when the debate was stopped by the entrance of the proctors (24 March 1817), who, by the vice-chancellor's command, bade the members disperse and on no account resume their discussions. A few years later, when Thirlwall spoke at a debating society in London, John Stuart Mill recorded that he was the best speaker he had heard up to that time, and that he had not subsequently heard any one whom he could place above him (Autobiography, p. 125). In 1815 he obtained the Bell and Craven scholarships, and in 1816 was elected scholar of his own college. In 1818 he graduated B.A. He was twenty-second senior optime in the mathematical tripos, and also obtained the first chancellor's medal for proficiency in classics. In October of the same year he was elected fellow of his college.
Thirlwall was now able to realise what he called ‘the most enchanting of my day-dreams’ (Letters, &c., p. 32), and spent several months on the continent. The winter of 1818–19 was passed in Rome, where he formed a close friendship with Bunsen, then secretary to the Prussian legation, at the head of which was Niebuhr; but Thirlwall and the historian never met.
Thirlwall had at this time conceived a dislike to the profession of a clergyman, and, yielding to the urgency of his family (ib. p. 60), he entered Lincoln's Inn in February 1820. He was called to the bar in the summer of 1825. Much of his success in after life may be traced to his legal training; but the work was always distasteful to him, though relieved by foreign tours, by intellectual society, and by a return to more congenial studies whenever he had a moment to spare (ib. p. 67). In 1824 he translated two tales by Tieck, and began his work on Schleiermacher's ‘Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke.’ Both these were published (anonymously) in the following year, the second with a critical introduction, remarkable not only for thoroughness, but for acquaintance with modern German theology, then a field of research untrodden by English students. In October 1827 Thirlwall abandoned law and returned to Cambridge (ib. p. 54). The prospect of the loss of his fellowship at Trinity College, which would have expired in 1828, probably determined the precise moment for taking a step which he had long meditated (ib. pp. 69, 70, 86). He was ordained deacon before the end of 1827, and priest in 1828.
At Cambridge Thirlwall at once undertook his full share of college and university work. Between 1827 and 1832 he held the college offices of junior bursar, junior dean, and head lecturer; and in 1828, 1829, 1832, and 1834 examined for the classical tripos. In 1828 the first volume of the translation of Niebuhr's ‘History of Rome’ appeared, the joint work of himself and Julius Charles Hare [q. v.] This was attacked in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ and Thirlwall contributed to Hare's elaborate reply a brief postscript which is worthy of his best days as a controversialist. In 1831 the publication of ‘The Philological Museum’ was commenced with the object of promoting ‘the knowledge and the love of ancient literature.’ Hare and Thirlwall were the editors, and the latter contributed to it several masterly essays (reprinted in Essays, &c., 1880, pp. 1–189). It ceased in 1833. In 1829 Thirlwall held for a short time the vicarage of Over, and in 1832, when Hare left college, he was appointed assistant tutor on the side of William Whewell [q. v.] His lectures were as thorough and systematic as Hare's had been desultory.
In 1834 his connection with the educational staff of Trinity College was rudely severed under the following circumstances. A bill to admit dissenters to university degrees had in that year passed the House of Commons by a majority of eighty-nine. The question caused great excitement at Cambridge, and several pamphlets were written to discuss particular aspects of it. The first of these, called ‘Thoughts on the admission of Persons, without regard to their Religious Opinions, to certain Degrees in the Universities of England,’ by Dr. Thomas Turton [q. v.], was promptly answered by Thirlwall in a ‘Letter on the Admission of Dissenters to Academical Degrees.’ His opponent tried to show the evils likely to arise from a mixture of students differing widely from each other in their religious opinions by tracing the history of the theological seminary for nonconformists at Daventry. Thirlwall argued that at Cambridge ‘our colleges are not theological seminaries. We have no theological colleges, no theological tutors, no theological students;’ and, further, that the colleges at Cambridge were not even ‘schools of religious instruction.’ In the development of this part of his argument he condemned the collegiate lectures in divinity and the compulsory attendance at chapel, with ‘the constant repetition of a heartless mechanical service.’ This pamphlet is dated 21 May 1834, and five days later Dr. Christopher Wordsworth [q. v.], master, wrote to the author, calling upon him to resign his appointment as assistant-tutor. Thirlwall obeyed without delay; and, as the master had added that he found ‘some difficulty in
