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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.