The English poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) epitomized in his life and poetry the religious crisis experienced by many Englishmen of the mid-Victorian period.

Arthur Hugh Clough was born in Liverpool in Jan. 1, 1819. In 1829 he entered Rugby, where he quickly distinguished himself as a scholar and an athlete and became a favorite of Rugby's famous headmaster, Thomas Arnold. In 1837 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, and became friends with Benjamin Jowett and Matthew Arnold, the son of Thomas.

The controversy between members of the conservative Oxford movement and more liberal theologians undermined Clough's faith in orthodox Christianity. He maintained his general belief in God; but he became deeply disturbed, and his attempt to keep an open mind on all points of view tended to paralyze his will to act. Thus Clough came to typify his whole generation, which seemed, as Matthew Arnold noted in "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse...