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later life how much he thought his beloved Fox How enhanced in value by its neighbourhood 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 retained 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 conversation, or in writing, his train of thoughts was affected by the Ethics and Rhetoric; how he cited the maxims 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 scarely too much to say, that he spoke of him as of one intimately and affectionately known and valued by him; and when he was selecting his son's University, with much leaning for Cambridge, and many things which at the time made him incline against Oxford, dearly as he loved her, Aristotle 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 believe," 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 progress 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 difficulty, 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 ac

count by him of a Vacation Tour in the Isle of Wight, after the manner of the Anabasis.

Arnold's bodily recreations were walking and bathing. 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 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 favourite 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 contributed so much, Arnold became one of his most earnest and intelligent pupils, and you know how familiarly and practically he applied geological facts in all his later years.

In June, 1812, I was elected Fellow of Exeter College, and determined to pursue the law as my profession: my residence at Oxford was thenceforward only occasional; but the friendship which had grown up between us suffered no diminution. Something, I forget now the particular circumstance, led to an interchange 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 preserved 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 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 confident advancer of his own opinions, he was in truth bashful, and at the same time had so acute a perception of what was ill-seasoned or irrelevant, that he would want that freedom from restraint which is essential 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 begun, 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 earnest 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 opinions. 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 person can. His was an anxiously inquisitive mind, a scrupulously conscientious heart; his inquiries, previously 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 indisposition in him to believe merely because the article transcended his reason; he

In this society he formed or confirmed his acquaintance with a new 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.

doubted the proof and the interpretation of the textual authority. His state was very painful, and I think morbid; for I remarked that 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 consciousness 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 intercourse with one of the friends I have before mentioned, 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, which 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 doctrines, 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, I 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 distressing 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 confident that all will be well in the end. The subject of them is that most awful one, on which all very inquisitive reasoning minds are, I believe, most liable to such temptations-I mean the doctrine of the blessed Trinity. Do 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 objections 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 violating 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 certainties." a

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 under-graduate. At the commencement a boy—and at the close retaining, 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 delighting 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 indeed, by what he deemed ungenerous or unjust to others, rather than by any sense of personal wrong; somewhat too little deferential to authority; yet without 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 believe, 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 cona On this subject see further, the note in Chapter IX.

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