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THO continent, and to have resided in Paris; Walpole thinks, "even to have been employed there," since among his designs are some for alterations in the Luxembourg palace, and the house of M. Jamet; but these were only architectural studies.—J. T—e.  THORPE,, an English physician and antiquary, was born at Penshurst, Kent, in 1682. He contributed several papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society, in the publication of which he for some time also assisted Dr. (afterwards Sir) Hans Sloane. He was D.D. of Oxford, and fellow of the Royal Society.—, his son, collected and published a number of MSS. belonging to his father, which related to the ecclesiastical antiquities of Rochester and its neighbourhood.—F.  THORWALDSEN,, was born at Copenhagen on the 19th of November, 1770, and was brought up to his father's business, that of a wood carver; and, like John Gibson, some of his first essays in the art that was to immortalize him were head-pieces for ships. He early distinguished himself at the Academy of Copenhagen, and in 1793 gained the principal gold medal, which obtained him the privilege of three years' study abroad. Thorwaldsen set out for Italy on the 20th of May, 1796, in the Danish frigate Thetis. He left this vessel at Malta, and made the passage to Palermo in a small sailing boat, whence he took the packet to Naples; and he did not arrive at Rome until the 8th of March, 1797. Thorwaldsen worked long in obscurity at Rome, his countryman Zoëga even thinking little of his ability; but a model of "Jason with the Golden Fleece" attracted the notice of Canova, which gave the young Dane fresh courage; and being deterred by an accident from returning to Denmark at the expiration of his three years abroad, he was at last fortunate in meeting with the patronage of the well-known Thomas Hope, who visited the sculptor's study in 1803, to see his statue of Jason. Mr. Hope was so well pleased with the Jason that he gave Thorwaldsen a commission to execute it in marble for him, for eight hundred ducats. He was now established as one of the prosperous artists of Rome; commission followed commission, his fame reached Denmark, and although he was invited by Christian, then crown prince, to return home, he did not revisit his native land until 1819, after an absence of three and twenty years. His principal work during this period of his life is the Alexander frieze, of which there is a fine set of engravings by Amsler of Munich, published in 1835; it was twice executed in marble, once for Count Somariva's villa on the Lake of Como, and the second time for the palace of Christiansburg. The original sketch was made in 1812, as a frieze to decorate one of the chambers of the Quirinal, on the occasion of Napoleon's expected visit to Rome: the subject is the "Triumphal entry of Alexander into Babylon," from Quintus Curtius. It is one hundred and twenty feet long by three feet nine inches high, and contains a fine series of figures, some of which are excellent; the least successful is perhaps Alexander himself, and the horses are inferior. Thorwaldsen revisited his native country in 1819, overland, and was entertained with great honour on his route throughout, even in Italy and Germany. In Denmark he was lodged in the palace of Charlottenburg, and received by his countrymen with the utmost hospitality. After a year's rest at home, he returned to Italy, and his principal works date from this period—as "Christ and the Twelve Apostles," and the group of "St. John Preaching in the Wilderness," for the cathedral at Copenhagen; these and some other works for the palace of Christiansburg were completed in 1838, and were with their sculptor carried to Copenhagen in the Danish frigate Rota. Thorwaldsen now attempted to settle among his countrymen, and had a studio prepared for him at Nysö, the seat of his friend Baron Stampe. He completed several works in Denmark, "The Procession to Golgotha," and others, for the cathedral; and among others, busts of the poets Oehlenschläger and Holberg. But finding the climate quite unsuited to him after his long residence at Rome, he felt, in 1841, compelled to return to Italy. He revisited Rome, and continued to work at his art, but again visited Nysö in 1842, and was about to go back again to Rome, when he died suddenly of heart disease in the theatre of Copenhagen, on the 24th of March, 1844, aged seventy-three. He bequeathed all the works of art in his possession to his native city, to constitute a museum which was to bear his name, the city finding part of the funds for the building; this has been done, and a rich museum is established. Thorwaldsen left all his personal estate to be converted into a fund for the conservation of this museum, with the exception of twelve thousand dollars to each of his grandchildren, and forty thousand dollars to their mother, his natural daughter, Madame Poulsen, to pass after her death to her children. He was never married. Thorwaldsen's works are very numerous—groups, statues, and bas-reliefs. Some of the best are very popular, especially those of "Night" and "Day." He executed some grand monumental works, as "Copernicus;" "The Elector Maximilian of Bavaria" at Munich, a colossal equestrian statue cast by Stiglmayer; "Schiller" at Stuttgart; "Poniatowski" at Warsaw; "Pius VII.;" and others. He was certainly a great sculptor, but it is not likely that he will continue to hold the position given to him by his countrymen and his contemporaries generally. There is little of ideal beauty in his works, and his treatment of the female form wants grace and elegance of proportion: he was in both these respects certainly very inferior to Canova. H. C. Andersen has published a life of Thorwaldsen, of which there is a German translation by J. Reuscher—Bertel Thorwaldsen, eine Biographische Skizze. J. M. Thiele published at Berlin, in 1851, Thorwaldsen's Jugend, 1770-1804. See the writer's notice in the Supplement to the Penny Cyclopædia.—R. N. W.  THOU,, commonly called Thuanus, the celebrated French historian, was born in Paris on the 9th of October, 1553, of a distinguished family, which had already produced several men of eminence in the service of the church and the state. His father, Christopher de Thou, was first president of the parliament of Paris; and his uncle, Nicolas de Thou, was bishop of Chartres. For several years his constitution was so feeble that his parents despaired of being able to rear him, but his mental endowments were extraordinary, and his progress in knowledge precocious. He studied first in Paris, and afterwards in Valence in Dauphiny, where Cujacius was then (1571) attracting the élite of the young French noblesse. It was there he made the acquaintance of Joseph Scaliger, who was on a visit to Cujacius—an acquaintance which ripened into an intimate friendship, which lasted through all the changes of thirty-eight years. He returned to Paris shortly before the massacre of St. Bartholomew—a tragedy which he witnessed with his own eyes, and to which his father, the president of parliament, applied those words of Statius—

Being now destined for the church, he established himself in 1572 at the house of his uncle Nicolas, who was at that time a canon of Notre-Dame, and who was soon afterwards made a bishop. Historical studies being his favourite employment, he had already conceived the idea of composing an elaborate work of history; and having accompanied Paul de Foix in the following year on a mission to Italy, he not only visited and inspected the monuments of all its principal cities, but he everywhere entered into communications with men of historical and antiquarian learning, with whom he afterwards maintained a busy literary correspondence. Returning to Paris, his time was divided between the studies and researches which he best loved and occasional political missions, for which he was singularly well fitted by his prudence and business talents. The future historian was destined to write of many things in which he was first to be himself a distinguished actor. In 1578 he was made an ecclesiastical councillor of the parliament of Paris, which was his first formal introduction to public life; and in this office he continued till 1584, when he relinquished his design of pursuing the ecclesiastical vocation, and was appointed to the civil office of master of requests. Two years later Henry III. gave him the reversion of the place held by his uncle Auguste de Thou, of one of the presidents au mortier of the parliament of Paris. In 1587 he married; and in 1588 was made a member of the council of state, which gave him an effective voice in all the most important public affairs. From this time he took a prominent part in the transactions of the reigns of Henry III., Henry IV., and the regency of Mary de Médicis. During the troubles of the League he remained inviolably faithful to Henry III., and resisted all the blandishments by which the Duke de Guise endeavoured to seduce him from his duty to his lawful sovereign. He was no less loyal and faithful to Henry IV., who valued him as one of his wisest and most disinterested counsellors, and made him in 1591 keeper of the royal library, on the death of the learned Bishop Amyot. Though a sincere and conscientious catholic, he gave his earnest support to the policy of tolerance and conciliation 