Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/672

Rh consistency and moderation with which his various characters play their parts. But his greatest attraction to both ancient and modern writers has been the purity and charm of his style. He makes no claim to the creative exuberance of Plautus, but he is entirely free from his extravagance and mannerisms. The superiority of his style over that of Lucilius, who wrote his satires a generation later, is immeasurable. The best judges and the greatest masters of style in the best period of Roman literature were his chief admirers in ancient times. Cicero frequently reproduces his expressions, applies passages in his plays to his own circumstances, and refers to his personages as typical representations of character. Julius Caesar's lines on Terence, the “dimidiatus Menander,” while they complain of lack of comic power, characterize him as “puri sermonis amator.” Horace, so deprecatory in general of the older literature, shows his appreciation of Terence by the frequent reproduction in his Satires and Odes of his language and his philosophy of life. Quintilian applies to his writings the word elegantissima. His works were studied and learned by heart by the great Latin writers of the Renaissance, such as Erasmus and Melanchthon; and Casaubon, in his anxiety that his son should write a pure Latin style, inculcates on him the constant study of Terence. Montaigne applies to him the phrase of Horace: “Liquidus puroque simillimus amni.” He speaks of “his fine expression, elegancy and quaintness,” and adds, “he does so possess the soul with his graces that we forget those of his fable.” Sainte-Beuve devotes to him two papers of delicate and admiring criticism. He quotes Fénelon and Addison, “deux esprits polis et doux, de la même famille littéraire,” as expressing their admiration for the inimitable beauty and naturalness of one of his scenes. Fénelon is said to have preferred him even to Molière. Sainte-Beuve calls Terence the bond of union between Roman urbanity and the Atticism of the Greeks, and adds that it was in the 17th century, when French literature was most truly Attic, that he was most appreciated. M. Joubert applies to him the words, “Le miel attique est sur ses lèvres; on croirait aisément qu'il naquit sur le mont Hymette.”

(W. Y. S.; E. H.*)

 TERENTIANUS, surnamed (a native of Mauretania), Latin grammarian and writer on prosody, flourished probably at the end of the 2nd century  His references to Septimius Serenus and Alfius Avitus, who belonged to the school of “new poets” (poetae neoterici or novelli) of the reign of Hadrian and later, seem to show that he was a near contemporary of those writers. He was the author of a treatise (incomplete) in four books (written chiefly in hexameters), on letters, syllables, feet and metres, of which considerable use was made by later writers on similar subjects. The most important part of it is that which deals with metres, based on the work of Caesius Bassus, the friend of Persius. By some authorities Terentianus has been identified with the prefect of Syene mentioned in Martial (i. 86), which would make his date about a century earlier; others, again, who placed Petronius at the end of the 3rd century (a date no longer held), assigned Terentianus to the same period, from his frequent references to that author.

 TERGESTE (mod., q.v.), an ancient city of Istria, 26 m. by road E.S.E. of Aquileia, at the northern extremity of the peninsula of Istria, in a bay at the head of the Adriatic Sea. Its importance was in ancient days, as now, mainly due to its commerce as the outlet of Pannonia and Dalmatia. It is first mentioned about 100 as a village. In 52 it was attacked by barbarian tribes from the interior. In 33 Augustus during his Dalmatian wars built a wall and towers there, as an inscription records; in a medieval copy of it the emperor Frederick III. mentions his own restoration of the city walls for the fourth time in 1470. At this time it probably became a colony, as it certainly was in Pliny's days. It appears to have had an extensive territory assigned to it. The loftily situated cathedral of S. Giusto occupies the site of a Roman temple, some of the walls and columns of which may be seen in the tower. Into the façade are built fragments of sepulchral reliefs. The church itself has a curious plan which is due to its having been formed out of two distinct churches standing side by side, which were united in the 14th century. Each of these is a basilica with ancient columns and mosaics in the apse. The southern church, S. Giusto, has a central dome. The so-called Arco di Riccardo is a half-buried Roman arch with Corinthian pilasters, possibly a triumphal arch, possibly connected with an aqueduct.

The museum contains inscriptions, mosaic pavements, &c., from the ancient town, of which no remains beyond those mentioned now exist above ground.

 TERLIZZI, a town in Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, and 18 m. by steam tramway W. from that town, situated in the midst of a fertile plain, 627 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 23,394. It has a castle which at one time was very strong, and occasionally resorted to by the Emperor Frederick II. and afterwards by the Aragonese sovereigns. The walls and towers of the town remain, but the fosse has been turned into boulevards. Terlizzi has some trade in the wine and fruit of the district. Near it, in an ancient tomb, was found in 1745 a fine inkstand inlaid in silver.

 TERM, an English word which has various meanings, all arising from its etymology (Lat. terminus), and the idea of limiting or defining.

A term of years, in English law, is the time during which an interest in an estate for life or for years is enjoyed, also the interest itself, because such an interest must determine at a definite time. If the interest be for life, it is an estate of freehold; if for years, only a personal interest in real estate, and so personalty, even though the length of the term—for instance, 1000 years—may far exceed in duration any possible life estate. A term of years is of two kinds—the first that created by an ordinary lease reserving a rent, as of a house or a building lease; the second that created by a settlement or a will, usually without rent reserved, for the purpose of securing payment of money, such as portions to younger children, by the owner of the land. Both kinds have been considerably affected by the Conveyancing Acts of 1881 and 1882, which enable a mortgagor or mortgagee in possession to make certain leases. Before 1845 provision was always made in conveyances for keeping on foot a term to attend the inheritance, as it was called—that is, for assigning the remainder of a term to trustees for the protection of the owner of the property against rent charges or other encumbrances created subsequently to the term 