Preface.

Mr. Matthew Arnold, like other good men of our times, disliked theidea of being made the subject of a regular biography; and the onlyofficial and authoritative sources of information as to the details ofhis life are the Letters published by his family, under theeditorship 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 suchdetails are concerned, save as regards a very few additional factswhich are public property. But very few more facts can really bewanted except by curiosity; for in the life of no recent person ofdistinction did things literary play so large a part as in MrArnold’s: of no one could it be said with so much truth that, familyaffections and necessary avocations apart, he was totus inillis. And these things we have in abundance.[2] If the followingpages seem to discuss them too minutely, it can only be pleaded thatthose to whom it seems so are hardly in sympathy with Matthew Arnoldhimself. And if the discussion seems to any one too often to take theform of a critical examination, let him remember Mr. Arnold’s ownwords in comparing the treatment of Milton by Macaulay and by M.Scherer:—

“Whoever comes to the Essay on Milton with the desire to get at the real truth about Milton, whether as a man or a poet, will feel that the essay in nowise helps him. A reader who only wants rhetoric, a read

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