JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON (AKA PHILIP HARTON - kouroo.info

13 Pages·1991·0.54 MB·English

JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON (AKA PHILIP WHARTON)
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION,
THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Cockburn Thomson
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PHILIP WHARTON JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON
1834
John Cockburn Thomson was born, a son of Professor Anthony Todd Thomson (1778-1849) of London
University and his 2d wife Katherine Byerley Thomson (another of the sons was the barrister Henry William
Byerley Thomson).
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Cockburn Thomson
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JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON PHILIP WHARTON
1855
James Robert Ballantyne’s A DISCOURSE ON TRANSLATION, WITH REFERENCE TO THE EDUCATIONAL
DESPATCH OF THE HON. COURT OF DIRECTORS, 19 JULY 1854 (Mirzapore).
The Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman’s HISTORY OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY.
Joseph-Héliodore-Sagesse-Vertu Garcin de Tassy’s LES AUTEURS HINDOUSTANIS ET LEURS OUVRAGES.
John Cockburn Thomson produced, while in Paris, France, as an undergraduate student of Sanskrit at the age
of 21 under Horace Hayman Wilson (MA, FRS, Boden Professor of Sanskrit in the University ofOxford), THE
BHAGAVAD-GÍTÁ; OR, A DISCOURSE BETWEEN KR.IS.HN.AA ND ARJUNA ON DIVINE MATTERS. A SANSKR.IT
PHILOSOPHICA L POEM: TRANSLATED, WITH COPIOUS NOTES, AN INTRODUCTION ON SANSKR.IT PHILOSOPHY, AND
OTHER MATTER: BY J. COCKBURN THOMSON, MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF FRANCE; AND OF THE
ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF NORMANDY. HERTFORD: Printed and Published by Stephen Austin, Fore Street,
Bookseller to the East India College. MDCCCLV (Thomson would then collaborate on other unrelated
projects having to do with the honors and standing of the British nobility, under the pen name “Philip
Wharton”).
J. COCKBURN THOMSON
Henry Thoreau would have a copy of this volume in his personal library, but when he would comment passim
on the MAHĀBHĀRATA in his journal after June 20, 1846, and on June 26, 1852, it would be on the basis of the
earlier translation into English by the Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman that was also in his library,
NALA AND DAMAYANTI
andthe earlier translation into English by Charles Wilkins that was in the Harvard Library, and on the
BHAGVAT-GEETA
earliertranslation into French by Simon-Alexandre Langlois (1788-1854) that was in the Harvard Library.
Various remarks about his readings of the MAHĀBHĀRATA are to be found in his A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND
MERRIMACK RIVERS.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Cockburn Thomson
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PHILIP WHARTON JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON
November 30, Friday: By this point Henry Thoreau had installed wheels on his boat, as his and his brother’s boat
Musketaquid had likewise had wheels. Therefore he would not have to borrow a wheelbarrow in order to get
his boat up out of the river ice that winter. Thoreau received Thomas Cholmondeley’s1 gift of treatises on
India. Thisshipment included works in Sanskrit which Thoreau could not read but also included the following
works in accessible English, French, German, and Latin:
• John Cockburn Thomson’s very recently published new translation of THE BHAGAVAD-GÍTÁ; OR, A
DISCOURSE BETWEEN KR.IS.HN.AA ND ARJUNA ON DIVINE MATTERS. A SANSKR.IT PHILOSOPHICA L
POEM: TRANSLATED, WITH COPIOUS NOTES, AN INTRODUCTION ON SANSKR.IT PHILOSOPHY, AND
OTHER MATTER: BY J. COCKBURN THOMSON, MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF FRANCE; AND OF
THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF NORMANDY. HERTFORD: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY STEPHEN
AUSTIN, FORE STREET, BOOKSELLER TO THE EAST INDIA COLLEGE. MDCCCLV (this is one of the
volumes that Thoreau would bequeath to Bronson Alcott that he would bequeath to Franklin
Benjamin Sanborn)
J. COCKBURN THOMSON
• Horace Hayman Wilson’s translation of the RIG-VEDA SAMHITA
• Horace Hayman Wilson’s SELECT SPECIMENS OF THE THEATRE OF THE HINDOOS
• Īśvara Kṛṣṇa’s THE SĀṀKHYA KĀRIKĀ, OR, MEMORIAL VERSES ON THE SANKHYA PHILOSOPHY,
BYISWARA KRISHNA inacommented translation byHorace Hayman Wilson’s published byHenry
Thomas Colebrooke (or would Thoreau have accessed the H.T. Colebrook translation of 1837?)
THE SANKHYA KARIKA
• Henry Thomas Colebrook’s edition of Horace Hayman Wilson’s translation of the THE LAWS OF
MENU, OR THE VISHNU PURÁNA: ASYSTEM OF HINDU MYTHOLOGY AND TRADITION.
(Hehadquoted the “All intelligences awake with the morning” of this edition of the VISHNU
PURÁNA in WALDEN as“TheVedas say” , and from this he had obtained hisown
“Morningis when Iam awake and there is dawn in me” .)
• Houghton’s INSTITUTES OF MENU
• Henry Thomas Colebrooke’s TREATISE ON THE HINDU LAW OF INHERITANCE
• a translation of the MANDUKYA UPANISHAD
• James Robert Ballantyne’s translation of THE APHORISMS OF THE MÍMÁNSÁ PHILOSOPHY BY
JAIMINI. WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE COMMENTARIES. IN SANSKRIT AND ENGLISH. PRINTED FOR THE
USE OF THE BENARES COLLEGE, BY ORDER OF GOVT., N.W.P. (Allahabad: Printed at the
Presbyterian Mission Press. Rev. Jos. Warren, Supt. 1851)
APHORISMS OF MÍMÁNSÁ
1.Did he spell the name “Chomondeley” in his journal?
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JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON PHILIP WHARTON
• Gautama, called Aksapáda. THE APHORISMS OF THE NYÁNA PHILOSOPHY, BY GAUTAMA, WITH
ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS FROM THE COMMENTARY BY VIŚWANÁTHA. IN SANSCRIT AND ENGLISH.
PRINTED, FOR THE USE OF THE BENARES COLLEGE, BY ORDER OF GOVT. N.W.P. (ALLAHABAD:
Printed at the Presbyterian Mission Press. Rev. Jos. Warren, Superintendent. 1850)
APHORISMS IN SANSCRIT
• the Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman’s translation of NALA AND DAMYANTI
NALA AND DAMAYANTI
• John Stuart Mill’s HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA
• Monier Williams’s retranslation of Kalidasa’s SAKUNTALA, ORTHEFATALRING
• a number of volumes of history and criticism of Indian literature
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?
— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.
LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Cockburn Thomson
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PHILIP WHARTON JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON
1856
May 13, Tuesday: Bronson Alcott saw Henry Thoreau again, and obtained the loan of THE BHAGAVAD-GÍTÁ; OR, A
DISCOURSE BETWEEN KR.IS.HN.AA ND ARJUNA ON DIVINE MATTERS. A SANSKR.IT PHILOSOPHICA L POEM:
TRANSLATED, WITH COPIOUS NOTES, AN INTRODUCTION ON SANSKR.IT PHILOSOPHY, AND OTHER MATTER: BY J.
COCKBURN THOMSON, MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF FRANCE; AND OF THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF
NORMANDY (Hertford: Printed and Published by Stephen Austin, Fore Street, Bookseller to the East India
College. MDCCCLV) fromtheThomas Cholmondeley books.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Cockburn Thomson
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JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON PHILIP WHARTON
1857
John Cockburn Thomson received the degree of BA at St. Mary Hall of Oxford University as a Sanskrit
scholar. He would be at Trinity College of Oxford for the remainder of his brief life.
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Cockburn Thomson
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PHILIP WHARTON JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON
1860
May 26, Saturday: John Cockburn Thomson drowned at the beach at Tenby, Wales.
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JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON PHILIP WHARTON
1864
Published posthumously, John Cockburn Thomson’s only novel:
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
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PHILIP WHARTON JOHN COCKBURN THOMSON
1993
“Stolen Thoreau Book Returned to Concord Museum” (a report by David Wood):
The Concord Museum recently got back, after a fifty-one-year absence, an important volume of Hindu
religious literature from Thoreau’s library, the Sanskrit text of THE BHAGAVAD-GÍTÁ, edited by John
Cockburn Thomson and printed in Hertford, England, in 1855.
In 1855, the English writer Thomas Cholmondeley (pronounced Chum-ly) sent to his friend Henry
Thoreau forty-four volumes of Oriental philosophical and religious writings, which Thoreau called in his
journal “a royal gift.” Included in the gift was a new two-volume edition of THE BHAGAVAD-GÍTÁ, a book
Thoreau first read in 1846 while living at Walden Pond. Both volumes, the Sanskrit text and the English
translation, are inscribed on the flyleaf in Thoreau’s hand “Henry D. Thoreau from Thomas Cholmondeley.”
When Thoreau died in 1862, he bequeathed some of the Cholmondeley books to Ralph Waldo Emerson;
therest, including the Bhagavad-Gita, he willed to Bronson Alcott, the pioneering educator and member of
the inner circle of the Transcendentalists who is best known as the father of Louisa May Alcott. Alcott noted
the bequest on the title page of each volume: “A. Bronson Alcott from H.D. Thoreau.” Alcott in turn gave
the volumes to Frank Sanborn, Thoreau’s first biographer. After his death, Sanborn’s books were sold at
auction, where Stephen Wakeman bought the Bhagavad-Gita. The two volumes made up lot 1072 of the
Stephen Wakeman sale held on 24 April 1924. Boston book dealer Charles Goodspeed bought them and sold
them to Edward Kittredge. Kittredge gave them to the Concord Antiquarian Society (now the Concord
Museum) on the completion of its new building in 1930.
In 1942, the slimmer of the two blue-bound volumes, containing the Sanskrit text, was stolen from the
Antiquarian Society. Fifty-one years later, a California collector informed the Museum that he had been
offered the book, which, he knew had been stolen on the basis of Walter Harding’s 1983 checklist of the
books in Thoreau’s library. The book had apparently entered the library of Philadelphia philanthropist Joshua
Bailey in the early 1950s and been sold at auction in the 1970s. The person offering the book for sale had
bought it from a San Diego book dealer, who arranged the return of the volume to the Concord Museum.
Edward Kittredge, the donor of the volume to the Concord Antiquarian Society, prophesied its return in
a letter to Society president Allen French dated 19 February 1942: “I feel sure the book will turn up some day
and be restored to its proper place” Such a book cannot escape detection…. A bibliomaniac saw it, could not
resist, and, I hope, has kept it safe. In time, therefore, it should be recovered.”
The book, along with its companion volume, is on exhibit in the Thoreau Gallery at the Concord Museum,
200 Lexington Road, Concord.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Cockburn Thomson