St James's Street - CT will be in Cambridge by Thursday afternoon and since space will be a premium at Trinity, his room will be vacant from Monday morning.
Written from Buckinghamshire.
Abergwili - CT will not be able to stay for the Installation [the installation of the Duke of Northumberland as Chancellor?] as he has to make a digression on his way back to London: 'I therefore propose to go to Cambridge a day or two sooner than I arranged with you and to stay if I can over the Commencement Sunday'.
Declares that he has read with interest his correspondent's 'résumé of the fortunes of Philosophy at Cambridge in recent times.' It seems in the main true and consistent with what was said at their 'late meeting'; felt after their interview that he had not done full justice to the philosophic aptitudes of the three men about whom he had specially enquired, and that 'in a more congenial atmosphere they might have formed a genuine philosophic triumvirate, of which Thirlwall with his depth of thought and irony should have been the Socrates, Julius Hare...the Plato, [and] Whewell...the Aristotle.' Believes that the attempt to contract all philosophy within the limits of physics and mathematics, and its 'partial emergence into greater breadth and freedom, through the classical and moral triposes' has been 'fairly sketched and accounted for', and believes that this aspect of the subject cannot be left out as it constitutes a main part of the history of philosophy, and may not be very familiar at Oxford 'or in the world at large.' Admits that [Sidgwick] is probably right about Whewell's later lectures, Maurice's and Grote's. Discusses his own assertions with regard to philosophy's failure as an intellectual system, and its failure to 'sustain the weight of a full and truly human life'. States that he has made one or two slight corrections in his correspondent's paper, and asks him to do likewise with this letter. Gives him permission to append it to his own paper if he so wishes.
"Mrs M" causing problems within the parish in defiance of the Curate and Mrs Waddington, asks for information on Lord Buckingham's disgraceful match, recommends Connop Thirlwall to CJM, Murray has offered £2000 to Mr Rose to translate Ariosto
JCH is 'a most resolute monitor, for you repeat your admonitions without any regard to the answer which is made to them, or any information as to details' [see WW to JCH, 31 Mar. 1843]. WW challenges the characteristics of the three men JCH sent to assail WW's position: 'Wilberforce certainly did incur, from a very large body of persons, a most vehement charge of self-will'. Bishop Otter needed a little more self-will. The letter WW received from Connop Thirlwall 'was a most earnest condemnation of the suppression of one Welsh bishopric...I never dreamt that you could doubt on which side he was'. WW does not think JCH will find John S. Mill's 'Logic' will repay his study well: 'He is far removed from his former opinions, but equally positive in every phase of change'.
Correspondence, notes, and printed material largely relating to W. Aldis Wright's work as Secretary of the Old Testament Revision Company. Includes correspondence from: S. R. Driver; F. J. A. Hort; W. F. Moulton, J. Troutbeck, Maxwell Ben-Oliel; Connop Thirwell, G. C.M. Douglas, Frederick Field, John Dury Geden and Charles Kingsley along with several copies/drafts of letters by W. Aldis Wright to others. Notes by William Barnes; R. L. Bensly, Schiller-Szinessy, William Selwyn, and others. Includes material on the disposition of the remaining funds after the completion of the project.
Wright, William Aldis (1831-1914), literary and biblical scholarCorrespondence, notes, and printed material largely relating to W. Aldis Wright's work as Secretary of the Old Testament Revision Company. Some letters addressed to the Dean of Westminster, A. P. Stanley; to Canon Selwyn, and to others. Includes letters from: Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St David's; G. C. M. Douglas; E. H. Browne, Bishop of Ely then of Winchester; Frederick Field; John Dury Geden; A. P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster; Alfred Ollivant, Bishop of Llandaff; Hormuzd Rassam; William Selwyn; J. Troutbeck; Duncan H. Weir, James Cartmell; Bartholomew Price; Philip Schaff. Several copies/drafts of letters by W. Aldis Wright to others. Much material regarding the relationship between the British and American Revision Committees.
Wright, William Aldis (1831-1914), literary and biblical scholarRe memorial to Connop Thirlwall, bishop of St. David's.
Training College, Camarthen. - Extreme insecurity of present appointment under the Revised Code; College's future secured for another year but must make provision for his family; describes previous service in Jamaica as a Government Stipendiary Magistrate; subsequently Principal of Training Colleges at York and Camarthen, where his salary has fallen. Solicits Houghton's influence with possible patrons. Connop Thirlwall said to be busy with Commentary on the Minor Prophets.
95: Addressed to the Bishop of [?].
Metropolitan Improvement Office - will be happy to circulate Blakesley's book, Bishop of Ely has written to say that he has no vacant livings, saw John Heath at the Athenaeum, Vice-Master continuing to take pupils, Bishop Thirlwall in bodily fear of Rebecca, Carlyle going to visit him, expects disturbances in Staffordshire, madness of the Bishop of Bath and Wells
Re bust of Connop Thirlwall.
Visit of Queen Victoria "made us very idle", lunched with the Bishop of Ely, hears that JHM's portrait has been engraved, has bought Thirlwell's Greece from Deighton
Re Connop Thirlwall's letters to Richard Monckton Milnes.
Kingdon's victory in the Newcastle examination a matter of chance as he was beaten by several Eton men at Cambridge, Kingdon thought nothing of at Trinity, reading Thirlwall in the evenings "an impossibility"
Perry [Charles Perry] has observed 'with great pain and grief the destitute state of Barnwell as to religious instruction; but with more courage and heart than others, he has set about trying to remedy it'. He wants to build a church: 'I think the spirit in which he has set about his task, as well as the object itself will induce you to do for him what you can'. WW is 'especially puzzled about my title - 'A History of the Inductive Sciences' - that is too indefinite. 'A History of the Inductive Sciences' - that implies 'all the' and is too presumptuous - 'A History of the Principal Inductive Sciences' - that is too narrow for though I do not wish to say so I have taken all which are, properly speaking, at present Inductive Sciences. I am mightily embarrassed with this dilemma'. Scholefield [James Scholefield] has vacated the Greek professorship and WW expects Connop Thirlwall to be a candidate.
6: Contains copy of part of letter to Rowland Williams [Canon of St. Asaph?], 2 May 1843.
RJ has read and enjoyed WW's review of his book ['Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation by the Revd Richard Jones', The British Critic, Quarterly Theological Review and Ecclesiastical Record, 1831]: 'there can be no question that it will do much good and you snub it too much'. RJ has not had much time to look at WW's paper on Ricardo ['Mathematical Exposition of Some of the Leading Doctrines in Mr Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation', 1831], because William Jacob came and saw something in it which he declared would help with his book and subsequently took it off to London. Could WW thank Julius Hare and Connop Thirlwall for their work on Niebuhr [Julius Hare and Connop Thirlwall trans. Niebuhr's 'History of Rome', 2 vols., 1828 and 1831]. RJ suspects that there is 'a storm brewing' at the Edinburgh Review [J. R. McCulloch, 'Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation By the Rev. Richard Jones', Edinburgh Review, 1831]. Since writing the above RJ has heard that a review of his book will be in the next Quarterly Review ['Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation by the Rev. Richard Jones', The Quarterly Review, 1832].
WW is relieved that JCH has successfully settled into his parish duties. WW hopes his friendship with Connop Thirlwall has not diminished. However there were two passages in WW's second letter which vexed Thirlwall ['Additional Remarks on...Mr Thirlwall', 1834]: I found a long and very keen though sorrowful remonstrance respecting what I had said'. WW explained to Thirlwall that his difficulties came not from his opinions, but from the impropriety of his expressing them while holding his official situation; and with this he appeared somewhat more satisfied'. WW is upset by the disunity among the Trinity establishment: 'I am much struck and grieved with the bitter feeling all our Whigs (I use the word for distinctness only) bear to the Master; which indeed goes so far that it is not only unfit for members of the same household, but altogether illiberal and unchristian'. JCH's scheme for a Coleridge prize is unsuitable: 'A subject so vast, so important, and so unsettled as the philosophy of Christianity should not be tossed over to a few ardent and very likely, fearless young men, to make their theories on for the sake of a prize'. The 'next step which our public can take in abstract speculation must depend on the steps they have taken already. The meanings which words and modes of expression have acquired, the convictions and generalisations which it is possible to call up in men's minds must depend on the past progress of literature and speculation among them; and truth is not truth if you alter the discipline which this progress exercises. Coleridge appears to me to assume and require, for the understanding of his religious speculations an intellectual discipline different from that which the English have hitherto had; Schleiermacher [Friedrich Schleiermacher] and the best of the Germans undoubtedly do so. I conceive therefore that the truths which may be found in the writings of these men must be taken up in the mind of some genuine Englishman and given out in a suitable form, before they will take a national hold upon us'. If JCH can do this he will be 'an immense benefactor to England'. WW 'had the pleasure of seeing Coleridge a few months before his death...He talked wonderfully well; among other things expressed the deepest sorrow at Thirlwall's letters. I spent a day with Wordsworth with great satisfaction; sailing on Windermere and wandering on its banks all day with him'.
WW would have willingly stayed in London 'a couple of days longer, even in the heat of July, Pall Mall, and politics, if I had known that there was a prospect of seeing any of them' [Lady Malcolm and family]. WW is to go northwards with the hope of seeing William Wordsworth, hills, lakes and locks. Has JCH heard anything of Thirlwall?: 'I wish often that you were here again, for in spite of the absence of all ill will, on all sides, I feel as if there might be some difficulty in moving the footing in which we formerly were; and many of our friends are now so engaged in politics, and so far thrown off their balance by controversy' that he can no longer depend upon them.
WW sends JCH his second pamphlet on the Connop Thirlwall controversy ['Additional Remarks on...Mr Thirlwall', 1834. For the controversy see WW to JCH, 28 May 1834]: 'You will see that I have ventured a little further into politics than I did before'. WW would like to send him two Cambridge newspapers which contain another branch of the controversy between Sedgwick [Adam Sedgwick] and Selwyn [William Selwyn]: 'I fear you will think that Sedgwick has been rather overbearing'. In Thirwall's second letter ['A Second Letter to the Rev. T. Turton Containing a Vindication of Some Passages in a Former Letter on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degrees', 1834] he says of WW 'that I am a friend who has spoken in the tone and language of friendship'.
WW sends R. W. Evans's [Tutor of Trinity College] printed reply to Connop Thirlwall's critique ['A Letter to the Rev. Thomas Turton, on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degrees', 1834]: 'I hold that it has little bearing on the question of the admission of Dissenters'. Evans's lectures were not an imperative issue in the controversy but it will show JCH 'how it may happen that Evans feels very bitterly about what Thirlwall has said'. WW is pleased JCH agrees with most of his reply to Thirlwall ['Remarks on Some Parts of Mr Thirlwall's Letter on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degree', 1834]. As to WW 'making an analogy between religion and knowledge I should not have done it, if I had not known that a dislike of compulsory chapel and compulsory lectures go together in the minds of some of our lecturers here - and being firmly persuaded that such opinions are as destructive of church and college as they are of chapel and lecture room I took the opportunity to say so'. WW did not think Thirlwall's printed reply to him 'very judicious for who can be 'private, reserved, and full in answer to a printed circular from an intimate friend beginning 'gentlemen'?' The seniority met to discuss the issue: 5 persons were in favour of Thirlwall (Adam Sedgwick, Thomas Musgrave, Joseph Romilly, Richard Sheepshanks and George Peacock).
JCH is lucky that he left Trinity College 'before the evil days arrived'. For instance Connop Thirlwall's pamphlet on the Dissenters admission ['A Letter to the Rev. Thomas Turton, on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degrees', 1834] followed by the Master's [Christopher Wordsworth] harsh reaction: 'The pamphlet was I think sure to do great mischief, and the Master has requested him to resign'. WW remonstrated in vain against the Master's decision. JCH will find WW's view on Thirlwall's work in the pamphlet he has enclosed ['Remarks on Some Parts of Mr Thirlwall's Letter on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degree', 1834]: 'I fear that this is but the beginning of troubles - you know the Whigs are a very bitter set'.
1 Regent Street. - Only heard last night that Milnes has been 'blessed with a son'; congratulates him, and sends best wishes to his wife.
Deaths of Mrs Blomfield and William Waddington, the latter left money in trust for his youngest sons, Thirlwall and Stainforth have won the Chancellor's Medals, Thirlwall the best scholar Monk has ever examined and the best in the University since Blomfield, four Trinity Fellows to marry, Pitt Scholarship between Horace Waddington and Hall of King's
WW is meeting two Frenchmen tomorrow one of whom JCH would probably like. His name is Rio and he is a friend of the Malcolms who are enchanted by him. He is a philosopher of the school of [Bunald?], an intimate friend of de Maistre and of Schelling. WW is amused by the reason for his trip to England: 'he holds that the Celts are the only sound part of the French population - the only part which has any religion or any social vitality. From the French Celts the regeneration of France must come if it come at all. But the French Celts are poor, and have been oppressed, and have let some of their Celtic spirit and culture slip away from them. This is to be restored by a reinfusion of Celtic poetry and history. So M. Rio is come to cultivate the Welsh'. Connop Thirlwall's 'lectures are admirable and the men take to them with great earnestness'.