The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 436

TOURS (60), a historic old town of France, on the Loire, 145 m. SW.

of Paris; presents a s.p.a.cious and handsome appearance, and contains a n.o.ble Gothic cathedral, archbishop's palace, Palais de Justice, besides ancient chateaux and interesting ruins; is a centre of silk and woollen manufactures, and does a large printing trade; suffered greatly by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and during the Franco-German War; became the seat of government after the investment of Paris and until its capitulation to the Germans.

TOURVILLE, ANNE HILARION DE COTENTIN, COUNT DE, a French naval hero, born at Tourville, La Manche; entered the navy in 1660, established his reputation in the war with the Turks and Algerines, and in 1677 won a victory over the Dutch and Spanish fleets; supported James II. in 1690, and in the same year, as commander of the French Channel fleet, inflicted a crus.h.i.+ng defeat on the Dutch and English; but off Cape La Hogue in 1692, after a five days' engagement, had his fleet all but annihilated, a memorable victory which freed England from the danger of invasion by Louis XIV.; was created a marshal in 1693, and a year later closed his great career of service by scattering an English mercantile fleet and putting to flight the convoy squadron under Sir George Rooke (1642-1701).

TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE, a negro hero of Hayti, born, the son of an African slave at Breda; took part in the native insurrection of 1791, and in 1797 became a general of brigade in the service of the French, and by gallant soldiers.h.i.+p cleared the English and Spanish out of Hayti; became president for life of the republic of Hayti, and began to work for the complete independence of the island; in 1801, when Napoleon endeavoured to re-introduce slavery, he revolted, but was subdued by a strong French force and taken to France, where he died in prison; is the subject of a well-known sonnet by Wordsworth (1743-1803).

TOWER HAMLETS, a parliamentary division of London E. of the city, originally a group of hamlets at one time within the jurisdiction of the Lieutenant of the Tower.

TOWERS OF SILENCE, towers in Persia and India, some 60 ft. in height, on the top of which the Pa.r.s.ees deposit their dead to be gnawed by vultures.

TOWNSHEND, CHARLES, VISCOUNT, statesman, born at Raynham, Norfolk; succeeded to the t.i.tle on his father's death, and after taking his seat in the Upper House turned Whig, and soon became prominent in the party; was one of the commissioners who arranged the Scottish Union; accompanied Marlborough as joint-plenipotentiary to the Gertruydenburg Conference (1709); got into political trouble for signing the Barrier Treaty while acting as amba.s.sador to the States-General; under George I. rose to high favour, became acknowledged leader of the Whigs, pa.s.sed the Septennial Act, but after 1721 was eclipsed in the party by the greater abilities of Walpole, and after unpleasant rivalries was forced to withdraw from the ministry (1730); gave himself then to agricultural pursuits (1674-1738).

TOWNSHEND, CHARLES, statesman and orator, grandson of preceding; entered Parliament in 1747 as a Whig, and after his great speech against the Marriage Bill of 1753 ranked among the foremost orators of his day; held important offices of State under various ministers, Bute, Chatham, and Rockingham, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1767 was responsible for the imposition of the paper, tea, and other duties on the American colonies which provoked the War of Independence and led to the loss of the colonies; a man of brilliant gifts and noted wit, but led by what Burke termed "an immoderate love of fame" to play "the weatherc.o.c.k"

in politics; died when on the point of attaining the premiers.h.i.+p (1725-1767).

TOWTON, a village of Yorks.h.i.+re, 3 m. SE. of Tadcaster, where in 1461 Edward IV. at the head of the Yorkists completely routed the Lancastrians under the Duke of Somerset.

TOYNBEE HALL, an inst.i.tution in Whitechapel, London, founded in 1885 for the social welfare of the poor in the district, established in memory of Arnold Toynbee (1852-1883), who had come under Ruskin's influence and took a deep interest in the working-cla.s.ses, his zeal for whose benefit shortened his days.

TRACTARIANISM, the tenets of the High Church party in the English Church advocated in "Tracts for the Times," published at Oxford between 1833 and 1841, the chief doctrine of which was that the Church, through its sacraments in the hands of a regularly-ordained clergy, is the only divinely-appointed channel of the grace of Christ.

TRADE, BOARD OF, a Government office which, as now const.i.tuted, dates from 1786, but whose functions within recent times have been considerably widened; consists of a president (a Cabinet minister), and _ex officio_ the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, First Lord of the Treasury, the princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Speaker, and others, but the actual work of the Board is left in the hands of the president and his secretarial staff; comprises five departments: (1) statistical and commercial; (2) railway; (3) marine; (4) harbour; (5) financial.

TRAFALGAR, CAPE, on the S. coast of Spain, at the NW. entrance of the Strait of Gibraltar; scene of naval engagements in which Nelson lost his life after inflicting (October 21, 1805) a crus.h.i.+ng defeat on the combined fleets of France and Spain.

TRAJAN, MARCUS ULPIUS, Roman emperor, born in Spain; his great deeds in arms won him a consuls.h.i.+p in 91, and in 97 Nerva invited him to be his colleague and successor; a year later he became sole emperor, ruled the empire with wisdom and vigour, set right the finances, upheld an impartial justice, and set on foot various schemes of improvement; suppressed the Christians as politically dangerous, but with no fanatic extravagance; remained above all a warrior and true leader of the legions, and crowned his military fame by his successful conquest of Dacia, in commemoration of which he is said to have erected the famous Trajan Column, which still stands in Rome (56-117).

TRAJAN'S COLUMN, a column erected by Trajan in the Forum at Rome in memory of his victory over the Dacians, and sculptured with the story of his exploits, is 125 ft. in height, and ascended by 185 steps; was surmounted by a statue of Trajan, for which Pope s.e.xtus V. subst.i.tuted one of St. Peter.

TRANSCAUCASIA, an extensive tract of Russian territory stretching E.

and W. between the Caucasus (N.) and Turkey in Asia and Persia (S.). See CAUCASIA.

TRANSCENDENTALISM, name now princ.i.p.ally employed to denote the great doctrine of Kant and his school, that there are principles of _a priori_ derivation, that is, antecedent to experience, that are regulative and const.i.tutive of not only our thoughts but our very perceptions, and the operation of which is antecedent to and sovereign over all our mental processes; which principles are denominated the categories of thought; the name is also employed to characterise every system which grounds itself on a belief in a supernatural of which the natural is but the embodiment and manifestation. See NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM.

TRANSMIGRATION, the doctrine prevalent in the East, that the soul is immortal, and that when it leaves the body at death it pa.s.ses into another, a transition which in certain systems goes under the name of reincarnation.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION, the doctrine of Roman Catholics as defined by the Council of Trent, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is, after consecration by a priest, converted mystically into the body and blood of Christ, and is known as the docrine of the Real Presence.

TRANSVAAL, formerly SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC (1350), a country of SE. Africa, stretching northwards from the Vaal River, and bounded N. by Matabeleland, E. by Portuguese E. Africa and Swaziland, S. by Natal and the Orange River Colony, and W. by Bechua.n.a.land and Bechua.n.a.land Protectorate; comprises elevated plateaux, but is mountainous in the E.; about the size of Italy; has a good soil and climate favourable for agriculture and stock-raising, to which latter the inert Dutch farmer chiefly devotes himself; its chief wealth, however, lies in its extremely rich deposits of gold, especially those of the "Rand," of which it exports now more than any country in the world; its advance since the gold discoveries has been great, but the trade is almost entirely in the hands of the British immigrants; JOHANNESBURG (q. v.) is the largest town, and Pretoria (15) the seat of Government. In 1856 the region was settled by Dutch farmers, who had "trekked" from Natal (recently annexed by Britain) to escape British Rule, as in 1835, for a similar reason, they had come from the Cape to Natal. Fierce encounters took place with the native Basutos, but in the end the "Boers" made good their possession. In 1877 the Republic, then in a disorganised and impoverished condition, and threatened with extinction by the natives, came under the care of the British, by whom the natives were reduced and the finances restored. In 1880 a rising of the Boers to regain complete independence resulted in the Conventions of 1881 and 1884, by which the independence of the Republic was recognised, but subject to the right of Britain to control the foreign relations. Within recent years agitations were carried on by the growing "Uitlander" population to obtain a share in the government to which they contributed in taxes the greater part of the revenue, and a succession of attempts were made by the British Government to get the Boers to concede the franchise to the "Uitlanders"

and remedy other grievances; but the negotiations connected therewith were suddenly arrested by an ultimatum of date 9th October 1899, presented to the British Government by the Transvaal, and allowing them only 48 hours to accept it. It was an ultimatum they were bound to ignore, and accordingly, the time having expired on the 11th, war was declared by the Boers. It proved a costly and sanguinary one to both sides in the conflict; but the resistance of the Boers was ultimately overcome, and hostilities ceased in May 1902. Previously to this, the Colony had been annexed by Great Britain (1900). It is at present (1905) administered by a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and an Executive Council; but it is proposed that, in the near future, representative inst.i.tutions should be granted.

TRANSYLVANIA (2247), eastern division of the Austrian Empire; is a tableland enclosed NE. and South by the Carpathians, contains wide tracts of forests, and is one-half under tillage or in pasture; yields large crops of grain and a variety of fruits, and has mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, &c., though the manufactures and trade are insignificant; the population consists of Roumanians, Hungarians, and Germans; it was united to Hungary in 1868.

TRAPANI (32), an ancient seaport of Sicily, known in Roman times as DREPANUM, in the NW., 40 m. W. of Palermo; presents now a handsome modern appearance, and trades in wheat, wine, olives, &c.

TRAPPISTS, an order of Cistercian monks founded in 1140 at La Trappe, in the French department of Orne, noted for the severity of their discipline, their wors.h.i.+p of silence and devotion to work, meditation, and prayer, 12 hours out of the 24 of which they pa.s.s in the latter exercise; their motto is "Memento Mori"; their food is chiefly vegetables.

TRASIMENE LAKE, a historic lake of Italy; lies amid hills between the towns Cortona and Perugia; shallow and reedy, 10 m. long; a.s.sociated with Hannibal's memorable victory over the Romans 217 B.C.

TRAVANCORE (2,557), a native State in South India, under British protection, between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea; it is connected with the Madras Presidency; it is traversed by spurs of the Western Ghats, beyond which, westward, is a plain 10 m. wide, covered with coco-nut and areca palms; the population mainly Hindus; there are native Christians and some black Jews; Trivandrum is the capital.

TRAVIATA, an opera representing the progress of a courtezan.

TREBIZOND (50), a city and thriving seaport NE. of Asia Minor, the outlet of Persia and Armenia, on the Black Sea; is walled, and outside are various suburbs; manufactures silks.

TRELAWNEY, EDWARD JOHN, friend of Sh.e.l.ley and Byron; entered the navy as a boy, but deserted and took to adventure; met with Sh.e.l.ley at Pisa; saw to the cremation of his body when he was drowned, and went with Byron to Greece; was a brave, but a restless mortal; wrote "Recollections of the Last Days of Sh.e.l.ley and Byron" (1792-1881).

TRELAWNEY, SIR JONATHAN, one of the seven bishops tried under James II.; is the hero of the Cornish ballad, "And shall Trelawney die?" _d_.

1721.

TRENCH, RICHARD CHEVENIX, archbishop of Dublin, born in Dublin; educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge; took orders; became curate to Samuel Wilberforce, and wrote "Notes on the Miracles and Parables" and "The Study of Words"; was Dean of Westminster before he became archbishop (1807-1886).

TRENCK, BARON VON, general, first in the service of Austria, then of Russia; dismissed from both; commanded a regiment of pandours in the Austrian Succession War in the interest of Maria Theresa; tried to capture Frederick the Great; was caught, tried, and condemned to prison, escaped, was captured, and took poison; had a cousin with a similar fate (1711-1749).

TRENT, an English river, rises in NW. of Staffords.h.i.+re, flows NE., and unites with the Ouse, 15 m. W. of Hull.