The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 426

TARTINI, GIUSEPPE, a famous Italian violinist and composer, born at Pirano, in Istria; got into trouble over his clandestine marriage with the niece of the archbishop of Padua, and fled for sanctuary to a monastery at a.s.sisi; subsequently reunited to his wife established himself in Padua as a teacher and composer; wrote a "Treatise on Music,"

and enjoyed a wide celebrity, and still ranks as one of the great violinists of the past (1692-1770).

TARTUFFE, a knave, a creation of Moliere's, who makes a cloak of religion to cover his knaveries, and the name of the play in which the character appears, Moliere's greatest.

TASHKAND or TASHKENT (100), capital of Russian Turkestan, on the Tchirs.h.i.+k, 300 m. NE. of Samarcand; an ancient place still surrounded by its 12 m. circuit of wall, and fortified; Russian enterprise has done much for it, introducing schools, &c.; carries on a brisk trade, and manufactures silks, leather, porcelain ware, &c.

TASMAN SEA, the sea lying between the New Zealand group and the islands of Australia and Tasmania.

TASMANIA (146), an island and colony of Britain, lying fully 100 m.

S. of Australia, from which it is separated by Ba.s.s Strait; about the size of Scotland; the beauty of its mountain and lake scenery has won it the name of "the Switzerland of the South"; extensive stretches of tableland diversified by lakes--largest Great Lake, 90 m. in circ.u.mference--occupy the centre; wide fertile valleys stretch down to the coastal plains, often richly wooded with lofty eucalyptus and various pine trees; rivers are numerous, and include the Derwent and Tamar, which form excellent waterways into the interior; enjoys a genial and temperate climate, more invigorating than that of Australia; sheep-farming and latterly mining (coal in particular), and fruit-growing are the princ.i.p.al industries; gold, silver, and tin are also wrought; the flora, as also the fauna, is practically identical with that of Australia; has a long, irregular coast-line, with many excellent harbours; chief exports are wool, tin, fruit, timber, coal, and gold; was discovered in 1642 by Tasman, a Dutchman, and first settled by Englishmen in 1803; the aborigines are now completely extinct; was till 1852 a penal settlement, and received representative government in 1855; is divided into 18 counties; government is conducted by a legislative council, a house of a.s.sembly, and a crown-appointed governor; most of the colonists belong to the Church of England; compulsory education is in vogue; is well supplied with railways and telegraphs; was formerly called Van Diemen's Land after Van Diemen, the Dutch governor-general of Batavia, who despatched Tasman on his voyage of discovery.

Ta.s.sO, BERNARDO, an Italian poet of some repute in his own day, but now chiefly remembered as the father of the greater Torquato, born in Venice (1493-1569).

Ta.s.sO, TORQUATO, an ill.u.s.trious Italian poet, son of preceding, born at Sorrento, near Naples; educated at a Jesuit school in Naples, he displayed unusual precocity, and subsequently studied law at the university of Padua, but already devoted to poetry, at 18 published his first poem "Rinaldo," a romance in 12 cantos, the subject-matter of which is drawn from the Charlemagne legends; in 1566 he entered the service of Cardinal Luigi d'Este, by whom he was introduced to Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, brother of the cardinal, within whose court he received the needful impulse to begin his great poem "La Gerusalemme Liberata"; for the court stage he wrote his pastoral play "Aminta," a work of high poetic accomplishment, which extended his popularity, and by 1575 his great epic was finished; in the following year the symptoms of mental disease revealed themselves, and after a confinement of a few days he fled from Ferrara, and for two years led the life of a wanderer, the victim of his own brooding, religious melancholy, pa.s.sing on foot from city to city of Italy; yielding to a pent-up longing to revisit Ferrara he returned, but was coldly received by the duke, and after an outburst of frenzy placed in confinement for seven years; during these years the fame of his epic spread throughout Italy, and the interest created in its author eventually led to his liberation; in 1595 he was summoned by Pope Clement VIII., from a heartless and wandering life, to appear at Rome to be crowned upon the Capitol the poet-laureate of Italy, but, although he reached the city, his worn-out frame succ.u.mbed before the ceremony could take place; "One thing," says Settembrini, the literary historian of Italy, "Ta.s.so had, which few in his time possessed, a great heart, and that made him a true and great poet, and a most unhappy man;" Fairfax's translation of the "Jerusalem Delivered" is one of his great translations in the English language (1544-1595).

TATAR, a word derived from a Turanian root signifying "to pitch a tent," hence appropriate to nomadic tribes, became converted by European chroniclers into Tartar, a fanciful derivative from Tartaros (Gr. h.e.l.l), and suggestive of fiends from h.e.l.l. Tartary, as a geographical expression of the Middle Ages, embraced a vast stretch of territory from the Dnieper, in Eastern Europe, to the Sea of j.a.pan; but subsequently dwindled away to Chinese and Western Turkestan.

TATE, NAHUM, poet-laureate, born in Dublin, where he was educated at Trinity College; came to London to ply the craft of letters, and in 1690 succeeded Shadwell in the laureates.h.i.+p; improvident, and probably intemperate, he died in the Mint, the refuge of bankrupts in those days; wrote some dramatic pieces, but is to be remembered mainly for his metrical version of the Psalms, executed in conjunction with Nicholas Brady, which superseded the older version done by STERNHOLD (q. v.) and Hopkins (1652-1715).

TATIUS, ACHILLES, a Greek romancer who flourished about the beginning of the 4th century A.D.; wrote the romance of "Leucippe and Cleitophon."

TATTERSALL'S, a noted horse-mart and haunt of racing men at Knightsbridge, London, established by Richard Tattersall (1724-1795), an auctioneer, who in 1766 obtained a 99 years' lease from Lord Grosvenor of premises in Hyde Park Corner; the present premises were occupied on the expiry of the lease in 1867.

TATTOOING, a practice of imprinting various designs, often pictorial, upon the skin by means of colouring matter, e. g. Chinese ink, cinnabar, introduced into punctures made by needles; widely in vogue in past and present times amongst uncivilised peoples, and even to some extent amongst civilised races; like the use of rouge, was mainly for the purpose of ornamentation and for improving the appearance, but also in some cases for religious purposes; reached its highest perfection in j.a.pan, where it seems to have been largely resorted to as a subst.i.tute for clothing, and was never employed on the face, feet, or hands; among the South Sea islanders the custom is universal, and is still practised by considerable numbers of the lower-cla.s.s criminals of Europe.

TAU, CROSS OF, or ST. ANTHONY'S CROSS, a cross resembling the letter T.

TAUCHNITZ, KARL CRISTOPH TRAUGOTT, a noted German printer and bookseller, born at Grosspardau, near Leipzig; trained as a printer, he started on his own account in Leipzig in 1796, flourished, and became celebrated for his neat and cheap editions of the Roman and Greek cla.s.sics; introduced stereotyping into Germany (1761-1836). The well-known "British Authors" collection was started in 1841 by CHRISTIAN BERNARD, BARON VON TAUCHNITZ, a nephew of the preceding, who established himself as a printer and publisher in Leipzig in 1837; was enn.o.bled in 1860, and made a Saxon life-peer in 1877; _b_. 1816.

TAULER, JOHANN, a German mystic, born in Strasburg, bred a monk of the Dominican order, had, along with the rest of his order, to flee the city, and settled in Basel, became a centre of religious life there, and acquired repute as one of the most eloquent preachers of the day; his sphere was not speculative thought but practical piety, and his "Sermons"

take rank among the aboriginal monuments of German prose literature (1300-1361).

TAUNTON, 1, (18), a trim, pleasantly-situated town of Somersets.h.i.+re (18), on the Tone, 45 m. SW. of Bristol; has a fine old castle founded in the 8th century, rebuilt in the 12th century, and having interesting a.s.sociations with Perkin Warbeck, Judge Jeffreys, and Sydney Smith; has various schools, a college, barracks, &c.; noted for its hosiery, glove, and silk manufactures, and is also a busy agricultural centre. 2, Capital (31) of Bristol County, Ma.s.sachusetts, on the Taunton River, 34 m. S. of Boston, a well equipped and busy manufacturing town.

TAURIDA (1,060), a government of South Russia, of extensive area, jutting down in peninsular shape into the Black Sea, and including the Crimea and isthmus of Perekop; forms the western boundary of the Sea of Azov; cattle-breeding and agriculture the staple industries.

TAURUS, or THE BULL, a constellation, the second in size of the zodiac, which the sun enters towards the 20th of April.

TAURUS, MOUNT, a mountain range of Turkey in Asia, stretching W. for about 500 m. in an unbroken chain from the head-waters of the Euphrates to the aegean Sea, and forming the S. b.u.t.tress of the tableland of Asia Minor; in the E. is known as the Ala Dagh, in the W. as the Bulghar Dagh.

The Anti-Taurus is an offshoot of the main range, which, continuing to the NE., unites with the systems of the Caucasus.

TAVERNIER, JEAN BAPTIST, BARON D'AUBONNE, a celebrated French traveller, born in Paris, the son of an Antwerp engraver; was a wanderer from his boyhood, starting on his travels at the age of 15, and by the end of 1630 had made his way as valet, page, &c., over most of Europe; during the years 1630-1669 he in six separate expeditions traversed most of the lands of Asia in the capacity of a dealer in jewels; reaped large profits; was honoured by various potentates, and returned with stores of valuable information respecting the commerce of those countries, which with much else interesting matter lie embodied in his great work, "Six Voyages," a cla.s.sic now in travel-literature; was enn.o.bled in 1669 by Louis XIV. (1605-1689).

TAVIRA (11), a seaport in the S. of Portugal; has a Moorish castle, and good sardine and tunny fisheries.

TAVISTOCK (6), a market-town of Devon, situated at the western edge of Dartmoor, on the Tavy, 11 m. N. of Plymouth; has remains of a 10th-century Benedictine abbey, a guild-hall, grammar school, &c.; is one of the old stannary towns, and still largely depends for its prosperity on the neighbouring tin, copper, and a.r.s.enic mines.

TAXIDERMY, the art of preparing and preserving the skins of animals for exhibition in cabinets.

TAY, a river of Scotland whose drainage area lies almost wholly within Perths.h.i.+re; rises on the northern slope of Ben Lui, on the Argyll and Perths.h.i.+re border, and flowing 25 m. NE. under the names of Fillan and Dochart, enters Loch Tay, whence it sweeps N., SE., and E., pa.s.sing Aberfeldy, Dunkeld, Perth, and Dundee, and enters the North Sea by a n.o.ble estuary 25 m. long and from m. to 3 m. broad; chief affluents are the Tummel, Isla, Almond, and Earn; discharges a greater body of water than any British stream; is renowned for the beauty of its scenery, and possesses valuable salmon fisheries; has a total length of 120 m., and is navigable to Perth; immediately W. of Dundee it is spanned by the TAY BRIDGE, the longest structure of its kind in the world, consisting of 95 spans, with a total width of 3440 yards; Loch Tay, one of the finest of Highland lochs, lies at the base of Ben Lawers, stretches 14 m. NE. from Killin to Kenmore, and varies from m. to 1 m. in breadth.

TAYGETUS, a range of mountains in the Peloponnese, separating Laconia from Messina.

TAYLOR, BAYARD, a noted American writer and traveller, born at Kennett Square, Pennsylvania; was bred to the printing trade, and by 21 had published a volume of poems, "Ximena," and "Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff," the fruit of a walking tour through Europe; next for a number of years contributed, as travel correspondent, to the _Tribune_, visiting in this capacity Egypt, the greater part of Asia, Central Africa, Russia. Iceland, etc.; during 1862-1863 acted as Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburg, and in 1878 was appointed amba.s.sador at Berlin; his literary reputation rests mainly on his poetic works, "Poems of the Orient," "Rhymes of Travel," etc., and an admirable translation of Goethe's "Faust"; also wrote several novels (1825-1878).

TAYLOR, SIR HENRY, poet, born at Bishop. Middleham, in Durham; after a nine months' unhappy experience as a mids.h.i.+pman obtained his discharge, and having acted for some years as clerk in the Storekeeper-General's Department, entered the Colonial Office in 1823, where he continued till his retirement in 1872; literature engaged his leisure hours, and his four tragedies--the best of which is "Philip van Artevelde"--are an important contribution to the drama of the century, and characterised as the n.o.blest effort in the true taste of the English historical drama produced within the last century; published also a volume of lyric poems, besides other works in prose and verse, including "The Statesman," and a charming "Autobiography," supplemented later by his no less charming "Correspondence"; received the distinctions of K.C.M.G. (1869) and D.C.L. (1800-1886).

TAYLOR, ISAAC, a voluminous writer on quasi-philosophic subjects, born in Lavenham, Suffolk; pa.s.sed his life chiefly at Ongar engaged in literary pursuits; contributed to the _Eclectic Review_, _Good Words_, and wrote amongst other works "Natural History of Enthusiasm," "Natural History of Fanaticism," "Spiritual Despotism" and "Ultimate Civilisation"

(1787-1865). His eldest son, Isaac, entered the Church, and rose to be rector of Settrington, in Yorks.h.i.+re, and was collated to a canonry of York in 1885; has a wide reputation as a philologist, and author of "Words and Places," and "The Alphabet, an Account of the Origin and Development of Letters," besides "Etruscan Researches," "The Origin of the Aryans," etc.; _b_. 1829.

TAYLOR, JEREMY, great English divine and preacher, born at Cambridge, son of a barber; educated at Caius College; became a Fellow of All Souls', Oxford; took orders; attracted the attention of Laud; was made chaplain to the king, and appointed to the living of Uppingham; on the sequestration of his living in 1642 joined the king at Oxford, and adhered to the royal cause through the Civil War; suffered much privation, and imprisonment at times; returning to Wales, he procured the friends.h.i.+p and enjoyed the patronage of the Earl of Carberry, in whose mansion at Grove he wrote a number of his works; before the Restoration he received preferment in Ireland, and after that event was made bishop, first of Down and then of Dromore; his life here was far from a happy one, partly through insubordination in his diocese and partly through domestic sorrow; his works are numerous, but the princ.i.p.al are his "Liberty of Prophesying," "Holy Living and Holy Dying," "Life of Christ,"

"Ductor Dubitantium," a work on casuistry; he was a good man and a faithful, more a religious writer than a theological; his books are read more for their devotion than their divinity, and they all give evidence of luxuriance of imagination, to which the epithet "florid" has not inappropriately been applied; in Church matters he was a follower of Laud (1613-1667).

TAYLOR, JOHN, known as the "Water-Poet," born at Gloucester; was successively a waterman on the Thames, a sailor in the navy, public-house keeper in Oxford, etc.; walked from London to Edinburgh, "not carrying any money to or fro, neither begging, borrowing, or asking meat, drink, or lodging," and described the journey in his "Penniless Pilgrimage"; wrote also "Travels in Germanie," and enjoyed considerable repute in his time as a humorous rhymester (1580-1654).

TAYLOR, TOM, a noted playwright and journalist, born at Sunderland; was elected to a Fellows.h.i.+p at Cambridge, for two years filled the chair of English Literature at University College, London; in 1845 was called to the bar, but shortly afterwards took to journalism, writing leaders for the _Morning Chronicle_ and _Daily News_; during 1850-1872 held secretarial appointments to the Board of Health and in the Local Government Act Office; succeeded s.h.i.+rley Brooks as editor of _Punch_ in 1874; was throughout his life a prolific writer and adapter of plays, staging upwards of 100 pieces, of which the best known are "To Parents and Guardians," "Still Waters Run Deep," "Our American Cousin,"

"Ticket-of-Leave Man," etc. (1817-1880).