CHAPTER V.

RUGBY.

FROM Dow-bridge, where we left the Avon, to Brownsover, where the Swift falls into it, some four or five miles, it has passed no place of any consequence, nor is there anything in the scenery to call for remark. Clifton and Newton, one on either side of it, are indeed the only villages that occur. Samuel Carte, the antiquary, was vicar of Clifton; and there his more celebrated son, Thomas Carte, the historian, was born. A little beyond Brownsover, at a short distance from the river on the left, lies Rugby; a town of some importance since the formation of the Birmingham Railway, but of more interest from its well-known Grammar-school. Of interest the town itself has none-except to graziers and sportsmen, who find a good deal in its cattle-fairs and its hunting meets." Rugby school was founded in the reign of Elizabeth, by a native either of Rugby or of Brownsover, on the other side of the Avon, Lawrance Sheriff. He was a citizen of London, some say a shopkeeper, but whether a grocer or a haberdasher is not agreed; he endowed his school liberally with lands, some of which, being in London, have increased in value at least equally with the increase in the value of money. The school buildings, which are rather extensive, were erected

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in 1809, from a design by Mr. Hakewell, and are a handsome example of the Elizabethan style. The number of boys is of course various, depending much on the standing of the school, the celebrity of the master, and the like; but is generally above three hundred. When Dr. Arnold was at the head of it the number was much higher; and it is, I believe, much higher now.

Whatever of general interest there is in Rugby arises from the connection of Dr. Arnold with it. Rugby, indeed, is especially associated with his name; as his biographer remarks-" With his entrance on his work at Rugby his public life (if it may be so called), no less than his professional life, properly begins:" while here all the writings by which he will be remembered were produced, and here he died. Of the three kinds of history which Bacon enumerates, that of man, he says, "" is of most profit and use." And if the profit and use of biography be that we may learn from the example of others how best to fulfil our part, then there are few lives better worth our study than that of Dr. Arnold. Not of course because we shall there find circumstances similar to our own that may serve as rules to direct us; but because we may there see how the whole man may be moulded into completeness and nobleness of character; how to attain that self-discipline which will enable us to make our position and our pursuits in life, not hindrances, but helps; to impart dignity to our calling, whatever it may be, rather than to seek honour from it.

It is refreshing as well as instructive to study such a character as that of Arnold-so sober, so true, so earnest. He was, as is well known, a man

D

of large attainments, of great powers of mind; and yet considerate, kind and gentle as a child. Firmly attached to his own views on all important subjects, because he had carefully considered his opinions and formed them deliberately, he could still sympathize with those who most differed from him; and even when he thought their sentiments pernicious, he was careful to separate the sentiments themselves from the individuals who propagated them, so long as he saw reason to believe that they were held in honesty of heart. A catholic, tolerant, and liberal spirit characterized his whole conduct, and is impressed on all his writings; and that arising not, as is often the case, from indifference, but the result of the very intensity with which he clung to his own deliberately formed opinions. It is not often that a character of such completeness and compact unity is to be met with; such breadth of view, such clearness of vision; such energy, and such steadiness of purpose; and along with all, and as a cement to the whole, such loftiness and moral beauty.

It must have been no common privilege to have been educated by such a man; and his pupils owe it to their master's memory to show that they have estimated it aright—as, indeed, some have shown already. His notions of education were of the highest order-were worthy of himself. He soughtto prepare the whole man for a life of honourable exertion; for usefulness as well as skilfulness; to create, as he told his pupils, "a spirit of manly, and much more of Christian thoughtfulness," as opposed to the besetting sin of our day, a sneering and frivolous spirit: and hence he ever besought them earnestly to cultivate all the powers of their

minds, as intrusted to them for a high and noble purpose. Very instructive is it to read his short sermons to his pupils to see the entireness with which he had given his mind to his work, and the deep and affectionate interest with which he regarded his pupils; facts which his letters show equally, though often differently, as speaking of them, rather than to them.

His teaching was for their manhood, as well as for their youth. He taught them steadily and thoughtfully to adjust their conduct to the circumstances in which they might at any time be placed, and not to fancy that either intellectually or morally their hope was in the future. Neither in youth nor middle age will it do, he told them, to indulge such a hope: "On the contrary, our hope must lie, not in escape, but in victory. If our temptations press us hard, we cannot expect to have them exchanged for others less powerful; they will remain with us, and we must overcome them or perish. Have we tastes not fully reconciled to our calling-faculties which seem not to have found their proper field? We must seek our remedy, not from without, humanly speaking, but from within: we must discipline ourselves; we must teach our tastes to cling gracefully around that duty to which else they must be helplessly fastened. If any faculties appear not to have found their proper field, we must think that God has, for certain wise reasons, judged it best for us that they should not be exercised; and we must be content to render him the service of others. Fortune will not suit herself to our wishes: we must learn to suit our wishes to her." Lessons of wisdom we are none of us too old to learn. His

own life realized all that he set before his scholars. He was, as he told them they should be, ever learning-ever seeking to become wiser and better, as well as more erudite; and hence there was ever increasing beauty and nobleness in his character, with ever-increasing knowledge, till his premature death. His course was indeed

"like a star

Unhasting, unresting."

Rugby should be visited for his sake, and the chapel where he preached and where lie his remains: where, too, is a monument to him erected by his friends and admirers; whose estimation of him is shown by the fact that the subscription was large enough not only to erect such a memorial, but to establish two scholarships in his own favourite study of history, in his own favourite university, Oxford.

About a mile and a half from Rugby, on the Warwick road, is Bilton Hall, somewhile the residence of Addison, who purchased the manor of Bilton for 10,000l., in prospect of his unlucky marriage with the Countess of Warwick. The house retains much of the appearance it possessed in Addison's time; but as it lies more away from the river than Rugby, it is hardly worth wandering so far to look at; especially when "the unsurpassable dulness of the scenery 99 on that side of Rugby is remembered-"no hills, no plains, not a single wood, and but one single copse; no heath, no down, no rock, no river, no clear stream,- scarcely any flowers, for the lias is particularly poor in themnothing but one endless monotony of enclosed fields and hedge-row trees." These are Dr. Arnold's