Repository, 1817 p. 316, 1819 p. 658, 1836 p. 474; Graduati Cantabr. 1823, p. 483; information from the records of Jesus College, kindly furnished by the master.]
TYRWHITT, THOMAS (1730–1786), classical commentator, born on 27 March 1730, was the eldest son of Robert Tyrwhitt, D.D. (d. 15 June 1742), rector of St. James's, Westminster, and afterwards archdeacon of London and canon of Windsor, who married, on 15 Aug. 1728, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edmund Gibson [q. v.], bishop of London. When six years old he was sent to a school at Kensington, and from 1741 he was at Eton. He entered as a commoner at Queen's College, Oxford, on 5 May 1747, matriculating on 9 May, and graduating B.A. in 1750. In 1755 he was elected to a fellowship at Merton College, and next year he proceeded M.A. While at Oxford he wrote ‘An Epistle to Florio at Oxford’ [anon.], 1749 (reprinted ‘Gent. Mag.’ 1835, ii. 595–600). Florio was George Ellis of Jamaica, who had been with Tyrwhitt at Eton and was elected a member of the house of assembly at Jamaica in 1751. Another undergraduate work was ‘Translations in Verse: Mr. Pope's “Messiah” and Mr. Philips's “Splendid Shilling” in Latin; the “Eighth Isthmian” of Pindar in English’ [anon.], 1752. The first two were rendered in 1747, the last in 1750.
In 1755 Tyrwhitt was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, but the state of his health did not permit him to practise. Lord Barrington appointed him deputy secretary at war in December 1756, but the duties of that office were not incompatible with residence for most part of the year at Oxford. He held the post until 1762, when he was made clerk of the House of Commons in succession to Jeremiah Dyson [q. v.], and moved to London, vacating his fellowship. He was credited at the time with the knowledge of ‘almost every European tongue,’ and was as well read in English literature as in that of Greece and Rome.
He remained clerk of the house until 1768, when he was succeeded by John Hatsell [q. v.] A letter from him to William Bowyer, the learned printer, on the printing of the journals of the House of Commons, is in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes’ (ii. 413–14). He published ‘Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons 1620–1, from an original manuscript at Queen's College, Oxford’ [anon.], 1766, 2 vols. (these reports may have been made by Sir Edward Nicholas), and ‘The Manner of holding Parliaments, by Henry Elsinge,’ 1768.
In the meantime Tyrwhitt's exceptional philological knowledge was brought to bear upon some important problems of criticism. In 1766 appeared anonymously his ‘Observations and Conjectures upon some Passages of Shakespeare,’ and many other remarks and criticisms on Shakespeare were given by him in later years to George Steevens [q. v.] for his edition of 1778, to Malone for his supplement in 1780, and to Isaac Reed for his edition of 1785. More noteworthy still was his work upon Chaucer and his exposure of Chatterton's ‘Rowley’ forgeries (see below). Tyrwhitt's ‘Appendix’ to his edition of the ‘Rowley’ poems is the foremost book upon the right side in that controversy; and it is not too much to say, observes Professor Skeat, that Tyrwhitt is the only writer among those that handled the subject who had a real critical knowledge of the language of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and who, in fact, had on that account a real claim to be heard’ (Chatterton's Poems, 1871, vol. ii. p. ix). On withdrawing from official life in 1768 Tyrwhitt spent the remaining years of his life almost wholly among his books. His disposition was most generous, and in one year of his life he is said to have given away 2,000l. In 1778 he gave 100l. towards the new buildings at Queen's College. He was elected F.R.S. on 28 Feb. 1771, and a trustee of the British Museum in 1784. He died after a short illness at his house in Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London, on 15 Aug. 1786, and was buried in the family vault in the east aisle of St. George's, Windsor, on 22 Aug. He left to the British Museum a valuable collection of classical authors in about nine hundred volumes (Edwards, British Museum, ii. 417), and many of the books contained his manuscript notes.
Charles Burney, D.D., ranked Tyrwhitt among the greatest critics of the last century. Glowing tributes were paid to him by Wyttenbach in his life of Ruhnken (p. 71), by Kraft in the ‘Epistolæ Selectæ’ (p. 313), by Schweighäuser in his edition of Polybius (i. p. xxvi of preface), by Kidd in the ‘Opuscula Ruhnkeniana’ (p. viii, and in pp. lxiii–lxx is a list of his works), and by Bishop Copleston in the ‘Reply to the Calumnies of the “Edinburgh Review”’ (2nd edit. 1810). Mathias thought that his learning and sagacity were often misapplied (Pursuits of Literature, 7th edit. pp. 88 and 96).
A portrait, painted by Benjamin Wilson, was engraved by John Jones, and published on 2 Jan. 1788.
Besides the works already mentioned, Tyrwhitt edited or wrote: 1. ‘Fragmenta duo Plutarchi’ from Harleian MS. 5612, 1773. 2. ‘Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, with an
