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TALFOURD, SIR THOMAS NOON. 



TALIACOTIUS, GASPAR. 



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own account. During many years of the earlier part of his residence 

 in London his income was derived chiefly from his literary labours, as 

 a contributor to the 'London Magazine,' the ' New Monthly Magazine," 

 and other periodicals. He was called to the bar by the authorities of 

 the Middle Temple, February 9, 1821, and in 1822 he married the 

 daughter of John Towell Kutt, Esq., of Clapton, near London, the 

 editor of Dr. Priestley's works. He soon afterwards joined the Oxford 

 Circuit. By steady application, rather than by any peculiar aptitude 

 or likiug for the law, he gradually rose in his profession. He was a 

 fluent speaker, distinguished by feeling and fancy, more than by argu- 

 mentative powers. After about ten years practice he applied for a 

 silk gown, but his claim of the dignity of Queen's counsel was 

 deferred till his patience was exhausted, and he therefore, in Hilary 

 Term, 1833, assumed the coif, and became Mr. Serjeant Talfourd. He 

 was also for some years Recorder of Banbury. 



At the general election in 1835 Mr. Serjeant Talfourd was returned 

 to parliament as one of the members for the borough of Reading, Mr. 

 Fyshe Palmer, the previous liberal member having retired. In 1837 

 Mr. Palmer again came forward, and was returned with Mr. Talfourd. 

 At the next election two conservatives were returned, and Mr. Talfourd 

 was out of parliament from 1841 to 1847, when he was again returned 

 for Reading, and retained his seat till July 1849, when he vacated it 

 on his being appointed successor to Mr. Justice Coltman in the Court 

 of Common Pleas, on which occasion he also received the honour of 

 knighthood. As a member of the legislature Mr. Serjeant Talfourd 

 may be said to have added two valuable enactments to the statutes of 

 the realm the Custody of Infants Act (2 & 3 Viet., c. 54), and the 

 Copyright Act, which he first introduced in 1837, but which was 

 strongly opposed, and was not passed into a law till 1842 (5 Viet., c. 45), 

 and then in a modified form, when he was not a member of parliament. 

 During all this period of legal and parliamentary activity Mr. 

 Talfourd continued his labours in literature. He was for several 

 years law-reporter of circuit cases for the 'Times' newspaper, and he 

 continued to contribute to the 'New Monthly Magazine,' and also to 

 the ' Retrospective Review,' the ' Edinburgh Review,' the ' Quarterly 

 Review,' and the ' Law Magazine,' to which last he furnished in 

 January, 1846, an able article 'On the Principle of Advocacy in the 

 Practice of the Bar.' In 1835, he printed for private circulation two 

 editions of his tragedy of 'Ion.' On the 26th of May, 1836, the 

 tragedy was acted for the benefit of his friend Mr. Macready, at Coveut 

 Garden Theatre, and at the same time was published. It was after- 

 wards acted with success at the Haymarket Theatre, and elsewhere. 

 The tragedies of the Greek dramatists were occasionally performed by 

 the scholars at Dr. Valpy's school in Reading, and there Mr. Talfourd 

 acquired his taste for dramatic literature. The first two privately- 

 printed editions of his tragedy of ' Ion' were dedicated to his venerable 

 master, who however died before it was acted, and then a ' Notice of 

 the late Dr. Valpy ' was " prefixed instead of Dedication to the first 

 published Edition of Ion." The title is borrowed from the ' Icav' of 

 Euripides, which also suggested the leading incident of a foundling 

 youth educated in a temple, and assisting in its services, but nothing 

 more. His next tragedy, ' The Athenian Captive,' was published in 

 1838, and was performed in the same year at the Haymarket Theatre 

 with moderate success. This tragedy was succeeded by that of 

 ' Glencoe, or the Fate of the Macdonalds,' first represented at the 

 Haymarket, May 23, 1840. ' The Castilian, an Historical Tragedy, in 

 Five Acts,' was published in 1853, but was not acted. In none of 

 these tragedies does he display much of what may be properly called 

 dramatic skill, nor does he excite that kind or degree of interest 

 which arises from distinctness and discrimination of character, depth 

 of emotion, and truthfulness of thought and expression. They may be 

 rather regarded as dramas of poetic sentiment and description. The 

 blank verse is smooth, graceful, and " in linked sweetness long drawn 

 out," but all the individuals use indiscriminately the same elaborate 

 form of expression, and the meaning is not uufrequently rendered 

 obscure by the redundancy of the diction. 



In 1837 Mr. Talfourd published the 'Letters of Charles Lamb, with 

 a Sketch of his Life,' 8vo. In 1848, after the death of Lamb's sister. 

 he published ' Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, consisting of Letters, 

 &c.,' 2 vols. 8vo, a domestic tragedy of the most affecting interest, 

 which had been long known to a few friends, but was not till then 

 disclosed to the public. [LAMB, CHARLES.] On the 20th of June 1844 

 he was created a Doctor of Civil Law by the University of Oxford 

 In 1845 he published ' Vacation Rambles and Thoughts, comprising 

 the Recollections of Three Continental Tours in the Vacations of 1841 

 1842, and 1843,' 2 vols. 8vo, and in 1854, a 'Supplement to the 

 Vacation Rambles, consisting of Recollections of a Tour through 

 France to Italy, and Homeward by Switzerland, in the Vacation o 

 1846,' fcap. 8vo. The journeys were all rapidly made, and the 

 information which the volumes contain is very scanty. Some of his 

 speeches as an advocate and also as a member of parliament were pub 

 lished in a separate form. He was an eloquent speaker, and hac 

 extraordinary command of language, but his style was too florid to b 

 very effective. His reputation is that of a sound lawyer for deciding 

 cases, at the sanre time that his persevering labour, great practice 

 and love of justice, made him respected both as an advocate and a j udge 

 In his private character he was amiable and social in an eminent degree 

 and he had a large circle of friends, chiefly literary and legal. 



The death of Mr. Justice Talfourd occurred on the 13th of March 

 854. He had opened the assizes at Stafford on Saturday the llth, and 

 n Monday morning, while delivering his charge to the grand jury, and 

 commenting on the increase of crime and its causes, he was observed 

 ,o be much excited. Suddenly his face became flushed, his head bent 

 brward, and his body swayed on one side. He was immediately borne 

 out of court to the judge's chambers, where it was found that he had 

 ceased to live. He was buried in the cemetery at Norwood, near 

 ~ ondon. He left issue three sons and two daughters. In 1855 the 

 members of the Oxford Circuit placed a bust of him, sculptured by 

 Lough, in the Crown Court at Stafford. It is an excellent likeness. 



TALIACO'TIUS, GASPAK, TAGLIACOZIO, or TAGLIACOZZI, 

 was professor of anatomy and surgery at Bologna, where he died in 

 L553, at the age of 64 years. His name is now known chiefly through 

 ais 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 

 it Bologna. A statue erected in the amphitheatre formerly recorded 

 his skill in operating by representing him with a nose in hia band. 



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 forma- 

 tion. 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, folio, 1597.' 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 the skin to be 

 removed, and had a long slit near its edge through which a narrow 

 knife could be passed. The portion of the 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 mignt be compared to a very broad incision 

 for a seton, a baud 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 there- 

 fore 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 these being laid aside, the seat of the old 

 nose was scarified in a triangular space till it had a smooth bleeding 

 surface. A pattern of this surface, being taken on paper, was trans- 

 ferred to the inner surface of the piece of skin on the arm, and a 

 portion of the latter, of the same form and size, was in the same 

 manner made raw. Sutures were placed in corresponding parts of the' 

 edges of both these wounds, and they were brought together, the arm 

 being held up with its fore part towards the face, and the palm of the 

 hand upon the head, by the dress and bandage already mentioned. The 

 parts were thus retained in apposition for about twenty days, at the 

 end of which, the surfaces having united, the bandages were taken off, 

 and the portion 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 

 carefully-measured 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. 



