by contracting a commercial treaty with them (February 1668), and had acted as English plenipotentiary at Aix-la-Chapelle, where peace between France and Spain was made in May 1668. Shortly afterwards he was appointed ambassador at The Hague. Here he lived for two years on good terms both with De Witt and with the young prince of Orange, afterwards William III. The treaty of Dover led to Temple's recall; but the plot was not yet ripe, and Temple nominally held his post for another year. He perceived, however, that his day was over and retired to his house at Sheen. In June 1671 he received his formal dismissal. The war with the Netherlands broke out next year, and was almost as discreditable to England as that of 1665. Want of success and the growing strength of the opposition in parliament forced Charles to make peace, and Temple was brought out of his retirement to carry through the change of front. After a negotiation of three days, carried on through the medium of the Spanish ambassador, the treaty of Westminster was made (February 1674). As a recognition of his services Temple was now offered the embassy to Spain. This he declined, as well as the offer of a far more important post, that of secretary of state, but accepted instead a renewal of his embassy to The Hague, whither he went in July 1674. In the March following he was nominated ambassador to the congress at Nijmwegen; but, owing to the tortuousness of Charles's dealings, it was not till July 1676 that he entered that town. The negotiations dragged on for two years longer, for Charles was still receiving money from France, and English mediation was no more than a ruse. In the summer of 1677 Temple was summoned to England and received a second offer of the secretaryship of state, which he again declined. In the autumn of the same year he had the satisfaction of removing the last difficulties which hindered the marriage of William and Mary, an event which seemed to complete the work of 1668 and 1674. Louis still remaining obstinate in his demands, Temple was commissioned in July 1678 to make an alliance with the states, with the object of compelling France to come to terms. This treaty was instrumental in bringing about the general pacification which was concluded in January 1679.
This was Temple's last appearance in the field of diplomacy; but his public life was not yet over. A third offer of the secretaryship was made to him; but, unwilling as ever to mix himself up with faction and intrigue, he again declined. He did not, however, withdraw from politics; on the contrary, he was for a short time more prominent than ever. The state was passing through a grave crisis. Political passion was embittered by religious fanaticism. Parliament was agitated by the popish plot, and was pressing on the Exclusion Bill. The root of all the mischief lay in the irresponsibility of the cabinet to parliament and its complete subservience to the crown. To remedy this, Temple brought forward his plan for a reform of the privy council. This body was to consist of thirty members, half of whom were to be the chief officers of the crown, the other half being persons of importance, lords and commoners, chosen without reference to party. Special care was taken to select men of wealth, which Temple considered as the chief source of 1 political influence. By the advice of this council the king promised to act. The parliament, it was supposed, would trust such a body, and would cease to dictate to the crown. The scheme was accepted by the king, but was a failure from the outset. Intended to combine the advantages of a parliament and a council, it created a board which was neither the one nor the other. The conduct of affairs fell at once into the hands of a junta of four, of whom Temple was at first one, and the king violated his promise by dissolving parliament without asking the advice of the council. Temple retired in disgust to his villa at Sheen, and appeared only occasionally at the council, where he soon ceased to exercise any influence. In 1680 he was nominated ambassador to Spain, but stayed in England in order to take his seat in parliament as member for the university of Cambridge. He took no part in the debates on the great question of the day, and acting on the king's advice declined to sit in the parliament of 1681. Early in that year his name was struck off the list of the council, and henceforward he disappeared from public life. He continued to live at Sheen till 1686, when he handed over his estate there to his son, the only survivor of seven children, and retired to Moor Park in Surrey. When William III. came to the throne Temple was pressed to take office, but refused. His son became secretary at war, but committed suicide immediately afterwards. Sir William, though occasionally consulted by the king, took no further part in public affairs, but occupied himself in literature, gardening and other pursuits. It should not be omitted that Swift lived with him as secretary during the last ten years (with one short interval) of his life. Temple died at Moor Park on the 27th of January 1699.
Temple's literary works are mostly political, and are of considerable importance. Among them may be mentioned An Essay on the Present State and Settlement of Ireland (1668); The Empire, Sweden, &c., a survey of the different Governments of Europe and their relations to England (1671); Observations upon the United Provinces (1672); Essay upon the Original and Nature of Government (1672); Essay upon the Advancement of Trade in Ireland (1673). Some of these were published in the first part of his Miscellanea, (1679). In the same year apparently his Poems were privately printed. In 1683 he began to write his Memoirs. The first part, extending from 1665 to 1671, he destroyed unpublished; the second, from 1672 to 1679, was published without his authority in 1691; the third, from 1679 to 1681, was published by Swift in 1709. In 1692 he published the second part of his Miscellanea, containing among other subjects the essay Upon the Ancient and Modern Learning, which is remarkable only as having given rise to the famous controversy on the “Letters of Phalaris.” His Introduction to the History of England, a short sketch of English history to 1087, was published in 1695. Several collections of his letters were published by Swift and others after his death.
His fame rests, however, far more on his diplomatic triumphs than on his literary work. His connexion with domestic affairs was slight and unsuccessful. He was debarred both by his virtues and his defects—by his impartiality, his honesty, and his want of ambition—from taking an active part in the disgraceful politics of his time. But in the foreign relations of his country he was intimately concerned for a period of fourteen years, and in all that is praiseworthy in them he had a principal hand. He cannot be called great, but he will be remembered as one of the ablest negotiators that England has produced, and as a public servant who, in an unprincipled age and in circumstances peculiarly open to corruption, preserved a blameless record.
See Life and Works of Sir William Temple (2 vols., 1720; 2nd ed., with Life by Lady Giffard, 1731); a more complete edition, including the Letters, was published in 4 vols. in 1814; Burnet, History of his own Time; T. P. Courtenay, Memoirs of the Life, &c., of Sir William Temple (2 vols., 1836); Macaulay, Essay on Sir William Temple; A. F. Sieveking, Sir W. Temple and other Carolean Garden Essays, (1908); and E. S. Lyttel, Sir William Temple (Stanhope Prize Essay, Oxford, 1908). (G. W. P.)
TEMPLE, a city of Bell county, Texas, U.S.A., about 35 m. S.S.W. of Waco. Pop. (1890) 4047; (1900) 7065 (1423 being negroes and 360 foreign-born): (1910) 10,993. It is served by the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways (the former has repair shops here), and is connected with Belton (pop. in 1910, 4164), the county seat, about 10 m. W., by an electric railway. In the city are a Carnegie library, a King's Daughters' Hospital, the Temple Sanitarium, and a hospital of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé railway. Temple is situated in a rich farming country; cotton is ginned and baled here, and there are various manufactures. The city owns the water supply. Temple was founded in 1881–82 by the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé railway, and was chartered as a city in 1884.
TEMPLE, a term derived from the Lat. templum (Gr. τεμενος), which originally denoted a space marked off by the augurs for the purpose of observing the flight of birds or other ceremonies; later it was applied to the dwelling-place, the aedes sacrae, of the gods. In this latter sense it is the equivalent of the native Hebrew expression bêth ’ĕlōhīm, literally “a god-house,” and of the foreign hêkal, palace, temple, a loan-word from Sumerian through the medium of the Babylonian ê-kallu (lit. great house). A temple or “god-house,” however, represents a comparatively advanced stage in the development of Semitic religion. At first the Semite recognized the abodes of his deities in certain outstanding and impressive natural
