166 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



Arnold, by the Rev. A. P. Stanle^, now Dean of West- 

 minster. That book has long since been stamped by the 

 world's approval, as Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' alone 

 excepted the best biography of modern times. It is 

 curious, however, to see the estimate formed of that 

 biography, before the world had given its verdict, by 

 one the bent of whose mind was so different from that 

 of Arnold's, so averse to that busy, even restless, dis- 

 cussion of moral and religious subjects which to Arnold 

 was the breath of life. To those who now pass for the 

 'advanced thinkers' of the time, Arnold's views on 

 fundamental principles appear even unduly conservative. 

 It must, however, be remembered that thirty years ago 

 tbis biography sounded almost the earliest note heard in 

 this country of that so-called * liberal religious move- 

 ment,' which has since become rather a weariness. If 

 some devout minds were then attracted by it, many 

 more were startled, not to say repelled. 



' Nov. 1844. . . . I am much more ready to do you 

 battle on the subject of Arnold than of the British Associa- 

 tion. It is a book well calculated to bring out the deep 

 gushing well of hidden virtue in a man whose overt acts 

 must evidently have made him unpopular and misunder- 

 stood. In the first place, then, it is a work of biogra- 

 phical justice to his memory. In the second place, it may 

 commend fervent piety to some men of Arnold's intel- 

 lectual force. In the third place, it may show how much 

 violently original opinions like his inevitably tend to be 

 sobered down by the experience of life ; and how much 

 " disquieting oneself in vain " might be saved by believing 

 that opinions held by men whose principles we approve 

 of are as likely at least as our own to be true on subjects 

 on which they have had practical experience, and we 

 have not. The same candour which acknowledged the 

 generally admitted barbarism of a Latin grammar in 

 Latin to be practically best would have found something 

 of similar practical wisdom in some religious and political 

 institutions against which his fervid and presumptuous 



