I.Father was Dr. Thomas
Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School.
II.At 5, Matthew was learning
French, Latin, math, history, and geography;
soon after Greek, German, and Italian.
III.At Balliol College, Oxford,
he became friends with Arthur Hugh Clough and won the Newdigate prize for poetry.
IV.Married Francis Lucy
Wightman in 1851 and began serving as Inspector of Schools, a post he held until 1886.
V.Published his first verse in
1849 and Poems, with a critical Preface, in 1853.
VI.Professor of poetry at
Oxford from 1857-1867.
VII. Essays
in Criticism
(1864); Culture
and Anarchy
(1869)