1861.] ALBERT THORWALDSEN. ALBERT THOR WALDSEN. THE name of this eminent man and re- Among the works he had contemplated nowned sculptor will live in the art which was the model of a statue of Jason of hehe adorned as long as admiration for roic size, naked, and bearing on his arm the beautiful statuary shall last. We deem a golden fleece; a figure exhibiting an intiportrait of this great man and artist a fit-mate acquaintance with the human form, ting adornment of THE ECLECTIC. Among simple in treatment, and of a fine style of the names and portraits which embellish art. Thomas Hope, Esq., the well-known Dane. He was struck this work, the lineaments of his face and banker of London, happened to visit the its strongly-marked features will excite in-studio of the young terest and attention. ALBERT THORWALD- with the noble character of the Jason, SEN was a native of Denmark, and his recognized at once the ability of the lineage said to be traceable from the an- sculptor, and commissioned Thorwaldsen cient and royal house of Harold Hildetand. to execute it for him in marble. This His father, Gotschalk Thorwaldsen, was an timely assistance gave a fresh impulse to Icelander, and a carver of figure-heads for the exertions of our artist. The opportu ships. Albert was born at Raisciawich, nity he had so ardently desired and so near Copenhagen, November 19th, 1770. long waited for was now afforded him, At the age of twelve years he was admit- and from this beginning may be traced an ted as a student at the Academy of Fine unceasing flow of employment and sucFor the remainder of his career, Arts at Copenhagen, where he received cess. instruction from the painter Abildgaard. till his death in 1844, he was constantly In 1787 he gained a silver medal; and engaged in the active exercise of his art. two years after, a gold one, for a com- He now determined to fix his permanent position of Heliodorus driven from the residence at Rome. Temple In 1793 he received the highest reward that could be conferred on a student; this was the grand prize which carried with it the substantial advantage of an allowance, for a term of years, of five hundred thalers, equal to rather more than a hundred pounds English. This provision placed it in his power to travel, and after some time he proceeded to Italy, He arrived in the great school of art. Rome, after a tedious voyage of ten months, in a Danish frigate, in 1796. It would not be possible in our limited space to describe particularly all the works deserving of notice of this indefatigable artist. Of his numerous statues of Greek subjects, as Mars, Mercury, Ganymede, the Graces, Venus, Hebe, Psyche, and others of the pseudo-classical school, it is not necessary to say more than that they bear the stamp of the master hand, and admirably imitate the idealized character of the best ancient examples. His statuary of Mercury watching Argus, For some time he was undecided whe- may be selected as one of the hapther to devote himself to sculpture or piest illustrations of Greek poetry in this painting as a profession, till his visits to imitated style of sculpture. Another of the Vatican, where so many masterpieces his fine productions, representing, in a seof sculpture are collected, determined his ries of relievi, the triumphal entry of choice. For a time he doubted his ability Alexander into Babylon, is a noble work, to approach the high excellence of the sufficient of itself to establish the fame of great works of art. Under this feeling of its author. It was originally designed, by depression he destroyed many of his command of Napoleon I., to decorate a works, in spite of the encouragement of part of the Quirinal Palace at Rome. Afhis friends, who saw in him the promise terward it was executed in marble for of a great artist. He continued his labors, Count Somariva, for his villa at Como. It and modeled various works of Greek sub-is now in the Palace of Christianburg at jects, but with no profitable result of in- Copenhagen. creasing his means of support. The turningpoint of his fortunes was, however, at hand. The real genius and individual feeling of Thorwaldsen are more truly and more favorably shown in those works which the 25th of March, 1844. He attended illustrate religious and similar subjects. the theater, as was his custom, in the evcHis colossal statue of Christ, executed ning of that day. Before the performance for a church in Copenhagen, is of this commenced, he fell back in his chair in a class, and stands preeminent among mo- fit of apoplexy, and although he was imdern works in sculpture; for sentiment, as mediately conveyed home and received well as other art qualities, it may fearless- the most anxious attention, he expired ly compete with any ancient work. The Sa- without speaking. viour is represented as standing, with both arms extended and but slightly advanced. The hands are open, as if inviting approach. The action is simple and dignified, and the expression at once noble and tender. The forms are of the purest type of beauty; and the large mantle, which constitutes the drapery, is boldly and skillfully arranged, leaving the arms and feet exposed. Statues of the Twelve Apostles, for the same church, are equally admirable specimens of this sculptor's deep feeling and judicious treatment, when engaged on works of this class. Thorwaldsen received during his lifetime the most honorable testimonials of respect and admiration. Frederick of Denmark conferred on him letters of nobility, and he received decorations and orders of knighthood from various sovereigns of Europe. His obscquies were performed with great pomp in the Holm church. The King, in deep mourning, was present at the funeral, at which the Crown Prince and other royal and distinguished personages also attended, walking as mourners. The Queen and Princesses also assisted at the ceremony, and the concourse of people, including the public bodies, municipal and academical, amounted to many thousands. An interesting part of the ceremony was the performance of the requiem, written by the sculptor's intimate and dear friend, Ehlenschlager. Among the more important portrait works executed by this artist, may be mentioned two equestrian statues of Maximilian Frederick of Bavaria, and Poniatowski; also a fine seated figure of Galileo, and another of Byron, now at Cambridge. A work of Thorwaldsen, well known to Thorwaldsen was rather above the midtravelers, is a colossal lion erected near dle hight. The outline of his face was Lucerne, which commemorates the gallant rather square. His general expression Swiss guards, who fell in defending the was calm and thoughtful, and very pleasTuileries on the tenth August, 1792. The ing. His eyes were light and penetrating; bassi-relievi by Thorwaldsen, represent- his mouth wide, and usually closely shut. ing Day and Night, are amongst his best known smaller works. Canová, the great Italian sculptor, was in the hight of his fame when Thorwaldsen began to attract the attention of judges of art; and it may be truly said that the latter was the first and only competitor, who proved himself worthy to dispute the well-earned preeminence of his distinguished fellow-laborer in the art. Thorwaldsen died at Copenhagen on He wore his hair, which had grown nearly white, in large masses divided over his fine broad forehead, and falling on each side, something like a lion's mane, nearly to his shoulders. It is interesting to gaze on his expressive face, as thus described and presented in the fine portrait which adorns this number of THE ECLECTIC, adding to the rich variety of portraits which have appeared in this work. THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH AND OF ITS INHABITANTS. BY THE REV. SAMUEL HAUGHTON, F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of Geology in the University of Dublin, A HISTORY of a people would be considered very imperfect which did not also give some account of the country inhabited by that people, and it would be regarded as somewhat unnatural to separate the actions, the wars, and the polity of any great nation from their due alliance with the climate, the productions, and the natural resources of the land they lived in. In like manner a mere geological sketch of the successive inhabitants of the globe we live on must be meager and unsatisfactory if unaccompanied with an astronomical account of the planet which constitutes the arena on which these successive races of inhabitants have lived and died. A short time ago an essay on the history of the inhabitants of the earth would have led one to presuppose an essay on history, properly so called; but every person is familiar with the fact, that in the history of the earth and its inhabitants we now include within our view a much larger range of animals and objects of interest than merely our fellow-men. We are bound, in fact, to consider not only our fellow-men, our brothers and sisters in creation, but also what have been described as our humbler fellows." I am not sure that I regard these humbler fellows with as great a degree of reverence and superstitious awe as some of our modern writers, but I am prepared to regard them with interest and even affection, as I believe them to be, like ourselves, wonderful and remarkable examples of the almighty power of God, who has placed them in this world to enjoy with us the benefits and blessings with which he surrounds us all. 66 The first attempt to give an account of the history of the globe on which we live was made by one of the greatest men that ever lived upon that globe, Sir Isaac Newton. In speculating in his Principia on the shape of the planet Jupiter, and in comparing it with our own planet, he arrives at the conclusion that these planets may have been originally in a state VOL. LIV.-No. 1 of liquid fusion, and that they owe their present shapes to their rotation around their axes. The idea thus thrown out by Newton was taken up afterward by the celebrated Clairaut, and, in later times, formed the basis of a most remarkable passage in the writings of Laplace. This great man threw out the idea that the planets and the satellites that surround them were originally not only fluid but might even have been gaseous, and that a single origin must be sought for all the planets that encircle our sun. The speculation to which I allude does not occupy more than a few lines of one of the many volumes written by Laplace-he notices the subject and dismisses it in the same cursory manner in which he introduces it. Now, it is a curious fact, that since his time many books and treatises have been written on this subject at great expenditure of pen and ink, though without much addition to our knowledge. It is the privilege of genius like that with which Laplace was endowed to throw out words and hints that shall constitute a sort of center or rallying - point around which hundreds and thousands of second and third-rate men will cluster and attempt to gain for themselves notoriety by repeating, like a cuckoo-cry, the doctrine their great master had first uttered; but if we examine the nebular hypothesis minutely we shall find that not one iota has been added to Laplace's speculation. His hypothesis is expressed in very few words: he finds the sun in the center of a system revolving in a direction from right to left, the planets, one after the other, around the sun, revolving in the same direction with the sun, from right to left, revolving nearly in circles and in orbits which are almost all in the same plane. He finds each planet revolving on its axis in the same direction as the sun, and their satellites revolving, like themselves, in circular orbits, with small inclinations. No person acquainted with the meaning of these facts can hesitate to believe that they point to a common origin for the sun, 9 "ancient saws." They may say that they know the history of the world before geologists can trace it, or before they can find in its crust a single record of the past. planets, satellites, and the various bodies mathematicians, however valuable they that surround that sun-with the excep- may be as mathematical exercitations, tion of comets, which do not come within they will be found, in no respect, to have this class. This brilliant idea, first thrown added to the real knowledge possessed, out by a man of genius, has never been when Laplace invented the nebular hy added to, for I believe that all subsequent pothesis. This remarkable speculation of attempts to add to that first great and Laplace, to which he himself appears not brilliant idea of Laplace have been success- to have attached a due importance and ive failures. The illustrious Comte, in a weight, has led to a universal conviction portion of his work on Positive Philoso- among scientific thinkers, that we must phy, and afterward in a paper which he look for the origin of the sun, planets, and read (never printed) before the Academy satellites, to some unique physical cause, attempted to demonstrate the mathemati- such as he has assigned; we are, therecal necessity of the nebular hypothesis. fore, forced to go back to a time, beyond The result, as is now well known, was to any thing that geologists can tell us of. show that if Comte was not more exact as And astronomers may claim their right a metaphysician than he was as a mathe- to say to the geologists, your epochs are matician, it would have been better for highly respectable, but they are mere him not to have published his book at all." modern instances," compared with our His mathematical demonstration was a complete delusion. He re discovered the third law of Kepler, a law that was well known to every mathematician in Europe hundred of years before Comte was born. In later times attempts have been made by mathematicians much more trustworthy to contribute information additional to that first afforded by Laplace. The University of Cambridge, which, I believe, even now produces some of the best and greatest analysts in Europe, (I will not except in this statement even the University of Dublin, which, I believe, in its elegant and more beautiful geometry surpasses Cambridge, while it yields to her in analysis,) has for many years past produced a number of treatises on this subject written with more or less ability, all of them aiming to add something to the words of Laplace, but they have added nothing whatever to our real knowledge. Whether it is that the custom prevails in that University, so familiar to lawyers, of quoting a precedent or saying found in a book and then believing it to be true, I can not say, but certainly this does prevail in Cambridge-the mathematicians of that University too often take hypotheses in this subject for granted, as if they were laws of nature. So much has this custom prevailed in our sister University, that our critics complain, that at a recent examination, the existence of matter was ignored altogether. I mention these researches of Mr. Hopkins and of Archdeacon Pratt, for the purpose of expressing my belief, that when examined by the test of time, and by the careful consideration of competent The history of our globe may be divided into three periods-the astronomical, the geological, and the historical periods. Of the first period, I believe that La place has already written all that we shall ever know; its scale of time depends on the conditions of the cooling and consoli dation of planetary nebula, with respect to which we must be content to remain in perpetual ignorance; its phenomena are beyond the boundaries of positive science and of real knowledge; it resembles the epoch of myth and fable which, necessarily, it as would seem, must precede the advent of true history and knowledge. With respect to the third, or historical epoch, we all know what it means; its periods are measured by days, and months, and years, and though its records are sometimes wanting, yet if found, there would be no difference of opinion as to the standard of time with which we ought to compare them. But what shall we say of the measure of time involved in the second or geological period of the Earth's History? It is a history in which the order and succession of events is recorded, but the standard of time is lost; for no one knows what interval of time is involved in the "dura tion of a species," or the "deposition of a mile of sediment." On this question geologists divide themselves naturally into two schools, namely: Those who adopt, |