logical knowledge, of which his writings, and especially his posthumous works, afford ample proof; but what is more to the present purpose, and is very little known, was also endued with poetic taste and genius. We shall have occasion speedily to refer to this more particularly. In the meantime, we notice it for the purpose of observing that the society of this truly eminent person tended to foster his juvenile predilection for the muses. Previous to his bidding farewell to Scotland, his academical progress seems to have been very slow, having probably suffered seasons of interruption by his residence in the country as a family tutor. Of this period of his life, few traces can now be found; but it is known that he passed a considerable time in the noble family of Cranston, then resident at Crailing near Jedburgh, and afterwards in that of Lord Binning, who was married to the heiress of Mellerstain. This lady, who was the grand-daughter, on the male side, of the celebrated patriot Robert Baillie; and on the female side, of Patrick Hume of Polwarth, afterwards Earl of Marchmont, was an early patron and friend of our poet. Thomson had also been distinguished by the friendship of the Elliots of Minto, in Roxburghshire.

He appears to have gone to London early in 1725, in the character of tutor to Lord Binning's family. A letter, in Thomson's own hand-writing, is now before us, dated from East Barnet, where Lord Binning's family then resided, in July of that year. He soon after, in the same season, settled in London, trusting, for a livelihood to his poetical talents, till his friends should find him some permanent situation. Of these friends, one of the most valuable was Mr. Duncan Forbes, then attending his duty in parliament, and whose character as a scholar and a judge, a patriot and a christian, have secured for his memory a lasting and well merited reputation. Though naturally of an easy and indolent temper, Thomson felt the necessity of exertion, and was so happy as in his first public enterprise to appropriate a theme worthy of all his genius. Its origin appears from a most interesting letter to his beloved companion, Dr. Cranston, then residing at Ancrum with his father, the amiable and respected minister of that parish, which appears, though without a date, to have been written early in the winter of the year 1725, not long after he had settled in London. He begins by complaining of his poverty, and asking a small temporary loan from his early friend: he then rises gradually into the sublimity of poetic emotion, and gives a sketch of a part of his Winter, and several appropriate quotations from the unfinished production of his muse. But what gives the chief interest to this letter is, that he distinctly states the source whence he drew the idea of his great yet simple plan of The Seasons. We shall give the passage, in connexion with the chain of associations by which it is naturally introduced.

Having finely pourtrayed his friend as contemplating the fading glories of the year, on the romantic banks of the stream where they had spent together many pleasing hours, Thomson thus proceeds, "There I walk in spirit, and disport in its

beloved gloom. This country I am in is not very entertaining; no variety but that of woods, and them we have in abundance. But where is the living stream, the airy mountain, and the hanging rock, with twenty other things that elegantly please the lover of nature? Nature delights me in every form. I am just now painting her in her most lugubrious dress, for my own amusement, describing winter as it presents itself," &c.-" Mr. Rickleton's poem on winter, which I still have, first put the design into my head. In it are some masterly strokes that awakened me. Being only a present amusement, 'tis ten to one but I drop it whenever another fancy comes cross. The letter of which this extract forms a part, was first published in the first number of the Kelso Mail, from the original, with an introduction from the hand of the present writer, stating the circumstances in which it was brought to light, so as clearly to establish its genuineness and authenticity. Much unavailing labour has been since used to discover the poem of Mr. Riccaltoun here alluded to. The venerable Dr. Somerville of Jedburgh, now the father of the Church of Scotland, and still in advanced age enjoying much of the mental vigour of youth, says, he remembers to have heard part of it recited by the author, and thinks he learned from himself that it was printed in a miscellany about 1718 or 1720, under the title of "Prospect of a Storm from Ruberslaw." It may yet, however, be discovered. In the mean time it appears certain, first, that Thomson's Winter, the first of "The Seasons," was begun, not, as some have alleged, before the poet removed from his native land, otherwise Dr. Cranston, his confidential friend, must have known it; secondly, that it was composed soon after his arrival in London, more with the view of pleasure than of gain; thirdly, that the idea originated in his admiration of the congenial poem of his respected counsellor and friend Mr. Riccaltoun; and lastly, that he seems hardly at this time to have contemplated the conclusion of this part of his plan, far less the extension of the subject to the other "Seasons."

Winter was published by Millar, London, in March 1726, and though at first it excited little notice, yet it speedily attained such popularity as to raise its author into the first rank of our national poets. It secured for him friends and admirers of every rank, and laid the foundation of an honourable and enduring fame. In the course of the same year, a second edition of it appeared. Summer next appeared, in 1727; Spring in the course of the same year, and Autumn not until 1730, when it formed part of the first quarto edition of his works.

In 1727, besides his Summer, as already mentioned, he published his poem on the then recent death of Sir Isaac Newton, which Dr. Johnson, in his "Life of Thomson," says, the poet was enabled to perform as an exact philosopher, by the aid of Mr. Gray. This may be a correct statement, though it is given without authority. If true, it is by no means discreditable to the author; for a man of profound knowledge on one class of subjects may, from that very circumstance, be ignorant of others. Nay, the intense application of the mind to works

of imagination, has a tendency to loosen its hold on the scientific attainments it had formerly made. But that Thomson, though chiefly occupied with intellectual and moral themes, was not ignorant of the principles of Natural Philosophy, as seems to be insinuated, appears from many distinct passages of the Seasons, and from the general structure of the work. In the same year he published Britannia, in which there are fine passages. Yet, as it may be regarded as an opposition political pamphlet in verse, written for a particular purpose, though under excited feelings, it occasioned but a temporary and a partial interest, and is floated down to posterity, only by the buoyancy of his more finished and popular productions. A short A short time after, he wrote and produced on the stage, under very auspicious circumstances, and high anticipations of success, the tragedy of Sophonisba, the actual popularity of which, however, was brief, and seems never to have been great.

Fortune now spread her canvas before him, but he did not long enjoy her prosperous gale. Recommended formerly to the notice of the Lord Chancellor Talbot, by Dr. Rundle, Bishop of Derry, Thomson was now engaged by that eminent lawyer and statesman to travel on the continent with his son, Mr. Charles Talbot. The ardent love of liberty which Thomson seems to have cherished as an instinct of his nature, and which glows in various parts of his writings, connected with his amor patriae, led him to contrast the advantages of his own country with the degraded condition of other nations. His much loved companion was cut off by an early death, not long after their return to England. He now employed much of his time in composing his long and elaborate poem entitled Liberty, in the exordium of which, he bewails in strains of unaffected tenderness, the loss of that friend, whose encouraging praise and congenial feelings, he expected would have cheered and animated his exertions. This poem, which occupied his leisure for several years, was published in

1736.

In the mean time, and soon after his return to England, he had been appointed by the Lord Chancellor Talbot, his secretary of briefs, an office which, while it afforded him a respectable income, left him sufficient leisure to prosecute his favorite studies. This office he did not long enjoy, as it was lost to him in consequence of the death of the Chancellor in 1737. He was now again thrown for support on his poetical exchequer; and in 1738 his tragedy of Agamemnon was performed at Drurylane with considerable success. He was introduced by Lyttleton to Frederick, Prince of Wales, who soon after settled upon him a pension of 100l. a year. In 1739 another of his tragedies, Edward and Eleonora, was offered to the stage, but, in consequence, as it is believed, of his connexion with the Prince of Wales, then the avowed head of an active opposition, and of certain political allusions in the piece, was refused a license by the Lord Chamberlain. In 1740, Thomson, with some as sistance from Mallet, wrote, for the amusement of the Prince's Court, The Masque of Alfred, which

was performed at Cliefden on the birth-day of the Princess Augusta. For several succeeding years we have little information of his employments. In 1745, his tragedy of Tancred and Sigismunda was produced, and acted with great applause. Its reputation continues deservedly high, and it still maintains its place among the favorite representations of the stage.

The last of his works, which he lived to publish, was the Castle of Indolence. This is the most finished of all his productions, and along with his Seasons, the foundation of his lasting fame. After much of the "limae labor, et mora," it appeared in 1746, and is still regarded, particularly the first canto, as among the most exquisite productions of the British Muse. About this time, his steady and illustrious friend Lyttleton, now advanced to the peerage and in office, employed his influence in securing for Thomson the appointment of surveyorgeneral of the Leeward Islands, which, besides supporting a resident deputy, yielded him a revenue of 300l. a year, at that time worth twice or thrice its present value. But the elegant leisure thus afforded him he did not live long enough to enjoy. For in autumn, 1748, returning one evening by water to his house at Richmond, after having overheated himself by walking, he was seized with a cold followed by fever, and died on the 27th of August, or (7th of September, N. S.) having nearly completed his 48th year. His remains were interred in Richmond church, without any memorial; but a brass tablet, with a suitable inscription, was not very many years ago put up in the wall of that church by the late Earl of Buchan. An edition of his works was published by Millar, who with a warmth of friendship honourable alike to the poet and the publisher, devoted the whole profits to the erection of a handsome monument for him in Westminster Abbey.

To increase the fund left by him to his surviving sisters, Lord Lyttleton, one of his executors, got introduced on the stage the tragedy of Coriola nus, which had been left finished by the author, and for which his Lordship wrote a prologue, that was spoken with deep emotion and powerful effect by Quin, who had long been the zealous friend of the poet. From this and other sources, after paying his debts, a considerable sum was remitted to these relatives, to whom, during the course of his life, he had given substantial proof of a steady attachment.

His works have appeared in numerous forms. The most elegant edition of the Seasons, which we have seen, is that of London, 1814, which is illustrated with beautiful engravings by Bartolozzi and Tomkins, from original pictures by Hamilton. An ingenious French translation of the Seasons in verse by Poulin, was published at Paris in 1803.

In 1790 and 1791, festive meetings in honor of the poet, were held on his birth-day at Ednam, his native village; and a regular club was then formed, consisting chiefly of gentlemen of the counties of Roxburgh and Berwick, who met at that place for many years on the 22d of September, with the view of erecting by subscription a suitable monu

ment on some conspicuous place in his native parish. The sum of about 300l. was raised for that purpose; and an obelisk of about 50 feet in height was at length, in 1819, erected by Mr. William Elliot of Kelso, on Ferney Hill, about a mile from the village of Ednam. This, though a plain building, and, as yet, without any inscription, is a pleasing object from various points of view, and serves to associate in the minds of the neighbouring inhabitants, and inquiring strangers, the idea of Thomson with the place of his nativity.

The limited space allotted to this article, has obliged us to be very brief in our statement of facts, and now prevents us from offering any thing more than the slightest allusion to his character as a man and a poet. He appears to have been a dutiful son, a kind and affectionate brother, and a warm and steady friend: benevolent in his affections, gentle in his manners, and moderate in his desires. His ardent love of nature, gives a high interest to his writings, and glows through his master-piece, The Seasons, with an intensity that must excite kindred emotions in every reader of taste and sensibility. But what constitutes the principal charm of this simple, yet magnificent work, is the exquisite skill with which he has connected in the flowing numbers of his classic muse, the most pleasing and elevated conceptions of the Author of Nature, with the contemplation of his works, through the shifting scenery of the year. The closing Hymn nobly concentrates in the finest strains of poetry the soundest deductions of the understanding, and the most sacred and ennobling impressions of the heart, in reference to this exalt ed theme. Without this, the finest description of nature falls heavily on the spirit. But the union is equally natural and graceful; and leads us to exclaim in the language of Akenside,

Mind-mind alone-bear witness, Earth and Heaven,
The living fountain in itself contains,
Of beauteous and sublime!

THOMSON, SIR BENJAMIN, Count of Rumford, a celebrated chemist, was born at Rumford, (now Concord,) New Hampshire, in 1753. Having received, besides the ordinary education which the village afforded, some instruction in mathematics from the Rev. Mr. Bernard, he was enabled to discharge the duties of a village schoolmaster. In the year 1772 he married a widow of the name of Mrs. Rolfe, through the influence of whose friends he obtained the commission of major of militia, and some other advantageous appointments. He was hence led to attach himself to the royalist party, but in consequence of the success of the independent forces, he was obliged in 1773 to quit Boston, where he had taken refuge, leaving behind him his wife, whom he never again met, and his infant daughter, who about 20 years afterwards joined him in Europe.

At the evacuation of Boston in 1776 he was sent with dispatches to England, where he acquired the confidence of Lord George Germaine, by whom he was appointed secretary to the province of Georgia, an office which he never exercised.

In 1777 he began his scientific labours by a se

ries of experiments on the cohesive strength of different substances, the communication of which to Sir Joseph Banks led to his admission as a member of the Royal Society on the 2d of April, 1779. In the preceding year he began his experiments on the strength of gunpowder, and in order to pursue them successfully, he went in 1779 on board the Victory, commanded by Sir Charles Hardy, where he spent the whole campaign. The practical knowledge which he thus acquired enabled him to furnish a chapter on marine artillery to Stalkart's Treatise on Naval Architecture. In 1780 he was appointed Under Secretary of State, and some time afterwards he succeeded, through the influence of his American friends, in raising the regi ment of the King's American Dragoons. Having been appointed first colonel commandant of it, he went to serve with it in America; and at Charlestown he received the command of the remains of the British cavalry, which he often led on successfully against the enemy. In 1782 he assumed the command of his own regiment at New-York, and was sent with it to winter at Huntingdon, in Long Island. In 1783 he was appointed to conduct the defence of Jamaica: but the termination of the war led him to the more glorious occupation of advancing the true interests of his species.

His fondness, however, for a military life induced him to set out for Vienna in 1780, with the view of serving in the Austrian army against the Turks. His appearance on parade at Presburg attracted the attention of the late king of Bavaria, then prince Maximilian, who recommended him to his uncle the elector, by whom he was received at Munich with great kindness. He spent the winter at Vienna, where he met with a cordial reception; but as the war against the Turks did not take place, he returned again to Munich in 1784, after visiting Venice and the Tyrol.

Having been invited to enter the service of the Elector, he went to England to obtain leave, which he received from the king along with the honour of knighthood. On his return to Bavaria, he was appointed aid-de-camp general to the Elector, and colonel of cavalry, and he devoted the leisure which he now enjoyed to the continuation of his scientific researches, and to the preparation of those plans of reform which he wished to introduce into Bavaria. During a visit to Manheim, in 1786, he began his experiments on heat. In 1785 he was made chamberlain to the Elector, and in the same year he was admitted into the academies of Munich and Manheim. In 1785 he received the order of Stanislaus from the king of Poland; in 1787 he was admitted into the Academy of Sciences at Berlin during a visit to that capital; in 1788 he was appointed major-general of the Bavarian cavalry, privy counsellor of state, and chief of the war department.

In 1789 he established the house of industry at Manheim, and in 1790 that at Munich, which he has described in his Essays. He founded the Military Academy at Munich, improved the military police, and established schools of industry for the families of the soldiers. These great services to the state were rewarded by his promotion to be

lieutenant-general of the Bavarian armies, and by a regiment of artillery. He was created in 1791 a count of the Holy Roman Empire, and obtained the order of the White Eagle.

The state of his health induced him to perform a tour in Italy, during which he had a severe illness at Naples, and on his return to Munich in 1799, he found himself unfit for active duty, and devoted himself to the preparation of the first five of his "Essays." In 1795 he came over to England with the view of publishing his Essays, and drawing the attention of the country to the amelioration of the condition of the lower orders. In 1796, he paid a visit to Lord Pelham, the Irish secretary: and such was the value of the improvements which he suggested on some of the public establishments in Dublin, that he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and received the public thanks of the Lord Lieutenant, and of the Lord Mayor of Dublin.

In 1796 he established two biennial prizes of the value of about 60 guineas, for the most important discoveries on light and heat; the one to be adjudged by the Royal Society of London, and the other by the American Academy of Sciences. An account of this prize has already been given in our article SOCIETIES, Vol. XVII.

In consequence of the advance of General Moreau to the confines of Bavaria, the Elector was obliged to fly into Saxony. At such a crisis the services of Count Rumford were required. After the battle of Friedberg, he took the command of the Bavarian army, and he succeeded in preventing both the Austrians and the French from entering Munich. When the Elector returned to Munich, Count Rumford was placed at the head of the general police of Bavaria, but the duties of his office made such an inroad upon his health, that he was appointed the Bavarian Minister at the British court, a situation, however, which was found to be incompatible with his character as a British subject. He therefore continued his residence in England as a private individual, where he projected and established the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

In the year 1800, Count Rumford paid a visit to Edinburgh, where he was consulted respecting the abolition of mendicity, and reformed the culinary establishment of Heriot's Hospital. On this occasion he was made an honorary member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and of the Royal College of Physicians. The American government offered him, about this time, an honorable establishment, but his engagements in Europe were incompatible with the acceptance of it.

He

With the view of residing permanently in England, he fitted up a house at Brompton with every contrivance for hospitality and luxury, but before it was finished the serenity of his mind seems to have been disturbed by some imaginary evils. He therefore quitted England in 1802, spending the spring in Paris and the summer in Munich. In 1803 he made a tour in Switzerland and Bavaria, accompanied by Madame Lavoisier, whom he mar. VOL. XVIII. PART I.

ried on their return to Paris; but this connexion was not a happy one, and the parties soon separated. The count retired to Auteuil, about four miles from Paris, and spent his latter years almost in solitude; and though he had been elected one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute, yet he did not even attend its sittings. He enjoyed a pension of £1200 a year from the Bavarian government, and spent his time in the improvement of his grounds and in various mechanical and philosophical pursuits. In the autumn of 1814 he intended to return to England; but he was seized with a low fever, which carried him off on the 21st of August, in the 62d year of his age, leaving behind him an only daughter.

The following is a list of the principal writings of Count Rumford:

1. New Experiments on Gunpowder, Philosophical Transactions, 1781, p. 23. 2. New Experiments upon Heat, Id. 1786, p. 273.

3. Experiments on Dephlogisticated Air, Id. 1787, p. 84.

4. Experiments on the Absorption of Moisture from the atmosphere by various substances, Id. p. 240.

5. Experiments on heat, Id. 1792, p. 48.

6. Description of his Photometer, Id. 1794, p. 67. 7. Experiments on the Force of Gunpowder, Id. 1797, p. 272.

8. On the Source of Heat from Friction, Id. 1798, p. 80.

9. On the Chemical Properties of Light, Id. 1793, p. 449.

10. On a Phenomenon on the Glaciers of Chamouny, Id. 1804, p. 23.

11. On the Nature of Heat, and the mode of its Communication, Id. 1804.

12. His ESSAYS, in 4 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1795-1800. These Essays, which are 18 in number, were reprinted in France and Germany.

Count Rumford communicated various papers to the Memoirs of the National Institute of France, relating to heat and light. These papers, which are nine in number, are published in vols. vi. vii. and viii., for the years 1806 and 1807. An account of several of his discoveries and inventions will be found in this work, under the articles Gunpowder, Vol. X. p. 191; HEAT, Vol. X. p. 274; METEOROLOGY, Vol. XIII.; OPTICS, Vol. XIV. p. 760. THRASYBULUS. See Athens.

THRASHING MACHINE. See AGRICULture, Vol. I. p. 250—256.

THUNDER. See ELECTRICITY, Vol. VIII. p.

311-316.

THURSO, a seaport town of Scotland in Caithness-shire. It is situated at the head of a spacious bay on the estuary of the river Thurso. The town is irregularly built, but very elegant houses have been erected to the south of the old town. The church is an old Gothic building in tolerably good repair, and there are places of worship for the antiburghers and baptists, and congregationalists. There are two banks in the town. There is a ma

E

nufacture of coarse linen cloth and of straw plait, and there is a tannery, a ropework, a bleachfield, and two distilleries in the neighbourhood. The harbour admits, at spring tides, vessels that draw 14 feet of water. Twenty decked vessels of 1241 tons register belong to the town. They are either coasting vessels or employed in the fisheries. Corn and meal are exported to the amount of £12,000 annually, and fish to the amount of £13,824. The population of the town and parish, in 1821, was 648 houses, 779 families, of whom 268 are employed in agriculture, 428 in trade, 1786 males, 2259 females, and 4045 inhabitants.

TIBERIUS. See ROMAN EMPIRE, Vol. XVI. p.

414-416.

TIDES. See ASTRONOMY, Vol. II. 623–674. TILGHMAN, WILLIAM, was born on the 12th of August 1756, upon the estate of his father, in Talbot county, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, about a mile from the town of Easton.

His paternal great grandfather, Richard Tilghman, emigrated to that province from Kent county, in England, about the year 1662, and settled on Chester river, in Queen Anne's county.

His father, James Tilghman, a distinguished lawyer, is well known to the profession in Pennsylvania as secretary of the Proprietary Land-Office, and as having brought that department, by the accuracy of his mind and the steadiness of his purpose, into a system as much remarked for order and equity, as from its early defects it threatened to be otherwise.

His maternal grandfather was Tench Francis the elder, of Philadelphia, one of the most eminent lawyers of the province, the brother of Richard Francis, author of "Maxims of Equity," and of Dr. Philip Francis, the translator of Horace.

It is not surprising to find among the collateral ancestors of the late chief justice, the author of one of the earliest compends of scientific equity, and a scholar accomplished in the literature of the age of Augustus.

In 1762, his family removed from Maryland to Philadelphia.

In the succeeding year he was placed at the Academy, and, in the regular progress of the classes, came under the instruction of Mr. Beveridge, from whom he received his foundation in Latin and Greek.

Upon the death of Beveridge his place was filled provisionally by Mr. Wallis, who was perfectly skilled in the prosody of those languages, and who imparted to his pupils an accuracy, of which the chief justice was a striking example.

Dr. Davidson, the author of the grammar, succeeded Beveridge, and with him the subject of this discourse remained till he entered the college in the year 1769, Dr. Smith being then the provost, and Dr. Francis Allison the vice-provost, the latter of whom instructed the students in the higher Greek and Latin classics; and such was the devotion to literature of the eminent pupil of whom we are speaking, that after he had received the bachelor's degree, and was, in the ordinary sense, prepared

for a profession, he continued for some time to read the classics, with the benefit of Dr. Allison's predilections.

In February 1772 he began the study of the law in Philadelphia, under the direction of the late Benjamin Chew, then at the head of his profession, afterwards chief justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, and at the close of the high court of errors and appeals, its venerable president.

In the office of this gentleman, he continued until December 1776, devoting himself to Littleton and Coke and Plowden, and the other fathers of the common law, at that time the manuals of the legal student, and at no time postponed in his estimation and regard to the more popular treatises of later days.

From 1776 to 1783, partly on his father's estate, and partly at Chestertown, whither his family had removed, he continued to pursue his legal studies, reading deeply and laboriously, as he has himself recorded, and applying his intervals of leisure to the education of a younger brother. When, therefore, in the spring of 1783, he was admitted to the courts of Maryland, we may infer that an apprenticeship of eleven years had filled his mind with legal principles sufficient to guide and enlighten him for the rest of his life.

In 1788, and for some successive years, he was elected a representative to the legislature of Maryland. His temper and habits were not perfectly congenial with active political life, nor was he at any time attracted by that career; but he was a republican, in the catholic sense, and took an active part in procuring the adoption of the federal constitution, to which, as well as to its founders and great first administrator, he felt and uniformly declared the most profound attachment.

In 1793, he returned to Philadelphia, and commenced the practice of the law, which he prosecuted until his appointment by President Adams, on the 3d of March 1801, chief judge of the cir cuit court of the United States for this circuit.*

His powers as an advocate, but more especially his learning and judgment, were held in great respect by the community, surrounded notwithstanding as he was, by men of the first eminence in the land. His law arguments, which some now present may recollect, were remarkable for the distinctness with which he presented his case, and for the perspicuity and accuracy with which his legal references were made to sustain it. He was concise, simple, occasionally nervous, and uniformly faithful to the court, as he was to the client. But the force of his intellect resided in his judgment; and even higher faculties than his as an advocate, would have been thrown comparatively into the shade by the more striking light which surrounded his path as a judge.

The court in which his judicial ability was first made known, had but a short existence. In a year after its enactment, the law which erected this court was repealed; and the judges, who had received their commissions during good behaviour, were deprived of their offices without the imputation of a fault.