288 Life and Times of " The Druid." 



wealth was to him the main subject of history; 

 the desire of taking an active share in the 

 ofreat work of government was the highest 

 earthly desire of the ripened mind. Those 

 who read his letters will be startled at times 

 by the interest with which he watches the 

 changes of administration where to many the 

 real difference would seem comparatively 

 trifling. Thus he would speak of a Ministry 

 advocating even good measures inconsistently 

 with their position and principles ' as a daily 

 pain — a moral east wind which made him feel 

 uncomfortable without any positive ailment ' ; 

 or he would lament the ascendancy of false 

 political views as tending to the sure moral 

 degradation of the whole community and the 

 ultimate social disorganisation of our system. 

 "Conservatism, in Dr. Arnold's mouth, 

 was not merely the watchword of an English 

 party, but the symbol of an evil against which 

 his whole life, public and private, was one 

 continued struggle. Again, Jacobinism, in 

 his use of the word, included not only the 

 extreme movement party in France or 

 England, but all the natural tendencies of 

 mankind to oppose the authority of law, 



