991 



THEMISTOGENES. 



THEOBALD, LEWIS. 



932 



which ho acknowledged the evils he had inflicted upon his predecessor, 

 but at the same time claimed the merit of having saved him from 

 destruction by his timely advice. He added that his present exile was 

 only the consequence of his great zeal for the interests of the kiug of 

 Persia. He did not ask for an immediate interview with the king, as 

 he was yet unacquainted with the language and the manners of the 

 Persians, to acquire which he requested a year's time. During this 

 period he applied himself so zealously and with such success to these 

 studies, that at the close of the year, when he was presented to the 

 king, he is said to have excited the jealousy of the courtiers, and was 

 most kindly received by the king, to whom he held out prospects of 

 conquering Greece by his assistance. The king became so attached to 

 him, that Themistocles was always in his company. After he had 

 spent several years at the court, he was sent to Asia Minor, to wait 

 there for an opportunity of carrying his promises into effect. A 

 pension was now bestowed upon him after the Oriental fashion ; three 

 towns were given him, of which Magnesia on the Mseander was to pro- 

 vide him with bread, Myus with meat, and. Lampsacus with wine. 

 He took up his residence in the first of these towns, where he lived 

 with a sort of princely rank. But death overtook him at the age of 

 sixty-five, before any of his plans were carried into effect. Most of 

 the ancient writers state that he put an end to his life by poison, or, 

 according to another strange story, by drinking the blood of a bull, 

 because he despaired of being able to fulfil his promises to the king. 

 The motive for his suicide is veiy questionable. Reflections on his 

 past life and upon the glory of his former rivals at Athens are much 

 more likely to have rendered him dissatisfied with life. Before he 

 took the poison he is said to have requested his friends to convey his 

 remains secretly to Attica, and in later times a tomb which was 

 believed to contain them existed in Piraeus. In the market-place of 

 Magnesia a splendid monument was erected to his memory, and his 

 descendants in that place continued to be distinguished by certain 

 privileges down to the time of Plutarch. 



(Herodotus, vii. 143, &c. ; viii. 4, &c. ; Thucydides, i. 14, 135, &c. ; 

 Plutarch, Themistocles; Diodorus Sicul., XL 2, 12, &c. ; C. Nepos, 

 Themistocles; Pausanias, i. 1, 2 ; compare Thirl wall and Grote, 

 Histories of Greece.) 



THEMISTO'GENES, a writer to whom Xenophon refers (Hellen. 

 iii. 1, 2,) as the writer of a history of the expedition of Cyrus, by 

 which it is plain that he means the 'Anabasis' always ascribed to 

 Xenophon himself. Various conjectures have been formed as to this 

 Themistogenes of whom nothing else is known and his share in the 

 ' Anabasis,' but the most probable opinion is that Xenophon spoke of 

 his own history as the work of another person, [XENOPHON.] 



THENARD, LOUIS-JACQUES, BARON, a distinguished French 

 chemist, was born at Nogent-sur-Seine on the 4th of May 1777. He 

 went to Paris early in life, and became a pupil of Vauquelin. He 

 devoted himself with so much zeal and success to the study of 

 chemistry that when he was only twenty years old he was appointed 

 demonstrator of chemistry in the Polytechnic School of Paris. By his 

 unwearied assiduity and great knowledge of his subject he was at last 

 made professor of chemistry in the College of France and in the 

 University. In 1824 he received the title of Baron on the occasion of 

 the coronation of Charles X. In 1833 he was made a member of the 

 Academy, and in the same year he was elevated to the dignity of a peer 

 of France. In 1837 he resigned his professorship of chemistry in the 

 Polytechnic School, and in 1840 he gave up his chair in the University 

 of Paris. Baron Theuard was one of the most active chemists in the 

 first half of the 19th century. His separate works however are not 

 numerous. One of the best known of his literary productions he pub- 

 lished in conjunction with M. Gay Lussac; it is entitled 'Recherches 

 physico-chemiques.' This work was published after the discovery of 

 the metallic nature of soda and potash by Sir Humphry Davy. 

 Numerous experiments on the subject of the action of the galvanic 

 pile are recorded, and methods of obtaining potassium and sodium 

 independent of galvanism are indicated. Other subjects of high 

 scientific interest were discussed in this work, which served to give its 

 authors the first position amongst experimental chemists. In 1813 

 M. Thenard commenced the publication of his ' Traitc de chirnie 

 elementaire, theorique et pratique.' This work is a valuable introduc- 

 tion to the science of chemistry, and has gone through several editions 

 and been translated into German ; the last edition was published in 

 France in five volumes in 1836. The great contributions of Thenard 

 to the science of chemistry are to be found in the scientific journals 

 and transactions of scientific societies of his time. Of these there is 

 a vast number, embracing the whole range of chemical science. There 

 is indeed no branch of chemistry at which he did not labour, and there 

 is no subject he has worked at on which he has not thrown considerable 

 light. He died in the month of June 1857, and was buried publicly 

 in Paris on the 23rd of that month. For many years before his death 

 Baron Thenard had withdrawn from the active pursuit of chemical 

 science. To the last however he took a deep interest in the develop- 

 ment of the educational institutions of France. He was an administra- 

 tor of the College of France and of the Faculty of Sciences, and vice- 

 president for many years of the Superior Council of Public Instruction ; 

 and he has contributed more largely than any other individual since the 

 death of Cuvier to the development of the scientific institutions of 

 France. 



THEOBALD, LEWIS, was born at Sittingbourne in Kent, We 

 have no repord of the date of his birth. His father was an attorney, 

 and he was bred to his father's business. His first literary production 

 was ' Electra,' a tragedy, which appeared in 1714. As the writer of 

 twenty very indifferent plays he is utterly forgotten. Those productions 

 belong to an age in which the true spirit of dramatic poetry was for 

 the most part lost, and Theobald possessed none of those brilliant 

 qualities which could impart a lengthened existence to his attempts 

 in portraying the manners of his age. But he has attained a celebrity 

 of another description : he is most commonly known as the unhappy 

 dunce whom Pope assailed with the most inveterate ridicule ; but, 

 after a century of prejudice against his name, he is now pretty 

 generally acknowledged to have deserved an honourable reputation as 

 an editor of Shakspere, having brought to that task diligence, know- 

 ledge, and judgment, beyond comparison superior to the critical 

 talents of his rival the author of the 'Dunciad.' His 'bad eminence' 

 as the original hero of that poem was earned by a pamphlet in which 

 he pointed out many of the errors of Pope's Shakspere. ' Shakespear 

 Restored, or Specimens of Blunders committed and unamended in 

 Pope's Edition of this Poet,' was published in 1726. The first notice 

 which Pope took of this pamphlet was in his second edition of Shaks- 

 pere, which appeared in 1723: "Since the publication of our first 

 edition, there having been some attempts upon Shakspeare published 

 by Lewis Theobald (which he would not communicate during the time 

 wherein that edition was preparing for the press, when we, by public 

 advertisements, did request the assistance of all lovers of this author), 

 we have inserted in this impression as many of 'em as are judged of 

 any the least advantage to the poet ; the whole amounting to about 

 twenty-five words." In the same year came out the ' Dunciad.' The 

 revenge of Theobald was the severest that could be inflicted, and it 

 was unexceptionable. In 1733 he produced an edition of Shakspero 

 which utterly destroyed that of Pope. It has been asserted that of 

 Theobald's edition, which was in 7 vola. 8vo, nearly 13,000 copies were 

 sold. (Steevens's 'Shakespear,' 1793, vol. i.) In his preface, Theobald 

 thus notices the attacks of his distinguished rival : " It is not with 

 any secret pleasure that I so frequently animadvert on Mr. Pope as a 

 critic^ but there are provocations which we can never quite forget. 

 His libek have been thrown out with so much inveteracy, that, not to 

 dispute whether they should come from a Christian, they leave it a 

 question whether they could come from a man. I should be loth to 

 doubt, as Quintus Sereuus did in a like case, 



' Sive homo, seu similis turpissima bcstia nobis 

 Vulnera dente dedit.' 



The indignation, perhaps, for being represented a blockhead, may be 

 as strong in us as it is iu the ladies for a reflection on their beauties. 

 It is cei'taiu I am indebted to him for some flagrant civilities ; and I 

 shall willingly devote a part of my life to the honest endeavour of 

 quitting scores ; with this exception, however, that I will not return 

 those civilities in his peculiar strain, but confine myself, at least, to 

 the limits of common decency. I shall ever think it better to want 

 wit, than to want humanity ; and impartial posterity may pei'haps be 

 of my opinion." It is to be feared that it was rather a new hatred 

 than a sense of justice, however tardy, which induced Pope in 1743 to 

 dethrone Theobald from the heroship of the 'Dunciad,' setting up 

 Colley Gibber in his place. In the subsequent year both Pope and 

 Theobald were at peace ; death had for ever silenced their controversy. 

 Theobald died in September 1744. On the 20th of the following 

 October, his library, which included 295 old English plays, was sold 

 by auction. He had collected these productions, now so rare and 

 highly valued, at a time when our early drama was neglected, if not 

 despised ; and he made a judicious use of them in his edition of 

 Shakspere. When we speak of his edition with commendation, we of 

 course look at those things which are of permanent value in it; and 

 we pass over those ebullitions of offended pride, venting itself in self- 

 commendation and acrimonious objection, which were natural to one 

 who had been so hunted by satire as Theobald had been. Dr. Johnson 

 says that Theobald, "by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, 

 has escaped and escaped alone with reputation from this undertaking 

 [the undertaking of editing Shakspere]. So willingly does the world 

 support those who solicit favour against those who command rever- 

 ence, and so easily is he praised whom no man can envy." This, we 

 think, is mere phrase-making, and does not represent the world's 

 opinion of any man at any period : reputations are not made upon 

 the compassion of the world. Johnson has, a little before, stated the 

 case with greater correctness, although not wholly correct. " Pope was 

 succeeded by Theobald, a man of narrow comprehension, and small 

 acquisitions, with no native and intrinsic splendour of genius, with 

 little of the artificial light of learning, but zealous for minute accuracy, 

 and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the ancient copies, and 

 rectified many errors. A man so anxiously scrupulous might have 

 been expected to do more, but what little he did was commonly right." 

 The great merit of Theobald as an editor is that he did not attempt 

 too much, that he did not " do more," and that therefore he was 

 "commonly right." The great fault of nearly all the editors of 

 Shakspere has been that they set themselves up above their author ; 

 that they would exhibit their own " native and intrinsic splendour of 

 genius" in the improvement of what they did not understand, and the 



