A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature | Page 9

his court appointments, but this, as well as
more serious afflictions with which he was visited, he bore with
serenity and dignity. He was an honourable and amiable man, one of
the very few who seems to have retained the sincere regard of Swift,
whose style he made the model of his own, with such success that
writings by the one were sometimes attributed to the other: his Art of
Political Lying is an example. He has, however, none of the ferocity of
S.
ARGYLL, GEORGE JOHN DOUGLAS CAMPBELL, 8TH DUKE
OF (1823-1900).--Statesman and writer on science, religion, and
politics, succeeded his f., the 7th duke, in 1847. His talents and
eloquence soon raised him to distinction in public life. He acted with
the Liberal party until its break-up under the Irish policy of Mr.
Gladstone, after which he was one of the Unionist leaders. He held the
offices of Lord Privy Seal, Postmaster-General, and Indian Secretary.

His writings include _The Reign of Law (1866), Primeval Man (1869),
The Eastern Question_ (1879), The Unseen Foundations of Society
(1893), Philosophy of Belief (1896), Organic Evolution
Cross-examined (1898). He was a man of the highest character, honest,
courageous, and clear-sighted, and, though regarded by some
professional scientists as to a certain extent an amateur, his ability,
knowledge, and dialectic power made him a formidable antagonist, and
enabled him to exercise a useful, generally conservative, influence on
scientific thought and progress.
ARMSTRONG, JOHN, M.D. (1709-1779).--Poet, s. of the minister of
Castleton, Roxburghshire, studied medicine, which he practised in
London. He is remembered as the friend of Thomson, Mallet, and other
literary celebrities of the time, and as the author of a poem on _The Art
of Preserving Health_, which appeared in 1744, and in which a
somewhat unpromising subject for poetic treatment is gracefully and
ingeniously handled. His other works, consisting of some poems and
prose essays, and a drama, The Forced Marriage, are forgotten, with
the exception of the four stanzas at the end of the first part of
Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, describing the diseases incident to
sloth, which he contributed.
ARNOLD, SIR EDWIN (1832-1904).--Poet, s. of a Sussex magistrate,
was b. at Gravesend, and ed. at King's School, Rochester, London, and
Oxford. Thereafter he was an assistant master at King Edward's School,
Birmingham, and was in 1856 appointed Principal of the Government
Deccan College, Poona. Here he received the bias towards, and
gathered material for, his future works. In 1861 he returned to England
and became connected with The Daily Telegraph, of which he was
ultimately editor. The literary task which he set before him was the
interpretation in English verse of the life and philosophy of the East.
His chief work with this object is The Light of Asia (1879), a poem on
the life and teaching of Buddha, which had great popularity, but whose
permanent place in literature must remain very uncertain. In The Light
of the World (1891), he attempted, less successfully, a similar treatment
of the life and teaching of Jesus. Other works are The Song of Songs of
India (1875), With Saadi in the Garden, and The Tenth Muse. He

travelled widely in the East, and wrote books on his travels. He was
made K.C.I.E. in 1888.
ARNOLD, MATTHEW (1822-1888).--Poet and critic, s. of Dr. A., of
Rugby (q.v.), was b. at Laleham and ed. at Rugby, Winchester, and
Balliol Coll., Oxford, becoming a Fellow of Oriel in 1845. Thereafter
he was private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, Lord President of the
Council, through whose influence he was in 1851 appointed an
inspector of schools. Two years before this he had pub. his first book of
poetry, _The Strayed Reveller_, which he soon withdrew: some of the
poems, however, including "Mycerinus" and "The Forsaken Merman,"
were afterwards republished, and the same applies to his next book,
Empedocles on Etna (1852), with "Tristram and Iseult." In 1857 he was
appointed to the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford, which he held for
ten years. After this he produced little poetry and devoted himself to
criticism and theology. His principal writings are, in poetry, Poems
(1853), containing "Sohrab and Rustum," and "The Scholar Gipsy;"
_Poems, 2nd Series (1855), containing "Balder Dead;" Merope (1858);
New Poems_ (1867), containing "Thyrsis," an elegy on A.H. Clough
(q.v.), "A Southern Night," "Rugby Chapel," and "The Weary Titan"; in
prose he wrote On Translating Homer (1861 and 1862), _On the Study
of Celtic Literature (1867), Essays in Celtic Literature (1868), 2nd
Series_ (1888), Culture and Anarchy (1869), St. Paul and
Protestantism (1870), Friendship's Garland (1871), Literature and
Dogma (1873), God and the Bible (1875), Last Essays on Church and
Religion (1877), Mixed Essays (1879), Irish Essays (1882), and
Discourses in America (1885). He also wrote some works on the state
of education on the Continent. In