2. The Aeginetan talent. It is a disputed question what was the ratio of the Aeginetan to the Attic talent. Pollux (ix. 76, 86) says that the Aeginetan talent contained 10,000 Attic drachmae, and the Aeginetan drachma 10 Attic obols, which would give the ratio of 5: 3 for that of the Aeginetan to the Attic talent. According to this statement, the Aeginetan drachma weighed 110 grains English. Now the existing coins give an average of only 96 grains; and the question therefore is whether we are to follow Pollux or the coins. Mr. Hussey takes the latter course, explaining the statement of Pollux as referring to the debased drachma of later times, which was about equal to the Roman denarius. Böckh adheres to the statement of Pollux, explaining the lightness of the existing coins by the well-known tendency of the antient mints to depart from the full value. He has supported his view by some very strong and ingenious arguments, and on the whole he appears to be right. There were other talents used by the Greeks and Romans, most of which seem to have been derived from one of these two standards, but the accounts of antient writers respecting them are very contradictory. Their values are discussed at length by Böckh and Hussey. The most important variations of the Aeginetan standard were those used in Macedonia, Corinth, and Sicily. The above talents were all reckoned in silver money. There was also a talent of gold, which was much smaller. It was used chiefly by the Greeks of Italy and Sicily, whence it was called the Sicilian talent as well as the gold talent. It was equal to 6 Attic drachmae, that is, about oz. and 71 grs. It was divided by the Italian Greeks into 24 nummi, and afterwards into 12, each nummus containing 2 litrae. When Homer uses the word talent, we must always understand by it this small one of gold. In other classical writers the word generally means the Attic talent. (Böckh, Metrolog. Untersuch.; Hussey, Antient Weights and Money; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1842.) 6 TALE'S. At common law, when the number of jurymen in attendance was so small, or so much diminished by challenges that a full jury could not be had, a writ (then in Latin) issued to the sheriff, commanding him to summon such (tales) other fit persons, &c. for the purpose of making up the jury. The jurors so procured were called talesmen, from the Latin word used in the writ. By the statute 35 Hen. VIII., c. 6, the defect of jurors might, at the request of the plaintiff or defendant in an action, be supplied from such other able persons of the said county then present, and these were ordinarily called, from the words in the Latin writ, tales de circumstantibus.' Subsequent statutes extended and regulated the application of this statute. But the act now in force is 6 Geo. IV., c. 50; the 37th section, which contains the existing law on the subject, and is in the following words: Where a full jury shall not appear before any court of assize or Nisi prius, or before any of the superior civil courts of the three counties palatine, or before any court of great sessions, or where, after appearance of a full jury, by challenge of any of the parties, the jury is likely to remain untaken for default of jurors, every such court, upon request made for the king by any one thereto authorised or assigned by the court, or on request made by the parties, plaintiff or defendant, demandant or tenant, or their respective attorneys, in any action or suit, whether popular or private, shall command the sheriff or other minister, to whom the making of the return shall belong, to name and appoint, as often as need shall require, so many of such other able men of the county then present as shall make up a full jury; and the sheriff or other minister aforesaid shall, at such command of the court, return such men duly qualified as shall P. C., No. 1489. be present, or can be found to serve on such jury, and shall add and annex their names to the former panel, provided that where a special jury shall have been struck for the trial of any issue, the talesman shall be such as shall be empannelled upon the common jury panel to serve at the same court, if a sufficient number of such men can be found; and the king, by any one so authorised or assigned as aforesaid, and all and every the parties aforesaid, shall and may, in each of the cases aforesaid, have their respective challenges to the jurors so added and annexed, and the court shall proceed to the trial of every such issue with those jurors who were before empannelled, together with the talesmen so newly added and annexed, as if all the said jurors had been returned upon the writ of precept awarded to try the issue.' (2 Williams's Saunders, 349 n. (1).) [JURY.] TALIACO TIUS, GASPAR, TAGLIACOZIO, or TAGLIACOZZI, was professor of anatomy and surgery at Bologna, where he died in 1553, at the age of 64 years. His name is now known chiefly through his reputation for restoring lost noses; but during his life he was equally celebrated for his knowledge of anatomy and his excellence as a lecturer. These last are indeed the only qualities for which he is praised in a tablet put up after his death in one of the halls of the school at Bologna. A statue erected in the amphitheatre formerly recorded his skill in operating by representing him with a nose in his hand. Some writers have spoken of the original Taliacotian operation as a mere fable, pretending that it never could have been followed by success. But several credible witnesses have recorded that they either saw Taliacotius operating, or saw patients to whom he had restored noses, which very closely resembled those of natural formation. The truth is that the operation which Taliacotius really performed is not commonly known; the generally-entertained notion of it being derived from the accounts of those who had some reason to misrepresent it. It will therefore be worth while to give a somewhat detailed account of it. The work in which it is described was first published forty-four years after Taliacotius' death, with the title 'De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem libri duo, Venetiis, 1597, folio.' It is divided into two parts, of which the first is chiefly devoted to a disquisition upon the dignity of the nose, lips, and ears, and upon their offices and general construction, and the theory of the operation, which he considers to be exactly analogous to that of grafting upon trees. In the second book he describes the mode of operating, dwelling first at great length upon the necessary number and character of the assistants, the kind of bed to be used, its position with regard to light, &c., and several other minor matters, on all which he speaks like one thoroughly experienced in surgery. In the operation itself he used the following plan:-A part of the skin of the upper arm of the proper size, and bounded by two longitudinal parallel lines, being marked out over the middle of its fore part, was seized between the blades of a very broad pair of nippers. Each blade was about three inches broad, so that it might include the whole length of the portion of skin to be removed, and had a long slit near its edge through which a narrow knife could be passed. The portion of skin of which the new nose was to be formed being raised up by the assistant who held it in the nippers, Taliacotius with a long spear-shaped knife transfixed it through the slits in the blades of the nippers, and cut it through the whole length of the latter from above downwards. Through the aperture thus made, which might be compared to a very broad incision for a seton, a band covered with appropriate medicines was passed, and by being drawn a little every day, the wound was kept open like a seton wound. When all the inflammation had passed away, which was usually in about fourteen days, the flap of skin was cut through at its upper end, and thus a piece bounded by three sides of a parallelogram was raised from the arm, and remained attached to it by nothing but its fourth side or lower end. In this state it was allowed to cicatrize all over, till it acquired the character of a loose process of skin. This being, after some days, completed, and the piece of skin having become firm and hard, it was deemed ready for engrafting. The head therefore being cleanly shaved, a dress and bandage of singular construction, intended for the maintenance of the arm in its due position, were carefully fitted on. VOL. XXIV.-C Then these being laid aside, the seat of the old nose was scarified | nerable in battle, and so forth. They were probably used in a triangular space till it had a smooth bleeding surface. originally to avert disease, for we find them mentioned in A pattern of this surface, being taken on paper, was trans- the history of medicine among all antient nations. The ferred to the inner surface of the piece of skin on the arm, Egyptians made use of figures of sacred animals, such and a portion of the latter, of the same form and size, was as the ibis and the scarabæus, which they wore genein the same manner made raw. Sutures were placed in rally suspended from their necks. The Arabs and the corresponding parts of the edges of both these wounds, Turks did the same, when they were idolaters; but after and they were brought together, the arm being held up their conversion to Islam, they used sentences from with its fore part towards the face, and the palm of the the Koran, taken chiefly from the surah, or chapter, enhand upon the head, by the dress and bandage already titled The Incantation. These they wore inscribed on mentioned. The parts were thus retained in apposition rolls of vellum or paper, enclosed in a silver box, and susfor about twenty days, at the end of which, the surfaces pended from their neck; or else engraven upon a signet having united, the bandages were taken off, and the por-ring. Military men used similar sentences from the Koran tion of skin which was now affixed to both the face and on the hilt or blade of their swords; on their shields, helthe arm was cut away from the latter. It almost directly mets, and other pieces of armour; or woven into their became white and cold, but it did not slough, and gra- garments. Christian nations even were not exempt from dually increased in vascularity and heat. In about four- this superstition. In the middle ages, relics of saints, teen days it was usually firm and secure in its place; and consecrated candles, and rods, rosaries, &c. were employed, as soon as this was evident, the skin was shaped into the and still are, in Spain and in some parts of Italy. The resemblance of a nose by cutting it according to carefully- African negroes have their fetich, and the American Inmeasured lines and by forming the nostrils in it. A tedious dians their medicine. succession of operations were performed upon it before the repair was deemed complete; but at length it is said that in general the restoration was truly admirable. Taliacotius himself however admits that it had, even in the best cases, several defects. After this account, no one can reasonably doubt that Taliacotius's operation was very often successful. That it should be superseded by the Indian method, as it is called, in which the skin for the new nose is taken from the forehead, is due to the latter being a less tedious and less painful operation, rather than to its being more certain of success. The number of instances in which later attempts to imitate the Taliacotian operation have failed, are due to its having been performed not according to the original method, but according to some of the plans which Taliacotius is erroneously supposed to have followed. (Reinaud, Monuments Mussulmans du Cabinet du Duc de Blacas, Paris, 1826.) TALLAGE is derived, according to Lord Coke, from the law Latin word tallagium or tailagium, which, as he says, 'cometh of the French word tailer, to share or cut out a part, and metaphorically is taken when the king or any other hath a share or part of the value of a man's goods or chattels, or a share or part of the annual revenue of his lands, or puts any charge or burthen upon another; so as tallagium is a general word, and doth include all subsidies, taxes, tenths, fifteenths, or other burthens or charge put or set upon any man.' It was generally however confined in its sense to taxes received by the king. The most important statute on the subject is entitled "De Tallagio non concedendo,' which was passed in the 34th year of Edward III. to quiet the discontent then universal The indecent joke which Butler has made popular in his throughout the kingdom. It had arisen among the com'Hudibras' has little foundation. Taliacotius does indeed mons in consequence of the king having taken a tallage discuss the propriety of taking the skin for a new nose of all cities, boroughs, and towns without the assent of from the arm of another person; and he concludes that parliament. He was embroiled also with the nobles and for several reasons it would, if it were possible, be better landowners, from having attempted, unsuccessfully howto do so but he says he cannot imagine how it would be ever, to compel all freeholders of land above the value of possible to keep two persons fastened together for the twenty pounds to contribute either men or money towards necessary time and with the necessary tranquillity, and his wars in Flanders. The first chapter of the statute is that he never heard of the plan being attempted. The the most important: Nullum tallagium vel auxilium per tale of the nose falling of when the original proprietor of nos, vel hæredes nostros in regno nostro ponatur, seu the skin died, is founded on an absurd story which Van levetur sine voluntate, et assensu archiepiscoporum, episHelmont relates to prove at how great a distance sym- coporum, comitum, baronum, militum, burgensium, et pathy can act. A gentleman at Brussels, he says, had a aliorum liberorum communium de regno nostro (No new nose made for him by Taliacotius from the arm of a tallage or aid may be set or levied by us or our heirs in Bolognese porter; and about thirteen months afterwards, our kingdom without the good will and assent of the archas he was walking in Brussels, it suddenly became cold bishops, bishops, counts, barons, knights, burgesses, and and dropped off, at the very instant at which the porter other free men of the commons of our kingdom'). died at Bologna. Similar stories are told by Campanella, Sir Kenelm Digby, and others; but, as already shown, they are not even fair satires, for Taliacotius never attempted to transfer the skin of one man to the body of another. (Brambilla, Storia delle Scoperte fatte dagli Uomini Illustri Italiani, vol. ii.; Sprengel, Geschichte der Chi-Confirmationes Chartarum; 2 Inst., 530.) [SUBSIDY.] rurgie, Zweiter Theil, p. 195.) TALIESSIN. [WELSH LANGUAGE.] TALIO'NIS, LEX, the law of retaliation; the notion of which is that of a punishment which shall be the same in kind and degree as the injury. This punishment was a part of the Mosaic Law: breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again' (Levit., xxiv. 20). The name 'talio' occurs in the provisions of the Twelve Tables: it is not there defined what it means, but the signification of the term may be collected from other places. The word contains the same element as the word talis, 'such,' or 'like.' TALIPAT or TALIPOT PALM. [CORYPHA.] TALISH. [GEORGIA.] TALISMA'N an Arabic word, supposed to be derived from the Greek telesma (réλɛopa), is a figure cast in metal or cut in stone, and made with certain superstitious ceremonies, when two planets are in conjunction, or when a certain star is at its culminating point. A talisman thus prepared is supposed to exercise an influence over the bearer, preserving him from disease, rendering him invul These words, as Lord Coke says, are plain without any scruple, absolute without any saving;' and, if there could have been perfect reliance on their operation, must have been entirely satisfactory. But the same king had just violated almost the same engagements entered into by himself only six years before. (25 Edward I., c. 5, 6, 7, TALLEYRAND-PERIGORD, CHARLES MAURICE DE. This extraordinary man is, and must long, perhaps for ever, continue a mystery. In the éloge of M. de Reinhard, pronounced by M. de Talleyrand, in the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, only three months before his own death, he said: A minister for foreign affairs must possess the faculty of appearing open, at the same time that he remains impenetrable; of being in reality reserved, although perfectly frank in his manners. The precept was his own portrait. His power of concealing his opinions, and his steady adherence to the principle of allowing attacks upon his character to dissipate by time for want of opposition, have had the effect of keeping his contemporaries ignorant of his real character. This taciturnity has frequently occasioned his being subject to imputations which he did not deserve; at times it has beyond a doubt acquired for him a reputation for ability greater than he deserved. It is believed that M. de Talleyrand has left memoirs of his life, or at least of the most important transactions in which he was engaged, but with strict injunctions that they shall not be published until thirty years shall have elapsed from the time of his death. If this be true, even when the public shall have been put in possession of the contents of these papers, it will only have acquired another statement in addition to those previously in its possession, by the comparison of which it must have to guess at the truth. At present however, while these memoirs continue a sealed book, and scarcely any of M. de Talleyrand's intimate friends have yet contributed their fragments of information, no resource is left to the biographer but by collating his writings, his ostensible share in the politics of his age, and the incidental communications of himself or his acquaintances to estimate as near as he can what probable foundation in reality there is for the accounts of M. de Talleyrand, which have been compiled from what may be called public gossip. his re | effect in conversation ought to be judged as we judge the Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was born on the 13th of February, 1754, the eldest of three brothers. His family was antient and distinguished; but he was neglected by his parents, and placed at nurse in one of the faubourgs of Paris. The effects of a fall when about a year old rendered him lame for life, and being on this account unfit for the military career, he was obliged to renounce his birthright in favour of his second brother, and enter the church. The contempt and aversion for him, which his parents did not attempt to conceal, impressed a gloomy and taciturn character on the boy. From the charge of his nurse he was transferred to the Collège d'Harcourt, and thence successively to the seminary of St. Sulpice and to the Sorbonne. In all of these institutions he maintained the character of a shy, proud, bookish lad. He showed in after-life a taste for literature, and such an extensive acquaintance with and appreciation of science as sits gracefully on the statesman; and the taste and knowledge must have been acquired at an early age, for his turbulent career after he was fairly launched into busy life left little leisure for that purpose. By the time he had attained his twentieth year putation for talent and his confirmed health appear to have reconciled the vanity of his parents to the necessity of acknowledging him. They introduced him to the society of his equals in rank for the first time at the festivities with which the coronation of Louis XVI, was celebrated (1774), under the title of the Abbé de Périgord. His opinions and tastes, and his temperament, combined to render the clerical profession an object of detestation to him, but he could not escape from it. He availed himself to the full extent of the indulgence with which his age and country regarded the irregularities of the young and The commencement of his political career, in the strict noble among the priestly order; but the pride and re- acceptation of the term, is synchronous with this promoserve with which twenty years of undeserved neglect had in- tion. An article upon M. de Talleyrand in an early numspired his confident and strong character served him in part ber of the Edinburgh Review-the materials for which as a moral check. He was a strict observer of the appear-were furnished by Dumont,-asserts that he owed his ances exacted by the conventional morality of society; advancement to the see of Autun to a Discours sur les and this good taste exerted a powerful influence over his Loteries,' which he pronounced in his capacity of agent whole future career. Thrown back upon himself from the for the clergy of France, in the Assembly of Notables which beginning, he had necessarily become an egoist; vigorous met at Versailles, in February, 1787. As bishop of Autun both in mind and body, he had a healthy relish of pleasure, he was a member of the Etats Généraux convoked in May, and he engaged with eagerness in the pursuits of pleasure; 1789, which continued to sit as an Assemblée Constituante but the enjoyments of the mere voluptuary were insuf- till it dissolved itself on the 30th of September, 1791. The ficient for one of his intellectual character and fastidious interval from the meeting of the Notables till the dissolutastes. tion of the Assembly is an important one in any attempt to solve the problem of M. de Talleyrand's real character. Previously to the meeting of the States-General, M. de Talleyrand indicated the course he intended to pursue, in a discourse which he addressed to the assembled clergy of his diocese; and in which he advocated the equality of all citizens in the eye of the law, and free discussion. When the three orders, by assenting to meet as one body, had enabled the Assembly to proceed to business, the precise directions given by many of the bailliages to their deputies were found an impediment in the way of practical legislation: M. de Talleyrand moved that they should be entirely disregarded, and carried his motion. A constituent committee was appointed immediately after the capture of the Bastille, and he was the second person nominated a member of it. In this capacity he was called upon to take part in maturing measures which have had a lasting influence upon the progress of affairs in France: the first of these was the re-distribution of the national territory into districts better adapted than the old provinces for the purposes of government; the second was, the organization of a system of finance. In the financial discussions which took place in the committee and Assembly, M. de Talleyrand retained In 1776 Voltaire visited Paris. M. de Talleyrand was introduced to him, and the two interviews he had with him left such a deep impression that he was accustomed to talk of them with a lively pleasure till the close of his life. Voltaire and Fontenelle were M. de Talleyrand's favourite authors; upon whom he formed his written and still more his conversational style. Conversational talent was in great demand at Paris when he entered the world, and both his love of pleasure and his love of power prompted him to cultivate that which he possessed. That he did so with eminent success the concurrent views of the best judges of his age declare. Excellence of this kind is like excellence in acting: it is impossible to convey an adequate impression of it to posterity. The reporters of flashes of wit and felicitous turns of conversation uniformly communicate to them something of their own inferiority, and vulgarise them in the telling. Again, superior excellence in conversation is an art; the artist is and ought to be judged not by his materials, but by the success with which he uses them. Written bon mots are necessarily estimated by their originality, the quantity and quality of thought expressed in them: they are judged as we judge the writings of a poet: whereas the person who introduces them with his dislike of lotteries. He supported all or most of the various loans proposed by Necker; and seconded Mirabeau's exhortations to keep faith with the national creditor. He suggested practical measures with a view to this end, and among others the sale of church lands (he had previously supported the abolition of tithes), reserving however a competent provision for the priesthood, and even improving the condition of the poorer clergy. He also proposed to establish a caisse d'amortissement,' as an additional guarantee to the state's creditors. The task of making arrangements for levying the part of the revenue derived from taxes upon persons exercising professions, and upon transfers of property, devolved upon M. de Talleyrand. Connected with his labours in preparing a new territorial division of France, and a new method of collecting the national revenue, was the motion which he made and carried in the Assembly, in August, 1790, to the effect that the king should be intreated to write to his Britannic majesty, to engage the parliament of England to concur with the National Assembly in fixing a natural unit of weights and measures; that, under the auspices of the two nations, an equal number of commissioners from the Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London might unite to determine the length of the pendulum in the latitude of 45°, or in any other latitude that might be thought preferable, and to deduce from thence an invariable standard of weights and measures. At the same time that he was taking part with his colleagues of the Constituent Committee in these labours he was charged by them with the important task of preparing the report upon national education, which was read to the Assembly on the 10th, 11th, and 19th of September, 1791. The basis of the system advocated in this report was the secularization of instruction: education was to be the gift of the state, not of the church; the state was to provide instruction for those who proposed to enter the church, exactly as it was to provide instruction for those who proposed to enter any of the other learned professions. Equal stress was laid upon the establishment of elementary schools in every canton; and of a higher class of schools, for the benefit of those who were not destined to embrace a learned profession, in the chief town of every district. Two acts of M. de Talleyrand, which have been much commented upon, appear to be as it were necessary corollaries of the principles avowed in the legislative career we have been passing in review:-his appearance as principal actor in the theatrical celebration of the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille; and his taking upon him the office of consecrating the national clergy. It is absolutely necessary that some estimate be formed of the conduct and character of M. de Talleyrand while a member of the first National Assembly, as a guide to an appreciation of his far more enigmatical subsequent career. M. de Talleyrand entered the Assembly with the reputation of a dexterous negociator, which he had acquired in his discharge of the office of agent to the clergy. He had then, and he retained in after-life, the character of a self-indulgent man, of a man with a large instinct of self-preservation, but also of a humane man. The disciple of Voltaire and Fontenelle could scarcely be a very zealous Christian, but M. de Talleyrand had always been a respecter of conventional morality: his was precisely that kind of disposition and intellect that supports a church not from belief, but as a useful engine for preserving order in society. M. de Talleyrand, like all the literati of his day, had a theoretical belief in the equality of men; at the same time that with regard to the privileges of the nobility, he was inclined to support them in the same way that he did the authority of the church-as a useful political engine. But involuntarily and perhaps unconsciously M. de Talleyrand was a warmer partisan of the aristocracy than the clergy: he was noble by birth and attached by taste to the habits of a select society, whereas the ecclesiastical character forced upon him against his will had something repulsive to him. In short, M. de Talleyrand saw clearly the rottenness and the absurdity of many of the old institutions of his country: he was willing, desirous, that government should be organized and act in a manner to promote the general happiness; but he had no faith in the capacity of men for self-government; and he had been educated in a church, many of whose members were at that time obliged to reconcile their consciences to remaining in it by adopting the maxim that they were deceiving men for their own good. M. de Talieyrand's idea, and he entertained it in common with a considerable number, was, that the Revolution might be guided, checked, and rendered useful by approximating the constitution of the French to that of the English government. He cared little for the creed of the church, but he wished to preserve the church, and to render it in France what the established church was in England. Hence his care, even while laying hands on the property of the church for the exigencies of the state, to retain an adequate provision for the clergy. hence his anxiety to identify the clergy with the nation. His anxiety to establish a constitution modelled upon that of England was always avowed. His views (the views he adopted, it is not meant to attribute originality to them) regarding territorial divisions and the organization of local government, finance, and education, though overborne for a time in the storm of the Revolution, have revived and been adopted by the Empire, the Restoration, and the present dynasty. The recklessness as to the means by which he attained his ends which he displayed even at this period of his career is no evidence of insincerity, but merely of the want of faith in men, which the treatment he had experienced in early life, and his observation of the society he habitually mixed in, had instilled into him. It was his weakness through life to pride himself in the display of his power of refined mockery, regardless of the enemies it created: he gave vent to his spirit of raillery in actions as well as in words; and thus lent a grotesque colouring to his coups d'état, which rendered them more startling than if they had been as prosaic as those of other men. The world is perhaps less startled with the atrocity of passion in a statesman, than with a laughing air which shows his contempt for it. The most startling of his devices is his solemn inauguration of the constitutional monarchy by the religious celebration of the 14th of July. But the love of theatrical presentation and the delusive belief that good may be effected by it is strong in every man at some period of his life. Talleyrand in all likelihood looked forward at that moment to being the founder and future primate of a church which should be to France what the Anglo-Episcopal has been to England. The means to which he was driven to have recourse in order to carry through the installation of the national bishops, undeceived him, and brought back his early disgust for the profession with redoubled force. He not long after resigned his bishopric of Autun, and at the same time renounced his ecclesiastical character. The history of M. de Talleyrand from the 'dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, in September, 1791, till the overthrow of the monarchy, on the 10th of August, 1792, would be instructive were it merely as a demonstration of the folly of the self-denying ordinance with which that body terminated its career. Its members were declared ineligible to the next assembly, and also incapable of receiving any appointment from the crown until two years had elapsed from the date of its dissolution. The conseqence was, that M. de Talleyrand among others was rendered incapable of any legislative or ministerial office. It was at that time an object with all who desired that the Revolution should have fair play, to preserve peace with England, which, although still ostensibly neutral, was every day presenting additional symptoms of alienation. The court party hated M. de Talleyrand for having taken part frankly with the Revolution; the republicans hated him for his advocacy of a limited monarchy; all parties distrusted him on account of his eternal sneer; but all parties agreed that he was the only man whose talents fitted him for the delicate mission to England. And it was impossible to appoint him to it. He was dispatched however, in January, 1792, without any ostensible diplomatic character, to sound the English ministry, and attempt to commence negociations. His want of an official character allowed the queen to indulge her feelings of personal dislike to the ex-bishop of Autun by turning her back upon him when he was presented at St. James's; and this reception at once ensured his exclusion from general society, and rendered him powerless. After the accession of the Gironde to office, the attempt to ensure at least neutrality on the part of England was renewed: Chauvelin was sent to England as nominal, and along with him Talleyrand as real ambassador. By this time however the French government had become as obnoxious to the general public of England as to the court circles: the torrent was probably too strong to have been stemmed by Talleyrand, even though he had been in a condition to act directly and in person. He could do nothing, forced as he was to act by the instrumentality of a man too jealous and opiniative to conform honestly to the directions of one whose authority necessarily made him feel himself a mere puppet. Talleyrand's good faith at this period in labouring to preserve peace between England and France, as the only means of rendering a constitutional monarchy possible in the other country, and the steadiness with which he pursued his object, undaunted by the most gross personal insults, are satisfactorily established by the narrative of Dumont. Talleyrand was at Paris when the events of the 10th of August put an end to the monarchy; and it required all his dexterity to enable him to obtain passports from Danton, to enable him to quit Paris. He fled to England, and having saved little of his property, he was obliged to sell his library there to procure himself the means of support. The English government, jealous of his presence, after some time ordered him to leave the country in twenty-four hours; and proscribed in France, he was obliged, with a dilapidated fortune, to seek refuge in America, when he had almost attained his fortieth year. Madame de Staël has claimed, and apparently with a good title, the credit of instigating Chenier to demand the recall of M. de Talleyrand after the fall of Robespierre and the termination of the reign of terror. The National Institute was founded about this time, and M. de Talleyrand had in his absence been appointed a member of the class of moral and political science. At the first sitting of this society which he attended he was elected secretary, an office which he held for six months. During this period he read two papers, afterwards published in the Mémoires de la Classe des Sciences Morales et Politiques de l'Institut National,' which are justly considered not only as the most able and original of his published writings, but as those which are most indisputably his own. The first of these is entitled Essai sur les Avantages à retirer de Colonies Nouvelles dans les Circonstances présentes; the second, • Mémoires sur les relations Commerciales des Etats-Unis avec l'Angleterre.' The latter is, properly speaking, a supplement-perhaps rather a pièce justificative' appended to the other. The great object of both is to point out the importance of colonies to a country like France, in which the revolutionary fervour, though beginning to burn dim, was still sufficiently powerful to prolong the reign of anarchy and suffering, unless measures were adopted to neutralize it. There can be no mistake as to the views being those of M. de Talleyrand himself. They are such as could only occur to a person entertaining the political opinions he had advocated in the Constituent Assembly, who having been exiled by the reign of terror' which decimated his countrymen, was living in a country where a successful revolution had quietly and speedily subsided into a settled form of government; in a country where he felt that 'an Englishman becomes at once a native, and a Frenchman remains for ever a foreigner.' Not satisfied with pointing out in what manner colonies might be rendered powerful assistants in tranquillising France, the essayist entered deeply into the principles of colonization, explaining the advantages to be derived from colonies, and the law by which their economical advantages might be perpetuated even after their political relations with the mother-country had ceased. In his treatment of his subject he evinces a clear and deep insight into the structure of society both in France and America, and just and extensive views in political economy. It was not however so much the political talent displayed in these essays, as M. de Talleyrand's skill in employing the reviving influence of the salons of Paris, that obtained him the appointment of foreign minister under the Directory. Here again he was indebted to Madame de Staël, who assisted him through her influence with Barras. M. de Talleyrand accepted office under this unprincipled government with a perfect knowledge of its character and its weakness. His conviction that a Frenchman could never feel at home in America prompted him to grasp at the first opportunity of returning to his native country: his shattered fortune and taste for expensive luxuries rendered employment necessary for him, and political business was the only lucrative employment for which he was qualified. There is nothing in his life to contradict the belief that he | again engaged in politics with a desire to promote what was right and useful as far as he could; but he engaged in them aware that he might be ordered to do what he disapproved of, and prepared to do it, under the plea that his functions were merely ministerial, and that the responsibility rested upon his employers. His position under the Directory was consequently an equivocal one. He was engaged, so long as he occupied it, in intrigues which had for their aim the maintenance of himself in office, even if his employers should be turned out; and he was obliged to do their dirty work. The part which he took in the attempt to extort money, as a private gratification, from the American envoys who arrived in Paris in October, 1797, was probably forced upon him by the directors: had it been his own project, it would have been conceived with more judgment, and the Americans would not have been driven to extremes, for he understood their national character. But allowing himself to be used in such a shabby business betrays a want of self-respect, or a vulgarity of sentiment, or both. He had his reward; for when public indignation was excited by the statements of the American envoys, the minister of foreign affairs was sacrificed to the popular resentment. Having adopted a profession in which success could only be expected under a settled government, believing a monarchical government to be the only one which could give tranquillity to his country, and anxious with many others to run up a make-shift government out of the best materials that offered, he naturally attached himself to the growing power of Bonaparte. When the future emperor returned from Egypt, M. de Talleyrand had been six months in a private station; though, had he still retained office, he might with equal readiness have conspired to overturn the Directory. Bourrienne is not the best of authorities, but the earlier volumes of the memoirs which pass under his name are less falsified than the later; and an anecdote which he relates of Talleyrand's interview with the first consul, after being reappointed minister of foreign affairs, is so characteristic, that its truth is highly probable:- M. de Talleyrand, appointed successor to M. de Reinhart at the same time that Cambacérès and Lebrun succeeded Sièyes and Roger Ducas as consuls, was admitted to a private audience by the first consul. The speech which he addressed to Bonaparte was so gratifying to the person to whom it was addressed, and appeared so striking to myself, that the words have remained in my memory::-" Citizen Consul, you have confided to me the department of foreign affairs, and I will justify your confidence; but I must work under no one but yourself. This is not mere arrogance on my part: in order that France be well governed, unity of action is required: you must be first consul, and the first consul must hold in his hand all the main-springs of the political machine-the ministries of the interior, of internal police, of foreign affairs, of war, and the marine. The ministers of these departments must transact business with you alone. The ministries of justice and finance have, without doubt, a powerful influence upon politics; but it is more indirect. The second consul is an able jurist, and the third a master of finance: leave these departments to them; it will amuse them; and you, general, having the entire management of the essential parts of government, may pursue without interruption your noble object, the regeneration of France." These words accorded too closely with the sentiments of Bonaparte to be heard by him otherwise than with pleasure. He said to me, after M. de Talleyrand had taken his leave, "Do you know, Bourrienne, Talleyrand's advice is sound. He is a man of sense." He then added smilingly:—“Talleyrand is a dexterous fellow : he has seen through me. You know I wish to do what he advises; and he is in the right. Lebrun is an honest man, but a mere book-maker; Cambacérès is too much identified with the Revolution: my government must be something entirely new." Napoleon and Talleyrand may be said to have understood each other, and that in a sense not discreditable to either. The good sense of both was revolted by the bloodshed and theatrical sentiment, the blended ferocity and coxcombry of the Revolution; both were practical statesmen, men with a taste and talent for administration, not mere constitution-makers. Like most men of action, neither of them could discern to the full extent the advantage an executive government can derive from having the line of |