[Sidenote: he excites splendid refutations.] § 5. It is very curious that these two famous histories should have been undertaken (like Gillies' and Mitford's) nearly at the same time, and both of them by way of correction for the strong anti-republican views of Mitford. It is also remarkable that each author explicitly declared himself so satisfied with the work of the other that he would not have entered upon the task, had he known of his rival's undertaking. This, however, seems hard to fit in with the dates, seeing that Thirlwall's book began to appear many years earlier than that of Grote[10:1]. In any case the former represents a different kind of work, or I should rather say an earlier stage of work, and therefore comes logically as well as chronologically first. [Sidenote: Thirlwall:] The Bishop of St. David's was a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, a scholar trained in all the precision and refinement of the public schools, a man accustomed to teach the classics and to enforce accuracy of form and correctness of critical judgment. He had also what was then rather a novelty, and what separates him from his distinguished Oxford contemporaries--Gaisford and Clinton--a competent knowledge of German, as well as of other languages, and a consequent acquaintance with the recent studies of the Germans, who were then beginning to write about classics in German instead of using the Latin language. [Sidenote: his merits;] John Stuart Mill, who, when a young man, belonged to a debating society along with Thirlwall, thought him the very best speaker he had ever heard. The qualities which attracted Mill were not passion or imaginative rhetoric, but clear, cold, reasoning powers, together with a full command of the language best suited to express accurately the speaker's argument. These are the qualities which made all Thirlwall's work enduring and universally respected. His episcopal charges were certainly the best delivered in his day, and his history, without ever exciting any enthusiasm, has so steadily maintained its high position, that of recent years it is perhaps rather rising than falling in popular esteem[11:1]. [Sidenote: his coldness;] [Sidenote: his fairness and accuracy;] [Sidenote: but without enthusiasm.]