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THU advantage of a record by an intelligent man, who was both an actor and an observer in the scenes of the great drama which he relates; and in modern history, where contemporary record is more common, it is the rarest of all things to meet with an observer who can see with a steady eye through the mists and false lights of the present; who can sift the facts which he accumulates, and group them into significant masses. That all these excellencies belong to Thucydides is unquestionable. He was a man of that rare order of intellect in which great breadth of view, intensity of action, and subtlety of insight, are united to a serene calmness and a stern impassiveness, which is apt to appear unfeeling and inhuman. Most students have felt this want of human sympathy in their first introduction to Aristotle; and no writer certainly could detail the horrors of a great but tragic subject with such a severe and pitiless pen as Thucydides. This peculiarity, the natural result of the great elevation of his intellectual position, will appear a fault to many; as indeed many of the objections which are made to him may be summed up in this—that he is too severe a thinker. He ties himself down with too literal a gravity to the grave task which he has undertaken, and will not condescend to amuse the reader; he graves with an iron style, and will paint no pictures but those which are absolutely necessary. Yet he can be graphic when he chooses, in his severe way, as the famous description of the plague and other passages sufficiently prove; for a subtle thinker, who is at the same time an accurate observer, seldom fails, even although not aiming at poetical description, to seize on those points of an object which are most striking and most significant. Herodotus, with whom Thucydides can be compared only for the sake of contrast, is certainly a more agreeable writer; but this is just in the same way that Homer is more pleasant reading than Æschylus, and Ariosto than Dante. Those who look upon history as a severe instructress in political science, and who are willing to come to Thucydides as mathematicians do to Euclid, will not be repelled by difficulties, which arise from the constant presence of condensed thought, and the absence of amusing illustrations. It is only to be lamented that the style of Thucydides is sometimes encumbered by other difficulties, than those which can be overcome by mere closeness of consecutive thinking. Cicero, a good judge in these matters, while he calls him (Brut 83) a "rerum gestarum pronunciator sincerus et grandis," compares his style to harsh Falernian wine which has lost its mellowness by being kept too long; and there is no doubt in the general case, that the meaning of a sentence in a good writer, ought to shine out like the expression in a fine countenance—not required to be drawn out by a special apparatus of philological screws and pulleys. Besides close condensation, there is sometimes a complex involution in the sentences of the historian, which can be no more a virtue in him than it is in Plutarch; and in his speeches particularly, a certain mannerism of rhetorical artifices, derived perhaps from his reputed teacher Antiphon, is generally admitted by his critics, both ancient and modern. Nevertheless of these very speeches, so tantalizing in their style, a weighty English political writer records his opinion thus—"For close, cogent, and appropriate reasoning upon practical political questions, the speeches of Thucydides have never been surpassed; and, indeed, they may be considered as having reached the highest excellence of which the human mind is capable in this department."—(Lewis, Pol. Method, vol. i., p 61.)

The history of Thucydides, as one of the few great masterpieces of political wisdom, has been translated into most modern languages. The most famous of the old English translations is that by Hobbes the philosopher; the most recent by Dale is accurate and readable. There is another translation by Blomfield. Of the Greek text there are many editions, on which the greatest scholars have expended their talents, from the beautiful folio edition of H. Stephens, 1564, to those of Bekker, Poppo, Krueger, and the excellent Dr. Arnold.—J. S. B.  THUEMMEL,, a distinguished German humorist, was born at his father's estate of Schönfeld, near Leipsic, 27th May, 1738. While a student at Leipsic he was admitted into the acquaintance of Gellert, Weisse, Rabener, and Von Kleist. He then entered the service of the Duke Ernest Frederick of Saxe-Coburg, who raised him to the office of privy councillor and minister. In 1783 Thuemmel retired into private life, and died at Coburg, 26th October, 1817. In his writings he combined French elegance and levity with German feeling and thought. His "Wilhelmine," a comic epic poem in prose, his journey into the southern provinces of France, and his metrical tales, enjoyed, therefore, no common degree of popularity.—(See Life by Gruner, Leipsic, 1819.)—K. E.  THUNBERG,, a Swedish naturalist, was born at Jönkoping on 11th November, 1743, and died at Upsal on the 8th of August, 1828. He studied medicine at the university of Upsal, and was a pupil of Linnæus, who inspired him with an ardent zeal for natural science. After graduating M.D., 1770, he obtained the Kohrean pension, which enabled him to travel on the continent with the view of improving his knowledge of science. On visiting Amsterdam he offered his services, as surgeon, to one of the Dutch East India Company's vessels about to proceed to Japan. He sailed in 1771, and spent some time at the Cape of Good Hope and the south of Africa. He did not reach the Japan islands until 1773. He made large collections in the islands, and returned home in 1779. He visited England, and had an opportunity of examining the collections placed at his disposal by Sir Joseph Banks. In 1784 he was appointed professor of botany at Upsal. He published at this time his "Flora Japonica," and he afterwards contributed articles on the plants of Japan to the Transactions of the Linnæan Society. The account of his travels from the year 1770 to 1779, was published in four volumes in 1788. He subsequently brought out a "Flora of the Cape of Good Hope," and drawings of Japan plants. He contributed many valuable articles to learned societies in Europe. He was a member of sixty-six of these societies. He was an amiable man, an accurate observer, and a great favourite with his pupils. He followed the system of Linnæus in his publications.—J. H. B.  THURLOE,, of the "State Papers," was the son of the rector of Abbots-Reading, Essex, where he was born in 1616. Educated for the law, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's inn in 1647, having two years before, through the influence of his steady patron, Oliver St. John, acted as one of the secretaries to the parliamentary commissioners for negotiating the treaty of Uxbridge. In 1648 he was appointed receiver or clerk of the cursitor fines, and in 1651 he accompanied St. John and Strickland to Holland as secretary to the embassy. In 1652 he became secretary to the council of state; and in 1653, with the protectorate, secretary of state to Cromwell, then an arduous and responsible position. He was a member of some of Cromwell's parliaments, but his main activity was official; and in all that related to the discovery of plots against the protector and his government, the employment of spies, the procuring of secret intelligence, he was pre-eminent; on one occasion, for the discovery of the plot of Harrison and the fifth-monarchy men, 1657, receiving the thanks of parliament. Cromwell gave him the farm of the post-office, a lucrative commission, and one very useful to him in his peculiar official employment. Among other distinctions conferred on him during the protectorate, he was made chancellor of the university of Glasgow. After the death of Cromwell he remained secretary of state until the January of 1660, when he was replaced by Thomas Scot the republican. With the Restoration he retired from public life, and is said to have refused Charles II.'s offers of employment, on the plea that he despaired of serving the king as he had served Cromwell, "whose rule was to seek out men for places, and not places for men." He died in London in 1668. His "State Papers," in 7 vols., were first published (with a life of Thurloe) in 1742, by Dr. Birch, who says that they were found in a false ceiling in Thurloe's chambers in Lincoln's inn. Coming into the hands of Lord-chancellor Somers and of Sir Joseph Jekyll successively, they were purchased on the death of the latter by a bookseller, whose executors intrusted them to Birch for publication. To the papers originally in Lord Somers' possession, Birch added some of interest and value, including contributions from Lord Hardwicke, Lord Shelburne, and the grandson of the protector Oliver's son Henry. Thurloe's "State Papers" are multifarious in the extreme, ranging from the reports of spies to speeches and letters of Cromwell's own; and they form a great storehouse of information for the history of the protectorate.—F. E.  THURLOW,, Lord, whose name stands on the roll of chancellors between Bathurst and Loughborough, occupies in the order of merit a position midway between the ingenuous and simple-minded dulness of the former, and the brilliant, unscrupulous achievements of the latter. Bathurst was conscientious and consistent, but always weak; Thurlow, though never great, was far above mediocrity, and sufficiently 