Chapter T to Taghairm of T by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

accused the ladies of extravagance, the ladies retorted by reminding the gentlemen of what they spent in tables. Pliny calls this taste of the Romans mensarum insania.
   It is also used for “audi alteram partem,” and the allusion is then slightly modified- “We have considered the wife's extravagance; let us now look to the husband's.”

“We will now turn the tables, and show the hexameters in all their vigour.”- The Times.

Table d'Hote [the host's table ]. An ordinary. In the Middle Ages, and even down to the reign of Louis XIV., the landlord's table was the only public dining-place known in Germany and France. The first restaurant was opened in Paris during the reign of the Grand Monarque, and was a great success.

Table Money Money appropriated to the purposes of hospitality.

Table-Turning The presumed art of turning tables without the application of mechanical force. Said by some to be the work of departed spirits, and by others to be due to a force akin to mesmerism. Jackson Davis (the Seer of Poughkeepsie), a cobbler, professed, in 1848, to hear “spirit voices in the air.” (See Spiritualism. )

Tableaux Vivants (French, living pictures). Representations of statuary groups by living persons, invented by Madame Genlis while she had charge of the children of the Duc d'Orléans.

Tabooed Devoted. Forbidden. This is a Polynesian term, and means consecrated or set apart. Like the Greek anathema, the Latin sacer, the French sacre, etc., the word has a double meaning- one to consecrate, and one to incur the penalty of violating the consecration. (See Tapu. )

Taborites (3 syl.). A sect of Hussites in Bohemia. So called from the fortress Tabor, about fifty miles from Prague, from which Nicholas von Hussineez, one of the founders, expelled the Imperial army. They are now incorporated with the Bohemian Brethren.

Tabouret The right of sitting in the presence of the queen. In the ancient French court certain ladies had the droit de tabouret (right of sitting on a tabouret in the presence of the queen). At first it was limited to princesses; but subsequently it was extended to all the chief ladies of the queen's household; and later still the wives of ambassadors, dukes, lord chancellor, and keeper of the seals, enjoyed the privilege. Gentlemen similarly privileged had the droit de fauteuil.

“Qui me resisterait
La marquise a le tabouret.”
Beranger: Le Marquis de Carabas.

Tabulae Toletanae The astronomical tables composed by order of Alphonso X. of Castile, in the middle of the thirteenth century, were so called because they were adapted to the city of Toledo.

“His Tables Tolletanes forth he brought,
Ful wel corrected, ne ther lakked nought.”
Chaucer: Canterbury Tales, 11,585.

Tace (2 syl.). Latin for candle. Silence is most discreet. Tace is Latin for “be silent,” and candle is symbolical of light. The phrase means “keep it dark,” do not throw light upon it. Fielding, in his Amelia (chap. x.), says, “Tace, madam, is Latin for candle.” There is an historical allusion worth remembering. It was customary at one time to express disapprobation of a play or actor by throwing a candle on the stage, and when this was done the curtain was immediately drawn down. Oultor (vol. i. p. 6), in his History of the Theatres of London, gives us an instance of this which occurred January 25th, 1772, at Covent Garden theatre, when the piece before the public was An Hour Before Marriage. Someone threw a candle on the stage, and the curtain was dropped at once.

“There are some auld stories that cannot be ripped up again with entire safety to all concerned. Tace is Latin for candle.”- Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet, chap. xi. (Sir Walter is rather fond of the phrase.)

“Mum, William, mum. Tace is Latin for candle.”- W.B. Yeats: Fairy Tales of the Irish Peasantry, p. 250.