Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/251

 Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg in 1799. He found ‘Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery’ in course of active preparation, and contributed to it ‘Perdita’ and some subjects from ‘The Tempest.’ As early as 1792 he had exhibited a portrait at the Royal Academy, but he did not become a regular contributor till 1800, after his return to England. In 1801 he was elected an associate, and in 1802 an academician. From this time onwards he continued to exhibit many mythological and domestic subjects, as well as portraits, until 1825. Among his chief works were ‘Mercy interceding for a fallen Warrior,’ 1804; ‘Love Sheltered’ and ‘The Red Cross Knight,’ 1806 (both engraved in mezzotint by William Say); ‘Love's Ingratitude,’ 1808; ‘The Distressed Family,’ 1809; ‘Titania,’ 1810; ‘Peasants in a Storm,’ 1811; ‘The Infancy of Jupiter’ (engraved by Henry Meyer), and ‘Lavinia,’ 1812; ‘Eurydice’ (engraved by William Ward) and ‘Thais,’ 1814; ‘Cupid Disarmed’ and ‘Icarus,’ 1815; ‘Christ raising Jairus's Daughter,’ 1820; ‘Juliet,’ 1825. He designed a large number of small illustrations for Sharpe's ‘Poets’ and ‘British Classics,’ and other publications. In 1825 he was appointed keeper of the Royal Academy, in succession to Henry Fuseli [q. v.], but resigned the office after two years owing to a severe illness, from which he never recovered sufficiently to undertake any more work of importance. He retired to Portsea, where he died on 6 April 1843, and was buried in Portsmouth churchyard. Thomson's pictures were extremely popular in his own day, but they are now chiefly known by the good mezzotint engravings in which they were reproduced. A portrait of Thomson, by John Jackson, was engraved by Robert Cooper in 1817; another was painted by Sir Martin Archer Shee (Cat. Third Loan Exhib. No. 346).

[Gent. Mag. 1843, iii. 100; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Royal Academy Catalogues.]  THOMSON, HENRY WILLIAM (BYERLEY) (1822–1867), jurist, the son of Anthony Todd Thomson [q. v.], by his second wife, Katharine Byerley [see ], of an old Durham family (whence he assumed in later life a prefix to his surname), was born in May 1822. He was educated at University College, London, and at Jesus College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. (as senior optime) in 1846, was called to the bar from the Inner Temple in May 1849, and practised on the northern circuit. He specialised in military and international law, and his useful little treatise on the ‘Laws of War affecting Commerce and Shipping’ went through two editions in 1854. It was followed in 1855 by ‘The Military Forces and Institutions of Great Britain and Ireland: their Constitution, Administration, and Government, Military and Civil,’ in which he endeavoured to galvanise a huge mass of unused material from parliamentary bluebooks and similar materials, and in 1857 by ‘The Choice of a Profession: a concise Account and comparative Review of the English Professions.’ Both works are well written, and should be of value to the sociologist. Thomson was living at this time at 8 Serjeant's Inn, Temple, but professional success seemed as distant as ever when, in May 1858, he was appointed by the colonial secretary, Lord Stanley [see, fifteenth ], queen's advocate in Ceylon. Three years later he was promoted puisne judge of the supreme court of Colombo. He lost no time in setting to work upon a digest of the law as administered in Ceylon, and in 1866 he was in London superintending the publication of his most permanent memorial, ‘Institutes of the Laws of Ceylon’ (London, 1866, 2 vols. large 8vo), which ranks as an authority together with the judgments of Sir Charles Marshall, and which, as the chief justice of Ceylon (Sir Edward Creasy) said at Thomson's death, ‘will long be cited with admiration and gratitude.’ Thomson died at Colombo, as the result of an apoplectic seizure, on 6 Jan. 1867. He married, in 1858, Mlle. Beaumont, and left two sons: Henry Byerley, who took orders in 1888, and Arthur Byerley.

The jurist's younger brother, (1834–1860), was born in London in 1834, and after studying at Bonn matriculated from Trinity College, Oxford, on 7 June 1852, graduating B.A. from St. Mary Hall in 1857. While at Oxford he worked at Sanskrit (in continuation of studies commenced at Munich) under Horace Hayman Wilson [q. v.], and before he took his degree, being then only twenty-one, he published ‘The Bhagavad-Gita; or a Discourse between Krishna and Arjuna on Divine Matters: a Sanskrit Philosophical Poem; translated [into English Prose] with copious Notes, an Introduction on Sanskrit Philosophy, and other Matter,’ Hertford, 1855, 2 vols. 16mo. The performance was praised not only by Wilson but by Garcin de Tassy, by Schliessen of Prague, by Spiegel of Erlangen, and other foreign savants; and it was used as a class-book in the East Indian College at Haileybury. Two years later the author gained the Boden Sanskrit 