His first childish literary work was at the age of seven,--a play, on "Piercy, Earl of Northumberland." Between eight and twelve, when at school at Warminster, he rejoiced in Homer. A schoolmate writes: "Arnold's delight was in preparing for some part of the Siege of Troy; with a stick in his right hand, and the cover of a tin box, or any flat piece of wood, tied upon his left arm, he would come forth to the battle, and from Pope's Homer would pour forth fluently the challenge or the reproach.... Every book he had was easily recognized as his property by helmet and shields, and Hectors and Achilleses, on all the blank leaves; many of mine had some token of his graphic love of those heroes." The home life seems to have been full of affection. Rose E. Selfe, in the _World's Worker_ series, gives these letters. His brother Matthew writes him from school, in 1800, before he is five years old, asking him for a letter, "with all the news you can think of. What new books you have, whether you like the great Bible as well as you did, how your garden and the flowers come on." "My _darling little_ Tom...." his sister Susannah writes, "I shall expect to find you _very much_ improved, particularly in your _reading_. As you know you are _fond_ of kissing, give our DEAREST, DEAREST, DEAREST Mamma and Aunt ten each from Fan and myself. Oh, how I wish I could see and kiss them _myself_, and _you, too_, my _sweet dear_ Tom! I should like to know _very much_ if you are as fond of geography as you were last Christmas; tell _me_ when _you honour_ us with a letter. Adieu now, my _lovely_ Boy. With _sincerely_ wishing you _health_ and _happiness_, I remain, your truly affectionate and loving sister, SUE ARNOLD." This sister, an invalid for twenty years, was most unselfish and lovable in character. She died at Laleham in 1832. At the Winchester school he was called the poet Arnold to distinguish him from another boy of the same name. He used to recite ballad poetry for the pleasure of his schoolmates, and wrote a long poem, "Simon de Montfort," in imitation of Scott's "Marmion." He had read Gibbon and Mitford through twice before he left Winchester, at sixteen. At fourteen he enjoyed "the modest, unaffected, and impartial narratives of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon," and did not like "the numerous boasts which are everywhere to be met with in the Latin writers." He thought Roman history "scandalously exaggerated," and had no idea that he was thereafter, in his manhood, to write a fair and delightful Roman history himself.