The Project Gutenberg EBook of Matthew Arnold, by George Saintsbury

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Title: Matthew Arnold

Author: George Saintsbury

Release Date: July 13, 2005 [EBook #16284]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTHEW ARNOLD ***

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MODERN ENGLISH WRITERS.

* * * * *

MATTHEW ARNOLD...... Professor SAINTSBURY.

R.L. STEVENSON...... L. COPE CORNFORD.

JOHN RUSKIN ....... Mrs MEYNELL.

ALFRED TENNYSON ..... ANDREW LANG.

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY ... EDWARD CLODD.

THACKERAY ........ CHARLES WHIBLEY.

GEORGE ELIOT....... A.T. QUILLER-COUCH.

BROWNING......... C.H. HERFORD.

FROUDE.......... JOHN OLIVER HOBBES.

DICKENS ......... W.E. HENLEY.

[Symbol: 3 asterisks] _Other Volumes will be announced in due
course_.

* * * * *

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MATTHEW ARNOLD

BY

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

THIRD IMPRESSION

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MCMII

PREFACE.

Mr. Matthew Arnold, like other good men of our times, disliked the
idea of being made the subject of a regular biography; and the only
official and authoritative sources of information as to the details of
his life are the _Letters_ published by his family, under the
editorship of Mr G.W.E. Russell (2 vols., London, 1895)[1]. To these,
therefore, it seems to be a duty to confine oneself, as far as such
details are concerned, save as regards a very few additional facts
which are public property. But very few more facts can really be
wanted except by curiosity; for in the life of no recent person of
distinction did things literary play so large a part as in Mr
Arnold's: of no one could it be said with so much truth that, family
affections and necessary avocations apart, he was _totus in
illis_. And these things we have in abundance.[2] If the following
pages seem to discuss them too minutely, it can only be pleaded that
tho