hours with Niebuhr. He had the pleasure of conversing with him in all the freedom of private life; for Niebuhr invited him into the drawing-room to drink tea with his wife, his five children, and their governess; and while there, a young man came in with the intelligence that the Duke of Orleans had been proclaimed king of the French, to the no small satisfaction of the historian.

Dr. Arnold describes Niebuhr as short, not exceeding five feet six or seven inches in height, with a thin face, features rather pointed, and eyes remarkably lively and benevolent. Writing an account of their interview very shortly after it took place, he says:

"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 number 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. Niebuhr spoke with great admiration of our former great men, Pitt and Fox, &c., and thought that we were degenerated. He 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 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; though he would have given a portion of his fortune that Charles X. should have governed 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.

6

Niebuhr spoke of Mr. Pitt, that to his positive knowledge, from unpublished State-papers which he had seen, Pitt had remonstrated against the coalition of Pilnitz, and had been unwittingly drawn into the war to gratify George III.'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 Buonaparte, who interceded with Napoleon when he was going to have Niebuhr shot; and promised Niebuhr that, if he could 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 repeatedly expressed his great affection 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. 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 I have learned 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 satisfactory to find that in this instance the lesson of experience seems not to have been thrown away."

Ten days after Dr. Arnold had passed through Brussels, the insurrection in Belgium, which he had fully expected would arise as a natural consequence, out of the revolution in France, broke forth, and agitated the public mind with fresh anxieties and ever-varying speculations. But with the Belgians he felt little or no sympathy. France, he said, deserved the warmest admiration and the most cordial expression of it, if it were only for the contrast which the second revolution presented to the first; but with Belgium the case was wholly different; the merits of their quarrel he esteemed far more doubtful, and the conduct of the popular party far less pure.

A few months after Dr. Arnold's return to Rugby, news reached him that Niebuhr was no more; and in a letter to Chevalier Bunsen he spoke of his death as a great loss

which all Europe had sustained: he always congratulated himself upon the course of events, which had caused him to turn away from France and bend his homeward steps through the land which claimed as her own the man whom he regarded with so just and sincere an admiration; thereby enabling him to enjoy that brief converse, which he remembered with satisfaction and pleasure to the latest day of his life.

From that time till 1837, Dr. Arnold revisited the continent no more. He came back to Rugby full of spirits and energy, hoping that he and his assistants were all going "to pull hard, and to pull together," during the coming half-year; for he saw how much there was to be done, and he felt with increasing solemnity the heavy responsibilities his position involved. He entered on his work with renewed energy and delight, thanking God that he continued to enjoy his work, and was in excellent condition for setting to it.

And here, one cannot but remark the singular soundness and healthiness of his tone of mind! No man revelled more than he in beautiful scenery; the short extracts here quoted, prove how entirely he gave himself up to the contemplation of nature's grandeur and loveliness, and how thoroughly he appreciated the pleasure, the exhilaration, and the improvement to be derived from travel. But it was his rare and enviable characteristic to estimate extraneous enjoyments at their true value. When they came in due course he received them with open arms: he roamed amid the ruins of an ancient world, with a bosom beating high with reverence and poetic delight; he climbed the mountain-side with all the briskness and buoyancy of a child; and he gazed on the splendour of golden clouds, and flushing waters, and crimson sunsets, with a glowing heart, and a spirit that rose beyond the material beauty of a fair created world, into the brighter realms, where the Great Fashioner of the mighty Universe, who has revealed Himself to us in the person of his beloved Son, dwells and reigns for ever and ever.

Yet with all these devotional, poetic, and lofty tendencies, he never came back to his daily labour with distaste. It was his WORK :—the work appointed him by his Master,—and he

looked back gratefully on the pleasant days of travel and leisure, and exulted to feel his frame so vigorous, his mind so clear, his whole man so strengthened for labour, and so meetened for the toil of his office, and the cares of his public life, by the relaxation, and the season of innocent, healthful enjoyment, which God in his goodness had granted him.

And yet there was a cloud on his otherwise sunny, happy path:-misconception of his opinions, and even of his practices, spread far and wide; and when he said, at the close of the year 1830, "There is no man in England who is less a party man than I am," he was fain to finish his sentence thus :-"for in fact no party would own me."

CHAPTER VII.

POLITICS AND LITERATURE.

THE years 1831-32, were darkened by the heavy clouds of pestilence. Cholera, then a new, and consequently a doubly and trebly awful visitation, came sweeping over the length and breadth of the land, mowing down its thousands, depopulating its towns, and causing men's hearts to quake with fear. The public mind was shrouded in gloom: death was busy in the palace and in the cottage; in crowded cities and in rustic road-side villages: the air was heavy with the tolling of funeral bells, and the mourners went about the streets. And this was not all:-the winter of 1830 was marked by disturbances in the rural districts, that seemed only the precursors of more serious and extensive outbreaks; and sober-minded people watched, and dreaded lest the rash spark struck from the flint of some wild misguided enthusiast should kindle the flame of Revolution throughout the country.

Dr. Arnold was greatly concerned. He saw deeper into the evil than did other men of that day. He saw then, what people of his own class would not, or could not see, but what has been acknowledged on all hands since,—that those whose spirit of anarchy was aroused, and whose fury was ever and anon expected to boil over, and, like a lava stream, sweep into oblivion the old and time-honoured institutions of the country, really had their wrongs, and were justified in calling for redress, and for reform; though by no means justified in clamouring for their rights like hungry wolves, or infuriated lions! But who can wonder; or, if they wondered then,when only one side of the question was fairly argued,-who can wonder now, at the bitter murmurs of those whose just claims were forgotten by many, and disallowed by most,--when their minds, untaught, and unoccupied with any ideas of truth, either religious, social, or political, were subjected to the sway