exprest their indignation at the
presumption of a minister who could oppose the wishes of so benign and
gracious a master. And when, unhappily for his own fame, this great
man determined to return to power, he could only recover office by
conceding that very point for which he had relinquished it; thus
setting the mischievous example of the minister of a free country
sacrificing his own judgment to the personal prejudices of the
sovereign.

As it was hardly possible to find other ministers who to equal
abilities would add equal subservience, it is not surprizing that the
highest offices were constantly filled by men of notorious incapacity.
Indeed, the King seemed to have an instinctive antipathy to everything
great and noble. During the reign of George II the elder Pitt had won
for himself a reputation which covered the world, and had carried to
an unprecedented height the glories of the English name. He, however,
as the avowed friend of popular rights, strenuously opposed the
despotic principles of the court; and for this reason he was hated by
George III with a hatred that seemed barely compatible with a sane
mind.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Born in 1822, died in 1888; son of "Arnold of Rugby";
educated at Rugby and Oxford; fellow of Oriel; lay inspector
of schools in 1851: professor of poetry at Oxford in 1857;
visited the United States in 1883 and 1886; published
"Empedocles on Etna" in 1853, "Essays in Criticism" in 1865,
"Literature and Dogma" in 1873, "Culture and Anarchy" in
1877.

THE MOTIVE FOR CULTURE[57]

The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; sometimes,
indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness and vanity. The
culture which is supposed to plume itself on a smattering of Greek and
Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing so intellectual as
curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity and ignorance or
else as an engine of social and class distinction, separating its
holder, like a badge or title, from other people who have not got it.
No serious man would call this culture, or attach any value to it as
culture at all. To find the real ground for the very different
estimate which serious people will set upon culture we must find some
motive for culture in the terms of which may lie a real ambiguity; and
such a motive the word curiosity gives us.

[Footnote 57: From "Culture and Anarchy."]

I have before now pointed out that w