Everything about Richard Chenevix Trench totally explained
Richard Chenevix Trench (
September 9,
1807 –
March 28,
1886) was an
Anglican archbishop and
poet.
He was born at
Dublin in
Ireland (then part of the
United Kingdom), and went to school at
Harrow, and graduated at
Trinity College, Cambridge in
1829. In 1830 he visited
Spain. While incumbent of Curdridge Chapel near
Bishop's Waltham in
Hampshire, he published (1835)
The Story of Justin Martyr and Other Poems, which was favourably received, and was followed in 1838 by
Sabbation, Honor Neale, and other Poems, and in 1842 by
Poems from Eastern Sources. These volumes revealed the author as the most gifted of the immediate disciples of
Wordsworth, with a warmer colouring and more pronounced ecclesiastical sympathies than the master, and strong affinities to
Alfred Lord Tennyson,
John Keble and
Richard Monckton Milnes.
In
1841 he resigned his living to become curate to
Samuel Wilberforce, then rector of
Alverstoke, and upon Wilberforce's promotion to the deanery of
Westminster in 1845 he was presented to the rectory of Itchenstoke. In 1845 and 1846 he preached the
Hulsean lecture, and in the former year was made examining chaplain to Wilberforce, now Bishop of
Oxford. He was shortly afterwards appointed to a theological chair at
King's College London.
In
1851 he established his fame as a
philologist by
The Study of Words, originally delivered as lectures to the pupils of the Diocesan Training School, Winchester. His purpose, as stated by himself, was to show that in words, even taken singly, "there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination laid up"—a truth enforced by a number of most apposite illustrations. It was followed by two little volumes of similar character—
English Past and Present (1855) and
A Select Glossary of English Words (1859). All have gone through numerous editions and have contributed much to promote the historical study of the English tongue. Another great service to English philology was rendered by his paper, read before the
Philological Society,
On some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries (1857), which gave the first impulse to the great
Oxford English Dictionary. His advocacy of a revised translation of the
New Testament (1858) helped promote another great national project. In 1856 he published a valuable essay on
Calderón, with a translation of a portion of
Life is a Dream in the original metre. In 1841 he'd published his
Notes on the Parables of our Lord, and in 1846 his
Notes on the Miracles, popular works which are treasuries of erudite and acute illustration.
In
1856 Trench became Dean of
Westminster, a position which suited him. Here he introduced evening
nave services. In January 1864 he was advanced to the senior but less suitable post of
Archbishop of Dublin.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley had been first choice, but was rejected by the
Irish Church, and, according to Bishop Wilberforce's correspondence, Trench's appointment was favoured neither by the prime minister nor the lord-lieutenant. It was, moreover, unpopular in Ireland, and a blow to
English literature; yet it turned out to be fortunate. Trench couldn't prevent the
disestablishment of the Irish Church, though he resisted with dignity. But, when the
disestablished communion had to be reconstituted under the greatest difficulties, it was important that the occupant of his position should be a man of a liberal and genial spirit.
This was the work of the remainder of Trench's life; it exposed him at times to considerable abuse, but he came to be appreciated, and, when in November 1884 he resigned his archbishopric because of poor health, clergy and laity unanimously recorded their sense of his "wisdom, learning, diligence, and munificence." He had found time for
Lectures on Medieval Church History (1878); his poetical works were rearranged and collected in two volumes (last edition, 1885). He died in
London, after a lingering illness.
See his
Letters and Memorials (2 vols., 1886).
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