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TYTLER, WILLIAM (1711–1792), of Woodhouselee, Scottish historian and antiquarian, son of Alexander Tytler of Edinburgh, was born in that city on the 12th of October 1711. He was educated at the High School and the University, and was in 1744 admitted into the society of Writers to the Signet. In 1759 he published an Inquiry, Historical and Critical, defending the character of Mary, Queen of Scots, and in 1783 the Poetical Remains of James the First, King of Scotland. He died at Woodhouselee on the 12th of September 1792. His life, written by Henry Mackenzie, was published in 1796.

His son, Lord Woodhouselee (1747–1813), Scottish judge, was born at Edinburgh on the 15th of October 1747. He was called to the Edinburgh bar in 1770. His first work, a supplement to Lord Karnes’s Dictionary of Decisions, entitled The Decisions of the Court of Session, was published in 1778, and a continuation appeared in 1796. In 1780 he was appointed conjoint professor of universal history in the university of Edinburgh, becoming sole professor in 1786. In 1783 he published Outlines of his course of lectures, extended and republished in 1801 under the title of Elements of General History. In 1790 he was appointed judge-advocate of Scotland, and while holding this office he wrote a Treatise on the Law of Courts-Martial. In 1801 he was raised to the bench, taking his seat (1802) in the court of session as Lord Woodhouselee. He died at Edinburgh on the 5th of January 1813.

(1791–1849) Scottish historian, son of Lord Woodhouselee, was born at Edinburgh, on the 30th of August 1791. He was called to the bar in 1813; in 1816 he became king’s counsel in the exchequer, and practised as an advocate until 1832. He contributed to Allison’s Travels in France (1815); his first independent essays were papers in Blackwood’s Magazine. His great work, the History of Scotland (1828–1843) covered the period between 1249 and 1603. While occupied on this work Tytler removed to London, and it was largely owing to his efforts that a scheme for publishing state papers was carried out. Tytler was one of the founders of the Bannatyne Club and of the English Historical Society. He died at Great Malvern on the 14th of December 1849. His life (1859) was written by his friend, John W. Burgon, dean of Chichester.

TYUMEÑ, a town in West Siberia, in the government of Tobolsk, situated, where the chief highway from Russia across the Urals touches the first navigable river (the Tura) of Siberia. Pop. (1900), 29,651. A railway passing through Ekaterinburg (202 m. west by rail) and the principal ironworks on the eastern slopes of the middle Urals connects Tyumeñ with Perm, the terminus of steamboat traffic on the Kama and Volga. Tyumeñ has regular steam communication with Omsk and Semipalatinsk Irtysh (steamers penetrating as far as Lake Zaisan in Dzungaria), with Tomsk, and other places in the Altai, and with the Arctic Ocean and the fisheries of the lower Ob. The town is well built, and stands on both banks of the Tura, here spanned by a bridge. The inhabitants have always been renowned for their industrial skill. Woollen cloth, linen, belts, barges, paper, and especially boots and gloves, are manufactured to a large amount; and Tyumeñ carpets have a great reputation in Russia and Siberia.

TZETZES, JOHN, Byzantine poet and grammarian, flourished at Constantinople during the 12th century Tzetzes has been described as a perfect specimen of the Byzantine pedant. Excessively vain, he resented any attempt at rivalry, and violently attacked his fellow grammarians. Owing to want of books, he was obliged to trust to his memory; hence he is to be used with caution. But he was a learned man, and deserves gratitude for his efforts to keep up the study of ancient Greek literature. Of his numerous works the most important is the Book of Histories, usually called Chiliades (" thousands ") from the arbitrary division by its first editor (N. Gerbel, 1546) into books each containing 1000 lines (it actually consists of 12,674 lines in “political” verse). It is a collection of literary, historical, theological and antiquarian miscellanies, whose chief value consists in the fact that it to some extent makes up for the loss of works which were accessible to Tzetzes. The whole production suffers from an unnecessary display of learning, the total number of authors quoted being more than 400 (H. Spelthahn, Studien zu den Chiliaden des Johannes Tzetzes, diss., Munich, 1904). The author subsequently brought out a revised edition with marginal notes in prose and verse (ed. T. Kiessling, 1826; on the sources see C. Harder, De J. T. historiarum fontibus quaestiones selectae, diss., Kiel, 1886). The Chiliades is based upon a collection of Letters (ed. T. Pressel, 1851), which has been called an index to the larger work, itself described as a versified commentary on the letters. These letters (107 in number) are addressed partly to fictitious personages, and partly to the great men and women of the writer’s time. They contain a considerable amount of biographical details. The Iliaca, an abridgment of and supplement to the Iliad, is divided into three parts—Antehomemica, Homerica, Post-homerica—containing the narrative from the birth of Paris to the return of the Greeks after the fall of Troy, in 1676 hexameters (ed. C. Lehrs and F. Dübner, 1868, in the Didot series, with Hesiod, &c.) The Homeric Allegories, dedicated to the empress Irene, in “political” verse, are two didactic poems in which Homer and the Homeric theology are explained on euphemistic principles (ed. P. Matranga, in his Anecdota graeca, i. 1850). Tzetzes also wrote commentaries on a number of Greek authors, the most important of which is that on the Cassandra or Alexandra of Lycophron (ed. C. G. Müller, 1811), in the production of which his brother Isaac is generally associated with him. Mention may also be made of a dramatic sketch in iambic verse, in which the caprices of fortune and the wretched lot of the learned are described; and of an iambic poem on the death of the emperor Manuel, noticeable for introducing at the beginning of each line the last word of the line preceding it (both in Matranga, An. gr. ii.).