Dying at twenty-two, the hope and pride of all who knew him, “remarkable for the early splendor of his genius,” the career of this young man concentres the interest of more than his native country.  Tennyson has laid upon his early grave a poem which will never let his ashes be forgotten, or his memory fade like that of common clay.  What Southey so felicitously says of Kirke White applies most eloquently to young Hallam:—­“Just at that age when the painter would have wished to fix his likeness and the lover of poetry would delight to contemplate him, in the fair morning of his virtues, the full spring-blossom of his hopes,—­ just at that age hath death set the seal of eternity upon him, and the beautiful hath been made permanent.”

Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place, London, on the 1st of February, 1811.  The eldest son of Henry Hallam, the eminent historian and critic, his earliest years had every advantage which culture and moral excellence could bring to his education.  His father has feelingly commemorated his boyish virtues and talents by recording his “peculiar clearness of perception, his facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above all, an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his sense of what was right and becoming.”  From that tearful record, not publicly circulated, our recital is partly gathered.  Companions of his childhood have often told us well-remembered incidents of his life, and this is the too brief story of his earthly career.

When about eight years of age, Arthur resided some time in Germany and Switzerland, with his father and mother.  He had already become familiar with the French language, and a year later he read Latin with some facility.  Although the father judiciously studied to repress his son’s marked precocity of talent, Arthur wrote about this time several plays in prose and in rhyme,—­compositions which were never exhibited, however, beyond the family-circle.

At ten years of age he became a pupil at a school in Putney, under the tuition of an excellent clergyman, where he continued two years.  He then took a short tour on the Continent, and, returning, went to Eton, where he studied nearly five years.  While at Eton, he was reckoned, according to the usual test at that place, not a first-rate Latin student, for his mind had a predominant bias toward English literature, and there he lingered among the exhaustless fountains of the earlier poetry of his native tongue.  One who knew him well in those years has described him to us as a sweet-voiced lad, moving about the pleasant playing-fields of Eton with a thoughtful eye and a most kindly expression.  Afterwards, as Tennyson, singing to the witch-elms and the towering sycamore, paints him, he mixed in all the simple sports, and loved to gather a happy group about him, as he lay on the grass and discussed grave questions of state.  And again,—­

     “Thy converse drew us with delight,
     The men of rathe and riper years: 
     The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
     Forgot his weakness in thy sight.”