introduced to an extent not economically possible in small shops.
TAIN, a royal and police burgh of the county of Ross and
Cromarty, Scotland. Pop. (1001) 2076. It is situated on
rising ground within a mile of the southern shore of Dornoch
Firth, 2 ss m. N.E. of Dingwall by the Highland Railway. The
name, of which the Tene, Tayne and Thane are older forms, is
derived from the Icelandic thing, " assembly " or " court."
Among the principal buildings are the town hall, court house,
public hall, Easter Ross combination poorhouse, and the
academy (opened in 1812). The industries include distilling,
the making of aerated waters, and woollen manufactures, and
the town is important as a market and distributing centre.
The rainfall is one of the lowest in the kingdom. Duthac
(locally called Duthus), a saint of the 1 ith century, is believed to
have been a native, and the old ruined chapel near the station
is supposed to have been his shrine. To the collegiate church
of St Duthus, a Decorated building, founded by James III. in
147 1, James IV. made several pilgrimages in penance for his
father's death. The building was used as the parish church till
1815, when it fell into disrepair, but it was restored between
1871 and 1876. It has monuments to Patrick Hamilton, the
martyr, and Thomas Hog (1628-1602), the Scottish divine, for
some time a prisoner on the Bass. Three and a half miles
S.E. are the remains of the Early English abbey of Fearn,
founded at Edderton in 1230 by Farquhar, 1st earl of Ross,
and transferred hither in 1338. The chancel, nave and two side
chapels exist, and it still serves as the parish church. Patrick
Hamilton became titular abbot in 1517, and after his martyr-
dom the abbey was added to the bishopric of Ross.
TAINE, HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE (1828–1803), French critic and historian, the son of Jean Baptiste Taine, an attorney, was born at Vouziers on the 21st of April 1828. He remained with his father until his eleventh year, receiving instruction from him, and attending at the same time a small school which was under the direction of M. Pierson. In 1839, owing to the serious illness of his father, he was sent to an ecclesiastical pension at Rethel, where he remained eighteen months. J. B. Taine died on the 8th of September 1840, leaving a moderate competence to his widow, his two daughters, and his son. In the spring of 1841 Taine was sent to Paris, and entered as a boarder at the Institution Mathe, where the pupils attended the classes of the College
Bourbon. Madame Taine followed her son to Paris. Taine was not slow to distinguish himself at school. When he was but fourteen years old he had already drawn up a systematic scheme of study, from which he never deviated. He allowed himself twenty minutes' playtime in the afternoon and an hour's music after dinner; the rest of the day was spent in work. In 1847, as vétéran de rhétorique, he carried off six first prizes in the general competition, the prize of honour, and three accessits; he won all the first school prizes, the three science prizes, as well as two prizes for dissertation. It was at the College Bourbon that he formed lifelong friendships with several of his schoolfellows who afterwards were to exercise a lasting influence upon him: among these were Prevost-Paradol, for many years his most intimate friend; Planat, the future "Marcelin" of the Vie Parisienne; and Corneéls de Witt, who introduced him to Guizot when the latter returned from England in 1846.
Public education was the career which seemed to lie open to Taine after his remarkable school successes. In 1848 he accordingly took both his baccalauréat degrees, in science and letters, and passed first into the Ecole Normale; among his rivals, who passed in at the same time, were About, Sarcey, Libert, and Suckau. Among those of Taine's fellow-students who afterwards made a name in teaching, letters, journalism, the theatre and politics, &c, were Challemel-Lacour, Chassang, Aube, Perraud, Ferry, Weiss, Yung, Gaucher, Greard, Prevost-Paradol and Levasseur. Taine made his influence felt among them at once; he amazed everybody not only by his erudition, but by his indefatigable energy; and not only by his prodigious industry, but by his facility both in French and Latin, in verse as well as in prose. He devoured Plato, Aristotle, the Fathers of the Church, and he analysed and classified all that he read. He already knew English, and set himself to master German in order to read Hegel in the original. His brief leisure was devoted to music. The teachers of his second and third years, Deschanel, Geruzez, Berger, Havet, Filon, Saisset and Simon, were unanimous in praising the nobility of his character, the vigour and the fertility of his intellect, the distinction of style with which his work was always stamped; they were equally unanimous in finding fault with his unmeasured taste for classification, abstraction and formula. The director of studies, M. Vacherot, gauged his capacity at the end of his second year with prophetic insight. He prophesied that Taine would be a great savant, adding that he was not of this world, and that Spinoza's motto, "Vivre pour penser," would also be his. In the month of August 1851 he came forward as a candidate for the fellowship in philosophy (agrégation de philosophie) in company with his friends Suckau and Cambier. Taine was declared to be admissible, together with five other candidates; but in the end only two candidates were admitted, his friend Suckau and Aube. This decision created almost a scandal. Taine's reputation had already spread beyond the college. Everybody had taken for granted that he would be admitted first. The fact was that his examine* sincerely considered his ideas to be absurd, his style and method of handling a subject dry and tiresome.
The Minister of Public Instruction, however, judged Taine less severely, and appointed him provisionally to the chair of philosophy at the college of Toulon on 6th October 1851; but he never entered upon his duties, as he did not wish to be so far from his mother, and on 13th October he was transferred to Nevers as a substitute. Two months later, on the 27th December, occurred the coup d'état, after which every university professor was regarded with suspicion; many were suspended, others resigned. In Taine's opinion it was the duty of every man, after the plebiscite of the 10th December, to accept the new state of affairs in silence; but the universities were not only asked for their submission, but also for their approbation. At Nevers they were requested to sign a declaration expressing their gratitude towards the President of the Republic for the measures he had taken. Taine was the only one to refuse his endorsement. He was at once marked down as a revolutionary, and in spite of his success as a teacher and of his popularity among his pupils, he was transferred on 29th March 1852 to the lycée of Poitiers as professor of rhetoric, with a sharp warning to be careful for the future. Here, in spite of an abject compliance with the stringent rules imposed upon him, he remained in disfavour, and on 25th September 1852 he was appointed assistant professor of the sixth class at the lycée of Besancon. This time he could bear it no longer, and he applied for leave, which was readily granted him on 9th October 1852, and renewed every year till his decennial appointment came to an end. It was in this painful year, during which Taine worked harder than ever, that the fellowship of philosophy was abolished. As soon as Taine heard of this he at once began to prepare himself for the fellowship in letters, and to work hard at Latin and Greek themes. On 10th April 1852 a decree was published by which three years of preliminary study were necessary before a candidate could compete for the fellowship, but by which a doctor's degree in letters counted as two years. Taine immediately set to work at his dissertations for the doctor's degree; on the 8th June (1852) they were finished, and 150 pages of French prose on the Sensations and a Latin essay were sent to Paris. On the 15th July he was informed that the tendency of his Essay on the Sensations made it impossible for the Sorbonne to accept it, so for the moment he laid this work aside, and on 1st August he began an essay on La Fontaine. He then started for Paris, where an appointment which was equivalent to a suspension awaited him. His university career was over, and he was obliged to devote himself to letters as a profession. In a few months his two dissertations, De personis Platonicis and the essay on La Fontaine's fables were finished, and on 30th May 1853 he took his doctor's degree. This was the last act of his
