a name to mention with bated breath. He was known to be ‘noetic,’ anti-evangelical, and anti-Erastian. He was accordingly credited with the authorship of the anonymous ‘Letters on the Church by an Episcopalian’ (London, 1826, 8vo), which, by the vigour of their argument for the autonomy of the church, caused no small stir in clerical circles. Through Newman, whom they profoundly influenced, the ‘Letters’ contributed to the initiation of the tractarian movement. By Whately they were neither acknowledged nor disavowed; but neither were they claimed by any one else. The style is undoubtedly Whatelian; but the high view of apostolical succession which they embody is countenanced in none, and expressly repudiated in one, of Whately's mature works. On the whole it is most probable that they were written by Whately, but written without an exact appreciation of the ultimate consequences of their principles. In that respect the intimacy which he was even then forming with Joseph Blanco White [q. v.], a Spaniard, who had abjured catholicism, was probably educative. Whately's anti-Erastian principles doubtless dictated the support which, at the cost of much misconstruction, he gave to catholic emancipation, and may perhaps account for the high tone adopted in some of the articles in the ‘British Critic,’ then under his influence; but his polemical treatise, ‘The Errors of Romanism traced to their Origin in Human Nature,’ which appeared in 1830, with a dedication acknowledging obligations to Blanco White (London, 8vo), shows that by that time, at any rate, he was under no illusions as to the tendency of catholic principles, and already apprehensive of their revival within the established church. The book reached a fifth edition in 1856. An abridgment, entitled ‘Romanism the Religion of Human Nature,’ was edited by Whately's daughter, E. J. Whately, in 1878 (London, 8vo).
Whately succeeded Senior in 1829 as Drummond professor of political economy, but resigned the chair in 1831 on his advancement (patent dated 22 Oct.) to the archiepiscopal see of Dublin. His ‘Introductory Lectures on Political Economy,’ which appeared in the latter year (London, 8vo; 4th edit. 1855), accurately defined the scope of the abstract science, and made a contribution to the doctrine of division of labour (see Lecture ii., concerning the conditions under which unskilled labour becomes more productive by division). On the whole, however, their inordinate discursiveness was not compensated by originality. It was probably about this time that Whately conceived the project of a universal currency, which in 1851 he laid before the managers of the Great Exhibition.
Whately was consecrated archbishop of Dublin in St. Patrick's Cathedral, in which ex officio he held the prebend of Cullen, on 23 Oct. 1831, and was enthroned the same day at Christ Church. On 24 Nov. following he was sworn in as chancellor of the order of St. Patrick (Dublin Evening Post, 25 Oct. and 26 Nov. 1831). In Trinity College, of which he was ex officio visitor, he founded in 1832 a chair of political economy. A scheme which he had at heart for the establishment of a separate theological hall was defeated in 1839, but led to the provision of more efficient instruction in the rudiments of religion within the college. Whately was also a member of the Royal Irish Academy, of which in 1848 he was nominated vice-president. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 Feb. 1833.
Whately found his position at Dublin no sinecure. To his ordinary duties, which he discharged with scrupulous conscientiousness, the tithe war added the care of sustaining the drooping courage of an almost destitute clergy and rendering the government such assistance as was in his power (cf. Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, App. C., ‘Extracts from Evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to inquire into the Collection and Payment of Tithes in Ireland,’ 1832). He was ex officio lord justice during the absence of the lord lieutenant. He also presided (1833–6) over the royal commission on the condition of the Irish poor (see Parl. Papers, 1835 xxxii. No. 369, 1836 xxx. and xxxii., 1836 xxxi. 587 et seq.). Experience and responsibility taught him how to reconcile his anti-Erastian principles with the promotion of the sweeping changes introduced into the Irish establishment by the Church Temporalities Act (1833); but he disapproved the Tithe Commutation Act of 1838. The burden of his office was not lightened by popularity. His English birth and breeding and his well-known antipathy to evangelical principles made him an object of jealousy and suspicion to both clergy and laity. His preaching was unpalatable. His chaste, clear-cut, unimpassioned, argumentative style failed to move his hearers, even if his matter did not, as to some it sometimes did, savour of heresy, not to say infidelity. Above all, his position as working head of the commission appointed on 26 Nov. 1831 to administer the new system of ‘united national education’ militated against him. The experiment was to be tried of providing
