21 



THORNTON, BONNELL. 



THORWALDSEN, BERTEL. 



H 



(' Anecdotes of Painting iu England ') " four days after bis arrival, he 

 expired in his chair, May 4, 1734, aged fifty-seven, leaving one son 

 named James, whom he had procured to be appointed serjeant-painter 

 and painter to the navy ; and one daughter, married to that original 

 and unequalled genius, Hogarth." 



Sir James Thornhill amassed considerable property, was a man of 

 agreeable manners, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and represented 

 his native town, Weymouth, in parliament for several years until his 

 death. He was knighted by, George I. : his widow, Lady Thornhill, 

 died at Chiswick in 1757. 



THORNTON, BONNELL, was born in London, in the year 1724. 

 He was educated at Westminster School, and at Christchurch, Oxford. 

 In compliance with the wish of his father, who was an apothecary in 

 Maiden-lane, ho studied medicine, but he seems not to have liked the 

 profession, and left it for literature. George Column the Elder was 

 his fellow-student both at Westminster School and at Christchurcb, 

 though about nine years younger than Thornton. Similarity of taste 

 led to friendship, and they commenced in conjunction the series of 

 periodical essays called ' The Connoisseur,' which was continued froin 

 January 31, 1754, till September 30, 1756. The papers are chiefly of a 

 humorous character, and the wit and shrewd observation of life which 

 they display well entitle them ,to th place which they still retain 

 among the works of British Essayists. Thornton contributed largely to 

 ' The St. James's Chronicle,' of which he was one of the original pro- 

 prietors along with Colman ; ' The Public Advertiser,' and started a 

 periodical called ' Have at ye all, or the Drury Lane Journal,' in rivalry 

 of Fielding's ' Covent Garden Journal.' He published separately ' An 

 Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, adapted to the antient British music, viz. 

 the salt-box, the Jews'-harp, the marrow-bones and cleavers, the hum- 

 strum or hurdy-gurdy, &c., with an Introduction giving an account of 

 those truly British instruments,' 4to, London, 1762 ; and he carried 

 out the jest. Dr. Burney having set the ode to music it was per- 

 formed on the instruments named, at Ranelagh, to a crowded audi- 

 tory. He was indeed singularly fond of these somewhat elaborate 

 drolleries. He was one of the members of the famous Nonsense Club, 

 and was the chief agent in getting up an exhibition of the London 

 street signs in burlesque of the annual exhibition of the Royal 

 Academy. Thornton opened his exhibition on the same day as that 

 of the Royal Academy, describing it in the preliminary advertisement 

 and in the catalogues (which exhibited genuine though somewhat 

 broad humour) as ' The Exhibition of the Society of Sign Painters of 

 all the curious signs to be met with in town or country, together with 

 such original designs as might be transmitted to them as specimens of 

 the native genius of the nation.' Hogarth, who entered into the spirit 

 of the fun, added to some of the signs a few {ouches to heighten the 

 absurdity, and the exhibition proved remarkably attractive. 



In 1767, in conjunction with Colman and Richard Warner, he pub- 

 lished two volumes of an English translation of Plautus, ' The Comedies 

 of Plautus, translated into familiar Blank Verse.' Of the plays con- 

 tained in these two volumes, Thornton translated 'Amphitryon,' 

 ' The Braggart Captain,' ' The Treasure,' ' The Miser,' and ' The 

 Shipwreck;' 'The Merchant' was translated by Colman, and 'The 

 Captives' by Warner. The rest of the plays were translated by 

 Warner, and were published after Thornton's death, in two additional 

 volumes. Thornton's translations are incomparably the best. In 

 1768 Thornton published ' The Battle of the Wigs, an additional 

 Canto to Dr. Garth's Poem of The Dispensary,' 4to, London. 



Thornton, who appears to have injured his constitution by habitual 

 indulgence in drinking, but who was of a thoroughly kind and gene- 

 rous disposition, died May 9, 1768, at the age of forty-four. There is 

 an inscription to his memory, by Thomas Warton, in the cloisters of 

 Westminster Abbey. 



THORWALDSEN, BERTEL (ALBERT), was born November 19, 

 1770, at Copenhagen. He was the son of Gottschalk Thorwaldsen, a 

 carver in wood, and his wife Karen Gronlund, the daughter of a priest 

 of Jutland. Gottscbalk was a native of Iceland, and was in very poor 

 circumstances when his son Bertel was born. Bertel assisted his father 

 in his work at a very early age, and when only eleven years old he 

 attended the free school of the Academy of Arts at Copenhagen, and 

 made such progress in two years that he was enabled to improve his 

 father's carvings ; and himself undertook to execute the head-pieces 

 of ships. At the age of seventeen he obtained the silver medal of the 

 academy, for a bas-relief of Cupid reposing; and in 1791, when he 

 was only twenty years of age, the small gold medal for a sketch of 

 Helioclorus driven from the temple. Two years later he obtained the 

 principal gold medal 'of the academy, and with it the privilege of 

 studying for three years abroad at the government expense. Before 

 setting out however he devoted a year or two to preliminary general 

 study, for scholarship was not one of bis acquirements, and he had 

 much' to read and much to learn. On the 20th of May 1796, he set 

 out for Italy in the Danish frigate Thetis, and he arrived at Naples in 

 the eud of January of the following year, in the packet-boat from 

 Palermo. The Thetis cruised in the North Sea until September ; in 

 October it touched at Algiers ; it then performed quarantine at Malta, 

 made a voyage to Tripoli to protect Danish commerce, and performed 

 quarantine a second time at Malta, when Thorwaldsen left it in a small 

 Bailing boat for Palermo, where he took the packet-boat to Naples. 



At Naples, wholly unacquainted with the Italian language, and for 



the first time entirely separated from his own countrymen, Thor- 

 waldseu's heart failed him, and he longed to return to Denmark, which 

 according to his own account he would have done if he had found a 

 Danish vessel about to leave the port at the time. However, in a 

 little time he found courage to engage a place iu the coach of a 

 vetturino for Rome, where he arrived March 8, 1797. 



Thorwaldsen brought letters of introduction to Ian distinguished 

 countryman Zob'ga, who however did not give the young sculptor 

 much encouragement, nor did he estimate bin ability very high. 

 When Zoega was once asked what he thought of him, three years after 

 his arrival, he answered, with a shake of the head, " There in much 

 to find fault with, little to be contented with, and he wants iuduHtry." 

 Up to this time Zoega was right, except in the last particular. Thor- 

 waldsen was industrious, but fastidious, and often destroyed what bad 

 cost him much labour. This was the fate of a htatue of Jason with 

 the Golden Fleece which he had modelled to take back with him to 

 Copenhagen at the expiration of his term of three years allowed by 

 the academy. He however made a second attempt at the same figure, 

 and this statue satisfied even the difficult Zoega, with whom Thor- 

 waldseu was about to return to Denmark ; and Canova exclaimed, 

 " This work of the young Dane is in a new and grand style." By the 

 assistance of a Danish lady, Frederika Brun, who gave him the 

 necessary funds, which he had not, and praised the statue in song, 

 it was cast in plaster, and Thorwaldsen prepared for his return home : 

 but when on the point of starting and about to step into the vehicle 

 of the vetturino, one of his companions, the Prussian sculptor Hage- 

 mann, found that hit passport was not in order, and he was obliged 

 to put off his journey until the next day. Thorwaldseu determined 

 to wait with him, the vetturino started without them, this delay was 

 followed by another, and it eventually happened that Thorwaldsen 

 did not return to his native country until 1819, after an absence of 

 twenty-three years. The liberality of Thomas Hope was the imme- 

 diate cause of Tborwaldsen's finally settling in Rome. The words of 

 Canova upon the statue of Jason were repeated in the artistic circles 

 of Rome, and echoed by the professional ciceroni of the place. One of 

 these ciceroni took Mr. Thomas Hope in the year 1803 to the studio of 

 the young Dane to see the statue which the great sculptor had praised. 

 The English connoisseur stood long before the plaster figure, then 

 inquired what Thorwaldsen required for a marble copy of it : " 600 

 ducats," was the answer ; " You shall have 800," was the generous 

 reply of the Englishman. 



From this time the star of Thorwaldsen was in the ascendant; the 

 statue was however not finished until many years afterwards, but 

 many celebrated works were done iu the meanwhile ; as the bas-reliefs 

 of Summer and Autumn, and the dance of the Muses on Helicon ; 

 Cupid and Psyche ; and Venus with the apple. His fame spread far 

 and wide, and Christian VIII. (then crown-prince), of Denmark, wrotu 

 him, a pressing invitation to return to Copenhagen, communicating at 

 the same time the discovery of a white marble quarry in Norway. 

 Thorwaldsen was eager to return, but commission upon commission 

 rendered it difficult if not impossible, and he remained in the papal 

 city. During this busy time Thorwaldsen recreated himself in the 

 summer seasons at Leghorn, in the beautiful villa of Baron Schubart, 

 the Danish minister at Florence : he executed also some of his works 

 here. In 1812, when arrangements were making for Napoleon's visit 

 to Rome, the architect Stern, who superintended the preparations, 

 happened to sit next to Thorwaldsen at one of the assemblies of the 

 Academy of St. Luke, and asked him if he could get ready a plaster 

 frieze for one of the large apartments of the Qniiinal Palace, in three 

 months. Thorwaldsen undertook the commission, and in three 

 months the plaster sketch of his celebrated bas-relief of the Triumph 

 of Alexander was completed. The immediate subject was Alexander's 

 triumphal entry into Babylon : the length of the frieze is 160 Roman 

 palms, its height five palms : it has been twice executed in marble, 

 with slight variations, and is engraved in a series of plates by S. 

 Amsler, of Munich, after drawings by Overbeck and others. In 1815 

 Thorwaldsen modelled, in a single day, two of his most popular works, 

 the bas-reliefs of Night and Day ; but he had done nothing whatever 

 for weeks and months before. 



In July 1819, he started in the company of two friends on his first 

 visit to his native land, and he arrived at Copenhagen on the 3rd of 

 October in the same year : his parents had died some years before. 

 His fame was now so well established, that even through Italy and 

 Germany his journey was a species of triumphal passage, and at its 

 termination he was lodged in the palace of Charlottenburg and enter- 

 tained with public feasts. In about a year he left Copenhagen and 

 returned to Rome through Berlin, Dresden, and Warsaw, where he 

 received several commissions, and made a bust of the Emperor 

 Alexander. 



He executed his principal works after his return to Rome as 

 Christ and the Twelve Apostles; the group of St. John in the Wilder- 

 ness; and the monuments to Copernicus, Pius VII., Maximilian of 

 Bavaria, the Poniatowski monument, and others. In 1823 he had a 

 narrow escape of his life : a boy, the son of his landlady, contrived to 

 get hold of one of his pistols, which he had carelessly hung up loaded ; 

 the boy, ignorant of the danger, pointed it and discharged it at Thor- 

 waldsen, but the ball, after grazing two of his finger?, lodged in his 

 dreeu without doing him any further injury. 



