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contributed to the National Reformer. He wrote over the initials &quot;B. V.,&quot; or &quot;Bysshe Vanolis &quot; (a combination of the names of Shelley and Novalis). He was then a militant Secularist. D. G. Eossetti drew attention to the quality of his poetry ; but he unfortunately lacked self-control in respect to drink. Except that he acted as mining agent in Colorado in 1872, and as war correspondent in Spain in 1873, he lived in poverty and obscurity in London after 1866. His famous City of Dreadful Night appeared in the National Reformer from March to May, 1874, and was reissued, with other poems, by Dobell in 1880. He quarrelled with Bradlaugh, and for a time wrote scathing Eationalist articles (collected in his Satires and Profanities, 1884) in the Secularist. He issued several other volumes of essays and verse, but his unhappy weakness enfeebled his power and ruined his life. D. June 3, 1882.

THOMSON, Charles Otto, Swedish writer and lecturer. B. Jan. 3, 1833. Thomson went to sea in his youth, and became a captain. He afterwards engaged in business at Eskilstuna, where he founded, and was president of, a Utilitarian Society in 1888. He was an associate editor and business manager of the Eationalist Fritan- karen, for which he translated many articles by British and American Freethinkers. He lectured also, and gave energetic support to the work of V. Lennstrand. When Lenn- strand was in prison, he got up a petition, with ten thousand signatures, to protest against the brutal treatment of the Swedish leader. Very generous all his life, he was in the end deserted by his children on account of his Eationalist propaganda, and died in a poor-house at Stockholm in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

THOREAU, Henry David, American writer. B. July 12, 1817. Ed. Harvard University. Thoreau was not brilliant in academic work, but from a very early age he was a keen lover and student of nature. At the age of twelve he made a collection 795

for Agassiz. He took to teaching after leaving Harvard, but presently abandoned the school for writing and. lecturing. By that time he had become a Transcendentalist of the Concord school, and a great friend of Emerson. He lived a life of great sim plicity, and supported himself chiefly by surveying and farm-work. In 1845 he retired to live for two years in a hut he had built at Walden, a very solitary place, and from his experiences he wrote his beautiful Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854). He left Walden in 1847, and supported himself by making lead-pencils. His other principal work is his Excursions (1863). Thoreau was more artistic than philosophical, but there was very little mysticism about him. C. J. Woodbury best describes his opinions in his Talks with Emerson (pp. 93-94). Thoreau used to quote the line of Ennius : &quot;I say there are gods, but they care not what men do.&quot; When Parker Pillsbury wished to discuss religion with him in the last year of his life, he said : &quot; One world at a time.&quot; D. May 6, 1862.

THORILD, Professor Thomas, Swedish poet. B. Apr. 18, 1759. Ed. Lund. In 1779 Thorild settled at Stockholm and engaged in literature. A great admirer of Ossian and of Klopstock, he opposed the French fashion, and popularized German and English literature. From 1788 to 1790 he was in England, and some of his verse was written in English. After his return to Sweden he was banished on account of the advanced ideas expressed in his Arligheten. He was as keen a critic of theology as of political reaction, and was a warm advocate of the emancipation of women. His views are best given in his Maximum, sive Archimetria (1799), and in various parts of his Samlade Skriften (2 vols., 1873-74). In 1795 he was appointed professor of Swedish literature at Greifswald, where he remained until his death. Thorild did much by his critical writings for the development of a native poetry in Sweden. D. Oct. 1, 1808.

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