always had the ear when he chose to address it; and in the case of the Irish church it is said that no speech had so great an effect in favour of the measure as his. He joined his brother bishops in their action against ‘Essays and Reviews;’ but he declined to inhibit Bishop Colenso from preaching in his diocese, or to urge him to resign his bishopric.
He was a regular attendant at convocation, a member of the royal commission on ritual (1868), and chairman of the Old Testament Revision Company. In May 1874 Thirlwall resigned his bishopric and retired to Bath, blind and partially paralysed. He died unmarried at 59 Pulteney Street, Bath, on 27 July 1875. He was buried on 3 Aug. in Westminster Abbey, in the same grave with George Grote. His funeral sermon, which was preached by Dean Stanley, formed the preface of the posthumous volume of Thirlwall's ‘Letters to a Friend’ (1881). In 1884 the Thirlwall prize was instituted at Cambridge in the bishop's memory; by the conditions of the foundation a medal is awarded in alternate years for the best dissertation involving original historical research, together with a sum of money to defray the expenses of publication.
Thirlwall's published works (excluding separately issued speeches and sermons) were:
- ‘Primitiæ; or Essays and Poems on various Subjects, Religious, Moral, and Entertaining. By Connop Thirlwall, eleven years of age’ (preface dated 23 Jan. 1809), London, 1809.
- ‘The Pictures; the Betrothing. Novels from the German of Lewis Tieck,’ 8vo, London, 1825.
- ‘A Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, by Dr. F. 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.
- ‘Niebuhr's History of Rome, translated by J. C. Hare and Connop Thirlwall,’ 8vo, Cambridge, 1828–1832.
- ‘Vindication of Niebuhr's “History of Rome” from the Charges of the “Quarterly Review,”’ Hare and Thirlwall, 8vo, Cambridge, 1829.
- ‘Letter to the Rev. T. Turton, D.D., on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degrees (21 May),’ 8vo, Cambridge, 1834. ‘Second Letter’ (to the same, 13 June), 1834.
- ‘History of Greece,’ 8 vols. 8vo, London, 1835–44; 2nd edit. 1845–52.
- ‘Speech on Civil Disabilities of the Jews (25 May),’ 8vo, London, 1848.
- ‘Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury on Statements of Sir B. Hall with regard to the Collegiate Church of Brecon,’ 8vo, London, 1851; ‘Second Letter’ to same, 1851.
- ‘Letter to the Rev. Rowland Williams,’ 8vo, London, 1860.
- ‘Letter to J. Bowstead, Esq., on Education in South Wales,’ 8vo, London, 1861.
- ‘Reply to a Letter of Lord Bishop of Cape Town (29 April),’ 8vo, London, 1867.
The Rev. J. J. S. Perowne (now bishop of Worcester) edited Thirlwall's ‘Remains, Literary and Theological,’ 8vo, London, 1877–8 (vol. i. Charges delivered between 1842 and 1863, vol. ii. Charges delivered between 1863 and 1872; and vol. iii. ‘Essays, Speeches, and Sermons,’ 1878. The last volume contains Thirlwall's contributions to the Philological Museum, five speeches and eight sermons, the letter on diocesan synods (1867), the letter to the archbishop of Canterbury on the episcopal meeting of 1867, and four miscellaneous publications. In 1881 Dean Stanley edited ‘Letters to a Friend’ (Miss Johns), and in the same year Dr. Perowne and the Rev. Louis Stokes edited ‘Letters, Literary and Theological,’ with a memoir.
[The materials for a life of Thirlwall are scattered and imperfect. A defective memoir was prefixed by Mr. Stokes to his edition of the bishop's ‘Letters,’ 1881. See also Quarterly Review, xxxix. 8; Memoirs of Bunsen, i. 339; Life of Rev. Rowland Williams, 1874, ch. xv.; Torrens's Life of Lord Melbourne, ii. 332; Lord Houghton in Fortnightly Review, 1878, p. 226; Church Quarterly Review, April 1883 (by the present writer); Life of Bishop Gray, 1876, ii. 41, 51; Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. iii. passim; Life of Rev. F. D. Maurice, i. 454; Life, by John Morgan, in ‘Four Biographical Sketches,’ London, 1892.]
THIRNING, WILLIAM (d. 1413), chief justice of the common pleas, probably came from Thirning in Huntingdonshire; his name occurs in connection with the manor of Hemingford Grey in that county (Cal. Inq. post mortem, iii. 218). Thirning first appears as an advocate in the year-books in 1370. In 1377 he was on the commission of peace for the county of Northampton, and on 20 Dec. of that year was engaged on a commission of oyer and terminer in the county of Bedford (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Richard II, i. 48, 95). In June 1380 he was a justice of assize for the counties of York, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland (ib. i. 516). Thirning was appointed a justice of the common pleas on 11 April 1388, and became chief justice of that court on 15 Jan. 1396. In the parliament of January 1398 the judges were asked for their opinions on the answers for which their predecessors had been condemned in 1388. Thirning replied that ‘the declaration of treason not yet declared belonged to the parliament, but that had he been a lord of parliament, if he had
