1783 Arnold succeeded Nares as organist and composer to the Chapels Royal, and in the following year he was one of the sub-directors of the Handel commemoration. In 1786, at the request of George III, he undertook the editing of an issue of Handel's works, an edition which, though both incomplete and inaccurate, was for long the only one accessible to musicians. He was appointed conductor of the Academy of Ancient Music in 1789, and on the death of Stanley joined Linley in carrying on the oratorios at Drury Lane Theatre, On 24 Nov. 1790 'the Graduates' Meeting, a society of musical professors established in London,' was founded at a meeting at Dr. Arnold's house, 480, Strand. In the same year he published his valuable collection of cathedral music, the work by which he is now best remembered. Three years later he succeeded Dr. Cooke as organist to Westminster Abbey. A few years afterwards he fell from his library steps, breaking a tendon of his leg and sustaining internal injuries which eventually resulted in his death, which took place on Friday, 22 Oct. 1802, at his house, 22, Duke Street, Westminster. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 29 Oct. His grave is in the north aisle, next to that of Purcell, whose leaden coffin was exposed to view at the time of the funeral. Arnold married in 1771 Mary Anne, the daughter of Dr. Archibald Xapier, who survived him, and by whom he had a son and two daughters. The son was afterwards well known as the manager of the Lyceum Theatre. The eldest daughter, Caroline Mary, died on 13 Dec. 1795, and was buried in Westminster Abbey youngest, Marianne, was married to Mr. William Ayrton, second son of Dr. Ayrton. Dr. Arnold, besides being an industrious musician, wrote several political squibs in the tory papers. His generosity and good-fellowship rendered him very popular in his day, but as a composer his merits were inferior to many of his contemporaries, and little, if any, of his music has survived.
[The Harmonicon for 1830; Busby's Concert-room Anecdotes, 1825; Parke's Musical Memoirs, 1830; Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey, 1876; Add. MS. 27693.]
ARNOLD, SAMUEL JAMES (1774–1852), dramatist, son of Samuel Arnold, Mus. Doc, was educated for an artist. He produced, however, at the Haymarket, in 1794, 'Auld Robin Gray,' a musical play in two acts; and this was followed by other works of the same class: 'Who pays the Reckoning?' produced at the Haymarket in 1795; the 'Shipwreck,' produced at Drury Lane in 1796; the 'Irish Legacy,' produced at the Haymarket in 1797; and the 'Veteran Tar,' produced at Drury Lane in 1801. 'Foul Deeds will rise,' first played at the Haymarket in 1804, is described by Genest as 'an unnatural mixture of tragedy and farce.' The ' Prior Claim,' produced at Drury Lane in 1805, was a comedy written in conjunction with Henry James Pye, the poet laureate, whose daughter Arnold had married in 1803. 'Man and Wife, or More Secrets than One,' a comedy produced at Drury Lane in 1809, enjoyed some thirty representations. In this year Arnold obtained from the Lord Chamberlain a license to open as an English opera house the Lyceum in the Strand, a building previously devoted to subscription concerts, picture exhibitions, feats of horsemanship, conjuring, &c. Upon the destruction of Drury Lane by fire in the same year, the company moved to the English Opera House, and remained there three seasons. The license had been originally granted in the belief that the house would be open only for four months in the summer, and would become a nursery of singers for the winter theatres. 'Up all Night, or the Smuggler's Cave,' ' Britain's Jubilee,' the 'Maniac, or Swiss Banditti,' 'Plots, or the North Tower,' are the titles of musical plays by Arnold presented by the Drury Lane company during their occupancy of the English Opera House. The theatre was afterwards open under his own management, when his operas of the 'King's Proxy,' the 'Devil's Bridge,' the ' Americans,' 'Frederick the Great,' 'Baron Trenck,' 'Broken Promises,' and dramas entitled 'Two Words,' 'Free and Easy,' &c., &c., were produced in succession. Hazlitt wrote in 1816 of Arnold's 'King's Proxy,' that it was 'the essence of four hundred rejected pieces … with all that is threadbare in plot, lifeless in wit, and sickly in sentiment. … Mr. Arnold writes with the fewest ideas possible; his meaning is more nicely balanced between sense and nonsense than that of any of his competitors; he succeeds from the perfect insignificance of his pretensions, and fails to offend through downright imbecility.' Arnold's 'Two Words,' however, Hazlitt pronounced 'a delightful little piece. It is a scene with robbers and midnight murder in it; and all such scenes are delightful to the reader or spectator. We can conceive nothing better managed than the plot of this.' In 1812 Arnold had been invited to undertake the direction of Drury Lane Theatre; he resigned his office on the death of Mr. Whitbread by his own hand in 1815. In 1816 the English Opera was reopened by Arnold, having been rebuilt upon an enlarged scale
