Part 9

Had the Bishop added that he wished each of these parties to have fair play, but that none should be exalted at the expense of the others, we should have had a summary of the principles which regulated his public life. Let it not, however, be supposed that he was an indifferent looker-on. He held that truth had many sides; that it might be viewed in different ways by persons standing in different positions; but still it was to him clear, and definite, and based upon a rock which no human assailant could shake. This, we think, is the keynote which is struck in every one of those eleven most remarkable Charges which are now for the first time collected together. We would earnestly commend them to the study of all who are interested in the history of the Church of England during the period which they cover. Every controversy which agitated her, every measure which affected her welfare, is discussed by a master; the real question at issue is carefully pointed out; the trivial is distinguished from the important; moderation and charity are insisted upon; angry passions are allayed; and, while the liberty of the individual is perpetually asserted, the duty of maintaining her doctrines is strenuously inculcated. As illustrations of some of these characteristics we would contrast his exhaustive analysis of the Tractarian movement or the Gorham controversy, with his conduct respecting _Essays and Reviews_. In the former cases he hesitated to condemn; he preferred to allay the terror with which his clergy were evidently inspired. In the latter, though always ‘decidedly opposed to any attempt to narrow the freedom which the law allows to every clergyman of the Church of England in the expression of his opinion on theological subjects,’ he joined his brother bishops in signing the famous ‘Encyclical,’ which we now know was the composition of Bishop Wilberforce, because he thought that in this case the principles advocated led to a negation of Christianity.

Thirlwall’s position towards theological questions has been called ‘indefinable[74].’ In a certain sense this statement is no doubt true. It was quite impossible to label him as of this or that party or faction; or to predict with any approach to certainty what he would do or say on any particular occasion. He had no enthusiasm (in the ordinary sense of the word) and no sentiment, and therefore, when a question was submitted to him, he did not decide it in the light of previous prejudices, or welcome it as a point gained towards some cherished end. He considered it as if it were the only question in the world at that moment, and as if he had never heard of it, or anything like it, before; he looked all round it, and balanced the arguments for and against it with the accuracy of a man of science in a laboratory. As a result of this process he frequently came to no resolution at all, and frankly told his correspondent that he would leave the matter referred to him to the decision of others. But, if what he held to be truth was assailed, or the conduct of an individual unjustly called in question, Thirlwall’s hesitation vanished. We have already mentioned his conduct in the House of Lords; but it should never be forgotten that he was one of the four Bishops who dissented from the resolution to inhibit Bishop Colenso from preaching in the various dioceses of England; and that he stood alone in withholding his signature from the address requesting him to resign his see. Again, when Mr J. S. Mill was a candidate for Westminster in 1865, and his opponents circulated on a placard some lines from his _Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy_ intended to shock the minds of the electors as irreverent if not blasphemous,—a proceeding which was eagerly followed up by the _Record_ and the _Morning Advertiser_ in leading articles—Thirlwall at once wrote to the _Spectator_, maintaining that this passage contained “the utterance of a conviction in harmony with ‘the purest spirit of Christian morality’; that nothing but ‘an intellectual and moral incapacity worthy of the ‘Record’ and its satellite could have failed to recognise its truth’; and that it ‘thrilled’ him ‘with a sense of the ethical sublime’[75].”

There were many other duties besides the care of the diocese of S. David’s to which the Bishop devoted himself, but these we must dismiss with a passing notice. We allude to his work as a member of the Ritual Commission, as chairman of the Old Testament Revision Company, and in Convocation. Gradually, however, as years advanced, his physical powers began to fail, and he resolved to resign his bishopric. This resolution was carried into effect in 1874. He retired to Bath, where he was still able to continue many of his old pursuits, and, by the help of his nephew and his family, notwithstanding blindness and deafness, to maintain his old interests. He died rather suddenly, July 27, 1875, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where, by a singularly felicitous arrangement, his remains were laid in the same grave as those of George Grote.

Regret has been often expressed that Bishop Thirlwall did not write more. We do not share this feeling. Had he written more he would have thought less, studied less, possessed in a less perfect degree that ‘_cor sapiens et intelligens ad discernendum judicium_[76]’ which was never weary of trying to impart to others a portion of its own serenity. At seventy-six years of age, just before his resignation, he could say, ‘I should hesitate to say that whatever is is best; but I have strong faith that it is _for_ the best, and that the general stream of tendency is toward good’; and in the last sentence of his last charge he bade his clergy remark that even controversies were ‘a sign of the love of truth which, if often passionate and one-sided, is always infinitely preferable to the quiet of apathy and indifference.’

Footnote 1:

1. _William Whewell, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. An Account of his Writings, with Selections from his Literary and Scientific Correspondence._ By I. TODHUNTER, M.A., F.R.S., Honorary Fellow of S. John’s College. 2 vols., 8vo. (London, 1876.)

2. _The Life and Selections from the Correspondence of William Whewell, D.D., late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge._ By Mrs STAIR DOUGLAS. 8vo. (London, 1881.)

Footnote 2:

In the fifteen years from 1800-1814 inclusive the average was 205; from 1815-1829 it was 402; and from 1830-1844 it was 433; from 1845-1859 it was 444; from 1859-1874 it was 545.

Footnote 3:

Todhunter’s _Life_, ii. 91.

Footnote 4:

_Life and Letters of Sir C. Lyell_, ii. 38. In the same letter he expresses his astonishment at finding that Whewell, while writing one of his papers on the Tides, was passing through the press _four other works_.

Footnote 5:

The inscription runs: munificentia · fultus · Alex. J. B. Hope, generosi · hisce · ædibus · antiquam · speciem · restituit. W. Whewell. Mag. Collegii. A. D. MDCCCXLIII. Mr Hope gave £1000, and the Master himself £250; but the liberality of the College, which spent some £4000 before the work was finished, is unrecorded. It was on this occasion that somebody wrote a parody on _The House that Jack Built_, beginning:

This is the House that Hope built. This is the Master, rude and rough, Who lives in the House that Hope built. These are the Seniors, greedy and gruff, Who toady the Master, rude and rough, Who lives in the House that Hope built.

Footnote 6:

The _Times_, February 25 and 26, 1847. Mrs Stair Douglas, p. 285, prints a letter from Archdeacon Hare, who had been disturbed by reports of the Vice-Chancellor’s vehemence.

Footnote 7:

The visit of Queen Victoria to the University in 1843.

Footnote 8:

_A Letter to the Rev. W. Whewell, B.D., Master of Trinity College, etc. By an Undergraduate._ 8vo. London, 1843.

Footnote 9:

_The Victory of Faith, and other Sermons._ By J. C. Hare, M. A. 8vo. Cambridge, 1840, p. x.

Footnote 10:

Mrs Stair Douglas, p. 216.

Footnote 11:

Dr Lightfoot’s Sermon, preached in the College Chapel on Sunday, March 18, 1866.

Footnote 12:

They appeared in _Punch_ for March 17, 1866.

Footnote 13:

The letter is dated 30 October, 1857.

Footnote 14:

Mrs Stair Douglas, p. 208.

Footnote 15:

Memoir by Sir John Herschel, _Proceedings of Royal Society_, XVI., p. lvi.

Footnote 16:

Bishop Goodwin’s article in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ for December, 1881, p. 140.

Footnote 17:

We are not sure that he ever allowed the _Origin of Species_ to be admitted into the College Library. It was certainly refused more than once, being probably dismissed with the expression which he was fond of using when, as Chairman of the Seniority, he read the list of books proposed—‘a worthless publication.’

Footnote 18:

1. _Remains, Literary and Theological, of Connop Thirlwall, late Lord Bishop of S. David’s._ Edited by J. J. STEWART PEROWNE, D.D. Vol. 1: Charges delivered between the years 1842 and 1860. Vol. 2: Charges delivered between the years 1863 and 1872. 8vo. (London, 1877.)

2. _Essays, Speeches, and Sermons._ By CONNOP THIRLWALL, D.D., late Lord Bishop of S. David’s. Edited by J. J. STEWART PEROWNE, D.D. 8vo. (London, 1880.)

3. _Letters to a Friend._ By CONNOP THIRLWALL, late Lord Bishop of S. David’s. Edited by the Very Rev. ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 8vo. (London, 1881.)

4. _Letters, Literary and Theological, of Connop Thirlwall, late Lord Bishop of S. David’s._ Edited by the Very Rev. J. J. STEWART PEROWNE, D.D., Dean of Peterborough, and the Rev. LOUIS STOKES, B.A. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. With Annotations and Preliminary Memoirs by the Rev. LOUIS STOKES. 8vo. (London, 1881.)

5. _Letters to a Friend._ New Edition. (London, 1882.)

Footnote 19:

Dr Perowne’s Preface to _Letters_, &c., p. vi.

Footnote 20:

_Letters_, &c., p. 177.

Footnote 21:

_Primitiæ_, p. 52. The essay is endorsed: ‘Composed 1st January, 1806. Eight years old.’

Footnote 22:

_Primitiæ_, p. 224. The piece is dated October 28, 1808.

Footnote 23:

_Letters to a Friend_, p. 155. As a matter of fact the Bishop did buy and destroy all the copies that he could.

Footnote 24:

Dean Perowne mentions (Preface, p. viii.) that ‘at school he did not care to enter into the games and amusements of the other boys, but was to be seen at play-hour withdrawing himself into some corner with a pile of books under his arm.’

Footnote 25:

Candler was seven years older than Thirlwall. He was junior assistant in a draper’s shop at Ipswich, and afterwards set up in business on his own account at Chelmsford, where he became a leading member of the Society of Friends. He died, nearly eighty years of age, in 1872. We have not been able to ascertain how he became acquainted with Thirlwall.

Footnote 26:

_Letters_, &c., p. 7.

Footnote 27:

_Letters_, &c., p. 17.

Footnote 28:

_Ibid._ p. 8.

Footnote 29:

_Letters to a Friend_, p. 225.

Footnote 30:

_Letters_, &c., p. 21. The letter is dated December, 1813, when the writer was sixteen years old.

Footnote 31:

Professor Monk, who had examined Thirlwall on one of these occasions, was so much struck with the vigour and accuracy of his translations that he remarked to a friend, who had also had experience of his worth as a scholar, ‘Had I been sitting in my library, with unlimited access to books, I could not have done better.’ ‘Nor so well,’ was the reply.

Footnote 32:

Cooper’s _Annals of the Town and University of Cambridge_, iv. 516. The words between inverted commas in our text are from a pamphlet entitled ‘A Statement regarding the Union, an Academical Debating Society, which existed at Cambridge from February 13, 1815, to March 24, 1817, when it was _suppressed by the Vice-Chancellor_.’ The ‘statement’ is evidently official, and is thoroughly business-like and temperate. The Vice-Chancellor was Dr Wood, Master of S. John’s College; the officers of the society were: Mr Whewell, _President_; Mr Thirlwall, _Secretary_; Mr H. J. Rose, _Treasurer_. The late Professor Selwyn, in a speech at the opening of the new Union building, October 30, 1866, stated that on the entrance of the proctors the President said, ‘Strangers will please to withdraw, and the House will take the message into consideration.’

Footnote 33:

_Autobiography of John Stuart Mill_, p. 125. Mill is describing a debate at ‘a society of Owenites called the Co-operation Society,’ in 1825. ‘It was a _lutte corps à corps_ between Owenites and political economists, whom the Owenites regarded as their most inveterate opponents; but it was a perfectly friendly dispute.... The speaker with whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly every word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since Bishop of S. David’s, then a Chancery barrister, unknown except by a high reputation for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union before the era of Austin and Macaulay. His speech was in answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered ten sentences, I set him down as the best speaker I had ever heard, and I have never since heard anyone whom I placed above him.’

Footnote 34:

_Letters_, &c., p. 31.

Footnote 35:

An old friend of Bishop Thirlwall informs us that he retained his preference for the ‘Paradiso’ in after years.

Footnote 36:

_Life and Letters of Frances Baroness Bunsen_; by Augustus J. C. Hare. 8vo. Lond. 1882: i. 138.

Footnote 37:

Letter to Bunsen, November 21, 1831, _Letters_, &c., p. 99.

Footnote 38:

_Memoirs of Baron Bunsen_, i. 339.

Footnote 39:

Marsh was professor from 1807 to 1839. The first volume of his translation of Michaelis had appeared in 1793.

Footnote 40:

_Letters_, &c., p. 55.

Footnote 41:

_Edinburgh Review_, April, 1876, p. 291.

Footnote 42:

_A Critical Essay on the Gospel of S. Luke._ By Dr Frederick Schleiermacher. With an introduction by the Translator, containing an account of the controversy respecting the origin of the first three Gospels since Bishop Marsh’s dissertation. 8vo. London: 1825.

Footnote 43:

F. D. Maurice writes, 25 February, 1848: ‘The Bishop of S. David’s very injudiciously translated, about twenty years ago, Schleiermacher’s book on S. Luke—the one of all, perhaps, which he ever wrote the most likely to offend religious people in England, and so mislead them as to his real character and objects.’ _Life of F. D. Maurice_, i. 454.

Footnote 44:

Between 1827 and 1832 he held the college offices of Junior Bursar, Junior Dean, and Head Lecturer. In 1828, 1829, 1832, and 1834 he was one of the examiners for the Classical Tripos.

Footnote 45:

See Dean Stanley’s Memoir of Archdeacon Hare, prefixed to the third edition of _The Victory of Faith_. 1874.

Footnote 46:

_A Vindication of Niebuhr’s ‘History of Rome’ from the Charges of the ‘Quarterly Review.’_ By Julius Charles Hare, M.A. Cambridge, 1829. The passage commented on will be found in the _Quarterly Review_ for January 1829 (vol. xxxix. p. 8). The first edition of Niebuhr’s own work had been highly praised in an article in the same _Review_ for June 1825 (vol. xxxii. p. 67).

Footnote 47:

On the Life of Dr Whewell, printed above. It was originally called ‘Half a Century of Cambridge Life,’ and appeared in the _Church Quarterly Review_, April 1882.

Footnote 48:

The _Caput Senatus_ consisted of five persons, viz. a Doctor of Divinity, a Doctor of Laws, a Doctor of Physic, a non-regent Master, and a regent Master. These persons held office for a year. They were elected by the votes of the Heads of Colleges, the Doctors in all faculties, and the Scrutators. Each member had the right to veto any proposal of which he disapproved. The _Caput Senatus_ was established by the Statutes of Elizabeth, 1570, Cap. xli, and abolished by the University Act, 1856.

Footnote 49:

The first petition was presented to the House of Lords on March 21, 1834; the protest is dated April 3; and the counter-petition was presented on April 21 in the same year.

Footnote 50:

_A Letter_ etc., p. 20.

Footnote 51:

_A Letter_ etc., pp. 21, 22.

Footnote 52:

When the ‘Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Undergraduates’ tabulated the weekly attendance of the Fellows at Chapel in the Lent Term of 1838, and finally published a list, like the class list at the end of an examination, Whewell was placed in the middle of the second class, having obtained only 34 marks. The Deans, being obliged, in virtue of their office, to attend twice daily, were disqualified from obtaining the prize—a Bible—which the Society gave to Mr Perry, afterwards Bishop of Melbourne, who had obtained 66 marks.

Footnote 53:

It has been said that the Master was advised to take the course he did by Mr Hugh James Rose, who was in the University at the time, and on Whitsunday, May 18, had preached a sermon at Great S. Mary’s on the ‘Duty of Maintaining the Truth,’ from S. Matt. x. 27: ‘What ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops.’ Thirlwall’s letter, however, was not published before May 21, so that, unless the nature of it had been known beforehand, it is clear that anything which Mr Rose had said in his sermon could not have referred to it. That Thirlwall believed that there was some connexion between the sermon, or at any rate the preacher, and his dismissal, is evident from the fact that after showing the Master’s letter to one of the junior Fellows, who expressed indignant surprise that such a course could have been taken, he remarked: ‘Ah! let this be a warning to you to preach truth, if need be, upon the house-tops, but never under any circumstances to preach error.’ Thirlwall was a regular attendant at Great S. Mary’s, and no doubt heard the sermon in question.

Footnote 54:

The letter, dated 27 May, 1834, is printed by Mrs Stair Douglas, _Life of Dr Whewell_, p. 163.

Footnote 55:

The letter, dated 23 September 1834, is printed in _Letters of Bishop Thirlwall_, p. 124; and by Mrs Stair Douglas, _Life of Dr Whewell_, p. 168. Dr Wordsworth’s action was noticed with disapproval beyond the limits of Trinity College, for Professor Babington records in his Diary:

_Nov. 17 [1834]\._ Attended a meeting at Mr Bowstead’s rooms at Corpus, to vote an address to Mr Connop Thirlwall expressive of our sorrow at his being prevented from acting as tutor, and of our disapprobation of the discussion of things not forming part of the duties of tuition being made a cause for depriving a tutor of his office.

_Nov. 29._ A meeting was called for 28th to take into consideration the address to Thirlwall. Laing, Henslow, and I supposed that it was this day, and went, and found that the meeting was over and the address, much to our sorrow burnt. (_Memorials, etc. of Charles Cardale Babington_, 8vo. Camb. 1897, p. 33). Professor Mayor (_Ibid._ 265) conjectures, with much probability, that the address was destroyed at Thirlwall’s own suggestion. It is curious that his friends should have deferred their action for so many months.

Footnote 56:

_Life of Dr Whewell_, by Mrs Stair Douglas, p. 211.

Footnote 57:

_Letters to a Friend_, p. 191.

Footnote 58:

The preface to the first edition of vol. i. is dated ‘Trinity College, June 12, 1835.’ He was instituted to Kirby Underdale, 13 February, 1835 (_Letters_, p. 136), but he did not take up his residence there till July following (_Ibid._ p. 137). The dates of the subsequent volumes are ii. iii., 1836; iv., 1837; v., 1838; vi., 1839; vii., 1840; viii., 1844.

Footnote 59:

_Letters_, &c. p. 138.

Footnote 60:

Preface to the second edition, dated ‘London, May 1845.’

Footnote 61:

_Letters_, &c. p. 194. The letter is dated April 9, 1846.

Footnote 62:

_The Personal Life of George Grote._ By Mrs Grote, p. 173.

Footnote 63:

_Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne._ By W. M. Torrens, M.P. Vol. ii. p. 332. Lord Houghton in the _Fortnightly Review_, February 1878.

Footnote 64:

_Letters to a Friend_, p. 278.

Footnote 65:

_Letters_, &c. p. 161.

Footnote 66:

_Letters_, &c. p. 292.

Footnote 67:

_Charges_, vol. ii. pp. 90-100.

Footnote 68:

In his charge for 1851 (_Charges_, vol. i. p. 150) he announced his intention to devote the surplus of his income to the augmentation of small livings, and in 1866 he pointed out that the fund had up to that time yielded £24,000 (_Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 98).

Footnote 69:

He particularly disliked gossip. At Kirby Underdale the old sexton used to relate how Mr Thirlwall said, ‘I never ’ears no tales’; and the following story shows that he maintained the same wise discretion after he became a bishop. One of his archdeacons thought it right to tell him that a certain clergyman in the diocese, who was a clever mimic, was fond of entertaining his friends with imitations of the Bishop. Thirlwall listened, and then inquired, ‘Does he do me well?’ ‘I am sure I cannot say, my Lord,’ replied the informer; ‘I was never present myself at one of these disgraceful exhibitions.’ ‘Ah! I should like to know, because he does _you_ admirably,’ replied the Bishop. It is needless to say that no more stories were carried to his ears.

Footnote 70:

_An Earnestly Respectful Letter_, 8vo. 1860, pp. 20-23. See also _The Life and Letters of Rowland Williams, D.D._, London, 1874, chap. xv., where his determination to make the Bishop declare himself, under the belief that he really agreed with him, is expressly stated.

Footnote 71:

_A Letter to the Rev. Rowland Williams_, 8vo. 1860, p. 19.

Footnote 72:

Dean Stanley’s preface to the _Letters to a Friend_, p. xi.

Footnote 73:

_Letters to a Friend_, p. 54.

Footnote 74:

Review of ‘The letters of Bishop Thirlwall,’ _The Times_, 23 November, 1881.

Footnote 75:

_The Edinburgh Review_, for April, 1876, p. 292.

Footnote 76:

These words are inscribed upon Bishop Thirlwall’s grave.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON[77].