Theologian, journalist, and man of letters; educated at University College school and University College, London; B.A., 1845; M.A., 1849; studied at Heidelberg and Berlin; prepared for Unitarian ministry at Manchester New College, 1847; principal of University Hall, London; edited Unitarian magazine, “The Inquirer,” 1851–3; studied at Lincoln’s Inn; joint-editor with Walter Bagehot of “National Review,” 1855–64; professor of mathematics at Bedford College, London, 1856–65; assistant-editor of the “Economist,” 1858–60; joint-editor and part-proprietor of the “Spectator,” 1861–97; definitively abandoned Unitarianism and accepted principles of English church. His publications include “Essays on some Modern Guides of English Thought,” 1887, and “Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers,” 1894.

Personal

  For the last twenty years and more of Hutton’s life, reports, sometimes made with the utmost precision, were current that he had become or was about to become a convert to Rome. More than once I put the question to him; I have had his answers viva voce and in writing. They satisfied me that he had no intention of taking any such step, that he had never got further than this—that Rome was better than unbelief—and so far most of us are ready to go. But the reports never surprised me. Hutton’s hero, so to speak, was John Henry Newman. There was much in the Roman system that he admired. He was ready to do more than justice to its practical working…. He was an Anglican communicant to the very last. I feel sure that it would have been impossible for him to make such a surrender of his intellectual liberty as accession to the Roman communion would have implied.

General

  His theological writings are not of a generally “popular” kind, being too much out of the beaten track of the routine controversies that impose on so many would-be theological readers. It is needless to say that he has no anxiety to be regarded as “orthodox;” but it may not be equally superfluous to observe that he is no less free from the converse ambition to be a proficient in heresy—an ambition which, consciously or unconsciously, bewitches and distorts the mind of many an active and generous theologian at the present time. Mr. Hutton’s imagination is wholly undisturbed by the phantoms of orthodoxy and heresy in any way; all he cares for is to discover truth, and he is equally ready to hold it in a “minority of one” or in the fulness of social sympathy…. Mr. Hutton’s contributions to the National Review, scarcely amount to one-half of his best productions, but they include the maturest of his longer Essays, and except for the absence of political, humorous, and satirical papers, give a very fair representation of his mind as a whole.

  I have closed Mr. R. H. Hutton’s book of Essays on “Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith,” with a yet stronger sense of the interest of the intellectual converse between the critic and the subjects of his criticism, than of Mr. Hutton’s own conclusions, valuable though they are. Mr. Hutton’s own attitude presents two different sides, each very strongly marked. On the one hand there is a very subtle and searching critical power. This satisfies in his purely literary work Goethe’s test of true criticism—a quick eye for and appreciation of the beauties of his author. Again and again a passage in George Eliot or Matthew Arnold, which had left its mark on the reader, he could not quite tell why, is reproduced by Mr. Hutton, and the complex source of our admiration faithfully delineated by him, whether it be a striking contrast, or fine insight into the inmost recesses of character, or the touching of some of the deepest chords of human feeling, or the purely artistic presentation of a scene of human life. Mr. Hutton’s critical power, when he touches the deeper aspects of religious thought, is also very acute, if not quite so remarkable…. Mr. Hutton’s choice of spiritual diet may be somewhat Spartan, and unsuited to weak digestions; but it is invigorating and sustaining to those who are equal to it.

  The very fact that the objective does not count for much with Mr. Hutton in making his estimates of events, men, and books, and that he resolutely disregards it, adds to his subjective strength. He cares only for the heart of a matter and goes as straight to it as he can. And I doubt whether any public writer of the present generation or of its predecessor—Mr. Hutton recalls Mr. William Rathbone Greg and Mr. Walter Bagehot and Mr. John Morley rather than the hierophants of the New Journalism—has on the spur of the moment said so many true and sagacious things with so much point. This is all the more notable that he certainly does not strain after literary effect in any of its modern forms. He never struggles to be epigrammatic. He is no devotee of the modern cult of the snippet; on the contrary his sentences—here again he resembles Mr. Gladstone—are often long and involved. But his resolute and transparent modesty, and his obvious aversion to the character of poseur, lend emphasis to that beauty of sanity which is the outstanding feature of his judgments.

  He is not to be measured merely by the work, important as it is, which bears his own name. He is also the head of what may fairly be called a school. Consciously or unconsciously, he has influenced that majority, at least, of the numerous writers who must have collaborated in the weekly literary articles of the Spectator. This is the first point to be insisted upon in an appreciation of Mr. Hutton as a critic. We must put to his credit, not only all that is of merit in his writings, but that personal power which he has wielded over others…. We find that the most prominent features of Mr. Hutton’s criticism are variety of interest and a sympathy, comprehensive indeed, but not entirely catholic. The unifying principle is given by theology, and theology determines likewise the limits of the sympathy.

  No one—not even the writer of the Pall Mall Gazette, who encloses Richard Hutton’s audience within the walls of a Rectory garden—will deny that he abjured, throughout his career, that alliance with scorn which ordinarily supplies journalism with its most pungent condiments. Nothing that he has written is bitter, or stinging, or pregnant with innuendo. Think of all that he cut off in that renunciation! Remove ill-nature, and how much of what the world counts wit would remain? Perhaps the best, but how vastly reduced in amount! That removal, at all events, would blunt no single sentence due to his pen; no criticism from him ever wounded a tender memory, or impoverished the springs of creative power in a single mind. Could the same be said of any other journalist of his time?… He is admitted by respectful but decided opponents to have been a force on the side of our national union, a tribute to his political weight which could be given to no other spiritual teacher of this century. Few indeed are the leaders of thought who turn, as he did, both to the heights of eternal principles, and to the valleys of concrete application.

  One of the ablest essayists, as well as one of the best men who has lived in our times.

  In the “Spectator” Hutton found a pulpit from which he could speak on subjects nearest his heart, as well as on books and events of the day. In theological questions he first made his mark as the champion of Christianity against agnostic and rationalistic teachers. For this task Hutton was qualified by the breadth of his mind, the accuracy of his understanding, and his profound knowledge of current religious thought. Pre-eminently catholic in spirit he was removed from lesser party differences, and was able to comprehend and reconcile many positions which to smaller men seemed hopelessly antagonistic. While it would be idle to regard him as standing in the first rank of theologians, it may be questioned whether any of his contemporaries influenced public opinion more widely. This influence was exercised both through the “Spectator” and by means of the vast correspondence he kept up with private persons on matters of religious controversy.