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THALES, a celebrated Greek philosopher, and the first of the seven wise men of Greece, was born at Miletus about 640 B. C. Thales acquired great reputation by his wisdom and learning; he was the first among the Greeks who foretold eclipses of the sun, and made extraordinary discoveries in astronomy. Thales was the author of the Ionian sect of philosophers, who were thus called, from his being born at Miletus, a city of Ionia. He maintained that water was the principle of which all the bodies in the universe are composed; that the world was the work of God; and that God sees the most secret thoughts in the heart of man. Thales went to see Croesus, who was marching with a powerful army into Cappadocia, and enabled him to pass the Halys without making a bridge. He died soon after, at about ninety years of age. He composed several treatises in verse, on meteors, the equinoxes, &c., but they are all lost.

THALES, another celebrated Greek philosopher, a native of Gorthynia. See CRETE.

THALESTRIS, a queen of the Amazons, who came, attended by 300 women, fifteen days' journey to meet Alexander, during his expedition into Asia, that she might raise up a race of heroes by so great a man,-Q. Curt. vi. c. 5. Strabo, 11. Justin, c. 4.

THALIA, in pagan mythology, one of the nine muses. She presided over Comedy; and is represented crowned with a garland of ivy, holding a mask in her hand, and wearing buskins on her feet. See MUSES.

THALIA, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class monandria, and order of monogynia; and in the natural system ranging under the eighth order, scitamineæ. The corolla is pentapetalous and undulated; and the drupe has a bilocular kernel. There is only one species, viz. T. geniculata.

THALICTRUM, meadow rue, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of polyandria, and order of polygynia; and in the natural system ranging under the twenty-sixth order, multisiliquæ. There is no calyx; the petals are four or five in number, and the seeds are naked and without a tail. There are fifteen species, three of which are indigenous, viz.

1. T. alpinum, or alpine meadow rue, has a very simple stalk, and almost naked; and a racemus simple and terminal. It is a pretty little plant, about a finger's length in height; the leaves all rise from the root, the stalks being naked and branched; the flowers nod, and have four petals, twelve stamina, and eight pistils. It is frequent on the sides of rivulets, in the highland mountains, and other places.

VOL. XXII.-PART 1.

2. T. flavum, the common meadow rue, has a leafy furrowed stalk, and a manifold erect panicle. It has commonly twenty-four stamina, and from ten to sixteen pistils. The root and leaves of this plant dye a yellow color, and cattle are fond of it. It grows on the banks of some rivers.

3. T. minus, or small meadow rue, has sexpartite leaves, and bending flowers. The stalk is striated, and about a foot high; the leaves are lax and divaricated, having rigid foot-stalks; they are smooth and glaucous, and their lobes generally trifid; the panicle is branched and open, and the flowers nod; the petals are pale green, tinged with red; the stamina are from fifteen to twenty; the seeds deeply striated, and from two to seven in number. This plant is frequent in sandy soils and mountainous pastures.

THALLAND, a province of Sweden, called also DALEA and DALIA, which see.

THAMAS KOULI KHAN, or Nadir Shah, the murderer and successor of the preceding monarch, a bloody monster. He began his bloody career with the murder of his own uncle, whose fort and territories he seized. See DELHI, INDIA, and PERSIA.

THAME, a market-town in the hundred of Thame, Oxon, pleasantly seated on an eminence on the banks of the Thame, thirteen miles east from Oxford, and forty-five north-west of London. The parish contains about 4600 acres of land, and is divided into six hamlets or liberties. The town consists of one long and spacious street, in the centre of which is a capacious marketplace, and the church is a good Gothic structure. It has a town-hall, a free-school, an alms-house, and several other charitable institutions. In 1138 Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, erected a monastery here, which, at the general dissolution, was given to the duke of Somerset. The river is navigable for barges to the Thames at Dorchester. The market on Tuesday is well supplied with corn and cattle. Fairs Easter Tuesday, and Old Michaelmas-day. It is a vicarage, with Tetsworth, Towersey, and Syddenham churches annexed. Population 2500.

THAME, a river which rises on the eastern side of Bucks, near Ivinghoe, crosses that county, and falls into the Thames at Dorchester, in Oxfordshire.

THAMES, the most remarkable river in England, particularly as connected with the commerce of the metropolis, and navigable from its mouth to Letchlade, in Gloucestershire, a distance of 230 miles. The tide flows as high as Richmond in Surrey, more than seventy miles from the ocean. From the depth of water at London, which is capable of navigating the

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largest ships, the metropolis is one of the greatest commercial ports in the universe. The real water is exceedingly wholesome; and abounds with a variety of fish. Its banks, westward from the metropolis, are ornamented with the most beautiful villas and pleasure grounds, and in its course it is joined by numerous rivers and streams, particularly the Kennet, Loddon, Coln, Charwell, Tame, Isis, Wey, Mole, Wandle, Lea, Roding, Darent, Medway, &c.; it is also joined by several navigable canals, viz. the Grand Junction canal, at Brentford; the Oxford and Warwick canal, at Oxford; and the Thames and Severn canal, at Letchlade; forming a connected chain of inland navigation throughout the whole of the kingdom.

THAMES, a river of Connecticut, which is formed by the Shetucket and Yantic, at Norwich, and flows south into Long Island Sound, two miles below New London. It is navigable through its whole course.

THAN, adv. Sax. danne. A particle placed in comparison after the comparative adjective or adverb, noting a less degree of the quality compared in the word that follows than: as, monarchy is better than anarchy.

Were we not better to fall once with virtue, Than draw a wretched and dishonoured breath? Ben Jonson.

I never met with a more unhappy conjuncture of affairs, than in the business of that unfortunate earl. King Charles.

More true delight in that small ground, Than in possessing all the earth was found.

Daniel.

I love you for nothing more than for the just eshave for all the sons of Adam. teem you Swift. THANE, n.s. Sax. degn. An old title of honor, perhaps equivalent o baron.

By Sinel's death I know I'm thane of Glamis; But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives. Shakspeare.

bridges and highways in proper repair. This title of thane was abolished in England at the conquest, upon the introduction of the feudal system by William I. The titles of earl and baron were about the same period introduced into Scotland by Malcolm Canmore, and the title of thane fell into disuse.

THANET, ISLE OF, a celebrated part of the county of Kent, lying on the south shore of the Thames, ten miles in length, from the NorthForeland to Saar Bridge, and eight miles across from Westgate to Sandwich Ferry. It is separated from the rest of the county by a narrow channel of the Stour, and contains ten parishes, to which there are now only seven churches. On this Isle are the popular bathing places of Margate, Ramsgate, and Broadstairs. The soil is particularly fertile in grain and all the ordinary crops; and in the south and west parts are excellent pasture and marsh-lands, on which large numbers of sheep and cattle are fattened. The climate is remarkably dry and salubrious. THANK, v. a. & n. s. THANKFUL, adj. THANK FULLY, adv. THANK FULNESS, n. s. THANK'LESS, adj. THANK LESSNESS, n. s. THANK OFFERING, THANKS GIVING, THANK WORTHY, adj.

Sax. Jancian; Belg. danck; Goth. thank. To return acknowledgments: the ac

knowledgment returned (often used in the plural): thankful is grateful; ready to acknowledge a favor: the adverb and noun substantive corresponding: thankless, ungrateful; not likely or deserving to gain thanks: the noun substantive that follows corresponding: the compounds are of obvious meaning.

Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

Psalm c. 4. Of old there were songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God. Nehemiah vii. 46. He took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all. Acts xxvii. 35. 2 Thess. i. 3.

We thank God always for you.
This is thankworthy, if a man endure grief.

1 Pet. ii. 19. Common Prayer. He scarcely would give me thanks for what I had done, for fear that thankfulness might have an introSidney.

A thankful remembrance of his death.

duction of reward.

Lest so great good as he for her had wrought, Should die unknown, and buried be in thankless thought. Spenser.

These sacred hymns Christianity hath peculiar to itself, the other being songs too of praise and thanksgiving, wherewith as we serve God, so the Jews like

wise.

That she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, To have a thankless child.

Hooker.

Shakspeare. King Lear. Will you give me this maid your daughter? -As freely, son, as God did give her me. -Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness. Shakspeare.

The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought,

He would have well become this place, and graced
The thankings of a king.
Id. Cymbeline.
For your stubborn answer
The king shall know it, and, no doubt, thank you.
Shakspeare.

The poorest service is repaid with thanks.

Id.

The contracting and extending the lines and sense of others, if the first authors might speak for themselves, would appear a thankless office. Wotton. Wage still their wars,

And bring home on thy breast more thankless scars. Crashaw. The celebration of these holy mysteries being ended, retire with all thankfulness of heart for having been admitted to that heavenly feast. Taylor.

For this to the infinitely good we owe Immortal thanks.

Ill fare our ancestor impure!

For this we may thank Adam.

Milton.

Id.

We should acknowledge our obligations to God for the many favours we receive, by continual praises and thanksgiving. Tillotson.

Out of gold, how to draw as many distinct substances as I can separate from vitriol, I shall very thankfully learn. Boyle.

Live, thou great encourager of arts; Live ever in our thankful hearts.

Dryden. Weigh the danger with the doubtful bliss, And thank yourself, if aught should fall amiss. Id. If you have lived, take thankfully the past; Make, as you can, the sweet remembrance last. Id. Thankfulness and submission make us happy.

L'Estrange.

The common practice of all Christian churches and states, in appointing and keeping days of public thanksgiving and humiliation, is argument sufficient to prove, that in the common sense of Christians it is not forbidden in scripture. Nelson.

One grateful woman to thy fame supplied What a whole thankless land to his denied.

Pope. 'That Portugal hath yet no more than a suspension of arms, they may thank themselves, because they came so late into the treaty; and, that they came so late, they may thank the Whigs, whose false representations they believed. Swift.

A thousand thankofferings are due to that providence which has delivered our nation from these absurd iniquities. Watts.

THAPSIA, the deadly carrot, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of pentandria, and order of digynia; and in the natural system ranging under the forty-fifth order, umbellatæ. The fruit is oblong, and girt with a membrane. There are five species:-T. asclepium, fœtida, garganica, trifoliata, and villosa. The roots of the fœtida were formerly ordered in medicine, but are now entirely disused; a small dose operating with extreme violence both upwards and downwards.

THAPSUS, a town of Africa Proper, where Scipio and Juba were defeated by Julius Cæsar Liv. 29, c. 30.

THARGELIA, in Grecian antiquity, festivals in honor of Apollo and Diana.

THAROPS, the father of Oeagrus and grandfather of Orpheus. Bacchus made him king of Thrace. Diod. 4.

THARUS, in ornithology, the Chilese eagle. See FALCO.

THASOS, or THASUS, an island in the Ægean Sea, anciently called thria, famous for its gold mines; with a town so named.

THASUS, a brother of Cadmus, whom he accompanied in search of Europa. Apollod. 3.

THAT, pron. & conj. Saxon dær; Gothic thata; Dut. dat. Not this, but the other; which; who; what; such as; the thing as a conjunction, because; noting consequence or final end.

Yet, for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies I will not cast them away.

Leviticus xxvi. 44. The Nazarite hath vowed, besides that that his hand shall get. Numbers vi. 21. They said, What is that to us? see thou to that. Matthew.

Ye defraud, and that your brethren. 1 Cor. iv. 8. The sinner makes an aberration from the scope or mark that is set before him. Perkins. Things are preached not in that they are taught, but in that they are published. Hooker.

Octavia, not only that,

That were excusable, that and thousands more
Of semblable import, but he hath waged
New wars against Pompey.

Shakspeare. I'll know your business, that I will. Id. Henry IV. Sir, I think the meat wants that I have, -Basting. Id. Comedy of Errours. We answered, that we held it so agreeable, as we both forgot dangers past and fears to come, that we thought an hour spent with him was worth years of our former life. Bacon's New Atlantis. In the midst of this darkness they saw so much light, as to believe that when they died they went immediately to the stars. Heylyn.

This is that Jonathan, the joy and grace, That Jonathan, in whom does mixt remain All that fond mother's wish.

Cowley.

Id.

Id.

ld.

They weep, as if they meant
That way at least proud Nabas to prevent.
In this scale gold, in t' other fame does lie,
The weight of that mounts this so high.

He made that art which was a rage. Forgive me that I thus your patience wrong. Id. I have shewed before, that a mere possibility to the contrary can by no means hinder a thing from being highly credible.

It is not that I love you less Than when before your feet I lay; But to prevent the sad increase Of hopeless love, I keep away.

Wilkins.

Waller.

By religion is meant a living up to those princiand to live as becomes those who believe a God and ples, that is, to act conformably to our best reason,

a future state.

Tillotson.

What is inviting in this sort of poetry proceeds not so much from the idea of a country life itself, as from that of its tranquillity. Pope.

THATCH, n. s. & v. n. Į
THATCH'ER, N. s.

Sax. Bace, straw, (Skinner), from dac, a roof; in Isl. thak.-Lye. Straw laid upon the top of a house to keep out the weather: to cover as with straw: one whose trade is thus to cover houses.

Make false hair, and thatch

Your poor thin roofs with burthens of the dead.

Shakspeare. Moss groweth chiefly upon ridges of houses tiled or thatched. Bacon's Natural History.

Then Rome was poor, and there you might be

hold

Then came rosy Health from her cottage of thatch, Where never physician had lifted the latch. Smart. THAUMANTIAS, in mythology, a name of Iris, the goddess of the rain-bow; from her father Thaumas.

THAUMAS, a son of Oceanus and Terra, who married Electra, by whom he had Iris, the Harpies, &c.

THAUMASIUS, a mountain of Arcadia, the birth-place of Jupiter according to the poets. THAW, v. n., v. a., & n. s. Sax. dapan; Teutonic thau. To grow liquid after congelation; melt; remit frost to melt what was congealed: the act of doing so liquefaction of something that has been congealed; the warmth that liquefies. My love is thawed,

Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was. Shakspeare.
A man of my kidney, that am as subject to heat
as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw.

Burnished steel, that cast a glare

From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air. Id. \

O solitude! romantick maid
Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or climb the Ande's clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide,
Or, starting from a half year's sleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep,
Thee, fond nymph! again I woo,
And again thy steps pursue.

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,
An' float the jinglin icy-boord,

By your direction.

Grainger.

Burns.

THAWING (from thaw), the resolution of ice into its former fluid state by the warmth of the air. See CONGELATION, and FROST.

extent.

THAXTED, a market-town and parish in Dunmow hundred, Essex, near the rise of the Chelmer, six miles from Dunmow, and fortyseven north-east of London. The manufacture of cutlery was formerly carried on here to a great The church is a neat and spacious Gothic building, with a tower and lofty spire, and the Dissenters and Quakers have neat meetinghouses. It was formerly a borough, and much more considerable than at present. Here are alms-houses, a school, and other charities. Market on Friday. Fairs, Monday before WhitSunday, and August 10th.

THE, article. Sax. de, de; Belg. de; Teut. die. The definite article, sometimes used by way of consequential reference, and often abridged in poetry and in pronunciation.

Your son has paid a soldier's debt : He only lived but till he was a man ; The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed, In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died. Shakspeare. Macbeth. Who had the especial engines been to rear His fortunes up into the state they were.

Daniel.

Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell, Unhappy till the last the kind releasing knell.

The adorning thee with so much art Is but a barb'rous skill:

'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart, Too apt before to kill.

Cowley.

ld.

In this scale gold, in t' other fame does lie. Id. He put him in mind of the long pretence he had to be groom of the bed-chamber, for the which he could not chuse but say that he had the queen's promise. Clarendon.

The fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world.

Milton.

As all the considerable governments among the Alps are commonwealths, so it is a constitution the most adapted of any to the poverty of these counAddison on Italy.

tries.

The longer sin hath kept possession of the heart, the harder it will be to drive it out. Duty of Man: Night shades the groves, and all in silence lie, All but the mournful Philomel and I. Pope.

THEATINES, a religious order in the Romish church, so called from their principal founder, John Peter Caraffa, the bishop of Theate, or Chieti, in the kingdom of Naples, and afterwards pope under the name of Paul IV. The names of the other founders were Gaetan, Boniface, and Consiglieri. These four pious men, desiring to reform the ecclesiastical state, laid the foun