Chapter TOUCHWOOD to Tradelove of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Tournemine , a Jesuit of the eighteenth century, fond of the marvellous. “Il aimait le merveilleux et ne renonçait qu’ avec peine à y croire.”

Il ressemble à Tournemine,
Il croit ce qu’il imagine.
   —French Proverb.

Tours, in France, according to fable, is so called from Turonês, a nephew of Brute the mythical king of Britain.

In the party of Brutus was one Turones, his nephew, inferior to none in courage and strength, from whom Tours derived its name, being the place of his sepulture.—Geoffrey: British History (1142).

Touthope (Mr.), a Scotch attorney and clerk of the peace.—Sir W. Scott: Rob Roy (time, George I.).

Towel (An Oaken), a cudgel. “To be rubbed down with an oaken towel” is to be well beaten.

She ordered the fellow to be drawn through a horsepond, and then to be well rubbed down with an oaken towel.—The Adventure of my Aunt.

Tower of Hunger (The), Gualandi, the tower in which Ugolino with his two sons and two grandsons were starved to death in 1288.—Dante: Inferno (1300).

Tower of London (The) was really built by Gundulphus bishop of Rochester, in the reign of William I., but tradition ascribes it to Julius Cæsar.

Ye towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame.
   —Gray: The Bard (1757).

Tower of Vathek, built with the intention of reaching heaven, that Vathek might pry into the secrets seen by Mahomet. The staircase contained 11,000 stairs, and when the top was gained men looked no bigger than pismires, and cities seemed mere bee-hives.—Beckford: Vathek (1784).

Towlinson (Mr.), manservant in the Dombey family, and a leading light below stairs. He has a great antipathy to foreigners, whom he regards as all Frenchmen. On one occasion—

Mr. Towlinson returns thanks in a speech repleto with feeling, of which the peroration turns on foreigners, regarding whom he says they may find favour sometimes with weak and inconstant intellects that can be led away by hair; but all he hopes is, he may never hear of no foreigner never boning nothing out of no travelling chariot.—Dickens: Dombey and Son, ch. xxxi. (1846).

Town (The), literary and historic gossip about London, by Leigh Hunt (1848).

Town and Country Mouse (The), a fable by Henryson (1621).

A town mouse invited a country mouse to come and see how much more grandly he lived. When the country mouse had been shown the sundry dishes laid on the table, in comes the cat, and was well- nigh the death of both of them. As the country mouse left, he said, “I prefer my more modest fare with liberty.”

The same answer is recorded of a Bedouin Arab to a city friend, when told of the delights and luxury, the insecurity and anxiety, of town life.

(Prior’s Country and City Mouse (q.v.) is quite a different fable.)

Town Eclogues, satires after the manner of Pope, by lady M. Wortley Montagu (1716).

Townley Mysteries, certain religious dramas; so called because the MS. containing them belonged to P. Townley. These dramas are supposed to have been acted at Widkirk Abbey, in Yorkshire. In 1831 they