[British Critic, vol. 19, July 1836.]
The unexpected and immature death of the highly accomplished writer of this volume, is one of those events which have tended of late years to change the tone of opinion prevailing in the University to which he belonged, and to introduce into it for good and for evil the characteristics of a new generation. Dr. Burton is the third in succession of Divinity Professors, who have been cut off in the beginning, or in the fulness of their labours and usefulness; men of great consideration in the place, who, doubtless, were they now alive, would take a principal part in the direction of the University in the stormy times seemingly before it. Few men of late years have had the extended influence of Dr. Hodson, or the popularity with junior men of Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford, both of whom were removed at a time when the Church itself, if not the scene of their previous reputation, seemed likely to feel the impression of their minds. In like manner, the death of Dr. Elmsley took place when he had just entered upon duties to which the careful and silent studies of years had recommended him, and was about to devote to the service of the University the habits of precise thought, the composure of mind, gentleness of bearing, and gifts and attainments of a more striking character, which were discernible by all who knew him ever so little. Professors Mills and Nicoll, are additional instances, in late years, of rising abilities and erudition, cut short in their career by an (humanly speaking) untimely stroke. Such successive losses may, for what we know, be common at all times; but, whether common or not, they cannot happen without changing the character of a place, if there be room for change. And such seems to have been the effect of them in the University in which they have occurred; almost all the distinguished men enumerated were more or less specimens of a school which seems for many years to have had prevalence, or rather supreme sway in the place, so as even to constitute the existing academical body itself. Since quiet days have succeeded in Oxford, to political feuds and parties, from the latter part of the last century almost down to the recent passing of the Emancipation Bills, elegant scholarship and literature have been the main road to distinction, and an abstinence from subjects purely ecclesiastical, or even an indisposition towards them, the characteristic, or at least the accidental property of the gentleman and divine. Some of the most eminent members of the Episcopal Bench at this moment are instances of the truth of this remark, at the time they were promoted; and what they were in younger days, such were the individuals above-mentioned They were learned in the languages, they were men of classical attainments, of various accomplishments; they were loved and revered in private; but they either were in no sense theologians, or they added theology to their other attainments, with little concern to ground themselves in it as a science. There was in their day little of political or religious commotion to draw away their minds from criticism and literature, or to make theology much more than a theoretical or amateur pursuit. The Socinian and Predestinarian controversies, and the external evidences, almost exhausted the range of divinity; and though the sagacity of Bishop Lloyd discerned the renewal of hostilities with the Romanists in prospect, and began, in this very Review 1, to prepare for defence, he was not allowed time to do much more than direct attention to a conflict of which he himself was to be spared the toil.
If there was any one who might be deemed an exception to these remarks, it was the lamented divine who has led to them. He was unquestionably, not only variously read in classical and modern literature, but deeply versed in the writings of the fathers. Always excepting one venerated individual, whose name will at once suggest itself to Oxford men, he had above all men reputation for patristical learning, a reputation which belonged rather to the seventeenth century than to our own. Yet it may be doubted whether even he was not better acquainted with the writings of Christian antiquity, as historical records, or depositaries of facts, or again in their bearing upon one or two important modern questions, than in themselves, in their great fundamental principles, and their peculiar character and spirit, or what is sometimes called their [ethos]. There was nothing in the circumstances of the day to send him to their works as a revelation of times, feelings and principles gone by; and his study in consequence was far from embracing even an abstract knowledge of their views. While, then, his reading spoke forcibly for the loyalty and devotion of his heart towards those prophets of the ancient truth, and tended much to encourage younger men in the study of them, yet it scarcely separated him in mental characteristics from that classical school to which we have above referred him.