Some of his forecasts of the future have come true, others are certain yet to be fulfilled. He was the real founder of University Extension, and he urged that the University of London should be made a teaching institution only. Mr. Paul's estimate of him we may cordially assent to: 'Of all education reformers in the last century, not excepting his father, Mr. Arnold was the most enlightened, the most far-sighted, and the most fair-minded.' 'Fair-minded' he assuredly was when dealing with the practical side of his profession. 'Fair-minded' he always believed he was. 'Fair-minded' he seldom was on purely political or academic matters, for then his extraordinary prejudices asserted their sovereignty over him, and he was helpless beneath their sway. Mr. Gladstone he disliked so intensely that we should hardly be wrong in saying he hated him and all his works.
He exhibited a supercilious contempt for what he chose to brand as the provincialism of the 'Low Church' and the Free Church; for the aristocracy, who to him were 'barbarians' for preferring field sports to the improvement of their minds; for the masses of the community, whom he dismissed with the epithet 'the populace,' while the middle-classes were 'Philistines' (a word he borrowed from the Germans), because they were 'respectable' and kept gigs! Really all this shows too small a mind, too circumscribed an outlook on humanity, to qualify Matthew Arnold for a place among philosophers or national reformers. It is satisfactory to turn from him as politician and critic of the Bible, of literature, and of society, to his status as a poet, which, though really secondary to that as an educationist, he will naturally be most widely remembered by. His letters, too, recently published, show the pleasant side of his private life. 'He was a poet of the closet,' is Mr. Stedman's summary of him. Arthur Clough preferred Alexander Smith (practically a forgotten minor poet) to the author of 'Empedocles,' and complained of the obscurity and 'pseudo-Greek inflation' of 'Tristram and Iseult.' 'The Scholar-Gipsy' is his best elegiac poem; 'The Forsaken Merman' his best narrative piece; 'Bacchanalia, or the New Age,' his best lyric. This is from 'The Merman':
'Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf, and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-breeze, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail, and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail, and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?'
Herein are lines more melodious, and ideas more English, than in other verses, just because he 'let himself go' more than usual. He was generally too self-conscious to do this at all.
His schools were Winchester and Rugby. His college was Balliol. For a short time he was master under his father. For four years he acted as private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, and in 1857 was made Inspector of Schools. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1857 to 1867. He died suddenly of inherited heart disease while running to catch a tram at Liverpool in 1888, at sixty-six years of age. All this may be read in any Dictionary of Biography, and really there is little more to note of events in his life outside the daily routine of his official career. He was buried at Laleham, where he was born. Something better might be his epitaph than his own pessimistic lines:
'Creep into this narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said.'
PHILARETVS, HIS INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS SONNE
'Deare Sonne, as thou art tender to mee, remember these advertisements of thy careful father.
'Bee zealous in the service of thy God; ever recommending in the prime houre of the day all thy ensuing actions to His gracious protection.
'Bee constant in thy Resolves, ever grounded on a religious feare, that they may bee seconded by God's favour.
'Bee affable to all; familiar to few.
'Bee to such a constant consort where thou hast hope to bee a daily proficient.
'Bee provident and discreetly frugal in thy expense.
'Honour those in whose charge thou art instructed.
'And, sweet Jesu, with Thy grace enrich him, to Thy glory, my comfort.
'Thy deare Father,
'Philaretvs.'