We have felt it our duty to point out these shortcomings; but it is a far more agreeable one to turn from them, and conclude our essay by indicating the lofty tone of religious enthusiasm which runs through all his works. As Dr Lightfoot pointed out in his funeral sermon, ‘the world of matter without, the world of thought within, alike spoke to him of the Eternal Creator the Beneficent Father; and even his opponent, Sir David Brewster, who more strongly than all his other critics had denounced what he termed the paradox advanced in _The Plurality of Worlds_, that our earth may be ‘the oasis in the desert of the solar system,’ was generous enough to admit that posterity would forgive the author ‘on account of the noble sentiments, the lofty aspirations, and the suggestions, almost divine, which mark his closing chapter on the future of the universe.’
Until a few years ago biographies of Bishops were remarkable for that decent dullness which Sydney Smith has noted as a characteristic of modern sermons. The narrative reproduced, with painful fidelity, the oppressive decorum and the conventional dignity; but kept out of sight the real human being which even in the Georgian period must have existed beneath official trappings. But in these matters, as in others, there is a fashion. The narratives which describe the lives of modern Bishops reflect the change that has come over the office. As now-a-days ‘a Bishop’s efficiency is measured, in common estimation, by his power of speech and motion[19],’ his biography, if he has overtopped his brethren in administration, or eloquence, or statesmanship, becomes an entertaining, and sometimes even a valuable, production. It reflects the ever-changing incidents of a bustling career; it is spiced with good stories; and it reveals, more or less indiscreetly, matters of high policy in Church and State, over which a veil has hitherto been drawn. In a word, it is the portrait of a real person, not of a lay figure: and, if the artist be worthy of his task, a portrait which faithfully reproduces the original. The life of Bishop Thirlwall could not have been treated in quite the same way as the imaginary biography we have just indicated; but, in good hands, it might have been made quite as entertaining, and much more valuable. Dr Perowne has told us that his life was not eventful. It was not, in the ordinary sense of that word. He rarely quitted his peaceful retreat at Abergwili; but, paradoxical as it sounds, he was no recluse. He took part in spirit, if not in bodily presence, in all the important events, political, religious, and literary, of his time; and when he chose to break silence, in speech or pamphlet, no one could command a more undivided attention, or exercise a more powerful influence.