



TfiOMOND, THOMAS. 



THOMPSON, WILLIAM. 



clear the field from the weeds with which it was overgrown, before it 

 was fit to receive the seed, and accordingly his philosophy is more of a 

 destructive than of a constructive character. But in this negative 

 way he has done incalculable service to his nation, and Frederick the 

 Great justly says, that among all the philosophers of Germany, none 

 have contributed more to render its name illustrious than Leibnitz 

 and Thoinasius. 



The number of works of Thomasius is considerable. Besides those 

 mentioned above, the following must be noticed : ' Einleitung zu der 

 Vernunftlehre, worinnen durch eine leichte, und alien verniinftigen 

 Menschen, waserlei Standes oder Geschlechts sie seyn, verstiindliche 

 Manier, der Weg gezeiget wird, ohne die Syllogistica, das Wahre, 

 Wahrscheinliche und Falsche von einander zu entscheideu und 

 neue Wahrheiten zu erfinden.' 8vo, Halle, 1691. The fifth and last 

 edition of this work appeared at Halle, 8vo, 1719; it was the first 

 readable book that had ever been produced in Germany on logic. ' Von 

 der Kunst verniinftig und tugendhaftzu lieben, als dem einzigen Mittel 

 zu einem gliickseligen, galanten, und vergnugten Leben zu galangen, 

 oder Eiuleitung der Sittenlehre,' &c., Svo, Halle, 1G92 ; an eighth edition 

 of it appeared iu 1726. This work contains a system of ethics better 

 than any that had appeared before him. ' Historic der Weisheit und 

 Thorheit,' in three parts, 8vo, Halle, 1693. 'Weitere Erlauterung 

 durch unterschiedene Exetnpel, anderer Menschen Gemiither kennen 

 zn lernen,' 8vo, Halle, 1693, reprinted in 1711. ' Der Kern wahrerund 

 niitzlicher Weltweisheit,' Svo, Halle, 1693 : this is a translation of 

 Xenophon's ' Memorabilia of Socrates,' which Thomasius strangely 

 enough took from the French translation of Charpentier, although he 

 himself was well acquainted with the Greek. ' Versuch vom Wesen 

 des Geistes, oder Gruudlehren die einem Studioso Juris zu wissen und 

 auf Universitaten zu lernen nothig sind,' Svo, Halle, 1699, reprinted in 

 1709. ' Ernsthafte aber doch muntere und verniinftige Gedanken und 

 Erinnerungen iiber allerhand auserlesene j uristische Handel,' 4 vols., 

 Halle 1720-21. His miscellaneous and smaller essays appeared in a 

 collection under the title ' Kleine Deutsche Schrit'ten mit Fleiss zusatn- 

 mengetragen,' Svo, Halle, 1701. A complete list of his works is given 

 in Luden's ' Christian Thomasius nach seinen Schicksalen und Schriften 

 dargestellt,' with a preface by Johannes von Muller, Svo, Berlin, 1805 ; 

 and in Jorden's ' Lexikon Deutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, vol. v., 

 p. 3759. 



THOMOND, THOMAS, an architect who practised at St. Petersburg, 

 and held the rank of a major in the Russian service, was a native of 

 France, and born at Nancy, on the 21st of December 1759. Scarcely 

 had he completed his professional education at Paris when the 

 revolution rendered it unsafe for him (he and his family being 

 royalists) to remain in the country, and he accordingly emigrated to 

 Russia, where he at first supported himself by the productions of his 

 pencil, which not only found purchasers, but made him favourably 

 known to the St. Petersburg public. The taste he displayed iu archi- 

 tectural subjects led at length' to his being employed by the govern- 

 ment in that branch of art which he had originally intended to follow, 

 and one of the first works of any importance intrusted to him was 

 the Great Theatre (erected by the German architect Tischbein, 

 1782-83), which he was commissioned to improve and partly remodel 

 iu 1804. Although not altogether free from the peculiarities of the 

 French school, the fa9ade and octastyle Ionic portico which he added 

 to that structure is one of the noblest pieces of architecture in the 

 northern capital of Russia, and, of its kind and date, in Europe. Had 

 he executed nothing else, that alone would have entitled him to rank 

 higher in his profession as an artist than many who owe their celebrity 

 as much to the number as to the merit of their works. But he had 

 also the opportunity of displaying his taste and ability in another very 

 striking public edifice at St. Petersburg, namely, the Imperial Birzha, 

 or Exchange, erected by him between the years 1804 and 1810, which 

 is an insulated structure (about 256 feet by 300 feet) of the Roman 

 Doric order, peripteral and decastyle at each end, although without 

 pediments, and having altogether 44 columns. Situated at the 

 southern point of the Vassilievskii Island, immediately facing the 

 Neva, it stands in the centre of a spacious plotchad, or ' place,' upon a 

 rich architectural terrace, which sweeps out so as to form a semicir- 

 cular esplanade in front, at each extremity of which is a flight of 

 steps leading down to the river, and a massive rostral column 120 feeb 

 high. Taken altogether, the architectural combination thus produced 

 is exceedingly picturesque, and may be 'said to be unique. 



Thomond also erected some private mansions and other buildings at 

 St. Petersburg, the mausoleum of the Emperor Paul at Pavlovska, the 

 theatre at Odessa, and the Pultava monument. In 1808 he published 

 some of his buildings and architectural designs in a quarto volume, 

 very unsatisfactorily executed however ; and he also wrote a treatise 

 on painting, an art to which he was greatly attached. He died on the 

 23rd of August 1813. (Kukolnik, in Khudozhestvennya Gazeta, 1837.) 

 THOMPSON, SIR BENJAMIN. [RUMFORD, COUNT.] 



* THOMPSON, MAJOR-GENERAL THOMAS PERRONET, was 

 born in 1783, at Hull in Yorkshire. He received his early education 

 at the Hull grammar-school, of which the Rev. Joseph Milner was 

 then head-master. In October 1798 he was entered of Queen's College, 

 Cambridge, and in 1802 took his degree of B.A. He soon afterwards 

 entered the navy as a midshipman, but left it for the army, in which 

 he became a second lieutenant, January 23, 1806, and in 1807 served 



in the Rifle Brigade in the attack on Buenos Ayrcs. On the 21t of 

 January 1808 he became lieutenant, and iu the same year was sent out 

 to the colony of Sierra Leone as governor. In 1812 he returned to 

 active service in the army. In 1814 he served with the 14th Light 

 Dragoons, and was engaged in the battles of Nivellc, Nive, Orthes, and 

 Toulouse, for his services in which he received the war-medal with 

 four clasps. He attained the rank of captain on the 7th of July 1814, 

 and from 1815 to 1819 was engaged in the Pindaree and other cam- 

 paigns in India as captain of the 17th Light Dragoons. In 1819 be 

 served in the expedition to the Persian Gulf, under Sir William Grant 

 Keir. as secretary and Arabic interpreter, and was for a time political 

 agent there. 



In 1821 Captain Thompson returned to England, and attained the 

 rank of major on the 9th of Juno 1825. In the meantime he had 

 become acquainted with Jeremy Bcntham and Dr. Bowring (now Sir 

 John Bowring), and was a contributor to the ' Westminster Review,' 

 of which he afterwards became one of the proprietors. He soon dia- 

 tinguished himself as one of the most powerful of the opponents of 

 the system of protection of native industry, and in his ' Corn-Law 

 Catechism,' first published in 1827, stated with great clearness of 

 reasoning and vivacity of illustration the leading arguments which 

 were afterwards successfully employed by the Anti-Corn-Law League 

 to overthrow the restrictive laws on the importation of wheat and other 

 grain. [COBDEN, RICHARD.] The Catechism was published under the 

 title of ' Catechism on the Corn-Laws, with a List of the Fallacies 

 and the Answers; to which is added an article on Free Trade, from 

 the " Westminster Review," No. 23, with a Collection of Objections 

 and Answers ; by a Member of the University of Cambridge,' Svo, 

 15th edition, 1831. He also published a 'Catechism on the Currency, 

 by the Author of the Catechism on the Corn-Laws,' Svo, 3rd edit., 

 1848. On the 24th of February 1829 Captain Thompson became 

 lieutenant-colonel, unattached , and was placed on half-pay. He con- 

 tinued the assiduous and unflinching advocate of liberal policy in the 

 ' Westminster Review,' in pamphlets, and in newspapers, and was an 

 active supporter of the parliamentary reform movement by speeches 

 as well as by his writings. Colonel Thompson's investigations how- 

 ever were not confined to questions of political and social reform. In 

 1829 he published an ' Enharmonic Theory of Music,' which he repub- 

 lished in 1850 under the title of 'Theory and Practice of Just Intona- 

 tion, with a View to the Abolition of Temperament, as illustrated in 

 the Description and Use of the Enharmonic Organ, presenting the 

 Power of executing with the simple Ratios in Twenty Keys, with a 

 Correction for Changes of Temperature ; built by Messrs. Robson for 

 the Exhibition of 1851 ; with an Appendix tracing the Identity of 

 Design with the Enharmonic of the Ancients,' 12mo. Jn 1830 Colonel 

 Thompson published a small work entitled ' Geometry without 

 Axioms.' 



Colonel Thompson was returned to parliament as member for the 

 borough of Hull on the 20th of June 1835. He was not returned in 

 the next election, and was out of parliament till he was returned for 

 Bradford in Yorkshire. He was not returned to the last parliament, 

 but was returned to the present, in March 1857, when he was again 

 elected for Bradford. He attained the rank of major-general on the 

 20th of June 1854. 



Colonel Thompson has published an edition of his collected works, 

 under the title of ' Exercises, Political and Others, by Lieut-Colonel 

 T. Perronet Thompson, consisting of Matter previously published 

 with and without the Author's name, and some not published before,' 

 6 vols. 12mo, 1843. 



THOMPSON, WILLIAM, a celebrated Irish naturalist. His father 

 was an Irish linen merchant at Belfast, and William, his eldest son, 

 was born on the 2nd of November 1805. As his father destined him 

 for a commercial life, he received such an education as was supposed 

 to fit him for that pursuit. In 1821 he was apprenticed to a firm in 

 the linen business at Belfast. Although at this time he had acquired 

 no taste for natural history, he soon took an interest in this subject 

 from making excursions with a fellow apprentice who possessed a 

 copy of Bewick's 'British Birds,' and a passion for collecting and 

 stuffing birds. For several years he was hardly more than an amateur; 

 but in 1832 circumstances occurred which induced him to give up 

 business, and from that time he devoted himself in earnest to natural 

 history. Although birds were his favourite study, he took an 

 interest in all kinds of animals and plants, and eventually there 

 were few Irish minerals, plants, and animals, with which he was not 

 cognisant. He first became known as a naturalist by his contribu- 

 tions to the ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society of London, on 

 the natural history of Ireland. The names of some of these early 

 contributions indicate the direction of his mind : 'Catalogue of Birds 

 new to the Irish Fauna;' 'On some Vertebrata new to the Irish 

 Fauna;' 'On some rare Irish Birds;' 'On the Natural History of 

 Ireland, with a description of a new Genus of Fishes ; ' ' On the Irish 

 Hare.' He also prepared to lay before the meeting of the Bnti 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Glasgow in 18 

 a ' Report on the Fauna of Ireland, Division Vertebrata.' This was 

 not a mere enumeration of the vertebrate animals of Ireland, or 

 account of their comparative scarcity and abundance, but an exposi- 

 tion of the number of species in Ireland, the most western land 

 Europe, compared with other British and European species. In It 



