Hope ,.I. Thomas, an English author, born about 1770, died Feb. 3, 1831. He inherited a large fortune, and at the age of 18 started on a tour in Europe and the East. After an absence of eight years he returned to London, and purchased a house which he remodelled and furnished according to ideas formed on his travels. A distinguishing feature was the long galleries and the series of cabinets stored with pictures, statuary, and objects of art and virtu. In 1807 he published " Household Furniture and External Decorations," with 60 plates, in which a full description of his own establishment is given, with hints for the decoration of houses. In 1809 appeared his "Costume of the Ancients" (2 vols. 8vo; 3d ed. with additions, 1841), a magnificent work, containing 321 plates, followed in 1812 by "Designs of Modern Costume." In 1819 he published a novel, "Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek, written at the close of the 18th Century." This was at the time attributed to Byron, and created a great sensation, but is now seldom read. Shortly after his death two posthumous works were published : " Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man " (3 vols., 1831), and a "Historical Essay on Architecture" (2 vols., 1837), which has passed through several editions.

He was a liberal patron of art, being the first to discover and appreciate the genius of Thorwaldsen, who executed for him his "Jason;" and he collected one of the finest private galleries of pictures in Europe.

His wife, who was the daughter of Lord Decies, archbishop of Tuam, was of remarkable beauty, and was remarried after his death to Viscount Beresford. She died in 1851. - His eldest son, Henry Thomas Hope of Deepdene (died 1862), was a well known conservative politician, and was M. P. for Gloucester. II. Alexander James Beresford Beresford-Hope, son of the preceding, born in 1820. He assumed his mother's name Beresford by royal license in 1854. He was a member of parliament for Maidstone from 1841 to 1852, and was reelected in 1857. In 1865 he was elected for Stoke-upon Trent, and in 1868 for the university of Cambridge, for which he was reelected in 1874. In 1865-7 he was president of the royal institute of British architects. He is the author of "Essays" (London, 1844), "Letters on Church Matters, by D. C. L.," "The English Cathedral of the Nineteenth Century," and numerous pamphlets and articles; and is celebrated for his munificent restoration and endowment of St. Augustine's abbey, Canterbury, as a church of England missionary college.