SYSTEM OF THE UNIVERSE T. 



505 



that the whole host of stars, with all their planet- 

 ary trains, revolve around some common centre, a 

 central sun, which some astronomers suppose to be 

 Sirius. The system of the universe is therefore 

 the same, on a great scale, as the solar system is in 

 miniature. This vast thought seems beyond our 

 comprehension ; and the innumerable motions of 

 these millions of worlds in infinite space elude our 

 conception. Here are perpetual motion and per- 

 petual order, produced by the common principle of 

 attraction which binds the universe together. All 

 things appear to be balanced against each other ; 

 but the Unsearchable holds the scales in his al- 

 mighty hand. There are three systems of the 

 world, or explanations of the solar system, which 

 have acquired most celebrity: 1. That of the 

 Greek astronomer Ptolemy, who conceived the 

 earth to lie immovable in the centre of the universe, 

 while the heavenly bodies revolved about it in solid 

 circles; this is called the Ptolemaic system. 2. 

 The Tychonic system, proposed by Tycho de Brahe 

 (see Tycho}, was an attempt to improve the former. 

 It supposed the earth stationary in the centre of 

 the universe, with the sun and moon revolving 

 around it, while the other planets revolved round 

 the sun. 3. The Copernican system is that which 

 is now received and is demonstrated mathematical- 



ly to be correct. See Copernicus, Sol.r System, 

 fixed Stars, Planets, and Astronomy. 



SYZYGY ; the conjunction or opposition of any 

 two of the heavenly bodies. See Moon. 



SZENT ; Hungarian for saint; found in many 

 geographical names, as Szent lonos (St John). 



SZIGETH, VAB (properly Nagyszigeth, or Fron- 

 tier-Szigeth, to distinguish it from two places of the 

 same name in Hungary), is of historical importance 

 on account of its heroic defence by count Nicho- 

 las Zrinyi. Szigeth is, at present, a market town, 

 on a low island, formed by the Almas, and belongs 

 to the county of Schiimeg. It is fortified. It con- 

 tains one Greek and two Roman Catholic churches 

 (of which one was erected for a mosque), one 

 Franciscan monastery, and the castle of count von 

 Festetics. The inhabitants are partly Magyars, 

 partly Germans and Rascians. The place has some 

 commerce. As early as in 1556, Szigeth was twice 

 besieged without success by the Turks. In 1566, 

 the noble defence of it by Zrinyi took place. When 

 Zrinyi at last preferred death to a dishonourable 

 captivity, not one of its defenders survived. (See 

 Zrinyi.') The Turks themselves admitted a loss of 

 7000 janizaries and 20,000 men at the siege of 

 Szigeth. In 1689, the margrave of Baden took it 

 again. Lon. 17 5& E. ; lat. 46 8' N. 



T 



T ; the twentieth letter in the English alphabet, 

 representing the sound produced by a quick and 

 strong emission of the breath after the end of the 

 tongue has been placed against the roof of the 

 mouth near the roots of the upper teeth. The 

 strength with which the breath is emitted in pro- 

 nouncing t is all that distinguishes this sound from 

 that of d. T is, therefore, a lingual : it is also a 

 mute. As d and t are so nearly related, it is na- 

 tural that they should often take each other's 

 places, as is the case also with t and s, on account 

 of the similarity of their pronunciation. (See the 

 article S.} One of the main differences between 

 Lower and Upper German (see Low German} is 

 that the Lower German, almost invariably, puts a 

 d where the Upper German has a t. On account 

 of the hardness of this letter, it is used to separate 

 liquids or vowels, as in the German words kennt- 

 niss offentlich, and the French fera-t-il, y-a-t-il. 

 The English th, which, though a compound charac- 

 ter, represents but a single sound, has two pronun- 

 ciations, as in this and thing : the former is a sound 

 between d and t, and the latter between t and s ; 

 so that foreigners whose native language does not 

 contain these sounds, often say dis and sing for this 

 and thing, or nossing for nothing. The Greeks had 

 a proper character to designate the consonant be- 

 tween I and r, viz. 6 or S, which, however, was ac- 

 companied by a lisp. The Latins, who had no such 

 character, used the th instead, particularly in such 

 words as were directly derived from the Greek. 

 The most ancient northern tribes of Europe had 

 also the sound of th ; and their runes (q. v.) had a 



proper character for it, which, however, Adelung 

 thinks can be proved to be derived from the Greek 

 0. The language of the Anglo-Saxons also con- 

 tained a consonant sound between d and t, pro- 

 nounced with a lisp, like the Greek 6, and designated 

 by a character resembling our p, for which their 

 descendants, when they exchanged the Anglo-Saxon 

 alphabet for the Latin, substituted th. The an- 

 cient Germans had no alphabet which can be called 

 properly their own, but adopted the Latin charac- 

 ters after their conversion to Christianity. It is 

 not known whether there existed a 6 in their an- 

 cient dialects, pronounced with a lisp, like our th ; 

 but it seems, nevertheless, that they were sensible 

 of a sound between t and d, and made various at- 

 tempts to express it. The unknown translator of 

 a piece of Isidorus, considered the most ancient 

 German writer, uses erdha for erde, earth ; dhuo for 

 da, there ; dhanne for dann, then ; dher for der, the 

 masculine article ; dhiz for dies, this. Yet he does 

 not add an h to every d, and writes abgrunidiu, 

 mittungardes, herduuom, &c. The th appears more 

 rarely in his works ; yet he writes anthlutte for 

 antlitz, face. The next writer in the order of time, 

 Kero, uses neither dh nor th, and writes teil for 

 theil, part ; tuan for thun, to do ; tat for that, deed. 

 Yet Otfried, who seems to have reflected more 

 deeply on his language, revived the th. However 

 this may be, it is certain that the ancient pronuncia- 

 tion of the German th is lost ; and there exists, at 

 present, in that idiom, no middle sound between t 

 and d, though the Germans use the th in writing. 

 TJieil, thau and ruthe do not differ at all in sound 



