The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 431

THIRLMERE, one of the lakes in the English Lake District, in c.u.mberland, 5 m. SE. of Keswick; since 1885 its waters have been impounded for the use of Manchester, the surface raised 50 ft. by embankments, and the area more than doubled.

THIRLWALL, CONOP, historian, born at Shepney; was a precocious child, was educated at the Charterhouse, had Grote for a school-fellow, and was a student of Trinity College, Cambridge; called to the bar, but took orders in 1827, having two years previously translated Schleiermacher's "Essay on St. Luke," and was thus the first to introduce German theology into England; wrote a "History of Greece," which, though superior in some important respects, was superseded by Grote's as wanting in realistic power, a fatal blemish in a history; was a liberal man, and bishop of St. David's for half a lifetime (1797-1875).

THIRTY YEARS' WAR, the name given to a series of wars arising out of one another in Germany during 1618-48; was first a war of Catholics against Protestants, but in its later stages developed into a struggle for supremacy in Europe. On the Catholic side were Austria, various German Catholic princes, and Spain, to whom were opposed successively Bohemia, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, and France; originated in Bohemia, where the Protestants were goaded to revolt against the intolerance of the empire, Moravians and Hungarians came to their a.s.sistance, but the imperial forces were too powerful and the rising was suppressed, only to be renewed in 1624, when Denmark espoused the Protestant cause, but struggled vainly against Catholic armies under Wallenstein and Tilly. The tactless oppression of the Emperor Ferdinand again fanned into flame the fires of rebellion; Swedish armies now came to the a.s.sistance of the Protestants, and under Gustavus Adolphus waged successful war against the emperor, but the death of Gustavus at Lutzen (1632) turned the tide in favour of the imperial forces; the German Protestant prince made a disadvantageous peace in 1635, but Sweden, now joined by France, continued the struggle against the Austrian empire. Turenne and Conde became the heroes of the war, and a series of decisive victories rolled back the imperial armies, and by 1848 were converging upon Austria, when diplomacy brought the war to an end by the Peace of Westphalia, the chief gains of which were the securing of religious tolerance and the recognition of the independence of Switzerland and the United Provinces.

THISBE. See PYRAMUS.

THISTLE, ORDER OF THE, an order of Scottish knighthood, sometimes called the Order of St. Andrew, inst.i.tuted in 1687 by James VII. of Scotland (James II. of England); fell into abeyance during the reign of William and Mary, but was revived by Queen Anne in 1703; includes the sovereign, 16 knights, and various officials. The princ.i.p.al article in the insignia is a gold collar composed of thistles intertwined with sprigs of rue.

THOLUCK, FRIEDRICH AUGUST, theologian, born at Breslau; came under the influence of Neander (q. v.) and became professor of Theology at Halle, where he exercised a considerable influence over the many students who were attracted from far and near by his learning and fervour (1799-1877).

THOM, WILLIAM, a minor Scottish vernacular poet, author of "The Mitherless Bairn," &c.; was a native of and hand-loom weaver at Aberdeen; endured much hards.h.i.+p and poverty (1799-1848).

THOMAS, AMBROISE, French composer, born at Metz; proved himself a brilliant student at the Paris Conservatoire; became professor of Composition in 1852, and nine years later succeeded Auber as director of the Conservatoire; a prolific writer in all forms of musical composition, but has won celebrity mainly as a writer of, operas, the most popular of which are "La Double ech.e.l.le," "Mignon," "Hamlet," &c.; was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour in 1880 (1811-1896).

THOMAS, ARTHUR GORING, composer, born near Eastbourne; studied at the Paris Conservatoire and Royal Academy for Music, London; became popular through the merit of his operas "Esmeralda," "Nadeshda," the cantata "Sun-wors.h.i.+ppers," and songs; committed suicide (1851-1892).

THOMAS, GEORGE HENRY, American general, born in Virginia; a man of fine character, lacking none of the sterner stuff of the soldier, but blended with modesty and gentleness; universally popular in the army, which he joined in 1840 and continued in till his death, rising to be general of a division through gallantry in the Indian frontier wars and in the Civil War, in which, at the battle of Nashville (1864), he completely routed the Confederate forces; had command of the military division of the Pacific at the time of his death (1816-1870).

THOMAS, ST., the Apostle, is represented in art as bearing a spear in his hand, and sometimes an arrow, a book, and a carpenter's square.

THOMAS THE RHYMER. See RHYMER, THOMAS THE.

THOMASIUS, CHRISTIAN, a German jurist, born at Leipzig; was the first to prelect on jurisprudence in the German tongue, on which account, as on account of his advanced theological views, he encountered no small persecution; became at length professor of Jurisprudence at Halle, his influence on the study of which was considerable (1655-1728).

THOMISM, the doctrine of THOMAS AQUINAS (q. v.), particularly in reference to predestination and grace.

THOMS, WILLIAM JOHN, a noted antiquary and bibliographer, born in Westminster; a clerk for 20 years in the Chelsea Hospital and subsequently in the House of Lords, where during 1863-1882 he was deputy-librarian; his leisure was given to his favourite pursuits, and bore fruit in many volumes dealing with "folk-lore" (a word of his own invention) and the like; was secretary of the Camden Society, and in 1849 founded, and continued to edit till 1872, _Notes and Queries_ (1803-1885).

THOMSON, SIR CHARLES WYVILLE, zoologist, born at Bonsyde, Linlithgow; educated at Merchiston Castle, Edinburgh, and at the university there; a lecturer on botany at Aberdeen (1850), professor of Natural History in Queen's College, Cork (1853), of Geology at Belfast (1854), and of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh (1870); accompanied the _Challenger_ expedition (1872-1876) as head of the scientific department; knighted 1876; wrote "The Depths of the Sea" and "The Voyage of the _Challenger_" (1830-1882).

THOMSON, GEORGE, a noted collector of songs, who set himself to gather in one work every existing Scotch melody; his untiring zeal resulted in the publication of 6 vols. of Scotch songs, the words of which had been adapted and supplied by a host of writers, including Scott, Campbell, Joanna Baillie, and above all, Robert Burns, who contributed upwards of 120; Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Weber, and others were engaged to supply instrumental preludes and codas; also published collections of Irish songs and Welsh melodies; was a native of Limekilns, Fife, and for 60 years princ.i.p.al clerk to the Board of Trustees, Edinburgh (1759-1851).

THOMSON, JAMES, the poet of the "Seasons," born, the son of the parish minister, at Ednam, Roxburghs.h.i.+re; was educated and trained for the ministry at Edinburgh University, but already wooing the muse, he, shortly after his father's death in 1725, went to London to push his fortune; his poem "Winter," published in the following year, had immediate success, and raised up a host of friends and patrons, and what with tutoring and the proceeds of "Summer," "Spring," "Autumn," various worthless tragedies, and other products of his pen, secured a fair living, till a pension of 100 from the Prince of Wales, to whom he had dedicated the poem of "Liberty," and a subsequent 300 a year as non-resident Governor of the Leeward Islands, placed him in comparative affluence; the "Masque of Alfred," with its popular song "Rule Britannia," and his greatest work "The Castle of Indolence" (1748), were the outcome of his later years of leisure; often tediously verbose, not infrequently stiff and conventional in diction and trite in its moralisings, the poetry of Thomson was yet the first of the 18th century to shake itself free of the town, and to lead, as Stopford Brooke says, "the English people into that new world of nature which has enchanted us in the work of modern poetry" (1700-1748).

THOMSON, JAMES, the poet of pessimism, born, a sailor's son, at Port-Glasgow, and brought up in an orphanage; was introduced to literature by MR. BRADLAUGH (q. v.), to whose _National Reformer_ he contributed much of his best poetry, including his gloomy yet sonorous and impressive "The City of Dreadful Night," besides essays (1834-1882).

THOMSON, JOHN, the artist minister of Duddingston, born at Dailly, in Ayrs.h.i.+re; succeeded his father in the parish of Dailly (1800), and five years later was transferred to Duddingston parish, near Edinburgh; faithful in the discharge of his parochial duties, he yet found time to cultivate his favourite art of painting, and in the course of his 35 years' pastorate produced a series of landscapes which won him wide celebrity in his own day, and have set him in the front rank of Scottish artists (1778-1840).

THOMSON, JOSEPH, African explorer, born at Thornhill, studied at Edinburgh University, and in 1878 was appointed zoologist to the Royal Geographical Society's expedition to Lake Tanganyika, which, after the death of the leader, Keith Johnston, at the start, he, at the age of 20, carried through with notable success; in 1882 explored with important geographical results Ma.s.sai-land, and subsequently headed expeditious up the Niger and to Sokoto, and explored the Atlas Mountains; published interesting accounts of his various travels (1858-1895).

THOMSON, SIR WILLIAM, LORD KELVIN, great physicist, born at Belfast; studied at St. Peter's College, Cambridge; was senior wrangler in 1845, and elected professor of Natural Philosophy in Glasgow in 1846; it is in the departments of heat and electricity he has accomplished his greatest achievements, and his best-known work is the invention of the siphon-recorder for the Atlantic cable, on the completion of which, in 1866, he was knighted, to be afterwards raised to the peerage in 1892; he has invented a number of ingenious and delicate scientific instruments, as well as written extensively on mathematical and physical subjects; _b_. 1824.

THOR, in the Norse mythology "the G.o.d of thunder; the thunder was his wrath, the gathering of the black clouds is the drawing down of Thor's angry brows; the fire-bolt bursting out of heaven is the all-rending hammer flung from the hand of Thor; he urges his loud chariot over the mountain tops--that is the peal; wrathful he 'blows in his beard'--that is the rustling of the storm-blast before the thunder begin"; he is the strongest of the G.o.ds, the helper of both G.o.ds and men, and the mortal foe of the chaotic powers.

Th.o.r.eAU, HENRY DAVID, an American author who, next to his friend and neighbour Emerson, gave the most considerable impulse to the "transcendental" movement in American literature, born in Concord, where his life was mostly spent, of remote French extraction; was with difficulty enabled to go to Harvard, where he graduated, but without distinction of any sort; took to desperate s.h.i.+fts for a living, but simplified the problem of "ways and means" by adopting Carlyle's plan of "lessening your denominator"; the serious occupation of his life was to study nature in the woods around Concord, to make daily journal entries of his observings and reflections, and to preserve his soul in peace and purity; his handicrafts were unwelcome necessities thrust upon him; "What after all," he exclaims, "does the practicalness of life amount to? The things immediate to be done are very trivial; I could postpone them all to hear this locust sing. The most glorious fact in my experience is not anything I have done or may hope to do, but a transient thought or vision or dream which I have had"; his chief works are "Walden," the account of a two years' sojourn in a hut built by his own hands in the Concord Woods near "Walden Pool," "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac River," essays, poems, etc. (1817-1862).

THORN (27), a town and fortress of the first rank in West Prussia, on the Vistula, 115 m. NW. of Warsaw; formerly a member of the HANSEATIC LEAGUE (q. v.); was annexed by Prussia in 1815; the birthplace of Copernicus; carries on a brisk trade in corn and timber.

THORNBURY, GEORGE WALTER, a miscellaneous writer, author of numerous novels, "Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads," "Life of Turner," "Old and New London," etc.; born in London, where his life was spent in literary work (1828-1876).

THORNHILL, SIR JAMES, an English artist of the school of Le Brun, born at Woodland, Dorsets.h.i.+re; treated historical subjects in allegorical fas.h.i.+on, and was much in request for decorative work, his most notable achievements being the decoration of the dome of St. Paul's, of rooms in Hampton Court, Blenheim House, and Greenwich Hospital; was sergeant-painter to Queen Anne, and was knighted by George I.; member of Parliament from 1719 till his death (1676-1734).

Th.o.r.n.yCROFT, HAMO, sculptor, born in London; has done statues of General Gordon (1885), John Bright (1892), and Oliver Cromwell (1899); _b_. 1850.

THOROUGH, name given by the EARL OF STRAFFORD (q. v.) to a scheme of his to establish absolute monarchy in England.

THORWALDSEN, BERTEL, an eminent Danish sculptor, born near Copenhagen, the son of a poor Icelander; won a Government scholars.h.i.+p at the Academy of Copenhagen in 1793, which enabled him to study in Rome, where he was greatly inspired by the ancient Greek sculptures, and fired with the ambition of emulating the cla.s.sical masters; Canova encouraged him, and a fine statue of Jason established his reputation; his life henceforth was one of ever-increasing fame and prosperity. Denmark received him with highest honour in 1819, but the milder Italian climate better suited his health, and he returned to Rome, where he executed all his great works; these deal chiefly with subjects chosen from the Greek mythology, in which he reproduces with marvellous success the cla.s.sic spirit and conception; executed also a colossal group of "Christ and the Twelve Apostles," "St. John Preaching in the Wilderness," and other religious subjects, besides statues of Copernicus and Galileo, and the celebrated reliefs "Night" and "Morning": bequeathed to his country his large fortune and nearly 300 of his works, now in the Thorwaldsen Museum, one of the great sights of Copenhagen (1770-1844).

THOTH, the Egyptian Mercury, inventor of arts and sciences; represented as having the body of a man and the head of a lamb or ibis.

THOU, JACQUES-AUGUSTE DE, a celebrated historian, born at Paris; enjoyed the favour of Henry III., and by Henry IV. was appointed keeper of the royal library; his history of his own times is a work of great value as a clear and remarkably impartial survey of an interesting period of European history (1553-1617).

THOUSAND ISLANDS, 2000 islands which stud the river St. Lawrence below Kingston, at the outlet of the river from Lake Ontario.