Chapter Tooth and Egg to Touch of T by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Torquato - i.e. Torquato Tasso, the poet. (1544-1595.) (See Alfonso. )

“And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame.”
Lord Byron: Childe Harold. iv. 36.

Torquemada (Inquisitor-general of Spain, 1420-1498). A Dominican of excessive zeal, who multiplied confiscations, condemnations, and punishments to a frightful extent; and his hatred of the Jews and Moors was diabolical.

“General Strelnikoff was the greatest scoundrel who defiled the earth since Torquemada.”- Stepniak: The Explosion of the Winter Palace, February, 1880.

Torr's MSS. in the library of the dean and chapter of York Minster. These voluminous records contain the clergy list of every parish in the diocese of York, and state not only the date of each vacancy, but the cause of each removal, whether by death, promotion, or otherwise.

Torralba (Doctor), who resided some time in the court of Charles V. of Spain. He was tried by the Inquisition for sorcery, and confessed that the spirit Cequiel took him from Valladolid to Rome and back again in an hour and a half. (Pelicer.)

Torre (Sir) (1 syl.). Brother of Elaine, and son of the lord of Astolat. A kind blunt heart, brusque in manners, and but little of a knight. (Tennyson Idyls of the King; Elaine.)

Torricelli an Italian mathematician (1608-47), noted for his explanation of the rise of water in a common barometer. Galileo explained the phenomenon by the ipse dixit of “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

Torso A statue which has lost its head and members, as the famous “torso of Hercules.” (Italian, torso.)
   The Torso Belvedere, the famous torso of Hercules, in the Vatican, was discovered in the fifteenth century. It is said that Michael Angelo greatly admired it.

Tortoise which Supports the Earth (The) is Chukwa; the elephant (between the tortoise and the world) is Maha-pudma.

Torture (2 syl.). The most celebrated instruments of torture were the rack, called by the English “the Duke of Exeter's daughter,” the thumbikins, or thumbscrews, the boots, the princers, the manacles, and the scavenger's daughter (q.v.).

Tory This word, says Defoe, is the Irish toruigh, used in the reig of Queen Elizabeth to signify a band of Catholic outlaws who haunted the bogs of Ireland. It is formed from the verb toruighim (to make sudden raids). Golius says- “TORY, silvestris, montana, avis, homo, et utrumque ullus haud ibi est ” (Whatever inhabits mountains and forests is a Tory). Lord Macaulay says- “The name was first given to those who refused to concur in excluding James from the throne.” He further says- “The bogs of Ireland afforded a refuge to Popish outlaws, called tories. ” Tory-hunting was a pastime which has even found place in our nursery rhymes- “I went to the wood and I killed a tory”
   F. Crossley gives as the derivation, Taobh-righ (Celtic), “king's party.”
   H.T. Hore, in Notes and Queries, gives Tuath-righ, “partisans of the king.”
   G. Borrow gives Tar-a-ri, “Come, O king.”
   In 1832, after the Reform Act, the Tory party began to call themselves “Conservatives,” and after Gladstone's Bill of Home Rule for Ireland, in 1886, the Whigs and Radicals who objected to the bill joined the Conservatives, and the two combined called themselves “Unionists.” In 1895 the Queen sent for Lord Salisbury, who formed a Unionist government.

Totem Pole (A). A pole, elaborately carved, erected before the dwelling of certain American Indians. It is a sort of symbol, like a public-house sign or flagstaff.

“Imagine a huge log, forty or fifty feet high, set up flagstaff fashion in front or at the side of a low one- storied wooden house, and carved in its whole height into immense but grotesque representations of man, beast, and bird. ... [It is emblematic of] family pride, veneration of ancestors ... and legendary