Item 12 - Letter from Connop Thirwall, Bishop of St. David's, to Lord Houghton

2 ff.

Embossed notepaper, 'Palace, Abergwili, Carmarthen'. - Recollections of figures commemorated in Monographs, including 'the excellent renegade who treated us with anecdotes of Napoleon' [Suleiman Pasha?] at one of Houghton's breakfasts; accounts of von Humboldt and Whewell are surprisingly charitable. Landor well represented; 'I met him at Whewell's table. He unfolded his ideas of the most pressingly needed reforms of the Church. "I would give every Bishop £500 a year. The Bishop of London only should have £1000. And I would make it a capital felony for any Bishop to leave his Diocese." Whewell got very hot indeed and we narrowly missed a scene'. Sydney Smith's antipathy to Bishops appeared to be aggravated by seeing Thirwall.