Life

He was trained as an attorney, but took to political writing before he was twenty. He was one of the authors in Prime Minister Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....

's pay who replied to the Craftsman and the various attacks of Bolingbroke and Pulteney. He wrote the Free Briton under the signature of "Francis Walsingham", and succeeded Matthew Concanen

Matthew Concanen

-Life:He studied law in Ireland but travelled to London as a young man, and began writing political pamphlets in support of the Whig government. He also wrote for newspapers including the London Journal and The Speculatist. He published a volume of poems, some of which were original works and some...

 in the British Journal

British Journal

The British Journal was an English newspaper published from 22 September 1722 until 13 January 1728. The paper was then published as the British Journal or The Censor from 20 January 1728 until 23 November 1730 and then as the British Journal or The Traveller from 30 November 1730 until 20 March...

. The report of the committee of inquiry into Walpole's conduct indicates that in the years 1731-41 over £50,000 for his writing circle, with over £10,997 allocated to Arnall for distribution to other journalists or to meet printing costs. Arnall himself received an annual pension of about £400, making him the best paid government journalist in London.

Works

Besides his writing for Walpole, Arnall also published a number of pamphlets on political and ecclesiastical themes, including Publius Clodius Pulcher

Publius Clodius Pulcher

Publius Clodius Pulcher was a Roman politician known for his popularist tactics...

 and Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 (1727), One of his tracts, in which he disputes certain claims of the clergy in regard to tithes Animadversions on Bishop Sherlock's Remarks on the Tythe Bill, is reprinted in The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken (2nd edn, 1768). A letter to Dr. Codex [Dr. Gibson] on His Modest Instructions to the Crown (1733), Opposition No Proof of Patriotism (1735) on Thomas Rundle's appointment to the see of Londonderry, and The Complaint of the Children of Israel (1736, under the name Solomon Abrabanel) are attributed to him.

A Letter to the Revd Dr Codex [Edmund Gibson] (1733), Opposition No Proof of Patriotism (1735), The Complaint of the Children of Israel (1736, under the name Solomon Abrabanel), and Animadversions on Bishop Sherlock's Remarks on the Tythe Bill, reprinted in The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken (2nd edn, 1768). In the London Evening Post

London Evening Post

The London Evening Post was a pro-Jacobite Tory English newspaper published in Great Britain from 1727 until 1797....

for 3 June 1736, Arnall's death in May that year is reported.

Arnall's work for Walpole made him a popular target for the Whig opposition Craftsman and Fog's Journal. He was also satirised in verse, Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

 for example attacked him in the Dunciad (Bk. ii. 315), where his name was substituted for Leonard Welsted

Leonard Welsted

Leonard Welsted was an English poet and "dunce" in Alexander Pope's writings . Welsted was an accomplished writer who composed in a relaxed, light hearted vein...

's in 1735, and in the epilogue to the Satires (Dialogue ii. 129): 'Spirit of Arnall, aid me whilst I lie!'