: 



TILLOCH, ALEXANDER, LL.D. 



TILLY, JOHN TSERCLAS. 



M 



canon of Laval, Cologne, 1711 ; Dupin, Bibliothique de Auleuft EccU- 

 sia*ti'/iKS <lu l)ixei>ti?,me Stfcle ; liiographie Universelle.) 



TILLOCH, ALEXANDER, LL.D., was born at Glasgow, on the 

 28th of February 1759, and was educated with a view to following the 

 business of his father, who was a tobacconist, and for many years 

 - filled the office of magistrate in that city. He was however more 

 inclined to the pursuit of scientific knowledge than to the routine of 

 business. Ilia biographer states that in early life his attention was 

 greatly attracted by the occult sciences, and that although he was not 

 long subject to their delusions, he never was inclined to treat judicial 

 astrology with contempt. One of the earliest subjects to which 

 Tilloch applied himself was the improvement of the art of printing; 

 his experiments enabled him, in connection with Foulis, the celebrated 

 printer of Glasgow, to carry farther the process invented by Ged of 

 Edinburgh, of printing from casts of whole pages of type ; but he 

 stopped short of arriving at a practical application of stereotype 

 printing, though to his communications to Earl Stanhope, nearly 

 thirty years later, may be ascribed its eventual application. A/ter 

 carrying on the tobacco business for a time in his native city in con- 

 nection with his brother and brother-in-law, Tilloch abandoned it, and 

 for several yeara exercised that of printing, either singly or in partner- 

 ship with others. 



In 1787 he removed to London, where he subsequently resided ; 

 and in 1789 he, in connection with other parties, purchased the 'Star,' 

 a daily evening newspaper, of which he became editor. This office he 

 continued to hold until within a few years of his death, when bodily 

 infirmities and the pressure of other engagements compelled him to 

 relinquish it. The political opinions of Tilloch were temperate. For 

 many years ho devoted attention to means for the prevention of the 

 forgery of bank-notes, and in 1790 he made a proposal to the British 

 ministry on the subject, which met with an unfavourable reception. 

 He then offered his invention to the French government, who were 

 anxious to apply it to the printing of assignats ; but, after some expe- 

 riments had been made, and negociations had been urgently sought by 

 the French authorities, all communication on the subject was cut 

 short by the passing of the Treasonable Correspondence Bill. In 

 1797 he presented to the Bank of England a specimen note, produced 

 by block or relief printing, which was certified by the most eminent 

 engravers to be impossible of imitation; yet nothing was done towards 

 the adoption of his or of any similar plan. 



Considering that there was room for a new scientific journal, in 

 addition to that published by Nicholson, Tilloch published, in June 

 1797, the first number of the ' Philosophical Magazine,' a periodical 

 which has ever since maintained a high reputation as a record of the 

 progress of science, and a digest of the proceedings of learned societies 

 at home and abroad. Of this work he was eole proprietor and editor 

 until a few years before bis death, when Mr. Richard Taylor, who suc- 

 ceeded him in its management, became associated with him. In the 

 earlier numbers of the ' Star,' Tilloch published several essays on 

 theological subjects, some of which, relating to the prophecies, were 

 subsequently collected into a volume by another person, and published 

 with the name 'Biblicus;' and in 1823 he issued an octavo volume 

 entitled ' Dissertations introductory to the study and right under- 

 standing of the language, structure, and .contents of the Apocalypse,' 

 in which he endeavours to prove that that portion of Scripture was 

 written much earlier than is usually supposed, and before most of the 

 apostolical epistlee. His views on this and other points are discussed 

 at length in a notice of this work, published soon after his death, in 

 the ' Eclectic Review.' The last work undertaken by Ti'.loch was a 

 weekly periodical entitled the ' Mechanic's Oracle/ devoted principally 

 to the instruction and improvement of the working classes. The first 

 number appeared in July 1824, and it was discontinued soon after his 

 death, which took place at his residence at Islington, on the 26th of 

 January 1825. 



Tilloch married early in life. His wife died in 1783, leaving a 

 daughter, who became wife of Mr. John Gait. His religious opinions 

 were peculiar, and he was one of the elders who acted as ministers of 

 a small body who took the name of Christian Dissenters, and met for 

 worship in a private house in Goswell Street Road. He was a member 

 of many learned societies in Great Britain and elsewhere, and was pro- 

 posed, about twenty yeara before his death, as a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society of London ; but his name was withdrawn before coming to 

 the ballot, in consequence of an intimation that he would be objected 

 to, not on account of any deficiency in talent or character, but solely 

 because he was the proprietor of a newspaper. A memoir of Dr. 

 Tilloch appeared in the 'Imperial Magazine' for March 1825, from 

 which, with the assistance of other obituary notices, the above account 

 is condensed. This was reprinted in the last number of the 'Mechanic's 

 Oracle,' with a portrait 



TILLOTSON, JOHN, D.D. (died 1694), a prelate and one of the 

 most celebrated divine" of the Church of England, was born in 1630 

 at Sowerby in Yorkshire, a member of the great parish of Halifax, of 

 a Puritan family. His father, who was engaged in the clothing trade, 

 belonged to that extreme section of the Puritans who were for estab- 

 lishing a general system of Independency, and he belonged himself to 

 an Independent church, of which Mr. Root was the pastor. After 

 having been a pupil in the grammar-schools in the country, the writers 

 of his Life not having told us what schools they mean, but doubtless 



the grammar-school at Halifax was one, he became a pensioner of 

 Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1C47, and a Fellow of the college in 1651. 

 It appears that he remained in the University till 1657. Puritanism 

 was at that period in the ascendancy at Cambridge ; but Tillotson very 

 early freed himself from his educational prejudices, became a great 

 admirer of the writings of Chillingworth, and soon showed himself 

 one of a class of persons who were then beginning to be considerable 

 in England, who, taking their stand on the Scriptures, opposed them- 

 selves at once to Romanism on the one hand and to Calvinism on the 

 other. This position he ever after maintained, and his celebrity arises 

 principally from the ability with which he illustrated and defended, 

 both from the pulpit and the press, the principles of Protestantism, 

 and of a rational and moderate orthodoxy. It may be added also, 

 that so much of the effects of his original Puritan education remained 

 with him, that he was in politics a Whig, although it must be owned 

 that he entertained and occasionally expressed notions of the duty of 

 submission, which, if acted upon, would have maintained the Houae of 

 Stuart on the throne. 



Before he entered holy orders, he was tutor in the family of Pri- 

 deaux, the attorney-general to Cromwell. This led to his residence in 

 London, and brought him into acquaintance with several eminent 

 persons. He was thirty years of age before he received ordination, 

 and the service appears to have been performed with some degree of 

 privacy, as it is, we believe, not known when or where it was performed, 

 and only that the bishop from whose hands he received it was not a 

 bishop of the English Church, but the bishop of Galloway in Scotland, 

 Dr. Thomas Sydserf. All the supposed irregularities and imperfections 

 of his early religious history for amongst other things it was even 

 asserted that he had never been baptised were brought before the 

 public by the non-juring party, when they saw him elevated to the 

 primacy from which Bancroft had retired. 



It is said by his biographer, Dr. -Thomas Birch, that he was not per- 

 fectly satisfied with the terms of ministerial conformity required by 

 the Act of 1662, which restored the Episcopal Church of England ; 

 yet on the whole he judged it proper to accept of the terms, and to 

 become a regular and conformable minister of that Church. 



He was for a short time curate at Cheshunt, and also for a short 

 time rector at Ketton in Suffolk, a living to which he was presented 

 by Sir Thomas Barnardistou, one of his Puritan friends. But he was 

 soon called to a wider sphere of duty, being appointed in 1664 the 

 preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and lecturer at St. Lawrence's church in 

 the Jewry. Here it was that those sermons were preached which 

 attracted crowds of the most accomplished and the learned of the 

 time, and which have been since read and studied by many succeeding 

 divines of eminence, and are at this day the basis of his fame. 



The course of his preferment in the Church during the reign of 

 Charles II. was 1669, a prebendary in the church of Canterbury ; 

 1672, dean of Canterbury; 1675, a prebendary in the church of St. 

 Paul; and 1677, a canon residentiary in the same cathedral. But as 

 soon as King William was established on the throne he was made dean 

 of St.' Paul's and clerk of the closet; and in April 1691, he was 

 nominated by the king to the archbishopric of Canterbury, an appoint- 

 ment which appears to have been really received by him with reluct- 

 ance, aud which' exposed him to no small share of envy from very 

 different parties. The truth is, that besides his eminent merits as 

 having been the ablest opposer both of popery and irrcligion, in a 

 reign when the tendencies of too many persons in exalted stations 

 were in one or other of these directions, he had a strong personal 

 interest in the new king's affections, who is said, on credible authority, 

 to have declared that there was no honester man than Dr. Tillotson, 

 nor had he ever a better friend. He was archbishop only three 

 years and a half, dying at the age of sixty-four. He was interred in 

 the church of St. Lawrence Jewry, which had been the chief scene of 

 his high popularity. 



Tillotson died poor. He had survived both his children ; but he 

 left a widow, who was a niece of Cromwell and the stepdaughter of 

 Bishop Wilkins, without any provision excepl the copyright of his 

 works, which it is said produced 25001. The king granted her a 

 pension, first of 400i, and afterwards of 200?. more, which she enjoyed 

 till her death in 1702. 



An account of the Life of Dr. Tillotson was published in 8vo, 1717. 

 There is a much larger Life of him by Dr. Birch, prefixed to an edition 

 of the works of Tillotson, and published also in an Svo volume, the 

 second edition of which was printed in 1753, containing additional 

 matter. There is also an account of him in Le Neve's ' Lives of the 

 Protestant Archbishops of England.' Birch's edition of the Works is 

 in 3 vols. folio, 1752. 



TILLY, or TILLI, JOHN TSERCLAS, COUNT OF, was the son of 

 Martin Tserclas, of Tilly. The Tserclas, whose name is also written 

 T'Serclaes, were an old patrician family of Brussels ; John, a member 

 of this family, acquired, in 1448, the lordship of Tilly, in South Bra- 

 bant. John Tilly was born in 1559, at the castle of Tilly, and he early 

 entered the order of Jesuits, from whom he acquired that spirit of 

 fanaticism, of blind obedience, and of absolute command, which 

 distinguished him during his whole life. He soon abandoned his 

 ecclesiastical profession, and entered the army of Philip II., king of 

 Spain and lord of tho Netherlands, and he learned the principles of 

 war under Alba, Requeseus, the governor of the Netherlands, Don 



