Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/63

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Green
55
Green

lished the following pamphlets:

  1. ‘The Micthodion, or Poetical Olio,’ 1788, a volume of poems.
  2. ‘A Vindication of the Shop-tax,’ 1789.
  3. ‘Slight Observations upon Paine's pamphlet … on the French and English Constitutions,’ 1791.
  4. ‘Political Speculations,’ 1791.
  5. ‘A short Address to the Protestant Clergy of every denomination on the fundamental corruption of Christianity,’ 1792.
  6. ‘The Two Systems of the Social Compact and the Natural Rights of Man examined and confuted,’ 1793.
  7. Gibbon's ‘Critical Observations on the 6th Book of the Æneid,’ 1794.
  8. ‘An Examination of the leading Principles of the New System of Morals … in Godwin's enquiry concerning Political Justice,’ 1798; 2nd edition, 1799.
  9. Memoir of Dr. Pearson, Master of Sidney College, Cambridge, prefixed to Pearson's ‘Prayers for Families,’ 1819.
  10. Reveley's ‘Notices illustrative of the Drawings and Sketches of some of the most distinguished Masters in all the principal Schools of Design.’ This he revised for the press in 1820.

He contributed also to the ‘Gentleman's’ and ‘European’ magazines, and some poems by him are inserted in ‘The Chaplet, Ipswich, 1807, and ‘The Suffolk Garland,’ Ipswich, 1818.

[Memoir of Thomas Green of Ipswich, by J[ames] F[ord], Ipswich, 1825, privately printed (with a portrait prefixed); J. Mitford in Gent. Mag., January 1834, p. 1, June 1843, p. 582.]

H. R. L.

GREEN, THOMAS HILL (1836–1882), philosopher, youngest of four children (two sons and two daughters) of Valentine Green, rector of Birkin, Yorkshire, was born at Birkin, 7 April 1836. His mother was the eldest daughter of Edward Thomas Vaughan, vicar of St. Martin and All Saints, Leicester, by a daughter of Daniel Thomas Hill of Aylesbury. His mother's uncle, Archdeacon Hill of Derby, gave the living of Birkin to his father. His mother died when he was a year old, and he was educated by his father till, at the age of fourteen, he was sent to Rugby, then under Dr. Goulburn. He had not been a precocious child, and was a shy, awkward, and rather indolent schoolboy. He showed power, however, on occasion, especially by gaining the prize (in 1855) for a Latin translation from the 'Areopagitica.' He impressed a few intimate friends by his thoughtfulness and independence of character. In October 1855 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, as a pupil of Mr. Jowett. He obtained only a second class in moderations, but in 1859 was in the first class in literæ humaniores afterwards obtaining a third class in the school of law and modern history. In 1860 he became a lecturer upon ancient and modern history in Balliol during the absence of Mr. W.L. Newman, and in November was elected fellow of his college. He attributed much of his progress as an undergraduate to the influence of his older friends, especially Mr. Jowett, John Conington [q. v.], and Mr. C.S. Parker. He was not widely known except by an occasional forcible speech at the Union, and by a few essays read to a society called the Old Mortality. His political views coincided with those of Bright and Cobden, though he defended them upon idealist principles. In 1862 he gained the chancellor's prize for an essay upon novels. Besides lectures at his college, he took a few private pupils, chiefly in philosophy. He desired to become independent, but wavered for a time between a college life, journalism, and an educational appointment. His religious views made him unwilling to take orders, though after some hesitation he signed the Thirty-nine Articles upon taking his M.A. degree. He began to translate F.C. Baur's 'History of the Christian Church,' which suggested an essay upon Christian dogma. He prepared for, but ultimately abandoned, an edition of Aristotle's 'Ethics.' In 1864 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the chair of moral philosophy at the university of St. Andrews. In December of that year he accepted an appointment as assistant-commissioner to the royal commission upon middle-class schools. He took a deep interest in this work, which occupied him during great part of 1865 and in the second quarter of 1866. He wrote a report (published in 1868 by the commission), suggesting a better organisation of the schools, in general agreement with the views adopted by the commissioners. He was elected as the teachers' representative on the governing body of King Edward's Schools in Birmingham (on which he had reported in 1868), and took ever afterwards an active part in their proceedings.

He was appointed to a vacancy in the teaching staff of Balliol on the death of James Riddell in September 1866. In 1867 he stood unsuccessfully for the Waynflete professorship of moral and metaphysical philosophy. In 1870 the Rev. Edwin Palmer (now archdeacon of Oxford) resigned his tutorship, and Mr. Jowett became master of the college. Green, as tutor, had now the 'whole subordinate management of the college.' Although lacking some of the more superficial talents for winning popularity, his simplicity, power, and earnestness commanded respect. He soon grew to be on easier terms with his pupils, and from 1868 usually took some of them as companions in the vacation. He lectured upon Aristotle