TAIT, PETER GUTHRIE, physicist and mathematician, born at Dalkeith; educated in Edinburgh; became senior wrangler at Cambridge, and Smith’s prizeman in 1852; was in 1854 elected professor of Mathematics at Belfast, and in 1860 professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh; has done a great deal of experimental work, especially in thermo-electricity, and has contributed important papers on pure mathematics; wrote, along with Lord Kelvin, “Treatise on Natural Philosophy,” and along with Balfour Stewart “The Unseen Universe,” followed by “Paradoxical Philosophy”; b. 1831.

TAI-WAN (70), capital of FORMOSA (q. v.), an important commercial emporium, situated about 3 m. from the SW. coast, on which, however, it has a port, ranking as a treaty-port.

TAJ MAHAL.  See AGRA.

TALARIA, wings attached to the ankles or sandals of Mercury as the messenger of the gods.

TALAVERA DE LA REINA (10), a picturesque old Spanish town on the Tagus, situated amid vineyards, 75 m.  SE. of Madrid; scene of a great victory under Sir Arthur Wellesley over a French army commanded by Joseph Bonaparte, Marshals Jourdan and Victor, 27th July 1809.

TALBOT, WILLIAM HENRY FOX, one of the earliest experimenters and a discoverer in photography, born in Chippenham, which he represented in Parliament; was also one of the first to decipher the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions (1800-1877).

TALE OF A TUB, a great work of Swift’s, characterised by Professor Saintsbury as “one of the very greatest books of the world, in which a great drift of universal thought receives consummate literary form ... the first great book,” he announces, “in prose or verse, of the 18th century, and in more ways than one the herald and champion at once of its special achievements in literature.”

TALENT, a weight, coin, or sum of money among the ancients, of variable value among different nations and at different periods; the Attic weight being equal to about 57 lbs. troy, and the money to L243, 15s.; among the Romans the great talent was worth L99, and the little worth L75.

TALFOURD, SIR THOMAS NOON, lawyer and dramatist, born at Doxey, near Stafford; was called to the bar in 1821, and practised with notable success, becoming in 1849 a justice of Common Pleas and a knight; was for some years a member of Parliament; author of four tragedies, of which “Ion” is the best known; was the intimate friend and literary executor of Charles Lamb (1795-1854).

TALISMAN, a magical figure of an astrological nature carved on a stone or piece of metal under certain superstitious observances, to which certain wonderful effects are ascribed; is of the nature of a charm to avert evil.

TALLARD, COMTE DE, marshal of France; served in the War of the Spanish Succession; was taken prisoner by Marlborough at Hochstaedt, on which occasion he said to the duke, “Your Grace has beaten the finest troops in Europe,” when the duke replied, “You will except, I hope, those who defeated them” (1652-1728).