Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems

Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village of Laleham, Middlesex County, England, December 24, 1822. He was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, best remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby and in later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and of Mary Penrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character and intellect.
In the meantime Arnold's pen had not been idle. His first volume of verse, The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems , appeared (1848), and although quietly received, slowly won its way into public favor. The next year the narrative poem, The Sick King in Bokhara , came out, and was followed in turn by a third volume in 1853, under the title of Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems . By this time Arnold's reputation as a poet was established, and in 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, where he began his career as a lecturer, in which capacity he twice visited America. Merope, a Tragedy (1856) and a volume under the title of New Poems (1869) finish the list of his poetical works, with the exception of occasional verses.
Agreeably to his own request, Arnold has never been made the subject for a biography. By means of his letters, his official reports, and statements of his friends, however, one is able to trace the successive stages of his career, as he steadily grew in honor and public usefulness. Though somewhat inadequate, the picture thus presented is singularly pleasing and attractive. The subjoined appreciations have been selected with a view of giving the student a glimpse of Arnold as he appeared to unprejudiced minds.
He was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet full of dreams and schemes. His Olympian manners began even at Oxford: there was no harm in them: they were natural, not put on. The very sound of his voice and wave of his arm were Jove-like. —PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER.
He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. He conspired and contrived to make things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was a man of this life and this world. A severe critic of this world he indeed was; but, finding himself in it, and not precisely knowing what is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man, he set himself to make the best of it. Its sights and sounds were dear to him. The 'uncrumpling fern, the eternal moonlit snow,' the red grouse springing at our sound, the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing kine,' the vagaries of men, of women, and dogs, their odd ways and tricks, whether of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, tickled him.