Born, in Dublin, 9 Sept. 1807. Early education at Twyford; at Harrow, 1819–25. Matric. Trin Coll., Camb. 1825; B.A., 1829; M.A., 1833; B.D., 1850; D.D., 1856. Travelled on Continent, 1829. Married Hon. Frances Mary Trench, 31 May 1832. Ordained Deacon, 1832; Priest, 1833. Curate of Curdridge, 1835–40; of Alverstoke, 1840–45. Rector of Itchinstoke, 1845–46. Hulsean Lecturer, Camb., 1845–46; Chaplain to Bp. of Oxford, 1847–64. Professor of Divinity, King’s Coll., London, 1847–58. Dean of Westminster, Oct. 1856 to 1863, Dean of Order of Bath, 1856–64. Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough and Kildare, Jan. 1864; resigned, Nov. 1884. Chancellor of Order of St. Patrick, 1864–84. D.D., Dublin, 1864. Died, in London, 28 March 1886. Buried in Westminster Abbey. Works [exclusive of separate sermons, ecclesiastical charges, etc.]: “The Story of Justin Martyr,” 1835; “Sabbation,” 1838; “Notes on the Parables of Our Lord,” 1841; “Poems from Eastern Sources,” 1842; “Genoveva,” 1842; “Five Sermons,” 1843; “Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount,” 1844; “Hulsean Lectures for 1845,” 1845; “Hulsean Lectures for 1846,” 1846; “Sacred Poems for Mourners,” 1846; “Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord,” 1846; “The Star of the Wise Men,” 1850; “On the Study of Words,” 1851; “On the Lessons in Proverbs,” 1853; “Synonyms of the New Testament,” 1854 (2nd edn. same year); “Alma,” 1855; “English, Past and Present,” 1855; “Five Sermons,” 1856; “On some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries,” 1857; “On the Authorized Version of the New Testament,” 1858; “A Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in Senses different from their Present,” 1859; “Sermons Preached in Westminster Abbey,” 1860; “Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia,” 1861; “The Subjection of the Creature to Vanity,” 1863; “The Salt of the Earth, etc.,” 1864; “Gustavus Adolphus, etc.,” 1865; “Poems,” 1865; “Studies on the Gospels,” 1867; “Shipwrecks of Faith,” 1867; “Plutarch,” 1873; “Sermons, preached for the most part in Dublin,” 1873; “Lectures on Mediæval Church History,” 1877; “Brief Thoughts and Meditations on some passages in Holy Scripture,” 1884; “Sermons, New and Old,” 1886. Posthumous: “Letters and Memorials,” ed. by M. M. F. Trench (2 vols.), 1888; “Westminster and other Sermons,” 1888. He translated: “Life’s a Dream, etc.,” from the Spanish of Calderon, 1856; and edited: “Sacred Latin Poetry,” 1849; his mother’s “Journal” [1861] and “Remains,” 1862; “A Household Book of English Poetry,” 1868.
Personal
Went to South Place to luncheon, and met Dean Trench there,—a large melancholy face, full of earnestness and capacity for woe.
At “Dublin’s” breakfast, I met Robert Browning, Dean Stanley, Lady Augusta, a lot more ladies, and a duke or two, and, after breakfast, “Dublin” read to me—with his five beautiful daughters grouped about—from Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, and others, till the day was far spent. When I went away he promised to send me his books. He did so, I put them in my trunk, and did not open them till I got to America. Fancy my consternation as well as amazement and delight to find that this “Dublin” was Trench, the author of “Trench on Words.” Ah! Why didn’t he sign his name Trench? for I knew the book almost by heart.
I found his grace to be all that I had pictured him, and more. In person he was large, though not tall, with a massive head, dark, expressive eyes, and deep toned but pleasant voice. His manner was quiet and unaffected. There was no show or pretension about him, no assumption of superior dignity, no display of vast attainments; but in reality he was as plain and simple in speech as if he were not, what I knew him to be, a profoundly learned scholar and divine, and one able to pronounce definitive judgement on numerous questions in theological, classical, and historical lore.
Once upon a time on that spot, Richard Trench and I fell out over a game of quoits. He lost his temper, flew into an Irish rage, took up a quoit and threw it at my head. Such an outrage called for instant chastisement, and I am afraid it must be said that I administered it, as boys are wont to do, rather too savagely; for the next day he had to go to London to see a dentist, in order to have his teeth, which had suffered in the fray, put to rights. Who would have supposed that such an encounter could ever have taken place between the future sedate and amiable Archbishop and the future advocate of reconciliation among Christians? Perhaps it was desirable for the formation and development of both our characters. It may be that the former, considering the temper that he often showed as a boy, had need to undergo some such experience ere he could attain to the perfection of mildness and equanimity which he displayed in after life.
General
From his “Justin Martyr,” through his “Elegiac Poems,” down to those from Eastern sources, his course towards compositional excellence has been steady and evident. In the last-mentioned volume especially there are several poems of exquisite beauty, whose music lingers on the memory and refuses to be forgotten.
Order into your Book Club “Trench on the Study of Words;” a delightful, good book, not at all dry (unless to fools); one I am sure you will like. Price but three and sixpence and well worth a guinea at least.
I know of no books on language better calculated to excite curiosity and stimulate inquiry into the proper meaning and use of the English tongue, than those interesting volumes, “The Study of Words,” “English, Past and Present,” “The Lessons contained in Proverbs,” and the essay on the English New Testament.
Trench, in his exegetical writings, so blends the offices of interpreter and preacher, that it is not always easy to know in which sense to take him. He is so intent on the multitude of lessons that may be drawn from any given word, clause, or sentence, that he not unfrequently fails to designate the particular sense intended by the writer. But he is always entertaining and instructive. His is one of those rich minds, which cannot enter into communion with other minds without enriching them. No matter what his professed subject is, it will be found either to contain or to suggest materials for which his reader will thank him.
Besides being a star of the first magnitude in the literary and ecclesiastical world, Archbishop Trench has an honoured name amongst modern poets and hymn-writers.
Dr. Trench’s poems have in no wise depended upon his status as an ecclesiastic; they have appealed to no party in the Church; they have made their way by no organised praise or factitious diffusion, but by slow pervasive contact with earnest and lonely minds. His public has been gradually won, and is gradually increasing; there are many for whom his words have mingled themselves with Tennyson’s in hours of bereavement, with Wordsworth’s in hours of meditative calm…. It is by his “Elegiac Poems” that Dr. Trench has won his almost unique position in many hearts…. A nature like Dr. Trench’s, full of clinging affections, profound religious faith, and constitutional sadness, was likely to feel in extreme measure both these bereavements and these consolations. The loss of beloved children taught him the lessons of sorrow and of hope, and the words in which that sorrow and that hope found utterance have led many a mourner in his most desolate hour to feel that this great writer is his closest and most consoling friend.
Whether a place be conceded to Archbishop Trench among the great men of the past half century or not, it must at least be allowed that he was largely mixed up with great minds and great matters. The influence which he exerted over those who had control in church and state was considerable; but we think the unconscious influence of his writings, his example and—if one may use the expression—his presence was even more considerable…. The whole cast of his mind was reflective. He was a man of thought rather than of action; and probably nothing but a strong sense of duty compelled him to turn from the studies in which he delighted and the society which delighted in him to the throne of Dublin, around which clouds of threatening storms had begun to gather. But danger never made him hesitate to take any step he thought right; and if his intense Anglicanism coloured his views in an unmistakable way, his courage, his patience, his innate sense of justice, and his purity of motive combined to keep him out of the doubtful paths of mere expediency…. We have here as elsewhere evidence of that sad, foreboding nature which left its impress upon his poetry, and showed itself outwardly in his somewhat gloomy features. They were often lit up with the fire of enthusiasm, just as his habitual gravity was tempered by a keen appreciation of wit and humour; but, both in his looks and his conversation, sombreness predominated. Perhaps his association with Ireland may have deepened it in him; but the tendency to gloom was probably inherited from his Huguenot ancestors.
His poetry is penetrated by the high purity and nobility of his character.
It was in 1851 that Trench published the first fruits of his researches into language. Delivered originally to the students in an obscure normal school for elementary teachers, these lectures have been over and over again reprinted; they have become a class book wherever English is studied, and together with those other volumes, “English Past and Present,” “A Select Glossary of English Words,” and “On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries,” are to be found in every philological library. It is in these linguistic studies that Trench is seen at his best, and when engaged in the etymology, the history, the morality, or the poetry in words he shows distinct signs of a gift almost akin to genius…. Dr. Trench’s poems fill a considerable volume, and possess many merits. They manifest true culture and large command of language. They are full of noble aspiration, breathing deep and sincere piety; but do not evidence any strongly marked originality. His verse, beautiful and attractive as it is, is more that of a devout mind, and a rare and fine scholar with much music in his soul, than of a poet by Divine decree.
The most popular [“Study of Words”] of scholarly and the most scholarly of popular works on the subject.
Did great service to the study of the English language. His “Study of Words” and “English Past and Present” have done more to popularise philology than, probably, any other books we possess.
