Letters to a friend

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P x ee ee oe

BY

Preface

THE following Letters are selected from a correspondence of ten years with a young friend, one of a Welsh family in which Bishop Thirlwall took great interest. It was felt that they supply a side of the Bishop’s character which was not sufficiently appreciated in his lifetime, and which the correspondence with his own contemporaries does not adequately represent. They disclose the kindly, genial heart which lay beneath that massive intellect ; they show the tender regard for the sufferings of those with whom he was brought into contact by the circumstances of ordinary life; they exhibit the playful affection for the tame creatures which formed almost part of his household; they are full of the keen appreciation which he felt for all the varying beauty of the natural seasons; they show the immense range of his acquaintance with the lighter as well as the graver forms of literature; they indicate the enthusiastic delight which he, no less than his correspondent, took in the language and traditions of the Welsh diocese and country which he had adopted as his own; they reveal also some of his innermost thoughts and feelings on the great moral and religious questions of all time, concerning which in his published writings we have only the external and judicial expression.

I have been requested, by those to whom the publica-

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tion of the two volumes of the Bishop’s Correspondence has been intrusted, to add, by way of preface, the remarks made concerning his character and career on the occasion of his interment in Westminster Abbey. The discourse from which they are taken was an endeavour to set forth the religious use of wisdom based on the words from the Book of Job, “ Where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding ?”

A few sentences of the sermon have been omitted, and a few added.

{t will be understood that the sermon dealt only with the more general aspects of his career. My personal acquaintance with him was too late and too shght to Justify any detailed criticism or eulogy.

ACESS.

Let me freely speak to you of this patriarch of our national Church in his two capacities of a universal scholar and of a wise ecclesiastical statesman.

Of that thirst for knowledge in all its parts of which the Bible speaks, of the mastery of all ancient and modern learning, few, if any, in his time have been more wonderful examples than he who from his eleventh till his threescore and eighteenth year was always gathering in fresh stores of understanding. Of him, as of Solomon, it might be said, ‘Thy soul covered the whole earth.” There was hardly a civilised language which he had not explored both in its structure and its literature. He was the chief of that illustrious group of English scholars who first revealed to this country the treasures of German research, and the insight which that research had opened into the yysterious origin of the races, institutions, and religions

PREFACE. 1X of mankind. Many are now living who never. can forget the moment when, in the translation of “Niebuhr’s Roman History,” they for the first time felt that they had caught a glimpse into the dark corners of the ancient times which preceded the dawn of history. There are many who gathered their early knowledge of the Grecian world from the first history which brought all the stores of modern learning to bear on that glorious country and its glorious people, and which still, after all. that has been done, remains the only history filled with the continuous sense of the unity of its marvellous destinies in their decline as well as in their rise. Many there are who have never lost the deep impression left by the attempt to trace the refined and solemn irony of ancient tragedy and human fate ;* many also who, in his masterly analysis of the composition of the Gospel narratives, first gained an insight at once alike into the complicated structure and the profound substance of the sacred volume.f Such a man is a boon to a whole generation, both by the example of his industry and by the light of his teaching. Even to the very last, even in old age, in blindness, in solitude, he continued with indomitable energy the task of acquiring new knowledge, of adding another and another finish to the never-ending education of his capacious mind; becoming, as he said when at the age of seventy-six he released himself from the cares of his diocese, becoming a boy once again, but a boy still at school, still growing in wisdom and understanding. Hear it, laggards and sluggards of our laxer days ; hear it, you who spend your leisure in the things and the books that perish with the using ; hear and profit by the remembrance that there has been one amongst us to whom the word of knowledge came in all its force and

* Essay on “ The Irony of Sophocles.” See “ Remains,” p. 6. + Sce Introduction to Schleiermacher’s “ Mssay on St. Luke.”

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beauty, to whom idleness, ignorance, and indifference were an intolerable burden, to whom the acquisition of a new language or a new literature was as the annexation of a new dominion, or the invention of a new enjoyment. Well may he rest amongst the scholars of England beneath the monument of Isaac Casaubon, whom we have of late learnt to know again™ as if he had lived in our days, and in the grave of his own famous schoolfellow,t of whose labours in the same field of Grecian history he once said, with a rare union of simple modesty and noble disinterestedness, that to himself had been given the rare privilege of seeing the work which had been the dream of his own life superseded and accomplished by a like work on a larger scale, and in more finished proportions, by the beloved and faithful friend of his early youth.

It may be disappointing to some that this prodigious acquisition of knowledge was not accompanied by a corresponding productiveness. With the exception of the few indications we have given, his learning perished with him. The light which he contributed to theology was far less brilliant and permanent than that which had come from Arnold or from Milman, or from some of the great German theologians whom he so highly honoured. Still there was a form of wisdom which does not lie buried with him in that narrow vault. There is an old English word which has now somewhat changed its meaning, but which in former times was applied to one of our greatest divines, Richard Hooker—the word “judicious.” We now use it in the restricted sense of “cautious” or “sagacious.” But in its proper meaning it signified exactly that qnality of judgment, discretion, discrimination, which is the chief characteristic of the biblical virtue of wisdom. Hardly, perhaps, has there been any

* Memoir of Isaac Casaubon, by Mark Pattison. + George Grote, historian of Greece.

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English theologian, rarely even any professional Judge, to whom this epithet, in this its true sense. of judicial, judge-like, was more truly applicable than to the serene and powerful intellect that has just passed away. In that massive countenance, in ‘that measured diction, in that deliberate argument, in those weighty decisions, it seemed as though Themis herself were enshrined to utter her most impressive oracles ; as if he was a living monument on which was inscribed ‘ Incorrupta fides, nudaque veritas ;” * as if he had absorbed into his inmost being the evangelical precept, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” It must indeed be allowed that there were times when his voice failed to be raised in emergencies which seemed to demand it—that there were occasions when even in his firm hand the scales of justice trembled from some unexpected bias—when his clear vision was dimmed for a time by a glamour which fascinated him the more because its magical influence was unlike to anything in himself— when his majestic serenity was ruffled by the irritation of some trivial contradiction or small annoyance. But for the larger part of his career the even current of his temper, the piercing accuracy of his insight, the calm dignity of his judgment, even when we might differ from its conclusions, remained immovable; and thus, when he rose to the Episcopal office, it almost seemed as if in this respect it had been created for him—so naturally did he from it, as from a commanding eminence, take an oversight of the whole field of ecclesiastical events—so entirely did his addresses to his clergy assume the form of judicial utterances on each of the great controversies which have agitated the Church of England for the last thirty years, and thus become the most faithful as well as impressive record of that eventful time. Such a character insensibly

* The expression of the late Archdeacon Moore.

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acted as a constant check on extravagance, a silent rebuke to partisanship, a valuable witness to “the entire dominion which prudence has” (to use the words of Burke) “over every exercise of power committed to its hands,” “ especially’ (again to use the words of the same great statesman) “when we have lived to see prudence and conformity to circumstances wholly set at nought in our late controversies, as if they were the most contemptible and irrational of all things.” To have beheld such a judgment-seat established amongst us is a warning and a blessing for which we shall often crave in vain now that its oracle is dumb, but which it is for us to reproduce, so far as we can, by the memory of the extent to which we once admired it, and of the strength wherewith it strengthened us.

And there is yet this further lesson :—“ Where was it that this wisdom was found, or where was the place of this wonderful understanding?” It was on a throne where experience has often told us that it is missing—in a place where we are often justly warned not to look for it. It was in that sacred calling which, by the very reason of its sacredness, is exposed more than the other great professions of our country to the fits of sudden fanaticism, to the hurricanes of well-intentioned panics, to the convulsions of blind party spirit. It was on the heights of that Episcopal order which, by the very reason of its eminence, often becomes the prey of timid counsels, unequal measures, and narrow thoughts, but which, when worthily occupied and worthily used, gives room and scope as no other office, either in Church or State, to the exercise of that width of view and impartiality of judgment of which “the wisdom” of: the Bible is the divine expression.

When we sometimes hear it said that in our day there are fewer attractions for the nobler intellects and the more gifted spirits to enter the sacred ministry——-when we hear

PREFACE. xl it regretfully said that those who enter often become demoralised in their highest mental aspirations by taking holy orders—let us ask what was the experience suggested by the career which is now closed. He had been destined to another lofty calling—that of the Bar—where, if anywhere, some of his most peculiar gifts might have had the fullest development and gratified the highest ambition. But he found that in the ministrations of the Church of England there was a field for a yet larger development of his moral and intellectual stature—for the exercise of a yet nobler aspiration. If from any cause since that time the calling of an English clergyman has become less congenial to such characters—if its sphere has become more contracted—if the difficulties placed in the way of embarking upon it have increased, or the inducements to enter upon it have diminished—it is well for all those who are concerned to look to it, for few graver evils can befall a Church, no more formidable prospect threaten its dignity and its usefulness. And as we so regard the question, let us think once and again what were the advantages which he brought to the ministry and hierarchy of the English Church, and what were the advantages which it offered to him. He brought to it the assurance that in the ranks of its clergy there was no reason why the love of truth and of learning should not abound, why critical inquiry should not pursue its onward course, why the intellectual and spiritual elements of Christianity should not constantly prevail over those which are material and formal. There are those who remember that when he was taised by a courageous statesman * to a seat in the English Episcopate, while

* See Torrens’s “ Life of Lord Melbourne.”’ Itis interesting to observe in this account that there was at least one eminent clergyman who did not share the panic occasioned by Bishop Thirlwall’s nomination. The Primate had assured Lord Melbourne that he saw no cause of objection in the preface to the translation of Schleiermacher’s Essay. ‘That Archbishop Howley

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some trembled with alarm at the entrance of this bold intruder, as he was deemed, others confidently predicted that this intrusion, if so it were, would give to the Church of England a new lease of enduring life. Have not the prophets of hope been justified in their anticipation of good ten times more than the prophets of fear in their anticipations of evil? Are there any now from one end of the Church to the other who are not proud of the man who has thus adorned their calling, and ennobled the career of the humblest curate of the most secluded hamlet? Are there any who would not feel that English Christianity and English literature would have been the poorer if Connop Thirlwall had hecome a mere successful lawyer, or remained a mere private scholar, instead of siving by his presence in the Episcopate an example and a guarantee that liberal sentiment, even-handed justice, free research, had their proper sphere in the high places of the English Church? He stood not alone in that former generation of noble students in those days which “they that are younger now have in their derision.” Others there were, perhaps, in their own way, as gifted as he, and who certainly left a deeper and wider impress on the writings and the actions of our time, and who were less restrained in their utterances by caution or reticence. But he of all that memorable band who found their natural calling in the ministry of the should not have been startled by the boldness of that keen criticism is in keeping with the like freedom of thought which induced him to receive Arnold at ordination, in spite of the hesitation to admit not only the Pauline authorship, but the canonicity of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and which caused him to acquiesce without remonstrance in Lord John Russell’s nomination of Dr. Hampden to the See of Hereford. It is true that this sagacious discernment of the lawfulness of such free inquiry in religious matters was combined with a caution which might easily be mistaken for timidity ; and the fear of giving offence to the clergy sometimes overbore even his characteristic courtesy. But it is worth recalling these traits because they have been often overlooked, and because they imply a largeness of mind which, if it had but found fuller scope in action, whether in his own or later times, might have saved the Church from many dangers and inconsistencies.

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English Church was the only one, at least in England, that mounted to its highest ranks, and visibly swayed its counsels. That long and honoured existence bids us not to despair of our Church or of our Faith ; but it also warns us to keep them at least on the same level that made his presence amongst us possible. It may be that, whatever betides, there will always be an inducement for the simple enthusiast, the stirring administrator, the eager partisan, the zealous dogmatist, to take a place in the ranks of the evangelists or pastors of the Church. But if there are to be amongst the clergy pillars of the House of Wisdom like to him that is gone, there must be something more than this. It is not too much to say that one main attraction, which drew him and like characters to the sacred ministry of our Church, was its national character, and therefore comprehensive, varied, and onward destiny. To nothing short of this, to no meaner service, beneath the dogmatic or ceremonial yoke of no lesser communion, would the giants of those days have bowed their heads to enter. Other advantages, moral or material, may be furnished by the separated, disintegrated, or exclusively ecclesiastical sects or churches of our own or other countries. Many are the excellent gifts possessed by our Nonconformist brethren which we lack, and perhaps shall always lack. But they themselves would confess with us that such as he of whom we speak would have found, and could have found, no abidingplace in their ranks. And only, or almost only, in a national Church, where the permanent voice of the nation, and not only a fraction of it, takes part in the appointment of its highest officers—was such an appointment possible, or at least probable, as that which gave to us the prelate whom we all now alike delight to honour and mourn to lose.

Such was the public career of him whose mortal remains

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are to be laid beneath this roof. Some perhaps will lament, with a natural regret, that the prelate who, of all its occupants, has most conspicuously adorned through a long Episcopate the ancient see which reaches back to the earliest beginnings of British Christianity, should not have found his last resting-place in the loneliness and grandeur of his own cathedral of St. David—in the romantic solitude of that secluded sanctuary—beside the storm-vexed promontory that overlooks the western sea. But it was also a natural feeling, in which his own clergy and people proudly share, that one whose fame belonged not to a single diocese, but to the whole Church of England and to the whole world of letters, should claim his rightful place amongst the scholars and philosophers of our country. And in these days there is a satisfaction in the thought that at least one great Churchman by general consent found his way into the innermost circle of the sages of our time—that amidst the cynical and critical analysis of our modern philosophy, there was at least one Greek to whose lofty intellect the religion of Jesus Christ was not foolishness—and amidst the craving for scholastic distinction and oratorical ceremonial exaggeration which marks our modern theology, at least one reverent believer to whom its reasonable service, its unfathomed depth, its wide-reaching charity, its unadorned simplicity, were not stumbling-blocks, but attractions. And this brings me to one concluding remark. I have hitherto spoken only of the mental grandeur of him whom we mourn. It is this chiefly which concerns us on this occasion. It is the vindication of the religious mission of learning and wisdom that I have thus briefly put before you. Yet those who knew the man in his inner ° life knew well that within that marble intellect, behind that impassive severity, beneath that ponderous eloquence, there was a moral fire which warmed and fused the granite mass through which it breathed. That was no

PREFACE. XVil mean sense of duty which constrained him, when in middle life he entered on the Episcopate, to throw his vast linguistic power into the difficult, though to him grateful task of learning, as no English bishop since the Conquest had ever learnt, the language of his Cambrian diocese. That was no inconsiderable effort of moral courage and far-sighted justice which led him on one occasion in his earlier years to vindieate, amidst obloquy and opposition,* the solution of a great academical difficulty which, since that time, all have accepted ; or, on another occasion in his later years, to vindicate the endeavour to remedy a great ecclesiastical grievance by a solution? which by the factious and fanatical rivalries of modern politics had been cast aside, but which all eminent statesmen of a former generation had combined in urging. That was no cold or callous heart which found its chief earthly comfort in the faithful affection of those who grew up around him as his own children and grandchildren, receiving instruction day by day from the boundless stores of his knowledge, and attracted by his paternal care. That was no proud or hard spirit which lived a life of such childlike simplicity, with the innocent enjoyment of his books or of his dumb creatures, or in steady obedience to the frequent call of often irksome duty, or in humbly waiting for his heavenly Masteyr’s call.

It was an undesigned but impressive coincidence that during the last days of his life, when blindness had closed his eyes, he employed his vacant hours by translating (through successive dictations) into Latin, Greek, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Welsh, the striking apologue which tells us that, “as Sleep is the brother of Death, thou must be careful to commit thyself to

* The Admission of Dissenters to the Universities. + The plan of concurrent endowment for the Irish Churches. See “ Remains,” p. 243.

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the care of Him who is to awaken thee both from the Death of Sleep and from the Sleep of Death,” and which tells us further that “the outward occurrences of life, whether prosperous or adverse, have no more effect than dreams on our real condition, since virtue alone is the real end and enduring good.” These words, thus rendered with all the energy of his unbroken mind into those seven languages, contain by hazard, as I have said, yet surely not without significance, the two simple, sublime elements of religion—the two conclusions which, not only in those closing hours, but in the fulness of his life, penetrated his reason and his faith : unwavering reverence for the supreme goodness of God, unshaken conviction of the true grandeur of goodness in man. Suddenly the summons came. With one call for him who had been as his own son on earth—with one ery to his Lord in heaven, who to his upward gaze seemed yet more visible and yet more near—he passed, as we humbly trust, from the death of sleep, and from the sleep of death, to the presence of that Light in which he shall see light.

“ Where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding ?”

“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”

On the stone which covers the grave of the two illustrious scholars and friends in Westminster Abbey are these words :— GEORGE GROTE, Historian of Greece.

CONNOP THIRLWALL, Scholar, Historian, Theologian.

For Thirty-four years Bishop of St. David's. Born February 11, 1797. Died July 27, 1875. Cor sapiens et intelligens ad discenendum judicium. ' Gwyn ci fyd. | White is his world.]

Contents

PAGB Cornwall—Etymology of Scilly—Bishop Thirlwall ordained a Druid— His Interest in Welsh Legends—Merlin’s Prophecies—Bonover (Beaumaris)—Unfulfilled Prediction of Matthicu du Dréme . : 3

Pius [X.—Edward Davis—View of Loss by Death and of Sympathy— Reunion of Friends in a Future State—Present Agency of Departed Spirits—King Arthur—Lord Lytton— Protestant Movement in Italy —-Windsor Castle—Regard for the Welsh Language—Recollections of a Roman Spring—Connection with Radnorshire—Breton Congress—Napoleon III.—Love of Nature—His Supply of Books— Taine’s “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise” —The Thames near Richmond — Zoological Gardens — Ireland — Dean Stanley— Miss Murray—Objection to destroying Papers—Remarks on Humour— Mrs. Gaskell—Observations on Books—Miss Berry—The Influence of Mistakes upon the Present and Future—Repentance of Sin and Sins—Forgiveness of Sin and Sins—Torquay—Governor Eyre op aks

Miss Berry—Rev. F. W. Robertson—Broad, Low, and High Church— Anecdote of Sir Charles Napier—Story of Caliph Mamoun—Legend of Abraham—Ecce Homo—Henri Martin—Miss Martincau— Wilkie Collins—Matthew Arnold—Earl Russell—W. E. Gladstone— Ladies’ Politics—Indian Legend—Gabriele Rossetti—Austro-German War—John Stuart Mill—Cession of Venetia—Napoleon III.— Carlyle—Socrates—Indian and European Legends—Conduct of the English in India—Novel-writers