he was induced once more to accept the seals, and was immediately

rewarded for his compliance with a dukedom and a garter. In 1697 he was accused by Fenwick and another jacobite of complicity in some treasonable intrigues, but was triumphantly acquitted. Through the importunity of the king he was induced to continue in the government till 1700, when he again resigned his secretaryship, and took up his residence at Rome, in the hope that quiet and a purer air would restore his shattered health. He remained there five years, and on his way home he contracted at Augsburg a marriage with the Marchesa Paleotti, his Italian mistress. On his return to England he resumed his connection with the whigs, but owing to some slights from the ministers he lent himself to the cabals of Harley, and accepted of the office of chamberlain in the tory administration which was formed on the dismissal of the whigs in 1710. He was subsequently appointed ambassador to Paris, and in 1713 was transferred to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland. But if Bolingbroke and Ormond expected him to come into their secret views respecting the succession of the pretender, they were disappointed. At the critical moment of Queen Anne's last illness Shrewsbury threw aside his vacillation and timidity, and gave his timely and hearty support to the protestant cause. Almost the last act of Anne's life was to deliver to the duke the treasurer's staff, refusing at the same time to accept his resignation of his other offices of chamberlain and lord-lieutenant of Ireland; so that, as Lord Stanhope remarks, by an unparalleled combination his grace was for some days invested with three of the highest offices of court and state. "Scarcely anything in history," says Lord Macaulay, "is more melancholy than that late and solitary gleam lighting up the close of a life which had dawned so splendidly, and which had so early become troubled and gloomy." The duke died on the 1st of February, 1718, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. His fine parts, extensive acquirements, generous disposition, and winning manners were rendered in a great measure useless to his country by his want of steady principles. His constitution, mental and physical, was too delicate for the wear and tear of public life. As Lord Halifax remarked in a letter to Shrewsbury himself, "there was too much fine silver in his grace's temperament; if he had been made of a coarser alloy he had been better fitted for public life." As his grace left no issue, the dukedom and marquisate expired at his death, but the earldom and estates devolved upon his cousin Gilbert, a Roman catholic clergyman. As his successors also adhered to the Romish faith they were excluded from public life until the repeal of the catholic disabilities in 1829, and were in no way distinguished either by their abilities or acquirements.—Arthur Bertram, the last earl of the main branch of this great house, bequeathed the family estates to a younger son of the duke of Norfolk, but the will was set aside by the house of lords in 1858, and the inheritance devolved upon Henry John Chetwynd Talbot, third Earl Talbot, and now eighteenth earl of Shrewsbury, descended from Sir Gilbert Talbot of Grafton, one of the most renowned warriors and statesmen of the age in which he lived. One of the descendants of Sir Gilbert was successively bishop of Oxford, of Salisbury, and of Durham; and Charles Talbot, the eldest son of this prelate, born in 1684, was created Baron Talbot of Hensol, and held the office of lord high-chancellor of England from November, 1733, to February, 1737. He was educated privately until 1701, when he entered Oriel college, Oxford; and in 1704 he claimed and obtained an honorary degree as the son of a bishop, before the ordinary time of graduating had arrived. In the following year he was elected a fellow of All-Souls. By the advice of Lord-chancellor Cowper he resolved to adopt the profession of the law, and in 1707 was admitted of the Inner temple, and again obtained honours before the time of probation had expired, by receiving a "call of grace" in 1711. His success at the bar, in both common law and equity, was rapid and steady. On the accession of George I. he was returned as a member of the house of commons, where he distinguished himself as an able speaker. In 1717 he was made solicitor-general to the prince of Wales, an office which he exchanged in 1726 for the more responsible duties of solicitor-general to the king. Seven years later, on the 29th November, 1733, he succeeded Lord King on the woolsack. In discharging the functions of this high office he won the approbation of men of all parties, and his sudden death from heart disease on the 14th of February, 1737, excited deep and universal regret. "In my long journey from the reign of Ethelred to that of George IV.," says Lord Campbell, "I find this chancellor alone without an accuser, without an enemy, without a detractor, without any one from malice or mistake to cavil at any part of his character, conduct, or demeanour." His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son, William, who was appointed lord steward of the household and a member of the privy council, and advanced to an earldom in 1761; but on his death in 1782 the barony of Talbot devolved upon his nephew, John, who inherited through his mother the estates of the last Viscount Chetwynd, and was advanced to a viscounty and an earldom in 1784.—His son, Charles Chetwynd Talbot, born in 1777, took a prominent part in political affairs, and held the office of lord-lieutenant of Ireland from 1817 to 1822. It was during his viceroyalty in 1821 that George IV. paid his memorable visit to Ireland. Earl Talbot was also lord-lieutenant of Staffordshire, and a knight of the garter. He was a zealous agricultural improver, and a kind and liberal landlord. The earl died in 1849.—J. T. TALBOT, Peter, a learned jesuit, descended from the illustrious English family of that name, was born in Ireland in 1620. He was educated in Portugal by the jesuits, into whose society he afterwards entered, was ordained priest at Rome, and held the chair of moral theology at Antwerp. Southwell says he left the society for just reasons. Clement IX. raised him in 1669 to the titular archbishopric of Dublin, the duties of which he discharged with but partial satisfaction. He was esteemed to be a most able politician and learned theologian. His controversial works, which are exceedingly numerous and clever, are severally entitled—"Essay on the Nature of Faith and of Heresy," Antwerp, 1657; "Historical Catechism," 1658; "Nullity of a Protestant Clergy," Brussels, 1658; "Essay on Religion and the Government," 1670; "Refutation of Protestant Principles," in reply to Stillingfleet, 1673; "Pastoral Letters to the Catholics of Ireland," 1674; "The Remedy for Atheism and Heresy;" "History of the Iconoclasts;" "History of Manichæism and of Pelagianism," in which the author contends that his protestant adversaries revive these two heresies; "Pugna fidei et rationis cum renascente Pelagianismo et Manichæismo," 1675; "Blackloanæ hæresis, olim in Pelagio et Manichæis damnatæ, nunc denuo renascentis historia et confutatio." Talbot also wrote other works which were never printed. He was accused in 1678 of having taken part in the Popish plot, and was imprisoned in the castle at Dublin, where he died in 1680.—F. TALBOT, Robert, an English antiquary, was born at Thorp, Northamptonshire, and was educated at Winchester school and at New college, the latter of winch he entered in 1525. He became D.D., and was made a prebendary of Wells in 1541, and treasurer of Norwich cathedral. His collections and researches are said to have been of great service to Leland, Bale, Caius, Camden, Archbishop Parker, and others. He was the first English editor and annotator of Antoninus' Itinerary, and his notes were printed in Hearne's edition at the end of the third volume of Leland's Itinerary; but Talbot's notes do not extend beyond the sixth chapter or "Iter." His other works were—"Aurum ex Stercore, vel de ænigmaticis et propheticis," the MS. of which is in Corpus college, Oxford; "De chartis quibusdam regum Britannorum." in Ben'et college, Cambridge; and other MSS. in New college, Caius college, and the Cottonian library. Talbot died August 27, 1558, and left his MSS. to New college.—F. TALBOT, William, an English prelate, was born at Stourton castle, his father's seat in Staffordshire in 1659, and was educated at Oriel college, Oxford. He graduated B.A. in October, 1677, and M.A. in June, 1680. He subsequently took holy orders, and became noted for the zeal and eloquence he displayed in his attacks upon popery. In 1691 he succeeded to the deanery of Worcester, from which Dr. George Hickes the nonjuror had been ejected. Talbot in 1699 was elevated to the bishopric of Oxford, and in 1715 he was translated to Salisbury. In 1722 he was removed to the bishopric of Durham. He published a volume of sermons, and two speeches delivered in the house of lords—one in favour of the union between England and Scotland, and the other upon the trial of Dr. Sacheverell. He died in 1730.—F. * TALBOT, William Henry Fox, an English landowner, the inventor of the art of photography on paper, was born at Lacock Abbéy in Wiltshire in February, 1800. In 1831 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, to whose Transactions he contributed some mathematical and optical papers. He discovered and first practised the photographic process on paper in