Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Tyrrell, Robert Yelverton
TYRRELL, ROBERT YELVERTON (1844–1914), classical scholar, the fifth and youngest son of the Rev. Henry Tyrrell, by his wife, Elizabeth Shea, was born 21 January 1844, at Ballingarry, co. Tipperary, of which his father was vicar. He was a first cousin of George Tyrrell [q.v.], the modernist. Except for six weeks at a private school in Hume Street, Dublin, he received his education at home, being taught by his elder brothers. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, when sixteen, carrying off the entrance prizes in classical composition. In 1861 he obtained a classical scholarship in his first year—until that date an unheard-of feat for a first-year man who was only seventeen. He graduated with a double first class in classics and logics in 1864, and obtained a fellowship in 1868 on very brilliant answering in classics. In 1871 he was elected professor of Latin, in 1880 regius professor of Greek, in 1899 public orator, in 1900 professor of ancient history, and in 1904 senior fellow and registrar of the college. In 1901 he was chosen one of the first fifty members of the British Academy. He married in 1874 Ada, eldest daughter of Dr. George Ferdinand Shaw, senior fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. He died in Dublin on 19 September 1914 after a tedious illness.
Tyrrell's principal formal works were editions of the Bacchae (1871) and Troades (second edition, 1884) of Euripides, and of the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus (third edition, 1889), critical editions of Sophocles (1897) and Terence (1902), and especially an extensive commentary in seven volumes [mainly in collaboration with Dr. L. C. Purser] on the Correspondence of Cicero (1879–1900). He also published his Percy Turnbull lectures, delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1893, under the title Latin Poetry, and a volume of Essays on Greek Literature (1909). Tyrrell was for many years editor of the Trinity College miscellany called Kottabos, to which he himself was the most brilliant and inspiring contributor; it had but a short life after he resigned the editorship. He was one of the founders in 1874 of Hermathena, to which he remained a constant contributor to the end of his life.
Tyrrell's genius lay principally in his power of translation: by instinct he knew the right style to adopt, the right tone to take, and the right word to choose, whether translating from the classics into English or the reverse. His lectures were most stimulating, and his influence on the students in literary matters all-pervading, only to be equalled by that of his friend Edward Dowden [q.v.]. He was not a very learned man in all the multifarious departments of classical study; but his criticisms on and enthusiasm for the best in classical and English literature were arresting and infectious, his opinions always being firmly grounded, sincerely felt, and courageously expressed. He was not merely a man of books. He took a keen interest in many forms of sport. He had few peers as a conversationalist; without in any way obtruding himself, by his power of elegant and terse expression he always gave life and light to any discussion. The classical school of his university owes him a debt which it must ever remember.
A portrait of Tyrrell, painted by A. Woolmark in 1907, hangs in the Fellows' smoking-room in Trinity College.
[Private information; personal knowledge.]