If 



THORNHILL, SIR JAMES. 



THORNHILL, SIR JAMES. 



20 



to pay a curate. The north of Iceland is ttill more uncultivated thau 

 the other parts of the island. His wife refused to accompany him to 

 his living, and died, separated from him, in 1808. In 1791 Halldor 

 lIj,illtii!ir*K>u, one of hid parishioners, wrote to the Icelandic Literary 

 Society to say, that having acquired the year before a Danish trans- 

 lation of ' Paradise Lost,' he had put it into the hands of a " gifted 

 friend," who had turned into Icelandic some specimens which he sub- 

 mitted to their notice. The translation was so remarkably excellent, 

 that the society, on learning from whom it came, elected Thorlaksson an 

 honorary member, and undertook to supply him with a set of their 

 works, on condition of his supplying them with a translation of one 

 book of the poem every year. Before they had published three books 

 however the society itself came to a stop tor want of funds, and Thor- 

 laksson completed his translation in manuscript. The fame of it was 

 spread widely by the Engliah travellers who came to Iceland, espe- 

 cially Sir George Mackenzie and the Rev. Ebenezer Henderson ; but 

 Thorlaksson's desire to see it in print was never gratified in his life- 

 time. One of his poems, some verses addressed to the British and 

 Foreign Bible Society on the occasion of their publishing an Icelandic 

 Bible, having been inserted in their Reports, had a very wide circu- 

 lation, and was even reprinted at Calcutta. Henderson, who visited 

 him at Boagisa in ] 814, and who was the first Englishman he had ever 

 seen, found the old man of seventy out in the fields, assisting in hay- 

 making, and accompanied him home to a house of which he gives an 

 interesting description : " The door is not quite four feet in height, 

 and the room may be about eight feet in length by six in breadth. At 

 the inner end is the poet's bed, and close to the door over against a 

 small window not exceeding two feet square is a table where he com- 

 mits to paper the effusions of his muse." In this cottage Thorlaksson 

 died on the 21st of October 1819, at the age of seventy-four. He had 

 received not long before a subscription of 801., collected by Henderson 

 from friends and admirers in England, and the King of Denmark had 

 conferred upon him a pension of about 61. a, year. 



The collected poems of Thorlaksson fill about 1100 pages in the 

 'Islenzk Ljodabok Jona Thorlakssonar prests ad Bcegisa,' 2 vols., 

 Copenhagen, 1842-43. These volumes comprise all his shorter poems, 

 composed from the age of twelve to over seventy, gathered from 

 seven Icelandic periodicals in which they had appeared, and several 

 translations, among others one of Pope's ' Essay on Man,' rendered 

 through the Danish, which had been printed at Leyra in Iceland in 

 1798. The fame of Thorlaksson rests however on his version of 

 ' Paradise Lost.' That this, in the shape in which he gives it, is a fine 

 Icelandic poem, is established by the testimony of all Icelanders. Its 

 value as a correct representation of the original is less clear. The 

 versification adopted, the ' fornyrda-lag/ or ' antique verse ' of Iceland, 

 with short lines and alliterative correspondences, is as different as 

 possible from the blank verse of Milton, being in fact very nearly 

 the metre of Piers Plowman. The translation is made from two 

 versions, one in Danish, the other in German, and Thorlaksson, it 

 is said, had never even seen the original. When, at the outset of 

 hia task, the Icelandic Literary Society offered to send him a copy, 

 together with a German translation, he accepted the offer of the 

 German with thanks, but remarked, " with the English original I can 

 have little to do, though once, in my early years, I had some acquaint- 

 ance with easy English prose." The translation is about twice the 

 length of the original, from the necessity of explaining to the com- 

 mon Icelandic reader not only the classical allusions with which 

 Milton abounds, but even various allusions which to an Englishman 

 need no explanation. Finn Magnusson, himself an Icelander, in a 

 review of the poem, observes that the passage in the description of 

 Paradise, " fruit with golden rind," has been rendered by Thorlaksson, 

 " med gyllnum ny ttum " (with golden nuts), probably from his having 

 no notion of rind, having never seen an apple or any fruit that had 

 any. The 'Paradise Lost' was finally printed at Copenhagen in 1828, 

 at the expense of an English gentleman named Heath, who presented 

 most of the copies to the Icelandic Literary Society. The society sold 

 them in Iceland at a very low price, and it is now a household book in 

 many of the poorest cottages. A translation of Klopstock's ' Messiah ' 

 from his pen was printed by the society itself in 1834-38 ; but it was 

 the work of his old age, and seems to be generally recognised as 

 inferior to the Milton. 



THORNHILL, SIR JAMES, an eminent painter during the reigns 

 of Queen Anne and George I., and, says Walpole, "a man of much 

 note in his time, who succeeded Verrio, and was the rival of Laguerre 

 in the decorations of our palaces and public buildings," was descended 

 of a very ancient family in Dorsetshire, and was born at Weymouth 

 in 1676. Through the extravagance of his father, who disposed of 

 the family estate, Thornhill was compelled to support himself by bis 

 own exertions. He adopted the profession of a painter, and, by the 

 liberality of an uncle, Dr. Sydenham, the eminent physician, he was 

 enabled to pursue his studies in London, where he placed himself 

 with a painter, whose name is not known, with whom however he did 

 not remain long. Thornhill appears to have made rapid prjgress in 

 the public favour, for in his fortieth year, when he made a tour 

 through Flanders, Holland, and France, he was sufficiently wealthy to 

 purchase many valuable pictures of the old masters and others. 

 Upon his return he received the commission from Queen Anne to 

 paint the interior of the cupola of St. Paul's cathedral, in which he 



executed eight pictures illustrating the history of St. Paul, painted in 

 chiaroscuro, with the lights hatched in gold : for this work he was 

 appointed historical painter to the queen, yet was paid only forty 

 shillings the square yard for his production. ThornhiU's reputation 

 was now established, and, through the favour of the Earl of Halifax, 

 he received the commission to paint the princess's apartment at 

 Hampton Court, which the lord chamberlain, the Duke of Shrews- 

 bury, had intended should be painted by Sebastiano Ricci, then in 

 great favour with the court in England ; but the Earl of Halifax, who 

 was then first commissioner of the treasury, declared that if Ricci 

 painted it he would not pay him. Sir James executed many other 

 great works, as the staircase, the gallery, and several ceilings in the 

 palace at Kensington, a hall at Blenheim, the chapel at Lord Oxford's 

 at Wlmpole in Cambridgeshire, a saloon for Mr. Styles at Moor Park 

 in Hertfordshire, and the ceiling of the great hall at Greenwich Hospi- 

 tal. Sir James commenced the last work in 1703, and was occupied 

 upon it for several subsequent years, but it was not entirely painted 

 by his own hands. The paintings are allegorical : on the ceiling of 

 the lower hall, which is 112 feet by 56, are represented the founders 

 of tho institution, William III. and Queen Mary, in the centre, sur- 

 rounded by the attributes of national prosperity ; in the other com- 

 partments are figures which represent the zodiac, the four seasons 

 and the four elements, with naval trophies and emblems of science, 

 among which are introduced the portraits of famous mathemati- 

 cians who have advanced the science of navigation, as Tycho Brahd, 

 Coperuicus, Newton, and others. On the ceiling of the upper hall 

 are represented Queen Anne and her husband Prince George of Den- 

 mark ; other figures represent the four quarters of the world ; on the 

 side walls of the same apartment are the landing of William III. at 

 Torbay, and the arrival of George I. at Greenwich ; on the end wall 

 facing the entrance are portrait groups of George I. and two genera- 

 tions of his family, with accessories, and Sir James ThornhiU's own 

 portrait. These works, which are executed in oil, have little to recom- 

 mend them besides their vastness ; yet in invention and arrangement 

 they are equal to the majority of such works in the great buildings on the 

 continent : in design and colouring however they are perhaps inferior. 



Walpole has preserved some interesting details respecting the remu- 

 neration Thornhill received for some of his works : he says, " High 

 as his reputation was, and laborious as his works, he was far from 

 being generously rewarded for some of them, and for others he found 

 it difficult to obtain the stipulated prices. His demands were con- 

 tested at Greenwich; and though La Fosse received 2000?. for his 

 work at Montague House, and was allowed 500?. for his diet besides, 

 Sir James could obtain but forty shillings a square yard for the cupola 

 of St. Paul's, and I think no more for Greenwich. When the affairs 

 of the South Sea Company were made up, Thornhill, who had painted 

 their staircase and a little hall, by order of Mr. Knight, their cashier, 

 demanded 1500?., but the directors learning that he had been paid but 

 twenty-five shillings a yard for the hall at Blenheim, they would 

 allow no more. He had a longer contest with Mr. Styles, who had 

 agreed to give him 3500?., but, not being satisfied with the execution, 

 a lawsuit was commenced, and Dalil, Richardson, and others were 

 appointed to inspect the work. They appeared in court bearing testi- 

 mony to the merit of the performance ; Mr. Styles was condemned to 

 pay the money, and, by their arbitration, 500?. more, for decorations 

 about the house, and for ThornhiU's acting as surveyor of the build- 

 ing." Thornhill obtained permission, through the Earl of Halifax, to 

 copy the Cartoons of Raffaelle at Hampton Court, upon which he 

 bestowed three years' labour ; he made also a smaller set, one-fourth 

 the size of the originals, and distinct studies of the heads, hands, and 

 feet, intending to publish an exact account of the whole for the use of 

 students, but the work never appeared. These two sets of the 

 Cartoons were sold the year after his death, with his collection of 

 pictures, among which were a few capital specimens of the great 

 masters : the smaller set sold for seventy-five guineas, the larger for 

 200?. only, a price, says Walpole, which can have been owing solely to 

 the circumstance of few persons having spaces in their houses largo 

 enough to receive them. They were purchased by the Duke of 

 Bedford, and were placed in his gallery at Bedford House in Blooms- 

 bury Square, where they remained until that house was pulled down, 

 when they were presented by the owner to the Royal Academy. 



Thornhill painted also several portraits and some altar-pieces : he 

 painted the altar-piece of the chapel of All Soula at Oxford : and one 

 which he presented to the church of his native town, Weymouth. 

 There is also at Oxford, according to Dallaway, a good portrait of Sir 

 Christopher Wren by Thornhill ; and in the hall of Greenwich 

 Hospital there is by him the portrait of John Worley, in his ninety- 

 eighth year, one of the first pensioners admitted into the hospital ; ifc 

 is painted in a bold careless style, and was presented to the hospital 

 by Thornhill himself. In 1724 he opened an academy for drawing at 

 his house in Covent Garden. He had previously proposed to the Earl 

 of Halifax the foundation of a Royal Academy of the Arts, with 

 apartments for professors, but without result : Sir James estimated 

 the cost at 3139?. ; for, amongst his other occupations, he occasionally 

 ' dabbled ' in architecture. At the end of his life he was afflicted with 

 the gout, and in the spring of 1734 he retired to bis paternal seat at 

 Thornhill, near Weymouth, which he had the satisfaction of repurchas- 

 ing ; but his period of repose was extremely short, for, says Walpole, 



