606 



THOROUGH BASS THRACE. 



Assuming literature as a profession, he was also a 

 profuse contributor to magazines, newspapers and 

 all the periodicals of the day, chiefly in the light 

 and humorous way. He projected a ludicrous ex- 

 hibition of sign paintings, which satirized temporary 

 Dbjects, events and persons, and amused for a sea- 

 son, and wrote a burlesque Ode for St Cecilia's 

 Day. In 17G6, in conjunction with Warner and 

 Colman, he published two volumes of a translation 

 of Plautus, afterwards completed in five. He died 

 in his forty-seventh year. 



THOROUGH BASS. Thorough bass is the art 

 by which harmony is superadded to any proposed 

 bass, and includes the fundamental rules of compo- 

 sition. This branch of the musical science is two- 

 fold, theoretical and practical. Theoretical tho 

 rough bass comprehends the knowledge of the con- 

 nexion and disposition of all the several chords, 

 harmonious and dissonant, and includes all the esta- 

 blished laws by which they are formed and regu- 

 lated. Practical thorough bass is conversant with 

 the manner of taking the several chords on an in- 

 strument, as prescribed by the figures placed over 

 or under the bass part of the composition, and 

 supposes a familiar acquaintance with the powers of 

 those figures, a facility in taking the chords they in- 

 dicate, and judgment in the various applications 

 and effects of those chords in accompaniment. 

 THOROUGHWORT. See Boneset. 

 THOTH. See Egyptian Mythology, in the ar- 

 ticle Hieroglyphics; also Hermes Trismegistus. 



THOU, JAMES AUGUSTUS DE (in Latin, TJma- 

 nus), an eminent magistrate and historian, born at 

 Paris in 1553, was the third son of a president of the 

 parliament of Paris. At ten years of age, he was 

 placed in the college of Burgundy, and designed 

 for the church, but was afterwards sent to Orleans, 

 for the study of the civil law, which he further cul- 

 tivated under Cujacius at Valence. In 1573, he 

 travelled into Italy ; and, in 1576, his high charac- 

 ter for prudence and ability induced the court to 

 employ him to negotiate with marshal Montmor- 

 ency for the purpose of preventing a civil war. On 

 the death of his elder brother, in 1579, he dedicated 

 himself to the law, in 1584 was made a master 

 of requests, and, in 1587, having resigned all his 

 previous ecclesiastical engagements, he married. On 

 the revolt of Paris, produced by the violences of 

 the league, he adhered to Henry III., and, after the 

 assassination of the duke of Guise, was principally 

 instrumental in reconciling Henry with the king of 

 Navarre. On the death of Henry III., he hastened 

 from Venice to support his lawful successor, Henry 

 IV., who employed him in several important nego- 

 tiations, and nominated him principal librarian to 

 the king, on the death of Amyot. In 1594, he 

 succeeded his uncle as prcsident-a.-mortier, and was 

 afterwards one of the Catholic commissioners at the 

 celebrated theological conference at Fontainebleau, 

 between Du Perron and Dti Plessis Mornai. In 

 the regency of Mary de' Medici, he was appointed 

 one of the directors-general of finance, and other- 

 wise employed in nice and difficult matters, in 

 which he rendered himself equally conspicuous by 

 integrity and ability. These various occupations 

 did not prevent him from an assiduous cultivation 

 of literature ; and being fond of composition in 

 Latin verse, in 1584 he gave the world a descrip- 

 tive poem on the subject of hawking, entitled De 

 Re accipitraria (On Falconry). He afterwards 

 published other pieces of Latin poetry; but his 

 greatest literary labour was the composition, in the 



same language, of a voluminous History of his own 

 Times (Historia sui Temporis), of which the first 

 part was made public in Ki04. To the great dis- 

 credit of Henry IV. this work was condemned, in 

 submission to the influence of the Catholic It. 

 who were nettled at the freedom with which the 

 historian did justice to the Huguenots, and censured 

 the popes, the clergy, and the house of Guise. The 

 history, when finished, consisted of one hundred 

 and thirty-eight books, comprising the events from 

 1545 to 1607 ; and as few writers have undertaken 

 a work of this extent with better qualifications for 

 the task, it was accomplished in a manner which 

 has secured the approbation of posterity. Accu- 

 rately acquainted with the politics, revolutions and 

 geography of modern Europe, the narrative of De 

 Thou is at once copious and exact, while his native 

 candour and love of truth have ensur. <1 all the ne- 

 cessary freedom and impartiality. To this work 

 he subjoined Commentaries, or Memoirs of his own 

 Life, composed in the same spirit. In KiOl, lie lost 

 his first wife, by whom he had no children, and 

 married a second, who brought him three sons and 

 three daughters. The loss of this lady in 1C 1C, 

 together with the calamities which befell the coun- 

 try after the assassination of Henry IV. is thought 

 to have hastened his own death, which took place 

 in 1617, at the age of sixty-four. The most com- 

 plete edition of the History of De Thou is that 

 published in London, in 1733, by Buckley, in seven 

 volumes, folio. See Chasles's Diacours sur De 

 Thou (1824), which divided the prize of the French 

 academy. 



His eldest son, Francis Augustus, born in 1607, 

 inherited the virtues and intelligence of his father, 

 and was made master of requests and grand master 

 of the royal library. Cardinal Richelieu having 

 discovered that he kept up a correspondence wit! 

 the duchess de Chevreuse, studiously kept him out 

 of all confidential employment, which, unhappily for 

 himself, threw him into the party of Cinqmars. 

 When that imprudent person therefore was detect- 

 ed in a secret correspondence with Spain, De Thou 

 was apprehended on the charge of not revealing it, 

 and, notwithstanding an able and eloquent defence, 

 was condemned, and sentenced to lose his head. 

 Resolved upon a signal sacrifice, the unrelenting 

 minister resisted all entreaties in his favour, and his 

 execution was irrevocably determined upon. Cinq- 

 mars, who was the cause of his ruin, humbled himself 

 before him drowned in tears ; but De Thou raised 

 and embraced him, saying, " There is now nothing 

 to be thought of but how to die well." He was 

 beheaded at Lyons in 1642, at the age of thirty-five, 

 universally lamented. 



THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. See^ra- 

 bian Nights. 



THOUSAND LEGS. See Centiped. 

 THOYRAS. See Rapin de Tfioyras. 

 THRACE. At a remote period of history, 

 Thrace, among the Greeks, signified all the north- 

 ern region beyond Macedonia, whose boundaries 

 were not distinctly known, and which was usually 

 conceived of as being a wild, mountainous land. In 

 a narrower sense, Thrace signified the tract, of 

 country lying north of Macedonia, bounded east by 

 the Black sea, south by the .ZEgean and the Pro- 

 pontis, and extending northwards to Mcesiaandthe 

 Haemus. The land was originally, before it was 

 cultivated, in part wild, and inhabited by a fierce 

 and warlike people, among whom were the Getae : 

 it was, therefore represented as the residence of 



