fixed to the volume recalls forcibly the he ought to have been either learning features of the veteran bishop at seventy himself or at play with his schoolfellows; years of age, we fancy that we can detect and we can thoroughly sympathize with in the style a foreshadowing of some of the bishop's feelings respecting the book. the qualities which rendered that of the The lady to whom the "Letters to a man so remarkable. There is the same Friend" were written had evidently asked orderly arrangement of what he has to him for a copy, and obtained the followsay, the same absence of rhetoric, the ing answer: same logical deduction of the conclusion from the premisses. As we turn over the foot which gives me pain you would not select I am sure that if you knew the point in my pages we are struck by the extent of read- that to kick or tread upon; and I am equally ing which the allusions suggest. The sure that if you had been aware of the intense best English authors, the most famous loathing with which I think of the subject of men of antiquity, are quoted as if the your note you would not have recalled it to my writer were familiar with them. The mind. When Mrs. P, in the simplicity of themes, too, are singularly varied. We her heart, and no doubt believing it to be an find "An Eastern Tale," which, though agreeable subject to me, told me at dinner on redolent of "Rasselas," is not devoid of Thursday that she possessed the hated volume, it threw a shade over my enjoyment of the originality and has considerable of description; an "Address delivered to evening, and it was with a great effort that, the Worshipful Company of Drapers at the conversation. If I could buy up every copy after a pause, I could bring myself to resume their annual visit to Bancroft's School, for the flames, without risk of a reprint, I which is not more fulsome than such com- should hardly think any price too high. Let positions usually are; and lastly, half-a-me entreat you never again to remind me of dozen poems, which are by far the best its existence.* things in the book. Let us take, almost at random, a few lines from the last: "Characters often Seen, but little Marked: a Satire." A young lady, called Clara, is anxious to break off a match, and lays her plot in the following fashion : power In 1809 young Thirlwall was sent as a day scholar to the Charterhouse, the choice of a school having very likely been determined by the fact that his father resided at the east end of London. The records of his school days are provok The marriage eve arrived: she chanced to ingly incomplete; nay, almost a blank. We should like to know whether he was ever a boy in the ordinary sense of the word; whether he ever played at games,f or got into mischief, or obtained the distinction of a flogging. As far as his studies were concerned, he was fortunate in going to the Charterhouse when that excellent scholar Dr. Raine was head master, and in being the contemporary of several boys who afterwards distinguished themselves, among whom may be specially mentioned his life-long friend Julius Charles Hare, and George Grote, with whom, in after years, he was to be united by an identity of literary work. His chief friend, however, at this period was not Here, again, there may not be much originality of thought, but the versification is excellent, and the whole piece of surprising merit, when we reflect that it was written by a child. Yet, whatever may be the worth of this and other pieces in the volume before us as a promise of future greatness, we cannot but pity the † Dean Perowne mentions (Preface, p. viii.) that " at poor little fellow, stimulated by the incon- school he did not care to enter into the games and amusements of the other boys, but was to be seen at siderate vanity of his parents to a prig-play-hour withdrawing himself into some corner with a gish affectation of teaching others when pile of books under his arm." Letters to a Friend, p. 155. He had evidently been taken to see Cambridge, one of his schoolfellows, but a young man | tatives, while four hundred thousand are named John Candler,* a Quaker, resident without one. These are abuses which at Ipswich. Several of the letters ad- require speedy correction."* dressed to him during the four years spent at Charterhouse have fortunately been preserved. When we remember that these were written between the ages of twelve and sixteen, they must be regarded as possessing extraordinary merit. They are studied and rather stilted compositions, evidently the result of much thought and labor, as was usual in days when postage cost eightpence; but they reveal a wonderfully wide extent of reading, and an interest in passing events not usual in so ardent a student as the writer evidently had even then become. Young Candler was "a friend to liberty" and an admirer of Sir Francis Burdett. His correspondent criticises the popular hero and the mob, who, "after having broken the ministerial windows and pelted the soldiers with brickbats, have gone quietly home and left him to his meditations upon Tower Hill," with much severity. Most thoughtful boys are fond of laying down the lines of their future life in their letters to their schoolfellows; but how few there are who do not change their opinions utterly, and end by adopting some profession wholly different from that which at first attracted them! This was not the case with Thirlwall. We find him writing at twelve years old in terms which he would not have disdained at 66 There is one particular in which I hope to differ from many of those envied persons who have attained to the most distinguished academical honors. Several of these seem to have considered the years which they spent at the University not as the time of preparation for studies of a severer nature, but as the term of their labors, the completion of which is the signal for a life of indolence, dishonorable to Litthemselves and unprofitable to mankind. their proper rank as the most dignified occuerature and science are thus degraded from pations of a rational being, and are converted into instruments for procuring the gratification of our sensual appetites. This will not, I trust, be the conduct of your friend. Sorry indeed should I be to accept the highest hon ors of the University were I from that time destined to sink into an obscure and useless inactivity.‡ fifty. "I shall never be a bigot in politics," he says; "whither my reason does not guide me I will suffer myself to be led by the nose by no man." t I would ask the advocates for confining learning to the breasts of the wealthy and the noble, in whose breasts are the seeds of sedition and discontent most easily sown? In that of the unenlightened or well. informed peasant? In that of a man An English translation of the "Penincapable of judging either of the disad-sées de Pascal" had fallen in his way; and, vantages of his station or the means of in imitation of that great thinker, he had ameliorating it?... These were long formed a resolution, of which he begs his since my sentiments." And, lastly, on friend to remind him in future years, to the burning question of Parliamentary devote himself wholly to such studies reform: "Party prejudice must own it (among others to the acquisition of a rather contradictory to reason and com- knowledge of Hebrew) as would fit him mon sense that a population of one hun- for the clerical profession. We shall dred persons should have two represen- see that he never really faltered from these intentions; for, though he was at one time beset with doubts as to his fitness to perform the practical duties of a clergyman, he was from first to last a * 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. † Letters, etc., p. 7. Letters, etc., p. 17. theologian, and only admitted other stud- | high reputation for eloquence as a speakies as ancillary to that central object. * er there, we know nothing definite about Thirlwall left Charterhouse in Decem- him. He does not appear to have made ber, 1813, and proceeded to Trinity Col- any new friends; but as Julius Hare was lege, Cambridge, in October of the fol in residence during the same period as he lowing year. How he spent the interval was, the two doubtless saw much of each has not been recorded-probably, like other; and it is probably to him that many other boys educated at a purely Thirlwall owed the love of Wordsworth classical school, in doing his best to ac- which may be detected in some of his quire an adequate knowledge of mathe-letters, his fondness for metaphysical matics, to his deficiency in which there speculation, and his wish to learn Gerare frequent references. He was so far man. The only letters preserved are successful in his efforts that he obtained addressed to his old correspondent Mr. the place of 22nd senior optime in 1818, Cahdler, and to his uncle Mr. John when he proceeded in due course to his Thirlwall, and they give us no informadegree. Meanwhile, however great his tion special to Cambridge. He dwells on distaste for the classics might have been his fondness for ancient history, on his at school, he had risen to high distinction preference for that of Greece over that of in them; for he obtained the Craven Rome; he records the addition of the University scholarship when only a fresh- Italian and German languages to his man, as well as the Bell scholarship, and stock of acquirements; and describes in the year of his degree the first chan- with enthusiasm his yearning for foreign cellor's medal.* In the autumn of the travel, which each year grew stronger. same year he was elected fellow of his college. It is provoking to have to admit that our record of what may be termed the first part of his Cambridge career must begin and end here. Of the second portion, when he returned to his college and became assistant tutor, we shall have plenty to say hereafter; but of his undergraduate days no record has been preserved. He had the good fortune to enter his college when the society there was exceptionally brilliant; among his contemporaries were Sedgwick, Whewell, the two Waddingtons, his old friend Hare, who gained a fellowship in the same year as himself, and many others who contributed to make that period of university history a golden age. We can imagine him in their company "moulding high thought in colloquy serene," and taking part in anything which might develop the general culture of the place; but beyond the facts that he was secretary to the Union Society in 1817, when the "debate was interrupted by the entrance of the proctors, who laid on its members the commands of the vice-chancellor to disperse, and on no account to resume their discussions," t† and that he had acquired a I certainly was not made to sit at home in contented ignorance of the wonders of art and nature, nor can I believe that the restlessness of curiosity I feel was implanted in my disposition to be a source of uneasiness rather than enjoyment. Under this conviction I peruse the authors of France and Italy, with the idea that the language I am now reading I may one day be compelled to speak, and that what is now a source of elegant and refined entertainment may be one day the medium through which I shall disclose my wants and obtain a supply of the necessaries of life. This is the been for some years past my inseparable commost enchanting of my day-dreams; it has panion. And, apt as are my inclinations to fluctuate, I cannot recollect this to have ever undergone the slightest abatement.† The letter from which we have selected the above passage was written to his uncle in 1816; in another, written a few months later to his friend Mr. Candler, he enters more fully into his difficulties and prospects. The earlier portion of the letter is well worth perusal for the insight it affords into the extent of his reading and the originality of his criticisms; but it is the concluding paragraph which is 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 St. 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." Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, p. 125. † Letters, etc., p. 31. so. specially interesting to a biographer. We often at almost twelve o'clock. It is imposdo not know to what influences the change sible for any one to behave more like a man of was due, but it is evident that his mind sense and a gentleman than he has always done was passing through a period of unrest; ready and eager to converse with anybody his old determinations had been, at least that is at leisure to speak to him, but never for the moment, uprooted, and he looked looking fidgety when by necessity left to himforward with uncertain eyes to an un- whether listening to music, or trying to make self; always seeming animated and attentive, known future. "My disinclination to the out what people say in German, or looking at Church," he says, 'has grown from a one of Goethe's songs in the book while it is motive into a reason." The bar had sung. And so there are a great many reasons evidently been suggested to him as the for our being very much pleased with Mr. only alternative, and on that dismal pros- Thirlwall; yet I rather suspect him of being pect he dilates with unwonted bitterness. very cold and very dry; and although he seeks, It would take him away from all the pur- and seeks with general success, to understand suits he loved most dearly, and put in his stock of ideas, I doubt the possibility of his everything, and in every possible way increase their place "the routine of a barren and understanding anything that is to be felt rather uninteresting occupation," in which not than explained, and that cannot be reduced to only would the best years of his life be a system. I was led to this result by some wasted, but-and this is what he seems most extraordinary questions that he asked to have dreaded most his loftier aspira- Charles about Faust (which he had borrowed tions would be degraded, and when he of us, and which he greatly admired neverthe had become rich enough to return to lit-less, attempting a translation of one of my erature he would feel no inclination to do favorite passages, which, however, I had not pointed out to him as such), and also by his The fellowship examination in 1818 great fondness for the poems of Wordsworth, having ended in Thirlwall's election, he two volumes of which he insisted on lending to Charles. These books he accompanied was free to go abroad, and at once started with a note, in which he laid great stress upon alone for Rome. At that time Niebuhr the necessity of reading the author's prose was Prussian envoy there, and Bunsen essays on his own poems, in order to be enabled his secretary of legation. Thirlwall was to relish the latter. Yet Mr. Thirlwall speaks so fortunate as to bring with him a letter of Dante in a manner that would seem to of introduction to Madame Bunsen, who prove a thorough taste for his poetry, as well had been a Miss Waddington, cousin to as that he has really and truly studied it; for Professor Monk, and had married Bun- he said to me that he thought no person who sen about a year before Thirlwall's visit. had taken the trouble to understand the whole The following amusing letter from Ma- preferring the "Paradiso" to the two preceding dame Bunsen to her mother gives an in-parts, an opinion in which I thoroughly agree. teresting picture of Thirlwall in Rome: As Mr. Thirlwall can speak French suffi. March 16, 1819. Mr. Hinds and Mr. Thirl-ciently well to make himself understood, and wall are here. . . . My mother has, I know, sometimes suspected that a man's abilities are to be judged of in an inverse ratio to his Cambridge honors; but I believe that rule is really not without exception, for Mr. Thirlwall is certainly no dunce, although, as I have been informed, he attained high honors at Cambridge at an earlier age than anybody except, I believe, Porson. In the course of their first interview Charles heard enough from him to induce him to believe that Mr. Thirlwall had studied Greek and Hebrew in good earnest, not merely for prizes; also that he had read Mr. Niebuhr's Roman History proved him to possess no trifling knowledge of German; and, as he expressed a wish to improve himself in the language, Charles ventured to invite him to come to us on a Tuesday evening whenever he was not otherwise engaged, seeing that many Germans were in the habit of calling on that day. Mr. Thirlwall has never missed any Tuesday evening since, except the moccoli night and one other when it rained dogs and cats. An old friend of Bishop Thirlwall informs us that He comes at eight o'clock, and never stirs to go he retained his preference for the "Paradiso" in after away till everybody else has wished good-night, | years. of the Divina Commedia would doubt about that is, as he has something to say, Charles found it It is vexatious that Thirlwall's biogra phers should have failed to discover - if indeed they tried to discover excursions out of law into literature, consoling himself with the reflection that perhaps he gained in intensity of enjoyment what he lost in duration. With these feelings it would have been useless for him to persevere; but we think it not improbable that much of his future eminence as a bishop might have been due to his legal training. As a friend has remarked, "he carried the temper, and perhaps the habit, of equity into all his subsequent work." Even in these years, however, law was not allowed to engross his whole time. From the beginning he had laid this down as a fixed principle. He spent his vacations in foreign travel, and every moment he could snatch from law was devoted to a varied course of reading, of which the main outcome was a translation of Schleiermacher's "Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke,"* to which his friend Hare had introduced him. To those who take the trouble of reading this almost forgotten piece of criticism it will appear strange that Thirlwall should have spent so much time over such a curious specimen of misplaced ingenuity. The explanation is to be found, we think, in the opportunity it afforded him for studying the whole question of the origin and authorship of the synoptic Gospels, and, as the title page informs us, for dealing with the contributions to the literature of the subject which had ap any information about his Roman visit, to which he always looked back with delight, occasioned as much by the friends he had made there as by "the memorable scenes and objects" he had visited. So far as we know, the above letter is the only authority extant. We should like to have heard whether Thirlwall had, or had not, any personal intercourse with Niebuhr, whom we have reason to believe he never met; and to what extent Bunsen influenced his future studies. We find it stated in Bunsen's life that he determined Thirlwall's wavering resolutions in favor of the clerical profession.† This, we shall see, is clearly a mistake; but, when we consider the strong theological bias of Bunsen's own mind, it does seem probable that he would direct his, attention to the modern school of German divinity. We suspect that Thirlwall had been already influenced in this direction by the example, if not by the direct precepts, of Herbert Marsh, then Lady Margaret's professor of theology at Cambridge, who had stirred up a great controversy by translating Michaelis's "Introduction to the New Testament," and by promoting a more free criticism of the Gospels than had hitherto been thought permissible. However this may be, it is certain that the friendship which began in Rome was one of the strongest and most abiding influences which shaped Thirlwall's charac-peared since Bishop Marsh's "Dissertater, and just half a century afterwards we find him referring to Bunsen as a sort of oracle in much the same language that Dr. Arnold was fond of employing. tion on the Origin and Composition of our three first Canonical Gospels," published in 1801. In this direct reference to Marsh's work, we find a confirmation of We must pass lightly and rapidly over our theory that Thirlwall owed to him his the next seven years of Thirlwall's life. position as a critical theologian, though He entered as a law student at Lincoln's we can hardly imagine a greater differ Inn in February, 1820, and in 1827 re-ence than that which must have existed turned to Cambridge. In the intervening in all other matters between the passionperiod he had given the law a fair trial; ate Toryism of the one and the serene but the more he saw of it the less he liked Liberalism of the other. it. It is painful to think of the weary Thirlwall's return to Cambridge took hours spent over work of which he could place in 1827, and he at once undertook say, four years after he had entered upon his full share of college and university it, "It can never be anything but loath- work.† His friend Hare had set the exsome to me;"§ "my aversion to the law ample in 1822 by accepting a classical has not increased, as it scarcely could, lectureship at Trinity College at the urfrom the first day of my initiation into its gent request of Mr. Whewell, then lately mysteries; or to read his pathetic utter-appointed to one of the tutorships,‡ and ances to Bunsen, describing his wretchedness, and the delight he took in his brief ⚫ Letter to Bunsen, November 21, 1831, Letters, etc., Memoirs of Baron Bunsen, i. 339. A Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. 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. † 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. See Dean Stanley's memoir of Archdeacon Hare, |