sible; one cannot say that the character is ill-drawn it is not drawn at all. It is an entirely different personage in different chapters; and it has here and there a very unpleasant touch which must have come of rapid writing. Yet so admirable are many parts of the book that it can not be left out of the list of Thackeray's most considerable works. Denis Duval, which reached only three numbers, promised to be a first-rate work, more or less in the Esmond manner. The author died while it was in progress, on the day before Christmas day 1863. He was buried in Kensal Green, and a bust by Marochetti was put up to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
Little has yet been said of Thackeray's performances in poetry. They formed a small but not the least significant part of his life's work. The grace and the apparent spon taneity of his versification are beyond question. Some of the more serious efforts, such as The Chronicle of the Drum (1841), are full of power, and instinct with true poetic feeling. Both the half-humorous half-pathetic ballads and the wholly extravagant ones must be classed with the best work in that kind; and the translations from Beranger are as good as verse translations can be. He had the true poetic instinct, and proved it by writing poetry which equalled his prose in grace and feeling.
It is not necessary to discuss the precise place which Thackeray will in future hold, in respect to his immediate contemporaries. What seems absolutely certain is that the force and variety of his genius and art will always hold for him a place as one of the greatest of English novelists and essayists, and, it should be added, as by no means the least of English critics.(w. h. p.)
THALBERG, Sigismond (1812–1871), a celebrated pianist and composer for his instrument, was born at Geneva in 1812 (May 5 or January 7). In 1822 he was taken to Vienna, where, under the watchful care of Count Dietrichstein, his education was completed. There is some doubt as to the masters under whom he studied; but it is certain that he received instruction from Hummel, and perhaps also from Czerny, and that he took lessons in com position from Sechter. He made his first appearance as a pianist at Prince Metternich's in 1826, and published his first composition a Fantasia on Airs from "Euryanthe" in 1828, but it was not until 1830 that he was first fairly introduced to the public, with such brilliant success that from that time forward his only rival was Liszt. In 1834 he was appointed "kammervirtuos" to the emperor of Austria. He first appeared in Paris in 1837; and in 1838 he came to England, astonishing his hearers with the novel effects produced in his Variations on God Save the Queen, while he charmed them with his delicate touch and the purity of his expression. Thenceforward his career was a succession of triumphs. In order to disprove the popular idea that he could execute no music but his own, he played Beet hoven's Concerto in C minor (op. 37) at the London Wednesday Concerts, held in 1846-47 at Exeter Hall, with a keen intelligence which proved his power of inter preting the works of the great masters to be at least on a level with his wonderful technique. Besides his pianoforte compositions, which are almost innumerable, Thalberg pro duced two operas, Cristina, which proved a complete failure, and Florinda, which fared but little better at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1851. He played in London for the last time in 1863, and afterwards retired to his estate near Naples. He died at Naples, April 27, 1871.
- ↑ Bretschneider (Die Geom. vor Euklides, p. 40), without stating his authority, gives "between 585 and 583 B.C." as the date of the archonship of Damasius. In this he is followed by some other recent writers, who infer thence that the name "wise" was conferred on Thales on account of the success of his prediction. The date 586 B.C., given above, which is taken from Clinton, is adopted by Zeller.
- ↑ "On the Eclipses of Agathocles, Thales, and Xerxes," Phil. Trans., vol. cxliii. p. 179 sq., 1853.
- ↑ Athenæum, p. 919, 1852.
- ↑ Astronomische Untersuchungen der wichtigeren Finsternisse, &c., p. 57, 1853.