odges; tarsi and feet bright orange, the scales on the front | them up with their hands alone, and only make sufficient of the tarsi from the fourth downwards, and the scales of the toes, dark reddish-brown. (Gould.) Size about that of a common fowl. ton. room to admit their bodies, and to throw out the earth between their legs; by grubbing with their fingers alone they are enabled to follow the direction of the hole with This is the Ooregoorga of the aborigines of the Cobourg greater certainty, which will sometimes, at a depth of Peninsula; the Jungle-fowl of the colonists of Port Essing- several feet, turn off abruptly at right angles, its direct course being obstructed by a clump of wood or some other Habits, Food, Nidification, &c.-On Mr. Gilbert's arrival impediment. Their patience is however often put to at Port Essington his attention was attracted to numerous severe trials. In the present instance the native dug down great mounds of earth which were pointed out to him by six times in succession to a depth of at least six or seven some of the residents as being the tumuli of the abori- feet without finding an egg, and at the last attempt came gines. The natives, on the other hand, assured him that up in such a state of exhaustion that he refused to try they were formed by the Jungle-fowl for the purpose of again; but my interest was now too much excited to hatching its eggs. But this last statement appeared so relinquish the opportunity of verifying the native's stateextraordinary, and so much at variance with the general ments, and by the offer of an additional reward I induced habits of birds, that no one in the settlement believed him to try again: this seventh trial proved successful, and them, and the great size of the eggs brought in by them my gratification was complete when the native with equal as the produce of this bird strengthened the doubt of the pride and satisfaction held up an egg, and, after two or veracity of their information. Mr. Gilbert however, know-three more attempts, produced a second: thus proving ing the habits of Leipoa, took with him an intelligent how cautious Europeans should be of disregarding the native, and proceeded about the middle of November to narrations of these poor children of nature, because they Knocker's Bay, a part of Port Essington harbour compara- happen to sound extraordinary or different from anything tively but little known, and where he had been informed with which they were previously acquainted.' a number of these birds were to be seen. He landed beside a thicket, and had not advanced far from the shore when he came to a mound of sand and shells, with a slight mixture of black soil, the base resting on a sandy beach, only a few feet above high-water mark: it was enveloped in the large yellow-blossomed Hibiscus, was of a conical form, twenty feet in circumference at the base, and about five feet high. On asking the native what it was, he replied, Oregoorga Rambal' (Jungle-fowl's house or nest). Mr. Gilbert scrambled up the sides of it, and found a young bird in a hole about two feet deep; the nestling, apparently only a few days old, was lying on a few dry withered leaves. The native assured Mr. Gilbert that it would be of no use to look for eggs, as there were no traces of the old birds having lately been there. Mr. Gilbert took the utmost care of the young bird, placed it in a moderate-sized box, into which he introduced a large portion of sand, and fed it on bruised Indian corn, which it took rather freely. Its disposition was wild and intractable, and it effected its escape on the third day. While it remained in captivity, it was incessantly employed in scratching up the sand into heaps, and Mr. Gilbert remarks that the rapidity with which it threw the sand from one end of the box to the other was quite surprising for so young and small a bird, its size not being larger than that of a small quail. At night it was so restless that Mr. Gilbert was constantly kept awake by the noise it made in endeavouring to escape. In scratching up the sand the bird only employed one foot, and having grasped a handful as it were, threw the sand behind it with but little apparent exertion, and without shifting its standing position on the other leg: this habit, Mr. Gilbert observes, seemed to be the result of an innate restless disposition and a desire to use its powerful feet, and to have but little connection with its feeding; for, although Indian corn was mixed with the sand, Mr. Gilbert never detected the bird in picking any of it up while thus employed. Upon another occasion Mr. Gilbert and his native, after an hour's excessive labour, obtained an egg from the depth of about five feet. It was in a perpendicular position. The holes in this mound (which was fifteen feet high and sixty in circumference at the base, and, like the majority of those that he had seen, so enveloped in thickly foliaged trees as to preclude the possibility of the sun's rays reaching any part of it) commenced at the outer edge of the summit and ran down obliquely towards the centre: their direction therefore, Mr. Gilbert observes, is not uniform. The mound was quite warm to the hands. How the young effect their escape does not appear; some natives told Mr. Gilbert that the nestlings effected their escape unaided; but others said that the old birds at the proper time scratched down and released them. The natives say that only a single pair of birds are ever found at a mound at a time. Our space will not permit a more detailed account of these highly curious mounds; but the reader should consult Mr. Gould's highly valuable work for other particulars: we can only spare room for Mr. Gilbert's description of the general habits of this interesting species. The Jungle-fowl is almost exclusively confined to the dense thickets immediately adjacent to the sea-beach: it appears never to go far inland, except along the banks of creeks. It is always met with in pairs or quite solitary, and feeds on the ground, its food consisting of roots which its powerful claws enable it to scratch up with the utmost facility, and also of seeds, berries, and insects, particularly the larger species of Coleoptera. It is at all times a very difficult bird to procure; for although the rustling noise produced by its stiff pinions when flying away be frequently heard, the bird itself is seldom to be seen. Its flight is heavy and unsustained in the extreme; when first disturbed it invariably flies to a tree, and on alighting stretches out its head and neck in a straight line with its body, remaining in this position as stationary and motionless as the branch upon which it is perched: if however Mr. Gilbert continued to receive the eggs without any it becomes fairly alarmed, it takes a horizontal but laboopportunity of seeing them taken from the ground until the rious flight for about a hundred yards with its legs hangbeginning of February, when, on again visiting Knocker's ing down as if broken. I did not myself detect any note Bay, he saw two taken from a depth of six feet, in one of or cry, but from the native's description and imitation of the largest mounds he had met with. In this instance the it, it much resembles the clucking of the domestic fowl, holes ran down in an oblique direction from the centre ending with a scream like that of the peacock. I obtowards the outer slope of the hillock, so that although served that the birds continued to lay from the latter part the eggs were six feet deep from the summit, they were of August to March, when I left that part of the country; only two or three feet from the side. The birds, says Mr. Gilbert in continuation, are said to lay but a single egg in each hole, and after the egg is deposited the earth s immediately thrown down lightly until the hole is filled up the upper part of the mound is then smoothed and ounded over. It is easily known when a Jungle-fowl has been recently excavating, from the distinct impressions of its feet on the top and sides of the mound, and the earth being so lightly thrown over, that with a slender stick the direction of the hole is readily detected, the ease or difficulty of thrusting the stick down indicating the length of time that may have elapsed since the bird's operations. Thus far it is easy enough; but to reach the eggs requires little exertion and perseverance. The natives dig · and, according to the testimony of the natives, there is only an interval of about four or five months, the driest and hottest part of the year, between their seasons of incubation. The composition of the mound appears to influence the colouring of a thin epidermis with which the eggs are covered, and which readily chips off, showing the true shell to be white: those deposited in the black soil are always of a dark reddish-brown; while those from the sandy hillocks near the beach are of a dirty yellowish white: they differ a good deal in size, but in form they all assimilate, both ends being equal: they are three inches and five lines long by two inches and three lines broad.' (Birds of Australia.) Mr. Gold has thus given the history of these three nearly allied genera, forming, as he observes, part of a Besides this there was another standard, the chief weight great family of birds whose range will be found to extend of which was called the commercial mina ( pva propi from the Philippines through the islands of the Indian and contained 138 drachmae, according to the standard Archipelago to Australia. Megapodius Tumulus is, ac- weights in the silver mint' (see a decree in Böckh, Corp. cording to him, rather numerously spread over the whole Inscrip., i. 123, § 4); that is, not that a commercial mina of the Cobourg Peninsula on the north coast of the Aus- contained 138 commercial drachmae, but that this was tralian continent, where the British settlement of Port quite a different standard from that used for silver money, Essington is now established; and he thinks that future its unit being to that of the latter in the ratio of 138 research will require us to assign to it a much wider: 100; while the relative proportions of the weights were range, probably over the whole extent of the north the same in both systems. The following table shows the value of the Attic commercial standard: coast. Megapodius Tumulus, Mound-raising Megapode, with nest in the distance. This commercial standard is most probably, as Böckh has shown, the real antient Attic standard, as it existed before the time of Solon. The purpose of Solon's change was to lower the value of money, in order to relieve debtors. The only direct information we have of the nature of the change is the statement of Plutarch, that Solon made the mina of 100 drachmae, which had formerly contained 73,' which is probably a mistake made by Plutarch, through not understanding the words of Androtion, whose authority he follows. The true meaning seems undoubtedly to be, that out of the same quantity of silver which in the antient standard made 73 drachmae, TALENT (ráλavrov) was the highest denomination of Solon coined 100, or a mina; that is, that he lowered the Greek weights and money, and was also commonly used standard in the ratio of 100: 73. Now the ratio of the by Greek writers as the translation of words signifying a commercial to the silver standard is 138: 100= 100:720 certain weight in other languages. It is necessary to ob- Hence the commercial standard and the old Attic only serve that the talent is properly only a denomination of differed by a small fraction. weight. There was no coin of that name; and when used in reference to money, it meant originally a talent-weight of gold or silver, and afterwards a certain quantity of current money, the weight of which (supposing the real and nominal value of the coin to be the same) amounted to a talent. (From Gould.) 1. THE HEBREW TALENT, or KIKKAR (), contained 3000 shekels, and, according to Mr. Hussey's computation, its weight was 93 lbs. 12ozs. avoirdupois, and its value as silver-money 3967. 58. 10d. [SHEKEL.] The Hebrews had no gold money of their own. II. THE GREEK TALENT. The following were the principal denominations of weight and money among the Greeks:-Boxóc, dpaxun, uva, ráλavrov, of which the oßológ was the smallest. Their relative proportions are shown in the annexed table : Drachma Mina Talent. Obol 6 600 | 36,000 This system prevailed throughout Greece, but the actual values of the talent varied in different states. Most of these variations may be included under two chief standards, namely, the Attic and the Aeginetan. 1. The Attic Talent.-The value of the Attic talent before the time of Solon is a matter on which we possess hardly any historical information, though we may perhaps arrive at a very probable result. Looking then at the system after Solon had remodelled the coinage [SOLON], we find that the Attic silver money was celebrated for its purity; and therefore from the coins of that period which still exist we may determine the value of the standard with tolerable certainty. Now the chief coin was the drachma of silver, the average weight of which, from the time of Solon to that of Alexander the Great, is found to be 66.5 grains. From this we get the following values in avoirdupois weight : Obol Ib. KT. 11.08 66-5 15 83-75 56 154 100-32 Still this ratio of 100: 73 is a very singular one for Solon to have adopted. The most probable explanation is that Solon meant to lower the standard by a quarter, that is, in the ratio of 100: 75, and that the new coinage (by an accident of not uncommon occurrence in minting) was found, when actually made, to be a little too light, namely, in the ratio of 72: 100, or, in round numbers, 73: 100 to the old money, instead of 75: 100; and that then, to preserve the purity of the Attic mint, this, its actual value, was adopted as its nominal value. This view is strongly confirmed by a reference to another standard mentioned by Greek writers, namely, the Euboïc talent. This talent was often reckoned as equal to the Attic (compare Herod., iii. 89, with Pollux, ix. 6); but it is also described with greater precision by Aelian (Var. Hist., i. 22), as having to the Attic the ratio of 72: 70, which is the same as 75: 724. Now if we suppose that the intended value of Solon's talent had to its real value the ratio of 75: 72, we have this intended value equal (neglecting a very small fraction) to the Euboïc talent. Hence it is inferred that Solon, proposing to lower the Attic standard, and perceiving the advantage of assimilating it to that of the neighbouring island of Euboea, intended to adopt the latter for his new standard, but that in fact a slight difference was caused by accident. The Romans reckoned both the Attic and Euboïc talents as equal to 80 Roman pounds (compare Polyb. xxi. 14, with xxii. 26, and Liv. xxxvii. 45, with xxxviii. 38). The Attic commercial standard underwent an alteration by the edict above referred to, which made its mina 150 drachmæ (silver) its 5 minæ = 6 minæ (commercial) its talent = 65 mina (commercial) In this new standard the five-mina weight was equal to 71b. 134 oz. 14.96 grs., and the talent to 85 lbs. 24 oz. 70-7 grs. The Athenians took the greatest care of their standards of weight. The principal set were lodged in the Acropolis, and there were other sets in the Prytaneum, at Piræus, and at Eleusis. The highest coin used by the Athenians was the tetradrachm, or piece of four drachmae; the mina and talent were never coined, but were paid in drachmae, oboli, &c. The following table shows the value of all the denomina This was the standard always used for silver money, and tions of Attic silver money, according to the computation as therefore called the silver standard.' Talent of Mr. Hussey: 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 A eginetan 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.) 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. Then VOL. XXIV.-C 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, st. h and a portion of the latter, of the same form and size, was as the ibis and the scarabæus, which they wore g-Lein 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 arter 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 the arm was cut away from the latter. It almost directly became white and cold, but it did not slough, and gradually increased in vascularity and heat. In about fourteen days it was usually firm and secure in its place; and as soon as this was evident, the skin was shaped into the resemblance of a nose by cutting it according to carefullymeasured lines and by forming the nostrils in it. A tedious 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. on the hilt or blade of their swords; on their shields, helmets, and other pieces of armour; or woven into their garments. Christian nations even were not exempt from this superstition. In the middle ages, relics of saints, consecrated candles, and rods, rosaries, &c. were employed, and still are, in Spain and in some parts of Italy. The African negroes have their fetich, and the American Indians their medicine. (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 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. No 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 (Bambilla, Storia delle Scoperte fatte dagli Uomini himself only six years before. (25 Edward I., c. 5, 6, 7, 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 aw 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.] TALISMAN an Arabic word, supposed to be derived from the Greek telesma (Tixopa), 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 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 mest 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 contempo raries 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 dot bt 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 injunetions that they shall not be published until thirty years shall have elapsed from the time of his death. If this ba 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. 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 his reputation 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 noble among the priestly order; but the pride and reserve with which twenty years of undeserved neglect had inspired his confident and strong character served him in part as a moral check. He was a strict observer of the appearances exacted by the conventional morality of society; and this good taste exerted a powerful influence over his whole future career. Thrown back upon himself from the beginning, he had necessarily become an egoist; vigorous both in mind and body, he had a healthy relish of pleasure, and he engaged with eagerness in the pursuits of pleasure; but the enjoyments of the mere voluptuary were insufficient for one of his intellectual character and fastidious tastes. In 1776 Voltaire visited Paris. M. de Talleyrand was introduced to him, and the two interviews he had with him lett 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 impresston 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 conTersation is an art; the artist is and ought to be judged But by his materials, but by the success with which he ises 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 effect in conversation ought to be judged as we judge the actor, of whom we do not think less because he merely says what the poet has put into his mouth. The robust and healthy Epicurean who requires the stimulus of intellectual in addition to physical pleasures, is almost inevitably driven to seek the former in the pursuits of ambition. M. de Talleyrand was no exception to the general rule. And the Abbé de Périgord must have displayed, even when he was apparently, when perhaps he believed himself to be, living only for pleasure, qualities which inspired a belief in his business capacity; for in 1780, while yet only in his twenty-sixth year, he was appointed general agent of the clergy of France. He discharged the functions of this important office for eight years. The Gallic church was all along the most independent in its relations to the Papal chair of any church that remained in communion with Rome. It was also a powerful church viewed in its relations to the state, of which it formed an element. Its revenue derived from landed property was large, that derived from other sources perhaps still larger: it had regular assemblies in which it legislated for itself, determined what contributions it ought to pay to the state, and in what proportions its members were to be assessed. Here was a wide field for cultivating experimentally a talent for administration. Nor was this all: the dignified clergy of France took an active part in secular politics. There is a passage in the éloge of M. de Reinhard already alluded to, which seems an echo of the impressions received by M. de Talleyrand in this period of his life: I will hazard the assertion that his (M. de Reinhard's) first studies had been an excellent preparation for the diplomatic career. The study of theology in particular had endowed him with a power, and at the same time with a dexterity of ratiocination, which characterise all the documents which have proceeded from his pen. To guard myself against the charge of indulging in paradox, I must here enumerate the names of some of our most distinguished statesmen, all theologians, and all distinguished in history for the success with which they conducted the most important political transactions of their times.' And he follows up the remark with a very respectable list. The general agent of the clergy was their minister of state: and M. de Talleyrand, while he continued to fill the office, was a powerful subject, and occupied a conspicuous place in the eye of the public. In 1788 he was appointed bishop of Autun. The commencement of his political career, in the strict acceptation of the term, is synchronous with this promotion. An article upon M. de Talleyrand in an earlyumber of the Edinburgh Review'-the materials for which were furnished by Dumont,-asserts that he owed his advancement to the see of Autun to a Discours sur les Loteries,' which he pronounced in his capacity of agent for the clergy of France, in the Assembly of Notables which met at Versailles, in February, 1787. As bishop of Autun he was a member of the Etats Généraux convoked in May, 1789, which continued to sit as an Assemblée Constituante till it dissolved itself on the 30th of September, 1791. The interval from the meeting of the Notables till the dissolution 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 |