THORWALDSEN, one of the greatest of modern sculptors, was born, it is supposed, at Copenhagen, on Nov. 19, 1770. Neither the place nor the day of his birth, however, can be fixed with absolute certainty; and he himself, when casually questioned as to the last, replied with a certain brusque felicity. "I don't know; but I arrived at Rome on March 8, 1797;" dating his birth, as it were, from the commencement of his career as an artist. He was the son of a poor ship-carpenter, and his first essays in art were made in the carving of figure-heads in the yard where his father worked. His ,education was otherwise neglected, so that through life he could but indifferently write or spell; but the genius for art was born with him, and in 1793 he gained the first gold medal for design at the academy of Copenhagen; and along with it the privilege of three years' residence abroad for the purpose of study. Accordingly, in 1796 he sailed for Rome, arriving there as stated above. After long obscure and patient labor, his talent became conspicuous. From the celebrated Canova, in particular, he had early and generous recognition; and shortly, by the model for his great work, "Jason," be secured general admiration. No purchaser could, however, be found for it till, in 1803, just as in hope less disgust the artist was about to return to Copenhagen, he received from the well known Thomas Hope an order for its production in marble at a price which might be called munificent. From this time forward, prosperity and fame flowed upon him in full tide. In 1819 he returned to Denmark, taking the overland route, and everywhere on his journey special honor was paid him. His reception in Copenhagen was triumphal, and apartments were assigned him in the palace of Charlottenburg. He remained at home but a year, and at the end of it returned to Rome, where he continued to prosecute his art assiduously, up to 1838, when he left it, intending to pass his remaining years in his native country. Its climate, however, proved no longer suitable to him, and the
year 1841 found him once more at Rome. In 1844, having revisited Copenhagen, he died suddenly there in the theater, of disease of the heart, Mar. 24. All the works remaining in his possession he bequeathed to his country, to be preserved in a museum bearing his name, for the maintenance of which he also left the bulk of his fortune, reserving a suffi cient provision for Mme. Poulsen, his natural daughter. This magnificent and unique collection is now one of the chief glories of the metropolis of his native country. By his countrymen, he is natinany held in special honor; and their proud verdict, which ranks him the greatest of sculptors since Michael Angelo, is elsewhere more generally acquiesced in than is often the case in such instances of national enthusiasm. Anything like e. catalogue of his chief works need not be here attempted. He addicted himself by preference to ciassical sad mythological subjects; but his great works in the cathedral of Copenhagen, " Christ and the twelve Apostles," " St. John preaching in the Wilder ness," and the " Procession to Golgotha," sufficiently prove that lie was determined to this preference by no incapacity to appreciate and grandly fulfill the demands of the Christian ideal. Of the many busts from his hand of eminent contemporaries, those of Byron and the great Danish poet CEhlenschlitger are perhaps the most notable. The life of Thorwaldsen has been written by Hans Christian Andersen, by J. M. Thiele, and by Eugene Plon. English readers may consult a careful abridgment of M. Thiele's work, by the rev. M. R. Barnard, published in 1855 by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, London; and a translation of M. Plon's Life by Mrs. Cashel Hoey, which appeared in 1874.