Benjamin Thompson

“ He took as one of his ministers the celebrated American, Benjamin Thompson, whom he created Count Rumford, and that man of science and learning endeavoured to suppress mendacity, and made efforts to bring material comforts within reach of the very poorest. ”

“ Benjamin Thompson, who was created a count by Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and who chose to be called Count Rumford after a New Hampshire town from which the family of his wife had come, was born in Massachusetts in 1753 and died in France in 1814. He founded the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1799, and by a bequest established the Rumford professorship for the application of science to the useful arts at Harvard University. ”

“ In 1779 Count Rumford, adventurer, soldier, and scientist, was elected Fellow. Sir Benjamin Thompson's life reads like a romance. A poor New England lad, he at the outbreak of the Revolution sailed to England, where he spent the greater part of his life. He held many positions of honor and trust, both in England and Bavaria, and displayed marked ability as a statesman and as a general. But he is chiefly remembered for his scientific attainments. He founded the Rumford medal of the Royal Society, and enjoyed the unique distinction of being its first recipient. ”

“ Under-Secretary of State at twenty-eight, he was knighted by George III. at thirty; and eight years later, by the pleasure of the King of Bavaria, Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn, Massachusetts, was transformed into Count Rumford, having already taken rank as a European celebrity. But he did not forget his early home and friends, and it is pleasant to find him deriving his title from the name given to Concord by the early settlers—a name, by the way, that these patriots misspelled from Romford, the village near London whence some of them came. ”

“ Benjamin Harrison is a good, honest, patriotic man, and we like him. But he never stole second base in all his life and he could not swat Mickey Welch's down curves over the left-field fence. Therefore we say again, as we have said many times before, that much as we revere Benjamin Harrison's purity and amiability, we cannot but accord the tribute of our sincerest admiration, to that paragon of American manhood, Michael J. Kelly. ”

“ In Wordsworth Thompson we find an artist who seems to realize the possibilities of American historical art. Although a pupil of Gleyre, and for a number of years a resident abroad, there is no evidence of servile subserviency to any favorite school or method in the style of Mr. Thompson. He is an excellent draughtsman, his color is a happy medium between the high and low keys of different schools—fresh, cool, and crisp—and his work is thoroughly finished, and yet broad in effect. He evidently has no hobbies to ride. As a designer of horses he has few equals in this country. ”

“ In youth Thompson became a formidable pugilist. In 1832 he beat Bill Faulker, a Nottingham notoriety, and in the following year defeated Charles Martin. In his first challenge in ‘Bell's Life in London’ in 1835 he styled himself ‘Abednego of Nottingham,’ and from that date he was spoken of in the sporting press as ‘Bendigo.’ His first important fight was on 21 July 1835, near Appleby House, about thirty miles from Nottingham, when he met Benjamin Caunt [q. v.] In the twenty-third round Caunt, wearied with Bendigo's shifty conduct, struck him a blow while he was on his second's knee ”

“ His family was of intensely Orange and anti-nationalist sympathies. After education at a private school, Thompson was for a time clerk in the office of James Hayden, solicitor. At the age of sixteen he contributed verses to the 'Derry Journal' and developed an aptitude for journalism. He found employment on the 'Belfast Morning News,' and then in 1877, at the age of twenty, through the influence of Sir Charles Lewis, baronet, M.P. for Derry, he joined the staff of the conservative 'Standard' in London, writing chiefly on non-political themes. ”

“ Thompson had entered as a student at the Middle Temple on 6 April 1877, and was called to the bar on 26 Jan. 1880. He formed a practice as the leading professional advocate of trade societies and of persons of advanced opinions charged with political offences. As a member from 1886 of the democratic club in Chancery Lane he became intimate with leading democrats, including Mr. ”

“ Thomas forbade his overseers meddling with Ben, telling them that he would kill them if they did; also, that he was a good hand, and needed no driving. When Ben got well, Mr. Thomas knowing his disposition, was afraid to go near or speak to him; consequently, he was sent to a distant part of the farm to work by himself, nor was he ever again struck by master or overseer.
Ben was a brave fellow, nor did this flogging lessen his bravery in the least. Nor is Ben the only brave slave at the South; there are many there who would rather be shot than whipped by any man. ”

“ Ben answered slowly. “You see, I always lived in the country, and in just one place till father and mother died four years ago. But, oh, it was so pleasant there! Back of the house was the orchard, and beyond that a long hill where we went coasting in the winter, Theodore and I—he’s my brother three years older. At the foot of the hill was a little creek where we used to go fishing in spring. The fish were mostly suckers. I suppose some folks wouldn’t have cooked ’em; but then mothers will do ’most anything for boys; at any rate, such a mother as ours would, and my, but they did taste good! ”

“ On October 8, 1915, this noted old pioneer was eighty-eight years old and still vigorous, mentally. His power of thinking is not much diminished, and he is still a reader and student. Constant reading and thinking, we are told, is conducive to longevity and Mr. Thompson has always been a great reader and student of history and philosophy. He is a man, self-made and self-taught, and is blessed with a keenness of intellect far above the average. ”

“ Such courage did not suit the overseer, who wanted each slave to tremble with fear when he addressed him. Ben was too high-minded for such humiliation before any insignificant overseer. He had philosophically concluded that death is but death any way, and that one might as well die by hanging as whipping; so he resolved not to submit to be whipped by the overseer.
One day in the month of November, when the slaves were in the field gathering corn, which Ben was carting to the barn, the overseer thought he did not drive his oxen fast enough. ”

“ Another short poem sees the newsboys in Fleet Street shouting the news of the end of the world, and the awful return of God. The writers seem unconsciously to have sought to make a poem as large as a revelation, while it was nearly as short as a riddle. And though Francis Thompson himself was rather in the Elizabethan tradition of amplitude and ingenuity, he could write separate lines that were separate poems in themselves:—
"And thou, what needest with thy tribe's black tents,
Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?" ”

“ He "first beheld the ocean" at Colwyn Bay when he was five years old. It was there that the Thompsons spent their holidays, several excursions there during a year keeping them in touch with the sea. Its sunsets are still remembered by Mother Austin, his sister, in her convent in black Manchester, where her skies are for the most part locked behind bricks or otherwise tampered with. Remembered by this sister as particularly attracting Francis is "the phosphorescence on the crest of the waves at dusk." ”

“ His mode of procedure along the ambulacrum was quite his own, and you might know at the furthest point from him that [16] you had 'Tommy' in perspective. He sidled along the wall, and every now and then he would hitch up the collar of his coat as though it were slipping off his none too thickly covered shoulder-blades. He early evinced a love for books, and many an hour, when his schoolfellows were far afield, would he spend in the well-stocked juvenile library. His tastes were not as ours. Of history he was very fond, and particularly of wars and battles. ”

“ Perhaps the Saturday Review was the most severe:—
"He has been, from the first, unfortunate in being shielded from sincere criticism. He has been persuaded by his friends that [240] he is a genius, divinely inspired, whose wildest utterances are his best. . . . In no poet of reputation is it (order) more strikingly absent than in Mr. Thompson. Beautiful fancy, sonorous and picturesque diction we find here, indeed, but no motive power. ”

“ Thompson's poetry scarcely comes by way of the outward eye at all. He scarcely depends upon occasions. In a dungeon one imagines that he would be no less a poet. The regal air, the prophetic ardours, the apocalyptic vision, the supreme utterance—he has them all. A rarer, more intense, more strictly predestinate genius has never been known to poetry. To many this may well appear the simple delirium of over-emphasis. The writer signs for those others, nowise ashamed, who range after Shakespeare's very Sonnets the poetry of a living poet, Francis Thompson. ”

“ Thompson's lips, and pressed some of the honey he had with him into his mouth.
Mr. Thompson began to grow smaller, and as he shrunk in size, his light alpaca duster became gauzy, and formed itself into wings. Just as he had begun to wonder how long it would take him to shrink into nothing, the bee said, "There, I guess that will do."
Mr. Thompson stretched himself, and found to his surprise that he was in reality nothing more than a large black bumble-bee. He shook his wings, arose, and, flying around for a few moments, settled on the fence rail. ”

“ To treat Thompson fairly one should give his deeper poems careful study, but Thompson does not always write of deep and doubtful things. More often indeed his faith is as the faith of a little child. We are told on high authority that we must become as little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It was as a little child that Thompson sought to enter there, and it is among the children of Heaven that Thompson would take his place. ”

“ Thence they were allowed to return overland to England; when Thompson, being tried by court-martial for the loss of his ship, was specially complimented as deserving of every praise his country and the court could give, for ‘his gallant and almost unprecedented defence of the Leander against so superior a force as that of the Généreux.’ On his acquittal, Thompson was knighted and awarded a pension of 200l. per annum.
In the spring of 1799 he was appointed to the 74-gun ship Bellona, one of the fleet off Brest under Lord Bridport. ”

“ Thompson felt and evinced in his every word and act. Few home-born lovers of our country have done a tithe as much as he did to save her from the ruin she was bringing upon herself by her recreancy to the fundamental principles, upon which she professed to stand. Not a dozen names, of those who have lived within the last forty years, deserve to stand higher on the list of our public benefactors than the name of George Thompson. ”

“ Francis Thompson's years immediately after his failure in his medical examinations were spent in London, in poverty and ill health. But no man of genius can long remain hidden. In a strange and romantic manner, some of his magnificent poetry and prose came to the attention of Wilfred and Alice Meynell. They gave to the world the blessing of acquaintance with Francis Thompson's work, and to the poet they gave, in addition to more material benefits, the wise and affectionate friendship his lonely spirit most needed. ”

“ His secret absorption in his own interests was, after all, not uncomfortably [56] circumstanced during all these years, for it is certain that literature was a second life to Francis which could be lived alone most happily. After failure in Glasgow, Francis met with a severe show of impatience and disappointment from his father. Many trials had been tolerated at the son's hands, hundreds of pounds had been expended, and the son's future was less secure than ever. Dr. Thompson determined on such courses as he thought would compel Francis to some undertaking of the responsibilities of life. ”

“ Thompson has traveled much in the United States, and his writings in various periodicals as well as his books have attracted wide attention for their original observation and extensive information while they are excelled by few modern writers for poetic richness and diction. ”

“ When a performance is had in Keene the good people of Swanzey demand a special matinee for their benefit, from which the citizens of Keene are supposed to be excluded.
In Colorado a Methodist camp-meeting was adjourned and its members attended the play en masse. Such is the charm of the play that it never loses its attraction.
Mr. Thompson is in the prime of life, about fifty years old. His home is in New Hampshire; his birthplace was in Pennsylvania. He made his debut in Massachusetts, and received his professional training in Canada ”

“ If Francis Thompson had been an Anglican or a Unitarian, his praises would have been sung unto the ends of the earth. He would have been the creator of a new school of poetry. Disciples would have knelt at his feet. But, being only a Catholic, he is allowed to retire, and bury in silence one of the noblest imaginations that have ever been given to Nature's select ones—her poets. ”

“ Yet his first most admiring critics were men by no means in sympathy with his religion. H. D. Traill, a North of Ireland Protestant, welcomed him as "a new poet of the first rank." Richard Le Gallienne called him "Crashaw born again, but born greater." John Davidson said "Thompson's poetry at its highest attains a sublimity unsurpassed by any other Victorian poet." And Arnold Bennett wrote of Thompson's second book "Sister Songs," "My belief is that Francis Thompson has a richer natural genius, a finer poetical equipment, than any poet save Shakespeare." ”