Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/397

THE acute; those proceeding from stricture, and those from relaxation; and such as show a mixed character. He was the first to recommend the employment of issues in phthisis. His writings have not been preserved.—F. C. W.  THEMISTIUS, the philosopher and rhetorician, was born in Paphlagonia about 300. Early in life he settled at Constantinople, where he acquired great popularity as an orator and teacher of rhetoric. By successive emperors he was regarded with favour, and his orations in their praise may still be read by the curious. By Theodosius he was made prefect of Constantinople and appointed tutor to his son Arcadius. Although himself a heathen, and the friend of Julian the apostate and Libanius, Themistius enjoyed the esteem and friendship of some of the most eminent christians, as for example, Gregory Nazianzen. Besides some commentaries on Aristotle, we possess thirty-five orations by Themistius, which throw considerable light on the history of the period. The best among the old editions of these is that by Hardouin the jesuit, Paris, 1684; among the modern, that by Dindorf, Leipsic, 1832.—G.  THEMISTOCLES, a celebrated Greek commander, was born about 514 ., and was the son of Neocles, an Athenian of moderate fortune. His mother, according to some, was a Thracian woman of the name of Abrotonon; others say she was called Euterpe, and that she was by birth a Carian. After the banishment of Aristides the Just in 483 ., Themistocles became the political leader in Athens, and two years afterwards (481 .) he was elected Archon Eponymus. Athens being at that time at war with Ægina, Themistocles counselled that the fleet should be increased so as to be a match for that of the enemy; but his real design was not so much to conquer the Æginetæ as to render Athens supreme among the Grecian states by making her capable of resisting the dangers which he foresaw were likely to come from Persia. The event soon justified his policy. The first encounter between the Grecian and Persian fleets took place off Artemisium on the same days on which Leonidas and his three hundred so heroically kept the pass of Thermopylæ (480 .). Soon after followed the battle of Salamis, by which, the enemy's fleet being defeated and dispersed, Greece was delivered from the fear of the Persian yoke. After this Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to fortify their city against the remonstrances of Sparta. But his influence declined from the time of the overthrow of Xerxes, and in 471. he was ostracised from Athens. It is related that his father, perceiving the early ambition of his son, pointed out to him some old galleys thrown on the shore to rot and decay, and told him that this was the way "the many" treated popular leaders when they were no longer of any use—a lesson which he must now have bitterly remembered. After his banishment he retired to Argos; whence, however, he was forced to flee in consequence of his being suspected of complicity in the designs of Pausanias, who had been detected in a treacherous correspondence with the Persian king. He took refuge in Persia, where he died, or, as some say, destroyed himself, 449. "Themistocles," says Thucydides, "was the strongest example of the power of natural talent, and in this respect is particularly worthy of admiration; for by his natural understanding, without any education originally to form it, or afterwards to strengthen it, he had the best judgment in actual circumstances, and he formed his judgment with the least deliberation; and as to future events he made, in the general, the best conjectures; whatever he took in hand he was also able to expound; and on matters where he had no experience he was not unable to form a competent judgment; and both of the better and the worse, while it was still in uncertainty, he had a most excellent foresight; and to express all in brief, by the force of his natural capacity, and the quickness of his determination, he was the most efficient of all men in promptly deciding what was to be done." But it may reasonably be doubted whether, with all his high intellectual qualities, he was an honest man. From opening manhood his ambition was to be the first man in Athens, and to make Athens the first among the Grecian states; and he had no nice scruples about the means by which his end was to be accomplished.  THENARD,, Baron de, an eminent French chemist, was born at Nogent-sur-Seine in 1777. He studied chemistry in the laboratory of Vauquelin, and at the early age of twenty became professor of chemistry at the École polytechnique. He also filled the chemical chair at the university of Paris down to 1840. He died in 1857. His principal work is the "Traite de Chimie Elementaire," 1813. In conjunction with Gay-Lussac he was commissioned by the first Napoleon in 1808 to construct a powerful galvanic battery, and to institute a series of experiments on its chemical action. The results of their joint labours were published in 1811, under the title "Recherches Physico-chemiques faites sur le Pile." Few books contain a greater number of new and weighty facts. They first carefully examined the battery itself to ascertain the conditions on which its energy depends, having especial regard to the effects of the various liquid conductors, such as acids or saline solutions. They next repeated the experiments of Davy on potassium and sodium, and found a means of preparing these metals without the use of the battery, decomposing caustic alkalies by means of iron filings at a white heat. Then they discovered the alkaline peroxides. They also examined the action of potassium on a variety of substances, and thus were led to the discovery of boron. In their attempts to decompose hydrofluoric acid they discovered hydrofluoboric acid. Thenard likewise discovered the peroxide of hydrogen and carefully studied its properties, especially its bleaching power. In opposition to Berthollet he maintained the elementary character of chlorine. Thenard also merits honour for his zealous and successful labours in improving the scientific institutions of France.—J. W. S.  THEOBALD,, the editor of Shakspeare, and hero of the early editions of the Dunciad, was the son of a prosperous attorney of Sittingbourne in Kent, where he was born, according to the memoir in Nichols' Literary Illustrations, vol. ii., about 1692. Mr. Carruthers (Life of Pope) says, however, that he was baptized "April 2, 1688." He was educated chiefly at Isleworth in Middlesex, and became a good classical scholar. He seems to have been brought up as an attorney, but early in life he devoted himself to literature. In 1711 his "Persian Princess" was performed in Drury Lane, and his scholarship procured him the patronage of Bernard Lintott, the eminent publisher. For him, in 1713, Theobald translated Plato's Phædo, and in the following year he signed an agreement with him to execute a translation of the Odyssey, of which only a small portion, in 1716, was published. This circumstance may have helped to embitter Pope against him. He had published translations from Sophocles and Aristophanes, written a "Life of Raleigh," a number of plays, and several disquisitions, as well as contributed to the Censor, when, in 1725, appeared Pope's edition of Shakspeare. In the following year Theobald published his "Shakspeare Restored; or specimens of blunders committed and unamended in Pope's edition of this poet"—a work of which the title sufficiently explains the object. Some punishment was administered to the assailant in the Treatise on the Bathos (in Pope and Swift's Miscellanies, 1727); but a still more terrible revenge was taken when in 1728 the Dunciad appeared with "piddling Theobald" for its hero. Nothing daunted Theobald pursued his course. In 1728 appeared his "Proposals for Publishing Emendations and Remarks on Shakspeare," which were so well received that he resolved on an edition of Shakspeare of his own. It was published in 1733, and at once eclipsed Pope's. For his editorial labours Theobald was paid £652 10s., three times as much as Pope received, and it appears that no fewer than twelve thousand eight hundred and sixty copies of his Shakspeare were printed. Theobald was characterized by his successor in Shakspearian editorship, Dr. Johnson, as a man "of heavy diligence, with very slender powers." But in the then state of Shakspeare's text, "heavy diligence" was much required, and, beyond this, many of Theobald's happy emendations have been accepted and remain. He had much aid from others in editing Shakspeare, especially from Warburton, his correspondence with whom on the subject is printed in Nichols, ubi supra. Theobald's Shakspeare is certainly the best of the early modern editions. He was among the first to collect the old English drama, and to make it useful in illustrating Shakspeare's text. On the whole he deserved more than the niggard praise which Johnson bestowed on him as an editor "zealous for minute accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the ancient' copies," Johnson continues, "and rectified many errors. A man so anxiously scrupulous might have been expected to do more, but what little he did was commonly right." In 1743 Theobald was replaced by Gibber in the post of dishonour in the Dunciad, and in the following year both the satirist and the satirized were in their graves. Theobald died not long after Pope, on the 18th September, 1744.—F. E. 