fluence of Dr. Charles Ashton, who said ‘he had had the honour of studying with him when young,’ though he afterwards spoke of him very contemptuously as the editor of Justin Martyr.
Devoting himself to the study of divinity, he published ‘S. Joannis Chrysostomi de Sacerdotio … editio altera. Accessit S. Gr. Nazianzeni … de eodem Argumento conscripta, Oratio Apologetica, opera S. Thirlby,’ Greek and Latin, Cambridge, 1712, 8vo; ‘An Answer to Mr. Whiston's Seventeen Suspicions concerning Athanasius, in his Historical Preface,’ Cambridge, 1712, 8vo; ‘Calumny no Conviction: or an Answer to Mr. Whiston's Letter to Mr. Thirlby, intituled Athanasius convicted of Forgery,’ London, 1713, 8vo; and ‘A Defence of the Answer to Mr. Whiston's Suspicions, and an Answer to his Charge of Forgery against St. Athanasius,’ Cambridge, 1713, 8vo. On 17 Jan. 1718–19 he was appointed deputy registrary of the university of Cambridge, but he held this office for a very short time (Addit. MS. 5852, ff. 31, 31 a). He took the degree of M.A. at Cambridge in 1720. Two years later he brought out his principal work—a splendid edition of ‘Justini Philosophi et Martyris Apologiæ duæ, et Dialogus cum Tryphone Judæo cum notis et emendationibus,’ Greek and Latin, London, 1722, fol.; dedicated to William, lord Craven. Bishop Monk observes that ‘so violently had resentment got possession of him [Thirlby] that he gives the full reins to invective, and rails against classical studies and Bentley in so extravagant a style that he makes the reader, at the very outset of his work, doubt whether the editor was in a sane mind’ (Life of Bentley, ii. 167). He also treated Meric Casaubon, Isaac Vossius, and Dr. Grabe with contempt.
Having discontinued the study of theology, his next pursuit was medicine, and for a while he was styled ‘doctor.’ While he was a nominal physician he lived for some time with the Duke of Chandos as librarian. He then studied the civil law, on which he occasionally lectured, Sir Edward Walpole being one of his pupils. The civil law displeasing him, though he is said to have become LL.D., he applied himself to the common law, and had chambers taken for him in the Temple with a view of being called to the bar; but of this scheme he likewise grew weary. He came, however, to London, to the house of his friend, Sir Edward Walpole, who procured for him in May 1741 the sinecure office of a king's waiter in the port of London, worth about 100l. a year. The remainder of his days were passed in private lodgings, where he lived in a very retired manner, seeing only a few friends, and indulging occasionally in excessive drinking. He contributed some notes to Theobald's Shakespeare, and afterwards talked of bringing out an edition of his own, but this design was abandoned. He left, however, a copy of Shakespeare, with some abusive remarks on Warburton in the margin of the first volume, and a few attempts at emendation. The copy became the property of Sir Edward Walpole, to whom Thirlby bequeathed all his books and papers. Walpole lent it to Dr. Johnson when he was preparing his edition of Shakespeare, in which the name of ‘Thirlby’ appears as a commentator. Thirlby died on 19 Dec. 1753.
[Addit. MS. 5882, f. 16; Boswell's Johnson (Hill), iv. 161; Bowes's Cat. of English Books; Brüggemann's Engl. Editions of Greek and Latin Authors, pp. 334, 424; Davies's Athenæ Britannicæ, ii. 378; Gent. Mag. 1753 p. 590, 1778 p. 597, 1780 p. 407, 1782 p. 242; Hist. Reg. 1738, Chron. Diary, p. 28; London Mag. July 1738, p. 361; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 238, iv. 264; Nichols's Select Collection of Poems (1781), vi. 114; Whiston's Memoir of himself (1749), i. 204.]
THIRLBY or THIRLEBY, THOMAS (1506?–1570), the first and only bishop of Westminster, and afterwards successively bishop of Norwich and Ely, son of John Thirleby, scrivener and town clerk of Cambridge, and Joan his wife, was born in the parish of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, in or about 1506 (Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, ii. 262). He received his education at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduated bachelor of the civil law in 1521, was elected a fellow of his college, and proceeded doctor of the civil law in 1528, and doctor of the canon law in 1530. It is said that while at the university he, with other learned men who were the favourers of the gospel, though they afterwards relapsed, received an allowance from Queen Anne Boleyn, the Earl of Wiltshire, her father, and Lord Rochford, her brother (Strype, Eccl. Mem. ii. i. 279). In 1532 he was official to the archdeacon of Ely (Addit. MS. 5825, p. 36). He appears to have taken a prominent part in the affairs of the university between 1528 and 1534, and is supposed to have held the office of commissary. In 1534 he was appointed provost of the collegiate church of St. Edmund at Salisbury (Hatcher, Hist. of Sarum, p. 701). Archbishop Cranmer and Dr. Butts, physician to the king, were his early patrons. Cranmer ‘liked his learning and his qualities so well that he became his good lord towards the king's majesty, and commended
