TAR 



and their tents, ranged in a fingle line, torni thus a kind of 

 villages of 30 and 35 leagues in length, which diftinguifh 

 the different hordes. Tott's Memoirs, vol. i. See Ckimea 

 and Russia. 



TARTAS, a town of France, in the department of the 

 Landes, and chief place of a canton, in the diftrict of Saint- 

 Sever, divided into two pai'ts, the firft containing 1556, and 

 its canton 6154 inhabitants, and 8 communes ; and the 

 fecond part containing 1656, and its canton 7952 inha- 

 bitajits, and 12 communes : its whole territorial extent being 

 540 kiliometres ; 15 miles W.S.W. of Mont-de-Marfan. 



N. lat. 43° 50'. W. long, o'' 44' Alio, a river of Ruffia, 



which runs into the Om, near Tartafl'Coi. 



TARTASKOI, a town of Ruffia, in the govennneiit of 

 Tobollk, at the union of the Om and the Tartas ; 40 miles 

 W.S.W. of Kaindc. 



TARTESSUvS, in Ancient Geography, a town of Spain, 

 in the part called Boetica, lituated between the two arms 

 by which the river Boctis difcharged itfelf into the fea. 

 One of tliefe arms has difappearcd, and the other ftill fub- 

 fifts and paffes into the fea at San Lucan de Barrameda. 

 Some geographers have fuggelted that Gades was the ancient 

 Tarteflus. Str.abo intimates that anciently the river Boetis 

 was called TartelTus, and that the town of this name was 

 afterwards called Cartheia. M. d'Anville gives the name 

 of TartefTus to the ifland formed by the two branches of the 

 BcEtis at its mouth. — Alfo, a mountain of Spain, in Bcctica. 

 Tartessvs, JJle of, was iituated near Gades, and is 

 fuppofed to have been the Tarlhilh of the Phoenicians, to 

 whom it was known about 1000 years B. C. 



TARTI Lapls, a ftone mentioned by Ludovicus Dulcis, 

 and fome other authors, and faid to be very beautiful, having 

 all the colours of the tail of a peacock, and to have many 

 medicinal virtues. It was probably fome fpecies of agate ; 

 but the fliort account given of it will not enable us to guefs 

 what particular kmd. 



TARTINI, Giuseppe, of Padua, in Biography, the 

 grcateil performer on the violin and compofer for that in- 

 ftrument of the lall century. We (hall here only confider 

 him as a practical mufician, though he has diftinguiihed 

 himfelf as a theorift in a way fuperior to all other contem- 

 porary profeffors. See System, and Stillingfleet. 



This admirable mufician and worthy man was born at 

 Pirano, in Utria, in 1692- His father, having been a great 

 benefaAor to the cathedral church at Parenzo, had been 

 ennobled in reward for his piety. Giufeppe was intended 

 for the law, but mixing mufic with his other (ludies during 

 the courfe of his education, it foon grew too powerful for 

 the reft, and tyrannized over the whole circle of lifter 

 fciences. This is not fo furprifmg as another ftrong pro- 

 penfity, which during his youth occupied his attention very 

 much, which wIlS fencing, an art that was not likely to become 

 neceflary to the fafety or honour of a man of to pious and 

 pacific a difpofition, in a civil employment ; and yet he is 

 faid to have equalled in this art even the mafter from whom 

 he received inftruftions. In 17 10 he was fent to the uni- 

 verfity of Padua to purfue his ftudies as a civilian ; but 

 before he was twenty, having married without the confent 

 of his parents, they wholly abandoned him, and obliged 

 him to wander about in fearch of an afyluin ; which, after 

 many hardftiips, he found in a convent at Affifi, where he 

 was received by a monk his relation, who, commiferating 

 liis misfortunes, let him remain there till fomething better 

 could be done for him. Here he pradifed the violin, to 

 keep off melancholy refleftions ; but being difcovered on 

 a great feftival in the orchcftra of the church of the convent 

 by the accident of a remarkable high wind, which forcing 



T A R 



open the doors of the church, blew afide the curtain of the 

 orcheftra, and expofed all the performers to the fight of the 

 congregation ; when, being recognized by a Paduan ac- 

 quaintance, differences were accommodated, and he fettled 

 with his wife at Venice for fome time. This lady, indeed, 

 was of the Xantippe kind, and being himfelf very Socratic 

 in wifdom, virtue, and patience, her reign was iininolefted 

 by any domeftic war, or oppofition to her fupremacy. 



While he was at Venice, the celebrated Vcracini arrived 

 lu that city, whofe performance awakened an extmordinary 

 emulation in Tartini, who, iluniirj, he had been thought to 

 have a powerful hand, liad never heard a great player before, 

 or conceived it poffible for the bow to have fuch varied' 

 powers of energy and expreffioii. He, therefore, quitted 

 Venice the next day, and went to Ancona, in order to ftudy 

 the ufe of the bow in more tranquillity, and with more con- 

 venience than at Venice, as he had a place affigned him in 

 the opera orchcftra of that city. 



Tiiis happened iu the year 1714, the year in which he 

 difcovered the phenomenon of the third found. It was at 

 Ancona, and in the carnival of the fame year, that he heard 

 and perceived the extraordinary effefts of a piece of Ample 

 recitative, which he mentions in his " Trattato di Mufica." 

 (See Recitative.) It was likewife during his rofidence 

 at Ancona, that, by diligent ftudy and practice, he acquired 

 fufficient abilities and reputation to be invited, in 172 i, to 

 the place of firft violin, and mafter of the band in the cele- 

 brated church of St. Anthony of Padua. 



By this time his fame was fo extended, that he had re- 

 peated invitations from Paris and London to vifit thofe 

 capitals ; but by a lingular devotion and attachment to his 

 patron faint, to whom he confecrated himfelf and his inftru- 

 ment, he declined entering into any other fcrvice. 



Before the year 1728, he had made many excellent fcholars, 

 and formed a fchool, or method of praftice, for the ftudents 

 on the viohn, that was celebrated all over Europe, and 

 which increafcd in fame to the end of his life. 



The author of the compendium of his life informs us that 

 his firft book of folos was engraved at Amfterdam, 1734; 

 the fecond at Rome, 1745 ! ^"'' ^^^^^ he produced above 

 two hundred of thefe compofitions, which were handed about 

 in manufcript by the curious ; but does not feem to know 

 that nine or ten books of Tartini's folos were printed at 

 Paris, of which wc are in poffeflion of opera third, fixth, 

 feventh, and ninth, bcfides the two books printed in Eng- 

 land, amounting to upwards of fifty folos, exclufive of 

 manufcripts. 



Of his concertos, which hkewife amount to two hundred, 

 this author gives a very unfatisfaclory account ; he fays, that 

 a iurreptitious copy of two fets having firft appeared in 

 Holland, he would never own them. The firft fix feem to 

 have been compofcd in his firft manner before he changed 

 his ftyle. But Walther tells us, in 1732, that eighteen of 

 his concertos for five inftruments, principal violin, two ri- 

 pieno violins, tenor, and violoncello, were publiilied at Am- 

 fterdam. But Le Cene, the publiftier, confeffed, that he 

 collefted them from different people who liad obt.iined 

 copies from the author, and there leems not the Ie.ift doubt 

 of their being genuine. 



Though Tartiiii's compofitions always afforded us great 

 pleafure, and were never obliterated from onr memory ; yet 

 as they are now as much laid afide as thofe of Baffani or 

 Locatelli, we thought it right to give them a revifion before 

 we ventured our fentunents concerning their merit. 



Tartini, on a recent examination of his works, feems, to 

 our conception and feelings, to have had a larger portion of 

 genius and knowledge of compofition as a mere inftrumental 



compofer. 



