He delighted to derive his imagery from the hills and lakes of Westmoreland, and to trace in them the likenesses of his favorite scenes in poetry and history : even their minutest features were of a kind that were most attractive to him; "the running streams " which were to him "the most beautiful objects in nature; the wild-flowers on the mountain sides, which were to him, he said, "his music," and which, whether in their scarcity at Rugby, or their profusion in Westmoreland, "loving them," as he used to say, "as a child loves them," he could not bear to see removed from their natural places by the wayside, where others might enjoy them as well as himself. The very peacefulness of all the historical and moral associations of the scenery free alike from the remains of feudal ages in the past, and suggesting comparatively so little of suffering or evil in the present — rendered doubly grateful to him the refreshment which he there found from the rough world in the school, or the sad feelings awakened in his mind by the thoughts of his Church and country. There he hoped, when the time should have come for his retreat from Rugby, to spend his declining years. Other visions, indeed, of a more practical and laborious life, from time to time passed before him but Fox How was the image which most constantly presented itself to him in all prospects for the future; there he intended to have lived in peace, maintaining his connection with the rising generation by receiving pupils from the Universities; there, under the shade of the trees of his own planting, he

hoped in his old age to give to the world the fruits of his former experience and labors, by executing those works for which at Rugby he felt himself able only to prepare the way, or lay the first foundations, and never again leave his retirement till (to use his own expression) "his bones should go to Grasmere churchyard, to lie under the yews which Wordsworth planted, and to have the Rotha, with its deep and silent pools, passing by."

CHAPTER V.

LAST YEAR, 1842.

It was now the fourteenth year of Dr. Arnold's stay at Rugby, a year, on every account, of peculiar interest to himself and his scholars. It had opened with an unusual mortality in the school. One of his colleagues, and seven of his pupils, mostly from causes unconnected with each other, had been carried off within its first quarter; and the return of the boys had been delayed beyond the accustomed time in consequence of a fever lingering in Rugby, during which period he had a detachment of the higher forms residing near or with him at Fox How. It was

during his stay here that he received from Lord Melbourne the offer of the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Oxford, vacant by the death of Dr. Nares. How joyfully he caught at this unexpected realization of his fondest hopes for his latest years, and how bright a gleam it imparted to the sunset of his life, will best be expressed by his own letters and by the account of his Lectures.

TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS.

Fox How, Aug. 21,

1841.

You may perhaps have heard my news already; but I must tell you myself, because you are so much connected with my pleasure in it. I have accepted the Regius Professorship of Modern History, chiefly to gratify my earnest longing to have some direct connection with Oxford; and I have thought with no small delight that I should now see something of you in the natural course of things every year, for my wife and myself hope to take lodgings for ten days or a fortnight every Lent Term, at the end of our Christmas holidays, for me to give my lectures. I could not resist the temptation of accepting the office, though it will involve some additional work; and if I live to leave Rugby, the income, though not great, will be something to us when we are poor people at Fox How. But to get a regular situation in Oxford would have tempted me, I believe, had it been accompanied by no salary at all.

I go up to Oxford on the 2d of December, Thursday week, to read my inaugural lecture. I suppose it is too much to hope that you could be there, but it would give me the greatest pleasure to utter my first words in Oxford in your hearing. I am going to give a general sketch first of the several parts of history generally, and their relation to each other, and then of the peculiarities of modern history. This will do very well for an inaugural lecture; but what to choose for my course after we return from Fox How I can scarcely tell, considering how little time I shall have for any deep research, and how important it is at the same time that my first lectures should not be superficial. . . . Our examination begins on Wednesday; still, as "Thucydides " is done, and gone to the press, and as my lecture will be finished, I hope, in one or two evenings more, I expect to be able to go on again with my history before the end of the week; and I may do a little in it before we go to Fox How.

...

On the 2d of December he entered on his professorial duties by delivering his inaugural lecture. His school work not permitting him to be absent more than one whole day, he left Rugby with Mrs. Arnold, very early in the morning, and, occupying himself from the time it became light in looking over the school exercises, reached Oxford at noon. The day had been looked forward to with eager expectation: and the usual lecture-rooms in the Clarendon Buildings being unable to contain the crowds that, to the number of four or five hundred, flocked to hear him, the "Theatre" was used for the occasion; and there, its whole area and lower galleries entirely filled, the professor arose from his place, amidst the highest university authorities in their official seats, and in that clear, manly voice, which so long retained its hold on the memory of those who heard it, began, amidst deep silence, the opening words of his inaugural lecture.

The time which he had originally fixed for his retirement from Rugby was now drawing near; and the new sphere opened to him in his professorship at Oxford, seemed to give a fixedness to his future prospects, which would naturally increase his long-cherished wishes of greater leisure and repose. But he still felt himself in the vigor of life, and used to rejoice in the thought that the forty-ninth year, fixed by Aristotle as the acme of the human faculties, lay still some years before him. The education of his two younger sons was a strong personal inducement to him to remain a