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 and for the extension of the electoral franchise. For some time he was a member of the town council of Leicester; and he was one of the founders of the Mechanics' Institute in that town, and honorary curator of the Leicester Museum.

Thompson in early life took a keen interest in the study of archæology and antiquities. He began by publishing in his journal a series of 'Passages from the History of Leicester.' In 1847, in conjunction with William Kelly, he arranged the ancient manuscripts which were lying in a state of disorder in the Leicester corporation muniment-room.

In 1849 he brought out a 'History of Leicester, from the time of the Romans to the end of the Seventeenth Century.' This, his largest and most important work, was the fruit of much original research. In 1854–6 he edited the 'Midland Counties Historical Collector,' of which only two volumes appeared. In 1867 he published 'An Essay on English Municipal History,' a work which threw much new light on the origin, institution, and development of municipal government in Leicester and other ancient English towns. The manuscripts of the ancient merchant guild of Leicester gave him a mass of original materials for this book, which is referred to by and other writers (cf.  Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, 1894, i. 235 seq.). In 1871 he issued a 'History of Leicester in the Eighteenth Century,' supplementary to his earlier history.

Thompson was one of the founders of the Leicestershire Architectural and Archæological Society in 1855, and to its 'Transactions' he contributed numerous papers and communications. He was also local secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, a member of the British Archæological Association, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. To 'Notes and Queries' he was a frequent contributor, under the signature of 'Jaytee.'

He died at his residence, Dannett House, Fosse Road, Leicester, on 20 May 1877, and was buried on 24 May in the Leicester cemetery. He married at St. Martin's, Leicester, on 24 June 1847, Janet Bissett, daughter of John McAlpin of Leicester, but left no issue. His widow died on 29 Oct. 1879.

Besides the books above mentioned, his works were: 'The Handbook of Leicester,' 1844, his earliest work; 2nd edit. 1846. 'An Account of Leicester Castle,' 1859. 'Pocket Edition of the History of Leicester,' 1879.

THOMPSON, THOMSON, or TOMSON, JOHN (fl. 1382), Carmelite, was probably born, as Pits suggests, at Thompson, near Watton in Norfolk, where a family of Thompsons was settled. He was educated at the Carmelite house at Blakney, Norfolk, whence he proceeded to Oxford (cf., Hist. et Antiq. 1674, p. 103, col. 1). He graduated B.D. and attained some fame as a theologian before 1382, when he was one of the two Carmelite members of the provincial council summoned to meet in the Black Friars, London, in May to pronounce judgment on Wyclif's doctrines (, Concilia, iii. 158, 165;, Fasciculi Zizaniorum, Rolls Ser., pp. 287, 500). Subsequently he is said to have graduated D.D. and to have devoted himself to the study of philosophy and theology. Villiers de St. Etienne (Bibl. Carmel. ii. 127–8) gives a list of fifteen works by Thompson, and says he wrote 'plura alia,' all of which were preserved in Bale's time (circa 1550) in the house of the Carmelites at Norwich. None are now known to be extant, with the possible exception of a work, 'Ex Trivetho de transformatis,' attributed to Thompson by Bale, and beginning 'Abbas a monacho veneno occiditur;' a manuscript with this incipit is extant in Merton College MS. lxxxv. f. 111, and its full title is 'Tabula Nicolai Trivet super allegorias libri Ovidii de transformatis' (, Cat. MSS. in Coll. Aulisque Oxon. i. 46; cf. art. ). There is nothing to identify the Carmelite with the John Thomson who died vicar of Leeds in 1430, bequeathing his books to Gonville Hall, Cambridge (, Biogr. Hist. of Gonville and Caius College, p. 5).

THOMPSON, JOHN, first  (1647–1710), born in 1647, was the son of Morris or Maurice Thomson of Haversham in Buckinghamshire, by his wife Dorothy, daughter of John Vaux of Pembrokeshire. Morris, like his brother, (fl. 1643–1668) [q. v.], was a prominent member of Cromwell's government. He made his peace at the Restoration, but


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas

FEUERBACH, foi'ĕr-bä H, Ludwig Andreas, German philosopher: b. Landshut, Bavaria, 28 July 1804; d. 13 Sept. 1872; the fourth son of the illustrious jurist, Paul Johann Anselm Feuerbach. After a secondary education he studied divinity at Heidelberg and Berlin, but fell under the sway of Hegel and took his doctor's degree in philosophy. After a brief period as privatdozent in Erlangen, he became persona non grata on account of an heretical pamphlet embodying ‘Thoughts on Death and Immortality.’ From a follower of Hegel he developed rapidly into an out-and-out free-thinker and democrat. Besides a more technical ‘History of Modern Philosophy’ and a monograph on Leibnitz he wrote reviews and essays for the most radical periodical of the time, Arnold Ruge's Jahrbücher. In 1841 appeared his most significant work ‘The Essence of Christianity’ (translated by George Eliot), which won him a place among the foremost advanced thinkers of the day. He entered into correspondence with Karl Marx and is indeed regarded by Socialists as a precursor of their classic authorities. He sympathized with the revolutionary uprising of 1848 but took no active part beyond delivering a course of lectures to the Heidelberg students on the “Essence of Religion.” During the dark period of reaction his prestige waned but he continued his researches into the nature of religion, producing in 1857 the ‘Theogonie,’ in which unfulfilled desire was defined as the core of religious feeling. Financial failure threatened him in 1860, but the loyalty of his friends saved him from actual want and in the last few years of his life he was once more able to attack in a volume on ‘God, Freedom, Immortality,’ the religious problems to which he had so persistently devoted himself.

Feuerbach was not a systematic philosopher and became progressively more averse to metaphysics, developing an affection for the methods of natural science and a popular, vivid style, though at times marred by diffuseness and dithyrambs. As an absolutely honest and uncompromising champion of free-thought and political liberalism he exerted a tremendous influence both on Socialists and natural scientists of the materialistic school. He has been appropriately compared to a powerful ferment. Richard Wagner, Ferdinand Lassalle and Gottfried Keller are among those who were deeply stirred by his writings. Feuerbach's philosophy of religion is remarkable for the bold assumption of a purely psychological point of view, while historical problems and social factors (as Marx pointed out) are ignored. The neglect of concrete historical conditions distinguishes his method of approach from that of Strauss, while his concentration on individual psychology required supplementing by modern sociological and ethnological considerations. Nevertheless, the insistence on the purely human rather than metaphysical aspects of the problem marked an epoch-making departure in the history of the subject. His essays on ‘The Necessity of a Reformation of Philosophy,’ ‘Preliminary Theses,’ and ‘Principles of a Philosophy of the Future’ (1842-43) are remarkable anticipations of modern pragmatism with the emphasis on democratic aspirations.

Bibliography. — Bolin, Wilhelm, ‘Ludwig Feuerbach, seine Wirken und seine Zeitgenossen’ (Stuttgart 1891); Grün, Karl, ‘Ludwig Feuerbach in seinem Briefwechsel und Nachlass’ (Leipzig 1874); Jodl, Friedrich, ‘Ludwig Feuerbach’ (Stuttgart 1904); Kohut, Adolph, ‘Ludwig Feuerbach’ (Leipzig 1909).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 was accused of supplying information to the enemy during the war with Holland (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1665–6, p. 457). He died in 1671.

His son John was created a baronet on 12 Dec. 1673, and returned to parliament as member for Gatton, Surrey, on 23 March 1684–5. He inherited his father's political and religious opinions, and, throwing himself heartily into opposition to James II, was one of the earliest subscribers to the invitation to William of Orange. He retained his parliamentary seat until his elevation to the peerage on 4 May 1696, as Baron Haversham of Haversham (Returns of Members of Parliament, i. 555, 562, 569, 576). On 2 June 1699 he was appointed a lord of the admiralty, and retained the post until December 1701, when, learning that Thomas Herbert, eighth earl of Pembroke [q. v.], was to be made lord high admiral, he took umbrage and resigned (, Brief Historical Relation, 1857, iv. 520, v. 121). Until that time he had been a strenuous whig, and a few months before had espoused the cause of Somers and Montagu with sufficient warmth to provoke the commons to decline further conferences with the lords until he had been punished (ib. v. 60, 61, 64, 66). On resigning office, however, he joined the opposition, and was instrumental in inducing the upper house persistently to reject the Occasional Conformity Bill, which passed the commons three times. On 23 Nov. 1704 he introduced a discussion on Scottish affairs, opposing any concessions to Scottish wishes (ib. v. 490, 492). On 15 Nov. 1705 he compromised both himself and his party by moving the ill-advised address to the queen praying her to call to England the heir-presumptive, Sophia of Brunswick. This step completed her alienation from the tories (ib. v. 612;, p. 205). In 1709, although still himself in the position of an occasional conformist, he vehemently opposed the impeachment of Sacheverell, and supported the cry of the church in danger. Haversham died on 1 Nov. 1710 at Richmond, Surrey, and was buried at Haversham.

He was twice married: first, on 14 July 1668, to Frances, daughter of Arthur Annesley, first earl of Anglesey [q. v.], and widow of John Wyndham. She died on 3 March 1704, leaving a son Maurice and six daughters. On the death of Maurice, on 11 April 1745, the titles became extinct. Haversham married, secondly, Martha Graham, a widow, who was buried at Haversham on 13 March 1724.

[Memoirs of John, Lord Haversham, 1711; Life, Birth, and Character of John, Lord Haversham, 1710; Haversham's Speeches; Burnet's Own Time; Wyon's Reign of Anne, i. 217, 312, 383, ii. 102, 180; G. E. C[okayne]'s Peerage; Haydn's Book of Dignities, p. 176; A True Account of the Proceedings relating to the Charge of the House of Commons against John, Lord Haversham.]  THOMPSON, JOHN (1776–1864), admiral, born in 1776, entered the navy in December 1787, and, having been borne on the books of various ships on the home station, joined the Lion in June 1792 with Captain Erasmus Gower [q. v.], and in her made the voyage to China. On his return he was promoted, on 18 Dec. 1794, to be a lieutenant of the Bombay Castle in the Mediterranean, one of the fleet with Hotham in the action off Toulon on 13 July 1795 [see ], with Jervis during the blockade of Toulon in 1796, and wrecked in the Tagus in December 1796. For his exertions at that time in saving life he was commended and thanked by Vice-admiral Charles Thompson [q. v.], the president of the court-martial to inquire into the loss of the ship. He was afterwards in the Acasta in the West Indies, and, having distinguished himself in several boat expeditions, was appointed to his flagship, the Sans Pareil, by Lord Hugh Seymour [q. v.] After Seymour's death he was promoted by his successor, Rear-admiral Robert Montagu, on 28 April 1802, to the command of the Tisiphone sloop. He returned to England in January 1803, commanded a division of Sea Fencibles for a year, and in January 1806 was appointed to the Fly sloop, in which he was for some time in the West Indies, afterwards at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Plate River, where he had command of the flotilla intended to co-operate in the attack on Buenos Ayres, assisted in landing the army, and afterwards in re-embarking it. He was then appointed acting captain of the Fuerte, and went home in charge of convoy; but the admiralty refused to confirm the promotion, and Thompson was sent back to the Fly, which he commanded on the French coast during 1808. In 1809 he commanded a division of the flotilla in the Scheldt, and was advanced to post rank on 21 Oct. 1810. He had no further service, but on 1 Oct. 1846 accepted the rank of rear-admiral on the retired list, on which he rose in course of seniority to be vice-admiral on 27 May 1854, and admiral on 9 June 1860. He died on 30 Jan. 1864, aged 88. He married in 1805 a sister of Dr. Pickering of the Military College at Sandhurst, and had a large family. One


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 son, Thomas Pickering Thompson, died an admiral, at the age of eighty-one, in 1892.

[O'Byrne's Dict. of Naval Biogr.; Gent. Mag. 1864, i. 403, 534; Times, 10 March 1892.]  THOMPSON, JOHN (1785–1866), wood-engraver, son of Richard Thompson, a London merchant, was born at Manchester on 25 May 1785. He learned his art from Allen Robert Branston [q. v.], and became the most distinguished wood-engraver of his time. In the early part of his career he was specially associated with John Thurston [q. v.], by whom he was very beneficially influenced, and about nine hundred of whose designs he engraved, including those for Dibdin's ‘London Theatre,’ 1814–18; Fairfax's ‘Tasso,’ 1817; Puckle's ‘Club,’ 1817; and Butler's ‘Hudibras,’ 1818. In 1818 he produced his largest cut, the diploma of the Highland Society, from a design by Benjamin West. Among the innumerable book illustrations which he subsequently executed, the most noteworthy are those in Singer's edition of Shakespeare, 1826 (after Harvey, Stothard, and Corbould); ‘Mornings at Bow Street’ and ‘Beauties of Washington Irving’ (after George Cruikshank); Rogers's ‘Italy,’ 1828 (after Stothard and Landseer); Goldsmith's ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ 1843 (after Mulready); Bürger's ‘Leonora,’ 1847 (after Maclise); ‘Sir Roger de Coverley,’ 1850 (after Frederick Tayler); and Moxon's edition of Tennyson, 1857. His latest work was the ‘Death of Dundee,’ from a design by Sir Noel Paton, for Aytoun's ‘Lays of the Cavaliers,’ 1863. In 1839 he cut in relief on brass Mulready's design for the penny postage envelope, and in 1852 executed on steel the figure of Britannia which still appears on the Bank of England notes. Thompson's work was much appreciated in France, and he was for many years extensively employed by the Paris publishers upon the designs of Grandville, Ary Scheffer, Tony Johannot, P. Delaroche, Horace Vernet, and other popular book illustrators; at the Paris exhibition of 1855 he was awarded the grand medal of honour for wood engraving. He received, but declined, an invitation from the government of Prussia to settle in that country. From 1852 to 1859 he superintended the female school of wood engraving at South Kensington, and in 1853 delivered a course of valuable lectures on the subject to the students. Thompson was perhaps the ablest exponent that has ever lived of the style of wood engraving which aimed at rivalling the effect of copper, and his cuts in Fairfax's ‘Tasso’ and Puckle's ‘Club’ may be instanced as supreme triumphs of the art. For about fifty years he stood at the head of his profession, and, vast as was the amount of work he produced during that period, he never allowed it to become mechanical or degenerate into a manufacture. He died at South Kensington on 20 Feb. 1866, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. By his wife, Harriott Eaton, to whom he was married in 1807, he had two sons, Charles Thurston Thompson (noticed below) and Richard Anthony Thompson, who was, until 1892, an assistant director of the South Kensington Museum, and survives.

(1791–1843), engraver, younger brother of John Thompson, born in London in 1791, was a pupil of John Bewick [q. v.] and Allen Robert Branston, and became an able wood-engraver. In 1816 he was induced to settle in Paris, where he executed the illustrations to many fine publications. His work was much admired, and in 1824 he was awarded a gold medal. Thompson introduced into France the English method of working on the end of the wood instead of in the direction of the grain, and using the graver instead of the knife. He died at Bourg-la-Reine, near Paris, on 19 May 1843, and his widow was granted a pension by the French government.

(1816–1868), engraver and photographer, son of John Thompson, was born at Peckham, London, on 28 July 1816. He was trained to his father's profession, and for some years practised wood-engraving with success; but after the 1851 exhibition, in the organisation of which he was actively engaged, he took up the new art of photography, and subsequently became the official photographer to the South Kensington Museum. He did much excellent work in reproducing drawings and other works of art in this country, and for the same purpose paid visits to France, Spain, and Portugal. He died in Paris after a short illness, on 22 Jan. 1868, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

[Art Journal, 1866; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Linton's Masters of Wood Engraving; private information.]  THOMPSON, JOHN SPARROW DAVID (1844–1894), premier of Canada, born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 10 Nov. 1844, was son of John Sparrow Thompson, who had emigrated from Waterford, Ireland, to Nova Scotia, and became queen's printer in that colony. His mother was Charlotte Pottinger. John was educated at the public elementary schools and the free church academy in that city. He early gave evidence


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 of great skill in debate. In 1859 he entered the office of Henry Pryor, attorney, and, learning shorthand, was employed as a reporter in the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia. He was called to the bar in January 1865. He soon acquired a good practice, but still kept his work as a reporter in the assembly, becoming in 1867 reporter in chief. This experience proved valuable to him. Having become an alderman of Halifax and chairman of the school commissioners, Thompson in December 1877 entered the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia as member for Antigonish. In 1878 he was re-elected after the general election, and became the local attorney-general in what is usually known as the Holmes-Thompson government, which made a great effort to abolish the Upper House in the local legislature. He became Q.C. in 1879. In 1881, on the retirement of Simon Holmes, he became premier. In July 1882 he was defeated on the municipal corporation bill, a measure designed to consolidate and purify the local administration of Nova Scotia, and therefore opposed to the private interests of large numbers of old office-holders. He was readily induced to retire from political life by the offer of the judgeship of the supreme court of Nova Scotia in 1882. Thompson not only performed with vigour the work of the court, but established a reputation as a jurist. The Nova Scotia Judicature Act of 1884 was a monument of his toil. He delivered a course of lectures at this time in the Dalhousie law school on ‘Evidence.’

In September 1885 Sir John Alexander Macdonald [q. v.] requested Thompson to become minister of justice for the Dominion, and on 16 Oct. 1885 he was elected to the House of Commons for Antigonish. He made his reputation in parliament by his speech of 20 March 1886, defending the action of the government in regard to the execution of Louis Riel [q. v.] In Quebec they called him ‘le pendard;’ in Ontario he was received with acclamation. His amendment of the banking law and codifications of the criminal law in 1886 were the chief legislative products of this period of his life. At the general election in February 1887 Thompson was returned, after a sharp contest, for Antigonish. Later in the year he made a tour through the North-West territories, inspecting the prisons under his charge as minister. Before the end of the year he accompanied Sir Charles Tupper to Washington as legal adviser to the British plenipotentiaries, who negotiated the fishery treaty of that year with the United States. For his services on this occasion he was made K.C.M.G. in August 1888.

In June 1891, on the death of Sir John Macdonald, Thompson was sent for by the governor-general, but stood aside in favour of Sir John Abbott. He took the lead, however, in the Dominion House of Commons, and when Abbott's health failed he became prime minister (November 1892).

In July 1893 Thompson proceeded to Paris as one of the court of arbitrators upon the Behring Sea fisheries question. In the session of 1894 the chief questions with which he dealt were the explanation of the Behring Sea award and the Manitoba schools question. He welcomed the delegates to the intercolonial conference on 28 June 1894. His last public speech in Canada was delivered in unveiling Sir John Macdonald's statue at Toronto. On 13 Oct. he left for England, partly on private business, which took him as far as Italy, partly to discuss the vexed question of copyright with the imperial government. He died suddenly at Windsor Castle on 13 Dec., shortly after he had been sworn of the privy council. His body was embalmed and taken for burial to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by her majesty's ship Blenheim. He was there accorded a state funeral.

Thompson married, in 1871, Annie, daughter of Captain Affleck, and left two sons and three daughters. He became a Roman catholic in the year after his marriage.

Sir John Macdonald was once heard to say, ‘My greatest discovery was Thompson.’ The two were often spoken of as ‘the two Johns.’ His devotion to public duty left him a poor man, and his colleagues promoted a national subscription for his family when he died. His portrait hangs in the conservative caucus room of the Dominion House of Commons.

[Montreal Daily Herald, 13 Dec. 1894; Montreal Gazette, 13 Dec. 1894; Toronto Globe, 13 Dec. 1894; Times, 13, 14, 15 Dec. 1894; Castell Hopkins's Life and Work of Sir John Thompson, 1895.]  THOMPSON, JOHN VAUGHAN (1779–1847), zoologist, was born on 19 Nov. 1779, and when a youth lived at Berwick-on-Tweed, where he learnt medicine and surgery. At the age of twenty Thompson joined the Prince of Wales's fencibles as assistant surgeon, and on 15 Dec. 1799 was ordered to sail with the 37th foot for Gibraltar. Three months later his regiment embarked for the West Indies and Guiana, to take part in the war against the Dutch, and in the engagements that followed Thompson was present (as staff-surgeon) at the taking of Demerara and Berbice, and was made full surgeon in 1803. In 1807 he


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Author:Bryan Edwards

Works

 * Thoughts on the Late Proceedings of Government Respecting the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of America
 * The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (1797)
 * An Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo (1801)

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 a ‘Catalogue of Plants growing in the vicinity of Berwick-on-Tweed.’ While in the military service he interested himself in zoological work. During his nine years' service in the West Indies he described in 1809 a new pouched-rat from Jamaica, Mus anomalus (Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. ii. 1815), while he observed and was the first to explain the habit of land-crabs in going down to the sea to spawn, and the changes of form which the young crab undergoes during development.

At the close of 1809 Thompson returned to England, and on 6 Feb. 1810 was elected to the fellowship of the Linnean Society, in whose ‘Transactions’ (1808, vol. ix.) his observations on certain British birds had already been published. In 1812 Thompson sailed for Madagascar and the Mauritius, where he spent four years. He was deputed to introduce vaccine into Madagascar for two successive years, and devoted a considerable part of the remainder of the time to an examination of the famous extinct Mascarene birds. His observations on the dodo appeared in the ‘Magazine of Natural History’ for 1829.

After his return in 1816 Thompson settled at Cork as district medical inspector, and completed those wonderful discoveries of the life-histories of the marine invertebrata of the Cove of Cork, which made his name famous. In 1830 he was appointed deputy inspector-general, and in 1835 he went to Sydney in charge of the convict medical department and as acting officer of health. He remained in New South Wales until his death at Sydney on 21 Jan. 1847.

Vaughan Thompson has secured a permanent place in zoological literature through his discoveries of the nature and life-histories of the feather-star (Antedon, belonging to the Crinoid echinodermata), the polyzoa, the cirripedes (or barnacles), and several divisions of the crustacea. Our present conceptions of the structure of these forms, of their zoological position, and of the metamorphoses which they undergo, date from Thompson's papers.

The first of these, ‘A Memoir on Pentacrinus Europæus, a recent species discovered in the Cove of Cork’ (1 July 1823, Cork, 4to, 2 plates), announced the presence of a stalked crinoid in our seas; the discovery that the crinoidea were truly ‘radiata,’ and that (as was shown more fully by a second paper in the ‘Edinburgh New Philosophical Transactions,’ 1836) this pentacrinus was really the young stage of antedon, the feather-star. These startling conclusions drew the attention of zoologists in France, Germany, and elsewhere to Thompson's work, and many of his succeeding papers were translated or abstracted into scientific journals abroad.

In September 1828 there appeared the first number of Thompson's ‘Zoological Researches,’ published at Cork, containing an account of the life-history of the shore-crab. With the exception of Slabber, who published some observations on the subject at Haarlem in 1778, Thompson was the first to point out that, contrary to the received opinion, the crab passes through such a remarkable series of changes of form and structure in attaining the adult condition as to constitute a veritable metamorphosis. The greater part of the remainder of Thompson's work, of which six numbers appeared between 1828 and 1834, consisted in the detection of the metamorphosis in other groups of the crustacea.

His third discovery was the nature and life-histories of barnacles (Zool. Researches, No. iii., 1830, and Phil. Trans. 1835). Up to 1830 these animals, chiefly owing to Cuvier's influence, had been classed with the mollusca. Thompson showed that from their structure, and the nature and fate of their larvæ, the cirripedes must be considered to form a division of the crustacea.

The last of Thompson's more important discoveries was that of ‘Polyzoa, a new Animal discovered as an Inhabitant of some zoophytes’ (Zool. Researches, No. iv., Memoir v., December 1830). This paper demonstrated ‘another form of animal not hitherto known, and which, while it must be allowed to belong to a new type of mollusca acephala, resembles exteriorly in some measure the hydra.’ ‘This discovery will remove that part of the sertularia not provided with distinct oviferous receptacles to the class mollusca acephala, as well as such other genera as may hereafter be found similarly circumstanced.’ These and other passages clearly show that Thompson used the term ‘polyzoa’ as the name of a colonial animal exhibiting a distinct type of structure and hitherto confounded with hydroid polypes (for the discussion of Thompson's meaning of polyzoa see British Marine Polyzoa, i. 131).

There is no complete list of Vaughan Thompson's works. Papers contributed by him to learned societies are to be found in the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue’ (v. 958–9). Besides an important paper (Entomol. Mag. 1836) containing a large number of observations on Sacculina, a parasite of crabs, on land crabs, and other crustacea, Thompson evidently wrote, but never published, works on the development of parasitic copepoda, since he announced several discoveries in the covers of his ‘Zoological Researches.’


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Author:Abel Hendy Jones Greenidge

Works

 * Infamia in Roman Law
 * Handbook of Greek Constitutional History
 * Roman Public Life
 * History of Rome
 * joint-author of Sources of Roman History, 133-70 B.C.
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 BOOK I

COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE

TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS, 1583–1763

THE HISTORIANS, 1607–1783

THE PURITAN DIVINES, 1620–1720

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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Feuerbach, Paul Johann Anselm von

FEUERBACH, Paul Johann Anselm von, powl yō'hän än'zelm fon, German jurist and criminal law reformer: b. Hainichen, near Jena, 14 Nov. 1775; d. Frankfort-on-Main, 29 May 1833. He was professor at Jena (1801), Kiel (1802), Landshut (1804); planned a new penal code for Bavaria, which was enunciated in 1813, and was subsequently adopted by other governments. He was later president of the Court of Appeals at Anspach. Among his best-known works are ‘Critique of Natural Law’ (1796); ‘Anti-Hobbes’ (1798); ‘Lehrbuch des gemeinen in Deutschland geltenden peinlichen Privatrechts’ (1801); ‘Merkwürdige Kriminalrechtsfälle’ (1808-11); ‘Kaspar Hauser: An Instance of a Crime Against a Soul’ (1832). His works rendered notable service in the humanizing of judicial punishment and in paving the way for a psychological treatment of criminal cases.


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 His last papers dealt with the growing of cotton and sugar-cane (India Agric. Soc. Journal, 1842–5, vols. i–iv.)

Vaughan Thompson's work has not been fully appreciated. Probably no naturalist has ever written so little, and that so good. In his lifetime the discoveries Thompson made were combated by men of authority, and since his death they have too often been accepted without due acknowledgment or have been attributed to later observers.

THOMPSON, MATTHEW WILLIAM (1820–1891), railway director, born at Manningham in the West Riding of Yorkshire on 1 Feb. 1820, was the son of Matthew Thompson of Manningham Lodge, Bradford, by Elizabeth Sarah, daughter of the Rev. William Atkinson of Thorparch. He was educated at private schools and at Trinity College, Cambridge, whence he matriculated in 1840, graduating B.A. in 1843 and M.A. in 1846. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1847, and for ten years practised as a conveyancing counsel. Having married on 10 May 1843 Mary Anne, daughter of his uncle, Benjamin Thompson of Parkgate, Guiseley, who possessed the controlling influence in the old brewery, Bradford, he retired from the bar in 1857 and went to Bradford to take a part in the management and development of the brewery. Almost immediately he began to take an active share in the conduct of municipal affairs, becoming a town councillor in 1858, an alderman in 1860, and mayor of Bradford in 1862. In 1865 he was elected a director of the Midland railway, and in 1867 was returned as a liberal-conservative borough member for Bradford, with William Edward Forster [q. v.] as his colleague. He was no ardent politician, and did not stand at the general election in 1868; but on the unseating of the conservative member, Henry William Ripley, in March 1869, he again contested the constituency, but was defeated. In 1871 and 1872 he was re-elected mayor of Bradford, and in October 1873 was publicly entertained and a presentation of plate made to him in recognition of his services. In 1879 Thompson became chairman of the Midland railway company, which concern immediately began to reap benefit from his prudent and energetic management. He was also chairman of the Glasgow and South-Western railway, and a director and some time chairman of the Forth Bridge railway company. The sanction of parliament for the erection of the Forth Bridge had been obtained in 1873, but the work was not begun till 1882, when the direction of the policy of the Midland railway company was greatly influenced by Thompson. The shareholders of the Forth Bridge company were guaranteed 4 per cent. on their capital by the North British, Midland, Great Northern, and North-Eastern companies, and the great work was completed in January 1890, and formally opened by the Prince of Wales on 4 March 1890. On this occasion a baronetcy was conferred upon Thompson, in recognition of the ability with which he had helped forward the undertaking.

Thompson resigned the chairmanship of the Midland railway company in 1890, owing to failing health. He died at Guiseley on 1 Dec. 1891, and was buried on 5 Dec. in the churchyard, Guiseley. By his wife, who survived him, he left three sons and two daughters. There is a portrait of Thompson by Mr. Herkomer, R.A., in the possession of the Midland railway company.

THOMPSON, PISHEY (1784–1862), historian of Boston, was born at Peachey Hall, Freiston, near Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1784. While engaged as a bank clerk at Boston he began to collect materials for a history of that town and the neighbouring villages. His intention to publish such a work was announced in 1807, and he continued his labours until 1819, when he removed to the United States. His materials were then arranged and published under the title of ‘Collections for a Topographical and Historical Account of Boston and the Hundred of Skirbeck in the County of Lincoln,’ 1820. While in America he followed the occupation of a bookseller and publisher at Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, where he formed the acquaintance of Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and other leading men. When he returned to England in 1846 he resumed work on his book, which he eventually published in 1856 as ‘The History and Antiquities of Boston and the Villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Bennington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle, comprising the Hundred of Skirbeck in the County of Lincoln’ (royal 8vo, pp. xxii, 824). This work is admirably arranged and executed, and well illustrated and indexed. He died at Stoke Newington on 25 Sept. 1862, and was buried at Abney Park cemetery. He was married, but had no children. His


text: Author:May Robinson

title: Author:May Robinson


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 wife, whose maiden name was Jane Tonge, was the author of a small volume of poems.

[Pref. to Hist. of Boston; Gent. Mag. 1862, ii. 651; information kindly supplied by Mr. Charles Wright, sen. and Miss J. E. Smith of Boston.]  THOMPSON, SAMUEL (1766–1837), founder of the ‘Freethinking Christians,’ born in Aldgate, London, on 7 June 1766, was the son of Samuel King Thompson, victualler, of the Bell, Church Row, Houndsditch, by his wife Catherine. He was admitted to Christ's Hospital on 5 May 1774, and after his discharge, on 6 June 1780, was apprenticed to a watchmaker in Whitechapel. Before he was twenty he married and set up in business for himself. Fond of society and a good singer, his business did not prosper. He left the watch trade for a wine and spirit business in East Smithfield. His wife's death turned him to religion; he remarried, took seriously to business, became eminent as a ‘gin-spinner,’ and regulated his trade by strict measures against drunkenness and loose language. Up to this point he was a churchman; a casual hearing of Elhanan Winchester, the universalist, led him to become a member (23 Sept. 1794) of his congregation in Parliament Court, Bishopsgate. He was made deacon on 16 Aug. 1795, and ‘set apart’ with three others for ‘public service’ on 8 Jan. 1796. He was afternoon preacher, and distinguished himself by arguing against deists at open-air meetings, but soon quarrelled with William Vidler [q. v.], Winchester's successor, on a point of pastoral authority. With twenty-one others he seceded on 19 Nov. 1798, the schism being primarily a protest against a one-man ministry and the payment of preachers.

On Christmas-day 1798 the seceders opened a meeting-room at 38 Old Change, and at once announced their rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity, retaining, however, for some time, the doctrine of our Lord's pre-existence. They rejected also baptism and the eucharist, as well as public singing and prayer; and met for scripture reading and study, addresses, and discussion. Their rules of membership and exclusion were strict, and strictly enforced. They took the name of ‘The Church of God,’ elected an elder (Thompson) and deacons on 24 March 1799, and published their laws of church government in 1800. In March 1804 large audiences were attracted to their meetings by their public replies to Paine's ‘Age of Reason.’ The name ‘Freethinking Christians’ was now given them by outsiders, and accepted by themselves, though their title of association remained as above.

Thompson left business in April 1806, retiring with about 300l. a year to Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire, for the education of his children. Contention in his church brought him back to London; he resumed the spirit business on Holborn Hill at midsummer 1807. On 20 Dec. his followers changed their place of meeting to 5 Cateaton Street, formerly the Paul's Head tavern. They advertised that they were going to ‘inquire’ into the existence of ‘a being called the Devil.’ Beilby Porteus [q. v.], bishop of London, called the attention of the authorities to these proceedings in an unlicensed conventicle. Thompson and four others were cited (5 Feb. 1808) by the city marshal. They applied for license as protestant dissenters, and obtained it with some little trouble. In 1810 they built a meeting-house, on a short lease, in Jewin Crescent, soon started a magazine, and made attacks on the unitarian leaders, Thomas Belsham [q. v.] and Robert Aspland [q. v.] In December 1813 Thompson, regarding marriage as purely a civil act and the Anglican marriage service as ‘idolatrous,’ suggested that, on occasions of marriage, a protest should be delivered to the officiating clergyman and advertised in the newspapers. This policy was carried out (10 June 1814) on the marriage of Thompson's eldest daughter, Mary Ann, to William Coates; it was persistently continued, occasionally causing scandalous scenes, till the grievance was remedied by the marriage act of 1836.

On the expiry (about 1820) of the Jewin Crescent lease, meetings were held in High Holborn. There was now (1821) a small secession, led by William Stevens, of members dissatisfied with Thompson's personal rule and dictatorial manner, meeting in Moorfields, and claiming to be the true ‘church of God.’ Thompson's friends built a meeting-house (1831) on freehold property in St. John's Square, Clerkenwell. William Coates was their leader; Thompson, who was now living at Plaistow, Essex, being reduced to inactivity by ill-health. He finally retired from business in 1831 (his son-in-law had long been the managing partner); and, at his own request (1 Jan. 1832), he was released from ‘public service’ by his church. He was still, however, involved in its disputes. In 1834, having made up his old quarrel with Robert Aspland, he published a series of papers in Aspland's magazine, ‘The Christian Reformer,’ on the ‘unity and exclusiveness of the church of God.’ This was done ‘without the previous con-


text:
Author:Moreton John Walhouse

Works

 * On Some Formerly Existing Antiquities on the Nilgiris. Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/311
 * On Some Formerly Existing Antiquities on the Nilgiris. Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/311
 * On Some Formerly Existing Antiquities on the Nilgiris. Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/311

title: Author:Moreton John Walhouse


text: Folk-Lore/Volume 4/The Folk

title: Folk-Lore/Volume 4/The Folk


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Thompson sent of the church, as required by their laws.’ He asked and obtained indemnity (27 July); but the dispute continued, and Thompson, though claiming to be ‘the founder of the church, God's agent,’ was served (17 Nov.) with notice of expulsion. He was, in fact, expelled (21 Dec.), but not before he had rallied his immediate following and been elected (14 Dec.) elder of another, and the only real, ‘church of God.’ The revolt against Thompson, headed by John Dillon, partner of James Morrison [q. v.], had no continuance. The original society became extinct in 1851, having survived its branches at Battle, Dewsbury, Loughborough, and a few other places.

Thompson died at Reigate, Surrey, on 20 Nov. 1837, and was buried in the graveyard of the General Baptist chapel at Ditchling, Sussex. An epitaph, his own composition, gives the articles of his creed, and adds ‘The good loved him, and the base hated, because they feared.’ He married, first, on 27 May 1786, Ann Kilbinton (d. 1789), by whom he had two children, who died in infancy; secondly, on 25 Dec. 1793, Mary Fletcher (1777–1850), by whom he had four sons and eight daughters. Sydney Thompson Dobell [q. v.], the poet, was his grandson, his daughter Julietta having married John Dobell on 23 May 1823, with the usual protest.

Besides a few tracts, he published ‘Evidences of Revealed Religion,’ 1812; 4th ed. 1842, 12mo; and contributed to the ‘Universalist's Miscellany,’ 1797–9; the ‘Freethinking Christian's Magazine,’ 1811–14; and the ‘Freethinking Christian's Quarterly Register,’ 1824–5.

[Memoir by J. D. [John Dobell] in Christian Reformer, 1838, pp. 67 sq.; Memoir, prefixed to Evidences, 1842 (portrait); Monthly Repository, 1808, p. 284; Stevens's Antidote to Intolerance, 1821; Coates's Plea for the Unity, 1828; Reports and other Documents relative to the Free-thinking Christians, 1835; Declaration of certain Members, 1835; Brief Account of the … Free-thinking Christians, 1841; Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, 1878, i. 64 sq. (account of Thompson by Clarence Dobell); manuscript account (1877) by Joseph Calrow Means [q. v.]; manuscript information (1896) from the late Sir James Clarke Lawrence, bart.; tombstones at Ditchling.]  THOMPSON, THEOPHILUS (1807–1860), physician, son of Nathaniel Thompson, was born at Islington on 20 Sept. 1807. His early professional education was received at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1830, the subject of his inaugural dissertation being ‘De effectibus aliquando perniciosis missionis sanguinis.’ He also studied at Paris with Louis, Andral, and Dupuytren, and attended the lectures of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire at the Jardin des Plantes. Soon after settling down to practice in London he was appointed physician to the Northern Dispensary, which office he held for fourteen years; he was also one of the lecturers at the Grosvenor Place school of medicine. In 1847 he was elected physician to the hospital for consumption, then situated in Marlborough Street; in this institution he took great interest, and his writings show how thoroughly he availed himself of his opportunities for studying the disease. He first introduced cod-liver oil into England, and was the first to give bismuth to arrest the diarrhœa of phthisis, and oxide of zinc for night sweats. The nomenclature of physical signs in lung affections, now in use, is largely due to his suggestions.

Thompson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1846, and in the ‘Proceedings’ of that society (vii. 41 and ix. 474) are two papers by him on the changes produced in the blood by the administration of cod-liver oil and cocoanut oil. He filled the presidential chairs of the Medical and Harveian societies, and contributed five papers to the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. Thompson died on 11 Aug. 1860. He married the second daughter of Nathaniel Watkin of Stroud, Gloucestershire. Thompson was the author of: 1. ‘On the Improvement of Medicine,’ an oration, 1838. 2. ‘History of the Epidemics of Influenza in Great Britain from 1510 to 1837’ (Sydenham Soc.), 1852; a new edition bringing the subject down to 1890 was issued by his son, Dr. E. Symes Thompson, in 1890. 3. ‘Clinical Lectures on Pulmonary Consumption,’ 1854. 4. ‘Lettsomian Lectures on Pulmonary Consumption.’ He also contributed the articles ‘Chorea,’ ‘Hysteria,’ ‘Neuralgia,’ and ‘Influenza’ to Tweedie's ‘Library of Medicine.’ There are in the possession of the family a watercolour portrait by Alfred Essex and a miniature by William Essex.

[Lancet, 1860, ii. 276; Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. xi. p. xxxi; private information kindly supplied by his sons, Dr. E. Symes Thompson and Rev. A. P. Thompson.]  THOMPSON, THOMAS (1708?–1773), missionary and apologist for the African slave trade, son of William Thompson, was born at Gilling in the North Riding of Yorkshire about 1708. He was educated at Richmond school, and on 19 Feb. 1727–8 was admitted


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 to Christ's College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1731–2 and proceeded M.A. in 1735. He was elected a fellow on 5 June 1738 and was appointed college curate at Fen Drayton, near Cambridge, on 5 May 1744. On 8 May 1745 he sailed for New York in the Albany, under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to take charge of the churches in Monmouth county, New Jersey, his fellowship being declared vacant on 21 April 1746. At the close of 1751 he proceeded to the coast of Guinea in order to establish a mission there. Not meeting with much success, and being unable to endure the climate, he left Africa in 1756, and, after visiting the West Indies, returned to England. On 26 Aug. 1757 he was appointed vicar of Reculver in Kent, and on 1 Dec. 1761 vicar of Eleham in the same county, where he died on 5 June 1773.

Thompson was the author of:
 * 1) ‘An Account of two Missionary Voyages,’ London, 1758, 8vo, which was translated into German by Johann Tobias Koehler, and published in 1767 in the first volume of his ‘Sammlung neuer Reisebeschreibungen aus fremden Sprachen’ (Göttingen, 8vo).
 * 2) ‘The African Trade for Negro Slaves shown to be consistent with the Principles of Humanity and with the Laws of Revealed Religion,’ Canterbury, 1772, 8vo; for the latter work Thompson, without considering the subject very deeply, draws his arguments from Aristotle and his illustration from the Pentateuch. It drew a reply from  [q. v.]

THOMPSON, THOMAS (1817-1878), naturalist. [See .]

THOMPSON, THOMAS BOULDEN (1766?–1828), bart., vice-admiral, son of Mr. Boulden, by his wife Sarah, sister of Captain  [q. v.], was born at Barham in Kent 28 Feb. probably in 1766. Borne on the books of different ships, he first went to sea in 1778 in the Hyæna with his uncle. He served in the Hyæna throughout her commission, on the home station, in the West Indies, and on the coast of South America, and was promoted to be lieutenant on 14 Jan. 1782. In 1783 he was appointed, again with his uncle, to the Grampus on the west coast of Africa; and, on his uncle's death, was promoted by the senior officer to be commander of the Nautilus, a promotion afterwards confirmed though dated 27 March 1786, two months later than the original commission. In 1787 he brought the Nautilus home and went on half-pay. He was advanced to post rank on 22 Nov. 1790, but had no employment till the autumn of 1796. He was then appointed to the 50-gun ship Leander, in which in the spring of 1797 he joined Lord St. Vincent off Cadiz. He was shortly afterwards detached with the squadron under Sir [q. v.], against Teneriffe, being specially included on account of his ‘local knowledge,’ gained, presumably, while in the Grampus or Nautilus. In the unfortunate attempt on Santa Cruz Thompson received a wound, not so severe, however, as to necessitate his going home. He remained with the fleet, and in the following summer was again detached with the squadron sent into the Mediterranean to reinforce Sir Horatio Nelson, and eventually to fight the battle of the Nile on 1–2 Aug. The Leander could not be counted as a ship of the line; but by taking up a position between two of the French ships, she—while herself in comparative safety—raked the two French ships and the ships beyond them with terrible effect, and had a disproportionate share in the success attained. He was afterwards ordered by Nelson to carry home Captain [q. v.] with his despatches; but falling in with the French 74-gun ship Généreux, near the west-end of Crete, on 18 Aug., the Leander, after a brilliant defence, in which both Thompson and Berry were severely wounded, was captured and taken to Corfu. Thence they were allowed to return overland to England; when Thompson, being tried by court-martial for the loss of his ship, was specially complimented as deserving of every praise his country and the court could give, for ‘his gallant and almost unprecedented defence of the Leander against so superior a force as that of the Généreux.’ On his acquittal, Thompson was knighted and awarded a pension of 200l. per annum.

In the spring of 1799 he was appointed to the 74-gun ship Bellona, one of the fleet off Brest under Lord Bridport. He was shortly afterwards sent into the Mediterranean; but a few months later he returned to the Channel and took part in the blockade of Brest, till in March 1801 the Bellona was attached to the fleet for the Baltic under Sir [q. v.] When it was determined that Nelson should attack the Danish fleet and the defences of Copenhagen, the Bellona was one of the ships selected for the work. But in entering the channel on the morning of 2 April she unfortunately took the ground on the edge of the


text:
Author:Arthur John Evans

Works

 * Through Bosnia on Foot
 * Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phonecian Script
 * (Archaeology and Ancient History)

title: Author:Arthur John Evans


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Benjamin (1776?-1816)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Charles


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Edward


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Gilbert


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Harry Stephen Meysey


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Henry (1797-1878)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Henry Langhorne


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Jacob


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, John (fl.1382)


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Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v1.djvu/20

 EDWARDS

PHILOSOPHERS AND DIVINES, 1720–1789

FRANKLIN

COLONIAL NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES, 1704–1775


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HE English folk who became Americans during the early years of the seventeenth century kept the language of the relatives and friends whom they left, and with it their share in the literary heritage of the race. They owed much to the influences surrounding them in their new homes, but such skill in writing as they possessed came with them from the other side of the Atlantic. The names of an earlier group of adventurers are associated with the New World because they made a voyage along its coastline or resided for a little while at some seaside settlement. Sir Humphrey Gilbert on his homeward voyage from the New-found-land in 1583, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, while the Golden Hind was tossed by "terrible seas breaking short and high pyramidwise," is the finest type of the seamen who made the English occupation of America possible. The narrative of Gilbert's fatal voyage, written by Edward Haie, found a place in the ample store-house of adventurous records which makes all who love good reading and virile English the debtors of Richard Hakluyt.

It is an accident of geography which gives American readers a valid claim upon Humphrey Gilbert and his precursors and successors who told their straightforward tales for Hakluyt or for the booksellers who issued the scores of thin pamphlets in which Londoners first read about the trans-Atlantic voyage. These were in their day only a few among the many pamphlets which entertained the frequenters of St. Paul's churchyard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, John (1647-1710)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, John (1776-1864)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, John (1785-1866)


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2 with experiences in odd corners of the Mediterranean or of the Indian Ocean, or along the Arctic route to Central Asia. They all shared in developing the British Empire and English literature. Martin Frobisher and North-West-Foxe beyond the polar circle, Thomas Harlot inside the Carolina sandspits, and Sir Richard Hawkins in the Gulf of Mexico are by this chance of geography given a place at the beginning of the annals of American literature, instead of sharing the scant notice allotted to their equally deserving contemporaries whom fate led elsewhere. The same fate sent Francis Drake to sojourn for a time on the California coast, and it likewise set in motion the economic and political forces which two centuries later transferred this region into the keeping of the English race, thereby adding the great circumnavigator to the American roll. Later came one whom Americans have adopted as a folk hero, Captain John Smith. He risked his life with equal abandon in Flanders and Turkey and Potowatomy's land, but Virginia claims him as her own. He may have been, as it was once the fashion to proclaim, an inordinate liar, but whatever the historians say, the certain fact is that what he wrote was read in his own day and has ever since been read by thousands who have identified him with the first English colony. "And this is as much as my memory can call to mind worthie of note; which I have purposely collected, to satisfie my friends of the true worth and qualitie of Virginia." So John Smith wrote at the end of his "Description" of that colony published in 1612.

Yet some bad natures will not sticke to slander the Countrey, that will slovenly spit at all things, especially in company where they can find none to contradict them. Who though they were scarse ever 10 miles from James Town, or at the most but at the falles; yet holding it a great disgrace that amongst so much action, their actions were nothing, exclaime of all things, though they never adventured to knowe any thing; nor ever did any thing but devoure the fruits of other mens labours. Being for most part of such tender educations and small experience in martiall accidents, because they found not English cities, nor such faire houses, nor at their


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, John Sparrow David


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, John Vaughan


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Matthew William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Pishey


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Theophilus


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Thomas (1708?-1773)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Thomas Boulden


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thompson, Thomas Perronet


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Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/98

xcvi


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Author:Alexander Nairne

Works

 * The Bible Doctrine of Atonement

title: Author:Alexander Nairne


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 seats in a cart, and returned to Paris along a road with a double line of vehicles of all sorts going both ways. Every few rods were guards on foot, and gens d'armes on horseback, to see that all went well; and we at last reached our hotel, tired and dusty, but pleased with all we had seen, and at having had such an opportunity to see, to compare, and to judge of the habits of a people so widely different from either Americans or English.

September 8. We went to pay our respects to Baron Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire; we saw only the first, who told us to be at the Académie Royale des Sciences in an hour. I had hired a portfolio, and took my work. As soon as we entered, Baron Cuvier very politely came to us, ordered a porter to put my book on a table, and gave me a seat of honor. The séance was opened by a tedious lecture on the vision of the Mole; then Cuvier arose, announcing my friend Swainson and me and spoke of my work; it was shown and admired as usual, and Cuvier requested to review it for the "Mémoires of the Academy." Poor Audubon! here thou art, a simple woodsman, among a crowd of talented men, yet kindly received by all—so are the works of God as shown in His birds loved by them. I left my book, that the librarian might show it to all who wished to see it.

September 9. Went to the Jardin du Roi, where I met young Geoffrey, who took me to a man who stuffs birds for the Prince d'Essling, who, I was told, had a copy of my work, but after much talk could not make out whether it was Wilson's, Selby's, or mine. I am to call on him to-morrow. I took a great walk round the Boulevards, looking around me and thinking how curious my life has been, and how wonderful my present situation is. I took Mrs. Swainson to the Louvre, and as we were about to pass one of the gates of the Tuileries, the sentinel stopped us, saying no one could pass with a fur cap; so we went to another

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Rh AMERICAN POLITICAL WRITING, 1760–1789

THE BEGINNINGS OF VERSE, 1610–1808

BOOK II

EARLY NATIONAL LITERATURE

TRAVELLERS AND OBSERVERS, 1763–1846

THE EARLY DRAMA, 1766–1860


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xvi {| style="border: 0px; text-align: left; margin: 0em auto 0em auto;" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"
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 * The Closing of the Theatres. The Revolutionary Satirists. Tyler's Contrast. William Dunlap. J. N. Barker. J. H. Payne. Beginning of the Creative Period. Stone's Metamora. The Philadelphia Group: R. M. Bird, R. P. Smith, Conrad, Boker. Types of Drama. Romantic Tragedy. Historical and National Plays. Comedy and Melodrama. The "Yankee" Plays. The Realistic New York Drama. Social Satire. Romantic Comedy. Gothic Melodrama. Domestic Drama. Farce. The Periods in the Development of the American Drama.
 * The Closing of the Theatres. The Revolutionary Satirists. Tyler's Contrast. William Dunlap. J. N. Barker. J. H. Payne. Beginning of the Creative Period. Stone's Metamora. The Philadelphia Group: R. M. Bird, R. P. Smith, Conrad, Boker. Types of Drama. Romantic Tragedy. Historical and National Plays. Comedy and Melodrama. The "Yankee" Plays. The Realistic New York Drama. Social Satire. Romantic Comedy. Gothic Melodrama. Domestic Drama. Farce. The Periods in the Development of the American Drama.
 * The Closing of the Theatres. The Revolutionary Satirists. Tyler's Contrast. William Dunlap. J. N. Barker. J. H. Payne. Beginning of the Creative Period. Stone's Metamora. The Philadelphia Group: R. M. Bird, R. P. Smith, Conrad, Boker. Types of Drama. Romantic Tragedy. Historical and National Plays. Comedy and Melodrama. The "Yankee" Plays. The Realistic New York Drama. Social Satire. Romantic Comedy. Gothic Melodrama. Domestic Drama. Farce. The Periods in the Development of the American Drama.
 * align="right" valign="bottom"|
 * }

EARLY ESSAYISTS

IRVING

BRYANT AND THE MINOR POETS

FICTION I: BROWN, COOPER


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Rh owne wishes any of their accustomed dainties, with feather beds and downe pillowes, Tavernes and alehouses in every breathing place, neither such plenty of gold and silver and dissolute liberty as they expected, [they] had little or no care of any thing, but to pamper their bellies, to fly away with our Pinnaces, or procure their means to returne for England. For the Country was to them a miserie, a ruine, a death, a hell, and their reports here, and their owne actions there according.

Straightforwardness of narrative was characteristic of the period. This quality, and the absence of literary consciousness, distinguish the accounts written by these English seafarers from the productions of the rival French and Spanish voyagers. Each adapted his style to the public which he sought to influence. They were all alike trying to start or to accelerate the stream which was to transform the Western hemisphere into a part of the European world. Consequently the English tracts rarely possess qualities which separate them from the rest of the mass of seventeenth-century travel-books. Another result is that nearly all of them are more easily read, three centuries later, than the Continental output of the same period.

The corner of the New-found-land which retained this distinctive name exerted an especial attraction in the earlier days upon the adventurers who felt a longing to express themselves in literary form. Humphrey Gilbert was accompanied thither by the learned Stephen Parmenius of Buda, whose Latin verses "Ad Thamesin" are preserved on Hakluyt's pages. One of the first Englishmen to establish an American residence was William Vaughn, a Welshman and the composer of an amazing volume called The Golden Fleece … Transported from Cambrioll Colchos, out of the Southermost Part of the Iland commonly called the Newfoundland, By Orpheus Junior, to London, where it was printed in 1626. This work has long been the butt of despairing historians, who have sought for the Ariadnean thread which should guide them through its 350 pages of puerile fancies, discursive theology, significant episodes, and rhymed prose. For the reader who skips casually from paragraph to paragraph, the volume yields an entertaining notion of what was talked about in the fishing shacks on the


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Rh gate, where no such challenge was given, and reached the Grand Gallery. Here amongst the Raphaels, Correggios, Titians, Davids, and thousands of others, we feasted our eyes and enlarged our knowledge. Taking Mrs. Swainson home, I then made for L'Institut de France by appointment, and gave my prospectus to the secretary of the library. Young Geoffroy, an aimable and learned young man, paid me every attention, and gave me a room for Swainson and myself to write in and for the inspection of specimens. How very different from the public societies in England, where instead of being bowed to, you have to bow to every one. Now, my Lucy, I have certainly run the gauntlet of England and Paris, and may feel proud of two things, that I am considered the first ornithological painter, and the first practical naturalist of America; may God grant me life to accomplish my serious and gigantic work.

September 10. Breakfast over, I made for the Boulevards to present the letters from good friends Rathbone and Melly. I saw Mr. B——, the banker, who read the letter I gave him, and was most polite, but as to ornithology, all he knew about it was that large feathers were called quills, and were useful in posting ledgers. From there to the Jardin du Roi, where I called on Monsieur L. C. Kiener, bird stuffer to the Prince of Massena (or Essling), who wished me to call on the Prince with him at two, the Prince being too ill to leave the house. Mr. and Mrs. Swainson were to go with me to see the collection he had made, of many curious and beautiful things, and when we reached the house we were shown at once to the museum, which surpasses in magnificence and number of rare specimens of birds, shells, and books, all I have yet seen. This for a while, when I was told the Prince would receive me. I took my pamphlet in my arms and entered a fine room, where he was lying on a sofa; he rose at once,

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314 bowed, and presented his beautiful wife. As soon as I had untied my portfolio, and a print was seen, both exclaimed, "Ah! c'est bien beau!" I was asked if I did not know Charles Bonaparte, and when I said yes, they again both exclaimed, "Ah! c'est lui, the gentleman of whom we have heard so much, the man of the woods, who has made so many and such wonderful drawings." The Prince regretted very much there were so few persons in France able to subscribe to such a work, and said I must not expect more than six or eight names in Paris. He named all whom he and his lady knew, and then said it would give him pleasure to add his name to my list; he wrote it himself, next under that of the Duke of Rutland. This prince, son of the famous marshal, is about thirty years of age, apparently delicate, pale, slender, and yet good-looking, entirely devoted to Natural History; his wife a beautiful young woman, not more than twenty, extremely graceful and polite. They both complimented me on the purity of my French, and wished me all success. My room at the hotel being very cramped, I have taken one at L'Hôtel de France, large, clean, and comfortable, for which I pay twenty-five sous a day. We are within gun-shot of Les Jardins des Tuileries. The retraite is just now beating. This means that a few drummers go through the streets at eight o'clock in the evening, beating their drums, to give notice to all soldiers to make for their quarters. September 12. I went early to Rue Richelieu to see the librarian of the King, Mr. Van Praët, a small, white-haired gentleman, who assured me in the politest manner imaginable that it was out of the question to subscribe for such a work; he, however, gave me a card of introduction to M. Barbier, a second librarian, belonging to the King's private library at the Louvre. On my way I posted my letters for London; the inland postage of a single letter from Paris to London is twenty-four sous, and the mail for London leaves four days in the week. M. Barbier was out, but

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xii describe; a more copious and critical enquiry might indeed deserve, but it would demand, an elaborate volume, which might swell by degrees into a general library of historical writers. For the present I shall content myself with renewing my serious protestation, that I have always endeavoured to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend.

I shall soon visit the banks of the lake of Lausanne, a country which I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild government, amidst a beauteous landskip, in a life of leisure and independence, and among a people of easy and elegant manners, I have enjoyed, and may again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures of retirement and society. But I shall ever glory in the name and character of an Englishman: I am proud of my birth in a free and enlightened country; and the approbation of that country is the best and most honourable reward for my labours. Were I ambitious of any other Patron than the Public, I would inscribe this work to a Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate administration, had many political opponents, almost without a personal enemy: who has retained, in his fall from power, many faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigour of his mind, and the felicity of his incomparable temper. will permit me to express the feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but even truth and friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed the favours of the crown.

In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear that my readers, perhaps, may enquire whether, in the conclusion of the present work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall hear all that I know myself, all that I


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Rh could reveal to the most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now equally balanced; nor can I pronounce, in my most secret thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot dissemble that twelve ample octavos must have tried, and may have exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose, than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men whom I aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of history about the same period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of ancient and modern times may afford many rich and interesting subjects; that I am still possessed of health and leisure; that by the practice of writing some skill and facility must be acquired; and that in the ardent pursuit of truth and knowledge I am not conscious of decay. To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labour; and the first months of my liberty will be occupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity and taste. By such temptations I have been sometimes seduced from the rigid duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task: but my time will now be my own; and in the use or abuse of independence I shall no longer fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly entitled to a year of jubilee: next summer and the following winter will rapidly pass away; and experience only can determine whether I shall still prefer the freedom and variety of study to the design and composition of a regular work, which animates, while it confines, the daily application of the Author. Caprice and accident may influence my choice; but the dexterity of self-love will contrive to applaud either active industry or philosophic repose.

, May 1, 1788.

P.S.—I shall embrace this opportunity of introducing two


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Rh when I saw him later he advised me to write to the Baron de la Bouillerie, intendant of the King's household. So go my days.—This evening we went to the Italian Opera; it was not open when we arrived, so we put ourselves in the line of people desirous to enter, and at seven followed regularly, with no pushing or crowding (so different from England), as the arrangements are so perfect. We received our tickets, the change was counted at leisure, and we were shown into the pit, which contains three divisions; that nearest the orchestra contains the most expensive seats. The theatre is much less in extent than either Drury Lane or Covent Garden, but is handsome, and splendidly decorated and lighted. The orchestra contains more than double the number of musicians, and when the music began, not another sound was heard, all was silence and attention. Never having been at the opera since my youth, the music astounded me. The opera was Semiramis, and well executed, but I was not much pleased with it; it was too clamorous, a harmonious storm, and I would have preferred something more tranquil. I remarked that persons who left their seats intending to return laid on their seats a hat, glove, or card, which was quite sufficient to keep the place for them. In London what a treat for the thieves, who are everywhere. I walked home; the pure atmosphere of Paris, the clear sky, the temperature, almost like that of America, make me light-hearted indeed, yet would that I were again in the far distant, peaceful retreats of my happiest days. Europe might whistle for me; I, like a free bird, would sing, "Never—no, never, will I leave America."

September 13. I had to take my portfolio to Baron Cuvier, and I went first to Geoffroy de St. Hilaire, who liked it much, and retracted his first opinion of the work being too large. Monsieur Dumesnil, a first-rate engraver, came to see me, sent by Prince de Massena, and we talked of the work, which he told me honestly could not be published in France to be delivered in England as cheaply as

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xiv verbal remarks, which have not conveniently offered themselves to my notice. 1. As often as I use the definitions of beyond the Alps, the Rhine, the Danube, &c., I generally suppose myself at Rome, and afterwards at Constantinople: without observing whether this relative geography may agree with the local, but variable, situation of the reader or the historian. 2. In proper names of foreign, and especially of Oriental, origin, it should be always our aim to express in our English version a faithful copy of the original. But this rule, which is founded on a just regard to uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the exceptions will be limited or enlarged by the custom of the language and the taste of the interpreter. Our alphabets may be often defective: a harsh sound, an uncouth spelling, might offend the ear or the eye of our countrymen; and some words, notoriously corrupt, are fixed, and, as it were, naturalized in the vulgar tongue. The prophet Mohammed can no longer be stripped of the famous, though improper appellation of Mahomet: the well-known cities of Aleppo, Damascus and Cairo, would almost be lost in the strange descriptions of Haleb, Demashk and Al Cahira: the titles and offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by the practice of three hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the three Chinese monosyllables Con-fû-tzee in the respectable name of Confucius, or even to adopt the Portuguese corruption of Mandarin. But I would vary the use of Zoroaster and Zerdusht, as I drew my information from Greece or Persia: since our connexion with India, the genuine Timour is restored to the throne of Tamerlane: our most correct writers have retrenched the Al, the superfluous article, from the Koran; and we escape an ambiguous termination by adopting Moslem instead of Musulman, in the plural number. In these, and in a thousand examples, the shades of distinction are often minute; and I can feel, where I cannot explain the motives of my choice.


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316 if the work were done in London, and probably not so well. This has ended with me all thoughts of ever removing it from Havell's hands, unless he should discontinue the present excellent state of its execution. Copper is dearer here than in England, and good colorers much scarcer. I saw Cuvier, who invited us to spend the evening, and then returned to the Pont des Arts to look for bird-skins. I found none, but purchased an engraved portrait of Cuvier, and another of "Phidias and the Thorn." I have just returned with Swainson from Baron Cuvier's, who gives public receptions to scientific men every Saturday. My book was on the table; Cuvier received me with special kindness, and put me at my ease. Mademoiselle Cuvier I found remarkably agreeable, as also Monsieur de Condillot. The first very willingly said he would sit to Parker for his portrait, and the other told me that if I went to Italy, I must make his house my home. My work was seen by many, and Cuvier pronounced it the finest of its kind in existence. September 14, Sunday. Versailles, where we have spent our day, is truly a magnificent place; how long since I have been here, and how many changes in my life since those days! We first saw the orangerie, of about two hundred trees, that to Frenchmen who have never left Paris look well, but to me far from it, being martyrized by the hand of man, who has clipped them into stiff ovals. One is 407 years old. They produce no golden fruit, as their boxes are far too small to supply sufficient nourishment, and their fragrant blossoms are plucked to make orange-flower water. From this spot the woods, the hunting-grounds of the King, are seen circling the gardens, and are (we are told) filled with all kinds of game. The King's apartments, through which we afterwards went, are too full of gilding for my eyes, and I frequently resorted to the large windows to glance at the green trees. Amongst the paintings I admired most little Virginia and Paul standing

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Rh {| style="border: 0px; text-align: left; margin: 0em auto 0em auto;" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"
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 * Foster. Mrs. Rowson. Charlotte Temple. Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Modern Chivalry.  Charles Brockden Brown. Alcuin. Arthur Mervyn. Wieland. Ormond. Brown's Indebtedness to Godwin. Edgar Huntly. Isaac Mitchell. Tabitha Tenney. Samuel Woodworth. James Fenimore Cooper. Youth. Naval Career. Precaution. The Spy. The Pioneers. The Pilot. The Last of the Mohicans. The Prairie. Residence in Europe. Red Rover. The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish. Notions of the Americans. Novels written in Europe. Return to America and Ensuing Controversies. Writings on Naval Affairs. Later Nautical Tales. Later Border Tales. The Pathfinder. The Deerslayer. The Littlepage Manuscripts.  Cooper's Rank as a Romancer.
 * Foster. Mrs. Rowson. Charlotte Temple. Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Modern Chivalry.  Charles Brockden Brown. Alcuin. Arthur Mervyn. Wieland. Ormond. Brown's Indebtedness to Godwin. Edgar Huntly. Isaac Mitchell. Tabitha Tenney. Samuel Woodworth. James Fenimore Cooper. Youth. Naval Career. Precaution. The Spy. The Pioneers. The Pilot. The Last of the Mohicans. The Prairie. Residence in Europe. Red Rover. The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish. Notions of the Americans. Novels written in Europe. Return to America and Ensuing Controversies. Writings on Naval Affairs. Later Nautical Tales. Later Border Tales. The Pathfinder. The Deerslayer. The Littlepage Manuscripts.  Cooper's Rank as a Romancer.
 * Foster. Mrs. Rowson. Charlotte Temple. Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Modern Chivalry.  Charles Brockden Brown. Alcuin. Arthur Mervyn. Wieland. Ormond. Brown's Indebtedness to Godwin. Edgar Huntly. Isaac Mitchell. Tabitha Tenney. Samuel Woodworth. James Fenimore Cooper. Youth. Naval Career. Precaution. The Spy. The Pioneers. The Pilot. The Last of the Mohicans. The Prairie. Residence in Europe. Red Rover. The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish. Notions of the Americans. Novels written in Europe. Return to America and Ensuing Controversies. Writings on Naval Affairs. Later Nautical Tales. Later Border Tales. The Pathfinder. The Deerslayer. The Littlepage Manuscripts.  Cooper's Rank as a Romancer.
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FICTION II: CONTEMPORARIES OF COOPER

EMERSON