28 APRIL 1888, Page 14

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—You will doubtless have discovered the slip of the pen by which you speak of Matthew Arnold as wishing to rest, like his father, in Laleham Churchyard. To us old Rugbeians, very much of the religio loci in Rugby School Chapel depends on the fact that Dr. Arnold alone, of all Head-Masters, rests within its walls. You need not be reminded of the words of

his poet-son,— " Cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere,

Through the gathering darkness, arise The Chapel walls, in whose bound Thou, my father ! art laid ;"

—nor of the touching scene in the " Finis " of "Tom Brown's Schooldays," where the hero, hearing, while on a reading party in Scotland, of his old master's sudden death, rashes off to Rugby, makes his way into the lonely school chapel, "and walked up the steps to the altar ; and while the tears flowed freely down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hopefully, to lay down there his share of a burden which had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his own strength."—I am, Sir, &c.,