in music, is, in general, when, to express the sounds or notes of a composition, we use the letters of the alphabet, or any other characters not used in the modern music.

Laws of the Twelve Tables, were the first set of laws of the Romans, thus called, either by reason the Romans then wrote with a style on thin wooden tablets covered with wax; or rather, because they were engraven on tables, or plates of copper, to be exposed in the most noted part of the public forum. After the expulsion of the kings, as the Romans were then without any fixed or certain system of law, at least had none ample enough to take in the various cases that might fall between particular persons, it was resolved to adopt the best and wisest laws of the Greeks. One Hermodorus was first appointed to translate them, and the decemviri afterwards compiled and reduced them into ten tables. After a world of care and application, they were at length enacted and confirmed by the senate and an assembly of the people, in the year of Rome 303. The following year they found something wanting therein, which they supplied from the laws of the former kings of Rome, and from certain customs which long use had authorised: all these being engraven on two other tables, made the laws of the twelve tables, so famous in the Roman jurisprudence, the source and foundation of the civil or Roman law.

**Tables of the law**, in Jewish antiquity, two tables on which were written the decalogue, or ten commandments, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. See Decalogue.

**Table**, in mathematics, a system of numbers calculated to be ready at hand for the expediting astronomical, geometrical, and other operations.

**Astronomical Tables**, are computations of the motions, places, and other phenomena of the planets.

**Taborites**, a branch or sect of the ancient Hussites. They carried the point of reformation farther than Huds had done, rejected purgatory, auricular confession, the unction of baptism, transubstantiation, &c. They reduced the seven sacraments of the Romanists to four, viz. baptism, the eucharist, marriage, and ordination.

**Tabristan**, a province of Persia, situated on the northern shore of the Caspian sea, having the province of Afrabat on the east, and Gilan on the west; being part of the ancient Hyrcania.

**TacamaHaca**, in pharmacy, a solid resin, improperly called a gum, in the shops: it is of a fragrant and peculiar smell, and is of two kinds; the one called the shell-tacamahaca, which is the finest; the other, which is an inferior kind, being termed rough-tacamahaca, or tacamahaca in grains.

Some greatly commend tacamahaca in disorders of the breast and lungs; but, at present it is very rarely used internally. Externally, however, it is in repute for softening tumours, and mitigating pain and aches.

**Tack**, in a ship, a great rope having a wale-knot at one end, which is seized or fastened into the clew of the sail; so is reefed first though the cheslie-trees, and then is brought through a hole in the ship's side. Its use is to carry forward the clew of the sail, and to make it stand close by a wind: and whenever the sails are thus trimmed, the main-tack, the fore-tack, and mizen-tack, are brought close by the board, and haled as much forward on as they can be.

**Tack**, in Scots law. See Law, Tit. xiii. 8, &c.

**Tack-about**, in the sea-language, is to turn the ship about, or bring her head about, so as to lie the contrary way.

**Tackle**, among sea-men, denotes all the ropes or cordage of a ship, used in managing the sails, &c.

**Tactics**, in the art of war, is the method of disposing forces to the best advantage in order of battle, and of performing the several military motions and evolutions.

**Tadcaster**, a market-town of Yorkshire, ten miles south west of York.

**Tadorna**, in ornithology. See Anas.

**Tadpole**, a young frog, before it has disengaged itself from the membranes that envelope it in its first stage of life. See Rana.

**Taenia**, in zoology, a genus of insects, belonging to the order of vermes zoophyta; the body of which is of an oblong form, and composed of evident joints or articulations, in the manner of the links of a chain, with a mouth and viscera in each joint; so that the joints, which are exceedingly numerous, are in some measure so many distinct animals, and can live independent of each other. There are four species; the folium, or tape-worm, is found in the bowels of men, and fishes, and frequently extends to many yards in length. See Medicine, p. 160.

**Tenia**, in architecture, a member of the Doric capital, resembling a square fillet, or reglet: it serves instead of a cymatium.

**Taffety**, in commerce, a fine smooth silken stuff, remarkably glossy.

**Tagetes**, in botany, a genus of the syngenesia polygamia superflua clas. The receptacle is naked; the papus has five straight awns; the calix consists of one tubulous leaf with five teeth; and there are five persistent floscules in the radius. The species are three, all natives of America.

**Tagus**, the largest river of Spain; which, taking its rise on the confines of Arragon, runs south-west through the provinces of New Castile and Estremadura; and passing by the cities of Aranjuez, Toledo, and Alcantara, and then crossing Portugal, forms the harbour of Lisbon, at which city it is about three miles over; and about eight or ten miles below this, it falls into the Atlantic ocean.

**Tajacu**, in zoology, a species of hog. See Sus.

**Tail**, the train of a beast, bird, or fish; which, in land animals, serves to drive away flees, &c. and in birds and fishes, to direct their course, and assist them in ascending or descending in the air or water.

**Tailzie**, in Scots law. See Law, Tit. xxvii. 8, &c.

**Tain**, a port-town of Ross-shire, in Scotland, situated on the south-side of the frith of Sutherland, seven miles north of Cromarty: W. long. 5° 38', N. lat. 58°.

**Talc**, in natural history, a large clas of fossil bodies, composed of broad, flat, and smooth laminae or plates, laid evenly and regularly on one another; easily fissile, according to the site of these plates, but not all so in any other direction; flexible, and elastic; bright, shining, and transparent; not giving fire with steel, nor fermenting with acid menstrua, and sustaining the force of a violent fire without calcining.

**Talent**, money of account among the ancients.

Among the Jews, a talent in weight was equal to 60 maneh, or 112 lb. 10 oz. 1 dwt. 10½ gr.

**Talio**, lex talionis, a species of punishment in the Mosaic law, whereby an evil is returned similar to that committed against us by another; hence that expression, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

**Talisman**, magical figures cut or engraved with superstitious observations on the characteristics and configurations of the heavens, to which some astrologers have attributed wonderful virtues, particularly that of calling down celestial influences. The talismans of Samothrace, so famous of old, were pieces of iron formed into certain images, and set in rings; these were esteemed preservatives... TAM

TALLOW, in commerce, the fat of certain animals, melted down and clarified, so as to be fit for making candles, &c.