Born, in London, 1730. Educated at Eton. Matriculated Queen’s College, Oxford, 9 May 1747; B.A., 1750. Fellow of Merton College, 1755; M.A., 1756. Called to Bar at Middle Temple, 1755. Under-Secretary, War Dept., 1756. Clerk of House of Commons, 1762–68. Curator of British Museum, 1784. F.R.S., F.S.A. Died, 15 Aug. 1786. Works: “Epistle of Florio at Oxford” (anon.), 1749; “Translations in Verse,” 1752; “Observations and Conjectures on some Passages of Shakespeare” (anon.), 1766; “Dissertatio de Babrio” (anon.), 1776. Posthumous: “Conjecturæ in Strabonem” [1783]; “Conjecturæ in Æschylum, Euripidem et Aristophanem,” 1822. He edited: “Proceedings and Debates in the House of Commons, 1620–21” (2 vols.), 1766; H. Elsynge’s “The Manner of holding Parliaments in England,” 1768; “Fragmenta duo Plutarchi,” 1773; Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” 1775–78; “Rowley’s Poems,” 1777; “Aristotelis De Poetica liber,” 1794.

Personal

  He was an honour to his age and country, not more for his extensive erudition, his fine genius, and deep and solid judgment, than for the candour, elegance, and probity of his manners, his unassuming modesty and simplicity of character, and distinguished virtues.

  The life of the greater editor of Chaucer is hardly better known than that of Chaucer himself. He was born at London in 1730; he was educated at Eton and at Merton College, Oxford; he became master of arts in 1756; he filled one or two political positions; he wrote a few treatises, and edited two or three works; he was made curator of the British Museum, and while holding that office died in Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, on the fifteenth of August, 1786. This barren record contains nearly all the facts that can be easily gathered in reference to one of the most accomplished and successful students of our literature…. One of the greatest scholars England has ever produced.

  Charles Burney, D.D., ranked Tyrwhitt among the greatest critics of the last century. Glowing tributes were paid to him by Wyttenbach in his life of Ruhnken (p. 71), by Kraft in the “Epistolæ Selectæ” (p. 313), by Schweighäuser in his edition of Polybius (i. p. xxvi of preface), by Kidd in the “Opuscula Ruhnkeniana” (p. viii, and in pp. lxiii–lxx is a list of his works), and by Bishop Copleston in the “Reply to the Calumnies of the ‘Edinburgh Review’” (2nd edit. 1810). Mathias thought that his learning and sagacity were often misapplied (“Pursuits of Literature,” 7th edit., pp. 88 and 96).

Edition of Chaucer, 1775–78

  I am obliged to you for your intelligence concerning the late edition of Chaucer. I find it true in all particulars. Your alarm however for my property, as you call it, is groundless. As I have not entered my book at Stationers-Hall, I have, it seems, no legal property in it. But if I had, would you advise me to go to law for a property unattended by any profit? A certain philosopher, when his gouty shoes were stolen, only wished that they might fit the thief as well as they fitted himself; and for my own part I shall be contented, if my book shall prove just as lucrative to Mr. Bell, as it has been to me.

  Tyrwhitt, a scholar as well as an antiquary, was an expert philologer: His extensive reading in the lore of our vernacular literature and our national antiquities promptly supplied what could not have entered into his more classical studies; and his sagacity seems to have decided on the various readings of all the manuscripts by piercing into the core of the poet’s thoughts.

  It is truly to be lamented that a text of Chaucer so utterly corrupt as that of Tyrwhitt should continue to be reprinted. Tyrwhitt fell into the error of attempting to make up the text of an author, when he was totally ignorant of the grammatical construction of his language, and equally incompetent to appreciate the comparative value of the manuscripts. The consequence is that there is not perhaps a single line in Tyrwhitt’s edition of the “Canterbury Tales” which Chaucer could possibly have written. The very worst manuscript in existence contains a better text, because it was at least grammatically correct for the time in which it was written, whereas in Tyrwhitt all grammar is set at defiance.

  It has been said with much force that Tyrwhitt, whose services to the study of Chaucer remain uneclipsed by those of any other scholar, would have composed a quite different biography of the poet, had he not been confounded by the formerly (and here and there still) accepted date of Chaucer’s birth, the year 1328.

  Tyrwhitt’s edition of the “Canterbury Tales”—the only work of Chaucer he ever edited—appeared in four volumes in March, 1775. A fifth volume, containing a glossary to all of the poet’s writings, followed in 1778. In the preparation of this work Tyrwhitt collated twenty-six manuscripts, to five of which he attached a special value. His duty was not done perfunctorily. No more thorough and conscientious editing had ever before been applied to the elucidation of a great English classic. He neglected nothing that lay in his power to perfect it. Wherever he failed it was not from lack of insight or industry, but from the general diffusion of ignorance about the English language that then prevailed, and from the influence of which he could by no possibility be wholly free. On the other hand, he was in many respects extraordinarily well fitted for the task he assumed, both by mental equipment and special acquirement. His acquaintance with the authors of the Middle Ages, who constituted no small share of Chaucer’s reading, was far greater than that of any one who has since endeavored to illustrate the poet’s writings; at least what he did alone in this one matter has much surpassed the combined labors of all who have since followed in his footsteps, valuable as have been the services of some. Many of the most loudly vaunted modern discoveries were anticipated a century ago by this quiet scholar. They have usually escaped attention because they were packed away in few sentences, and relegated to a position in some obscure note. A modern investigator would have made out of some of them a pamphlet or a volume. In so doing he would often have been fully justified by the value of what he had brought to light…. He had by nature that judicial cast of mind which rendered it impossible for him to frame assumptions of his own or adopt those of others under the impression either that they were fact or were evidence of fact. The sanest of English poets had the good fortune to meet with the sanest of editors. Tyrwhitt was animated by but one desire, that of ascertaining the truth; not what he would like to have the truth, nor what he had argued himself into believing before hand was the truth. He was never led astray by captivating conjectures…. In all doubtful matters, indeed, he was wholly free from that confidence of conviction and positiveness of assertion to which easy omniscience is so generously addicted.

General

  I have often wondered, how so deeply learned a scholar as Mr. Tyrwhitt ever suffered himself to be enrolled with these note-makers on Shakspeare.

  Certain it is, that no such attempt has been made since, except in the single and minute, but very successful instance of Aristotle’s Poetics, which was produced by an auxiliary volunteer, residing in the metropolis, engaged in business, and never secluded from the avocations of society. By not enjoying the leisure, perhaps, he never contracted the indolence or apathy of a monk, but preserved his activity even by the distraction of his faculties. His name stands in the title-page plain Thomas Tyrwhitt—without any decorative adjunct or title of degree—though it would have done honour to the proudest, which the most exalted seat of learning could bestow.

  One of the most eminent of modern critics.

  Tyrwhitt is the only writer among those that handled the subject [ed. Chatterton] who had a real critical knowledge of the language of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and who, in fact, had on that account a real claim to be heard.