the slave-trade increased greatly, and more slaves were introduced into Cuba in the four years of his rule than in any other equal period. He afterward returned to Spain, and was appointed senator for Cadiz in 1852, but his failing health did not permit him to accept office.
TAFEL, Johann Friedrich Leonhard, educator,
b. in Sulzbach, Würtemberg, Germany, 6 Feb.,
1800. He was graduated at Tübingen in 1820, and
was professor for many years at the gymnasia of
Stuttgart, Ulm, and Schorndorf, introducing the
Hamiltonian interlinear method of teaching
languages, and editing several periodicals, among
which was the “Beobachter,” a daily paper devoted
to the interests of the Liberal party (1849-'53). He
came to this country in 1853, was for three years
professor in Urbana university, Ohio, and then
removed to St. Louis, Mo. He is the author of
several text-books of ancient and modern languages,
translated into German the works of Xenophon
and Dion Cassius, and select novels of Charles Dickens,
William M. Thackeray, and James Fenimore
Cooper, and published “Staat und Christenthum”
(Tübingen, 1851); “Der Christ und der Atheist”
(Philadelphia, 1856); and with his son, Ludwig H.
Tafel, a “German-English and English-German
Pocket Dictionary” (1870). — His son, Rudolph
Leonhard, educator, b. in Ulm, Germany, 24 Nov.,
1831, came to the United States in 1847, and in
1860-'1 was teacher of French and German in
Washington university, St. Louis, Mo. He held
the chair of modern languages and comparative
philology there from 1862 till 1868, and since the
last-named year has been a Swedenborgian minister
in London, England. He has published “Latin
Pronunciation and the Latin Alphabet” with his
father (New York, 1860); “Investigation into the
Laws of English Pronunciation and Orthography”
(1862); and “Emanuel Swedenborg as a Philosopher
and Man of Science ” (Chicago, 1867).
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TAFT, Alphonso, jurist, b. in Townshend, Vt., 5 Nov., 1810. He was graduated at Yale in 1833, was tutor there in 1835-'7, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1838, and after 1840 practised in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he won reputation in his profession. He was early a member of the city council, and also for many years of the Union board of high-schools. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1856, and in the same year a candidate for congress, but was defeated by George H. Pendleton. He was judge of the superior court of Cincinnati from 1866 till 1872, when he resigned, to associate himself in practice with two of his sons. In 1875 he was a candidate for the Republican nomination for the governorship, but a dissenting opinion that he had delivered on the question of the Bible in the public schools was the cause of much opposition to him. The opinion that defeated his nomination was unanimously affirmed by the supreme court of Ohio, and is now the law of the state. He became secretary of war, on 8 March, 1876, on the resignation of Gen. William W. Belknap, and on 22 May following was transferred to the attorney-generalship, serving till the close of President Grant's administration. Judge Taft was appointed U. S. minister to Austria, 26 April, 1882, and in 1884 was transferred to Russia, where he served until 1 Aug., 1885. He has been a trustee of the University of Cincinnati since its foundation, and in 1872-'82 served on the corporation of Yale, which gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1867.
TAFT, Lorado, sculptor, b. in Elmwood, Peoria
co., Ill., 29 April, 1860. He was graduated at
Illinois state university, Champaign, Ill., in 1879,
studied at the École des beaux arts, Paris, during
1880-'3, and afterward with Marius Jean Antoine
Mercié and others for two years. He has
executed several busts and medallions, a statue of
Schuyler Colfax, which was unveiled in Indianapolis
in 1888, and reliefs for Michigan regimental
monuments on the Gettysburg battle-field. He
is engaged on a statue of Gen. Grant for Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas. Mr. Taft is instructor in
sculpture at the Chicago art institute.
TAGGART, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Londonderry, N. H., 24 March, 1754 ; d. in Colerain, Mass.,
25 April, 1825. His father, James, came from Ireland to this country when he was eleven years old.
The son entered the junior class in Dartmouth,
where he was graduated in 1774, was licensed to
preach in the Presbyterian church in 1776, and on
19 Feb., 1777, was ordained and installed as pastor
of a church in Colerain, Mass. In 1802 he performed in western New York a missionary journey
of about three months, his manuscript journal of
which is still preserved. In 1802 he was elected
to congress as a Federalist, and served, by repeated
re-election, from 1803 till 1817. His protracted absences from his charge caused dissatisfaction, and
in 1818 he resigned his pastorate, though he afterward preached occasionally. When he entered
congress, John Randolph of Roanoke, on learning
that Mr. Taggart was a clergyman, instantly quoted
to him from I. Samuel, xvii., 28 : " With whom hast
thou left those few sheep in the wilderness?" Mr.
Taggart was absent-minded and eccentric, but possessed a very retentive and accurate memory. While he was in college he was reprimanded for
inattention by a professor, who had seen him catching flies during a lecture, but in his vindication the boy immediately repeated a great part of what his
instructor had said. He published an oration on the death of Washington (1800); a Fourth-of-July oration at Conway (1804); "Scriptural Vindication
of the Doctrine of the Final Perseverance of all True Believers" (1801); a "Treatise on the Evidences of Christianity" (1811); an address to his
constituents on the subject of impressments (1813); and sermons and speeches.
TAGLIABUE, Giuseppe, instrument-maker, b. near Como, Italy, 10 Aug., 1812 ; d. in Mount Vernon, N. Y., 7 May, 1878. He was educated at the village school, and was sent to Como to learn cabinet-making. In 1826 he went to London, where he was apprenticed to a firm of meteorological and philosophical instrument-makers. He settled in New York in 1833, and soon acquired the reputation of being one of the most competent instrument-makers in this country. His hydrometer for the proving of whiskey was adopted by the U. S. internal revenue department in preference to all others, and he made instruments for the U. S. coast survey. He made a great variety of hydrometers, including original forms and new adaptations to meet the requirements of the advancement of science and manufacture. Several of the self-record-
