What manner of man was this? By what system of education had his mind been developed? What were his tastes, his pursuits, his daily life? To these questions, which are surely not unreasonable, the editors of the five volumes before us vouchsafe no adequate reply, for the meagre thread of narrative which connects together the _Letters Literary and Theological_, may be left out of consideration. Thirlwall’s life, as we understand the word, has yet to be written; and we fear that death has removed most of those who could perform the task in a manner worthy of the subject. For ourselves, all that we propose to do is to try to set forth his talents and his character, by the help of the materials before us, and of such personal recollections as we have been able to gather together. Connop Thirlwall was born February 11, 1797. His father, the Rev. Thomas Thirlwall, minister of Tavistock Chapel, Broad Court, Long Acre, Lecturer of S. Dunstan, Stepney, and chaplain to the celebrated Thomas Percy, Lord Bishop of Dromore, resided at Mile End. We can give no information about him except the above list of his preferments; and of Connop’s mother we only know that her husband describes her as ‘pious and virtuous,’ and anxious to ‘promote the temporal and eternal welfare’ of her children. She had the satisfaction of living long enough to see her son a bishop[20]. Connop must have been a fearfully precocious child. In 1809 the fond father published a small duodecimo volume entitled ‘_Primitiæ; or, Essays and Poems on Various Subjects, Religious, Moral, and Entertaining_. By Connop Thirlwall, eleven years of age.’ The first of these essays is dated ‘June 30, 1804. Seven years old’; and in the preface the father says: ‘In the short sketch which I shall take of the young author, and his performance, I mean not to amuse the reader with anecdotes of extraordinary precocity of genius; it is, however, but justice to him to state, that at a very _early_ period he read English so well that he was taught Latin at three years of age, and at four read Greek with an ease and fluency which astonished all who heard him. From that time he has continued to improve himself in the knowledge of the Greek, Latin, French, and English languages. His talent for composition appeared at the age of seven, from an accidental circumstance. His mother, in my absence, desired his elder brother to write his thoughts upon a subject for his improvement, when the young author took it into his head to ask her permission to take the pen in hand too. His request was of course complied with, without the most remote idea he could write an intelligible sentence, when in a short time he composed that which is first printed, “On the Uncertainty of Life.” From that time he was encouraged to cultivate a talent of which he gave so flattering a promise, and generally on a Sunday chose a subject from Scripture. The following essays are selected from these lucubrations.’