ies are sheep and dairy farming.

TEZCUCO (15), a city of Mexico which, under the name Acolhuacan, was
once a centre of Aztec culture, of which there are interesting remains
still extant; is situated on a salt lake bearing the same name, 25 m. NE.
of Mexico City.

THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE, novelist, born in Calcutta, educated
at the Charterhouse and at Trinity College, Cambridge; after leaving
college, which he did without taking a degree, travelled on the
Continent, making long stays at Rome and Paris, and "the dear little
Saxon town (Weimar) where Goethe lived"; his ambition was to be an
artist, but failing in that and pecuniary resources, he turned to
literature; in straitened circumstances at first wrote for the journals
of the day and contributed to _Punch_, in which the well-known "Snob
Papers" and "Jeames's Diary" originally appeared; in 1840 he produced the
"Paris Sketch-Book," his first published work, but it was not till 1847
the first of his novels, "Vanity Fair," was issued in parts, which was
followed in 1848 by "Pendennis," in 1852 by "Esmond," in 1853 by "The
Newcomes," in 1857 by "The Virginians," in 1862 by "Philip," and in 1863
by "Denis Duval"; in 1852 he lectured in the United States on "The
English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," and in 1855 on "The Four
Georges," while in 1860 he was appointed first editor of _Cornhill_. When
"Vanity Fair" was issuing, Mrs. Carlyle wrote her husband: "Very good
indeed; beats Dickens out of the world"; but his greatest effort was
"Esmond," which accordingly is accounted "the most perfect, artistically,
of his fictions." Of Thackeray, in comparison with Dickens, M. Taine
says, he was "more self-contained, better instructed and stronger, a
lover of moral dissertations, a counsellor of the public, a sort of lay
preacher, less bent on defending the poor, more bent on censuring man;
brought to the aid of satire a sustained common-sense, great knowledge of
the heart, consummate cleverness, powerful reasoning, a store of
meditated hatred, and persecuted vice with all the weapons of
reflection... His novels are a war against the upper classes of his
country" (1811-1863).

THAIS, an Athenian courtezan who accompanied Alexander the Great on
his expedition into Asia; had children after his death to Ptolemy Lagi.

THALBERG, SIGISMUND, a celebrated pianist, born at Geneva; early
displayed a talent for music and languages; was intended and trained for
a dipl