complete, he delighted no less to collect his children about him, and with them explore the well-remembered haunts of earlier days. Once more he wandered amid the thickets of Bagley Wood, where he had once hoped "to see some of his boys and girls well bogged;" again he climbed the heights of Shotover, and revisited the broken valley behind Ferry Hincksey. And the universal kindness shown to his whole family, "down to Fan and Walter," contributed in no small degree to the sweet satisfaction he derived from this delightful sojourn.

The statutes of the professorship required terminal

lectures on biography; and of these the first was to have been on "The Life and Time of Pope Gregory the First, or the Great; " the second, Charlemagne, whose coronation he fixed upon as the termination of ancient history; and with Charlemagne, or succeeding him, our own Saxon Alfred; and one lecture was certainly to be devoted to Dante.

Wide was the field his historical teaching was intended to embrace; and broad and deep were the views which would have been brought to bear on this, his favourite and long-cherished study: but these introductory lectures were the first and the last he was ever to address to his beloved and honoured university. And there were many expressions in these lectures, which, though habitual to him, seemed in the sequel like dim foreshadowings of his approaching end.

"IF I am allowed to resume these lectures next year," he said to his hearers, at the termination of the course, which had received such close and delighted attention; and when next year came the place that then knew him could know him no more for ever. Never again may that elastic step traverse his favourite Radcliffe Square,‚—never more may the frank, open brow, and the bright glance, and the happy, kindly smile, light up in hall, or chapel, or "theatre," constraining approbation even from those who believed that his convictions were completely antagonistic to their own, and filling with joy and respect, and generous enthusiasm, the hearts of those who knew him best, and who looked to him as the herald of a great and glorious resurrection in the religious life of his native country.

During his stay he met with Newman. These two remarkable men, for the first time, held personal intercourse, and dined together in hall, at Oriel, on Wednes

day, the 2nd of February. They parted, never again to meet on earth. One is gone to dwell with the Master whose name he loved, and whose service was his delight: the other, alas!—when we think of his mournful fate, we repeat with sad and solemn significance that grand old Catholic prayer of the Church from which he has wandered-"From all false doctrine, heresy, and schism, Good Lord, deliver us." And shall we not add, "That it may please Thee to bring into the way of truth, all such as have erred and are deceived, We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!"

The short diary which Dr. Arnold kept during this visit, closes thus :-"And so ends our stay in Oxford— 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."

CHAPTER XV.

LAST DAYS.

THE school was still full to overflowing; the principles of education, which at the commencement of Dr. Arnold's Rugby career had met with so much reprehension and dislike, had actually become popular; and his opinions, against which the most violent clamour had been raised, and towards which the strongest prejudices had been directed, came in due time not only to be tolerated, but to be received and adopted as the watchword and keynote of the most enlightened and liberal among his contemporaries: so that in this case the ancient promise seemed to be fulfilled :- "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him."

And yet his own views remained unchanged; and he deemed it his duty to denounce, with unsparing severity, the growing tendencies of the Oxford school. "His sermon on Easter Day, 1842, stands almost, if not absolutely, alone in the whole course of his school sermons," says Canon Stanley, "for the severity and vehemence of its denunciations against what he conceived to be the evil tendencies of the Oxford school."

To an old pupil he wrote thus, scarcely eight months before his death :

".... You seemed to think that I was not so charitable towards the Newmanites as I used to be towards the Roman