Theologian.  Educated at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth; ordained 1835. Professor of ecclesiastical history, St. Patrick's College; appointed president, 1857. Exercised considerable influence on Tractarian movement in England. Noted for his antiquarian research. Closely associated with Wiseman in editorship of Dublin Review from time of its founding to 1863; wrote numerous articles for the periodical. Contributed also to Edinburgh Review, North British Review, the Month, and other periodicals. Author of The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti, 1858; co-editor of A Report on the Carte Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 1871; editor of Calendar of Irish State Papers, 1872-1877.

Among Russell's contributions to the Dublin Review for 1843 was a highly complimentary review of Dickens's A Christmas Carol: " ... it is long since we read prose or poetry which pleased us more". Russell praised the Carol particularly for its "beautiful moral"; the only defect that he pointed out—and this is a "negative" rather than a "positive" one—was that the spirits in the story centred their attention exclusively on the "creature comforts" of Christmas—"the beef, and poultry, and pudding", and made no reference to the Christian nature of the festival. The Carol, wrote Russell, "exhibits in a small scale almost all the beauties and all the defects" of Dickens's writings.

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography