1023 



THEW, ROBERT. 



THIBAUT. 



1024 



of course, for jhe waa more intent upon travelling and observing than 

 publishing. Before his book had passed through the precs, and 

 without giving his friends any warning of his intention, he left Paris 

 to renew his researches in the East, and sailed from Marseille on the 

 6th. of November, 1663. 



This time his object was to visit Persia and the Indies. He arrived 

 at Alexandria on the 4th of February 1664 : from Alexandria he 

 sailed in a few days to Sidon ; and from Sidon he visited Damascus. 

 After a stay of twenty-four days in that city he went to Aleppo, 

 where he remained two months ; and then, travelling by Bir and Orfa 

 to Mosul, descended the Tigris to Baghdad. From Baghdad he travelled 

 io Ispahan, by the way of Hamadan. Having remained five months 

 at Ispahan, he left it, in company with Tavernier, for Schiraz and 

 Gombroon, intending to sail for India from that port, but the jealousy 

 of the Dutch agents obliged him to return to Schiraz. After examining 

 the ruins of Tshelminar (Persepolis) he proceeded to Basrah, and 

 embarked at that port for Surat, where he arrived on the 12th of 

 January 1666. Surat continued his head-quarters till February 1667, 

 during which time he made excursions to Guzerat, the court of the 

 Mogul, and to the Deccan. On his return to Persia he spent five 

 months at Ispahan. He had several attacks of illness in India, and 

 having been wounded by the accidental discharge of one of his own 

 pistols at Gombroon, his cure was tedious. His constitution was pro- 

 bably undermined ; for, attacked by fever on his way from Ispahan to 

 Tabriz, he died at Miana, on the 28tb of November 1667. During 

 this journey he had acquired a knowledge of the Persian language. 



The narrative of TheVenot' s first journey to the East was prepared 

 for the press by himself, but was not published till after his departure 

 from Persia. The account of his travels in Persia, and that of his 

 travels in India, were published (the former in 1674, the latter in 

 1684) by an editor who is called, in the ' Privilege du Roi,' the Sieur 

 Luisandre, and who states that he was The"venot's executor, and 

 employs expressions which would lead us to believe that he had 

 married the traveller's mother. The editing of these two volumes 

 has been respectably performed. 



TheVenot possessed a natural talent for observation, and the power 

 of expressing himself accurately and unaffectedly. Nothing of import- 

 ance appears to have escaped his notice : his manner of telling his 

 etory impresses the reader with a confidence in his good faith, and his 

 statements have been corroborated on many material points. His 

 mastery of the Turkish, Arabic, and Persian languages gave him an 

 advantage that scarcely any other Oriental traveller of his day pos- 

 sessed. His practice of residing for some time in the principal towns 

 of the countries he visited familiarised him with the customs of the 

 natives. His descriptions of external objects are distinct, and his 

 routes accurate. He had collected a Hortus Siccus in India, and had 

 laid beside each specimen an account of the habitat and characteristics 

 of the plant, along with its name in the Portuguese, Persian, Malabar, 

 and (what his biographer terms) the Indian and Banian languages. 

 This collection came into the possession of Melchisedec TheVenot, and 

 is mentioned in the printed catalogue of his library. Jean Thevenot 

 had also made a collection of Persian and Arabic manuscripts, of 

 which Tavernier says the cadi of Miana kept the best to himself. The 

 matured judgment, and talent for observation and description, displayed 

 in TheVenot's works, are astonishing in one who had been a wanderer 

 from his twentieth year, and who died in his thirty-fourth. His 

 travels, originally published in three volumes, in quarto, which 

 appeared respectively in 1665, 1674, and 1684, were reprinted in 

 Amsterdam, in five duodecimo volumes, in 1689, and at the same 

 place, in the same form, in 1705, 1725, and 1727. A Dutch translation 

 of them was published in 1681, an English translation in 1687, and a 

 German translation hi 1693. 



This sketch has been compiled from the account of TheVenot's life 

 prefixed to the second volume of his travels, from the travels them- 

 selves, and from some incidental notices in Tavernier. 



THEW, ROBERT, was the son of an innkeeper at Patrington, in 

 the East Riding of Yorkshire, where he was born, in 1758. His edu- 

 cation was neglected, and at a suitable age he was bound apprentice 

 to a cooper. After the expiration of his appenticeship Thew continued 

 for a time to work at the business to which he was brought up ; and 

 Chalmers states that, during the American war of independence, he 

 served as a private in the Northumberland militia. According to the 

 ' Gentleman's Magazine,' his attention was first directed to engraving 

 about the age of twenty-six; when, it is stated, he happened to see an 

 engraver at work, and although he had never practised drawing, he 

 procured a copper-plate, and engraved an old woman's head, from a 

 picture by Gerard Douw, with such extraordinary skill that he was, 

 on the recommendation of Charles Fox, the Duchess of Devonshire, 

 and Lady Duncaunon, appointed historical engraver to the Prince of 

 Wales. Whatever foundation there may be for this story, it must be 

 received with some allowance, because a considerable degree of mecha- 

 nical dexterity is indispensable for the production of a good copper- 

 plate engraving. A more probable account is that about 1783 he 

 settled at Hull, and became an engraver of shop-bills, cards, &c. 

 Chalmers states that he engraved and published a plan of Hull, which 

 is dated May 6, 1784; and that shortly afterwards he solicited sub- 

 scriptions for two views of the dock at that place. The latter are 

 large aquatint prints, drawn and engraved by Thew, with the assistance 



of F. Jukee in the aquatinting department ; and they were published 

 in London by Thew himself, in May 1785. Copies of them are pre- 

 served in the collection of George III., now in the British Museum. 

 In 1788 Thew was introduced to Alderman Boydell by the Marquis of 

 Caermarthen (afterwards duke of Leeds), whose patronage he had 

 obtained by the construction of a camera obscura on a new principle ; 

 and Boydell immediately commissioned him to engrave Northcote's 

 picture of the interview between the young princes, from ' Richard 

 III.,' act iii. sc. 1. This plate was published in 1791, at which time 

 Thew held the appointment above alluded to, of engraver to the 

 Prince of Wales. He subsequently engraved eighteen other plates 

 for the Shakspere Gallery, and part of a nineteenth. Several of these 

 are among the best in the collection, and display a high degree of 

 mechanical skill, as well as an unusual amount of spirit and expression. 

 That of Cardinal Wolsey entering Leicester Abbey ('Henry VIII.,' 

 act iv., sc. 2), from a picture by Westall, is deservedly celebrated as a 

 fine specimen of the style known among artists as stipple engraving ; 

 and in consequence of its superior beauty, proof-impressions of it 

 were, according to the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' charged double the 

 price of any other in the whole work. Thew died in July 1802, at 

 Stevenage (or Roxley, according to the ' Gentleman's Magazine ') in 

 Hertfordshire. (Gent. Mag., Oct. 1802, p. 971 ; Chalmers, Biog. Diet.) 



THIBAUT, fifth count of Champagne, and first king of Navarre of 

 that name, occupies a respectable rank among the Troubadours. It 

 has been pretty satisfactorily shown by recent writers on the subject 

 that the scandalous stories told of this king by Matthew of Paris and 

 others rest upon no satisfactory evidence. They have however been 

 more successful in disproving the tales of their predecessors than in 

 substituting anything in their place. They have rendered Thibaut's 

 biography in a great measure negative. 



He was born about the beginning of the year 1201, and has been 

 called Theobaldus Posthumus, on .account of his father having died 

 before his birth. His mother, Blanche, daughter of Sancho the Wise, 

 king of Navarre, took charge of and governed his extensive territories 

 as regent for twenty years. A taste for literature was hereditary hi 

 the family of Thibaut. His grandmother, Marie of France, held, about 

 the middle of the 12th century, one of the most celebrated ' Courts of 

 Love,' and some of her judgments have been preserved by Andre* le 

 Chapelain. His mother Blanche induced by her commands Aubein 

 de Sezane to compose several songs, after he had solemnly renounced 

 the practice of poetry. With such examples before him it was natural 

 enough that the young Count of Champagne should contract a taste 

 for rhyming. 



An attempt was made in the year 1214 to wrest the territories of 

 Champagne from the widow and her son. The father of Thibaut 

 was a younger son : his elder brother Henry followed Philippe Auguste 

 to the Holy Land, and, marrying there a sister of Baldwin IV., king 

 of Cyprus and Jerusalem, had by her two daughters, Alice, queen of 

 Cyprus, and Philippa, who married Airard de Brienne. The father 

 of Thibaut V., after his brother's departure for Palestine, took pos- 

 session of Champagne and Brie, which were held without challenge 

 by him, and by his widow in name of her son, till 1214. Airard 

 de Brienne then claimed them in right of his wife. Philippe 

 Auguste decided in favour of Thibaut, and the sentence was confirmed 

 by the peers of France, in July 1216, on the ground that Henry, 

 when departing for the East, had ceded all his lands in France to his 

 brother, in the event of his not returning. In November 1221, the 

 seigneur of Brienne was persuaded to abandon his claims upon receiving 

 a compensation. 



In the same year Thibaut took upon himself the management of his 

 domains, which rendered him, by their extent, and the title of 

 count palatine, which they conferred upon their holder, the most 

 powerful vassal of the crown. During the brief and troubled reign 

 of Louis VIII. (July 1223, to November 1226), Thibaut distinguished 

 himself by nothing but the pertinacity with which he insisted upon 

 his feudal rights. At the siege of Rochelle he consented to remain 

 till the town was taken, but exacted in return a declaration from the 

 king that by so doing he did not render himself liable on any future 

 occasion for more than the 40 days' service hi arms due by the 

 vassals of the crown. In the crusade against the Albigenses (induced 

 probably by regard for the Count of Toulouse, who was his kinsman) 

 he resisted every entreaty of the king to remain with the army after 

 the 40 days had expired; and his departure from it was one of the 

 foundations for the stories afterwards circulated to his disadvantage. 



On the death of Louis VIII. a league was formed by a number of 

 the most powerful French nobles to prevent the queen from acting 

 as regent. Thibaut was at the outset a party to this confederacy. 

 There are extant letters of Pierre, duke of Bretagne, and Hugues de 

 Lusignan (dated March 1226, which, as the year is now made to com- 

 mence, would be called 1227) authorising him to conclude in their 

 name a truce with the king. The regent however found means to 

 detach the Count of Champagne from his allies; for an attempt 

 which they made soon after to obtain possession of her person and 

 the king's was frustrated by the opportune arrival of Thibaut at the 

 head of a strong body of horse. The Duke of Bretagne and his coad- 

 jutors were much incensed at the desertion of the Count of Cham- 

 pagne, and appear to have soon after formed the project of harassing 

 him by supporting the claims of the Queen of Cyprus upon Cham- 



