literature, but men of letters whose literary distinction has made them politicians which forms a unique feature in the French political history of this century. Numerous as these are, there are only two who are at all comparable to him—Guizot and Lamartine; and as a statesman he stands far above both. Nor is this eminence merely due to his great opportunity in 1870; for Guizot might under Louis Philippe have almost made himself a French Walpole, at least a French Palmerston, and Lamartine's opportunities after 1848 were, for a man of political genius, illimitable. But both failed,—Lamartine almost ludicrously,—while Thiers in hard conditions made a striking if not a brilliant success. A devil's advocate may indeed urge that his egotist and almost gasconading temperament stood him instead in the trying circumstances of his negotiations with the powers and with Prince Bismarck,—but this is not really to his discredit. No less masterful methods than his would have sufficed to bring France into order from the chaos succeeding the fall of the empire and the invasion of the Germans. But Thiers only showed well when he was practically supreme. Even as the minister of a constitutional monarch his intolerance of interference or joint authority, his temper at once imperious and intriguing, his inveterate inclination towards brigue, that is to say, underhand rivalry and caballing for power and place, showed themselves unfavourably; and his constant tendency to inflame the aggressive and chauvinist spirit of his country, though it may fairly claim to have been a kind of patriotism, neglected fact, was not based on any just estimate of the relative power and interests of France, and led his country more than once to the verge—once, though he affected to warn her off, over the verge—of a great calamity. In opposition, both under Louis Philippe and under the empire, and even to some extent in the last four years of his life, his worse qualities were always manifested. Hut with all these drawbacks he conquered and will retain a place in what is perhaps the highest, as it is certainly the smallest, class of statesmen—the class of those to whom their country has had recourse in a great disaster, who have shown in bringing her through that disaster the utmost constancy, courage, devotion, and skill, and who have been rewarded by as much success as the occasion permitted.
As a man of letters Thiers is very much smaller. He has not only the fault of diffuseness, which is common to so many of the best-known histories of this century, but others as serious or more so. The charge of dishonesty is one never to be lightly made against men of such distinction as his, especially when their evident confidence in their own infallibility, their faculty of ingenious casuistry, and the strength of will which makes them (unconsciously, no doubt) close and keep closed the eyes of their mind to all inconvenient facts and inferences supply a more charitable explanation. But it is certain that from Thiers's dealings with the men of the first Revolution to his dealings with the battle of Waterloo, constant, angry, and well-supported protests against his unfairness were not lacking. Although his search among documents was undoubtedly wide, its results are by no means always accurate, and his admirers themselves admit great inequalities of style in him. These characteristics reappear (accompanied, however, by frequent touches of the epigrammatic power above mentioned, which seems to have come to Thiers more readily as an orator or a journalist than as an historian) in his speeches, which have, since his death, been collected in many volumes by his widow. Sainte-Beuve, whose notices of Thiers are generally kindly, says of him, "M. Thiers sait tout, tranche tout, parle de tout," and this omniscience and "cocksureness" (to use the word of a prime minister of England con temporary with this prime minister of France) are perhaps the chief pervading features both of the statesman and the man of letters.
His histories, in many different editions, and his speeches, as above, are easily accessible; his minor works and newspaper articles have not, we believe, been collected in any form. Works on him, by M. Laya, M. de Mazade, his colleague and friend M. Jules Simon, and others, are numerous. But a thorough biographical study of him has not yet been made; and, though monuments enough have been raised in his own country, it is even there often complained that the incessant and futile political straggles of the last ten years have too much obscured the reputation and weakened the memory of the last great statesman of France. (G. SA.)
THIRLWALL, Connop (1797–1875), bishop of St David's, was born at Stepney on 11th January 1797, and was the son of the Rev. Thomas Thirlwall, at the time lecturer at St Dunstan's, Stepney, and afterwards rector of Bowers Gifford, in Essex. The family were of Northumbrian extraction. Young Connop showed the most remarkable precocity, learning Latin at three, reading Greek at four, and writing sermons at seven. When he was twelve his admiring father published his Primitiæ, sermons and poems, the thoughts of an imitative boy in the style of a grown man. No especial greatness could have been safely predicted from these performances, which Thirlwall assiduously strove to suppress in after years. He shortly afterwards went to the Charterhouse, where he wrote a number of letters to a friend named John Candler, some of which have been preserved. They display the same extraordinary prematurity, but are barren of anything original except what he himself calls "sensibility to the great and beautiful in morality." By a curious coincidence his future rival in Greek history, Grote, and Hare, his coadjutor in the translation of Niebuhr, were among his schoolfellows. He took up his residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1814, and gained the Craven university scholarship, one of three recorded instances of this honour being obtained by fresh men, and the chancellor's classical medal. In October 1818 he was elected to a fellowship, and immediately went for a year's travel on the Continent. At Rome he gained the friendship of Bunsen, which had a most import ant influence on his life. On his return, "distrust of his own resolutions and convictions" led him to abandon for the time his intention of being a clergyman, and he settled clown to the study of the law, "with a firm determination not to suffer it to engross my time so as to prevent me from pursuing other branches of knowledge." This was not the way to become lord chancellor, and, though he afterwards says, "My aversion to the law has not increased," he adds, "It scarcely could." How little his heart was with it was shown by the labour he soon imposed upon himself of translating and prefacing Schleiermacher's essay on the Gospel of St Luke, "very injudiciously," says Maurice, who seems to think that it may have cost Thirlwall the archbishopric of Canterbury. The translation, nevertheless, marks an era in English theology. He further, probably influenced by Hare, who had already translated Tieck, rendered two of the latter's most recent Novellen into English. In 1827 he at length made up his mind to quit his uncongenial profession, and was ordained deacon the same year. Beyond all question he might have obtained the highest distinction both as jurist and advocate, had law interested him more, or other things less. No one ever possessed a more judicial mind. Of his oratory, Mill, whom he opposed at a debating society, says, "Before he had uttered ten sentences I set him down as the best speaker I had ever heard, and I have never since heard any one whom I placed above him."
It is not often that a scholar twice makes an epoch by a translation. Such was Thirlwall's destiny: he joined with Hare in translating Niebuhr's History of Rome; the first volume appeared in 1828. The translation was attacked in the Quarterly as favourable to scepticism, and the translators jointly replied. In 1831 the friends established the Philological Museum, which lived through only six numbers, though among Thirlwall's contributions was his masterly paper on the irony of Sophocles,—"the most exquisite criticism I ever read," says Sterling. On Hare's departure from Cambridge in 1832, Thirlwall became assistant college tutor, which led him to take a memorable share in the great controversy upon the admission of Dissenters which arose in 1834. Dr Turton, the regius professor of divinity, had written a pamphlet objecting to the admission, on the pretext of the apprehended un-settlement of the religious opinions of young churchmen. Thirlwall replied by pointing out that no provision for theological instruction was in fact made by the colleges except compulsory attendance at chapel, and that this was mischievous. This attack upon a time-hallowed piece of college discipline brought upon him a demand for the resignation of his office as assistant tutor. He complied at once; his friends generally thought that he ought to have tested the master's power. The occurrence marked him out for promotion from a Liberal Government, and in the autumn he received the chancellor's living of Kirby-under-Dale, in Yorkshire. Though devoted to his par-
